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Bush: Attack was Planned for 2002; Drawing up a Storm; Hezbollah March
Aired February 09, 2006 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Date, 2002. Target, tallest building on the West Coast. Plotters, al Qaeda emboldened by 9/11. Description, from President Bush in unprecedented detail.
CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is at the White House with more on this alleged plot and how it was broken up -- Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, this, of course, coming from the president and also his top counterterrorism adviser, Fran Towsend, many details that we were not aware of before.
Essentially, that Osama bin Laden had planned a September 11 attack with West and East Coast components but couldn't get all of the pieces together in time. The West Coast portion is what we are learning about.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11, got together a terrorist cell, a man by the name of Hambali (ph) from Southeast Asia, a terrorist cell of about four people, individuals who got together with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to plot and plan this. And, of course, the target was the tallest building on the West Coast in Los Angeles. That being the Library Tower.
They were supposed to hit that with a commercial plane. They didn't know when it was going to happen, but they were supposed to hit that tower with a commercial plane, that they would be armed with shoe bombs to make that happen.
Well, all of that disrupted that in 2002 with one of the terror cells arrested. And all of these members, of course, being held. There was cooperation from Southeast Asia countries, four of them, we have learned, and that this was really an example, according to Fran Townsend, of a case that underscores the importance of real-time information sharing -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Now, let's talk about the timing of this. Are we going to hear from Fran Townsend? Is that what I was hearing, or no? OK.
The timing of this, I mean, when all of the controversy over the NSA and the eavesdropping program, then all of a sudden we're hearing about this huge plot that was diverted, looking at the timing, interesting connection.
MALVEAUX: Well, that's the one question that we kept pushing with Fran Townsend and this briefing. You know, you talk about real- time intelligence, what are you talking about? Are you trying to in a way address this as a success story of the NSA domestic spy program? Did it play a role in basically disrupting this plot?
She said she couldn't spoke to that directly. She talked about, well, this is a success when it comes to interrogating detainees, when it comes to global cooperation, these other countries involved. But again, the skeptics here, you've got to wonder about the timing of all of this information coming out.
It was just yesterday, you should know, Kyra, that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, under quite a bit of heat from members of Congress over the domestic spying program, was asked by those members of Congress, give us success stories, tell us how has this worked?
So the question was, you know, is this a way of highlighting this program without making it obvious? That is something the administration denies. But at the same time, of course, all of this information coming out just a day after they were asked about it.
PHILLIPS: OK. Suzanne Malveaux live from the White House.
Thank you.
Terror in Istanbul. An explosion rips through an Internet cafe, wounding 14 people, six of them police officers. All are in the hospital, including a child in serious condition. Reuters reports a hard-line Kurdish group claiming responsibility.
U.S. Navy on the lookout. Ships from the Central Command have moved into a shipping lane off the coast of Yemen hoping to spot those al Qaeda prisoners who escaped from a Yemeni prison last Friday. The prisoners, possibly with help from prison staff, had dug themselves a sophisticated 150-yard tunnel.
Among the escapees, Gamal Ahmed Badawi (ph), believed to be the mastermind of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.
Another escapee. A U.S. citizen charged with supporting terrorists. He's believed to be an associate of the so-called Lackawanna Six. They're the al Qaeda supporters in upstate New York now in prison who attended a terror training camp in Afghanistan.
Anger in the Islamic world. It's still there, still aimed at the West, still burning. But more of a smolder now that public rioting in mostly Muslim cities has eased.
In Lebanon today, the leader of Hezbollah urged followers to keep up the protests but without violence. He also repeated calls for European nations, specifically Denmark, to apologize for publishing images offensive to Muslims.
So far, the cartoon debate has been pretty one-sided. Muslims receiving a provocation from a non-Muslim country lash out. But Arab and Islamic media have long run cartoons offensive to Jews.
Here's CNN's John Vause.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Is this cartoon offensive? Does this one attack a religion? Could this be considered malicious?
For Israelis and Jews the answer is most certainly yes. But for years, Arabic and Islamic newspapers, many government-owned and run, have rarely held back when it comes to cartoons that are blatantly anti-Semitic, despite official protests from the Israeli government.
DORE GOLD, JERUSALEM CENTER FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS: The usual response of various Arab governments has been, "Well, we don't control them." They'll in fact use Western concepts like "freedom of the press." But we know very well that these are official newspapers whose editors are appointed by presidents or kings in various Arab governments.
VAUSE: Amar Akasha (ph) has drawn many cartoons for one of Egypt's biggest-selling newspapers. He has no problem depicting Jews, especially Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, with the worst anti-Semitic stereotype: ugly, blood-thirsty killers with hook noses and curls.
"I can draw Sharon and say he's a killer," he explains. "But I would not draw his prophet and say that his prophet is a killer."
Many of the Arab and Islamic cartoons are similar to those drawn by the Nazis. Robert Rozett, an historian with Jerusalem's Holocaust Memorial, says that's more than coincidence.
ROBERT ROZETT, HOLOCAUST HISTORIAN: Well, it can't but bring up the associations of the Nazi period. And since the Nazi period is the bleakest period in Jewish history in which six million Jews were murdered by this horrible machine that was set up, it brings all of those associations with it.
