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American Morning

Protecting the President

Aired November 17, 2003 - 09:39   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Now to London. They're taking extensive security steps for the president's state visit, officially starting tomorrow. You have the persistent threat of terrorism, large anti-war protest plan there. How, then, does the Secret Service protect the president during all this?
From D.C. this morning back with us, our security analyst Kelly McCann. Take a glance quickly what the head of London's Metropolitan Police says. Quoting now, "The security is unprecedented because one, the level of terrorism threat, and two, the nature of the nature of the president's visit."

How does this all then differ from other trips overseas that we have seen very tight security in the past?

KELLY MCCANN, SECURITY ANALYST: Kind of a nexus, Bill.

I mean, right now, if you think about it, just the headlines that you showed earlier, Chicken George, that whole kind of thing, emanating from the war in Iraq, and some of the disfavor that people have in the UK over it. Added to the great crowds that could conceal people that might be fundamentalists and might be working with al Qaeda during this visit, create a situation that would be a security challenge.

O'BRIEN: The president describes it as a security-enclosed bubble. You've seen this stuff before. What does that mean?

MCCANN: Well, basically the security on these efforts are always redundant. So you'll have advance agents have already basically gone and wired the city up with their special branch counterparts and their metropolitan police counterparts, looking for angles that snipers could use to get oversight on the motorcade. They'll have armored vehicles. They'll use arrival tents to shield from public view the actual getting out of the vehicles, arrivals and departures. So to the extent possible, they're going to look at making this a very security in-depth situation.

HEMMER: But also, you know, often we see these trips, there's so little exposure to the public anyway, and that's one way you go about keeping heads of state safe.

HEMMER: Unfortunately, as we see in the headlines, some of the reports coming out of the UK and some of the papers there, are already in general terms talking about his schedule, where he'll generally be on what day and what his activities will be. That's something that makes secret service agents wince. MCCANN: I've got to think it does. Listen, quickly on Iraq, you made a comment to one of our producers, and I just want to draw this out of you to make this transition. You talk about your very, very senior sources in Baghdad tell you the situation right there is grim. How so? Can you expand on that?

MCCANN: Sure. I mean, just in the last little while, Bill, you've seen that the reports are coming out now that there are like 30 attacks a day, 35 attacks a day. That's been going on for some time. And what's not really making the media is some of the long-range rockets, out to five kilometers, 5,000 meters, that have been used to reach into the green zone and places like that. The Fourth I.D. over the last, say, so months have really rolled into kind of a bunkered-in mentality. And that changed with Operation Iron Hammer. They're trying to get saturation patrolling out. They're trying to get a bigger footprint out in the community.

But for the last several months, with the influx of Arab fighters some of the other situations, it has not been a great military situation.

HEMMER: Kelly, thanks. Kelly McCann, come back any time.

MCCANN: Pleasure, Bill.

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 November 17, 2003 - 09:39   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Now to London. They're taking extensive security steps for the president's state visit, officially starting tomorrow. You have the persistent threat of terrorism, large anti-war protest plan there. How, then, does the Secret Service protect the president during all this?
From D.C. this morning back with us, our security analyst Kelly McCann. Take a glance quickly what the head of London's Metropolitan Police says. Quoting now, "The security is unprecedented because one, the level of terrorism threat, and two, the nature of the nature of the president's visit."

How does this all then differ from other trips overseas that we have seen very tight security in the past?

KELLY MCCANN, SECURITY ANALYST: Kind of a nexus, Bill.

I mean, right now, if you think about it, just the headlines that you showed earlier, Chicken George, that whole kind of thing, emanating from the war in Iraq, and some of the disfavor that people have in the UK over it. Added to the great crowds that could conceal people that might be fundamentalists and might be working with al Qaeda during this visit, create a situation that would be a security challenge.

O'BRIEN: The president describes it as a security-enclosed bubble. You've seen this stuff before. What does that mean?

MCCANN: Well, basically the security on these efforts are always redundant. So you'll have advance agents have already basically gone and wired the city up with their special branch counterparts and their metropolitan police counterparts, looking for angles that snipers could use to get oversight on the motorcade. They'll have armored vehicles. They'll use arrival tents to shield from public view the actual getting out of the vehicles, arrivals and departures. So to the extent possible, they're going to look at making this a very security in-depth situation.

HEMMER: But also, you know, often we see these trips, there's so little exposure to the public anyway, and that's one way you go about keeping heads of state safe.

HEMMER: Unfortunately, as we see in the headlines, some of the reports coming out of the UK and some of the papers there, are already in general terms talking about his schedule, where he'll generally be on what day and what his activities will be. That's something that makes secret service agents wince. MCCANN: I've got to think it does. Listen, quickly on Iraq, you made a comment to one of our producers, and I just want to draw this out of you to make this transition. You talk about your very, very senior sources in Baghdad tell you the situation right there is grim. How so? Can you expand on that?

MCCANN: Sure. I mean, just in the last little while, Bill, you've seen that the reports are coming out now that there are like 30 attacks a day, 35 attacks a day. That's been going on for some time. And what's not really making the media is some of the long-range rockets, out to five kilometers, 5,000 meters, that have been used to reach into the green zone and places like that. The Fourth I.D. over the last, say, so months have really rolled into kind of a bunkered-in mentality. And that changed with Operation Iron Hammer. They're trying to get saturation patrolling out. They're trying to get a bigger footprint out in the community.

But for the last several months, with the influx of Arab fighters some of the other situations, it has not been a great military situation.

HEMMER: Kelly, thanks. Kelly McCann, come back any time.

MCCANN: Pleasure, Bill.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com