President Obama:  "Credible Terrorist Threat"; Are More Devices Still Out There?; Chicago Synagogues Remain on Alert
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>WOLF BLITZER, HOST: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. We're following the breaking news -- President Obama, just moments ago, calling it, quote, "a credible terrorist threat against the United States." He says two suspicious devices shipped from Yemen and bound for the United States apparently do, in fact, contain explosives. Those packages, discovered overseas, were addressed to Jewish places of worship in Chicago. Cargo planes and trucks in several U.S. cities are being inspected and aviation security is being ramped up right now. The president warning that Al Qaeda and Yemen is planning attacks against the United States right now. Let's go to our White House correspondent, Ed Henry. He's monitoring the latest coming out of the White House -- and, Ed, we just had this briefing from the president's senior adviser on counterterrorism and homeland security, John Brennan.</s>ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. And John Brennan just gave us some new information going through what they know and what they don't know. He hinted, for the first time, that the U.S. had intelligence that tipped them off to the fact that there were packages, potentially, with explosives on these planes. He said, quote, "Whenever you pull a string, there's a reason you pull that string. And we had a reason to pull it." He wouldn't go into further detail, clearly hinting there was intelligence, that this was just not a random check and that's why they went after it. Asked whether it was a dry run for a future terror attack or not -- and, specifically, interestingly, John Brennan said, usually with a dry run, there would not be explosives in these packages. In this case, as the president himself noted, there was -- there were explosives in the packages, leading U.S. officials to think maybe it was not a dry run, maybe it was an actual terror attempt. But John Brennan was careful to note they're still very early in the investigation. A lot of information we do not know yet. But the president himself came to the Briefing Room to explain what we do know to the American people.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Last night and earlier today, our intelligence and law enforcement professionals, working with our friends and allies, identified two suspicious packages bound for the United States; specifically, two places of Jewish worship in Chicago. Those packages have been located in Dubai and East Midlands Airport in the United Kingdom. An initial examination of those packages has determined that they do, apparently, contain explosive material. I was alerted to this threat last night by my top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan. I directed the Department of Homeland Security and all our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to take whatever steps are necessary to protect our citizens from this type of attack.</s>HENRY: And the president was also very direct in saying, as well, the president noted that the U.S. will spare no expense, as he put it, in figuring out -- investigating who is the source of this terror threat. The president noted, as you just heard, that the packages started in Yemen. And he went on to say that we know that Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula has been operating out of Yemen. They believe that they were tied, for example, to the underwear bombing there on Christmas Day of last year -- the attempted terror attack over the -- over Detroit. The bottom line, though, is that the president said one thing we do know is that the packages were headed for Jewish organizations in Chicago. Interesting to note the president himself is headed, tomorrow, to both Chicago and Philadelphia, which was another part of this threat today. But White House Spokesman said Robert Gibbs -- Gibbs said no plans to cancel those travels. The president is still planning to go to Charlottesville, Virginia tonight; Philadelphia; Connecticut; as well as Illinois tomorrow -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: It's interesting, Ed, that the president was first briefed about this threat last night around 10:30 p.m. Eastern time. And that's when his homeland security and counterterrorism team really went into action.</s>HENRY: They did. John Brennan, as you noted, the president's principal counterterrorism official here inside the White House, convened a conference call at 1:00 a.m. Eastern time. A short time after that briefing of the president, to coordinate the CIA, the National Counterterrorist Center, etc. Get all of these various bureaucracies in place. That seems to be some of the good news here, at least in the early stages of this investigation, that U.S. counter- terror officials appear to have pounced on this in a way that, at least for now, snuffed out whatever threat was out there. However, John Brennan did get one question in this briefing about reports that there may be 15 more packages out there somewhere in the system that the U.S. is now searching for. John Brennan would not confirm or deny that. So we have to stress, this is still very, very early in this investigation. There could be more threats out there -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Ed Henry, stand by. All this playing out after authorities intercepted those two packages, one in the United Kingdom and one in the United Arab Emirates, in Dubai, specifically. Let's bring in our homeland security correspondent, Jeanne Meserve. She's working this story. What else do we know -- Jeanne?</s>JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, we know they found these two devices and they are looking very hard to determine if they -- there are any more. Also, as Ed mentioned, they're trying very hard to figure out exactly what those devices are -- what were they intended to do. Here's a little bit of what the president's counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, had to say.</s>JOHN BRENNAN, COUNTERTERRORISM ADVISER: I'm concerned that since there were explosive materials in it, a -- a traditional dry run is something that you would not necessarily use with explosive materials. That said, I don't know yet what exactly the intent was at this point. There are a lot of different scenarios that some people have speculated about. But -- and what we're trying to do is to wrestle this to the ground by doing the good forensic analysis, as well as taking a look, from an intelligence standpoint, and trying to piece together what we might know -- have known in the past and so that it will give us a sense of how this was going be used.