Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Target Terrorism: Military Progress in Afghanistan; Fears of Bioterror Increase in U.S.

Aired November 04, 2001 - 20:00   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.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS: "Target Terrorism": As the U.S. steps-up the bombing in Northern Afghanistan, are anti-Taliban forces ready to move forward on the ground?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll move when the time comes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Will the campaign move forward during Ramadan?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Our task is to certainly be sensitive to the views in the region but also to see that we aggressively deal with the terrorist networks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And is it now a three-front war? Can the U.S. win on the public relations front?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HENRY HYDE (R-IL), HOUSE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CHAIRMAN: This is a country that invented Madison Avenue and Hollywood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: I'll ask House International Relations Chairman Henry Hyde and Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin.

As anthrax spreads, what's the next bioterrorism threat? I'll speak with some of the nation's top experts about the crisis on the homefront, as America targets terrorism.

Good evening. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting tonight from Washington. Later, we'll get to my interview with Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, who heads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But first, let's check the latest developments as America targets terrorism.

Dr. Koplan tells CNN a group of CDC workers has been vaccinated against smallpox, and that the federal government is working quickly to create enough vaccine for all Americans.

In New York, Mayor Rudy Giuliani confirmed today that a tape sent by NBC anchor Tom Brokaw's office to City Hall, was tainted with anthrax. The tape was sent before Brokaw's assistant discovered she was infected with skin anthrax. So far, environmental tests at City Hall have come back negative.

And this is a live picture of the World Trade Center ruins in New York City. Part of the wreckage, a Central Intelligence Agency office there. A U.S. official tells CNN, the office was operating at 7 World Trade Center, and was engaged in counterterrorism and counterintelligence efforts. Agents are now working at another location.

The air war has been stepped up over northern Afghanistan, more U.S. troops are on the ground, and U.S. commanders are insisting that good progress is being made in the war on terrorism. Let's go live to the Pentagon.

CNN's Jeff Levine is standing by there with details -- Jeff.

JEFF LEVINE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the Pentagon concedes that the Taliban is still a substantial force. However, the U.S. military says it is making progress.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEVINE (voice-over): The U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan is nearly a month old and the Taliban regime is still in place. So the key question is how long will the action go on? Opposition forces say they are preparing to launch an attack on the capitol Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif soon. But, they say, they would be better prepared if they had more U.S. support.

HARON AMIN, AFGHAN UNITED FRONT: There were promises made by the international coalition that military aid in the forms of tanks and APCs and heavy artillery, as well as ammunition, was to be delivered to us. That is not there.

LEVINE: But the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, says the Pentagon effort is on target.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: We have taken down the Taliban air defenses. We have disrupted their ability to resupply their own forces. We took down their transports, most of their helicopters. Most of their -- excuse me -- most of their communications have been taken down, in fact some of them are communicating now with runners, which is, obviously not in Afghanistan, not the most efficient way to do that.

LEVINE: For now, the Pentagon is focused on using Special Forces and heavy bombing to bring down the Taliban and the Al Qaeda terrorist network. Myers says more teams of these elite soldiers have been put into Afghanistan in the last couple of days.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEVINE: Now, in addition to battling the Taliban, the Special Forces will also have to face the oncoming Afghan winter, another formidable adversary -Wolf.

BLITZER: Jeff Levine at the Pentagon, thank you very much. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been making the rounds in effort to try to shore up support for his U.S. led coalition. CNN national security correspondent David Ensor is traveling with the secretary, and he filed this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For his travel in the region, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld switched to a military cargo plane equipped with countermeasures against missile attack. On the way into Pakistan, his plane actually flew briefly high over Afghanistan itself, the Hindu Kush (ph), beautiful, but cold and inhospitable.

No ally may be more important to success in Afghanistan than Pakistan. And in Islamabad, Rumsfeld sought to show strong support for Pakistan's leader, knowing the Taliban claims of heavy civilian casualties from U.S. bombing in Afghanistan are believed by many in Pakistan, and inflaming some against the Musharraf government.

RUMSFELD: We have been as careful as is humanly possible and have -- I don't think there ever in the history of the world has been a bombing effort that has been done with the precision and the care and the attention to that issue.

ENSOR: Despite Pakistani concern, U.S. officials said the bombing of targets in Afghanistan will continue into the Muslim holy period of Ramadan.

