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CNN Live Event/Special
America Under Attack: Assessing the Impact of Tuesday's Attacks
Aired September 13, 2001 - 23:00 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.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: We want to update you on where we have been and where we're headed now. Here are some of the latest developments this evening. Sources say at least eight people are arrested at New York's Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. Four of them were challenged at the gates or at the counters at one of the airports on the day of the hijackings. The suspects are in custody for among other things carrying, rather, false documents, including one man who was posing as a pilot. Officials trying to see or how they might be connected to the tragedies of Tuesday.
The president says the Pentagon -- rather, the Pentagon says the president is considering activating Reserve troops to relieve National Guard troops that have been patrolling U.S. airspace since Tuesday's terrorist attack.
And in Manhattan, a city armory near Gramercy Park is converted into a center for those who have been waiting for word on their loved- ones. It is one of those places that will break your heart. Mayor Giuliani urges residents to have patience with hundreds of New Yorkers pitching in as volunteers to help find the missing.
And in a rare show of unity in Congress, the Congress has moved toward passing a $40 billion bill for recovery efforts and to combat terrorism in the country. And that is just a downpayment, just a beginning.
Search-and-rescue crews continue their search for survivors. Grieving relatives are pleading for information about their loved- ones.
And CNN's Maria Hinojosa has their story now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just seven weeks ago Ann McGovern posed with her new grandson minutes after he was born.
TERRY (ph): I've never seen her look so happy as when he was born, she was there. She was so excited.
HINOJOSA: But now her daughter, Terry, wants that smiling picture on television. Her mother worked on one of the top floors of the World Trade Center. Her daughter wonders if anyone has seen her alive.
TERRY: We were interviewed by police detectives and they -- we had filled out a questionnaire. And it was really like "What jewelry would she have been wearing? Do you know what she had on? Did she have any identifying body marks?"
HINOJOSA: Her sister Liz worked in the World Financial Center across the street, but managed to escape. She was supposed to meet her mother that day for lunch.
LIZ: I was just about to call her and I just -- I just -- I can't believe it. I don't think it's sent in yet. I just -- I just feel so like powerless and I wish I could have done something.
HINOJOSA: That same awful feeling consumed an emergency center on Lexington Avenue, where authorities are compiling a list of the missing. It's become a place of public grieving and a place to hope for miracles.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was on the 104th floor (UNINTELLIGIBLE). We've gone to hospitals. We have called every hotline. They don't know where he -- we can't find him. He's not on any list.
HINOJOSA (on camera): Hope is the word, the emotion that keeps these people going. But that hope hits hard against the reality that thousands of body bags have already arrived into New York City.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The triage centers remain relatively quite. The one at...
HINOJOSA (voice-over): At a center for Mexican immigrants, 15 friends are confirmed dead so far. Radios are kept on in hopes there'll be word of hundreds of others, immigrants from Mexico who labored in the Twin Towers hoping to make a better life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In my heart -- in my heart, I feel that I am crying.
HINOJOSA: But there is not much concrete news for these people today, just fears for the worst.
TERRY: My mother was so excited that my son was born. She was there at the birth seven weeks ago and he's not going to know her.
HINOJOSA: And so, there's resignation.
Maria Hinojosa, CNN New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: When we began this program an hour or so ago, we began with a report from correspondent Gary Tuchman down on -- down at ground zero and he had some extraordinary pictures of the -- of ground zero. Really some of the most dramatic pictures of the area we've seen. Gary is now back with us and has the engineer who shot those pictures, which will allow us to find out more about what the engineer saw and allow you to see those pictures again -- Gary.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right. The engineer's name is Rob Matthews. He's actually an urban planner. That's his day job. But for the first couple of days of this rescue and recovery operation, he went out to help volunteer. And he had a camera with him, and today he took his camera, and he took pictures that offer a perspective that you haven't seen before tonight.
Rob, what we're going to do is we're going to start rolling the pictures right now. We're going to give you a look at the pictures, and you can tell us about what you shot. But you were actually in a building next to the World Trade Center, which is called the World Financial Center complex. And tell us what we're looking at right now.
ROB MATTHEWS, ENGINEER: Inside now we're looking at the 22nd floor on the east facade of No. 2 World Financial Center.
TUCHMAN: Now, this is right across the street from the World Trade Center. This was a building that the plane did not crash into, but this is the damage you see.
MATTHEWS: Exactly. This was the shock wave that burst through the windows, blew the debris inside. And this is a view down on -- directly into the hole, directly into ground zero from the 22nd floor of the World Financial Center.
TUCHMAN: Now, we've got some pictures from the ground. But the news media is not given the access that a guy like you, who volunteered, has gotten. And that's like the first time we've seen that shot from the top and it really shows you just how huge that hole is. But I'm very surprised about the damage inside this building across the street from The World Trade Center.
MATTHEWS: The whole eastern facade of this building was blown off, the glass at least, from the shockwave. And there's a piece of World Financial Center No. 1, the American Express Building, as Tower No. 1 toppled over, it took out a little piece of the southeast corner.
TUCHMAN: And that's one of the things I want to say, the American Express Building is one of the buildings they're fearful could possibly come down.
Thank you very much for joining us, Rob. We appreciate it.
MATTHEWS: You're welcome.
TUCHMAN: The search continues tonight, but they expect rain to come down, and that could be a major problem as they continue to look for victims.
Back to you, Aaron. BROWN: Gary, thank you. No matter how many times we see those pictures, they remain extraordinary.
We want to try something, and we'll see if this works. So many events, virtually all events, public gatherings, large-group gatherings have been canceled since Tuesday. Football games that won't go on.
In Los Angeles at the Hollywood Bowl tonight, a Wynton Marsalis concert is going on, and if our timing is right, we will listen in at just the right moment.
