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American Morning

Terror Threats Made Known

Aired May 22, 2002 - 08:24   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: What did the president know and when did he know it? That was the chorus coming from some Capitol Hill Democrats last week about intelligence warnings the government received before September 11. But this week members of the administration have been issuing extremely ominous warnings about future terrorist attacks.

After taking some criticism for what it didn't say, is the administration now going too far by issuing warnings that are just too vague about what might be coming?

CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield joins us now.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

ZAHN: Welcome back to A.M. We haven't seen you in a little while.

GREENFIELD: Well, a week.

ZAHN: It seems to me that all of this analysis is being done through hindsight, is it not?

GREENFIELD: Absolutely. Everything looks different because of 9/11. And just put us back last summer and suppose somebody had connected the dots, to use this cliche, and said OK, on an emergency basis we are Senator Jeff Bingaman every airline passenger to enhanced screening, security. We're going to lock the cockpit doors. Pre- 9/11, that wouldn't have seemed prudent. It would have seemed outrageous.

Last summer we were all stewing about the airline delays. And the pilots would have objected to locked cockpit doors, the flight attendants. The airlines would have said who's going to pay for this.

It is very much a situation where what looks now obvious would not have seemed so absent this horrible event of 9/11.

ZAHN: And now we see warning after warning. There are those that say the administration is making these warnings to collectively cover their back sides. There are people like Porter Goss, who came on the air and they say while there is no specific and credible threat, if you add all the chatter up, we're looking at some great potential of harm to Americans down the road. GREENFIELD: Yes, potential for what? There's a book about Pearl Harbor in which one of the writers says you have a danger when an alarm never goes off. But you also have a danger when an alarm goes off so much you disconnect it like a smoke detector sometimes that goes off every time you cook.

ZAHN: Sure.

GREENFIELD: So you pull the battery out. I've looked at a lot of these reports pre-9/11 and they warn about everything. They warn about suitcase nukes. They warn about sarin gas in the subways. They warn about poisoning the water supply and food supply.

Now, to have looked at all of those as credible -- just take one example. You try to check the food supply of a city like New York or Chicago.

ZAHN: Good luck.

GREENFIELD: Physically impossible. You turn into a garrison state. And as Israel has shown us, even a state on permanent alert can't stop horrible attacks. So that's what I think is driving some of this craziness. That's too strong a word, but some of this anxiety about what are you telling us and why.

ZAHN: You were in Washington last week.

GREENFIELD: Yes.

ZAHN: And we were quite surprised about an experience you had on Capitol Hill when it comes to this heightened security...

GREENFIELD: I think this is...

ZAHN: ... that we're supposed to be living in.

GREENFIELD: I think this is a perfect microcosm. I went to have lunch with a senator. Go into the Senate, enhanced security, go through a metal detector, empty your pockets, you know, wands for anybody that shows up. OK. Now, I leave the Senate. I walk 200 feet to a kind of lawn in front of the Senate where press conferences are held. Five United States senators are holding a press conference. No security. None. I mean I walked up behind them, behind them, you know, tapped one of them on the shoulder who I knew and have chatted with over the years just because I wanted to say hello. But no credentials.

And that's how we're going to live. You can't have a society in which every person walking up and down Washington is going to be checked by an endless amount of security people. It's not how we're going to live. And that, I think, is the fact of the matter.

ZAHN: So as a New Yorker, you wake up this morning and you hear the Brooklyn Bridge was being, a car going into the Brooklyn Bridge was being searched, the Statue of Liberty a potential target, what do you think? Are you just, are you ticked off or are you thinking all right, c'est la vie?

GREENFIELD: Fine. It's full employment for the security guards of, you know, who would otherwise be out of work. But in terms of actually deterring, I mean I'm with the people who say look, it's, you know, you live your life but don't live it in fear. And as far as the Brooklyn Bridge goes, you know, I'm more worried about somebody trying to sell it to a tourist than I am -- because there's no way to stop it. And that's the harsh truth. We don't want to face it, but that's the hard truth.

ZAHN: Yes, it's a hard reality to accept.

GREENFIELD: Yes.

ZAHN: Jeff Greenfield, good to see you.

GREENFIELD: OK.

ZAHN: And the threat of terrorist attacks is the subject of our quick vote poll this morning. The question is, "Do you think warnings about possible terror attacks are helpful?" Nearly 4,000 of you have voted so far. Forty-three percent say yes, 42 percent say no and 15 percent say they simply do not know.

Now, if you want to vote you can log onto our Web site at cnn.com and click on quick vote.

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