</s>MESERVE: Of course, we have seen pictures of the device that was found in the United Kingdom. It appears to be a toner cartridge that has been tampered with in some way. There you're looking at another piece of it -- something that was attached to the toner cartridge. And so this is the nuts and bolts of what they're looking at, trying to determine what it is and trying to determine if there are more. John Brennan didn't want to answer this question on camera, but we have heard it from intelligence sources, that they do believe there are other packages that are en route from Yemen that they want to take a look at. They do not have any intelligence, we're told, that they pose a threat. But because of where they originate, they want to take a closer look. And that is why today you saw planes -- cargo planes pulled aside in both Philadelphia and Newark. You saw some trucks -- cargo trucks looked at in New York City. They were trying to track down some of these packages. And I'm told by sources they did find some of them and determined that those they found did not pose any threat. However, we've been warned that we may see additional activity that looks like this, perhaps additional planes like that one that came from the UAE that they wanted to take aside at JFK this afternoon after they escorted it in with fighter jets. They thought one of those packages was on board there. They wanted to take a closer look. We may see some more of that as the days progress, as they try and determine what exactly the dimensions of what they're dealing with are -- Wolf, back to you.</s>BLITZER: Jeanne, is it your understanding that those two packages that were intercepted in the U.K. and in Dubai were addressed specifically to synagogues in Chicago? In other words, somebody went to FedEx or UPS in -- in Yemen and said I want to ship these two -- these two boxes to these synagogues, these Jewish houses of worship in Chicago?</s>MESERVE: I don't know what was said at the point of shipping, but we did hear from the White House that, yes, they were addressed to synagogues in Chicago. And that helped them find them. What we are led to understand is that the intelligence that the United States got from an ally related to packages that were headed from Yemen to synagogues in Chicago, that is how they were able to track them down. This wasn't through some luck of screening. This is because they had intelligence on what to look for. And, as you know, all these shipping companies do extensive tracking of all the packages going through their system. And that undoubtedly made it a little more easy to find this, what could have been otherwise a needle in a haystack -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Jeanne, thanks very much. Don't go too far away, either. We're going to be checking back with you, Jeanne and Ed, all of our reporters. They're working their sources. We're getting more information. And as Jeanne noted, a sign of how seriously authorities are taking this cargo security scare, the fact that U.S. fighter jets escorted the flight from Dubai to New York's JFK that had a package from Yemen on board. It landed safely just a little while ago. Let's bring in our national security contributor, Fran Townsend, and our terrorist analyst, Paul Cruickshank, with the Center on Law and Security at NYU's School of Law. The explosive material -- and -- and -- and I'll start with you, Fran -- there's explosive material and explosive material. There are different kinds of explosive material. As far as I know, we don't know yet what kind of explosives -- were these plastic explosives, were they highly dangerous explosives or not so much. Do you know?</s>FRANCES FRAGOS TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: No. We don't know and we don't -- and we also don't know the quantity. In fact, John Brennan, in the White House Briefing Room, was asked that very specific question and he declined to answer it, partly because they will do extensive testing, but partly because there's a signature to how these bombs are put together and what materials are used. And that's the crucial part of the investigation to do, as the president directed him, that is, trace this -- this bomb back to its origination.</s>BLITZER: Because the -- what could these -- these -- these packages have done to these two synagogues in Chicago? Let's say they weren't detected, that there wasn't a tip from an ally that these suspicious packages were on board these flights. Presumably, they -- they reach the synagogue in Chicago. Then what?</s>PAUL CRUICKSHANK, TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, they -- they could have the potential to cause a lot of harm. We don't know how viable they were at this point. But if they had caused harm there in Chicago in the synagogues, this would have been very popular amongst Al Qaeda's core base, who are deeply anti-Semitic. So targeting these synagogues may have been very deliberate -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Because there could have been a timing device that would have gone off once they knew that the packages had arrived? Is that the fear?</s>CRUICKSHANK: More likely that when you open the device, that it would go off. But -- but there wasn't much discussion about how this thing was going to be triggered, or, if, indeed, it was even viable.</s>BLITZER: When they say an ally tipped off the United States, I -- I don't know who that ally is. I assume it's Yemen. The government of Yemen has been working closely with the United States on these issues, isn't that right?</s>TOWNSEND: Well, Yemen has been an -- an inconsistent ally, let us say. And they don't have a tremendous capability against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. There was an attack against a British convoy there in Yemen. And so I wouldn't presume that it was coming from the Yemenis. Clearly, it's got to be a regional ally who's got good insight into Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the intelligence had to be pretty clear and pretty specific for them to find these packages.</s>BLITZER: You heard the president in his statement be rather effusive in his praise for President Saleh of Yemen and the cooperation that the U.S. is getting from Yemen. You heard that.</s>CRUICKSHANK: They feel that they're getting better cooperation right now. But what we did see a couple of weeks ago was the French warned by the Saudis of a potential threat from al Qaeda in Yemen to their security. It would be interesting to find out if it's the same source of information here, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right, guys, stand by, because we're not going to go anywhere. We're -- we're all over this story. We're watching this from all angles. We're monitoring all the international developments. And we're going be going to Chicago, as well, where the suspicious packages were destined -- were supposed to arrive. We'll get reaction from Capitol Hill. We'll be speaking with members of the Intelligence and Homeland Security Committees. They've been briefed on what's going on. This is a serious development, when the president of the United States says a credible terrorist threat has been thwarted, but maybe there are other packages still in the works and the two packages that were discovered, the president says, apparently contained explosive material. Our coverage will continue right after this.