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CNN Student News

Aired January 25, 2002 - 04:30   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.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching CNN STUDENT NEWS seen in schools around the world because learning never stops and neither does the news.

MICHAEL MCMANUS, HOST: CNN STUDENT NEWS for Friday gets underway with John Walker Lindh making his first appearance in court. Still focusing on America's new war, we track the trail of terrorists. Moving on, we journey to an ancient and fabled African city. Find out where in our "Perspectives" section. And we rewind to review one of this week's biggest stories, the debate over the detainees.

Welcome to the program everyone, I'm Michael McManus.

John Walker Lindh begins his legal battle. The 21-year-old American captured as a Taliban fighter made his first appearance yesterday at a federal court in Virginia. He accepted the legal team hired by his parents and says he understands the charges raised against him. A preliminary hearing is set for February 6.

Our Susan Candiotti has more on the case.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Driven before dawn about two blocks from jail to courthouse, John Walker Lindh, sandwiched between federal agents. Looking far different than he did after his capture, the American Taliban's beard and long hair, gone. His head, close-shaven.

He looked around briefly when he walked into court, without glancing at his parents seated in the second row. The charges were read, including conspiring to kill U.S. nationals overseas. The possible penalties including life behind bars, laid out.

Magistrate Curtis Sewell: "Do you understand the charges?" i Walker Lindh: "Yes, I understand."

"Do you have any questions?"

"No, I don't have any questions."

Walker Lindh's attorneys, hired by his parents and approved by their son, charge that after his capture, he was denied early medical treatment and access to a lawyer before talking with the FBI.

JAMES BROSNAHAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: He began requesting a lawyer almost immediately, which would have been December 2nd or 3rd. For 54 days, he was held incommunicado.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: He chose to waive his right to an attorney, both orally and in writing, before his statement to the FBI. Mr. Walker will be held responsible in the courtroom for his choices.

CANDIOTTI: Legal experts call Walker's statement to the FBI crucial to the government's case. In it, he allegedly admits training in al Qaeda camps and being told about planned suicide attacks in the U.S.

Also part of the government's case: a CNN interview with Walker Lindh shot shortly after his capture. Both pieces of evidence expected to be challenged by his lawyers. Walker Lindh met his parents for about 20 minutes before the hearing, separated by a mesh screen in a small room, with an FBI agent present.

MARILYN WALKER, JOHN WALKER LINDH'S MOTHER: It's been two years since I last saw my son. It was wonderful to see him this morning. My love for him is unconditional and absolute.

FRANK LINDH, JOHN WALKER LINDH'S FATHER: John did not take up arms against America. He never meant to harm any American, and he never did harm any American. John is innocent of these charges.

CANDIOTTI: For now, Walker Lindh is being held in this city jail, confined to a 7.5 x 7.5 cell, equipped with a bed, sink and toilet, joined to a common area with a TV.

(on camera): Walker Lindh is allowed scheduled visits with his parents and meetings with his lawyers. He'll next appear in court in about two weeks, and sources say he could be indicted by a grand jury before then.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Alexandria, Virginia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: One of the most unsettling things about the September 11 terrorists is the way the group blended in with ordinary people, dressing like everyone else, attending schools in the U.S., even spending time in popular hangouts.

Mike Boettcher reports on the very strong possibility that there could be more terrorists in major cities around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kabul, November, 2001, chaos and confusion in the midst of a rapid Taliban collapse. In a pile of documents left behind during a hurried al Qaeda retreat, a green book -- notes of a student terrorist. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "To work in the cities, you need small, separate groups, whose members do not exceed four. It's preferable that these members be from the cities, because moving in the cities, you need individuals who are accustomed to this type of life, because cities are loaded with government spies. The government is alert in many cities, because most of its business, its people, fortune and communications are concentrated these. These represent the heart of the government."

BOETTCHER: They are among us. They are in our cities, dormant, living normal lives, waiting for extraordinary orders. They are sleeper cells, and they are here. The FBI has already opened at least 150 investigations of individuals and groups, suspected sleepers.

Viet Dinh is with the U.S. Justice Department.

