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CNN Live At Daybreak
Kansas City Stamp Facility Closed While Hazmat Team Cleans It Thoroughly; President Bush's Directs Congress to Improve Economy
Aired November 01, 2001 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Unsolved mysteries -- anthrax claims the life of another American, as the investigation yields no answers.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Safer skies -- will partisan politics ground key airline security legislation?
HARRIS: The money pipeline -- why Saudi Arabia says its hands are clean and why terror experts disagree.
CALLAWAY: Good morning, everyone. It is Thursday, November 1. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Catherine Callaway.
HARRIS: And I'm Leon Harris. Thanks for joining us.
Let's get right to the latest developments.
CALLAWAY: Images provided by the Pentagon reveal U.S.-led bombings are now targeting two key areas in northern Afghanistan -- the crossroads at Mazir-i-Sharif and the capital city of Kabul. Sources say the Pentagon will use some high tech intelligence gathering planes to spot more targets for bombing.
HARRIS: British Prime Minister Tony Blair's tour of the Middle East takes him to Israel today in a push to get the peace process moving again. The strikes in Afghanistan have dominated Blair's visits in Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Yesterday, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad denounced the Allied assaults because of the civilian casualties they've caused.
CALLAWAY: And the anthrax threat keeps spreading. The bacterium has turned up in a postal stamp facility in Kansas City and a machinery repair company just outside Indianapolis. So far no infections are reported at those sites. Attorney General John Ashcroft says investigators are nowhere near announcing suspects in the case.
HARRIS: A telling sign in the anthrax investigation. The latest casualty has been listed now as a homicide. The criminal probe has now spread to six states, including Missouri now, where anthrax has been detected at a Kansas City postal stamp facility. Spores have also been found in Indiana, New Jersey, New York, Washington, D.C. and Florida, where the threat was first discovered weeks ago. The Kansas City stamp facility is going to be closed today while a hazmat team goes in and cleans it thoroughly. Meanwhile, management says about a third of its more than 200 workers have decided to take the antibiotics offered as a precaution and investigators have yet even more unanswered questions in the spreading threat.
Our national correspondent Susan Candiotti.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With no obvious explanation for the death of New York hospital worker Kathy Nguyen, the anthrax investigation becomes even more puzzling.
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: They are following all her travels. They are trying to determine if she traveled anywhere domestically or foreign, who she may have come into contact with, any of the people that's she's associated with.
CANDIOTTI: The New York death, coupled with the New Jersey woman infected with skin anthrax who worked for an accounting firm, are two cases making it even more difficult to find a common thread among all the known cases. Neither had apparent links to a postal facility.
About 30 miles from the contaminated postal facility in Hamilton Township, another New Jersey postal worker is now suspected of having skin anthrax. And now, this development. Anthrax spores discovered on two postal machines shipped to a private repair shop in Indianapolis, the shop now closed down.
DR. GREG WILSON, INDIANA STATE HEALTH COMMITTEE: The exposure was very limited. And at this level of exposure, anthrax is not a threat to human health here in Indiana.
CANDIOTTI: Amid the latest developments, the country's top law enforcer admits investigators are no closer to solving the anthrax attacks.
JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I'm not in a position to be able to say to you that we are on the brink of making an announcement here. We don't have progress to report at this time.
CANDIOTTI (on camera): Sources tell CNN FBI agents wearing suits protecting them from head to toe are going through congressional mail, thousands and thousands of letters at a warehouse in the Washington area. They're looking for letters similar to the one sent to Senator Tom Daschle, trying to learn if he was the only target on Capitol Hill or whether the anthrax attacks were meant to be even broader.
Susan Candiotti, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: We will all have a unique opportunity today to get some answers on the anthrax threat from a top expert. Washington, D.C.'s Chief Health Officer Dr. Ivan Walks is going to take your questions by e-mail right here on CNN. Now, the address is anthrax@cnn.com. Get those questions in and watch during our nine o'clock Eastern hour this morning for his answers -- Catherine.
CALLAWAY: Airline security expected to be voted on today in the House. The Senate has already passed their version of the bill. The next move will be to get the two sides to reach an agreement. The key difference between Republicans and Democrats is the status of security screeners. Democrats want screeners to become federal employees. Republicans want federal supervisors to oversee a private workforce.
Well, as usual, the scenario boils down to money, how much the screeners get paid and who foots the bill. Screeners at the world's busiest airport make less than half of what their counterparts earn in Europe. You can click onto cnn.com to see how busy your local airport is and how much screeners there are making compared to their peers at other airports.
And CNN has a special report on airline safety. You can see it this Saturday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time, 11:00 a.m. Pacific and again at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time, 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
HARRIS: Well, President Bush's directive to Congress right now is easy enough to understand -- get to work to improve the sagging economy.
But as CNN's Tim O'Brien reports this morning, that may be easier said than done.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TIM O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Bush administration wants Congress to put aside political differences and act swiftly on an economic stimulus package.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And so my call to Congress is get to work and get something done. The American people expect us to do just that.
O'BRIEN: And, as the president spoke, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was telling reporters swift action could still avert a recession.
PAUL O'NEILL, TREASURY SECRETARY: If we can get this stimulus bill in place quickly, there is still a plausible argument that the fourth quarter could be mildly positive. But we need to act.
O'BRIEN: But Democrats and Republicans in both the House and Senate are light years apart on what should be in any stimulus bill. Exhibit A, Democrats' reaction to the latest proposal from Senate Republicans.
SEN. KENT CONRAD (D), NORTH DAKOTA: People's payroll taxes are being taken to give income tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent. That's not a stimulus package, that's a rip off.
O'BRIEN: Senate Democrats may have better luck dealing with the Republican in the White House than with Republicans in their own house. The president acknowledged that government dollars need to be directed to those with low income who are most likely to spend them and most vulnerable to an economic downturn, as Democrats have long argued. But the president also reiterated the need to cut, if not eliminate, the alternative minimum tax for business, which has fierce opposition from Democrats who control the Senate. Mr. Bush has forged close alliances with the leadership of both parties in both the House and the Senate. Although often vague, he also seems to accept many of the stimulus principles advanced by both Democrats and Republicans.
(on camera): In short, the president may have set himself up as the one person, the only person genuinely well positioned to hammer out a compromise. Around here, that can be risky. If you succeed, sure, you get some credit. If you don't, you get all the blame.
Tim O'Brien, CNN Financial News, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Seven minutes after the hour right now. Heavy bombers and jets pounding battle lines in Afghanistan right now.
CALLAWAY: And coming up, we will take you straight to the region for a live look at life amid the battle. It's all coming up.
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