Will There be Another Terror Attack on the U.S.?; Will the networks cast off their aging heavyweights?
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Now on</s>WOLF BLITZER REPORTS: Safer, but not safe.</s>SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R), ALABAMA: We don't know the specifics, the time and the place, but we have great reason to believe that we could be hit anytime in the next few years.</s>BLITZER: Will it be the water supply, booby-trapped apartment buildings, or suicide bombers? New warnings from the FBI director. Is Osama bin Laden back? Fighting back: A U.S. soldier falls in the war against terrorism. No concessions for Fidel Castro:</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well-intentioned ideas about trade will merely prop up this dictator, enrich his cronies and enhance the totalitarian regime.</s>BLITZER: And anchors away: Will the networks cast off their aging heavyweights? I will ask Frank Rich, of "The New York Times." It's Monday, May 20, 2002. Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. We begin with an unsettling admission from a man whose job it is to keep America safe: FBI director Robert Mueller says flatly, "there will be another terrorist attack. We will not be able to stop it. It's something we all have to live with." But, he doesn't stop there. In this hour, we will brief you on the series of threats to people in the United States.</s>SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D-FL), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: There's a likelihood almost to the point of certainty that over the next say 3-5 years that there will be another terrorist attack inside the United States.</s>SHELBY: We have to be ready for it. We are doing everything to prepare the Americans for it. We are trying to eliminate it before it ever really crystallizes.</s>BLITZER: These warnings coming a day after vice president Dick Cheney said a future tack against the United States is, in his words, almost certain. Cheney, Graham, and Shelby insist they have received no specific information, but U.S. intelligence agencies are reporting increased activity and communication by suspected terrorist groups including al Qaeda. That has led to a series of recent warnings. The FBI has alerted real estate industry leaders that terrorists might try to rent apartment units and rig them with explosives.</s>BEN VENZKE, INTEL CENTER: There was information that was obtained that al Qaeda was discussing the possibility of this and there are connections between the Chechen rebels that were responsible for those apartment bombings and al Qaeda. So I can surmise there's a connection there.</s>BLITZER: In Orlando, Florida security around water purification and distribution centers has been stepped up after the FBI reported what it calls a vague, unsubstantiated threat to the area's water supply. There has been no evidence that the Orlando water supply has actually been compromised, but coupled with the ongoing controversy over what the White House knew about possible attacks before September 11, many are asking, are Americans now safer?</s>J. KELLY MCCANN, SECURITY ANALYST: This is a very determined adversary and we are safer, we are definitely safer than we were 9/11, however as their determination and their ingenuity increases, so must ours.</s>BLITZER: And we are learning more about earlier threats. The Federal Aviation Administration was notified about the arrest of a student pilot, Zacarias Moussaoui in the days leading up to the September 11 attacks but an official says the FAA decided not warn the airlines about the possible threat. Joining us now for more in our Washington bureau, CNN's justice correspondent Kelli Arena -- Kelli.</s>KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, The FAA says the information it received from the FBI was not specific enough to warrant any action and the FBI says that it passed on all it could at the time. Now, Moussaoui of course is the man that investigators believe was supposed to be the 20th hijacker. He had been detained on August 16 after flight school officials in Minnesota called authorities. Now, Moussaoui aroused suspicion at Pan Am Flight Academy when he wanted to learn how to take off and land a commercial jet with little flying experience under his belt. Investigators did not have specifics regarding Moussaoui at the time but sources say that the FBI was concerned that he may have been involved in a hijacking plot and so passed general information on to FAA. The FAA says that it did not warn airlines or take any action at the time due to the lack of specifics. What's more, an FAA official says the FBI never suggested that Moussaoui was working with others. Why is all this important? Because it's one more example of information that was gathered before September 11 which further is igniting the argument about the handling of intelligence before those attacks, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Kelli Arena, our justice correspondent, thank you very much. Let's get more insight now into the new terror warnings and whether the United States is prepared for more attacks. Joining us now from Capitol Hill, Congressman Porter Goss, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Congressman, thanks for joining us. This suggestion from the FBI director Robert Mueller today that the suicide bombings that have become so frequent in Israel could come here to the United States. How credible is that possibility?