(on camera): U.S. officials say Rumsfeld's key message for General Musharraf -- the United States is in this for the long haul, and will reward friends who stick by it, that generous military assistance and other aid will soon be flowing to this country.

David Ensor, CNN, Islamabad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: As the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan begins its fifth week; some U.S. lawmakers are concerned about whether the war is being properly waged. They also worry about whether America is getting the word out to the Muslim world, about why it's waging war.

Earlier today, I spoke about those subjects with Michigan Democrat Carl Levin. He's chairman of Senate Armed Services Committee, and with Illinois Republican Henry Hyde, the chairman of the House International Relations Committee.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Some are now saying it's time for a massive, much more serious, robust ground invasion, ground effort to try to wrap up the job before the winter months really set in, even before Ramadan, which begins November 17.

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI), ARMED SERVICES CHAIRMAN: I think we have to just follow the advice of our military leaders in this regard and do this relentlessly and patiently but to do this buildup right.

The Secretary of Defense announced this week that there's going to be a significant increase in the number of special forces that are going in to Afghanistan. He visited Tajikistan this week in order to see if we could line up some very important airfields that could be used as staging areas, should there be ground forces that need to be put in there.

And it seems to me that the military leaders are saying, let them build up properly. We're sending in, apparently, now a plane called JSTARS, which is going to allow for tracking of vehicles on the ground, a very important component of a campaign, of a ground campaign.

We're sending in more unmanned aerial vehicles, as well, to track things that are going on on the ground.

We have got to buildup in a proper way. We got to get supplies in in order to sustain any ground forces that go in there.

So, I don't think any kind of public pressure is going to -- I hope no public pressure is going to change our plans to succeed in this war.

BLITZER: Chairman Hyde, as you know, some Americans, including a lot of critics, including even some conservative Republicans, are getting impatient with the way this war is being waged by the Bush administration. They think it's being waged because of overly important concerns for this coalition that the U.S. has put together.

Are you among them that would like the U.S. to be less concerned about the coalition, more concerned about getting the job done inside Afghanistan?

HYDE: Well, I want to get the job done, but I'm very concerned about the coalition. I think putting together a coalition of so many disparate nations, many Muslim nations, is quite an achievement. And I think it's an essential ingredient if we are to stamp out terrorism, locate Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network and the other networks around the globe.

So the coalition is a wonderful thing and a tribute to the diplomacy of the administration. And I don't think we ought to -- I agree with Senator Levin, these are military questions, not political ones. And I would leave it to the experts rather than have Monday- morning quarterbacking on Congress' part. BLITZER: On another issue, Senator Levin, there's a lot of concern out there that the U.S. may be losing what's called the propaganda war in the Muslim world, in the Arab world. Osama bin Laden made another appearance over the weekend with a videotape that he released through the Al-Jazeera, Arabic-language television station.

Why does the United States seem to be having so much trouble convincing the Muslim world, major chunks of the Arab world, of the justice, the rightness of its cause?

LEVIN: Well, I think we can do a lot better, and I think we're putting some pieces in place. As a matter of fact, in three different places to do a lot better, in terms of the war for public opinion, winning the hearts and minds of the Arab populations and Muslim populations, is important. We're going to be doing a better job of it. I don't think we've put enough resources into that.

We do have a -- by the way, a plane that flies near Afghanistan, that does connect to the radio stations. We actually dropped radios inside Afghanistan.

But I've got to acknowledge that we could be doing a much better job in this area. We've been dropping humanitarian assistance, so that should help.

By the way, I think bin Laden's most recent tape didn't help him one bit. It hurt him. He was attacking Arab countries. He was attacking Muslim nations. He was attacking the United Nations, which has won a Nobel Peace Prize. So his last tape, as propaganda, was pretty patently transparent.

BLITZER: Chairman Hyde, I know you have some hearings scheduled later this month on this very issue. Let me read to you an excerpt from a column that Tom Friedman wrote in the "New York Times" this week.

He said this: "Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein still have a great deal of popular support. It is no easy trick to lose a PR war to two mass murderers, but we have been doing just that lately. It is not enough for the White House just to label them evildoers. We have to take the PR war right to them, just like the real one."

You must be concerned about this propaganda war, as well.

