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Did Bush Sell Stance on Iraq to American People?; Is Anyone Supporting U.S. Overseas?; Key al Qaeda Operative Captured

Aired September 14, 2002 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION, where our journalists serve up the inside scoop on the stories we cover this week. I'm Kelly Wallace.
The president's speeches on September 11 and to the United Nations, did he sell his stand on Iraq to the American people?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

When it comes to Iraq, does the U.S. have any friends overseas? Did President Bush pick up any support this week, and does it really matter?

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kelli Arena.

The latest capture of a terrorist suspect, the man the U.S. believes played a major role planning the September 11 attacks.

KATHLEEN HAYS, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kathleen Hays.

Will talk of war push back the economic recovery and push up prices at the pump?

DANA BASH, CNN CAPITOL HILL PRODUCER: I'm Dana Bash.

A year after the September 11 attacks, Congress still has unfinished business on homeland defense, intelligence failures and now Iraq.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Jeanne Meserve.

What about the government's decision to move the terror alert higher and keep it there?

We'll be talking about all of these stories of the week, and we're waiting for the release of the president's weekly radio address just a few minutes from now.

But first, a check on the headlines at this hour.

(NEWSBREAK)

WALLACE: Well, President Bush had the eyes and the ears of the world this week. His message, "Remember September 11 and the victims," but also, "The war on terror goes on." The president wants to take that war to Iraq, his message, "with or without the United Nations." He is determined to force change in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary resolutions, but the purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced, the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Well, I can tell you, White House aides are feeling really good. They think the president made a strong case, that now the world is talking about what to do about Saddam Hussein.

But, Christiane, reading between the lines, this president is making it very clear that military action might ultimately be necessary, don't you think?

AMANPOUR: Yes. You know, there's a joke going around here that I picked up, the lateralisms of, as far as this administration is concerned, a unilateralist in the Bush administration just goes it alone, a multilateralist goes to the U.N., tells them that he's going to go it alone.

(LAUGHTER)

So the question is, has there been any perceptible shift from any of the key people -- for instance, Russia -- that the president might need, especially in the Security Council if it comes to a resolution?

WALLACE: Well, that is the key question. You have Secretary Powell, Secretary of State Colin Powell, obviously meeting with the leaders of Russia and France and China, all with veto power on the U.N. Security Council. Their support critical, because of course they could go ahead and veto a resolution.

It's not clear, Christiane, you know, aides are telling our colleagues that they believe that he's making some headway, that everyone does believe that weapons inspectors must get back inside Iraq or Iraq should face the consequences. The really big question is, what will those consequences be? Will you have allies supporting the use of military force?

Let's listen to the president. He's going to talk more about this in his weekly radio address.

(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)

BUSH: Good morning.

Today I'm meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi about the growing danger posed by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq and the unique opportunity the U.N. Security Council has to confront it. I appreciate the prime minister's public support for effective international action to deal with this danger.

The Italian prime minister joins other concerned world leaders who have called on the world to act -- among them, Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain, Prime Minister Aznar of Spain, President Kwasniewski of Poland.

These leaders have reached the same conclusion I have: that Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself. He has broken every pledge he made to the United Nations and the world since his invasion of Kuwait was rolled back in 1991.

Sixteen times the United Nations Security Council has passed resolutions designed to ensure that Iraq does not pose a threat to international peace and security. Saddam Hussein has violated every one of these 16 resolutions -- not once, but many times.

Saddam Hussein's regime continues to support terrorist groups and to oppress its civilian population. It refuses to account for missing Gulf War personnel or to end illicit trade outside the U.N.'s oil-for- food program.

And although the regime agreed in 1991 to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, it has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge. Today this regime likely maintains stockpiles of chemical and biological agents, and is improving and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical and biological weapons.

Today Saddam Hussein has the scientists and infrastructure for a nuclear weapons program and has illicitly sought to purchase the equipment needed to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should his regime acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year.

The former head of the U.N. team investigating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, Richard Butler, reached this conclusion after years of experience: "The fundamental problem with Iraq remains the nature of the regime itself. Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction."

