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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Are U.S. Forces Overextended?; Glitch Aboard Space Shuttle May Ground Mission; Tony Blair Receives Suspicious Package

Aired March 01, 2002 - 19:00   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, HOST: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS: THE WAR ROOM.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Should somebody be successful in an attack on Washington D.C., there's an ongoing government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Holed up in bunkers away from the capital, senior federal officials stand by for a catastrophe. U.S. troops head for a news front in the war against terror, and hunt for a war crime suspect on an earlier battleground. But are U.S. forces over extended? Cracks in the consensus on Capitol Hill.

We'll hear from our correspondents and I'll speak live with former Pentagon official Frank Gaffney and former National Security Council member Ivo Daalder, as we go into the WAR ROOM.

Good evening. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting tonight from Washington. We'll get to the war on terror in just a moment. But we're also following two developing stories right now. A glitch aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, and a package containing toxic substances sent to the British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

First, let's go to our Miles O'Brien. He's standing by with details on the space shuttle -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, I got off the phone with a senior NASA manager who just broke free of an important meeting to discuss the problem on the Space Shuttle Columbia, the problem with a cooling system. And the nutshell decision is to press on with the planned mission to repair the Hubbell Space Telescope, some five space walks planned. Let me back up a little bit and explain what the problem is, and explain how they came to that decision.

First of all, the problem exists in the cooling system, which is part of the payload bay doors of the space shuttle. Essentially freon plumbing goes through these doors all the way into the back area where these avionics bays and where the engine area is and loops back around into the crew cabin, as well, cooling not only the crew, the avionics, but shedding heat, in particular during re-entry, of course, when the space shuttle experiences tremendous heat in excess of 2,000 degrees.

What they discovered is the port side, the left-hand side radiator system was not quite up to snuff. Ideally it should be pumping about 300 pounds per hour of freon through this intricate mesh of plumbing here. Instead, what the crew discovered is that it's 225 pounds per hour, 75 pound deferential. The so called red line, the point at which NASA would declare it a failure is 211 pounds. So you wouldn't put this particular cooling system in the red, you would put anytime the yellow. Now what engineers have been meeting to decide is, first of all, if for some reason this other system were to fail during re-entry, if this were the only system left, and it was operating at its current capacity, would it provide enough cooling for the Space Shuttle Columbia to safely return to earth at the end of the mission?

The early answer from the engineers is yes, that's enough cooling, enough capability. So in essence, you still have that redundancy, those two systems operating in such a way that doesn't violate the flight rules, and doesn't in any way jeopardize the safety of the astronauts. Having said all that, there will be another meeting tomorrow at 1:00 Eastern time. The engineers are going to spend the night, all night, burning the midnight oil, double checking their figures, making sure they're comfortable with this, and also watching that gauge to ensure that it doesn't get any worse. The theory is that somehow, some residue, some sludge, a little piece of brazing perhaps, got caught in that plumbing system, got caught in a filter and reduced the flow of freon through that particular cooling system, thus causing a degraded cooling system.

Now Columbia just came back from a $164 million overhaul in California, this was her first flight since then.

And in the course of doing that work, they did a lot of work on this freon system and the so called cold plates, which are part of that cooling system. It's possible that some debris got in there, was shaken loose during launch, started floating free and the weightlessness of space, caused this problem. So the bottom line here just to recap, mission managers are deciding to press on with the mission as they see it right now. Yet another meeting tomorrow just to button that up, dot the "i"s, cross the "t"s.

BLITZER: Miles, how many astronauts are on board? And I am sure a lot of our viewers are asking this question: if there's any danger whatsoever, any threat to them whatsoever, why not just bring the shuttle back and start all over again on another day?

O'BRIEN: Well, it's risk management, Wolf. First of all, seven astronauts on board, one of them female, six men, the commander -- as you see on the right-hand side here -- Scott Altman, his pilot Duane Carey, followed by two pairs of space walkers that will be involved in this mission; John Grunsfeld (ph) Rick Lenahand (ph), Mike Macimino (ph) and Jim Newman. They -- NASA always errs on the side of conservatism.

