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CNN Live Event/Special
15-Year-Old Suicide Pilot Supported bin Laden; Guantanamo Bay Prepares to House Detainees; India, Pakistan Locked in New Dispute
Aired January 06, 2002 - 22:00 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.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome. It's 10:00 p.m. on the East Coast, 7:00 in the West. This is a CNN special report. I'm Judy Woodruff in Washington.
We begin this hour with these developments. Police say the 15- year-old boy who crashed a single engine Cessna into a Tampa, Florida, office building yesterday left a note expressing support for Osama bin Laden. They add the crash was deliberate, and was probably a suicide. Police say there's no evidence that Charles Bishop had terrorist ties.
Allied planes today pounded targets in eastern Afghanistan. Heavy airstrikes were reported just outside the Pakistani border town of Miram Shah. F-16s, combat helicopters and at least one B-52 were involved in the bombing missions.
Former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan Mullah Abdul Zaeef is being held aboard the USS Bataan in the Arabian Sea. He's the highest- ranking Taliban member in U.S. custody. Zaeef joins eight other detainees on board the ship, including American Taliban fighter John Walker.
And the U.S. military is preparing the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the arrival of al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. Personnel from several U.S. military installations began deploying today to establish a maximum-security detention center on the island. It will eventually accommodate 2,000 prisoners.
We begin now with a closer look at a bizarre act of suicide in Tampa, Florida. Authorities say that a teenage pilot intentionally crashed a light plane into a Tampa high-rise, and, as CNN's Mark Potter reports, a note found on the pilot reveals his motivation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Law enforcement officials say the 15-year-old who flew this plane into the Bank of America building in downtown Tampa and killed himself was a troubled young man, who seemed to know what he was doing. And in a stunning announcement, they revealed he was carrying a handwritten note, in which he said he worked alone, but sympathized with Islamic terrorism.
CHIEF BENNIE HOLDER, TAMPA POLICE: He did, however, make statements expressing his sympathy toward Osama bin Laden and the event which occurred on September the 11th, 2001. More importantly, at this time there is no information to support Bishop's connection with any terror organization.
POTTER: Police say they doubt Charles Bishop engaged in any terrorism, but instead committed a dramatic suicide. He was described as a loner.
The events began Saturday afternoon, when Bishop reportedly arrived with his grandmother at this aviation school in nearly Clearwater for a scheduled flight lesson. Officials say an instructor told the boy to do a pre-flight inspection of a Cessna 172, like this one. Instead, he started the plane and took off by himself, without permission.
(on camera): According to the company owner, the 15-year-old maneuvered the plane from this flight line to this point here, to this line, where he was supposed to stop and ask the tower for permission to proceed. He never stopped. According the company owner, he then crossed this taxiway, headed over to runway 35-right, and then took off, headed north.
Shortly thereafter, he banked toward the southeast, headed directly for MacDill Air Force base.
(voice-over): A base spokesman says the plane flew across the southern tip of the air base for about a minute, only 100 feet above the runway. Officials in Clearwater reportedly notified MacDill, which alerted a Coast Guard helicopter. The Cessna, meanwhile, headed north toward Tampa.
The helicopter crew spotted the plane, and signaled the boy to land. But the plane headed on, and slammed into the 28th floor of the building, after an estimated nine to 12-minute flight.
GARY KONEFAI, EYEWITNESS: And somebody yells, "it hit the building." A couple of seconds later, and we looked out and saw, you know, the debris falling from the building and the plane sticking out.
POTTER: The incident has raised questions about security at MacDill Air Force base, the home of the U.S. Central Command, which is directing the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.
LT. COL. RICH MCCLAIN, U.S. AIR FORCE: At that time, we did not feel he was a threat. MacDill did nothing to, so to speak, to stop that airplane, except try to contact him.
POTTER: But two F-15 fighter jets were dispatched from Homestead Air Reserve base, south of Miami. They arrived too late. MacDill has no such aircraft. Experts say light planes usually do minimal damage, but are hard to intercept.
GEN. DON SHEPPERD, USAF RET.: If they're bent on crashing into something, such as took place down in Tampa, there's not airplanes airborne, except in a couple of places over America, that are going to do anything about it. POTTER: Investigators are now looking at Bishop's computer for further clues in this strange case of a teenager who said he believed in Osama bin Laden.
Mark Potter, CNN, Tampa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WOODRUFF: Of course, it is not possible yet, if ever, to know exactly what led young Charles Bishop to fly that plane into a Tampa skyscraper, but joining us now with some thoughts on what might cause a 15-year-old to do such a thing, psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers.
Dr. Brothers, would could lead a young person of this age to do such an act of desperation?
DR. JOYCE BROTHERS, PSYCHOLOGIST: A lot of young people think about suicide, amazing numbers of them, but they don't carry it through because there is someone they can talk to who will show them that they have alternatives in their lives. But when you are depressed, you have what's called tunnel vision, you can only see two possibilities. I'm not going to make the marks, I won't get into college, I must kill myself. My girlfriend or my boyfriend doesn't love me anymore. I have no alternative. I'll never love again. I must kill myself.