Bear with us for a moment. We're going to get there. Again, this is a Wynton Marsalis concert at the Hollywood Bowl outside in Los Angeles.
We don't know how many people -- something we used to know. We don't know how many people are at the Hollywood Bowl tonight. We imagine that it was quite an emotional gathering when people arrived there. People have been glued to their TVs, haven't gotten out much.
(PLAYING OF THE NATIONAL ANTHEM)
AUDIENCE: ... and the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave? For the land of the free and the home of the brave.
(APPLAUSE)
BROWN: Hollywood Bowl live and a Wynton Marsalis moment, and a moment for the people who are there. A portion of the proceeds of the concert tonight will go to the American Red Cross.
That was nice, wasn't it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to tell you how appropriate it was for us to play that anthem.
BROWN: Wouldn't argue with that one bit.
Back to the other side of all of this. There have been so many lives lost. There are an estimated, oh, I think 4,700-some still missing here in New York. So many stories.
CNN's Peter Viles has the story of one New York company's devastating loss.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is the saddest vigil you can imagine. Scott Hazelcorn's parents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not even revenge. I mean, I don't -- I just want to hear my son's voice.
VILES: Members of June Koo Kang's (ph) church.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We all pray every night.
VILES: John Pricante's (ph) wife, expecting their child in December.
PRICANTE: He calls me at 10 to 9:00 and said: Our building has just been hit by a plane, turn on the news. And I changed the channel and I saw what happened. And I said, "Oh, God, John, please get out of there safely." And he said, "I love you. I have to go."
VILES: What links these stories is that all the missing worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, all above the 100th floor of the North Tower of the first one hit. Cantor is not a glamorous firm, but it is crucial, one of the world's largest bond trading firms. A thousand people worked up there, fewer than 300 are accounted for. But it is not clear any of those now safe were on the top floors Tuesday morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think anybody got out at this point, but we pray for miracles.
VILES: Scott Hazelcorn's parents suspect that their son did not run for his life.
MR. HAZELCORN: He didn't care about himself. He only cared about his friends.
MRS. HAZELCORN: If Scott was there and he was getting out, he'd probably help everybody out. That's the kind of kid he was.
VILES: They gather at a city designated center for relatives of the missing on 26th Street, where trees have become pleas for help. And further uptown at the Pier Hotel, a gathering site for Cantor Fitzgerald families.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think the company has the information that we need. I think they're sharing everything they know, but we have not heard of one survivor. We have not been able to validate any stories that we've heard.
VILES: There are official clearinghouses for information on the missing, and Cantor Fitzgerald is using them. But these friends and family members are convinced that any extra effort they can make on behalf of their loved-ones is worth making.
Peter Viles, CNN Financial News, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: At the risk of giving you emotional whiplash here, there are also gestures going on in all parts of the country that will melt your heart: in this case, a show of sympathy from some who clearly are too young to even know what the word means.
CNN's Kathy Slobogin with that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last night they said they would move the buildings because they scared that they're going to break some body bones.
KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ms. Connelly's 5th grade class is trying to make a sense of a national tragedy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A police officers had to get his leg amputated to get from under the work -- rubble.
SLOBOGIN: Like many schools across the country, Brown Street Academy in Milwaukee is letting its children ask questions and addressing their fears.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 800 people did not die at the Pentagon. Not even close.
SLOBOGIN: But while the teachers encourage their children to talk, these 5th-graders had something else in mind, something bigger.
LINDA ROBINSON, PRINCIPAL, BROWN ST. ACADEMY: I had two 5th- graders to come to my office and they knocked on my door, and said, "Mrs. Robinson, we would like to come in and talk with you." Well, at the time, I was holding a meeting, so I said, sure, come in. And they looked over at me and they said: "Mrs. Robinson, you know, we're hearing about this, but we're sitting here, we're doing nothing. What are we going to do? There is something we can do."
SLOBOGIN: Principal Linda Robinson was surprised by what she heard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Looks good, I like that. Let's work together.
SLOBOGIN: 90 percent of the children here come from low-income families, but these children felt there were people who needed money more than they did, people who needed their help.
CLASS (singing): ... this old man came rolling home.
ROBINSON: They said to me: "Mrs. Robinson, every person at least has pennies. We can at least give pennies. And we want to make it a drive where we can at least donate something to them."
SLOBOGIN: Led by the 5th-graders, the children of Brown Street Academy are holding a penny and clothing drive to help the victims of the plane crashes. They also came up with the idea of asking the Salvation Army to help them distribute what they collect.
Linda Robinson says the drive has galvanized the school.
ROBINSON: Students were coming off the bus: "Mrs. Robinson, I have my pennies. Do you have yours?" They were so energetic. I saw students getting off and they had their hands up, and they were saying, "We make a difference." SLOBOGIN: The children's idea has turned grief into pride.
ROBINSON: It's changed conversations on the playground. Even in the hallways, conversations have changed. Students are now talking about what's happening in the news. They are reacting positively to this tragedy.
SLOBOGIN: Brown Street Academy, one small ray of light in a dark time.
Kathy Slobogin, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Sweet. We saw firsthand late last night how people are reacting to the people here in New York who are trying to find the victims of the tragedy. Some firefighters walked into a restaurant we were in. And people -- well, let me put it this way: I guarantee you that they bought no drinks for themselves. People were very generous. They cheered them.
It's the kind of thing that's happening all over this city as people see better than ever, than they ever have before, I guess, those people who risk their lives to keep the city safe.
Here's CNN's Richard Blystone.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD BLYSTONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are the guys who run up the fire escape, when everybody else is running down. The men who will get you out of an inferno 50 stories in the air, or die trying. Thirty men from this midtown Manhattan firehouse may have died trying. They were among the first to reach the Trade Towers Tuesday, and they haven't come back.