And if we could, Wolf, I think we can listen in for a moment here to NASA Television. The shuttle program manager, Ron Dittemore in Houston is about to make a formal announcement. Might want to listen to it for just a moment to see what he has to say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we're looking at here, and what kind of decisions were made at today's mission management team meeting?

RON DITTEMORE, SHUTTLE PROGRAM MANAGER: Sure, I'd be glad to. First of all let me start out by telling you that our MMT meeting that we just concluded agreed that we would continue the mission for the next 24 hours, while we continue to review data and look at our processing records and our workmanship or modification records to see if there was anything that we can determine might be unusual in the status of these two freon loops.

I will say that I think the teams did a great job in the very beginning of this event, as they -- as they -- as you indicated earlier we saw that one of the freon loops was degraded. And according to our flight rules, it's -- we look at this degradation as being near our limits where we would decide whether we continue to fly the flight for the full mission or not. And not knowing anything more about the degradation and not understanding -- and reviewing all the data at that time, they alerted everybody that we might have a mission impact, it could have the potential of affecting us in a way that we might have to terminate the mission early.

Since those early minutes after launch, we have concluded that that is not the case, we are not in a condition where we have to come home early at this time. Our initial looks at the system show it to be stable, even with the degradation. And we believe that we are safe to continue on orbit for the next 24 hours while we continue to look at further information and to refine our analysis. This analysis, we firmly believe will conclude that we are safe to continue the mission for the full duration. However, we just need the time to make sure that we dot all the "i"s and cross all the "t"s to be positive about that conclusion.

O'BRIEN: All right. Ron Dittemore, live from Houston. Shuttle program manager explaining the decision, just fresh from that MMT, as he called it, that's a Mission Management Team meeting, Wolf. I think he explained it well. In essence, they're comfortable enough with the level of coolant that this degraded system provides to continue the mission. As I've said to you before, many times, Wolf, when in doubt NASA errs on the side of conservatisim. I think we have to take what he says at face value.

BLITZER: Miles O'Brien our space correspondent, of course, breaking the news right here on this program before they made the official announcement. Thanks for your report, as usual. We'll stay with you if there are developments that surface any time soon.

Meanwhile according to the Associated Press, Scotland Yard is investigating as many as 16 packages sent to British politicians, including Prime Minister Tony Blair. One of the packages containing what police are calling caustic substances was sent to the prime minister's, Number 10 Downing Street. The package was not opened. Mr. Blair is at a summit meeting right now in Australia. Scotland Yard says the substances in the packages were disguised as eucalyptus oil. We'll continue to monitor that story, as well. Meantime, since the attacks of September 11, the Bush administration has been taking precautions against a catastrophic assault on the nation's capital. Mobilizing senior federal officials in what amounts to a doomsday government.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): On a day when so many believed America's worst fears had been realized, the Bush White House feared an even more ominous possibility, almost immediately President Bush and his advisers suspected the attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. And they worried al Qaeda might even have a crude portable nuclear weapon.

BUSH: Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation.

BLITZER: As President Bush sought to reassure a nervous nation that evening, a so called standby government had already begun setting up in secret. Several dozen high ranking civilian officials from most of the top cabinet departments, including the White House were taken to two fortified locations within helicopter distance of Washington. Nearly six months later, this standby government remains in place and is still working, even though intelligence officials say there is no evidence that al Qaeda has a nuclear weapon.

BUSH: I have an obligation, as the president, and my administration has the obligation to provide, put measures in place that should somebody be successful in an attack on Washington D.C. There's an ongoing government.

This is the same set of precautions that placed Vice President Dick Cheney at undisclosed locations since September 11. But Cheney is being kept apart from the other officials. And while his schedule is almost back to normal, the other personnel remain in the bunkers 24 hours a day, away from their families for extended periods.

Many who were sent underground on September 11 have rotated out and been relieved by colleagues. But some believe keeping a separate bunker government in place for an open ended period can lead to confusion.

JAMES STEINBERG, FORMER DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I think it's just important to assure that we're not taking out key personnel out of their day-to-day functions of government in a way that doesn't make us able to function as well in a noncrisis situation.

