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CNN Live At Daybreak
FBI Wants to Question P.O.W.'s; Some Postal Workers To Get Anthrax Vaccine; Dogs Help Clear Mines in Afghanistan
Aired December 19, 2001 - 06:30 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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: The pursuit of Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Omar and rounding up their henchmen. Some perspective on America's fight against terrorism now, live from Washington and from CNN's Bill Prasad. Good morning Bill.
BILL PRASAD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Carol. Osama bin Laden's trail has grown cold. Now the focus is shifting from the man who got away to the men who have been caught. The FBI wants to question them.
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PRASAD (voice-over): These prisoners were caught in the Tora Bora region where Osama bin Laden may be hiding. They could be al Qaeda troops. One man who claims he's a doctor, says bin Laden has not been seen.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Believe me, a lot of people in the mountains, they don't know even that there's a Osama bin Laden. He is such a person mobile, maybe he's here; maybe he's out. No one knows.
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PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY DEFENSE SECRETARY: The first priority is to get information from them and first and foremost information that can lead us to the capture of other terrorists.
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PRASAD: Just outside Bagram, Afghan fighters say they're closing in on Taliban leader Mullah Omar. In the Tora Bora region, U.S. Special Forces are checking hundreds of caves for Osama bin Laden. In case he slips out of Afghanistan, the White House sends a warning.
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ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I don't think there's a country in the world that's foolish enough to want to take Osama bin Laden. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PRASAD: In Washington today, 10,000 postal workers and Capitol Hill employees will be offered an experimental anthrax vaccine aimed at destroying any bacteria that may remain in their lungs. It's the first time the vaccine option has been extended to a large civilian population. There could be side effects.
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DR. IVAN WALKS, CHIEF HEALTH OFFICER, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: But if the question is do you want anthrax or do you want side effects from a -- from a vaccine, clearly the vaccine side effects are preferable to getting ill.
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PRASAD: At this point doctors are not recommending widespread inoculations saying the side effect risks are much too great. We're live in Washington this morning. I'm Bill Prasad, CNN -- Carol, back to you.
LIN: Thank you Bill and now we go 10,000 miles away to Kabul and the hunt for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda fighters, and man's best friend's role in that operation as well as trying to clear a lot of the dangerous land mines there. Harris Whitbeck reports. Good morning Harris.
HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning -- good morning Carol. One of the ugliest remnants of decades of conflict in Afghanistan is the amount of land mines that are scattered throughout Afghanistan. Some estimates put that number at over 10 million. There are many efforts underway to clear the land of those -- of those mines, and one particular effort involves dogs.
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WHITBECK (voice-over): Abdul Wahid trusts his dog Dack (ph), like he does few humans.
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ABDUL WAHID: Very nice, Dack. Good. That's a nice dog.
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WHITBECK: Everyday Dack (ph) puts his life on the line for his master.
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WAHID: I can say you that I trained this dog, and I know that the dog will not make mistake.
Show us, Dack (ph), this side.
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WHITBECK: They are equal partners in a very dangerous enterprise, clearing thousands of mines from the battlefields of Afghanistan. Dack (ph), a three-year old German Shepherd, is one of 187 dogs that make up one of the most effective mine sweeping forces in the country.
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WAHID: I think that dogs work as more efficient than the deminer work, because a mine detector can't find metal -- plastic mines under the land, but the dogs can -- a dog can find plastic mine under the land because they are smelling only the explosive.
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WHITBECK: The dogs are trained to sniff and immediately stop and sit when they detect explosives in the ground, letting their handlers come in to deactivate the mines.
They respond to commands in English or German, and in Afghanistan, a country riddled with literally millions of hidden land mines, they have been used to clear thousands of hectares. Amazingly, only five of these dogs have been killed since the demining program started in 1989. Trainers say it's because of their uncanny sense of smell and way of perceiving danger.
Training takes about 18 months at a kennel and training center outside of Kabul. The dogs are groomed from birth for their dangerous job. Taught to identify the smell of explosives and to fetch a plastic ball as a reward. Their trainers say the reward for their country is much greater.
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WAHID: Do you know that these dogs help us very much and they've found many mines under the lands, and they clear for us many mine areas (ph).
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WHITBECK: They are some of Afghanistan's silent heroes and quite possibly its best friends.
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WHITBECK (on camera): Handlers say the cost of breeding and training one of these dogs is at about $7,000, which is a small price to play -- to pay when you take into consideration the amount of lives they can potentially save -- Carol.
LIN: Harris, it just struck me while watching that video, the irony that in order to find these land mines, the dog and the handler actually have to walk around the terrain. So doesn't that defeat the purpose in terms of keeping people as well as these animals safe?
WHITBECK: Well, that's what makes this work so dangerous, Carol. Now the handlers say that the dogs are trained, as we saw in the piece, that the dogs are trained to walk very carefully through these fields and when they detect a mine, which is perhaps a meter or two meters or a yard away from them, they'll immediately stop so they act as an early warning system, which would then allow the handler to come in and deactivate it. It's very dangerous work and it's conducted not only by dogs, but by humans here and some of the demining programs that involve actual humans doing the work are also very widespread and very successful.
LIN: Is the logic, then, that the dog's step is lighter than a human's step so they may actually get near a mine, but not activate it then?
WHITBECK: Well that's part of it. I mean normally an anti- personnel mine if somebody that -- who weighs over say 90 or 100 pounds steps on it, it would go off and usually a German Shepherd weighs less than that, so that's part of it, but it still is risky. When I asked the handlers why they prefer using dogs, they were very blunt in saying that it's probably better to lose a dog's life than a human's life.
LIN: Oh. All right. Thank you very much. Harris Whitbeck and as you pointed out, very dangerous work and brave indeed.
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