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Nuclear Terror; Senate Democrats Hold News Conference on Iraq
Aired November 14, 2005 - 13:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR; Terror strikes on nuclear power plants. It's one of the biggest fears of governments around the world. Such an attack may have been in the works in Australia. According to police, three members of a suspected Islamic terror cell now under arrest had their sights on Australia's only nuclear reactor.
Chris Reason from 7 News Australia is in Sydney now with the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS REASON, SEVEN NEWS AUSTRALIA: The Lucas Heights Reactor, Australia's only nuclear facility, and now officially linked with the alleged terror cell blitzed by police last week. Prosecutors claim three of the men arrested in Tuesday's raids were found by police at the reactor in December last year. A lock on an access gate had been cut open. All were interviewed, released and for the next 12 months watched. There were phone taps.
Spiritual leader Abdul Benbrika allegedly telling the Sydney suspects...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "If we want to die for jihad, we have to have maximum damage, maximum damage, damage their buildings everything, damage their lives.
REASON: Police allege they twice rented properties near Bourke to train.
JANINE BODKIN: We were actually having a joke, me and my partner about these guys, and sort of reminded us of Bin Laden.
REASON: Also revealed, the items police seized last Tuesday, including 165 railway detonators, chemicals for bombmaking, capsicum spray, hundreds of batteries, backpacks, dozens of mobile phones, a pump-action shotgun, pistols, swords and machetes. They also took videotapes. Among them, one called "Osama's Training Course." Another, "Are You Ready to Die?"
Omar Baladjam, the one-time actor, and another cell member were allegedly taped getting fit for their holy war.
OMAR BALADJAM: To shoot some mother (EXPLETIVE DELETED) is the order from Allah.
Baladjam also allegedly tried to buy 10 20-liter drums of sulfuric acid. Other members ordered 200 liters of brake fluid, 50 liters of hydrochloric acid, 20 liters of glycerin, stop watches, timers, latex gloves.
(on camera): And from one suspect's household a computer memory stick, like this one, containing details in Arabic on how to make explosives from household products.
(voice-over): Police claim a four-wheel drive found burned-out last week contained hydrogen peroxide and distilled water. It had been driven by suspect Abdel Hassan, the man also known as "The Butcher."
There was one bizarre twist. Police claim the gang had everything they need except parental permission.
Benbrika allegedly told them...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need permission from your parents to go to jihad. If your mother says no jihad, then no jihad.
Two days later, one of the men requested permission from his mother.
Chris Reason, 7 News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: I want to take you to a live event right now happening. Senate Democrats discussing their efforts to hold the Bush administration accountable in the war in Iraq, they say. Let's go ahead and listen right now to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.
SEN. HARRY REID (D), MINORITY LEADER: First, 2006 should be a significant year of transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqis taking more and more responsibility for their own security.
It's time to take the training wheels off the Iraqi government. Iraqis must begin to run their own country. In 2006, the United States and our allies must do everything we can to make that possible.
Second, the Bush administration must advise the Iraqi people that United States military forces will not stay indefinitely in Iraq and that it is their responsibility to achieve the broadbased and sustainable political environment essential for defeating the insurgency.
Third, President Bush needs to submit, on a quarterly basis, a plan for success to Congress and to the American people. This plan must specify the challenges and progress being made in Iraq, timetables for achieving our goals and estimated dates for redeployment from Iraq as these goals are met.
Apparently, as you can see from the amendment that we offered -- and the Republicans have agreed to accept, basically, our amendment with a few changes we'll talk about -- our approach is the right approach, as they've essentially accepted our amendment.
It cannot be understated that by accepting our amendment, both the Republican leader and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee agree that the administration needs to come forward and explain to Congress and the American people its strategy for success and completing our mission in far-away Iraq.
It's not easy for the president to admit mistakes, as we've come to learn. It's a lot easier for him to lash out at those who question his policies. But political attacks are not going to get the job done. Our troops have done their job and they're doing it every day. It's time for the president and this Republican-controlled Congress to do theirs.
Senator Levin?
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: Do you all have copies of the amendments? Have they been handed out? OK.
So, as I work through it, you will each be able to follow this.
Apparently, the Republicans now are going to accept most of the Democratic amendment.
The purpose of that amendment is to clarify and to recommend changes to the policy of the United States on Iraq and to require reports on certain matters relating to Iraq.
Now, that purpose is stated here at the top of the amendment that you have in front of you. And they did not -- the Republicans did not -- change that purpose as they went through our amendment.
What you have in front of you is our amendment, basically. What the Republicans have done is crossed off the names of all the Democrats on it, just inserted Senators Warner and Frist and made a few changes in the amendment.
HARRIS: OK. You've been listening to a news conference with Senators Harry Reid and Senator Carl Levin. As the Democrats continue to keep the pressure on the administration to come clean on the war in Iraq, on the way it handled the pre-war intelligence, the Bush administration continues its counteroffensive against the charges that it misled the American public before the invasion in Iraq.
In a weekend interview here on CNN, national security adviser Stephen Hadley, admitted that the administration was wrong about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, but he said it was not a case of deliberate deception. His comments echoed those of President Bush in a Veterans Day speech. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATS: Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: And CNN's senior political analyst, Bill Schneider, is with us. And Bill, I believe you're in Los Angeles with us? Is that correct?