</s>REP. PORTER GOSS (R), FLORIDA: Well of course it's realistic possibility. We know that these people have an agenda and it's to hurt Americans, particularly innocent Americans wherever they can, where Americans are most vulnerable, and that certainly would fit into that scenario. That is one of the reasons why we are working so hard to make sure that our intelligence and our law enforcement and regulatory agencies are all working to the maximum efficient capacity to get the right information to the decision makers at the right time. This is a war, and there are many manifestations of it, and we just simply all have to do our jobs as individual Americans and be alert and be sensible, go about our business, but if way see something odd call the law enforcement people right away and then we have to have our national and local authorities doing their job to the greatest and most sensible way possible.</s>BLITZER: Congressman, it was director Mueller as far as you know speaking on the basis of his gut instinct, a hunch, or is there if specific credible information that these kinds of suicide bombings that have plagued Israel will spill into the United States?</s>GOSS: One of the things that distinguishes this terrorist activity and made it so hard to believe and conceive that something like what happened on September 11 happened is that the suicide element, I mean that's not really new in warfare, we had kamikazes in the second world war, people remember that, but that's military to military. Here we have actually people who will go out and do these fanatical things in a suicidal way and they can go to just about any target they pick. So obviously, you can walk into a mall without causing a lot of suspicion and if you have the explosives taped on as they've shown they can do in Israel, where they have some of the best intelligence services in the world and are really tuned in and have a very small target space to work on and they can still make those bombs go off and kill innocent people, obviously it can happen here and the director is right.</s>BLITZER: Your counterpart in the Senate, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Bob Graham, says al Qaeda may not necessarily be the biggest threat to the United States right now. It could be hezbollah or one of other terrorist groups. Is he right?</s>GOSS: He is absolutely right. There is no way for certain to know which of the terrorist groups might set off that bomb or do that dastardly thing. But the fact is, it doesn't matter which of the terrorist groups, it matters that we know ahead of time so we can stop them and whether it's one of the many groups that make up the international terrorist network is the business we are in now. We are trying to basically conscribe that network and put them out of business. That's the second mission the president has given us after making sure nothing else goes wrong.</s>BLITZER: We heard a very ominous warning from the vice president yesterday from the FBI director today, why is the country still on this yellow threat condition, this mid-level threat condition? Why haven't they gone on a higher threat alert?</s>GOSS: I'm not sure that most Americans relate to this yet and I think that what is happening frankly is that the talk that is going on about an increased alertness and an increased noise going on that something may happen again is being spoken of in a number of ways. The word is getting out but it don't think our warning system has yet come into the kind of precision or acceptance across the country that we are going to need some day if we are going to continue to have this kind of an enemy. My hope frankly is that we will be able to put the terrorist network out of business so we have to worry less about warnings systems because the threat will be less, somewhat as we've done with piracy.</s>BLITZER: Congressman, you've heard the criticism of the Bush Administration and the president and some of his advisers going to into September 11, but some of those critics today are saying that these latest warnings from the vice president and FBI director are very political trying to change the subject from the questions that were raised especially last week. Is there any validity to that kind of criticism?</s>GOSS: No, I frankly don't think that there is any validity at all. i think it is sort of a despicable comment to even think that way or say those kinds of things. If anybody things the vice president or the president of the United States is playing fast and loose for political reasons with the national security of this country and the American citizens, I suggest that they have got a serious disorientation problem with what's going on in America.</s>BLITZER: Have you been briefed, Congressman, on this latest Osama bin Laden videotape that supposedly surfaced? The "London Sunday Times" made it available yesterday. Does this suggest he is in fact alive and still capable of orchestrating these kinds of terrorist strikes?</s>GOSS: I think it's part of the propaganda. I have no idea whether it gives any indication yet of his being alive or being dead. I think that is an open question. I don't think anybody knows and I think the analysts are working on this at this point. I have no great wisdom to impart to you, Wolf, I'm sorry.</s>BLITZER: One final question before I let you go, the house Democratic leader Dick Gephardt today endorsed legislation that would create and independent commission to investigate what might have gone wrong as opposed to letting your committee, the intelligence committee, the Senate committee take the main thrust of this investigation. Do you think that's a good idea?