VIET DINH, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: We know for a fact that al Qaeda uses sleeper cells. Terrorists do not come dressed in a T- shirt that says, "I am a terrorist."

BOETTCHER: Steve Pomerantz, who once headed the FBI's counterterrorist section, knows the frustration of trying to find these hidden terrorists.

STEVE POMERANTZ, FORMER FBI AGENT: By their very nature, when we talk about sleeper cells, we're talking about people who have infiltrated surreptitiously, who are attempting to blend in, who are evading detection to the best way they can.

BOETTCHER: Some may have been in our midst for years; others are still on their way. Several high-level intelligence sources, some part of the anti-terror coalition, and others who once served the Taliban, reveal a recent example of how these sleeper agents mobilize, then disappear in our midst.

They tell CNN that in the confusing days of mid-September, about 250 al Qaeda terrorists slipped from the chaos of Afghanistan and made their way to an unidentified Indian Ocean island off the coast of Africa. From there, they went their separate ways. Some went west, others traveled east. They were not running away, they were on their way to a mission, suspect intelligence sources. But where? In what countries? And for what purpose? Nobody knows and rarely does anyone find out.

POMERANTZ: Well, the first and clearly most important element in dealing with these sleeper cells is get intelligence information that they exist, and who -- at least one name that you can -- some place you can start to focus to investigate them.

BOETTCHER: A chance arrest at a U.S. border crossing gave investigators one place to start, an opening into the underground world of sleepers. In December, 1999, Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian member of al Qaeda, was apprehended in Port Angeles, Washington as he tried to drive a carload of explosives from Canada into the United States. An alert U.S. Custom's agent became suspicious, and he was arrested. Ressam was convicted of attempted terrorism. His target: Los Angeles International Airport during millennium celebrations. A classic sleeper. He was trained in Afghanistan, then sent to Canada to wait for the time of its planned attack. Ressam talked, a lot. Coalition intelligence sources he provided information that led to the arrest of other sleepers in Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany, but not in the United States. And more than a year-and-a- half later, 19 other sleepers succeeded where Ressam had failed.

From the Center for the Prevention of Terrorism at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Professor Magnus Ranstorp has closely followed the phenomenon of sleepers.

PROF. MAGNUS RANSTORP, UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS: It is a virtual nightmare to unearth and to detect all those constituent individuals when we don't have a dossier of many of these individuals, because one of the things that Western and U.S. intelligence did, in the 1990s, was to take the eye off the ball on these.

BOETTCHER (on camera): But what is being thrown at the United States is terrorism's version of a curve ball, hard to follow as it approaches the target. Sleepers who look as we do, dress as we do, act as we do, and in secret, hate what we do.

(voice-over): Al Qaeda manuals described a tactic, a simple lesson in blending in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Have a general appearance that does not indicate Islamic orientation. Avoid visiting famous Islamic places, like mosques, libraries, Islamic fairs, et cetera. Avoid seclusion and isolation from the population."

BOETTCHER: The most radical of terrorist movements allow themselves to take the tactic to the extreme. Known as Takfir, they are allowed to deviate from strict Muslim practices, drinking, drug taking and womanizing are permitted in the name of their terrorist mission and their ultimate goal -- purification of Islam.

John Louis Brugier, a French magistrate responsible for investigating, arresting and prosecuting terrorists, believes sleepers who adhere to Takfir, are the most dangerous of all.

JOHN LOUIS BRUGIER, FRENCH MAGISTRATE: They are generally good looking tie, jacket and suit. And some of them have the right, it's necessary, to drink alcoholic beverage. They don't frequent -- they don't go to mosques. They don't have Islamic relationship, in order to hide themselves.

BOETTCHER (on camera): When you speak of Takfir, the description you give seems to match the description of the actions of Mohammed Atta that U.S. authorities say.

BRUGIER: Yes.

BOETTCHER: Do you think he subscribed to Takfir?

BRUGIER: Maybe.

BOETTCHER (voice-over): Out there, in our midst, U.S. investigators are convinced there are other Mohammed Attas blending in, fitting in, sleepers waiting for an order, waiting to be awakened.

