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American Morning
Discussion with Threat Assessment Specialist
Aired August 15, 2003 - 09:37 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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: With more on that, we want too bring back in Dexter Ingram. He is a threat assessment specialist at the Heritage Foundation visiting. He was visiting with us just a couple hours ago. We're getting his perspective about what went right and what needs to be learned from this situation over the last 15 hours or so.
Dexter, welcome back.
DEXTER INGRAM, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Thanks for having me.
KAGAN: Let start with what went right last night.
INGRAM: What went right? Well, first of all, the system -- the local government actually seemed to come together pretty tightly. The people in New York seemed to come together -- excuse me -- come together tightly. Lessons learned? Obviously, there was no terrorist attack here. When you have large amounts of people together in one area, that's obviously a huge target.
This is something that we can learn from. It happened not only in New York, but it happened internationally. And if DHS, Department of Homeland Security, can look at the nation's critical infrastructure, meaning the banking system, meaning the communication, meaning every aspect of transportation, and figure out a way that connectivity isn't as closely tied. Security, such as cyber security, is watched and forced protection, basically. If somebody has ill-will towards the U.S., wants to go in and affect the way of life that we have daily, make sure that power stations are better protected, whether it's higher fences, whether it's better security. Make sure that transportation systems have backups. Obviously, many plants were shutdown, because the security systems, they run on electricity. This is, obviously, in my mind, a pretty decent scenario, because it happened on a Thursday after the market was closed. Have a day to basically gear up. The weather wasn't that bad. So people on the street were pretty calm, but it could have been a lot worse.
KAGAN: Obviously, it could, and a lot of people, of course, calling this a dry run, but isn't it possible, too, or actually probable, that it's not just officials and the public who are going to learn, but unfortunately, terrorists can learn from as well, and a wake-up call of just how vulnerable such a huge chunk of the United States and Canada can be all at one time?
INGRAM: That's exactly true. What you want to do, is first of all, you want to see what happened, what went wrong? Once you know what went wrong, you can find a way to fix so it doesn't happen again. In the military, we had a saying: Rules are written in blood, meaning, if something bad happens, change the rules, so it doesn't happen again.
Now, in this case, the blood isn't as deadly as it was in 9/11, but you're going to see changes happen.
And, also, another lesson learned is, communication between first responders. You need to have some kind of autonomy when you're looking at the various police departments, when you're looking at the various medical facilities, when you're looking at local governments. And every government has its own need, and they're going to change the system and kind of look at this a little closely to make sure that any lesson that can be learned is applied when this happens again. And this is something that easily could happen again, maybe not on this level, but to any local government out there, so whether it's San Antonio, Texas, or Los Angeles, California, obviously they weren't affected in this incident, but they need to actually go to New York, they need to go to Toronto, and see how it affected the local police department there, how it affected other aspects of first responders, because critical infrastructure is very, very critical to the daily lives of Americans.
KAGAN: Making good points, not just for folks who are affected by this who have to learn, but other communities as well.
Dexter Ingram, thank you for that.
INGRAM: Thanks for having me.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 15, 2003 - 09:37 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: With more on that, we want too bring back in Dexter Ingram. He is a threat assessment specialist at the Heritage Foundation visiting. He was visiting with us just a couple hours ago. We're getting his perspective about what went right and what needs to be learned from this situation over the last 15 hours or so.
Dexter, welcome back.
DEXTER INGRAM, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Thanks for having me.
KAGAN: Let start with what went right last night.
INGRAM: What went right? Well, first of all, the system -- the local government actually seemed to come together pretty tightly. The people in New York seemed to come together -- excuse me -- come together tightly. Lessons learned? Obviously, there was no terrorist attack here. When you have large amounts of people together in one area, that's obviously a huge target.
This is something that we can learn from. It happened not only in New York, but it happened internationally. And if DHS, Department of Homeland Security, can look at the nation's critical infrastructure, meaning the banking system, meaning the communication, meaning every aspect of transportation, and figure out a way that connectivity isn't as closely tied. Security, such as cyber security, is watched and forced protection, basically. If somebody has ill-will towards the U.S., wants to go in and affect the way of life that we have daily, make sure that power stations are better protected, whether it's higher fences, whether it's better security. Make sure that transportation systems have backups. Obviously, many plants were shutdown, because the security systems, they run on electricity. This is, obviously, in my mind, a pretty decent scenario, because it happened on a Thursday after the market was closed. Have a day to basically gear up. The weather wasn't that bad. So people on the street were pretty calm, but it could have been a lot worse.
KAGAN: Obviously, it could, and a lot of people, of course, calling this a dry run, but isn't it possible, too, or actually probable, that it's not just officials and the public who are going to learn, but unfortunately, terrorists can learn from as well, and a wake-up call of just how vulnerable such a huge chunk of the United States and Canada can be all at one time?
INGRAM: That's exactly true. What you want to do, is first of all, you want to see what happened, what went wrong? Once you know what went wrong, you can find a way to fix so it doesn't happen again. In the military, we had a saying: Rules are written in blood, meaning, if something bad happens, change the rules, so it doesn't happen again.
Now, in this case, the blood isn't as deadly as it was in 9/11, but you're going to see changes happen.
And, also, another lesson learned is, communication between first responders. You need to have some kind of autonomy when you're looking at the various police departments, when you're looking at the various medical facilities, when you're looking at local governments. And every government has its own need, and they're going to change the system and kind of look at this a little closely to make sure that any lesson that can be learned is applied when this happens again. And this is something that easily could happen again, maybe not on this level, but to any local government out there, so whether it's San Antonio, Texas, or Los Angeles, California, obviously they weren't affected in this incident, but they need to actually go to New York, they need to go to Toronto, and see how it affected the local police department there, how it affected other aspects of first responders, because critical infrastructure is very, very critical to the daily lives of Americans.
KAGAN: Making good points, not just for folks who are affected by this who have to learn, but other communities as well.
Dexter Ingram, thank you for that.
INGRAM: Thanks for having me.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