VAUSE: But Islamic leaders say mocking the Prophet Mohammed is the ultimate insult to Muslims everywhere and cannot be compared to what they call political cartoons attacking Israel.
"If those cartoons deal with the Israeli occupation, then they're not anti-Semitic. We're against the Israeli occupation," he told me, "not Semitic people."
(on camera): For years, Israeli and Jewish groups have tried to bring the world's attention to the anti-Semitic cartoons and statements in the Arabic and Islamic media. Right now, though, the Israeli government is steering clear from this controversy, only saying it highlights the need to show respect for all religions and people of all faith.
John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE) PHILLIPS: CNN is not showing the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed because the network believes its role is to cover the events surrounding the publication of the cartoons while not unnecessarily adding to the controversy itself.
Hezbollah is heard from as well. The guerilla group's leader spoke as hundreds of thousands of Shiites marched through Beirut in the annual remembrance of the death of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson. Hezbollah urges Muslims to continue their protests over Mohammed cartoons and also has a message for the West.
CNN's Brent Sadler is in the Lebanese capital.
And Brent, we had talked a little bit about that yesterday, that there is concern that insurgents are going to take part in this controversy and contribute to the growth of the protests.
BRENT SADLER, CNN BEIRUT BUREAU CHIEF: That's right. There have been concerns expressed at various levels, not just here in Lebanon, but elsewhere in the region, and not least the United States about the possibility of these protests being hijacked for extremist purposes.
The United States openly, though, criticizes, accuses Iran and Syria of having a hand in the violent protests. And Hezbollah, the armed Islamic militant group, today took aim at U.S. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SADLER (voice over): Shia Muslims in Beirut turn a religious day into a protest day. Lebanese supporters of Hezbollah mourn a bloody episode from their Islamic past, the slaughter of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, 1,300 years ago.
Defiance, too, condemning international calls to stop worldwide demonstrations, supporting Muslim anger at Western values towards Islam.
The turnout is massive.
KHALIL EL-ZEIN, BUSINESSMAN: See how we're going to act over here. In a very respectful way we're going to protect all of the people around here. We're not going to attack anything, because this is what Islam called for us. Islam doesn't call for violence, no.
SADLER: A peaceful counterweight, say demonstrators, to claims that hard-core extremists have a hijacked Muslim fury to promote anti- Western violence.
AMMAR NOUREDDINE, SUPERMARKET OWNER: Everybody must know that bin Laden, this is not Islam. Prophet Mohammed doesn't agree with what he's doing.
SADLER: Batoul Nehmeh is a cashier at an American fast-food outlet here on Hezbollah's turf. There's no excuse for violence," she explains, but understands why it breaks out.
BATOUL NEHMEH, CARTOON PROTESTER: They are very angry. They are very, very angry. For that -- sometimes when you're angry, you don't know what to do.
SADLER: Top U.S. officials accuse Syria and Iran, labeled terror-sponsoring nations, for inciting violence. Dismissed by many here as a big lie.
(on camera): A reliable ally of Syria and Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah is a sworn enemy of Israel and an implacable opponent of U.S. policy in the Middle East.
(voice over): Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Neshrelah (ph), urges Muslims to protest more. "Let Condoleezza Rice shut up," he says, "as well as Bush and all world tyrants. We're a nation that won't forgive or stay silent."
And no compromised stand from a militant Muslim leader from an influential voice setting his own conditions, Europe to change its laws on press freedom and Denmark to apologize for insulting the prophet.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SADLER: While those televised demands were broadcast internationally by Hezbollah's own TV station, Kyra, based here in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, they're the kind of broadcasts that Hezbollah sympathizers pay a lot of attention to -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Well, we've been talking a lot about this story as well in the United States. So is this the lead story every day on Arab media?
SADLER: It has faded somewhat today, but certainly for the past several days, the deadly protests, particularly those taking place in Afghanistan, have focused leader writers, opinion writers on the fury that's been seen on the streets of many capitals in the Arab world and how to contain it because of the damaging impact and the way that it can be exploited, suspect Western leaders, by extremist groups -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Brent Sadler.
Thank you.
Straight ahead, murder in Massachusetts, arrest in London. A mother and a baby dead, a husband and a father accused. The latest on the investigation when LIVE FROM continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: It may have been a murder-suicide attempt that only got as far as the murders. Police in London arrested Neil Entwistle today after he was charged in Massachusetts with killing his wife and baby daughter. Twenty-seven-year-old Rachel Entwistle and 9-month-old Lilian were shot to death last month at their home in suburban Boston. The D.A. says there is evidence that Neil Entwistle was having money problems.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARTHA COAKLEY, MIDDLESEX DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Some of the background to this may be that Neil Entwistle, having entered into some debt obligations in England, having moved to this country with his new wife and child, attempting to start businesses which, as many of you know, were not effective on the Internet, on eBay, and also undertaking a lease and other financial obligations, may have found himself in financial difficulty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Entwistle is British and apparently left for England. He was arrested a London subway this morning and appeared in court this afternoon.