In that pile of papers left behind in a classroom in Kabul, a terrorist's chilling to-do list, things to buy before a long sleep.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "A personal weapon, you get a permit for it, a new picture, two new suits, and some good black shoes."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: A key witness in the Enron investigation refused to testify before a House panel yesterday. The committee is investigating the company's collapse and the destruction of documents. David Duncan, the former lead auditor on the Enron account, invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege at the hearings and told lawmakers he wouldn't answer any of their questions. Other executives at Arthur Andersen who did testify told the panel Duncan initiated the shredding.

Yesterday's hearings coincide with the resignation of Enron's Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay. Lay resigned Wednesday amid a storm of controversy and accusations of wrongdoing.

CNN Financial News Correspondent Chris Huntington looks at Lay's career and what lies ahead for his replacement.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNNFN CORRESPONDENT: In the summer of 1992, Kenneth Lay was on the rise. As chairman of the host committee of the Republican National Convention in Houston, he was cementing his relationship with both George Bushes, and building his reputation as a businessman on the national stage.

At the time, Enron was far from a household name, but it was well on its way to becoming the biggest marketer of natural gas and electricity in the United States.

A former Naval officer with a doctorate in economics, Lay changed Enron, a former pipeline company, by seizing on deregulation and creating a major broker in emergency and broadband-data transmission.

By 2000, the company claimed to book sales of more than 100 billion, ranking it seventh on the Fortune 500. As Enron stock price soared to over $90 a share, Lay and his team were heralded as financial wizards.

But what we now know by the summer of 2001, concerns within Enron had risen to a crisis level. One executive letter to Lay last August warned presciently that Enron might be seen as -- quote -- "an accounting hoax." But Lay stayed bullish, buying even more stock, and continued to preach the gospel.

KEN LAY, FMR. ENRON CHAIRMAN & CEO: This will be one more year of about 20 percent growth in earnings per share.

HUNTINGTON: Two months later, Enron was bankrupt, its stock trading below 50 cents a share, and Lay's reputation was in ruins. Revelations that he had called Bush cabinet members seeking help for Enron made a difficult situation untenable.

In a statement explaining his resignation, Lay said: "I want to see Enron survive, and for that to happen, we need someone at the helm who can focus 100 percent of his efforts on reorganizing the company and preserving value for our creditors and hard-working employees."

KENNETH ECKSTEIN, RESTRUCTURING ATTY., KRAMER, LEVIN: A restructuring person to Enron is going to need to have recognized independence, integrity and confidence in the marketplace, and experience and expertise in dealing with complex financial and restructuring issue.

HUNTINGTON: Lawyers for Enron and the creditor's committee are in talks to sort out who might take on the role, and they're not saying right now who they're considering.

As for Kenneth Lay, while giving up the reigns at Enron, he has not severed all ties with the company, as he will stay on the board of directors.

Chris Huntington, CNN Financial News, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Exploring our world, here now is CNN STUDENT NEWS "Perspectives."

"Salt comes from the North, Gold from the South, and Silver from the country of the white men, but the Word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuktu."

MCMANUS: As we continue to look at "The Other Side of Africa," we take you to the fascinating, mysterious, hidden city called Timbuktu. In 1988, Timbuktu was designated a United Nations World Heritage Site, but few people in the world today could even find it on a map and far fewer are aware of its colorful history.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUDI BAKHTIAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just say the name and you know its legend. Timbuktu, the farthest place a human being can travel. A small windswept oasis in West Africa, this fabled city sits in the middle of the forbidden African desert, and it's surrounded by hundreds of kilometers of more desert, as far as the eye can see. Mysterious, inaccessible, harsh and remote, these words have been synonymous with Timbuktu for centuries.

MAYOR MOHAMMED IBRAHIM CISSE, TIMBUKTU (through translator): Life in Timbuktu is hard. We're a thousand kilometers from the capital, there aren't many roads, airplanes are expensive and the telephone costs a lot as well. Not everyone can afford to have a telephone in their own home.

BAKHTIAR: Timbuktu lies about 12 kilometers north of the Niger River flood plain. It is considered the door to both the Sahara Desert, which lies to the north, and the Sahel, a semi-desert area of Mali that lies to the south. Because of its location, Timbuktu was at the crossroads of some of Africa's most historic trade routes. Caravans have passed through this remote region since about 300 AD. And according to history, nomadic trading people played an important role in Timbuktu's humble beginnings.

