Katrina Survivors Return Home To Gruesome Discovery

Thursday, May 18, 2006

By Anderson Cooper, CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

December 5, 2005

From across America and around the world, this is 360.

COOPER: Well, imagine this. We are looking back on Hurricane Katrina tonight, reporting on how well it turned out, thanks to the lessons of 9/11 -- that and how well prepared the country is for the next time.

The sad thing is, there's no reason it couldn't have turned out this way. A year-and-a-half ago, the bipartisan commission on 9/11 reported on what went wrong and what needed to change. As we reported at the top of the program tonight, members came out today with a report card. And it is not a good one.

Here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THOMAS KEAN, FORMER CHAIRMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION: Some of the failures are shocking.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No sugarcoating it, no mincing words.

TIMOTHY ROEMER, FORMER 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: If my children were to receive this report card, they would have to repeat a grade. We can't afford to repeat the lessons of 9/11 and the losses of 9/11.

ENSOR: An F for congressional failure to mandate radio channels for first-responders, Army, police, fire departments, something Hurricane Katrina showed is needed for every kind of disaster.

JAMES THOMPSON, FORMER 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: Are we going to send policemen and firemen in this nation in to battle against evil without the ability to talk to each other? Are we crazy?

ENSOR: An F, too, failing to build a single terrorist watch list for airlines. Remember the chilling images of Mohamed Atta making his way through airport security on September 11?

Former commissioners said something like that could happen again.

KEAN: It's scandalous that airline passengers are still not screened against all names on a terrorist watch list.

ENSOR: An F for failing to hand out homeland security money to the states and cities most at risk.

KEAN: One city used its Homeland Security money for air- conditioned garbage trucks.

ENSOR: And the Bush administration got a D on its efforts to help secure nuclear materials and other weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union and around the world. But the White House points to all it has done a National Counterterrorism Center, a new intelligence chief, and heightened security at key facilities nationwide.

FRANCES TOWNSEND, WHITE HOUSE HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISER: I think what's important is what we have accomplished and what we have done to secure the nation. And that's an enormous, enormous amount.

ENSOR (on camera): The former commissioners are only private citizens now. Their opinions get attention, but heavy-lifting, such as getting TV networks and stations to give up audio frequency bandwidth earlier, that could take public outrage.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And the question is, is the public really outraged about this at this point?

After they spoke out today, two commission members sat down with us, former Democrat Congressman Tim Roemer and former Republican Senator Slade Gorton. We spoke earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Congressman Roemer, as -- as report cards go, this is pretty terrible. Four years since 9/11, why hasn't there been more progress?

TIMOTHY ROEMER, FORMER 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: Distraction.

We have a distraction on the part of our leadership at the White House and Congress. They're not concentrating on the right kind of problems. Listen, here, al Qaeda, they're changing. We are not. They're dynamic. We're not.

And they attacked the United States in 1993 with a van, injuring 1,000 people in New York City. In the year 2001, they attacked us with airplanes, legal 3,000 people. We know they may come at us with chemical, biological, maybe nuclear weapons next time. And we're not doing nearly enough. There are 12 D's and five F's and two incompletes. Any child getting this kind of report card would have to repeat grades or fail.

COOPER: Senator Gorton, what about that? I mean, one of the biggest critiques is that the government still hasn't set up a communications system that allows, you know, fire departments to speak with police departments in -- in a disaster. Why hasn't that, in particular, happened?

SLADE GORTON, FORMER 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: That hasn't happened because the National Association of Broadcasters doesn't want to give up the spectrum that is needed by our first-responders.

Congress is going to vote, I hope next week, on whether or not at least to have finally a date on which it will happen. But that date is 2009. It's almost three years from now. That's too far in the future.

COOPER: How much of a problem is -- is pork projects? I heard Lee Hamilton saying some homeland security money is being spent on air conditions for garbage trucks.

ROEMER: Air-conditioned garbage trucks, Anderson, and, also, body armor for dogs. How is this helping us fight the war on jihadist terrorism more effectively?

Look, you can understand -- and Senator Gorton and I both spent time in Congress -- how members of Congress might want to load up some transportation bills with some pork. But to pork-barrel our national security -- for homeland security, we know Washington and New York City are targets. Wyoming and Oklahoma may not get as much money, and that's in America's interests.

COOPER: So, Senator Gorton, I mean, what is it? Is it that the American public has stopped demanding or -- or talking about this? Or the media had stopped talking about it, so politicians have moved on from it? I -- I just don't get -- unless this stuff is under the glare, maybe, or in the headlines every day, does Washington just not, you know, focus on it?

GORTON: I -- I think that that's true.

You know, the irony is, it may be the penalty for short-term success. There has not been another attack in the United States for more than four years on now. And people have moved on. Congressmen have moved on. They figure that politics as usual is -- is going to continue to work.

That is asking for trouble.

COOPER: What about that, Representative Roemer? Because, I mean, that's the line you get from the White House. The -- Scott McClellan, the -- the press secretary said, look, there has not been another attack in the United States, and -- and -- and, you know, that's indicative of -- of the efforts we have been putting into it.

report No, it is not.

In fact, Anderson, al Qaeda attacked us in 1993, waited patiently seven years, wanted to be more spectacular, wanted to kill more people. We report, on page 116 of the 9/11 Commission book, that now al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, are instructing their people to get a nuclear weapon and use it on the United States, an Hiroshima-type activity. COOPER: Senator Gorton, the other thing that we heard from Scott McClellan is, look, the -- this government has been taking the fight to the terrorists in -- in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and -- and that's, you know, part of the strategy, and -- and that is bearing fruit.

GORTON: That is part of the strategy -- strategy, but it is only part of the strategy.

Tim Roemer was exactly right. If there's a number-one danger, that danger is the use of weapons of mass destruction, especially the possibility of nukes. It may not be the most likely, but it's the most dangerous. And to say that we're on a program to solve that problem in 12 or 14 or 15 years is just way too long.

(END VIDEOTAPE)