By supporting terrorist groups, repressing its own people and pursuing weapons of mass destruction in defiance of a decade of U.N. resolutions, Saddam Hussein's regime has proven itself a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.

Saddam Hussein's defiance has confronted the United Nations with a difficult and defining moment: Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purposes of its founding, or will it be irrelevant? As the United Nations prepares an effective response to Iraq's defense, I also welcome next week's congressional hearings on the threat Saddam Hussein's brutal regime poses to our country and the entire world. Congress must make it unmistakably clear that when it comes to confronting the growing danger posed by Iraq's efforts to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction, the status quo is totally unacceptable.

The issue is straightforward: We must choose between a world of fear or a world of progress. We must stand up for our security and for the demands of human dignity. By heritage and choice, the United States will make that stand. The world community must do so, as well.

Thank you for listening.

(END AUDIOTAPE)

WALLACE: The president in his weekly radio address. He is meeting this day at the presidential retreat at Camp David with the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

But, Dana, he is also issuing another challenge to lawmakers. He is saying he absolutely wants a vote on a congressional resolution before lawmakers leave in November. How are Democrats responding?

BASH: Well, he has Democrats in a box, and Democrats will even kind of privately admit that.

What they want the president to do is go to the U.N. and make his case to the U.N. before he comes to Congress and asks for any kind of use-of-force resolution. But it's very hard for then to oppose a president, especially just really weeks before the November election.

Many Democrats remember in 1991 that there was a Persian Gulf resolution where only 10 Democrats voted for it, and they regretted it afterwards. But other Democrats remember even further back, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, where they gave the White House support for use of force in Vietnam, and look what happened after that.

So they're really conflicted about it. But the political stakes are very high for them, no question about it.

ARENA: Well, coming up, how the capture of a terrorist suspect in Pakistan may provide new clues about how the September 11 attacks were planned and carried out, as CNN's SATURDAY EDITION continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ARENA: An important source of information about the news of the day, the war in Afghanistan and the terrorism investigation can be found online at cnn.com, AOL keyword, CNN.

A boost to the terrorism investigation this week, Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the most wanted al Qaeda operatives, was captured in Pakistan after a shoot-out. He has claimed that he played a prominent role in planning and even trying to participate directly in the September 11 attacks.

MESERVE: Kelli, explain exactly how big a fish this guy is and what kind of information U.S. intelligence thinks they might be able to get out of him if he talks.

ARENA: This is the second most important arrest that has been made. Abu Zubaydah, as you know, who is al Qaeda's head of operations, is in custody, has provided a fair amount of information, but of a general nature. He hasn't provided anything specific.

Ramzi Binalshibh tried to enter the United States four times prior to September 11. And so, that is why they thought, well, maybe he was trying to get in to be the September 11 hijacker. He was a roommate of Mohammed Atta, who, as you know, was the leader of the hijackers here in the United States.

He sent money. He helped in the planning, according to U.S. investigators. But most importantly, if he talks, he has the most up- to-date information, the most current information about the al Qaeda terrorist network, what's left of it and what plans may be.

Now, Christiane, you obviously, the most recently have been in Pakistan. What's your take?

AMANPOUR: Well, in Pakistan they have arrested the mastermind, one of them, of the al Qaeda plot.

The question I had for you is, in south Florida this week, the entire law enforcement of the state descended on three hapless students apparently, based on the eavesdrop conversation or the overheard conversation...

ARENA: Yes.

AMANPOUR: ... of a fast food waitress. Really the question here is, what is going on in the United States with all of this urging people to spy, to spill the beans? I mean, what is going on with this kind of scaremongering and this level of weirdness?

ARENA: Christiane, I think...

(LAUGHTER)

... I think that it is -- everybody is very, very jittery. And this week, most assuredly, we had people on a very high state of alert. We saw a number of, you know, faux terrorist incidents that we reported on, especially on September 11.

