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American Morning
Security Being Beefed Up at Airports, Seaports
Aired December 22, 2003 - 07:32 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Security is being beefed up at airports and seaports and along the nation's borders. Those steps follow the raising of the terror threat level yesterday from yellow to orange. Orange, the second highest level, indicates that intelligence officials see a high risk of terrorist attack.
For more now, we go to White House correspondent Dana Bash -- Dana, good morning.
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
And President Bush signed off on raising the threat level at about noon yesterday. That was after a rare Sunday meeting of his top national security advisers. And that meeting topped off several days of intense discussions about an increased level of intelligence saying that the world, from around the world, saying that it would be significantly higher, the threat was significantly higher than in days and weeks past, that there could be an attack in and around the holiday season.
This is something that Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge discussed earlier today on AMERICAN MORNING.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Multiple sources basically saying the same thing, talking about near term attacks, the scope of which would be similar to or even greater than September 11. And, of course, one of the most important tasks of the intelligence community is to determine whether or not we ought to believe them. Are they credible sources? Have we been able to corroborate what they're saying? And, again, it's both the volume and the credibility that causes us to raise it from yellow to orange.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Now, the methods and potential targets of these attacks are unknown. However, Secretary Ridge said that there continues to be a stream of reporting, as he put it, that al Qaeda wants to use, once again, airplanes as weapons, just like on September 11. Also, officials do believe that the terrorists are planning to focus on urban areas, just as we saw on September 11, high profile targets in New York City and Washington, D.C. -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Dana Bash for us at the White House.
Dana, thanks. 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 December 22, 2003 - 07:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Security is being beefed up at airports and seaports and along the nation's borders. Those steps follow the raising of the terror threat level yesterday from yellow to orange. Orange, the second highest level, indicates that intelligence officials see a high risk of terrorist attack.
For more now, we go to White House correspondent Dana Bash -- Dana, good morning.
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
And President Bush signed off on raising the threat level at about noon yesterday. That was after a rare Sunday meeting of his top national security advisers. And that meeting topped off several days of intense discussions about an increased level of intelligence saying that the world, from around the world, saying that it would be significantly higher, the threat was significantly higher than in days and weeks past, that there could be an attack in and around the holiday season.
This is something that Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge discussed earlier today on AMERICAN MORNING.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Multiple sources basically saying the same thing, talking about near term attacks, the scope of which would be similar to or even greater than September 11. And, of course, one of the most important tasks of the intelligence community is to determine whether or not we ought to believe them. Are they credible sources? Have we been able to corroborate what they're saying? And, again, it's both the volume and the credibility that causes us to raise it from yellow to orange.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Now, the methods and potential targets of these attacks are unknown. However, Secretary Ridge said that there continues to be a stream of reporting, as he put it, that al Qaeda wants to use, once again, airplanes as weapons, just like on September 11. Also, officials do believe that the terrorists are planning to focus on urban areas, just as we saw on September 11, high profile targets in New York City and Washington, D.C. -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Dana Bash for us at the White House.
Dana, thanks. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
