Transcript for Aug. 13

MR. GREGORY: Final point. These restrictions on carry-on lugwage—luggage, rather—no liquid, no gel, no, no liquid of any kind. How long do you think that will remain in place?

SEC’Y CHERTOFF: I think we’re going to make some refinements that will be announced today—not major refinements, but some things that should make it easier.

MR. GREGORY: Such as?

SEC’Y CHERTOFF: I’m going to let TSA roll that out clearly and not try to anticipate it here, but what we—I, I can’t tell you is exactly when we’re going to make major changes. We have to make sure we’ve analyzed the device, we’ve analyzed the plan. And the most important thing is safety first. We’re going to keep the airlines as safe as they’ve been. We’re going to protect the American people.

MR. GREGORY: But, as of today, some of those restrictions will be lifted.

SEC’Y CHERTOFF: There’ll be some very minor changes. I don’t want to overstate it. They may tweak it a little bit, and we’re going to let them roll that out clearly today at midday.

MR. GREGORY: Secretary Chertoff, thank you very much.

SEC’Y CHERTOFF: Good to be here.

MR. GREGORY: Coming next, lessons learned from 9/11. Are we doing enough to keep Americans safe? The chair and vice chair of the 9/11 Commission speak out for the first time since last week’s terror plot was uncovered. Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton up next on MEET THE PRESS.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY: An exclusive interview with the chair and co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, after this brief station break.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY: Welcome both. Let me show you the cover of this week’s Newsweek magazine. The banner headline: “Terror Now: A Plot Against Airlines, Bin Laden At Large, Iraq in Flames. Five Years After 9/11, Are We Any Safer?”

Governor Kean, are we?

MR. THOMAS KEAN: I think we’re safer, but we’re not safe. There’s still a number of things we should be doing that we’re not doing, and this should be a wake-up call. I mean this should, this just should re-focus us on the whole thing.

MR. GREGORY: This—the events of this week?

MR. KEAN: That’s right.

MR. GREGORY: Chairman Hamilton, do you agree with that?

MR. LEE HAMILTON: Oh, yes. We’ve taken all kinds of measures in the last five years to better protect ourselves. And I think some of those have been effective—not all of them, perhaps. And there are a lot of things, as the secretary mentioned a moment ago, that are still under way. But I’m still nervous about it. I think we are not as safe as we should be five years after the event.

MR. GREGORY: A plot like—has been uncovered this week. Is this precisely the kind of scenario you were most afraid of?

MR. HAMILTON: It’s precisely the kind of thing that we have talked about again and again since 9/11--highly sophisticated, very agile, very flexible, very smart people who hate the United States for a variety of different reasons, who are patient, who are looking at all of our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. And we have said again and again that we simply must handle this with a much greater sense of urgency than we have in the past.

MR. GREGORY: Governor Kean, are you surprised that we have not hit—been hit again since 9/11?

MR. KEAN: Well, I’m not surprised we haven’t been hit, but I’m surprised that these people have taken so long, because they were—they want to kill as many Americans as possible. And that’s their whole scenario, that’s what they want to do, but they take time to do it, as this plot was planned for a long period of time.

MR. GREGORY: What does this say—if it is, in fact, al-Qaeda—about its operational strength at this point?

MR. HAMILTON: I think it says that they’re still out there, they’re still plotting.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MR. HAMILTON: Their intent is very clear, as Tom has expressed, capabilities less clear, but there isn’t any doubt that they’re coming at us, and...

MR. GREGORY: And, and it’s interesting to note that, in terms of this plot, while that relationship is still being investigated, this is a scenario that was included in the 9/11 report indicating that “A [1996] study reportedly conducted by [bin Laden deputy Mohammed] Atef ... concluded that traditional terrorist hijacking operations did not fit the needs of al-Qaeda, because such hijackings were used to negotiate the release of prisoners rather than to inflict mass casualties. The study is said to have considered the feasibility of hijacking planes and blowing them up in flight. ... Such a study, if it actually existed, yields significant insight into the thinking of al-Qaeda’s leaders: ... they considered the bombing of commercial flights in midair ... a promising means to inflict massive casualties.” This sounds like al-Qaeda.

MR. KEAN: Well, it does sound like al-Qaeda. And, and this is Ramzi Yousef. I mean, he tried to do it in the first—excuse me—in the, in the Philippines when he tried to blow up—in the Bojinka plot...

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