BLITZER: This secretive plan reported day involves only the executive branch. Within that branch, the Pentagon has a separate operation to ensure continuity of military functions. The bunker government contingency dates back to the early days of the Cold War, when Americans first became aware that a devastating nuclear attack was possible.

(END VIDEOTAPE) (on camera): Officials tell CNN this stand-by government operation will continue indefinitely.

The search for Osama bin Laden is not the only manhunt involving U.S. forces. Let's go live to our military affairs correspondent, Jamie McIntyre. He's over at the Pentagon -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, a series of operations over the last two days by NATO forces, the kind of thing you wouldn't have seen several years ago when NATO was sticking close to its policy of only arresting indicted war crime suspects when it happened upon them.

Now, NATO has launched a couple of operations including one spearheaded by U.S. troops in eastern Bosnia, based on intelligence of where they thought a former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, might have been. Neither attempt was successful in getting Karadzic, but NATO sources tell CNN that this is reflective of a new more aggressive policy to bring war criminals to justice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE ROBERTSON, NATO SECRETARY-GENERAL: You can expect more high profile and low profile operations until the day comes when those who have been indicted for war crimes face justice at the Hague. Those who hide these people, those who give support to these people also need to know that they their day of reckoning will come as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCINTYRE: Now, Pentagon and NATO sources say that this more aggressive policy actually predates the U.S. war on terrorism, and that there had been several covert operations aimed at nabbing Radovan Karadzic in the past year or so. Those mostly involved operations in which NATO forces lay in wait for Karadzic, but then he didn't show up. This new more overt action is also intended as a signal to Karadzcic that he has to watch over his shoulder for those NATO forces. And they want to send a signal to anyone that would grant him safe haven that they could be targeted as well -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thank you very much.

Meanwhile, he's taking heat from Republicans, but the Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle is sticking by his comments about the direction on the war of terrorism. Our congressional correspondent, Jonathan Karl, joins us now live from Capitol Hill with more on that -- Jon.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, Tom Daschle's rejecting Republican criticism and saying that asking tough questions of the president, including questions about the direction of the war on terrorism, is part of his job description.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D-SD), MAJORITY LEADER: I think the Republicans' reaction is nothing short of hysterical. I'm amused, frankly. I had asked them to look at what I said because I stand by what I said, that Congress has a constitutional responsibility to ask questions. We are not a rubber stamp to this president or to anybody else. We must do what the constitution and what our best judgment requires.

KARL (voice-over): After Senator Trent Lott accused him of attempting to divide the country on the war effort, Senator Daschle gave the Republican leader a call.

DASCHLE: And then I went line by line and asked him which part of those particular questions did he object to.

KARL: Senator Lott told reporters he objected to Senator Daschle's suggestion that the war on terrorism will be a failure if Osama bin Laden and other top al Qaeda leaders are not captured. In contrast to Lott, President Bush offered a restrained response to Daschle's remarks.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: By far, the vast majority of Americans are patient. They know when you're looking for one person who may be hiding a cave, it may take a while.

KARL: Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has been critical of Daschle as well, but he said the Democratic leader is raising legitimate questions.

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R), NEBRASKA: I think Senator Daschle may have used a bit of a blunt object in some of his language, but the foundational part of his question was appropriate, and I don't think there's any question that Senator Daschle supports the president.

KARL: Beyond the firestorm over Senator Daschle's comments, there is frustration on Capitol Hill from Democrats and Republicans alike about the lack of White House consultation on the war. Congressional leaders are especially miffed that they didn't know about White House plans for military activity in Yemen and the republic of Georgia until they read about it in the newspapers.

HAGEL: We don't like surprises. And it's much easier if the administration spends a little time investing in these relationships.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KARL (on camera): Trent Lott doesn't like surprises either. The senator told reports in the hallways up here on Capitol Hill today that it would have been nice if the president had informed the four top congressional leaders about plans for Georgia and Yemen when they had breakfast with the president at the White House on Wednesday. But the president at that breakfast said absolutely nothing about the plans -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill, thank you very much for that report.

