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CNN Saturday Morning News
Law Enforcement Personnel Prepares for Terrorist Attacks
Aired February 08, 2003 - 09:40 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Law enforcement personnel throughout the country are braced for possible terror attacks, this after President Bush signed off on raising the national threat level to orange, which equates to a high risk.
CNN's Dana Bash joining us from Washington with the latest. Good morning, Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.
Well, I'll just kind of walk you through how this happened from the president's end, how he signed off on it. The president gets -- every day gets an intelligence and an FBI briefing. And over the course of the week, the president had been told that so-called chatter, just information from intelligence sources, had been rising, that they were getting more credible, and real information that there could be a potential terrorist attack against targets here and abroad.
So he was getting informed about that as the week went on. And then on Friday, his Homeland Security Council met in the Situation Room at the White House. Those are some of his top advisers, like the attorney general, John Ashcroft, and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.
They met. They discussed all the information that they had, all of the intelligence information that they had, and they decided that they were going to go and recommend to the president that he does -- that he should raise the threat level. They went up to the Oval Office and said, Mr. President, it is time to do it, and at about 10:12 a.m. yesterday morning he did sign off on it.
But the White House had been telling us at the end of the week, Wednesday and Thursday, that there were potential threats, particularly because the Muslim holiday of the Hajj was coming up, it does start today, and that is a time that there were worry that some might take that as a potential time to strike U.S. targets, Miles.
O'BRIEN: On the Iraq front, assume the administration is monitoring events closely as the two top U.N. weapons inspectors engage in some kind of dialogue, at least, in Baghdad. Is there any sense that anything less than complete capitulation to the U.N. Resolution 1440 would satisfy the administration at this juncture?
BASH: Not really, Miles. I mean, you know, the White House has made it clear that there is a little bit of concern that in this meeting that the Iraqis will say, Look, we're going to give over, we're going to concede, and we're going to comply with some of the requirements that they haven't been complying with. You saw them do that this week by allowing some interviews with Iraqi scientists.
The president himself made it clear that the world should not see that as a real attempt to comply with these resolutions that the U.N. has passed, that he said that the world should see that as just more deception. So if you listen to what the president says on that, that should be an answer to your question.
But, Miles, the president is -- has been engaged in a high level of diplomacy. He made some calls yesterday to the presidents of France and China. Those are two key countries here in dealing with the U.N. And he will continue to do so over the next week, Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Dana Bash in Washington. Thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 8, 2003 - 09:40 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Law enforcement personnel throughout the country are braced for possible terror attacks, this after President Bush signed off on raising the national threat level to orange, which equates to a high risk.
CNN's Dana Bash joining us from Washington with the latest. Good morning, Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.
Well, I'll just kind of walk you through how this happened from the president's end, how he signed off on it. The president gets -- every day gets an intelligence and an FBI briefing. And over the course of the week, the president had been told that so-called chatter, just information from intelligence sources, had been rising, that they were getting more credible, and real information that there could be a potential terrorist attack against targets here and abroad.
So he was getting informed about that as the week went on. And then on Friday, his Homeland Security Council met in the Situation Room at the White House. Those are some of his top advisers, like the attorney general, John Ashcroft, and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.
They met. They discussed all the information that they had, all of the intelligence information that they had, and they decided that they were going to go and recommend to the president that he does -- that he should raise the threat level. They went up to the Oval Office and said, Mr. President, it is time to do it, and at about 10:12 a.m. yesterday morning he did sign off on it.
But the White House had been telling us at the end of the week, Wednesday and Thursday, that there were potential threats, particularly because the Muslim holiday of the Hajj was coming up, it does start today, and that is a time that there were worry that some might take that as a potential time to strike U.S. targets, Miles.
O'BRIEN: On the Iraq front, assume the administration is monitoring events closely as the two top U.N. weapons inspectors engage in some kind of dialogue, at least, in Baghdad. Is there any sense that anything less than complete capitulation to the U.N. Resolution 1440 would satisfy the administration at this juncture?
BASH: Not really, Miles. I mean, you know, the White House has made it clear that there is a little bit of concern that in this meeting that the Iraqis will say, Look, we're going to give over, we're going to concede, and we're going to comply with some of the requirements that they haven't been complying with. You saw them do that this week by allowing some interviews with Iraqi scientists.
The president himself made it clear that the world should not see that as a real attempt to comply with these resolutions that the U.N. has passed, that he said that the world should see that as just more deception. So if you listen to what the president says on that, that should be an answer to your question.
But, Miles, the president is -- has been engaged in a high level of diplomacy. He made some calls yesterday to the presidents of France and China. Those are two key countries here in dealing with the U.N. And he will continue to do so over the next week, Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Dana Bash in Washington. Thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