CHRIS BALDUCCI, BATTALION 54: So as you can see, the neighborhoods have an outpouring of love for us.
BLYSTONE: Night and day they come, to leave a flower, light a candle.
UNIDENTIFIED RESIDENT: I felt I did something. Yes, I felt like I did something.
BLYSTONE: Hard-boiled New Yorkers.
UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: When I was sitting out on somebody's car over there in disbelief. I had my head in my hands, and I felt somebody just kind of give a little squeeze on my arm. I look up, and it was just somebody walking past.
BLYSTONE: Total strangers, like this woman from Argentina, who says she had to come and touch the firemen.
"They're heroes," she says. "They gave their lives, poor things, to save other people."
These students from Montreal were here on a night on the town, early Tuesday.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We happened to walk by, they're smiling. We said, Hey, how's it going? Nice to meet you. We got on the truck, we had -- we took pictures, everybody was happy. And now we hear that -- that some of the people who we met might be missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were the first ones to go. It's just devastating. It's like, I can't believe we here, like six hours before this with those people.
BLYSTONE: You don't think much about firemen until you need them. But people are making up for that today: Not waiting for a memorial to be built, they've created one outside the fire house. More vibrant, more moving than anything a sculptor could carve out of stone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Their courage and fearlessness just sets an example for the world. Very powerful. And I'm honored. I'm honored to know they're just down the street from me.
BLYSTONE: If your friends are missing, it's a hard wait. A small distraction in the words of support. The presence of food and flowers. And this present from Parsippany, New Jersey, to replace one of the station's five lost trucks.
UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER FROM PARSIPPANY, NJ: Whatever you need it for, you got it. We just bought a new one. This is up for sale. You guys want it? You're more than welcome to it.
UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: We're still in business. Guys are going out, do what we have to do. Protect the people, the city.
BLYSTONE: And so, those lucky enough to have done more than wait go home for a rest, because it's not over.
(on camera): And it would be nice to think that in times to come, when the memories come flooding back, they will remember these as well.
Richard Blystone, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Well, Frank Donaghue of the Red Cross is with us. I don't think he's surprised by the generosity that he's seen, and you're, in your own way, in the generosity business, I think.
This -- quickly, show...
FRANK DONAGHUE, AMERICAN RED CROSS: I'm showing, Aaron, a sandwich.
BROWN: Tell the story here. DONAGHUE: First graders from Long Island made hundreds of these for the people at the Armory today for the workers. They had little notes on them and a Hershey Kiss. I have to admit I ate the Hershey Kiss on the way over. But it's a sign, I think, of what so many people and the generosity of people, restaurants everywhere, every shelter, every facility that we have going.
BROWN: And they made thousands of them, and being 1st-graders, what kind of sandwich is it?
DONAGHUE: Peanut butter and jelly.
BROWN: Yeah, PBB -- PB&J.
Let's talk about what people are going through. You didn't have to be in the ground zero area to be horribly effected by what happened there. You didn't need to lose a loved-one. You just had to see the pictures.
DONAGHUE: Absolutely, the pictures are staggering. When I came over Tuesday over the Holland Tunnel, came in the Holland Tunnel and saw New York, I'm reminded that two years ago I was in Izmit, Turkey, and 20,000 people lost their life in that earthquake. The black cloud that hung over Turkey was the same cloud that was hanging over New York, and it's still there, the smoke. And everywhere I turned, the emotion of people, the signs on trees and on telephone polls of loved- ones missing, it's everywhere, this whole city.
BROWN: One of the things that occurred to me this afternoon, I was talking to someone who had survived it, and I'd been in Oklahoma City a year after the bombing there. And people who survived these things -- in this case people who got out of the World Trade Center before the collapse -- go through a kind of post traumatic stress where they, in fact, feel guilty for having lived.
DONAGHUE: Right. We have about 500 volunteer mental health workers, many of them at the Armory in a variety of locations in the city that are helping people deal just with that. The guilt that: I got out and my best friend didn't. And also, of course, the pain of family members that are looking to find people and they're hearing nothing.
There's not much to tell people at this point.
BROWN: Yeah. And just to stay with the survivors for a second, these things manifest itself in horrible ways: in divorce, in depression. In Oklahoma City at least there were a number of suicides and suicide attempts. So it's hugely important for these people to get the kind of counseling and more, because you do -- you guys do triage counseling really, right?
DONAGHUE: Correct, correct.
BROWN: Yeah, and you get them early before something...
DONAGHUE: And then we try to push them into going to something more long-term, dealing with their clergymen or whoever so that people don't continue to deal with this.
I was talking to some mental health people today. We have a city that's stunned. Many of the people that you saw around the Armory, around the whole city block in lines are stunned. But after that stage comes a stage of anger.
BROWN: Yeah...
DONAGHUE: And that would be another stage. I'm glad Mayor Pataki (sic) has asked all of us to be patient, because I think that's something we all need to be -- keep in mind.
BROWN: I -- on that subject of anger, I'll tell you that I thought today that at least the places I was, the city started to shift from shock to anger. I heard more people say angry things: We ought to get these guys, we ought to do this. I mean, I think people have had it. They've had it with the threats, they've had it with the disaster. They have had it.
DONAGHUE: And I think it's such an important opportunity for all of us to send a different message to young people and to kids like this, that it's an opportunity for us as a country to come together. One of the things I've been saying a number of people is, why in a city like New York or on the East Coast do we ever have a blood shortage. The gift of life? Why is that -- that should be rare in this country. This is the most populated part of the nation and it's one with the greatest blood shortage in the nation.
This should be a testimony to these people who lost their life, and we'll never let a blood shortage ever happen in this country again.
We will always try at least to give and go the extra mile. And I think hopefully, out of this tragedy, some good can come. And I hope that that's the kind of thing we can learn.