And when we come back, we'll check in with two former U.S. officials. Is the U.S. military being stretched too thin? We'll talk with Ivo Daalder and Frank Gaffney. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

Congress is no longer speaking with one voice when it comes to the war on terrorism. Will that hurt the war effort? Are U.S. forces being stretched too thin?

Joining me here in the CNN WAR ROOM, Ivo Daalder, he's a former national security council official. He's now with the Brookings Institution. And Frank Gaffney, he's a former assistant defense secretary. He now heads the Center for Security Policy here in Washington. Remember, you can e-mail your WAR ROOM questions to us. Go to my Web site -- Web page, that is -- cnn.com/wolf. That's also where you can read my daily online column.

And, Frank, let me play for you an excerpt from what Bob Kerrey, former Democratic senator from Nebraska, said only yesterday here on CNN, but let me tell you -- we don't have the sound bite, but I'll tell you what he said. He said Governor Bush said when he was campaigning, I think quite correctly, that we were getting stretched rather thin, and now rather than bringing people home, he's sending more and more people overseas. Is he right?

FRANK GAFFNEY, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: I think he is right. I think it's been absolutely clear to anybody watching the U.S. military over the past decade or so that it had been hollowed out. The regrettable thing, the predictable thing was that at some point, and it happens to be now, these chickens would come home to roost. The world that had been exposed to an America that was hollowing out its military began taking advantage of it. And now we have to put the military forces we have, augment is as best we can and as quickly as we can into harm's way around the world. And, unfortunately, they're not as ready. They're not as large. And they're not as well equipped as they should be.

BLITZER: Ivo, just to be on the safe side, Frank worked in the Reagan administration. You worked in the Clinton administration. He says during the Clinton administration, the U.S. military was hollowed out.

IVO DAALDER, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Well, you know, it depends how you look at it. Listen, in the Clinton administration, we had a number of military operations that had to be done from peacekeeping to confrontation with Iraq. Those were undertaken. We went to war against Kosovo. We bombed for 78 days and we won. And, in fact, we just saw how the Clinton military can operate even today.

After all, this is not a Bush military that went into Afghanistan. This is a Clinton military. It was the Clinton administration that bought the weapons, that trained the soldiers, that got the people into Afghanistan and that, in fact, demonstrated in those four months that we have been there that it can be highly effective. We need to continue to do this. The larger question is are we really sending so many troops abroad? What we're talking about is 600 troops to the Philippines, 160 troops to Georgia, 150 troops to Yemen and some 4,000 troops in Afghanistan.

BLITZER: Right. And I want to put up on a map and show where these troops are going. I think we have it right over here. We can put it up in this monitor. Eventually, we'll get it up here. There it is up on the screen right now.

You can see all these locations. Only a few hundred troops that Ivo is talking about. Why should that be such a big deal for a U.S. military, the largest in the world, with more than $300 billion budget, annual budget?

GAFFNEY: It's not the largest in the world by any stretch of the imagination.

BLITZER: Largest money in the world.

GAFFNEY: There's a lot of money going into it and we pay our people better than any other military in the world, which accounts for the largest part of that budget. But I have to disagree with you. We did not see a great deal of weaponry bought during the Clinton administration. Yes, a couple of bombs and some Predators and things like that were put in train.

But the bulk of the military equipment that is now being used were actually bought during the Bush and Reagan years before. And that's the way it always is. You inherit what you have to work with.

What I'm concerned about is, while, yes, there are relatively small numbers of people actually on the ground, much behind them is committed. And what's happening, whether it's courier battle groups or whether it's air wings or whether it's marine amphibious units or what have you, we're putting these people in place and they have to stay there in a sustained way, which is hard to do with the kind of military that President Bush inherited.

BLITZER: How hard is that to do?

DAALDER: It depends on what it is that you're doing. If we're training forces in Georgia -- for one, I don't think necessarily Americans should be the only ones to do it. This is a mission that the NATO countries could take on, for example. After all, Georgia is the member of the partnership for peace. That's why we set it up back in the early 1990s. We can use our allies more to do many of these things.