But what you saw yesterday was the new protocol that is very much part of the new reality here in the United States. Information that comes in -- and they went and law enforcement did interview woman, discovered -- she didn't seem to have any agenda for making a story up, and so they proceeded as if they were dealing with credible information.

And, you know, we've gone back and forth on this, and I have with the law enforcement community, to say, "Well, is it just that it was so close to September 11 and is it just that we're -- this is the week?" And they said, "No, this probably would have happened, you know, weeks ago, months ago, as well."

BASH: This is the kind of thing that gets civil rights activists up in arms, right?

MESERVE: But on the other hand, you have these arrests in Buffalo.

ARENA: Right. And that is -- and how do you balance the two? Because you do have five people who were arrested in Buffalo, U.S. citizens who had been trained, according to investigators, in training camps in Afghanistan, al Qaeda training camps.

Now, they're not calling it an al Qaeda terrorist cell because it wasn't activated or it's not controlled by al Qaeda. But yet, this is exactly what the attorney general has been warning about all along, that U.S. citizens...

HAYS: And there's been so much skepticism...

ARENA: ... are going to be recruited.

HAYS: ... I think, growing. When we heard the elevation to Code Orange this week, I think some people in New York said, "Gee, I thought we were already on Code Orange."

(CROSSTALK)

HAYS: But I think, across the country, people hear this and, at some point, you think people are crying wolf.

And I think that the arrest of these suspects in upstate New York presumably is going to put some less skepticism, is going to make people think, well, there is a credible terrorist threat within our borders.

ARENA: Right.

WALLACE: How did they get to the guys in Buffalo and, also, Binalshibh in Pakistan? How did they sort of crack...

ARENA: Well, Binalshibh, which is a huge step forward, U.S. intelligence-led Pakistani intelligence to where they thought they should conduct some of these raids. And we know that there were two raids on Wednesday.

And I have been told that, at first, Pakistani intelligence didn't really even realize who they had in custody. They did not realize this was Ramzi Binalshibh.

And as you know, this week, Al-Jazeera, the Arabic network, aired the documentary in which we heard the voice of -- well, alleged voice -- of Ramzi Binalshibh claiming responsibility, saying, "Yes, I was part of this," and talked about a phone call that he received from Mohammed Atta with a coded message telling him that the date was 9/11.

WALLACE: Did that help them track him down, did that tape?

ARENA: Well, that interview, though, was done some time ago. It was released this week.

WALLACE: OK.

ARENA: So that, we do not believe that that played into actually pinning down where he was. It has always been believed, in the past year, that he was hiding out in Pakistan. He disappeared right after September 11. That's when the Germans put out an arrest warrant for him, immediately following the September 11 attacks.

Christiane, you looked like you had something to say.

AMANPOUR: You know, there's been a lot -- well, just to say about Pakistan. It's an incredible thing that they got this guy on the eve of the anniversary. Some of the key masterminds of al Qaeda, the most important people who have been arrested have been arrested in Pakistan.

And of course, Pakistan is trying to persuade the world that it is actually fully engaged in this hunt for al Qaeda. At the same time, people who are a bit skeptical about Pakistan are saying, well, Musharraf is willing, but, you know, a lot of his military and security people are sort of tacitly allowing some of these al Qaeda people and al Qaeda cells to operate.

So I think this is very important, certainly, for Musharraf and his government to show that they continue to fight this fight and deliver.

ARENA: Well, it's especially good public relations, this week. I mean, that is a giant coincidence, I'm pretty convinced a giant coincidence.

BASH: It was actually on the day.

ARENA: Right, it was actually one year to the day.

But yes, I mean, there has -- and as you know better than any of us, Christiane, that the fine line that needs to be walked in Pakistan to, you know, to be out front on this war on terror and providing the U.S. with vital assistance. However, you know, this is, you know, their community, their people, they need to appease that concern as well.

So this is, this is a very strategically important ally here. And that is -- all U.S. intelligence leads to that Pakistan-Afghani border. You know, that's where we are told that those senior al Qaeda officials, you know, have hid.

