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American Morning
America Strikes Back: Bin Laden Tops Most Wanted List
Aired October 10, 2001 - 9:32 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush is putting out list of suspected terrorists today.
John King with more on that. Hi, again, John.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hello, again, to you, Paula. The President will travel to FBI headquarters to make that announcement. For a long time, the FBI has had a 10 most wanted list, now it will have a most wanted terrorist list, as well. 22 names on that list. This is the list right here, and we have seen already, from the FBI, posters of those, the most-wanted terrorists. One face quite familiar. Osama bin Laden. Some of his associates and others on that list. You see the faces, here. This list will be released, today, by the president.
None of the people named in this list for the September 11th attacks, this list looks back a little bit, although, the government says some of them are believed involved in the September 11th attacks, as well. This list deals with past terrorist strikes, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1996 attack on the Khobar towers in Dahran, Saudi Arabia. That was the barracks for U.S. military personnel. Also the 1998 embassy bombings, in Kenya and Tanzania.
As Mr. Bush makes this announcement, today, he will use it to make the case, once again, that the current military action under way in Afghanistan is but one element of the continuing, long-term war on terrorism. The administration reserves the right to expand it to military and other targets, outside of Afghanistan. The President, this morning, updated the leaders of Congress on the campaign. After that breakfast, the Senate Minority Leader, Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, telling CNN the president told the leaders of Congress some significant damage has been done, not only to bin Laden organization, but also to Afghanistan's ruling Taliban.
SENATOR TRENT LOTT (R-MS), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: They are obviously not out, now. But they are having, certainly, some confusion in their ranks, some damage has been done. You're reporting that on CNN. And there are indications that they're having difficulties. It's-- the job is not done, and the president said all along, this will not be one surgical strike. This is going to be, sort of an ongoing thing.
KING: Also, from the meeting, a tentative truce, if you will. The president angry, furious, we are told, at what he believes leaks of very sensitive, classified information from key members of Congress. As a result, the president, last week, significantly restricted the number of people in the Congress who can get those classified intelligence briefings. The president agreeing, this morning, to widen the circle a bit, after meeting here-- He did so after receiving assurances from the Congressional leaders that they would help enforce an agreement to keep that information secret. Among those who gave the president his word, the House Democratic leader, Dick Gephardt.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), MINORITY LEADER: Obviously, people need to be briefed constantly about what's going on in the field, over there. We've all got constituents who are over there. And so all members will be briefed on the status of the military operation. I think we will get back to a normal situation. The president was rightfully angry. There should not be breaches in security of the kind that, apparently, went on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: In that meeting, also, some discussion of trying to move, advance the negotiations over the economic stimulus package the president wants the Congress to act on to deal with the economic slowdown as a result of the terrorist strikes. More meeting and negotiations on that, today. The president also meets, later today, with the NATO secretary-general. One unusual development, here, is the U.S. deploys its military overseas, NATO has agreed to fly AWACS surveillance planes, up and down the coast of the United States, just to monitor the skies. More on that in the hours ahead. We're going to take a quick break, right now. When we come back, an update from Jerusalem on the situation, tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, in the Middle East. Stay with us.
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