BROWN: Just a couple of other areas here, quickly: that whole question of how we talk about this to our kids is, I suspect, troubling to every one of us who has a child, in my case a 12-year-old who yet again sees a shattering moment in her life and tries to make sense of it. How do you do that?
DONAGHUE: The Red Cross, we have a lot of disaster preparation programs. We're actually in schools every day teaching little kids how to deal with disasters. And you'd be surprised, little children are a lot easier, a lot more able to deal with it because of the training and the things that we're already teaching them how to deal with.
We have a number of programs now for children. We have coloring books and materials available. People should contact their local Red Cross, because you don't have to be in New York to talk to your child about what they saw or are seeing every day on the television. It's an opportunity to sit down with their children, tell them some of these things, and there's tools available to you to do that. BROWN: I mean, it's a terribly difficult and complicated thing. I don't want to wax on here, but you know, these kids have seen the horror of Columbine on television and they've seen now this on television and they see these things repeated over and over again, and they begin to think that they live in a truly evil world.
DONAGHUE: It's certainly expanding. The evil that we've seen in many faraway places has expanded.
I was so touched yesterday. My cell phone rang. Two kids that I know, and do a lot of work in Bosnia with the Red Cross, two kids from Bosnia called me to see if I was all right. I thought it's an amazing -- amazing thing that two college students were calling here to see if friends in America were OK.
BROWN: How long do you think that you'll have this sort of major operation in play?
DONAGHUE: For months. Months, months.
BROWN: Months.
DONAGHUE: This operation is just, just beginning. And all the folks that even live in the whole Wall Street area, Battery Park area, finding housing for those folks, all these things, we'll be at this for a long time.
BROWN: And when we, on Tuesday we were talking about a critical shortage of blood. You mentioned there's almost an ongoing shortage of blood in an area like this. Some of that has to do with people's fears about giving blood, which they needn't fear, by the way.
DONAGHUE: Absolutely.
BROWN: Do you still need it?
DONAGHUE: Blood is always needed. As fewer survivors are pulled from the building, you know, the blood need that was thought immediately isn't as great. But Red Cross has blood on standby ready to go. We continue to want people to always give the gift of life, and they should dial that 1-800-GIVE-LIFE and be ready when we do need it, that you're ready to do it.
BROWN: But tell me if I heard this right, OK? What I think you just said is that maybe in terms of dealing with this moment this, this crisis, the blood issue, the blood shortage issue isn't what we thought it might be on Tuesday. Not suggesting people don't go out...
DONAGHUE: Correct. I think that people are saying, you know, as the blood lines are endless, all over the country the phones are ringing off the hook. People want to give blood. Because there's so many people have not been pulled from the wreckage that need blood, the demand hasn't been great -- as great as initially thought.
As we see on the television, all the doctors being released from hospitals that weren't needed. That's the unfortunate news. BROWN: Yeah. And you think you'll be going for months. Does the -- do the demands change day-to-day or week-to-week? Do you start to deal with different sets of problems?
DONAGHUE: Absolutely. We'll be looking at long-term recovery for people that have been displaced from the whole Wall Street neighborhood, for sheltering operations. Emotional support for families. And you know, all the complication that's are involved in missing people. Missing people is something the Red Cross deals with in war-torn countries and now in America, and it's quite a long process.
BROWN: We, we're not embarrassed at all or uncomfortable saying we appreciate your efforts, your good work. We know how tired you must be, how hard all of the volunteers must be for the work they've done. We appreciate it.
DONAGHUE: I'm very proud of what they're doing. They're great people.
BROWN: Well, you should be. Thanks for coming in tonight.
DONAGHUE: Thank you.
BROWN: Probably the last thing you needed to do was come in and talk to us.
DONAGHUE: I'm happy to be here. Thanks.
BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Donaghue. Frank Donaghue of the American Red Cross, thank you.
We, as a country, we are in the midst of finding what psychologists call a "new normal," and one of the ways to do that, one of the signs of that at least was that airports did open. It's kind of sporadic.
But CNN correspondent James Hattori did get on a flight tonight, today, and here is his report of that first time in the sky.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMES HATTORI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The fifth-busiest airport in the U.S. didn't look so busy Thursday morning as the nation's airlines struggled to regain their wings. One reason: No more curbside check-in. Bags must go to the counter. So now the crowds are inside. That's where I was trying to get on a flight to Salt Lake City, Utah.
(on camera): And it's about two hours before our plane takes off, and the line of passengers here is about as long as a football field. We're not even sure the plane is going to be taking off. I did see a crew starting to go through the gate. That's encouraging.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not going to believe we're going until I'm on the flight and we take off the runway. HATTORI (voice-over): The FAA now requires airlines to scrutinize passengers more carefully. Some changes are apparent. One new question: "Do you have any sharp objects, like knives, or scissors?"
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They took my scissors away.
HATTORI: At the check-in ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I guess my -- I guess my scissors were too pointy at the top.
HATTORI: In addition to ID checks, some bags, apparently picked at random, are hand-searched, and only ticketed passengers allowed into the gate area.
Less obvious changes, all aircraft must now be thoroughly checked for explosives before they're put into service for the day. The airlines are no longer permitted to carry cargo or mail within the continental U.S. except for the U.S. military.
But with the tragedy in New York City still unfolding, no one seems to mind the delays and a little hassle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I keep remembering, so many people have it so much worse. I mean, this is nothing, you know. If I don't get out today, I don't get out today. At least I'm here and not there.
HATTORI: Some say Americans haven't paid enough attention to airline security.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want things very convenient. We're a convenience-oriented people, and you can't have secure convenience.
HATTORI: Finally, after three hours to check in, we're off, Delta Flight 2027, a short 80-minute hop, which surprisingly is nearly empty, just 25 passengers. I wonder how many were left at the airport still in line.