But let's be real. We're spending $400 billion a year, at least in the latest request, which I'm sure Congress will approve, on our military. And it's true. We're paying our troops well. But we're also buying a lot of equipment with that kind of money and the notion we can't sustain our military to do the kind of missions that we're now engaged in, I just don't buy it. BLITZER: While I have you, Frank, this report that you -- you saw the "Washington Post" report this morning. We've been reporting it all day about the stand-by government that's now in place since September 11. What do you make of that?

GAFFNEY: Well, I prefer the term stand-by to the one the "Post" used, which was shadow, which sort of has this ominous overtone that there's some hidden hand at work here. This is a prudent practice that we should be doing because we have reason to believe that enemies of this country will try to decapitate our government.

I'm very sorry that this became public knowledge. I'm particularly sorry that there will doubtless now be a very concerted effort to figure out where these deployed officials actually are. It is in all of our interests that this program, to survive an accountable and hopefully a constitutional form of government, is as durable and as resilient against attack as we can possibly make it. And I don't think exposing it and frankly talking all that much about it is conducive to that survivability.

BLITZER: You think secrecy is an order in this particular case?

DAALDER: You know, we -- let's look what we're talking about. It's true, and I agree with Frank, that we need to be prudent about these kinds of things. We need to prepare for the unexpected.

But we are not living in the -- in the Cold War anymore. We're living in a different world in which there are clearly terrorists who can do awful things to us. Decapitating the government is not something that I think that is high on the list of things that they can do. They can do many things. They can hurt us terribly. They can fly airplanes into buildings and kill thousands of people. But decapitating an entire government isn't what I lose sleep over.

On the other hand, you know, should we be prudent? Should we have these kinds of organizations and capabilities around? Yes. But should we have that kind of government, full time, ready to go? I don't think so. We didn't have it during the Cold War. We don't need it now.

BLITZER: Ivo Daalder, Frank Gaffney...

GAFFNEY: We need it now more than in the past.

BLITZER: Always good to have both of you on the program. We'll have you back.

I want to, though, go to London right now. Our Diana Muriel is standing by with more on those suspicious packages that were sent to top politicians, including the British prime minister, Tony Blair. Diana, tell us what's going on.

DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we know so far, Wolf, is that up to 16 packages have been sent in the mail service here in the U.K. Only two have been identified. The one that was sent to the prime minister's house at number 10 Downing Street and one that was sent to an unidentified Scottish legislator.

There are, further, 14 out there, some of which may have been received, some of which may still be in the postal service. ITN, Independent Television News, is reporting that the packages that have been received that we know about were received last week.

Now, in the packages, which were brown paper envelopes containing a container, which proported to have eucalyptus oil in it and aromatherapy -- complimentary aromatherapy products and a little leaflet explaining how to use the product. Now the police have said that, in fact, the container contained a caustic substance, a substance that would burn or corrode. And the leaflet, if it had been followed, they described it as cynically dangerous for anyone to use this substance.

We are waiting to hear more from Scotland Yard. In the meantime, there are urgent warning, particularly directed to parliamentarians, to politicians and to their staff and they're urging anyone who comes across a suspicious parcel to get in contact with the police straight away -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Diana Muriel in London, thanks for that update. Good advice and we'll continue to follow this story as well. Thank you very much.

And don't miss our WAR ROOM Monday night. A special guest, the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, will join me. We'll discuss Egypt's role in the war on terror as well as the Saudi plan to try to stop the bloodshed between the Israelis and the Palestinians. All that and more, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, right here Monday night, 7:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN.

And we'll be back in just a moment with a quick check of the top stories. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling says members of Congress are acting as judge and jury in their investigations with Enron. In an exclusive interview with CNN's Larry King, Skilling says he was shocked at Enron's collapse. You can see the interview on "LARRY KING LIVE", 9:00 p.m. Eastern tonight, 6:00 on the West Coast.

That's all the time we have tonight. Please join me again twice Monday, both 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Also, Sunday on "LATE EDITION", among my guests, Senator John McCain. That's noon Eastern Sunday.

Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. "CROSSFIRE" begins right now.

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