To us, it sounds ridiculous, but I have spoken to any number of young people who have tried to commit suicide, and fortunately for the families and for them they were not successful. And they all seem to have this vision of themselves as looking down from above somewhere and saying to themselves, boy, are they sorry that they hurt me or are they sorry that they made life difficult for me.
Mostly, there are these young people who do try to take their lives are very serious people. They are loners, they have no one to talk them out of the idea of suicide, and so they try very hard to do the best they can, but it is because they are so serious that a bad mark in school or their parents fighting or dissension in their home means so much to them.
WOODRUFF: They were -- they are people that interviewed, Dr. Brothers, you may have heard, that described this young man, Charles Bishop, as a loner but they said he seemed friendly. What about the copycat aspects of this, and expressing sympathy for Osama bin Laden?
BROTHERS: We have brought up a generation of young people who are spectators to life. We have other people playing their golf for them, doing their talking, socializing on the talk shows, playing tennis, doing their football, and they are not participants in what goes on.
And so, they fasten to stars or to important people, but mostly to people who seem heroic. We have had endless visions of Osama bin Laden. These young people without any real knowledge of the world see him as some kind of a hero, because he is strong and he can upset the entire United States Army. They are not able to find him. So they take on his supposed strength, trying to fight the battles that they are fighting in their mind with depression.
WOODRUFF: So, for someone who is troubled what effect could the events of September 11 have on someone in that situation? I realize this is so much speculation here.
BROTHERS: We're speculating, but we do know one thing that has been tried and worked very well. When there are children in school, high school or smaller children, who seem to be loners even though they are friendly, other youngsters can talk to them and you can have a panel in school of youngsters who seek out the unusual, the dissident, the youngster who doesn't seem to fit in with any group at all, and to talk to them. It takes about a year before a child will talk freely to a grownup, but to their own age they are willing to talk and make contact. And then, they can be talked out of the feeling that they want to take their lives, or this tunnel vision that I have talked about.
WOODRUFF: Warning signs that a teenager is thinking about suicide?
BROTHERS: If a teenager -- most teenagers at some time or another will think about suicide. They just don't see alternative courses of action, because they haven't been in the world long enough to see that there are many ways of dealing with disappointment or depression. And they are not seen as depressed by their parents.
A study, a careful study talking to youngsters who tried to commit suicide and fortunately did not succeed found that about 57 percent of the group were seriously depressed before they took -- tried to take their own lives, and only 13 percent of those parents were aware of the depression, aware that they were trying to self- medicate by drinking, aware that there were big changes in the child's life, and that the child was giving away personal possessions. Once a child starts doing that, prized possessions, giving away, or saying good bye, are very serious signs of a depressed child.
WOODRUFF: All right. Psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers, joining us to talk about this 15-year-old who flew a small plane into a Tampa high rise, killing himself in the process. Thank you, Dr. Brothers, I know you said earlier that suicide is one of the leading causes of death among teenagers in the United States. Thank you very much.
BROTHERS: Thank you, Judy Woodruff.
WOODRUFF: We appreciate it. Thank you.
And turning now to the war in Afghanistan, although the Taliban and al Qaeda forces are on the run, Afghanistan remains a dangerous place. CNN's Kathleen Koch tells us just how dangerous.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. military police are shipping to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, readying for the arrival perhaps within days of Taliban and al Qaeda detainees. Also Sunday, allied aircraft attacked position on the Afghan-Pakistan border, near Miram Shah (ph). It's thought tunnels nearby could be hiding al Qaeda and Taliban hold-outs.
Some believe the situation on the ground remains as dangerous as it was before the Taliban fell from power. They point to the shooting of Sergeant 1st Class Nathan Ross Chapman as evidence it's difficult to tell friend from foe.
SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D-FL), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Today, we're dealing with groups of people who represent a mixture of former allies and enemies, and obviously one of those enemies took this as an opportunity to take out his vengeance against a United States military.
KOCH: Meanwhile, the interim leader of Afghanistan says his people are doing their best to route out remaining Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar.
HAMID KARZAI, AFGHAN INTERIM GOVERNMENT CHAIRMAN: They're all looking for him. He's one man, and one man can easily, you know, hide, can easily take a motor bike and go places.
KOCH: Even if the Afghan population does cooperate, some doubt any al Qaeda will (UNINTELLIGIBLE) about the word of whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: I think we underestimate, first of all, the fanaticism of these people. I think we underestimate what their goal is. I think it's remote that $25 million reward is going to get anyone to turn him in.
KOCH: Top U.S. senators visiting the region quote Uzbek intelligence officials as saying bin Laden has escaped into Pakistan. One former foreign policy adviser warns the U.S. anti-terror campaign should broaden its focus beyond the al Qaeda leader.
HENRY KISSINGER, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: He's a fugitive, and our strategy ought to be to get as many of these cells on the run as we can, so that they have to spend their energy surviving rather than planning attacks. But this is not something that can be focused on one man.
KOCH (on camera): Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai says he believes only 30 to 35 hard-core Taliban and terrorists fighters remain in this country.
For now, U.S. forces there continue the hunt, taking more prisoners, and hoping they provide new clues.
Kathleen Koch, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WOODRUFF: It's Monday morning in Kandahar, Afghanistan. My colleague Bill Hemmer is at the U.S. Marine base there. Good morning, Bill.
BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Judy. Thank you. It is Monday morning. Good morning to you. Good evening back there in Washington.
Last night, Judy, for the first time in a long time, no new detainees were brought in here to Kandahar. The number is standing now at 300. This after 25 more were brought in late Saturday night. And all 25 were first obtained, apprehended in Pakistan; later brought here to U.S. authorities in southern Afghanistan.
What this shows, though, is the continued cooperation between Washington and Islamabad. And two high-profile detainees turned over with the help and assistance of Islamabad over this past week. First of all, Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, turned over to U.S. authorities here in Afghanistan on Saturday. Right now, Zaeef is being held aboard the USS Bataan floating in the Arabian Sea. He's the man that was the face and the voice for the Taliban in so many press briefings we carried during the early part of the Afghanistan campaign.
Also on that ship, the Bataan, are eight others, including the American, 20-year-old John Walker. Back here at Kandahar, the second high profile detainee, an al Qaeda members. The White House says he's one their top 12 wanted within the al Qaeda network. They accuse him of running the terrorist training camps here in Afghanistan. His name: Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. He's from Libya, and again it was with the help and cooperation of Pakistan that he is now here in U.S. custody.
Also, there continues to be more talk about Guantanamo Bay. Certainly, the Pentagon is talking about that, and there is more speculation here in Kandahar as well. In fact, a group of FBI officials on hand for the past several weeks in Kandahar left on Sunday afternoon with a lot of evidence and a lot of information they have gathered here. First, they go to the U.S., then a group of them will later travel to Guantanamo Bay in the event the trials are carried out there.
Also, I mentioned 300 on hand right now. There is a scatter of others, though, throughout the region here. We do anticipate in talking with sources that all 300 here most likely will be transported to Cuba, but certainly the big question right now is how do you do it. Is it by air? Is it by ship? Is it by boat? And certainly security is a concern.
We have been led to believe here in Kandahar that there is no firm plan in place. However, the Pentagon certainly is working on that; so too is Central Command in Tampa, Florida.
Ultimately, though, the big question is this, and it appears to be outstanding at this point: Can U.S. authorities get these detainees to talk and give up more information not only on Mullah Mohammed Omar but certainly Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda network here in Afghanistan and certainly around the world. But at this point, it appears, Judy, that all those questions are still outstanding -- Judy.
WOODRUFF: Bill, I don't know how much of an opportunity you are having to talk with the troops there, but are they expressing any frustration about the fact that it's taking so long to find some of these principal people in the al Qaeda and Taliban networks?
HEMMER: It runs the spectrum, to be quite honest with you, Judy. The Marines we talk to are quite content right now with the missions that they have been given here, carried out on a weekly basis. We saw another one go out on Saturday night.
There are others, though, especially Green Berets among the Special Forces based here in Kandahar. They say -- they tell me there's more than 100 right now, and they say for the most part they have been sitting back at this base without any missions carried out. They say that they have been concerned for some time that Mullah Mohammed Omar specifically might escape the noose in northern Helmand province. The reports we get is that that may have happened.
Now, the Special Forces, the Green Berets, they were expressing concern that there were not enough men thrown into that mission, and Omar may have the opportunity to get away. They may be right at this point, Judy.
WOODRUFF: All right. Bill Hemmer, reporting for us from Kandahar. Thank you, Bill. And as we say, it is now Monday morning there. We hope you can get a little bit of rest.
There's much more ahead after the break. CNN military analyst General Wesley Clark will join us to talk about airport security after this weekend's plane crash into a Tampa high rise, as well as what's ahead in America's new war.
Plus, rivals India and Pakistan locked in a new dispute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOODRUFF: U.S. warplanes are concentrating their efforts in eastern Afghanistan today, tightening the noose around al Qaeda and Taliban forces in that region. And halfway around the world, the U.S. military is preparing a detention center that may soon be housing Afghan prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Well, joining us now, CNN military analyst Wesley Clark, former NATO commander.
General Clark, thank you for being with us. I want to ask you first about this incident last evening in Tampa, where a 15-year-old boy flew a small boy into a high rise, sort of a copycat effort, if you will, but the question I want to ask you is what this says about airport and general aviation security in this country?
GEN. WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, it really hasn't been much. And in the wake of September 11, many of us who have access to private airplanes were asking ourselves, are we going to be able to fly again? As you know, general aviation was grounded for a few days after September 11, but then they let it fly again.
For one thing, the general aviation assets are smaller, so they can't do quiet as much damage. For another thing, you would presume that the people who own them are responsible, but what this instance shows is that there are going to have to be some increased measures to tighten up security. WOODRUFF: Does it concern you that he spent about a minute or so flying over an Air Force base there in Tampa; in fact, the home of the U.S. Central Command?
CLARK: Well, it is a matter of concern, in fact, because we really are at war, and it's only a matter of time -- unless this group of terrorists and all these cells are taken care of quickly, before they come back and try to home in our bases here in the United States, and particularly down at Tampa. So I'm sure that the Department of Defense is going to take a hard look at that, and do something about that.
WOODRUFF: Should we also be concerned, general, that the fighter planes that were scrambled to try to catch up with him didn't get there in time? Not that we know what they could have done, but the fact that they weren't there?