CNN's Becky Anderson now joins me live with the latest information -- Becky.
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, he left this magistrate court in central London just behind me a short while ago. The hearing lasted just about five minutes.
His lawyer, Ben Brandon (ph), confirmed that he was applying for bail. Neil Entwistle was remanded in custody and he will appear here again at 10:00 a.m. in the morning.
When he was asked by the judge whether he understood the nature of the charges, he said yes. And when he was asked whether he consented to extradition, he said no.
He was wearing a black jumper, a white T-shirt and gray track suit pants. And he looked calm, fairly calm, fairly serious. He didn't look up around at other people in the courthouse, he just looked at the judge and indeed at his lawyer.
So back here at 10:00 a.m. in the morning -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Well, I'm told in Massachusetts, Becky, that he could receive life without parole if convicted. What about in Britain?
ANDERSON: Well, it's an interesting point. In fact, he could be charged here. He could choose to be charged here, effectively.
This is going to be a very, very long process, between nine and 12 months, we're told. The U.S. has 65 days to admit the formal papers, effectively, then a hearing will be set within two months.
If indeed the U.S. wins that hearing, they don't have anything to prove under the extradition treaty of 2003. Then the papers go to the home secretary here, and he has six weeks in which to decide whether to extradite Neil Entwistle.
At that point, Neil Entwistle could indeed appeal this extradition. Then that will go to the high court and it could get as high as the House of Lords.
Also at this point, there is also the possibility despite the fact that he said he didn't consent to extradition at this point, he could decide at any point to agree to that. That will expedite the process and he'll be back in the states a lot quicker than this nine to 12-month process -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: Becky Anderson.
Thank you.
Star-crossed lovers in custody in separate states. The bride, 37-year-old Lisa Clark, has just been denied bond here in Georgia, charged with hindering the apprehension of a child. The child, her 15-year-old groom who disappeared from a juvenile facility a week ago.
He was found in Cleveland, Ohio, after detectives tracked a package that Clark had mailed him. Clark, who is pregnant, by the way, and due this month, also faces a molestation charge.
Straight ahead, classic rock, current hits, dynamic duets. There was a little bit of everything at the Grammy Awards last night.
LIVE FROM takes it from the top right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Madonna danced, U2 added to its collection, Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson and Green Day one recognition, and some creditive combinations made the show.
Brooke Anderson wraps up last night's Grammy Awards.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the Grammy...
BEYONCE KNOWLES, ENTERTAINER: And the Grammy...
BONNIE RAITT, SINGER: And the Grammy for album of the year goes to...
JAMES TAYLOR, SINGER: "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" -- U2!
(APPLAUSE)
BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Irish rockers U2 won five awards last night, brick bringing their total career Grammy wins to 21. Among last night's prizes, song of the year for "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own."
BONO, U2: Well if you think this is going to go to our head, it's too late!
ANDERSON: But Bono and the gang were quick to acknowledge their competition.
BONO: Kanye, you're next. He's a great artist.
Mariah, you sing like an angel.
ANDERSON: Mariah Carey, rapper Kanye West and newcomer John Legend each had eight Grammy nominations, but none came close to winning that many. However, west did pick up three awards, including one for best rap album.
KANYE WEST, ENTERTAINER: I have no, no, no idea. I'd like to thank...
ANDERSON: Soulful singer Legend also won three Grammys, including best new artist.
JOHN LEGEND, ENTERTAINER: Anybody who wins best new artist is only new to the general public.
ANDERSON: Pop diva Carey ended a 16-year Grammy drought with three wins as well.
Another winning lady with a powerful voice, Kelly Clarkson. The original "American Idol" picks up two Grammys, including best female pop vocal performance.
KELLY CLARKSON, ENTERTAINER: You have no idea what this means to me.
ANDERSON: Record of the year went to edgy group Green Day for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams."
BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG, ENTERTAINER: Pop radio playing rock music is a very big deal to me.
ANDERSON: Star performances included Madonna, McCartney, Mary J. Blige.
And perhaps the most elaborate act of the evening, Jamie Foxx and Kanye West. Top talent honored the '60s funk group Sly and the Family Stone. And the show closed with a moving tribute to the musical city of New Orleans.
Brooke Anderson, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: A popular search engine stands accused of playing a part in a free speech crackdown on the Internet. Susan Lisovicz has the details now from the New York Stock Exchange.
(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Shaken and stirred on Capitol Hill after sensors set off a nerve gas alarm in the Russell Senate Office Building. About 200 people, included senators, were holed up for hours last night in a nearby parking garage, waiting, wondering and worrying while the scene was tested. In the end, tests for nerve agents were negative.
Today, investigators are trying to figure out what else could have triggered the false reading and said it could have been something has common has cleaning fluid.
Twenty-five hours and counting to the 20th winter Olympic games. Athletes are settling in. Security measures getting yet another once- over. And the torch has arrived, though not by the planed route -- or planned route, rather.
It had to be diverted after demonstrators took to the streets of Torino, Italy. They're protesting everything from the cost of the games to the construction of a high-speed train between Torino and Lyon, France. It's the fourth time the torch had to change course in its trek across Italy.
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