HYDE: Yes, indeed, Wolf. We had a hearing in our committee on the 30th of October. We have another one scheduled for the 14th, I believe, of November. We're going to call in the top people in the country.

This is a country that invented Madison Avenue and Hollywood. And if we can't market our own virtues throughout the world, then we're pretty poor.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Henry Hyde and Carl Levin earlier today.

And still to come, the anthrax mystery and my interview with the head of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Jeffrey Koplan. But when we come back, a new front in the fight against terrorism, the White House mobilizes for a public relations war. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. Mixing public relations and diplomacy, President Bush will use a series of speeches and meetings with the world leaders to boost support for the war against terrorism. Let's go live to CNN White House correspondent Major Garrett.

I guess they're acknowledging at the White House, Major, that they haven't done necessarily a great job on this public relations campaign.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well you know, Wolf, this Bush White House prides itself on a couple of things, solving problems and also having a plan -- once they've discovered a problem that they haven't yet solved, getting a plan and moving that plan forward. And as the president returned from Camp David this weekend, he was confident, as this week approached, that in fact, his administration and coalition partners do have a plan to deal with that propaganda or PR war you referred to.

It was, as we referred to first in the world, on CNN on Wednesday, this coalition information center, which is a strategic communications command post operated here in Washington, in London at 10 Downing Street and soon to be in Islamabad, Pakistan as a coalition effort to get out the message about what in fact the war on global terrorism is about, the repressive nature of the Taliban regime, Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden's complicity in direction of the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. All of those things are going to be directed out of this command center. The administration wants to it be 24 hours, rapid response. So now the president does believe he and the British government have created a means by which if not to win propaganda or PR war, at least fight it to a dead even stand still.

BLITZER: And Major, as you know, the president has a busy schedule this week, trying to get that message out. What's on the agenda?

GARRETT: Two words: "speeches" and "meetings." An entire rack of them this week. Six major coalition partners will come here to Washington to talk with the president, among them the leaders of India, Britain, France, Ireland, also Algeria. Other nations will be sending either foreign ministers or top dignitaries to meet with the president.

He starts off major speeches on Tuesday, with a teleconference address that will be beamed to Warsaw, Poland for a central European leaders meeting on terrorism. He will also deliver a major speech not listed in our graphic here on Wednesday on the financial progress and choking off money to terrorism organizations.

On Thursday, the theme will be more domestic. The president will travel outside of Washington to give a major speech. White House officials describe it as such on homeland security. Then he will wrap up this very busy week with an address on Saturday to the United Nations General Assembly. The theme there will be the stakes of the fight against global terrorism and what those nations who call themselves "coalition partners" will be expected to do.

BLITZER: How serious of a problem though -- do officials at the White House believe bombing during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins November 17 -- how serious of a problem do they think that's going be?

GARRETT: Well, they don't think of it as serious problem because the military decision has been made. In fact, the military campaign will go forward.

But Wolf, one of the things the administration hopes to achieve by continuing the campaign during Ramadan is not only to continue to prosecute the war and succeed on the ground in Afghanistan but also maybe answer for last time the lingering question about is this going to be Vietnam, is this going to be a campaign that's going to be crabbed or pinched in in any way by political considerations.

By continuing the military campaign through Ramadan, the administration hopes to silence any critic who will accuse the administration of any way reducing its military objectives to meet some sort of political demands. That's why the campaign will continue. That's one of the reasons it will continue during Ramadan. It's one of the messages the administration hopes some skeptics willing receive.

BLITZER: And the midst of all of this, this week, the president's got two battles -- up on Capitol Hill on aviation security as well as an economic stimulus package. And the lines are pretty political, pretty partisan on both fronts.

GARRETT: Very partisan, very sharply divided. Of course, the airline security issue is much more mature. You know, how the House bill and a Senate bill, they have to be reconciled. Senior administration officials told me tonight those meetings will begin earnest tomorrow to try to find out if there is middle ground that the House and the Senate leaders can find on that issue.

If not, the president retains the power to put these airline security measures through by executive order. But that is a power of last resort. The administration would very much like to see a bill put together. They hope by the middle of the week, they'll have some sense if there's any movement. If not, the president himself will probably have to lean on the House and Senate members to get them to break the logjam.