AMANPOUR: And we'll talk more about that after a short break, as well as how was President Bush's speech to the U.N. received here overseas? (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: We've tried the carrot of oil for food and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein has defied all of these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction.

The first time we may be completely certain he has a nuclear weapons is when, God forbids, he uses one...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

Well, the Bush administration is selling, trying to sell, it's case that Saddam Hussein's Iraq is a very grave and gathering danger. But it is a hard sell internationally.

I've just come back from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and I was struck that even these two key solid U.S. allies are very, very reluctant when it comes to even supporting a policy, much less taking part in any kind of intervention in Iraq.

One of the key things both the president of Pakistan told me and senior Afghan officials, one of the key worries, is that at this time, at this moment, with so much else going on in the Middle East specifically, they are very genuinely worried, they tell us, that this will be seen as yet another military intervention into a Muslim country. In other words, a gathering storm of conflict between the United States and Islam as a whole.

On the other hand, President Putin of Russia already has somewhat his rhetoric, being very against it the weeks leading up to the President Bush's speech to the U.N. He now seems to be saying that Iraq will bear the very grave consequences of not abiding by the U.N. resolutions and demands, and that is diplomatic language for having shifted his position, it seems.

So I'm wondering whether there's any more of this going to come, more of these people, these countries, who are saying that they're not that thrilled with this finally falling into line as they probably will.

WALLACE: Christiane, you know, I wanted to ask you because before the president's speech we heard a lot of criticism from U.S. allies, particularly from European allies, Germany, even France.

AMANPOUR: Right.

WALLACE: It seemed though, after the president's speech, that the criticism a bit muted. Are you picking up that the president's speech went a little bit of a way in convincing some of these skeptics that it might be the right way to go?

AMANPOUR: Well, I think there's two things. There's the appearance at least that the U.N. is being used as a first stop. But then the other thing is, I think many, many people believe that military action is going to happen and that they would, in the end, rather be on the side of the United States than on the side of Saddam Hussein.

And I think that there is still the -- the jury is still out in many of these European countries, because even though the leadership may realize which way the dye is cast, many countries have stiff opposition from their own people, not just in Europe, but as you can imagine, in the Islamic and Muslim world, too.

So, you know, that's going to be quite touchy and quite dicey, particularly in the Islamic world. Although, just to remind everybody, back in the first Gulf War, analysts and all of these so- called experts predicted a mass uprising and rivers of blood in the streets from one end of the Islamic world to the other. Well, it didn't happen.

The question is this time, you know, things are a little different this time. Particularly the Israeli-Palestinian situation exacerbates people's feeling in that part of the world to a level that really hasn't been seen in the last 30 or so years. So that's a problem, a potential problem.

MESERVE: And, Christiane, it seems one of the other big questions is what about the impact on terrorism, both the war on terrorism and the frequency of terrorist events?

AMANPOUR: Well, yes, I mean, a lot of people who support the United States in its war on terror are quite concerned that moving into Iraq may jeopardize the war on terror, as it's been outlined and defined right now.

Another thing that's very, very important, specifically we heard this from the Afghan officials, that, look, Afghanistan is where the real and present danger to the United States existed. That was where these terrorists learned their trade and attacked the U.S. with such grave and devastating consequences. And they're saying, "If we can't get Afghanistan fixed, then that's a bad lesson for the future."

HAYS: Christiane, a key question certainly among people watching this from Wall Street is a sense of whether or not the U.S. could go in and have the kind of quick victory that it had in '90, '91.

Overseas, among our potential allies, is there faith the U.S. could have that kind of get them quick, get it over, or is there more worry about a prolonged conflict that could drag in many countries around the Mideast?

ARENA: Well, I mean, aren't we talking about a regime change? I mean a regime change is a totally thing from what we were talking about in the first Gulf War, right, Christiane?

AMANPOUR: Yes, I think there are two schools of thought. Many experts, including defectors from Iraq, have come out and said that they don't believe that when it comes to the crunch that Saddam Hussein will have a huge amount of support from the people inside Iraq and particularly from his own military, that when they see the writing on the wall, they would prefer to live and fight another day as a military rather than go down, as they believe they will go down if confronted by the United States.