All in all, our short trip was uneventful, a little longer, a few more questions than normal. But for a while, at least, nothing about U.S. air travel will be normal.
James Hattori, CNN, Salt Lake City, Utah.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: I've just one quick point to make on that. Things move -- when they move today a little more quickly than they're going to move. When you get thousands of people and air traffic gets back to its normal levels, that's when things are really going to get a little sticky. And so, a lot sticky.
One airline official told us the other day that two hours is not an unreasonable time to give yourself to get to the airport, and don't even think you can make the flight by running through the airport 15- 20 minutes beforehand.
About half-past the hour, 11:32 now. A quick look at where we've been and where we are headed here on this special report tonight.
CNN has learned at least eight people were arrested in New York's LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports amid concerns over a threat of yet another hijacking. Four of them had been challenged at one of the airports on Tuesday morning, came back to JFK tonight and were taken into custody. They're being held for carrying fake documents.
At the Pentagon, new flames late tonight coming from the wreckage of the plane crash there on Tuesday, as crews continued to search for 126 people still believed missing in the rubble at the Pentagon. That fire still burns. It had been quiet there.
In New York, hundreds of families and friends of those missing from the World Trade Center are lined up at the City Armory in a scene that will break your heart. They're waiting to register their loved ones on a "missings" list, clinging to pictures, desperately hoping someone will have some information, some word on the whereabouts of their missing friend or husband, or boyfriend, girlfriend, what have you. The Armory is staying open 24 hours a day.
A quick update of where we've been. Search efforts have uncovered the flight data recorder now for the hijacked airliner that crashed in Western Pennsylvania, about 80 miles outside of Pittsburgh on Tuesday.
CNN's David Mattingly is standing by, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, with more on that. David, what can you tell us?
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, this slow and meticulous crash investigation took a big step forward today with the discovery of the flight data recorder. According to the FBI, the device was discovered inside the impact crater. That's the large blackened pit that was created when Flight 93 crashed here Tuesday morning. The device, now destined for Washington D.C. for further examination.
The flight data recorder is important because it will allow investigators to retrace the functions of the aircraft prior to the crash. Word of its discovery came after it was learned today that small charred pieces of wreckage are now turning up in towns here as far as 8 miles away from the crash site. More indications of just how powerful the force behind this crash and explosion truly was.
The recovery of the flight data recorder raises hopes here at the crash site of a quick recovery of the next important piece of evidence, the cockpit voice recorder. That device could tell us what was happening with the people on the aircraft, what was happening after those heart-wrenching phone calls, phone calls from passengers aware of what the terrorists were planning to do, saying that they were planning to fight back, to challenge the four hijackers who had taken their airplane. A heroic scenario that could explain why the plane crashed here instead of continuing on to Washington D.C., and to targets like the White House, the Capitol building, or maybe even Air Force One.
For now, the search continues and will begin anew in the morning, as well as the painful process of recovering and identifying the remains of the 45 people who were onboard -- Aaron.
BROWN: Any idea -- well, I have a couple of things actually. Any idea when -- when we will hear what is on that data recorder? I know that they have it. I suspect it's not going to be tomorrow. Do you have any feel for that?
MATTINGLY: The FBI is running this investigation here as a crime scene and they are strictly by-the-book. They are not speculating about anything. So no, no word on how long it might before we get any kind of information back. The NTSB will be here tomorrow and they might be able to answer those questions for us.
BROWN: And you know, one of the great mysteries here is where that plane was in fact headed. Anything new on that? Have you picked up anything there on what the target might have been? I know it...
MATTINGLY: Absolutely not.
BROWN: OK.
MATTINGLY: The focus has been entirely on what's going on here, and there's been a great deal of determination and resolve to stay concentrated on the task at hand. And it is a daunting task because it is a very large area, and there are very, very small pieces of wreckages that they have to try and locate.
BROWN: David, thank you. I apologize there for blind-siding you. I didn't mean to do that. Thank you.
MATTINGLY: No, not at all.
BROWN: It's just one of those days where I have to actually talk to everybody tonight, and sometimes those things happen.
We want to turn a corner here and take a look at how the United States might respond to what has happened and perhaps how the United States should respond.
Peter Bergen is a CNN terrorism analyst, and he joins us. Also, William Luers is with us as well to join in this conversation.
Good evening to you. You have been patiently waiting in this hot room tonight, and Peter, I know you're there, and Mr. Luers, wait another minute for me and let me start with Peter.
Peter, if you had to bet here, what do you think the response, how massive the response are we going to see?
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, let me say that I have met with bin Laden in 1997 in Afghanistan, and if a military operation is being contemplated to take him out or snatch him in some way, that would be an operation that would encounter considerable resistance, for the following reasons.
Bin Laden, when I met with him, is surrounded by a group of at least a couple of dozen heavily armed men who are armed with RPGs and Russian submachine guns. They're highly motivated. They're prepared to die. And that was just in the course of just doing an interview. Obviously, bin Laden would be -- must be very concerned about his security right now, and he has hundreds of followers who might be surrounding him.
Also, any American military operation in Afghanistan would be conducted in some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world. It's a rocky, mountainous desert region. It's an area with which bin Laden is very familiar and with which Americans aren't very familiar.
The last time America had a presence in Afghanistan was in 1989. Since then, the embassy there has been closed. So the information the United States has about the country is second-hand and old -- Aaron.
BROWN: And so that kind of surgical mission, go in there and get him, if that's what we're talking about, would be very difficult to do it. And in fact, the United States hasn't had a whole lot of success with that sort of operation.
BERGEN: Well, let's think about Somalia where 18 American servicemen died in a very intense two-day firefight. We were trying to snatch or kill Mohammed Aidid, the clan leader there, if you remember, in 1993. That was an unmitigated disaster.
