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American Morning
Airline Security
Aired January 06, 2004 - 07:04 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 checks caused another delay for British Airways Flight 223 -- that closely-watched flight from London to Washington.
Let's get the very latest on the continuing code orange threat alert from CNN's national security correspondent David Ensor.
David -- good morning.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
This is the sixth consecutive day that that beleaguered British Airways Flight 223 has either been canceled or has been delayed. Yesterday for three hours sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off while authorities went through the passenger list and so forth.
Clearly there is intelligence suggesting that there might have been a threat by al Qaeda against that particular flight, and that is -- that makes it now 20 different flights, international flights that have been either delayed or canceled in the last couple of weeks during this code orange period.
Now, officials are not saying when they -- giving no hint of plans to lower the orange alert to the yellow at this time, and U.S. officials are saying the intelligence upon which the decision to go to orange was based still suggests an ongoing threat of terrorism against the United States or against American targets in this period of time.
So, there is still a reasonably high level of concern -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Does it appear then, David, that an attack was stopped over the last couple of weeks? Or is there just a sense that the alert was raised, that everyone's senses were heightened, but nothing specific was actually tried to be pulled off?
ENSOR: Well, that is the big question, and nobody has an absolute answer to that. But they do say that in the past, by raising the level and by doing all of the things that law enforcement and intelligence people do when that happens, they do believe they have thwarted attacks. Whether they have done so this time or not, they are not saying.
They continue to be concerned about possibility of attacks still to come. So, they are not letting their guard down yet, and it could be a couple of weeks.
O'BRIEN: David Ensor for us this morning. David, thank you.
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 January 6, 2004 - 07:04 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 checks caused another delay for British Airways Flight 223 -- that closely-watched flight from London to Washington.
Let's get the very latest on the continuing code orange threat alert from CNN's national security correspondent David Ensor.
David -- good morning.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
This is the sixth consecutive day that that beleaguered British Airways Flight 223 has either been canceled or has been delayed. Yesterday for three hours sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off while authorities went through the passenger list and so forth.
Clearly there is intelligence suggesting that there might have been a threat by al Qaeda against that particular flight, and that is -- that makes it now 20 different flights, international flights that have been either delayed or canceled in the last couple of weeks during this code orange period.
Now, officials are not saying when they -- giving no hint of plans to lower the orange alert to the yellow at this time, and U.S. officials are saying the intelligence upon which the decision to go to orange was based still suggests an ongoing threat of terrorism against the United States or against American targets in this period of time.
So, there is still a reasonably high level of concern -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Does it appear then, David, that an attack was stopped over the last couple of weeks? Or is there just a sense that the alert was raised, that everyone's senses were heightened, but nothing specific was actually tried to be pulled off?
ENSOR: Well, that is the big question, and nobody has an absolute answer to that. But they do say that in the past, by raising the level and by doing all of the things that law enforcement and intelligence people do when that happens, they do believe they have thwarted attacks. Whether they have done so this time or not, they are not saying.
They continue to be concerned about possibility of attacks still to come. So, they are not letting their guard down yet, and it could be a couple of weeks.
O'BRIEN: David Ensor for us this morning. David, thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