On the other hand, there is the question of, if Saddam Hussein is corned and unlike in the first Gulf War when regime change wasn't a stated goal, that it was kicking him out of Kuwait, his personal security wasn't officially threatened, his personal position; in this case, it is. And so the question people are asking is, what will that lead him to do? Will that lead him to preemptively use the very kinds of weapons of mass destruction that the U.S. is saying its preemptive action is designed to stop? And that's a question and a debate that's under way right now.

BASH: Christiane, I have one question for you. As soon as the president gave his speech at the U.N., Republican members of Congress came out very quickly and said, "It's essential that the United States Congress passes a resolution giving the president use of force in order to help pull the allies along, in order to help gather world support."

From your perch across the pond, do you think that Congress -- a resolution that Congress might pass really would make a difference around the world?

AMANPOUR: Look, I think anything that adds to the momentum makes a difference.

I think, you know, the key difference between the United States, this administration, and the rest of the world is that while most people have accepted the -- what they call the threat assessment and that's a certain thing, there's a difference between what the United States sees as a real risk and its sensitivity right now compared to European sensitivity.

In other words, the U.S. has been attacked. The U.S. has a reason to be afraid. The rest of the world has not been attacked by these terrorists or by, potentially, weapons of mass destruction. And so the rest of the world is saying, "Why do we have to hurry now? Why can't we wait to see, for instance, what Kofi Annan said? Let's try to do something about the Middle East process. Let's finish Afghanistan. Let's get that right," and et cetera.

The U.S. has an extra sense of urgency which the rest of the world doesn't really share at this precise moment, apart from Britain of course, which is an important ally.

MESERVE: From international debate over combating terrorism to the situation here in the U.S., the federal government raised the terror alert level the day before 9/11. We'll talk about why and how long, when CNN's SATURDAY EDITION return.

But first, a check on the hour's top headlines from Atlanta.

(NEWSBREAK) MESERVE: And we'll be right back in just a moment, I believe.

BASH: Still ahead on CNN's SATURDAY EDITION, we'll talk about where the U.S. gets the intelligence information about possible terrorism attacks and how the United States Congress, after a full year, still is moving slowly with hearings into the 9/11 intelligence failures and still must act on creating the new Department of Homeland Security.

Plus, how the president's speech to the United Nations this week rippled across the U.S. economy and the world oil markets.

All coming up on CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Today, we once again call on the American people to remain alert but defiant in the face of this new threat. We are not, we are not recommending that events be canceled, nor do we recommend that individuals change domestic travel plans or that the federal work force not report for duty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MESERVE: Attorney General John Ashcroft sending the double- barreled message this week, "There is a higher terrorism alert, but please go on with your lives, America."

Welcome back to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

The U.S. government raised the terrorist threat alert Tuesday from yellow to orange, signifying a high risk of a terrorist attack. And now, even after 9/11, the government is holding at that level, and the obvious dilemma of how to lower it without discouraging vigilance and signaling to the bad guys that security has been eased?

BASH: Jeanne, my question for you is, members of Congress, where I hang out during the week, they say that they're hearing their folks back home, from local and the state law enforcement officials, that they really think that this idea of the national terror alert system is a great one but they don't understand what to do with it. How do they react? How do they make things OK at home?

MESERVE: This is a real problem. The Office of Homeland Security will tell you this week that, we can't dictate to the state and local governments, that the situation is different in every single community. And they have to tailor a response plan to the situation in their community.

But you're absolutely right. The people at the state and local level expected to get some kind of template from the federal government that they could build upon and they could customize for their own purposes. They say they just haven't gotten it. They say there were some guidelines thrown out this week that hinged on one of the state plans, but you're right, the state and locals are saying, "We just don't have enough information." And people saying, "We don't have enough information." ARENA: Well, this is the thing. I mean, law enforcement officials that I speak to say that they get so many questions about, "What does orange versus yellow mean, and should I be worried?" And then they year reports of you know, go out and do you business, but, gee, the vice president's in a bunker again.