This would be much tougher, I think, because (a) there's no element of surprise. Bin Laden knows that we're coming after him. And (b) it's a country in which, in Somalia, there were 28,000 American soldiers who had been there for several months, and this is not going to be the situation in Afghanistan. We're going to go in. We're going to not know much about the -- if we do go in, we're not going to know much about the terrain. And we're going to be faced with people whose main mission in life is to die. I mean, these people want to die. They think they are instantly going to Paradise, and they're very prepared to die for their leader.
BROWN: I'll turn to Mr. Luers here. What's your fear? What's your worst fear in all this?
WILLIAM LUERS, CHAIRMAN, U.N. ASSOCIATION: My fear is that we will come off to the world as trigger-happy rather than intelligent, resolved, and determined to get this done.
BROWN: Well -- go ahead.
LUERS: Let me say.
BROWN: Absolutely, go ahead.
LUERS: When the first -- when the Second World War began, after Pearl Harbor, we first had to figure out how we were going to defend our country at home, get our security in place. Then we had to build a capacity to do that, to take on the Japanese and the Germans. And we didn't have the capacity for either one. And it took time. That war took four years.
And I would argue that this is so serious and this is so long term that we need to develop the capacity, which is really anti- American, to deal with this type of challenge to our society. The airplane thing is only one small element of dealing with the threat of terrorism in our society.
And then secondly, we have to begin to develop the type of intelligence capacity that will enable us to deal with the broadest. It's not just Osama bin Laden. It's a huge problem.
BROWN: But look, tell me if you think this is fair, that there are really two issues on the table tonight. There is the issue of who committed this atrocity. That's issue No. 1 and what are we going to do about that. And that plays to, it is connected to issue No. 2, which is the broader question of how do -- how does our nation, how do all nations, all civilized, responsible nations, however you want to put it, how do they deal with this broader problem of terrorism?
But why do we have to -- why do you think it's necessary to link them? Why not deal with one at a time? Let's...
LUERS: Because this network is not just Osama bin Laden. It's a network that has penetrated our society, the Middle East, Europe, and they're everywhere. And I don't believe for a minute that the thousands of people out there will be affected if we kill -- if we're able to kill -- and as you just heard, it's going to be very difficult to do that -- Osama bin Laden.
I mean, this isn't about revenge; this is about winning. And I think it's going to take a long time. It's not simply 'Who did that?" Many of the people who did it are now dead. They died in those aircraft.
Who planned it? It's probably much more difficult to find that out.
And I'm merely suggesting that as angry as this city is and this country is, and as ready as we are to be awakened to the fact that there's a world out there that we've got to understand better and deal with better, and that there's a world in here that we have to protect better, that we've got to take our time of doing that.
This isn't about a trigger-happy America. This is about a determined, powerful, intelligent America.
BROWN: And an angry America.
LUERS: We have to think about -- we have to think better than this guy does and these people do, and we have to shoot better. And I think it's going to take us a while.
And I, for one, am not anxious to drop bombs and shoot at people. I think we should root out this problems wherever they are in our society, build up our forces, and develop our intelligence capacity so that over the next -- I think it'll take a couple of years to get this thing resolved, and we've got to be ready for that. This is a long struggle.
BROWN: Just, Peter, quickly, before you get away. I wonder, just in 20 seconds or so, if you agree with that, that what we're looking at, if the country, if the world is looking at eliminating terrorism -- and I must admit it sounds like a pretty tall task to me -- if (a) you think it's possible at all?
BERGEN: Well, if we're talking about, let's say, just eliminating Osama bin Laden, obviously that would have some effect on his network, which is clearly the main terrorist threat the United States faces, because he has a certain charismatic presence and he's regarded as a leader.
But the inherent problems wouldn't go away. There's a set of people who are opposed to the United States' policies in the Middle East, and those people aren't going to magically change their views overnight if their leader is assassinated or magically dies of some mysterious illness.
So I would agree largely this is a long-term thing. Eliminating him tomorrow would certainly solve some short-term problems, but it wouldn't be the end of the whole story.
BROWN: Well, Peter, thanks, good to talk to you again. Mr. Luers, nice to meet you, the U.N. Association's, chairman thereof. Appreciate your coming in and your patience today.
LUERS: Thank you.
BROWN: This is a very provocative way to look at this, healthy to get it on the table as well. It is particularly healthy, I think, given how many times in the last couple of days we have heard the word "war" thrown around. We are at war; this is a new war; this is the first war of the 21st century; this is World War III. We have heard all of that. But what is war?
Here's CNN national correspondent Bruce Morton.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): World War II brought Americans together. Most believed that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were evil and aggressive. Americans demanded victory. The phrase of the day was "unconditional surrender."
Korea and Vietnam, in contrast, divided the country. Vietnam in particular left Americans suspicious, leery of wars, and in the conflicts since, the motto seems to have been, bomb all you want, but we can't stand American casualties. That seems different now.
No yellow ribbons, bring the hostages home, please. Flags this time, half-staff but proud.
People are lining up to give blood. The Red Cross 800 number logged 700,000 calls in the first six hours after an appeal went out. Some military recruitment officers see an increased interest. And the country seems prepared to send its young people into harm's way.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I think the United States is in a long, twilight struggle against these forces of evil that have chosen to destroy us because we are good. And I believe that it may take a lot of time, a lot of American treasure, and perhaps some American blood.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Make no mistake about it: My resolve is steady and strong about winning this war that has been declared on America.
MORTON: A goal of victory, not compromise.
And later, war has changed countries. World War II made the United States a world power committed to an international role, isolationism left behind.
Vietnam left the United States more cynical. Americans had learned their government could lie to them.
This time, unity so far, agreement on a goal so far. Will that change if the struggle is long? We can't know. The fight is just beginning.
Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Former General Wesley Clark knows a thing or two about war, and you more than likely know a thing or two about him. You've seen him a lot, former NATO commander, and he joins us from Atlanta tonight to talk a little more about all of this.
General Clark, good evening.
Try it again, one more time, and they we'll figure out where we are. General Clark, are you able to hear me?
OK, we'll try and put the plugs together and figure that out. We're going to get back to General Clark, if we can.
Jonathan Aiken now has more on the comfort Americans are finding in our own flag.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN AIKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They're sprouting like flowers, flying from houses, waving from cars, hung over highways, draped over walls. Anywhere you could put a flag, you're likely to find one.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can you not? How can you not. Just to show support for our country, for the people, for the families that have lost people. And it's only by the grace of God we're not one of them.
AIKEN: You may be seeing a lot more. Congress wants flags flying coast-to-coast for the next 30 days. People are wasting little time. At this flag shop in suburban Washington, business has been so brisk, they can't take the money fast enough. Can't keep the waiting in line short enough.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably about a half-an-hour...
AIKEN: Which beats finding no flags at all. This Virginia Wal- Mart is sold out and waiting for more.
JIM JANKOWSKI, WAL-MART ASSISTANT MANAGER: We're hoping. They have had to step up production of American flags.
AIKEN: No flag shortage in Los Angeles. You'll find one in every "Daily News."
Children across the country have been busy too, marching in Minnesota, or just drawing flags in San Francisco. Grown-ups are busy wearing flags on their heads, their chests, and figuratively, at least, on their sleeves.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel very helpless, because we're all the way in California and all these poor people in New York and Washington are hurting. And so I thought this would be a way to show that I'm a true American, and I believe in the flag, I believe in freedom.
AIKEN: "The Pledge of Allegiance" is making a big comeback too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I said "The Pledge of Allegiance" for the first time in a long time, you know, because I've kind of had the belief sometimes that there's not liberty and justice for all, and I said it today and I was proud to do it.
AIKEN: Some people may think it's corny to fly the flag all the time. After all, there's Flag Day and Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, and isn't that enough? Not today, not any time soon.
Jonathan Aiken for CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Well, we've seen a lot of flags in New York today, or maybe it is that we noticed them more.
Let's roll the dice one more time. General Wesley Clark is in Atlanta now. There you are. General Clark joins us.
It's nice to talk to you again, sir. Help me with a couple of things. We were talking about how the United States might respond to this, and this always comes down -- well, there, I guess it comes down two ways. Intelligence, one; the military, another.
Is the military really set up to deal with this kind of enemy? Or is the military designed to deal with countries in a sense? RET. GEN. WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO ALLIED COMMANDER: Well, we've got a lot of different capabilities in the military. And certainly we can deal with an enemy that's like this. But it won't be the kind of military operation that Americans envision. It won't be another -- in all probability it won't be another Gulf War. You're not going to see a massive deployments of troops. You're not going to have a big build-up that way.
You're going to see a lot of diplomatic meetings. There will be a lot of things going on underneath the surface. Occasionally, people will be arrested.
And if the work is done right, you may never see it until it's over and those who are responsible, that international terrorist network, is taken down, and either brought in for justice or eliminated in some other way.
BROWN: So you don't necessarily see the response -- I suspect a lot of us have seen the response as some sort of: Somebody's going to get bombed, OK. I mean, that's the first thing we're going to see. And what I hear you saying is maybe that not only isn't what's going to happen, but maybe that isn't what ought to happen.
CLARK: You can't tell right now, Aaron, it's too early, because if there are appropriate targets and the cruise missiles or the bombing is the right weapons, then that's what we'll use. But it's only partly a matter of training facilities and headquarters. It's really a matter of people.
And before we attack facilities, we've got to make sure that that's really productive. It may not be productive in this case. But it may. If it disrupts terrorists organizations, if it puts them on the run, if it makes it more difficult for them to plan another action against us, then that's what we should do.
But the main work here is not against places. It's not against fixed facilities. It's against the network, the people, the leaders, supporters, those who are out in countries all around the world who are couriers and providing funds and information and casing out operations and planning things and reporting back in. There are cells in various headquarters probably in dozens of countries, and they all need to be taken down. And it mostly won't be done by bombing.
BROWN: In dozens of countries.
CLARK: That would be my -- that would be my appreciation of this, yes. It's a very broadly based network. And you may remember, if you go back over the incidents over the last decade, there were incidents in the Philippines where people were apprehended before they could board an airliner. Probably there was support in the Philippines.
There have been incidents elsewhere. And there quiet support cells in countries where there probably never have been incidents.
This is a very carefully prepared network, and it's going to be tough to take it done.
AARON: One of the -- we may have talked about this the other afternoon, but one of the problem here it seems to me is there's kind of a pernicious cycle here that you go in and you respond to these things, and then -- and in doing so you are successful to whatever degree you are successful. But one of the things that seems to inevitably happen is people get angry for the response, people sympathize. And they end up getting -- they become martyrs, they get more sympathizers. There are more training camps, more terrorists and more trouble.
CLARK: Well, that's why operating inside an international coalition so important. Now yesterday and today all kinds of leaders from around the world, including Mr. Arafat and many Arab leaders, have expressed their full support. They want to join this collation. Good.
The place to start is their work at home. In their own countries, there are those who probably applauded this. There are some who sympathized with it even though they didn't express it. There may be other cells in those countries. These people are all part of the network that has to be taken down.
So I hope that people will appreciate the work that's being done. The great work that's been done so far by the FBI here is just representative of the kind of work that's going to have to be done everywhere. And it won't look like, in all probability, it won't look like desert storm.
Now if there are state sponsors to this and the state sponsors determine that they want to take the heat, then it may take other types of action.