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: I am, indeed.
HARRIS: OK, Bill, good to talk to you. Have to ask you, is the administration's counteroffensive making any headway?
SCHNEIDER: Well, the administration is arguing that the intelligence that was used in Iraq was bought by both the Democrats and the Republicans. You see, what the Democrats are arguing is some Democrats bought that intelligence, but the administration was selling it. The Bush administration has been saying, look, we bought it, too. We're all in this together.
What was interesting just now about the press conference is, they didn't deal with that issue at all. Instead, they talked about going forward. The amendment that Senators Reid and Levin were talking about, that amendment had to do with a quarterly report to the American Congress by the administration on progress being made in Iraq.
And the Democrats are talking about a timetable being set. But that looks forward rather than backwards. So the Democrats look to me as if they're trying to get out of that dispute with the administration.
HARRIS: OK. We'll pick up on that point in a moment, but I have to ask you just in sort of general terms, is it clear -- I'm sure it's clear to you -- but should it be clear to the American public, everyone who is watching us right now, that the Democrats are not going to give up on this issue of how this administration handled pre- war intelligence any time soon?
SCHNEIDER: No, they are not going to give up. In fact, they've tried to shut down the Senate last week by forcing it into closed session -- or the week before last -- in order to insist that the Senate Intelligence Committee pursue the investigation, not of whether there was political pressure on the creation of the intelligence. That, reports have found, was not true. There was no political pressure. But how policymakers used the intelligence to make the case for war with Iraq. That's something the Senate Intelligence Committee has pledged to investigate and the Democrats have demanded that the committee pursue that investigation.
HARRIS: And where are we on Phase II? I understand there were meetings yesterday with some of the committee members. Are we moving forward on that?
SCHNEIDER: Well, what the Senate agreed to do -- and this is just the Senate, mind you, not the House -- but what the Senate agreed to do was to investigate the investigation. Essentially appoint a committee -- I think it's equally balanced between Democrats and Republicans -- to set a timetable for that second phase of the investigation into how policy-makers used the flawed intelligence.
HARRIS: Hey, Bill, let me ask you, why now? Your analysis, your sense of this. Why now when you look at the public opinion polls does the public seem so fed up with the war in Iraq and so willing to punish the president with these negative approval numbers?
SCHNEIDER: Well, I think the public has become disillusioned by the apparent lack of progress, the mounting violence, the casualty tolls in Iraq. They were encouraged back in January when there was an election in Iraq. And Americans said, at last, they're electing their own government. Maybe that government can take charge. Maybe they can run the country and Americans can at least think about a timetable for withdrawal.
But then the violence got worse over the course of the year. There was a little bit of encouragement last month when they had the vote on the Iraqi constitution. But, again, then the 2,000th death was tragically recorded in Iraq. It's now about 2,050. And Americans are just increasingly disillusioned. And the reason is the mounting violence.
HARRIS: Yes, and Bill, one last question. And maybe this cuts to a bit of a Democratic strategy. If the public feels, on whatever level, it was duped by -- into getting into this war by the intelligence and how maybe it was shaped, does that leave some room for Democrats to do what John Edwards did this weekend, which is to basically admit, hey, look, I was wrong?
SCHNEIDER: Yes. Well, I mean, I think that he spoke for a lot of Democrats. He said what a lot of Democrats were waiting for John Kerry to say last year in the campaign. You remember, he was standing next to the Grand Canyon and a reporter said, do you think you made a mistake knowing what you now know when you voted for war with Iraq? And he said no. And you could hear the air deflating from the Democratic balloon, as they said oh my God, how are we going to deal with that?
Well, John Edwards, his running mate, finally, over a year later, has said, I was wrong. I should not have voted for that war. And a lot of the Democrats may follow his lead now, because they're going to argue we were deceived. And i can tell you something, most Americans in two different polls have said they feel as if they were misled intentionally, deliberately, by the Bush administration, misled into the war.
SCHNEIDER: Yes, that is something to say. All right, CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider with us from Los Angeles. Bill, good to see you. We'll take a break. More LIVE FROM right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: We're going to France now, and its state of emergency. French President Jacques Chirac wants three more months of special police powers to extinguish unrest there. Arson attacks have slowed down since Wednesday when emergency powers took effect, but the violence hasn't stopped. Authorities say that 284 cars were torched overnight. And at the top of the hour, President Chirac is to address the people of France to explain his request to extend the state of emergency. We're going to hear what he has to say.
LIVE FROM brings you all over the world, right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: This video just in to us via our affiliate WTHR. It's a story that, as you know, we've been following. It's breaking out of Indiana, talking about that 18-year-old that was wanted for allegedly killing his girlfriend's parents. They have been captured. You see the car here that had crashed into the tree. Another car close behind. You'll see the suspect sitting right there handcuffed on the ground. That is 18-year-old David Ludwig. He and Kara Borden were taken into custody about 30 minutes ago, following the police chase. Borden, we are told, is safe. She's actually sitting in one of those police cars handcuffed. We're just getting this fresh video in with a different angle of these two. We don't know if they were acting together or separately, but we know that Borden's parents are dead.
Ludwig, police say, is the 18-year-old that killed them. The two of them finally have been captured.
We'll have more. We're working the story. A quick break.
More LIVE FROM right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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