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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With Joe Foss, Hussein Ibish

Aired March 09, 2002 - 09:20   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: So has airport security gone too far? Well, we're going to ask 86-year-old war veteran Joe Foss, because when he went through airport security recently, several times in his jacket, it raised the concern of airport screeners, among them, his Congressional Medal of Honor. Foss was detained and searched three times because security was concerned his medal could be used as a weapon.

Retired general Joe Foss joins us now. General, good to see you, sir.

GEN. JOE FOSS (RET.), U.S. MARINE CORPS: Great to be anywhere.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's great to have you here with us.

Look, I want you to take us back to 1943 when you were on the cover of "Life" magazine, and Roosevelt, President Roosevelt, was giving you the Medal of Honor. Boy, were you a handsome fellow. Well, you still are, but I'm looking at the picture right now.

Tell us why you got the Medal of Honor.

FOSS: Well, because I had a great outfit. All the men that I had did a great job keeping the airplanes in shape and getting me up there, and those that were fighting with me were -- we fought as a team. And I was the leader of that particular flight. They called us Joe's Jokers, or the Flying Circus. And we were full speed ahead.

PHILLIPS: Well, let me tell you what, it wasn't a joke, Joe's Jokers. I know you took down 26 enemy aircraft. What was it like just being in the middle of that battle?

FOSS: Well, everybody on the island of Guadalcanal, whether you were on the ground or in the air, there -- on a ship or under the sea around there, we're out there to win. We had one idea, and that was to send the Japanese back to Japan, where they should have been in the first place.

PHILLIPS: Well, sir, your medal is a testament to your honor.

So let's go back -- or let's jump forward here. You were on your way to West Point to speak to some cadets just a few weeks ago, and you went through security. And what happened? FOSS: Well, actually I had the Congressional Medal of Honor, which I brought along at request. I don't normally carry it around. But I had it in my pocket here, and...

PHILLIPS: Let's see it, go ahead and show it to us.

FOSS: And it -- along with a little money clip. And they said, when I came up there they said, "Take off your boots, take off your belt, take off your tie, and let's look at your hat." I had a big Western hat on, which I normally wear.

And so they said, "Empty your pockets," and I emptied my pockets. And put the jacket in a basket there, and it went through, and the buzzer went off. And the guy -- about the only words he spoke to me, "I thought you emptied your jacket," in a very abrasive way. And I said, "I did." And he said, "It set off the thing." So they brought it back, and I reached into my pocket and brought it out, and there was the medal and this little money clip.

And then that was the start of all of this excitement around. Everybody looking at it, and one guy picked up the medal and was holding it like it was a dangerous weapon, you know, and going like that. And what I said was, "If a terrorist came at me with that, I'd knock him through the side of the airplane."

PHILLIPS: No doubt you would. I want to get you to hold up the Medal of Honor. It was a little too low, sir. If you could just bring the medal up a little higher, so then folks can kind of get an idea -- Bring it up even higher. There you go.

FOSS: There we go.

PHILLIPS: So you know what I think is sad, sir, is that folks didn't even realize that was a Medal of Honor?

FOSS: Well, the man had ahold of it like that, see, and of course you couldn't hurt a baby with that thing. And then -- and if someone came at you with a tool like that, you know what would happen to him.

PHILLIPS: Yes, that's true. Well, are you upset about this? I mean, do you think...

FOSS: Well...

PHILLIPS: ... is this bad procedure? Is this bad airport security, or was this just ignorance?

FOSS: I tell you, the thing that upset me, the whole thing was nonsensical. Playing with nonsense, as I said, and here you are, looking for terrorists. Well, in the first place, the medal, and somebody carrying the medal, and I said, "Read the back, what it says." And here's my ID, I've got my ID here so you can see. It's the same pigeon that got the medal. My name's on the back, awarded by President Roosevelt on such-and-such a date, 1943.

And I could see no reason why they should be fooling with me any more.

And I said, "Now, what happens to the stuff that I leave here, like this little clip?" See, that had the insignia of the Society for the Medal of Honor people, and I've carried it for years. And has a little nail file on the side and a little knife blade less than three- quarters of an inch long.

And they said, "Well, that's destroyed." And I said, "In a pig's eye it is. I'm not about to leave it. What -- how can I save it?" And he says, "Mail it back to yourself." "How do I do that?" And he said, "Go over to that desk there."

So I got all dressed up and went over to this desk and mailed the money clip and a little key that I had with the bullet, imitation bullet thing on the end of it...

PHILLIPS: That's right, I know you have a key chain, you got that from Charlton Heston...

FOSS: Right.

PHILLIPS: ... because you've been involved with the NRA.

Well, I know obviously you got everything back, that is good news.

FOSS: And I mailed back. But I didn't get -- leave the Congressional Medal of Honor and mail that back. I said...

PHILLIPS: Heck, no!

FOSS: ... "That's going with me."

PHILLIPS: Absolutely.

FOSS: And of course then the man said, "Take off your boots." I says, "You just gave me that, I just took off my boots." "Your belt, your tie," that's another dangerous weapon, you've got sharp points on the end here on the bullet tie.

And so I went through the same rigmarole again...

PHILLIPS: Well, sir, let me tell you something. Your situation has raised a big question, and that is, airport security, or not only a question, but an issue here, you know, how far is too far, and how should the policy go? And we're going to talk about that right now.

General Joe Foss, I want to thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story with us. Sir, it was an absolute honor. I'm so glad that you have your medal in hand, in addition to your key chain and your clip. I hope you'll come back and visit us another time and talk about your heroism.

