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American Morning
Bush Warned of Possible Hijack Plot
Aired May 16, 2002 - 08:03 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: "Up Front" this morning, the White House, as we have said all morning long, is now confirming that weeks before the September 11 attacks, President Bush was warned about the possibility that the bin Laden terror network could try to hijack a U.S. airliner.
Senior White House correspondent John King joins us now with the latest.
How much fallout, John, have you seen so far, now that the administration has confirmed this?
JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula, the administration certainly moving aggressively to contain any flout. They do know there will be questions in the Congress. Already the Congress, as you noted, asking questions about did the FBI receive some clues? What about the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui? Shouldn't that have tipped people off?
So certainly this disclosure that in August, a month or so before the attack, the president was told by the CIA that among the possibilities of an al Qaeda attack was hijacking a U.S. airliner or airliners will certainly be added to that mix. What the White House is insisting is that it acted appropriately. It says the information was very vague, that there was no warning at all that planes would be hijacked and used as weapons, as suicide bombs, if you will, as they were in the case of September 11.
They say there was a general warning among a range of options that perhaps there would be a hijacking of a U.S. airliner and that the appropriate government agencies, including the Justice Department and the Transportation Department, were told of that vague general warning.
The administration says much more likely it was viewed at the time that there would be some attacks overseas and the administration did issue some specific warnings to U.S. military bases and other U.S. interests overseas last summer about the possibility of al Qaeda attacks.
The White House saying that what it understands is happening here or what it believes is happening here is that we are viewing this now in the post-9/11 prism, if you will, and the word hijacking has a very different meaning now that we have all seen the pictures of those planes flying into buildings, that when, what they're saying here is when the president received a very general warning that there could be a hijacking, it was viewed as a traditional hijacking, that perhaps a plane would be hijacked and the passengers taken hostage or perhaps even killed. But there was no evidence at all, no indications at all that planes would be hijacked and used as weapons -- Paula.
ZAHN: But there is some speculation this morning that the fact that security was heightened might have caused the hijackers to change their security and that is what, in fact, at least this is what one unnamed administration official is saying this morning in the "New York Times," caused the hijackers to switch to box cutters and plastic knives.
KING: That is perhaps the case. And, again, administration officials make the case that this, even though these hijackers went forward, these were not men who walked onto airplanes with bombs or guns. They walked on with unconventional weapons. Security has been tightened. In the meantime, the administration knows this will be added to the debate about should the government have connected the dots, should the government have known or done more.
What the administration is saying is that let's have that debate looking forward, not pointing fingers looking backwards. Let's talk about what the government can do to better coordinate and share information, what the government can and is doing to improve security. But it will, because there is a congressional investigation under way, it will certainly add to the debate for those who think that the government does not share information enough and that perhaps the government should have been more open about what those warnings were.
But again, officials insist this was a very general warning and a hijacking, the possibility of a hijacking listed among a long range of options that might be chosen by the bin Laden network and that the CIA believed at the time it was much more likely there would be an attack overseas.
ZAHN: John, we're going to cut to the picture of the president addressing the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast. He's not into the substance of his remarks yet. He's still addressing some of his supporters there in the room.
Give us your quick upshot on what you believe the president will be saying.
KING: I just glanced at a draft of the speech moments ago. The president will talk about the value of faith in his own life and also talk about his initiatives before the Congress, specifically, the faith-based initiative allowing government money to go to church and other religious community groups to help people with drug problems and the like.
The president's promoting his own agenda here, but also taking some time just to talk about the value of his own personal faith in his life and politics and government.
ZAHN: Will he talk about Cuba? I know it was much suspected that he would at a time that President Carter is visiting that country.
KING: We are told he will not, that the president will save any remarks about Cuba for the speech he will deliver here in Washington and that a reiteration of that speech again Monday in Florida -- Monday is the marking, the administration marking pre-Castro Cuban independence day. At least in the prepared text for the president's speech here, not one reference of Cuba or President Carter's trip there.
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