So, there's a lot of -- from the community, from local law enforcement, they're hearing from the community a great deal of angst over you know, just trying to decipher it all.

ARENA: And from the average citizen, how do I decipher it all? I mean, I think one of the great failures of the administration thus far has been to distribute to the American public clear cut information about what these different levels are. And experts say, "They should be giving us concrete information about how to prepare."

HAYS: Well, not only that, but Kelli, I think another problem is when we have to trust the government, there's a lot of people out there who are skeptical. We all know that terrorism is alive and well. We know we live in a more dangerous world. But when you get these alerts, but we can't tell you who it came from, we can't tell you what it is...

MESERVE: And people say this was a big improvement over what we saw last fall, because they were very specific in the information that they provided.

WALLACE: And that's something that I wanted to point out, because it is the first time since they instituted this color-coded system in March, that they raised the alert. And it was a very interesting thing. And, Jeanne, Kelli, you know this, and going on behind the scenes, there was a lot of information coming in very quickly.

A Monday evening meeting, the president with his top advisers, so concerned that they decided not to let the vice president go to this concert, that he would go to this undisclosed location. The president saying he wanted more information. Tuesday morning they decided to raise the alert. And then they revealed that some of the information coming out...

ARENA: It's the two magic words, "specific" and "credible." And before this, as far as we can tell, and I've check in with intelligence sources for the last year now, they have not gotten any specific and credible information concerning targets, actual targets. They've heard in a general nature, as you've seen, oh, apartment buildings. Let's send out, you know, message to that sector. Oh, watch out for scuba divers and so on.

So, but this time, they had actual targets, and that was what lead them to actually move. BASH: And even senators on the Intelligence Committee, who have rolled their eyes in the past when we've gotten these threats, say, "You know what, these time we're being told this is credible, this is credible."

WALLACE: Christiane, how did this play overseas? Any sense of how people responded to this increase in the threat level?

AMANPOUR: Yes, and I was just going to ask you, basically, here people seem to be confused, because on the one hand, you have Attorney General Ashcroft making this long and serious presentation about the yellow to orange and we see it go from yellow to orange on CNN, and then he is telling people to go to work and go about their business. But as you just said, at the same time, the vice president of the United States is being rushed off to a secure bunker.

So the question is, what is going on? And because of all the reported failures, if you like, in the U.S. intelligence committee, people overseas who believe that the U.S. has the most sophisticated, the most professional, the best intelligence and everything else in the world, people over here are somewhat worried.

MESERVE: Well, you know, Christiane, one of the interesting things that came to light yesterday, the National League of Cities did a survey of their members and got some preliminary results yesterday and discovered that one-third of American cities essentially said, it just doesn't apply to me. And they didn't do anything different.

HAYS: But it probably doesn't, right? It probably doesn't apply to one-third or even two-thirds or 90 percent. Maybe it would be helpful if we had a little more specific idea of who the target was.

MESERVE: Well, exactly. And can you be more geographically specific. Can you say, OK, East Coast, ramp up. But it may be that that information...

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: Two hundred people, according to law enforcement sources, under active surveillance, 24 hours, seven days a week. From a law enforcement perspective, you cannot, because you don't know where you have sleeper cells, you don't know where they all exist, you cannot be geographically specific.

BASH: Well, I'll tell you, while the FBI and the intelligence agencies come through, possible warnings about new attacks, Congress is still investigating why those same agencies failed to ring the alarm bells before last September. That's coming up on CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: We're looking at a live picture of the Washington Monument. But just down the Washington Mall, at the United States Capitol, lawmakers find themselves in a time crunch, between pressing legislative business and the urge by many to hit the campaign trail. Welcome back to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

The September 11 anniversary reminded many people that a year after the attacks, the joint House and Senate committee that promised to get to the bottom of the intelligence failures is still a long way from its goal.

HAYS: Where are we in this whole issue, the intelligence hearing investigation and getting some key administration officials to get up there and testify?