CLARK: Well, it's true, there are only so many aircraft that are available, there's some in the skies, there's some on strip alert. And it's a finite flying time. And so, perhaps you need to be more on strip alert, maybe we need to look at where they are flying, but there will always be opportunities for aircraft to slip through the net for a minute or two, or five or 10 depending on where they are, and that's why the real cure has to be the improved security for general aviation, as well as commercial aviation.
WOODRUFF: Let me turn you to Afghanistan and pick up on something that our Bill Hemmer was just saying just before the break. I don't know if you were able to hear, but he said in talking with some of the Green Berets, the Special Forces there based around Kandahar that there is some frustration being expressed that if more U.S. troops were involved, perhaps Mullah Omar would have been found by now. There is concern that maybe he has escaped. Is the U.S. pursuing the right policy in leaving so much of this work up to the Afghans?
CLARK: Judy, I think that -- I think all of us would be disappointed if the troops on the ground, especially our Green Berets, didn't express that opinion and didn't feel that if they got in there they could fix it. But if you stand back and look at it, I think it's been a pretty effective policy thus far. We could never have gone in and done the job ourselves as rapidly as our allies did with our support.
And when you are in a foreign country and you don't speak the language and you really don't blend in, even if you are riding on a horse or a camel or something, you're still -- it's still very obvious who you are, you are not going to be able to pull a stakeout and sit on the corner, and you can't sort of unobtrusively work a neighborhood, and say, did you see anybody unusual here. It just doesn't happen for the American forces.
You can take these forces, you can put them on high ground and they can use electro-optics and binoculars and radios, and they can report traffic. They can be with Afghans and they can report what the Afghans are reporting, but they can't do it themselves the same way you could, let's say, in a police stakeout in the United States. And ultimately, you are into police work now that's punctuated by occasional attacks by the Air Force on some of these areas that we can't quite do police work in yet.
But I think it's a good policy. I think it's producing results. I think it's much too soon to give this policy up.
WOODRUFF: But is there any doubt in your mind that pursuing this policy with more U.S. involvement -- I'm sorry -- with less U.S. involvement, more Afghan involvement, you are running the risk of letting some of these high-profile people, like Mullah Omar, slip through?
CLARK: You are running that risk, but if you look for example at the case in Bosnia, where we've got -- where we had starting 60,000 peacekeepers, then 30,000, then 20,000 and 18,000 now. We still got war criminals on the loose there, despite the presence of so many allied forces. It's a question of what can the people really do.
I'm not sure all of our troops would recognize Mullah Omar on the street if they saw him. They certainly wouldn't be able to talk to him, and he wouldn't confess to being Mullah Omar. So you have to work with local allies. It's a question of, are we doing everything we can do to be effective in working with these people. Do they have the right incentives? Do they have the right communications? Are we following up on the leads? Are we sharing intelligence with them the right way? Do they have the right intelligence collection techniques if we put their agencies back together again? Are we giving them the security to operate effectively up close?
And we can't answer all of these questions here. We have to trust the command to do it, and thus far there's no reason not to believe they are doing the best they can do.
WOODRUFF: All right. General Wesley Clark, CNN military analyst, former NATO supreme commander. General Clark, thank you very much for joining us.
CLARK: Good to be with you, Judy.
WOODRUFF: We appreciate it.
Well, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan are locked in a new dispute. India claims that it shot down an unmanned Pakistani spy plane that drifted inside its airspace. Pakistan denies the report, saying no Pakistani spy plane had been hit, and suggested that the downed aircraft belonged to India.
Tensions between those feuding neighbors led to more bloodshed in the disputed Kashmir region. And the tug-of-war has created a dangerous predicament for the people of Kashmir. CNN's Ash-Har Quraishi reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ASH-HAR QURAISHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With tensions still not quelled at the regional summit in Nepal, India and Pakistan continue to sit at the brink of war. As the two leaders shook hands, fresh clashes near the line of control in Kashmir. It's a way of life on the line of control and violent exchanges between Pakistani and Indian forces. Civilians on both sides are often caught in the crossfire.
Near Khotley (ph), in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, this girl's mother was killed when Indian shells exploded near her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Indian soldiers fired. When the firing started, I was near the door. There was a lot of heavy firing. My mother and aunt were outside. A bullet hit my back and leg.
QURAISHI: This region of mountains and valleys was at the heart of the original dispute between Indian and Pakistan. The first outright war between the two countries was fought over who would control it. And over 50 years later, it remains a political sore spot not only for Pakistanis and Indians but for some Kashmiris as well.
AMANULLAH KHAN, JAMMU & KASHMIR LIBERATION FRONT: This India- Pakistan business doesn't have only two parties, it has three, three. The basic party is Kashmiris.
QURAISHI: Groups like the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front are calling for an independent Kashmir, dismissing a 1948 U.N. resolution, which would hand the region over to India or Pakistan.
KHAN: Why should I become an independent man? Those resolutions don't have any provision on me to even work for independence.
QURAISHI: Independence, says both governments and even some Kashmiris, is out of the question.
SULTAN MAHMOOD CHAUNDHRY, FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF PAKISTAN CONTROLLED KASHMIR: I think that's what the resolutions says, that the future of Kashmir has to be determined according to the free will or the wishes of the people of Kashmir. But we are only given two choices in those resolutions in the -- in Pakistan and the majority of the people do want to join with Pakistan.
