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American Morning
Airline Security
Aired December 29, 2003 - 07:33 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: Let's turn now to the U.S. government, which might be looking for help in keeping some international flights safe while the planes are over the U.S.
For details on that, we go to Barbara Starr. She's at the Pentagon for us this morning.
Barbara -- good morning.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad.
Well, the country enters week two of code orange during this holiday season. And, of course, here at the Pentagon, the U.S. military is continuing to fly those combat air patrols, keeping a close watch on the skies.
Now, aviation security indeed continues to be a major issue in this code orange alert. This morning, the Department of Homeland Security issuing three emergency regulations, telling international passenger and cargo carriers flying to, from and through U.S. airspace that they may be ordered to put armed sky marshals on board their flights flying through the United States.
Homeland Security officials say this possibility of ordering them to put sky marshals on board will happen when they have intelligence, when they monitor crews, passengers, cargo, or any of the flight manifests, and they have reason to believe there is a threat. If one of these international carriers fails to comply, then the U.S. may deny them landing rights.
Now, officials say they do have the intelligence capability to do this. In other words, if a passenger were to be a very late booker on an international flight, they say they can still monitor that name, check that name against watch lists, see if there's a problem, and then make a decision about ordering that non-U.S. carrier to put a sky marshal on board -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Barbara, let's talk a little bit about this anthrax preparedness drill that the government sort of did last month. The results were not encouraging, were they?
STARR: They weren't. What they found -- this went across several government agencies that would be involved in some sort of response, if there were some sort of bioterrorist attack. And what they found is they really couldn't respond fast enough to keep large mass casualties from theoretically happening in this exercise. So, that's something they say they want to work on -- a faster, more coordinated response. But they do say that they are much better prepared than they have been at any time since the 9/11 attacks.
O'BRIEN: Barbara Starr for us at the Pentagon this morning. Barbara, 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 29, 2003 - 07:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's turn now to the U.S. government, which might be looking for help in keeping some international flights safe while the planes are over the U.S.
For details on that, we go to Barbara Starr. She's at the Pentagon for us this morning.
Barbara -- good morning.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad.
Well, the country enters week two of code orange during this holiday season. And, of course, here at the Pentagon, the U.S. military is continuing to fly those combat air patrols, keeping a close watch on the skies.
Now, aviation security indeed continues to be a major issue in this code orange alert. This morning, the Department of Homeland Security issuing three emergency regulations, telling international passenger and cargo carriers flying to, from and through U.S. airspace that they may be ordered to put armed sky marshals on board their flights flying through the United States.
Homeland Security officials say this possibility of ordering them to put sky marshals on board will happen when they have intelligence, when they monitor crews, passengers, cargo, or any of the flight manifests, and they have reason to believe there is a threat. If one of these international carriers fails to comply, then the U.S. may deny them landing rights.
Now, officials say they do have the intelligence capability to do this. In other words, if a passenger were to be a very late booker on an international flight, they say they can still monitor that name, check that name against watch lists, see if there's a problem, and then make a decision about ordering that non-U.S. carrier to put a sky marshal on board -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Barbara, let's talk a little bit about this anthrax preparedness drill that the government sort of did last month. The results were not encouraging, were they?
STARR: They weren't. What they found -- this went across several government agencies that would be involved in some sort of response, if there were some sort of bioterrorist attack. And what they found is they really couldn't respond fast enough to keep large mass casualties from theoretically happening in this exercise. So, that's something they say they want to work on -- a faster, more coordinated response. But they do say that they are much better prepared than they have been at any time since the 9/11 attacks.
O'BRIEN: Barbara Starr for us at the Pentagon this morning. Barbara, 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.
