Terror Threat in New York Turns Out to be Hoax
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Standing by, CNN reporters across the U.S. and around the globe to bring you the day's top stories.</s>ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Ali Velshi. Happening now, it's midnight in the South Asian disaster zone, where earthquake aid is delayed by violent storms. Millions left homeless in the frigid mountains face a new threat.</s>PHILLIPS: It's 3:00 p.m. in New York. Government sources now say the threat to the subway system was a hoax. How will residents respond to the next alert?</s>VELSHI: And it's 2:00 a.m., Wednesday, in Thailand, where a top U.S. official used the bird flu fight. He says there's a high risk of a human pandemic. Should the maker of an anti-viral medicine share its secret? You're in "The Situation Room."</s>PHILLIPS: And thanks for joining us. Wolf is off today. The scale of the tragedy is enormous and likely to grow in the aftermath of the earthquake. Across northeast Pakistan and in disputed Kashmir, divided with India, tens of thousands of people are reported dead. With villages, towns, even entire cities destroyed, millions of people are homeless.</s>VELSHI: Desperate survivors today fought over shipments that are beginning to reach the mountains. They're living in the open, exposed to driving rain and bitter cold. They now face the possibility of mudslides as winter reaches the Himalayas. The U.S. is boosting its aid to Pakistan. The Pentagon has sent cargo planes loaded with supplies and officials say dozens of helicopters could be deployed. Pakistan's foreign minister says aid is already arriving from nuclear neighbor and bitter rival India.</s>PHILLIPS: Let's go live now to the disaster zone. CNN's Becky Anderson is in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad -- Becky?</s>BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And there are some 41,000 people dead, 11,000 in the Pakistan controlled Kashmir alone. In one city, some 80 to 90 percent of structures have been wiped out. Many people still buried underground. I'm here in Islamabad in front of a building that collapsed, a 10-story building that collapsed. They are still bringing people out of this building. In the last hour or so they've heard another woman's voice. Earlier on today, a 75-year-old lady and her 55-year- old daughter were pulled out after 72 hours, and they were alive. Her sons talked to her as she came out. She said, "Is everybody else alive? I don't want to come out unless they are." Her sons were able to tell her that her family were alive. She came out and was taken to hospital. So there are some miracles here, but this is just the tip of the iceberg in Islamabad. The rest of the region absolutely devastating. The big problem today, Kyra, was this: there were overnight rains and then afternoon storms. And that effectively grounded the relief operation. The American choppers that have been going up north to the most devastated regions brought back to Islamabad an extremely frustrating day for those who need the relief and those who are helping with the effort -- Kyra?</s>PHILLIPS: Becky Anderson, we look forward to more of those miracles. We'll check back with you later in the newscast. Meanwhile, President Bush was back in the Gulf Coast hurricane disaster zone in hard hit Pass Christian, Mississippi. He helped celebrate this week's reopening of an elementary school. Earlier, the president and First Lady Laura Bush joined volunteers, building a home at a Habitat for Humanity program near New Orleans. And at a naval air station in Louisiana, Mr. Bush said, quote, "Out of the rubble is going to come some gold."</s>VELSHI: In our security watch, the tip that terrorists were targeting New York subway has apparently turned out to be a hoax. CNN's Deborah Feyerick is standing by in New York, but we begin in Washington with our justice correspondent Kelli Arena -- Kelli?</s>KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, I can tell you that officials are still not on the same page. But the law enforcement and government officials that I spoke to say that through investigative means, they are certain that the information that was provided by the informant is false and that he perpetrated a hoax against the United States. As you know from the very beginning, officials here in Washington were questioning the credibility of the information, saying that it could not be corroborated. We did some more reporting and heard that three people were taken into custody in Iraq. They were questioned and polygraphed and passed that polygraph, didn't know anything about an alleged attack against the United States. There were reports that there was supposedly an individual who came into the United States as part of this plot. Again, officials here in Washington saying, "We don't even know if such a person exists." Bottom line today, it was all a hoax, the information completely inaccurate. Although every security expert here says, you know, "This doesn't mean that we're in the clear." Obviously, Al Qaeda and related groups want to do harm. It's just that there's no plot in progress right now.</s>VELSHI: All right, Kelli. And, of course, we saw this tension building the other day when Washington said they didn't have evidence of this. New York officials did. Does that mean that New York officials now have egg on their face? Joining us now from New York is CNN's Deborah Feyerick -- Deborah?</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ali, we can tell you that New York City's mayor and its top cop are sticking by their story and their decision to warn New Yorkers. And here's how it all played out. The mayor says that a week and a half ago, an informant in Iraq claimed that three people were going to come to the United States and attack the subway system. The mayor says that informant passed a lie detector test, and as a result, U.S. forces grabbed the three then that Kelli mentioned. Well, one of those men apparently said something that had everyone in the know on edge.</s>MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: And when an operation was mounted in Iraq to grab the other three, as they grabbed them, one of them screamed, "You're too late to stop us." This was an attack, or a planned attack, that had a specific time and target and method. It was the first really serious allegation of a direct attack on this city since 9/11.