QURAISHI: Neither the diplomatic gain nor the military alert has succeeded in solving problems here. Islamabad continues to crack down on what India calls "Pakistan based militant groups operating from inside Kashmir." So far, New Delhi has not been satisfied. Accusations still fly. War still looms. And the fate of the Kashmiris is still uncertain.
Ash-har Quraishi, CNN, in Pakistan controlled Kashmir.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WOODRUFF: Meantime, nine United States senators are traveling in that region in South Asia, meeting with leaders who have lent a hand in the war on terrorism. The delegation includes Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, he joins us now by telephone from Uzbekistan. Senator Reed, one of your colleagues, Senator Bob Graham, chairman of the Intelligence Committee today, quoting Uzbek intelligence sources as saying they believe Osama bin Laden has escaped into Pakistan. What can you tell us about this?
SEN. JACK REED (D), RHODE ISLAND: That was essentially the information that we received in formally discussing these issues with military members of the Ministry of Defense. But it's a suspicion. There is really very little confirmation. And they went at length to point out how difficult it is to find individuals in that region of the world. Indeed, Massoud, who was the former head of the Northern Alliance -- the Russians looked for him for 10 years, so his location is speculative at best, but there is a feeling that he is in Pakistan.
WOODRUFF: Did they give you any specifics as to why they believe this?
REED: No, not really. They just -- presumably it's accumulation of their various reports and their inferences as to where he has been and where he might be going.
WOODRUFF: Is there enough intelligence in that part of the world, enough U.S. and other intelligence, or are you saying it's just too hard to pick this kind of information up, no matter what?
REED: It's very difficult to pick up this kind of information. There's lots of intelligence. Some of it's reliable. Some of it's not reliable. Some of it's deliberately deceptive so that you're thrown off the track.
And also, you have a situation now where the character, if you will, of the opposition in Afghanistan might be slightly changing. They were avowed enemies of bin Laden and some of them, Mullah Omar, and now that might be changing a bit as they sort of adjust to a different situation of fighting themselves for control in Afghanistan. So, all these factors interfere with getting a quick, accurate fix on either Omar or bin Laden.
WOODRUFF: Senator, we just aired a report on the tensions between India and Pakistan. I know you're going to be meeting with the Pakistan President General Musharraf. What message would you want to bring to him?
REED: Well, the message is one of being extremely cautious and extremely responsive to the issue of terrorism. He has been helpful, very helpful to the United States, but he has to be aggressive with those terrorists within Pakistan who have targeted Kashmir, and also have links to those who attacked the Congress in India.
And unless he is forceful, then this situation could deteriorate and spin out of control with both parties having nuclear weapons and significant conventional forces. It could be a tremendous setback, not only for India and Pakistan, but for our efforts here in the region to combat terrorism. So he has to be aggressive against terrorism. I was pleased to note that at the summit in Kathmandu, he went out of his way to personally approach and shake hands with President Vajpayee from India. So I think on a personal level, he's trying all he can do. The question is whether or not that translates into the kind of effective action that will essentially stop this crisis in its tracks. I hope it will.
WOODRUFF: Finally, senator, and just quickly what would you say you've learned on this trip that Americans, people in the United States should know that perhaps they don't know?
REED: Well first, we're entering a very difficult phase of this operation. The initial military success shouldn't lull us into the conviction that we're just mopping up. It's a very complicated situation that will take a long time. It will involve our participation with different countries in the region, many of which have different goals and objectives than our objectives or their neighbor's.
It's going to require an economic and a diplomatic participation, and ultimately the cohesion in Afghanistan which was the result of their opposition to the Taliban, will become less obvious as different factions in Afghanistan and their patriots outside of Afghanistan, other countries in the regions start jockeying for position.
So it's going to get perhaps more complicated in the next few weeks, more complicated than it is now. So we have to be prepared for a longer course of action and complicated action and in fact, indeed, perhaps even occasional setbacks, but we have no choice but to go forward.
WOODRUFF: Well, on that sobering note, than you very much Senator Jack Reed, one of a delegation of senators traveling through that part of South Asia. Senator, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
Coming up, the latest developments on America's new war. Also, those left without homes or families in Afghanistan, their long odds to survive, and getting through the harsh Afghan winter as refugees.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOODRUFF: Thirty-five minutes after the hour, time now for an update of the latest developments. Police say a 15-year-old boy who crashed a small plane into a Tampa, Florida building yesterday left behind a note supporting Osama bin Laden. It also stated that he acted alone. Authorities describe Charles Bishop as a "troubled young man."
There were new attacks in eastern Afghanistan today. Heavy air strikes by allied planes were reported just outside the Pakistani border town of Miram Shah. A suspected terrorist training site bombed by U.S. missiles in 1998 is in that area.
Former Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Mullah Abdul Zaeef is being held aboard the USS Bataan in the Arabian Sea. He is the highest- ranking Taliban member in U.S. custody. Zaeef has some high profile company. American Taliban fighter John Walker is among eight other detainees on board the ship.
And the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will soon be able to accommodate up to 2,000 al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. Personnel from several U.S. military installations began deploying today to establish a maximum security detention center on the island.