NOUH AG INFA YATTARA, MINISTER: Timbuktu was founded in 11th century by the Qur'anic people, mainly four great tribes. And those four tribes used to come from the desert during the rainy season and camp here where the camel and the canal met that Niger River then.

BAKHTIAR (on camera): Timbuktu's location left it pretty open for attack, so control of the city kept changing hands. From about the 1200s to the late 1800s, it was ruled by the Mali Empire, the Torrac Nomads, the Songhai Empire, Morocco, the Falani People and the Bambara Kingdom.

(voice-over): Before the discovery of gold in the Americas, two- thirds of the world's gold supply came from West Africa and Timbuktu was a key stop on its journey to Europe and the Mediterranean. Salt was as valuable as gold in the ancient world, and Timbuktu had ample quantities of both. But these were just two of the many exotic products bought and sold in this storied city of ever shifting sand.

YATTARA: The seven products of Sahel used to arrive here in Timbuktu. The seven products were gold, ivory, slaves, animal for circus, ostrich eggs and feather, oil palm and granite. Then the northern side also came seven products. The first one is guns, powder, materials, wine, horses, beads and salt. They came here to be exchanged here in Timbuktu, and Timbuktu economically was very strong.

BAKHTIAR: Historians and archaeologists alike compare the rich cultural heritage of the Niger River Valley with that of ancient Greece and Egypt's Nile Valley. One key reason: along with the trade and commerce that passed through Timbuktu came the scholars.

YATTARA: In 15, 16 century, really what that -- that was the golden age of Timbuktu with the Kingdom of Songor. That was the time when the mosque of Sankore became very famous. The reason is that the annex of that mosque became the old University of Timbuktu.

BAKHTIAR: By the mid-1500s, the city had three universities and nearly 200 Qur'anic schools. At its height, more than 100,000 people called Timbuktu home. Of these, more than 25,000 were students and scholars.

YATTARA: The book was the thing -- the most exchanged product during that time in Timbuktu. And that is where Timbuktu was very high intellectually and culturally, and that is the age today Timbuktu and Mali and all Africa is trying to give back to Timbuktu.

BAKHTIAR: These are the great treasures of Timbuktu today, books, manuscripts, letters and documents, thousands of them, survivors of the city's ancient libraries. Though the paper has yellowed with age and the pages are noticeably brittle and flaky, the painted colors are still vibrant, and the handwritten script is as legible as the day it was first set to paper.

Timbuktu's wealth of the written word came about through the time-consuming and painstaking process of hand copying. Students studied and duplicated text borrowed from their mentors. Reproductions were also made of manuscripts carried by travelers who passed through the city. For centuries, such texts were collected by local families throughout the southern Sahara and stored in boxes, closets and chests.

The dry desert climate of Timbuktu has delayed the disintegration of these antiquities so far. Historically, the people of Timbuktu amassed such private collections as a sign of wealth and education. To this day, there remains about 60 private collections, ancient reminders of Timbuktu's once golden past as a center of Islamic learning. Although Timbuktu today is not much more than a remote sweltering outpost, it hopes to regain its former glory by preserving its ancient past and sharing it with the rest of the world.

BAKHTIAR: Rudi Bakhtiar, CNN, Timbuktu.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: Each Friday on CNN STUDENT NEWS, we'll look back at the week's big stories. This week's big headline, the debate over the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Here is Joel Hochmuth with that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOEL HOCHMUTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The images raised a storm of protest. They're pictures released this week of the 158 captives of the war in Afghanistan that the U.S. military holds at its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They show the captives shackled, blindfolded and forced to kneel, and they drew sharp criticism on both sides of the Atlantic.

RAMSEY CLARK, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: How can you just pick people up and conceal their identity, put hoods over their heads, chain them and drag them around and put them in what we call kennels, which you usually think of as places for dogs, treat them that way and never say who they are and never say what charges there are?

