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CNN Saturday Morning News
President Wraps Up National Security Meeting
Aired November 03, 2001 - 09:34 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The president is at Camp David this weekend.
CNN's White House correspondent Kelly Wallace is near the presidential retreat and joins us now with the latest.
Kelly, good morning.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Kyra.
Well, we know that President Bush wrapped up his meeting with his National Security Council team about a half hour ago. As is typical now, really, on these weekends, the president joined up at Camp David with Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, and his chief of staff, Andrew Card, and all his other National Security Council and military advisers participating via video teleconference from Washington.
Mr. Bush expected to spend time at Camp David this weekend working with Condoleezza Rice and his other advisers preparing for what is going to be a very, very busy week.
He has meetings with six world leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac. He is also going to be delivering a number of what aides call major speeches, including one one week from today at the United Nations. It will be his first speech at the U.N., and he will be focusing on the progress in this campaign against terrorism.
He is also going to be giving a speech on Thursday, this one targeting the American people, to talk about homeland security issues. And Kyra, this issue in particular, cases of anthrax will be the entire focus of the president's radio address, which will be broadcast just about 30 minutes from now.
This the first time the president has devoted his entire radio address to this issue, and really, you can describe it as a bit of an explainer, the president trying to take the American people through what the federal government has been learning about anthrax, trying, of course, to calm the American people, especially now that we have a case in New York, a woman who died of inhalation anthrax, and authorities not at all clear on how she contracted the disease, and also the message from the president, Kyra, is that the federal government doing everything it possibly can to get the facts, and as soon as it gets the facts, to relay that to the American people.
So look for that message from the president just about 30 minutes from now -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Well, on the note of messages, Kelly, how about this videotaped message today from Osama bin Laden? Has the White House responded to this?
WALLACE: No response yet, Kyra. We certainly are checking. We do know, of course, the administration set up something we reported a few days ago, a coalition information center with a -- almost like a war room at the White House, with an office in London, and soon to be an office in Islamabad.
And part of the focus of this information center is to respond quickly and aggressively to any comments coming from the Taliban or Osama bin Laden. So we'll look to see if we'll get some response, and clearly, any response of the administration will be filtered through these offices, again, a way for the administration to deal with this so-called propaganda war and to make sure its message is getting out quickly, making the case that this is not a campaign against the people of Afghanistan, not a campaign against Arabs or Muslims, but, again, a campaign against Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network and the terrorists believed to be responsible for the September 11 attacks -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Kelly, quickly, before we let you go, this may be a bit of an obscure question, but any word on who really is producing these videotapes and actually sending them out?
WALLACE: It's clear, Kyra, that law enforcement officials don't really have an idea. We saw FBI director Robert Mueller at a briefing yesterday making it clear that they are very much still looking to find out who is responsible, the director really appealing to the American people to report any information that could be helpful, almost appealing to the American people to help with this.
So right now, they don't know who is producing it, who is responsible for sending these letters. They also are still saying they cannot rule out of if it was something based in the United States or if it's an international or foreign source. So they are not -- doesn't appear very close to determining who's responsible, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Kelly Wallace, as always, it's a pleasure, live from the retreat there in Camp David. Thanks so much.
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