</s>RAYMOND KELLY, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT: We have got to get together with federal agencies, and they have a responsibility in Washington to speak with one voice, to proactively put out information that's going to help localities. And a lot of this information was gleaned from our initiative and our contacting federal authorities. So, yes, I think this -- there are lessons here to be learned. I think some congressional committees will, in fact, look into this whole matter.</s>FEYERICK: Now, it turns out that two of the three men did deny any attack. And the mayor says that a lie detector test supports their story. The police commissioner says that as of this morning, the informant, the one who made the original claims, has not been located. So the question is, if this threat was real, why did the mayor hold on to the information for several days? Well, he says he wanted to protect U.S. forces and not jeopardize the operation to pick up those three men. That pickup happened last Thursday morning, news broke later the afternoon, and the timeframe for this suspected subway strike using baby carriages, that did not happen until the next day, Friday. So they really thought they were in the clear. But again, there was miscommunication, but New York City's mayor and the police commissioner sticking by the story. They say they did the right thing, that had they not put that security in place, that's when it could have been a real problem had an attack had taken place -- Ali?</s>VELSHI: Deborah Feyerick in New York, thanks Deb. Stay tuned for CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, his bloody beating at the hands of New Orleans police was captured on videotape. Now, that the victim is speaking publicly and you might be surprised what he has to say. CNN's Lisa Sylvester is live in New Orleans with the details -- Lisa?</s>LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Kyra. This investigation is actually going on at three separate agencies. First, you have the New Orleans police department. They're looking at three of the officers who have been suspended without pay and charged with battery. Then there's the Department of Justice investigation, that is a civil rights probe. And finally, the FBI, at the highest level of the bureau, they're taking a look at the role two off-duty agents may have played. Those agents were also seen on the tape. But earlier today, Robert Davis@, the man you see on that video, told CNN his version of what happened.</s>ROBERT DAVIS, BEATING VICTIM: I wasn't sure about the time of the curfew. I was very concerned about that, and I had been asking several law enforcement officers about the curfew. I had heard several different times, 8:00, 10:00, and 12:00. So I finally decided to ask one of the New Orleans police officers who was on horseback at the corner of Conti and Bourbon. And he proceeded to give me the time, and during that, I was interrupted by another police officer who was walking by, really. And he interrupted our conversation, and I told him that was very unprofessional. And I proceeded to walk on across the street, at which time he punched me, I guess. And from there, I don't really remember much other than a lady in the crowd who was, I guess, just a bystander who kept hollering, "He didn't do anything, he didn't do anything."</s>SYLVESTER: And Robert Davis does not blame the New Orleans Police Department as a whole. He just sees this as a couple of bad apples. Now, Mr. Davis is scheduled to appear in court tomorrow to face public intoxication charges and resisting arrest charges. But his attorney is confident that those charges will be dropped -- Kyra?</s>PHILLIPS: Now, Lisa, when I talked to the acting chief Warren Riley yesterday, I asked him about military support, and also other agencies that are there to support the NOPD, because obviously, the department is having a lot of problems keeping the peace. Are you seeing more military patrols? Are you seeing other agencies still active with regard to fighting crime and trying to keep the streets safe?</s>SYLVESTER: We do still see a heavy military presence here. I mean, it's not something that you see in an average American city. So it is come as somewhat of a surprise just to see the sheer number of men and women in uniform, as well as other law enforcement agencies participating. But the big question on everyone's mind is, what happens when you have a flood of people, the thousands of residents who start returning to New Orleans, will the will the city, the police department, be overwhelmed? And that's something that, right now, the police department is kind of taking a wait-and-see mode -- Kyra?</s>PHILLIPS: Lisa Sylvester, live in New Orleans, thank you so much. Now time for my favorite file. We know what that is, right?</s>VELSHI: "The Cafferty File." Our Jack Cafferty -- I have always wanted to say that. Our Jack Cafferty joins us now in New York with the question -- Jack?</s>JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, Ali. In light of yet another disaster, some relief agencies are concerned that Americans might stop digging into their pockets and donating money to the victims. Officials say they've never seen anything like the string of disasters over the last ten months. According to a roundup in "The New York Daily News" this morning, there was the tsunami at Christmas sometime, the two hurricanes here on the Gulf Coast, Katrina and Rita, the big earthquake in El Salvador. There are reportedly whole villages buried under mudslides down in Guatemala, wildfires in California, and now this horrific earthquake in Pakistan. The concern is that Americans are worn out by all of this and that something called donor fatigue may set in. So the question is this, are Americans disastered out? You can email us your thoughts at caffertyfile@CNN.com.</s>VELSHI: Jack, thanks. We'll check in with you when you start getting responses to those.</s>PHILLIPS: Still to come, she's been called unqualified and a crony of the president, but she still has major support inside the White House. Find out why they're standing behind their woman.</s>VELSHI: Plus, a possible deadly flu pandemic. One drug company owns the recipe for an anti-viral. But should it release it to the world? We'll have a closer look.</s>PHILLIPS: Also, rough and tumble politics, the debate that turned ugly. You're in "The Situation Room."