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American Morning

Safe at Home

Aired April 01, 2003 - 08:55   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.


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The dying regime of Iraq may try to bring terror to our shores. Other parts of the global terror network may view this as a moment to strike, thinking that we're distracted. They're wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: What still needs to be done to keep Americans safe at home, Steven Brill tackles that issue in his new book titled "After: How America Confronted the September 12th Era." Steven Brill joins us now. Congratulations.

STEVEN BRILL, AUTHOR, "AFTER": Thanks Paula.

ZAHN: Well it comes out yesterday, it's on two best-sellers list.

BRILL: Well, so far, so good.

ZAHN: Let's talk a little bit about what you've learned. You've spent over a year investigating this subject. You had unprecedented access not only to Secretary Ridge, but the attorney general and other players in this post-September 11 environment. How vulnerable do we continue to be?

BRILL: We're quite vulnerable in some places and yet we've made great strides. The access I had was not only at top, but it was with the people who were on the front lines. And this is really the behind the scenes story of everything they had been doing to make this country safer. I think we decided on the morning of September 12 that we're not going to be victims, we're not just going to sit there. We're going to try to do something.

We're not just going to say well we're lucky we didn't get attacked today. So, in the ports, certainly at the airports, even with our food supply, we have taken all kinds of steps, but we are vulnerable. We're vulnerable right out on the streets here. We're vulnerable in our mass transit systems because we can't solve this problem instantly, but we've made some pretty good strides in the last year, and that's really the story I try to tell about the men and women who have brought us to this point.

ZAHN: Can the country afford financially to make mass transit safe? BRILL: That is the question and the answer is, no, we can't afford it, but if there's a bomb in a mass transit system today, we can't afford the consequences of that even more. So the answer is, we have to figure out cost effective intelligent ways to make the system safer. And we're starting to do that with technology, with better management of the risk, and that sometimes means making some really difficult decisions, such as profiling people in certain ways and deciding that if there are two people walking into an office building that this person poses more of a risk than that person, not because of the color of their skin, not because of the race, but because of other things that we may know about them, which scares a lot of people. And these are really difficult decisions and what I try to do in the book is agonize with the people who are making those decisions.

ZAHN: Are you surprised by some of the positions you've ended up taking?

BRILL: I'm surprised by the positions I've ended up taking. I'm surprised by some of the positions that lots of people that you and I know have ended up taking. But I think where we're going is getting to some realistic positions in not having the old debate of right and left. There's a new debate that has to be had in this country.

ZAHN: We can only squeeze in 20 more seconds here. There is a big piece in "The Washington Post" that talks about how the safety of Americans is compromised because of the fiscal crisis so many cities across America find themselves in. We know they were in trouble before September 11, but much magnified now.

BRILL: That's true, but I would also emphasize that this is more than about money. There's a character in my book who is a customs inspector in the port here in New York and he makes a lot of changes at the port that have nothing to do with money, but have to do with common sense. The local police all over the country are starting to do the same thing. But yes, this takes resources. It also takes a lot of common sense and a lot of re-examining the old issues.

ZAHN: Well you certainly raise a lot of interesting questions in this book. Congratulations.

BRILL: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Thanks for spending a little time with us this morning...

BRILL: Great to be here.

ZAHN: The name of the book, "After: How America Confronted the September 12th Era."








Aired April 1, 2003 - 08:55   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The dying regime of Iraq may try to bring terror to our shores. Other parts of the global terror network may view this as a moment to strike, thinking that we're distracted. They're wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: What still needs to be done to keep Americans safe at home, Steven Brill tackles that issue in his new book titled "After: How America Confronted the September 12th Era." Steven Brill joins us now. Congratulations.

STEVEN BRILL, AUTHOR, "AFTER": Thanks Paula.

ZAHN: Well it comes out yesterday, it's on two best-sellers list.

BRILL: Well, so far, so good.

ZAHN: Let's talk a little bit about what you've learned. You've spent over a year investigating this subject. You had unprecedented access not only to Secretary Ridge, but the attorney general and other players in this post-September 11 environment. How vulnerable do we continue to be?

BRILL: We're quite vulnerable in some places and yet we've made great strides. The access I had was not only at top, but it was with the people who were on the front lines. And this is really the behind the scenes story of everything they had been doing to make this country safer. I think we decided on the morning of September 12 that we're not going to be victims, we're not just going to sit there. We're going to try to do something.

We're not just going to say well we're lucky we didn't get attacked today. So, in the ports, certainly at the airports, even with our food supply, we have taken all kinds of steps, but we are vulnerable. We're vulnerable right out on the streets here. We're vulnerable in our mass transit systems because we can't solve this problem instantly, but we've made some pretty good strides in the last year, and that's really the story I try to tell about the men and women who have brought us to this point.

ZAHN: Can the country afford financially to make mass transit safe? BRILL: That is the question and the answer is, no, we can't afford it, but if there's a bomb in a mass transit system today, we can't afford the consequences of that even more. So the answer is, we have to figure out cost effective intelligent ways to make the system safer. And we're starting to do that with technology, with better management of the risk, and that sometimes means making some really difficult decisions, such as profiling people in certain ways and deciding that if there are two people walking into an office building that this person poses more of a risk than that person, not because of the color of their skin, not because of the race, but because of other things that we may know about them, which scares a lot of people. And these are really difficult decisions and what I try to do in the book is agonize with the people who are making those decisions.

ZAHN: Are you surprised by some of the positions you've ended up taking?

BRILL: I'm surprised by the positions I've ended up taking. I'm surprised by some of the positions that lots of people that you and I know have ended up taking. But I think where we're going is getting to some realistic positions in not having the old debate of right and left. There's a new debate that has to be had in this country.

ZAHN: We can only squeeze in 20 more seconds here. There is a big piece in "The Washington Post" that talks about how the safety of Americans is compromised because of the fiscal crisis so many cities across America find themselves in. We know they were in trouble before September 11, but much magnified now.

BRILL: That's true, but I would also emphasize that this is more than about money. There's a character in my book who is a customs inspector in the port here in New York and he makes a lot of changes at the port that have nothing to do with money, but have to do with common sense. The local police all over the country are starting to do the same thing. But yes, this takes resources. It also takes a lot of common sense and a lot of re-examining the old issues.

ZAHN: Well you certainly raise a lot of interesting questions in this book. Congratulations.

BRILL: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Thanks for spending a little time with us this morning...

BRILL: Great to be here.

ZAHN: The name of the book, "After: How America Confronted the September 12th Era."