FOSS: Thank you, I'd like to.

PHILLIPS: All right, general, absolute pleasure, sir. Well, what happened to the general is what we're going to talk about. What should determine, or what and who should determine how a person should get searched?

Joining us now, Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee, and CNN security analyst Kelly McCann.

Gentlemen, hello.

J. KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Hi, Kyra.

HUSSEIN IBISH, AMERICAN-ARAB ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMMITTEE: Thanks a lot, nice to be with you.

PHILLIPS: Absolutely. Maybe I can get you both to quickly respond to General Foss's situation. When you guys heard about this, I mean, what was your reaction? You want to -- we -- we'll start with you, Hussein.

IBISH: Yes, I think it's ridiculous and terribly unfortunate, and it's really -- it's too bad that, you know, a hero like that should be harassed because he happened to have his Medal of Honor with him. And I think that, you know, the whole country is on edge and still is on edge six months after this horrible attack.

And I've been traveling a lot, both domestically and internationally, and there've been very intensive searches. I've had little screwdrivers for eyeglasses taken away from me and things like that.

I mean, I think that it's right that someone like the general is treated with deference. I think the rest of us should probably welcome heightened security, and I never felt put out in any way by the security I faced in the past few months.

PHILLIPS: And Kelly, I can understand, I wonder -- heightened security, it's a sharp object, but you have an 86-year-old man. It says "Medal of Honor" on it. You have his ID. It seems like this just was a little -- it seemed more ignorance than it was policy. Correct me if I'm wrong.

MCCANN: No, you're not wrong at all, and Semper Fi to the general. I mean, American hero, and it goes to the intelligence, the basic common sense and judgmental qualities of the people that were running security at that post. I mean, you know, you said it right, Kyra, which is, to not recognize the Blue Max, the Medal of Honor, to have no knowledge about what that is, says something.

So it was insanity. I mean, it was ridiculous.

PHILLIPS: Yes, in a time when everybody has an American flag on their home...

MCCANN: Exactly right.

PHILLIPS: ... and their postbox now, I mean, for goodness' sakes, we should know what that is.

All right, I want to read this to you, gentlemen, House members last Wednesday debated whether airport security screeners should use ethnicity and nationality in picking passengers for extra security. And I'm reading this specifically. One lawmaker said, "Airport security personnel should focus on people from Iran, the Sudan, and Middle Eastern countries accused of harboring terrorists."

Well, I got to tell you what, I about choked and my heart sunk when I read this, because my husband is from Iran, and we've never really had issues. Now this kind of gets me thinking, Wow, all of a sudden, are we going to have people piled on top of us?

Is this going a little too far, Hussein?

IBISH: I think much too far. And it's -- the -- there are two problems with ethnic profiling or racial profiling at airports in the name of security. The first is a moral question, which you just mentioned, that really, it's not the way we want to behave, and, you know, it diminishes us as a society to be systematizing a process of discrimination.

The more profound concern, though, is, will this be good law enforcement? Is this going to make for good security? I don't think that it will. I think that many law enforcement and counterterrorism experts tell us that they don't think that profiling is useful. And in fact, Vinnie Canistraro, the former head of CIA counterterrorism, has said that ethnicity is a false lead, that it's not an interesting or useful piece of information.

Threats to security come from all kind of different quarters. And I think everyone who flies has a right to be safe from everybody else. So we need solid across-the-board security. But not go chasing down, you know, a kind of wild goose chase after people who are simply of the wrong ethnicity. That will not, I think, make us more secure.

PHILLIPS: Now, Kelly, from an intelligence perspective, you look at September 11, you see the nationality, the ethnicity of the hijackers. I guess this would sort of make sense, in a way.

MCCANN: It does, and this is a very complex issue, because people talk about profiling, you know, in a generic sense. It's really not. There are three kinds of profiling, one of which is to criminal evidence-based profiling, is predicts behavior, and might prevent a murder.

Then there's, like, interdiction profiling, which is a prevalent historical capture, if you will, of behavioral events. It's got nothing to do with race. In fact, the more behavioral events that you can amass, the less it has to do with racial ethnicity.

And then lastly you've got, like, surveillance detection profiling, which is profiling people for particular patterns of behavior that add up to an imminent attack or being considered for target value. When you understand it in that respect, and you also understand that there is no organization, worldwide, that says that racial profiling or ethnicity alone is the sole criteria, then you say, OK, well, is it valid as a contributor? And I think it is. And until we have other intelligence that points in another direction -- for instance, adversaries will always seek a vulnerability. Now that we know that this particular physical profile fit the previous attackers, it would be reasonable for us to expect people who look another way to be the next kinds of attackers.

However, in a paucity of other information, without that kind of direct information, we've got to at least consider race as a contributor.

IBISH: Well, here's the problem with that. The problem is that...

PHILLIPS: Quickly, Hussein, I unfortunately have to take a break.

IBISH: ... yes, threats to security come from all different quarters. In the past, we've had Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber...

MCCANN: Sure.

IBISH: ... and since then, we've had the anthrax murders, the JDL leadership, and Richard Reid. None of this would have been helped by ethnic profiling.

So we need solid security that will make us all safe from each other, and not based on race or ethnicity.

PHILLIPS: Hussein Ibish, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Kelly McCann, our...

MCCANN: Pleasure.

PHILLIPS: ... regular security analyst, gentlemen, thanks so much, what a great discussion and great chance to meet General Foss too.

MCCANN: Oh, absolutely.

PHILLIPS: Thanks so much.

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