ANN CLWYD, BRITISH PARLIAMENT MEMBER: I suppose it's a war, as did many of my fellow MPs in the House of Commons, but we're afraid that the United States may be squandering the moral high ground by what appears to be inhumane treatment.

HOCHMUTH: Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was quick to answer the critics, saying conditions at Guantanamo Bay are humane and that the pictures were taken out of context. Rumsfeld says that the tactics pictured are only used when detainees are outside their cells.

DONALD RUMSFELD, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Will any single prisoner be treated humanely? You bet. When they are being moved from place to place, will they be restrained in a way so that they are less likely to be able to kill an American soldier? You bet. Is it inhumane to do that? No. Would it be stupid to do anything else? Yes.

HOCHMUTH: The larger debate really was about terminology. The Bush administration continued to call those in custody detainees rather than prisoners of war. It's a critical distinction. According to the Geneva Convention, POWs must be released when the fighting is over, of course that's the last thing the U.S. wants to do with men it suspects are part of a terrorist network.

RUMSFELD: Having those people back out on the street to engage in further terrorist attacks is not our first choice. They are being detained so they don't do that. That is what they were about. That is -- that is why they were captured, and that is why they're detained.

CLARK: You don't hold people because you think they may do something. You hold them because they did something. We do not believe in preventive detention, detaining someone before we have a reason to believe they've committed some prior crime.

HOCHMUTH: The Bush administration argues the detainees don't deserve POW status since they didn't represent a legitimate government.

RUMSFELD: The Geneva Convention had a very good purpose and it was in part to distinguish between people who behave like soldiers, dress like soldiers, carry their weapons like soldiers, were part of a military operation as opposed to people who did not and looked like civilians.

KENNETH ROTH, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: But the determination is not to be done by Secretary Rumsfeld sitting behind a microphone. It's to be done by a competent tribunal. The rules are very clear on that.

HOCHMUTH: Just what will become of the detainees remains an open question. Will they face a military trial, a civil trial, be returned to their country or simply be held in custody indefinitely? Rumsfeld says to expect some sort of answer soon.

Joel Hochmuth, CNN STUDENT NEWS.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: In the week's and months following the terrorist attack, students from around the U.S. have been helping in many ways. We've been sharing some of their stories with you, and today we bring you yet one more report. This one involves teen volunteers from Clearwater, Florida.

CNN Student Bureau's Holly Kato has their story. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HOLLY KATO, CNN STUDENT BUREAU (voice-over): The heartbreak felt over September 11th sent scores of American citizens in search of ways to help Lower Manhattan, while only a select few, including a group of young volunteers from the Church of Scientology in Clearwater, Florida, were able to go.

MALIA SCHNEIDER, AGE 18: It's made me want to help people more. It's made me realize that there is insanity in the world and that there's something to be done about it and that I know that I can help with that.

ADRIAN AUSTIN, AGE 19: We went down there and we worked bucket lines. And really what you're doing is you're shoveling, and you're shoveling into buckets and you're handing those buckets and you're clearing way.

KERI LEE, VOLUNTEER MINISTER: I had no idea how devastating it was. It was blocks and blocks and blocks and blocks of mass destruction.

KATO: These volunteers are motivated by empathetic feelings and personal values.

AUSTIN: A being is only as valuable as he can serve others. I am more valuable the more that I can help other people.

CHRIS ZEA, AGE 21: People I know up in New York need help, and I need to go up there and actually do something about it and not just sort of sit here and act like it doesn't affect me, because that's not true.

KATO: These experiences in New York have touched this group in a way that will remain with them throughout their lives.

SCHNEIDER: I saw how people really are, and how much people really do want to help and how good people are.

AUSTIN: You were really like climbing throughout like it was a jungle of steel and just different stuff. And in the barricade lines, there was personal belongings in the buckets, purses, briefcase, pictures, keyboards, then it becomes more of like a -- like to your heart.

Holly Kato, CNN Student Bureau, St. Petersburg, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ON SCREEN: "Where in the World?"

This city was settled by the Dutch in the 1800s.

Home to the largest art museum in the United States. The United Nations is headquartered here.

Can you name this city?

New York, New York, U.S.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: That's it for the broadcast today. Have a great weekend. We'll see you right back here on Monday.

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