BASH: Well, that's one of the key questions. The truth is that this joint House and Senate intelligence investigation has had a rough time of it. They have had trouble getting information from the intelligence agencies that they are supposed to investigate. The information that they are getting, they are having trouble actually making public because it's classified; they are in a battle with the Justice Department over that issue.

And the public hearings that they were supposed to have been delayed. They were supposed to start in July. They are finally going to happen this coming week. We are going to hear not from members of the administration yet, but from family members of some of the victims. We will...

MESERVE: There was a huge staff shakeup too, which has to have been very disruptive.

BASH: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a staff shakeup a couple of months back, they had to change the staff director. And so it's kind of been plagued with these problems going along, as the months have gone by. And their funding runs out in February of this year.

So a lot of the senators who had kind of been privately grumbling about the fact that they are really concerned that the information they were supposed to get as to what happened wasn't going to come out. And now they're publicly saying it. They are very concerned about it. And ultimately, what they wanted to happen was some kind of reform of these agencies to fix whatever was broken, but they are worried that that's not going to happen.

WALLACE: Is a momentum building now, your sources telling you, for an independent commission? Something the White House definitely does not want to happen, but family members of victims want. And I think I'm hearing lawmakers say they believe now, since they're not getting any information, you have to have an independent panel to try and solve the pre-9/11 warnings.

BASH: As you know, right after the attacks, Vice President Cheney actually called Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, and other people in Congress, saying, please, let's just keep this in Congress right now, let's not start a big outside investigation. They didn't want that.

Well, you know, right now, now that this investigation is not going as well as they thought it -- as they thought it would, members of the Intelligence Committee, who were opposed to that independent commission, are now publicly saying, you know, let's do it. And there might be a vote on that as early as next week as a part of the homeland security bill.

Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Dana, when it comes to the politics of war, you know, Britain's Tony Blair faces an internal sort of opposition from his own party. He's calling back Parliament early to discuss Iraq. He's going to lay out evidence and information. What will happen, do you think, in the U.S. Congress when -- if it comes to a vote? Will it be overwhelmingly for the president?

BASH: You know, if you ask...

AMANPOUR: In both houses?

BASH: If you ask both members -- both parties in Congress, they will say absolutely. There is no question about it that when this comes up for a vote, that it will be overwhelming in support for the president on this issue, because it is almost universal in Congress that on the question of Iraq, that Saddam Hussein is a menace, that he's a really bad guy. It's just a question of how you get there.

And what happens afterwards, that's where a lot of the Democrats are asking, is, OK, you say you want to go to war, whether it's multilaterally or unilaterally, but what happens afterwards? Are we prepared as a country to stay in Iraq for months and years?

ARENA: And the polls show that Americans are not prepared for a long and drawn-out -- because don't forget, the most recent memory was, we were in and we were out, and everyone watched it on television, and it went away -- Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Well, you just mentioned what happened afterwards, and I think that is one of the most crucial things for so many people, particularly ordinary civilians out in the rest of the world when they see these military interventions. And let's face it, in Afghanistan, it was great. People were cheering in the streets. The Americans liberated Afghanistan. It really worked.

But what people are asking is, does America have the staying power to make it better afterwards, or is it going to be like a bad boyfriend who pleads, you know, for people to join when they need it, and then the minute the countries says yes, you know, America gets its way, and then walks off again. That's a problem that many people here are worried about, particularly when it comes to reconstructing Afghanistan, for instance, making sure that this poor, devastated -- I mean, just devastated nation, never becomes a hotbed for terrorism again.

And the same will apply to Iraq. What happens after the war? These are huge questions that have yet not been discussed, at least not in any public forum. And people will be watching for that.

BASH: And, Christiane, back on to the United States, another huge question this week is, who is going to be the Democratic nominee for governor in Florida? Is that state cursed, or what? You had -- just like 2000, it was just eerie, it was really eerie. You had problems at the voting booths, workers not showing up to help out people. The machines not working. They spent tens of millions of dollars to fix everything down there, and it was almost seemed like it was worse than it was before.