</s>GOSS: Well, I don't know whether the legislation is meant to replace our committees or to let our committees do their work and create yet another committee on top of it to follow some of the leads of our committee so I'd want to look at the language, but I think it's very important that the oversight of the intelligence committee's continue on in this joint bi-cameral, bi-partisan investigation is allowed to do its work. We are doing good work. We have already turned up some good stuff. Unfortunately, some of it has been leaked prematurely and in a way that was not understandable so it has caused a political firestorm. I believe that we will be able to do a very good job and that we will be helpful to the American people and very helpful to our national security in the future by having a better and improved system by following remedies that we, I think, have got a pretty good grasp on already for some of the diagnosis of the problems we have seen in the systems that clearly were there. But I think that to try and suggest that somehow the White House should have divined all this, I don't think that is fair at all. I think that the president and the vice president have been doing the best they can with the information they've been able to get out of our system. I think the systems need to be improved.</s>BLITZER: Congressman Porter Goss, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, himself a former CIA case officer. As usual, thanks so much for your insight.</s>GOSS: Thanks, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Our Web question of the day is this: Do you expect to see another terrorist attack from al Qaeda? Go to my Web page: CNN.com/wolf. Let me know what you think. While you are there let me also suggest you send your comments to me. I'll try to read some of them on the air each day at the end of the program. Also that is where you can read my daily on-line column, cnn.com/wolf. We are switching gears now. We have a development in Los Angeles in the case involving Robert Blake, the murder case he's accused of. Our Frank Buckley is standing by outside the courtroom -- Frank.</s>FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf it a appears as though an independent counsel may be appointed in the Robert Blake case because prosecutors today had hoped to remove the attorney for Earl Caldwell, the bodyguard of Robert Blake, saying that there was a potential conflict of interest, that she's going to be a prosecution witness to speak to inconsistencies in the case and also because she is being paid by Robert Blake. The judge in this case, Lloyd Nash has said that he intends to appoint an independent counsel to come in and speak to Caldwell. The person that he specifically plans to appoint is Steve Sitcoff (ph) , a defense attorney here in town who has represented Aaron Sorkin (ph) in the past, in drug-related charges. Earl Caldwell objected to that, so the exact person who will be chosen remains to be seen. The prosecution had also hoped in a separate motion to remove William Jordan, a private investigator who is assisting the defense team. He had helped Mr. Blake there the past on the custody issue involving Bonny Lee Bakley. The judge has denied that motion of the prosecution, so Jordan will stay on with the team. Joining me how is Harland Braun, the defense attorney for Robert Blake during the hearing today we heard the judge chastised you for the language you used in your moving papers, among the things you did is you called Steve Coolly, the district attorney, a semi-competent district attorney and things like that. He said he wasn't going to tolerate mud slinging in his courtroom. You didn't really get a chance to speak to that.</s>HARLAND BRAUN, ATTORNEY FOR ROBERT BLAKE: That was the important thing. You notice the judge didn't want to let me speak to it. What we were speaking to was the horrific arrest of Robert Blake on camera, this news conference by Chief Parks and all of this being supervised by Steve Coolly. So I think it's important that someone in the public stand up and say that's not the way we arrest people in America. This is not the way we have news conferences. We want a fair trial and if the judges don't like then that is their problem.</s>BUCKLEY: We've got about 10 seconds, but quickly, can you tell us your reaction to the rulings on the prosecution's motions?</s>BRAUN: We were happy that he allowed us to continue with our investigator, an experienced L.A.P.D. veteran and we think it's a waste of time to go going through trying to remove Earl Caldwell's attorney and what else would Robert Blake do? He has an obligation to his friend to assist him. If he didn't assist him, I think he would be not a good friend.</s>BUCKLEY: OK, Harland Braun, thanks so much for taking time for taking time with us. The court hearing just ended. Wolf, that is it. We will throw it back to you.</s>BLITZER: Frank Buckley in Los Angeles on top of the Robert Blake case. Thanks so much for that update. Hezbollah on trial in North Carolina, of all places. Did money from a cigarette stand fund terrorists in the Middle East? Plus assessing the threat to water supplies: is a popular tourist town at risk? And are Dan, Peter, and Tom becoming obsolete? I'll talk about the fate of the big three news anchors with the "New York Times" columnist Frank Rich. But first; our news quiz. Which network was first to air a daily 30 minute newscast? ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS? The answer coming up.