BROWN: Let me ask you a quick question, see if I could get a quick answer. I know that military guys worry about having political support here. As you look at this right now, obviously the country is enraged. Do you worry that the outrage will not last long enough for the planning, the intelligence and response to actually take place?
CLARK: Well, I think we've got good political support right now. And what it appears is the guidance is there. There's a determination to take this fight the whole way. And then the political leaders and the people that care in this country will have to resolve to maintain their determination. It may take weeks, months or longer to finish this fight.
BROWN: General Clark, it's good to talk to you again.
CLARK: Nice to talk to you. Thank you.
BROWN: Always an interesting conversation. Former General Wesley Clark, used to be the NATO commander and now is helping us sort through some of the events of the last few days. Thank you, sir.
CLARK: Thank you. BROWN: A couple of other things before we say good night tonight. Just as the skyline in New York has been altered, perhaps forever, so has the lifestyle of millions of New Yorkers who have seen their city change. Whether that change is permanent or temporary we cannot now say.
Here's CNN's Jeanne Moos.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New York is always noisy, but these days it's wailing. A city of sirens and face masks and evacuations: from Grand Central to Macy's to the building that houses CNN's New York bureau.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody back.
MOOS: New Yorkers seem taken aback, shaken even by a false alarm, bringing their cell phones, talking about the latest rumor, the latest scare.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's an uneasy feeling.
MOOS: Uneasy having seen apocalyptic images of ashes raining down and later being brushed off like a blanket of dirty snow. Uneasy over the smell of smoke depending on which way the wind blows. Uneasy at the site of police checkpoints aimed at keeping folks out of Lower Manhattan.
Only now have those forced to evacuate been allowed back in their apartments to retrieve their pets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got five minutes inside to gather up your dog, your cat, whatever it is.
MOOS: Retrieved pets like Alexander have much in common with their owners.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's just you know a little insecure and scared but he's fine.
MOOS: Those helping with the search have become heroes. Authorities are having to turn away volunteers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually what's happening it's too many guys and they're starting to trip over each other.
MOOS: Well-wishers are practically force-feeding rescuers. Flags have sprouted all over New York and all over New Yorkers. Some are out to make a buck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, free flags! Free flags! Free flags! Andy, give this man one free. There you go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give that little baby one too.
MOOS: These two sought piece of mind on Rollerblades.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's very surreal. Well, it's out of a bad sci-fi film, but every morning you wake up, and you're like it wasn't a dream, it wasn't a movie. It actually happened.
MOOS: And some movie-goers are waiting in line, wearing masks. An outdoor cafe just isn't the same when you're obliged to cover your face instead of your lap.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And finally from us this evening, over the last couple days we have seen, all of us, the stunned reaction of people in New York and in Washington, many of whom have spoken about how helpless they feel in the face of this horrible tragedy.
The feelings are much the same in small town America tonight as CNN's Candy Crowley reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Berryville, Virginia, is an hour's drive from the Pentagon, far enough away not to have heard terrorism's roar, close enough to feel its pain.
TEG HAGGIMAN (ph), D.C. FIREFIGHTER: I spent all day yesterday at the Pentagon working the fire.
QUESTION: A pretty terrible scene?
HAGGIMAN: Yes, it's about as unbelievable as -- the TV doesn't do it any justice. It's horrible.
CROWLEY: After 48 hours on call, D.C. firefighter Teg Haggiman came home to Berryville, and bought a couple of flags.
HAGGIMAN: I believe in my country, I believe in everything we're about. And the more I support it and the more everybody else support it, and -- it's just keeping the faith.
CROWLEY: Berryville is the kind of place where the barber is a minister, and the mayor and his mother run the flower shop, the kind of place where putting up flags was second nature. No meetings, no proposals, it just kind of happened.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They came out late on Tuesday, and just sort of a spontaneous thing from the town office. We decided that we have these flags that we obviously put up for Memorial Day and Labor Day and 4th of July and special occasions like that. And we just thought this was a good time to put them out, just to show some support.
CROWLEY: They are everywhere now. They hang from the mirrors of Powder's barber's shop.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we all love our country, and we all take pride in the country. And it's hard to tell you what patriotism is. It's got to be inside.
CROWLEY: They decorate every table inside Jane's Lunch, a third- generation diner.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel helpless here in Berryville. What can I do? I can go to New York and help those people. I can give blood. That's -- you know, that's the extent of what I can do.
CROWLEY: Population 3,000, Berryville is small-town America. Berryville is Mayberry, only instead of Sheriff Andy Taylor, you find Officer Anthony Roper (ph).
ANTHONY ROPER, OFFICER, BERRYVILLE: It's kind of funny. I've driven around the last couple of days, and an older gentleman, a retired military gentleman's been saluting me and then, you know, really coming up and asking, and appreciating us. And, I guess, just as a whole, you know, seeing how the country's reacted to all this -- the people being very patriotic.
CROWLEY: But there is more than patriotism here. There is defiance.
Just after Pearl Harbor, a Japanese admiral said, "I fear all we have done is to have awakened a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
Listen now to some of the voices of Berryville.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not Bush, but if I was I'd be relocating the B-52s to Guam. We got to find out who did it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sure that President Bush is going to take of business.
CROWLEY (on camera): Do you want him to?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hell, yes. Everybody's pissed, ain't they? Sure.
CROWLEY (voice-over): They usually sell 10 copies of "The New York Times" at the Berryville newsstand. Wednesday morning they sold 80, along with every other paper they had. They talk of little else over latte and chocolate-chip cookies.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First is I can't believe it, and now there's such anger and we better blast the hell out of somebody. Everybody's ready to flatten someone for having done this.
CROWLEY: The sleeping giant stirs again now in a small town.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Berryville, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Our day here is done. Our coverage certainly is not.
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