As Afghanistan opens up to the world, it reveals a disturbing picture of many Afghan children. An estimated one million of them are orphans living under harsh conditions. CNN's John Vause shows what Afghanistan's new leader saw at one Kabul orphanage.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In many ways, these children are the poorest of Afghans, just some of the estimated one million orphans of the country who live in appalling conditions here at the Tehin Masqan (ph) Orphanage, one of two in Kabul. The toilets and showers don't work. The children use a bathing center once a week.
The main meal of the day, potatoes and beans. It's been that way for months. "For about five or six months, the children haven't eaten fruit," says Mohammed Zahi Fazil (ph) the director of the orphanage. "The children have many dietary problems."
They sleep 12 to a room with nothing more than a thin blanket against the winter chill and it will become even colder here in the coming weeks. There is no real medical care, either physical or emotional, to deal with the years of trauma.
Many of these children though aren't even orphans, sent away by their families because the conditions here are often better than at home. Baha Wain (ph) is 13 years old. His six sisters and two younger brothers still live with their mother.
Still these children seem surprisingly happy, like eight-year-old Shama Hamod (ph) who says he wants for nothing, possibly because he knows no better. He's been an orphan almost all his short life.
"A bomb was dropped on our house many years ago," he told me. "My mother and father were killed."
After being told of the hardships of these children, Hamid Karzai visited the El Wadin (ph) Orphanage. The children from Tehin Masqan were brought over, crammed onto two old trucks, for a chance to see the new interim leader face-to-face. Karzai promised these children more food and warm clothes for winter.
VAUSE (on camera): It may not seem like much, but like almost everything else that Hamid Karzai has promised, there's little he can do without international aid, and if it doesn't come, perhaps the hardest thing he must do is explain why to these children.
John Vause, CNN, Kabul. (END VIDEOTAPE)
WOODRUFF: Well, relief came today for many Afghans who needed help during dealing with the winter cold. Distribution organizations went to five different districts in Kabul handing out charcoal, blankets, plastic sheets and makeshift heating systems. Five thousand families got these winter survival packages.
But there are concerns that almost six million people in Afghanistan are thought to be at risk of starvation. Getting food to them is proving to be a mammoth task. Ken Bacon with Refugees International joins us now from Chicago, with a look at the ongoing relief effort. Ken Bacon, describe for us the needs inside that country now.
KEN BACON, REFUGEES INTERNATIONAL: The needs remain massive, but some very good news has occurred in the last couple of months which is, the World Food Program has done a masterful job of getting large amounts of food into Afghanistan.
Now the problem is getting it distributed to the people who are most needy. There are still very vexing security problems in places like Kandahar, in the north around Mazar-e Sharif and Jalalabad which is interfering with the rapid and even distribution of aid.
WOODRUFF: So are you saying it's not a supply problem at all? It is simply a distribution problem?
BACON: Yes, right now the World Food Program is getting in enough food to feed about 10 million people a month. That's what they did in December. This is an extraordinary achievement.
But the World Food Program and other aid organizations say that they can not distribute the food quickly enough or broadly enough, because of security problems they're encountering in various parts of Afghanistan. The security situation is uneven. Some parts, they can get the food out. Other parts, they can't.
WOODRUFF: But there is a peacekeeping, at least the beginnings of a peacekeeping force in place. This is the group that's lead by Great Britain, and yet we know there's been some reluctance to support this effort on the part of the United States military.
BACON: Yes. I think that it's unfortunate that the mandate for this peacekeeping force is too narrow. It's focused primarily on Kabul, and there aren't severe security problems in Kabul now. The force is small. It's moving in more slowly than we'd hoped.
The real problems in places like Kandahar and Jalalabad and Mazar-e Sharif are not yet being addressed by this force, and they may not be because the mandate doesn't encourage the force to move quickly out to other parts of the country.
Herat is an area, which is close to Iran, where there are increasing problems, warlords, lawlessness. Insecurity in the streets is interfering with the distribution of aid. So there's a lot more that we could do with a broader security force than is there now.
WOODRUFF: Well, we've heard General Tommy Franks, who of course is the chief of the U.S. Central Command, we just heard him the other day expressing concern, I think is the best way to put it, about the role of these peacekeepers and making the point again that he didn't want them interfering with the U.S. mission there.
Have you and others in the international aid community expressed your concerns to him and others who work with him?
BACON: We've written President Bush about this. We've been in contact with members of the U.N. Security Council, the British representative, the French representative, the U.S. representative and others. We've held press conferences, a number of aid organizations have over the last month and a half. This has been a very, very difficult situation.
We feel very, very good that the World Food Program is doing as well as it is in getting food in. We feel much less good about the reluctance of the international community to provide more security in the country.
We think this problem is going to increase as warlords get reestablished in various areas. We know crime is increasing in various areas, and we would like to stop this earlier rather than later because it's going to have a huge impact on the ability to talk -- to stop the type of starvation that you talked about in the earlier report among orphans.
You have to get food in. You have to get blankets in. You have to get medicine in. But more than that, you have to get it distributed quickly throughout the country.
WOODRUFF: So you're saying, in effect, that has got to be fixed first before we worry about...