On economic stimulus, Democrats and Republicans both agree the economy needs a kick-start, but they don't agree at all about how to do that -- Wolf. BLITZER: Major Garrett at the White House, thank you very much. And the long-term threat of bioterrorism is certainly getting the government's attention. When we come back, how health experts are getting reacquainted with a disease that was wiped out decades ago. And the mysterious anthrax attack continues at a slow but steady pace. Is the U.S. mail safe? We'll tackle these issues right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

U.S. government officials suggest the anthrax attacks may just be the beginning of a potentially even greater bioterrorism threat. Earlier, I talked with the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, doctor Jeffrey Koplan, former FDA Commissioner Doctor David Kessler, and Deputy Postmaster General John Nolan.

First, I asked Doctor Koplan about reports the CDC is already vaccinating some personnel against smallpox.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. JEFFREY KOPLAN, CDC DIRECTOR: This is not a recent preparation. We have been, for several years, trying to upgrade our capabilities for bioterrorism and those of state and local health departments. However, since September 11, we've certainly accelerated that.

And, as has been reported, we have increased the number of people we have who are capable, trained and ready to go out to investigate smallpox outbreaks should they occur.

BLITZER: Who is going start receiving these vaccines in the near future?

KOPLAN: We have a small cadre of staff who have received these vaccines, much like people who work in the laboratories with this virus receive.

BLITZER: And is it your intention eventually to make it much more readily available to reintroduce the smallpox vaccine to a wider population?

KOPLAN: Not at this time. Our intention and the Department of Health and Human Services' intention is to have enough vaccine available so, should we need to use it, anyone who would need it could get it.

BLITZER: Dr. Kessler, tell our viewers in the United States and around the world why a smallpox bioterrorist attack would make the current anthrax attack look like a relatively modest attack.

DAVID KESSLER, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: Wolf, the real difference is that smallpox is contagious. If I have anthrax, whether it's the skin form or the inhalation form, and you are I are in the same room, I can't transmit it to you. That's not the case with smallpox. The mortality rate with smallpox is about 30 percent. So the fact that it's contagious and has a high mortality are the reasons for concern about smallpox.

But I think it's very important, Wolf, as we talk about the smallpox vaccine, in getting a small cadre of CDC workers immunized, I don't think there's any real evidence yet that we're at risk for smallpox.

BLITZER: Is it your opinion though, Dr. Kessler, that maybe it's time to reintroduce, to bring back that vaccine, which of course went out in the late '70s when smallpox was erased from the world?

KESSLER: Certainly let's be ready, and that's what Dr. Koplan and the CDC is doing. Let's have enough vaccine on hand so we can immunize if we need. But I think the current recommendation of "let's get ready, but not yet immunize" makes a lot of sense.

BLITZER: John Nolan, where does the investigation stand right now, as far as the safety of the U.S. Postal Service is concerned, especially in the aftermath of this death by inhalation anthrax this past week, Kathy Nguyen in New York, who apparently had no connection with the postal service or media organizations? How safe is the mail right now?

JOHN NOLAN, DEPUTY POSTMASTER GENERAL: Well, as we've said a number of times, Wolf, we've delivered close to 30 billion pieces of mail since September 11, and three pieces of mail have been confirmed to have anthrax. There have been a few illnesses around the specified areas around the country, but we haven't seen any expansion beyond that at this point.

BLITZER: What steps are you taking right now to ensure that Americans who get their mail delivered will feel confident going to their mailboxes and opening up their mail?

NOLAN: Well, what we've been doing is a number of things. One is sending out a postcard to everybody telling them what might look suspicious to them and how to deal it with. But within our own operations, we've been taking a hard look at the collection mail that we're bringing into our facilities to try and isolate some of the handwritten mail and spot ourselves, be a first line of defense, if you will, for letters that look unusual to us or might fit a pattern that we've seen.

As you know, it's been widely broadcast, we're looking to some technology to be able to do some sanitizing of the mail coming forward.

The other thing we're doing is really tracing very carefully the mail that we have received, those three letters, to try and make sure we understand where in our facility it touched and to keep pulling that string to make sure we can learn as much as we can from it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: The deputy postmaster general earlier today.

And that's all the time we have tonight. Please join me again tomorrow twice, at both 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

Just ahead, "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" profiles one of the world's most wanted terrorists, and I'll have a check of the latest developments.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com