WALLACE: I want to ask you, Dana, quickly, because you have McBride and Janet Reno, the former attorney general from the Clinton administration, there are some people talking that Democrats might have fixed this that some counties heavily with minorities kind of problems there, and that may have caused Reno possibly the Democratic primary. What are your sources saying?

BASH: Well, the Democrats probably will say that's not true, because they are worried that this will hurt them in the end, because it's going to be a longer time before they're unified in order to get Bush, which is going to be -- he is going to be very difficult to beat, no question, in November. But they are hoping that there is enough animosity because of this from minority voters against, they hope, George Bush, that it will help them in November.

MESERVE: Jeb Bush.

BASH: Jeb Bush. Excuse me. Thank you. Jeb Bush. Thank you.

HAYS: The key question, of course, is we thought it was the economy in the elections coming up, is it the war? But we're going to turn to these other interesting questions now. Going to turn from politics to pocketbooks. See how the Bush administration diplomacy has the stock market and oil markets in a spin, as CNN's SATURDAY EDITION continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYS: Welcome back to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION. Wall Street made it through a very difficult anniversary. While the whole country was affected by the September 11 attacks one year ago, the vast majority of the people who died that day worked on Wall Street in one capacity or another. I attended a memorial service this week, for example, where in a staff of about 170 people, a small investment bank, about 60 of those people died, including a 23-year-old son of the man who heads that firm.

Having gotten past this painful anniversary with a great deal of pride and resilience, Wall Street now faces some new obstacles -- the main one, the question of war and how it will impact the economy and the markets. And it's a big debate right now.

MESERVE: Well, we'll talk about that debate and the different sides of it, but I would think that for some parts of the market, a war could be good news.

HAYS: Well, of course, defense stocks rallied last week, because, certainly, if for whatever gearing up we do, there is going to be more government spending. The problem is, though, in a fundamental kind of longer-term sense, the more we spend on war, the less resources there are to be put into more productive parts of the economy. We had an interview with Scott McNeiley (ph) this week, a top CEO, and he said, hey, look, I hear this talk about war being good for the economy, I don't buy it.

You're going to send a lot of tanks and missiles to be blown up someplace. It's like a big tax on the American people. We're all going to have to pay for this war. And again, I raised this question with Christiane: A quick, decisive war is one thing; a longer, more protracted war, more resources, it's going to be costly. All of the things being equal, a lot of people are worried that it won't be good for the economy, and I haven't even talked about the impact on oil prices.

ARENA: And we're going to see the budget deficit go...

HAYS: Exactly. And we heard Chairman Greenspan this week on the Hill saying, look, you know, at least longer term, you guys have to get back to fiscal discipline. I think the Fed chairman made it clear that for right now, facing a war, coming out of a very weak economy, this is not the time to return to fiscal discipline. And I'm actually surprised at the extent to which the Democrats have been able to play this deficit card, as though it's a bad thing for the United States economy right now. And most economists would say, this is a time to be in a deficit; you need the stimulus.

WALLACE: Well, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we're talking a heck of a lot more about the economy, Dana knows, and we like to talk about the problem with the deficit and the impact on the economy, but there is all this talk about the potential war with Iraq. Has the market, though, factored in some of the uncertainty already? I mean, has that, or not?

(CROSSTALK)

HAYS: That's a great question. But the standard word on certainty in Wall Street is markets don't like it, and that's true. Yes, oil prices have risen to just about $30 a barrel, but people think if and when we actually go to war, oil could spike up to, say, $40, maybe $45. The optimists look back to the Gulf War. We went in, we started winning; oil prices have risen, the stock market has fallen. Oil fell, stock market rallied. Some people say, but the analogy could be something like Korea or Vietnam -- a longer, more protracted struggle of more weight on the economy and a pressure on stocks.

WALLACE: We have so much more to talk about, but we have to leave it there. Thank you all to these fabulous CNN journalists.

My thanks to my colleagues, and my thanks to you all for watching. I'm Kelly Wallace. Have a great Saturday.

Up next, a look at the headlines and "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS," with mayors past and present, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.

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