BACON: It's got to be fixed. We're going to face a very dramatic return of refugees in the spring, when the winter ends. The U.N. estimates that maybe 800,000 to a million people will want to return this spring and summer to Afghanistan.
They will return if there's security, and certainly Pakistan and Iran would like to have them go home, and they want to go home. But there needs to be security. So it's important that the security be established, and that the food get there along with humanitarian workers to receive the refugees when they come home.
They also need seed. They need agricultural supplies so they can plant the harvest that will allow them to support themselves when the crops develop in the summer and the fall. There's a lot to be done, but a fundamental pre-condition for that is better security throughout Afghanistan.
WOODRUFF: All right, message coming through loud and clear from Ken Bacon who is the President of Refugees International. Ken Bacon, thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate it. BACON: Thank you, Judy, always a pleasure.
WOODRUFF: Thank you.
BACON: Thank you.
WOODRUFF: And right after this break, President Bush and Congress get ready to rumble you might say. And on a lighter note, do you want a smooth ride? Well, we'll take you to the motor city for a look at the latest hot rods.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOODRUFF: The Bush Administration is preparing for a different sort of battle, a battle on American soil as they press Congress to pass an economic stimulus plan dominated by tax cuts. CNN's Kelly Wallace reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One day after President Bush threw down this gauntlet.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Not over my dead body will they raise your taxes.
WALLACE: His economic team took that message to the airwaves, vowing to block any changes to last year's tax cut equating such moves with tax hikes.
PAUL O'NEILL, TREASURY SECRETARY: We don't believe raising people's taxes during an economic slowdown is an intelligent thing to do.
WALLACE: But while some Democrats say they're not supporting a tax increase, they do say everything should be on the table in these uncertain times, including a possible delay of the tax cut.
SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: It's like having a doctor, you know, that you go to because you're sick say, well there's two things I can do to help you but one I'm definitely not going to do. That's just not smart.
WALLACE: Democrats, however, are clearly divided. Twelve Senate Democrats voted for the tax cut.
SEN. DIANE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: Over $1 trillion of that tax cut has yet not gone into effect. My view is that we ought to stay the course.
WALLACE: On the other side, Democrats who say the tax cut is the main reason the government, which has been enjoying surpluses, will return to deficits over the next several years, leaving less money to fund Homeland Security and other priorities.
ROBERT RUBIN, FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY: They made a major contribution to the fiscal deterioration which has occurred.
WALLACE: The administration strategy, let the Democrats appear divided while Mr. Bush travels around the country touting his economic plan, trying to prevent his sky-high popularity from dwindling away like his father's did due to the economy.
But Mr. Bush has now invited comparisons with his father and his pledge more than a decade ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1988)
GEORGE H.W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Read my lips: No new taxes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: A pledge that proved politically costly when he had to break it two years later.
(on camera): The same could hold true if the president is forced to break his, but both parties doubt that will be the case and believe this line in the sand is mainly about Mr. Bush playing hardball to get his agenda passed, and to help his party in the November elections.
Kelly Wallace, CNN, Crawford, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WOODRUFF: Well meanwhile, the weakened economy is you might say deflating the tires of the auto industry. Ford Motor Company is expected to announce major layoffs and production cuts this week, and all three big auto makers are struggling to make a profit.
These troubles have taken some of the shine off the North American International Show, but as CNN's Jeff Flock shows us, car makers are still pushing the limits with their designs.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): The doors have just opened at the North American International Auto Show, and we are strolling the aisles with maybe the smartest man in American when it comes to cars. Csaba Csere is the editor-in-chief, has been for the past decade or so of Car & Driver. What is your headline as we look at the show this year?
CSABA CSERE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "CAR & DRIVER": Well, the battles lines have really formed up in the truck segment.
FLOCK: What do you mean?
CSERE: Well, that's where the profits have been in the last ten years, and everyone's jumping in there. So every different type of truck, SUV, minivan has dozens of competitors.
FLOCK: OK, so what kind of things are we talking about, like what's under this wrap for example?
CSERE: Well, this is the new Honda Pilot. It's a mid-sized SUV from Honda, homegrown product from them, not a rebagged Isuzu. It's based on the Odyssey minivan, has three rows of seats, is going to be priced under $30,000, the usual Honda quality and it's hitting the market this summer.
FLOCK: So basically the headline of what we're seeing here is almost every variation between car and truck, all of the different hybrids and combinations, yes?
CSERE: Well particularly in the wagon segment. Here we've got a Mazda Protege 5, and it's a compact wagon, very useful. You can pull down the back seat, but it's sporty, stiff suspension, big engine.
FLOCK: People can't make up their mind. They don't know whether they want an SUV, a wagon, a car. They kind of want it all.
CSERE: Well they want it all and depending on what kind of height they want, they're going to have it. What we're seeing here is a Volvo XC-90. It's going to be unveiled tomorrow. Volvo's first sport utility, and it's the Volvo cross-country wagon, made a little higher, roof raised, third row of seat added, and of course the cross country wagon is already the Volvo station wagon simply jacked up a little bit. So we see three of those varieties in one brand.
FLOCK: Csaba Csere, I appreciate all the insight here at the North American International Auto Show, a lot of wraps coming off in the next few days, so stay tuned.
I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, Detroit.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WOODRUFF: And in a moment, they come from around the country, they wait for hours in line to see ground zero with their own eyes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOODRUFF: These are live pictures of the site that can still be heartbreaking, crews working tirelessly to clean up the wreckage at the area known as ground zero, the site of the worst act of terrorism on American soil.
Well, for many, a visit to this place is a sacred journey. Long lines and cold weather don't seem to matter to the thousand who've been making a pilgrimage to this wreckage. CNN's Brian Palmer talked with some of them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The long, long lines snaking through Lower Manhattan to see where the World Trade Center once stood is proof that so many of us are not yet ready to look away, to move on from September 11th. So at this point in the line, people have been waiting about an hour and a half, two hours. The line continues for another two and a half blocks or so, but it's come from a distance of about eight blocks. It goes around the corner, around several other corners and around a few more corners.
David Crosby, a pastor from New Orleans, and his wife Janet were among thousands waiting patiently to view the site.
DAVID CROSBY: I'd say it's the most important nation-shaping event in my lifetime.
PALMER: Standing just a few steps away from the Crosbys, Dorothy and Sherman Dillard of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
DOROTHY DILLARD: I could feel it at a distance, but I really want to feel it up close.
PALMER: I'm trying to get a sense of why people need to actually come her, why television, why magazines aren't sufficient. Why do you physically need to be present?
TIM BOS, OWNER, TELEPHONE COMPANY: You know, it's just a moment in history and I think it helps solidify all the events to be here.
PALMER: The Daniels family made the trip from Wichiker, Michigan.
MR. DANIELS: I'll see what kind of reaction I have when I actually see it. It just kind of looks like a big construction thing.
MARIEL FERNANDEZ, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT: It looks like a hole. It looks like hell. It's bad. It looks really bad.
PALMER: Mariel Fernandez wrote her own memorial on the bare plywood of the viewing platform. Others remember friends, loved ones, and colleagues. This man pinned a tribute to Firefighter Joseph Agnello of Brooklyn's Engine 205, Ladder 118, which lost nine men.
The remains of Firefighter Agnello, Peter Vega, and Lieutenant Robert Regan were recovered on New Year's Day.
ANTHONY CARBONE, FIREFIGHTER: It's opening old wounds. You know, you start to get to that point where, you know, time heals a little bit and you -- but you know, the fact of the matter is, is that you really want them back. You want them out of there. You want them to be able to place them in a grave and know that there's a place of rest for them.
PALMER: Firefighters Leon Smith and Vernon Sherry are still missing, so the men suit up on their own time for another trip to Ground Zero. Four months along, only about 600 bodies have been recovered and identified of the 3,000 people killed on September 11th, a very solemn reminder that the work and the mourning at Ground Zero is far from over. Brian Palmer, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WOODRUFF: And beyond a visit to that place, for weeks after September the 11th, Americans walked around in disbelief longer than that trying to deal with the pain and to try to make sense of things. The recovery for all of us continues. And as CNN's Bruce Morton shows us, things seem to be returning to a sort of normal.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The war on terror isn't over or nearly over, of course. But something encouraging happened this past week. We newsies seemed to have rediscovered normality. I looked up at one point and CNN was carrying a trial live.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CNN CORRESPONDENT: Judy, four witnesses have testified, today...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORTON: Not a terrorist trial, mind you, but an ordinary manslaughter trial about violence at a children's hockey practice. When was last time you saw something like that on all-news TV? Well, maybe not as long ago as O.J., but it has been a while.
And doughtiness is back. Everybody reported that school board in the Eastern York School District in Pennsylvania had voted 7 to 2 to keep using Harry Potter and Sorcerer's Stone to teach 6th-grade kids about fantasy books.
A parent, a preacher and a teacher had complained the book was teaching witchcraft. This, of course, not true. Honestly, the spells don't work. I have tried levitating editors I don't like and flat failed.
Anyway, parents who didn't want their kids to read that book may have poor taste in fiction, but they're safe, too. Their kids will be assigned to a different class.
What else? Everyone carried stories about New York's new mayor and the city's financial problems; terror-related, maybe, but budget stuff at its heart. The city celebrated New Year's, although there was more security than usual.
The president took time out from the war to visit his ranch and inspect his official portrait. Good likeness? What do you think?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And if you look across the street, you can begin to see now the snow is sticking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
News media found room for other stories it had nothing to do with terror. Snow in the south always fun, those pictures of drivers battling half-inch drifts. Snow in Buffalo, where they really speak snow; and experimenting cloning pigs that may make it easier to transplant organs; football games and how mixed up the Bowl system is.
All sorts of things, in fact. No Johnny-one-note war on terror this week. Stories about terror, of course, the war isn't over. But they had to share time and space with news about all the other things that were happening in the normal, unterrified world.
Tom Daschle did get one more letter, but it was a fake. And the Senate eventually probably will reopen its Hart Office Building. The feds may be the last to rediscover normality, but they will, eventually.
I'm Bruce Morton.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WOODRUFF: And sometimes it's reporting about a return to normalcy that helps us return to normal. Thank you, Bruce, for that. And thank you for joining us. I'm Judy Woodruff. CNN PRESENTS: "The Unfinished War" is next.
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