Crossfire

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE

NOVAK: Let me summarize what happened. You have a little plane, tiny little private plane with a student pilot and an instructor. Still pretty far from the White House. It is intercepted by two 2 F- 16s. At the time they have apprehended it, the people are pouring out of the White House, the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court. That’s the picture. P.J. Crowley — and I’m going to ask you later — give me your assessment of how this operated?

P.J. CROWLEY, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: I think by and large the system did work. It certainly worked today butter than it did a year ago when a plane with Ernie Fletcher, the governor of Kentucky, was coming in for Reagan’s funeral and they couldn’t intercept it in time. So, I’m hard pressed to criticize that.

I think the system did work. Generally aviation — it’s very big question mark in terms of homeland security. We haven’t really done a lot on it. But it remains a significant danger.

CLIFF MAY, CENTER FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: You are old enough to remember you guys probably aren’t when a plane actually landed on the lawn of the White House when Clinton was there. In fact, it was said to be Jim Woolsey, the CIA director trying to get an appointment. Do you recall this, right?

You know the joke, too, right.

NOVAK: Joking aside. How do you think….

BRAZILE: Well, it’s 4:00 in the morning, I’m sure Bill Clinton wasn’t there. It’s too early for him to be home.

MAY: That must be his joke.

BRAZILE: Well, he was out working.

MAY: Oh, I got it.

NOVAK: How do you think it worked?

MAY: I agree with my friend P.J., overall it wasn’t bad. You don’t want things like this to happen. As an exercise it went fairly well. There are still things wrong.

NOVAK: Not an overreaction, gentlemen?

CROWLEY: No. NOVAK: Gee, a little tiny plane. Isn’t there any judgment.

MAY: P.J. knows this better than I. Very quickly, the pilots who track the plane realized this is a two seater. It doesn’t have much on it. They couldn’t hold much more than fuel. This is not a great danger. That’s not an easy thing to recognize without good experience in the air. And you know this.

NOVAK: So it didn’t work so well then.

MAY: Figure it out. They didn’t even shoot it — if they shot it down I wouldn’t be laughing so much.

BRAZILE: First of all, I agrees with Cliff and P.J., that this was a danger and they did the right thing in evacuating the Capitol and of course the White House and the Supreme Court. But what about all these other federal agencies. And all of the federal workers and the people. I mean, no one alerted us. I’m worried about a system that red must mean members of Congress and the president and the rest of us, well, you know.

MAY: As usual I think have you a point. I think as a fire drill, this went pretty well. But what you just mentioned is something to learn from this. So we can do better. Our homeland security has a long way to go yet.

NOVAK: You want to evacuate the whole city?

BRAZILE: Yes.

MAY: No. But I think well…

BRAZILE: Yeah. No. We got our information from CNN.

CROWLEY: No, I think that — I think that the 9/11 commission talked about national preparedness. And building by building, block by block, each of the facilities in and around the White House — I was two blocks away — you know, need to have a plan in case some of these things happen.

But the odd thing here is — let me tell you one other thing — what else is happening in the District of Columbia right now is the Department of Homeland Security has taken the District of Columbia to court. The District of Columbia wants to prevent hazardous material cars from flowing right through the Capital — or right through Washington, right next to Capital. Today, for example, had a HAZMAT car been traveling through the District, airplane comes in, takes that HAZMAT car out, we have 100,000 people killed in 30 minutes.

And so what is the Bush administration doing? They’re taking D.C. to court, because they say we’re going to protect business as usual. We don’t want to disturb the way the CSX operates.

So, this is one thing. But taken as a whole, we really are squandering this period of time where we need to be making our critical infrastructure more say. NOVAK: I’m going from a different direction. I mean, I think the overreaction is palpable. I — one half hour after they announced all clear, the police on Capitol Hill were still blocking the streets. Why were they blocking the streets on Capitol Hill creating a huge traffic jam. And you say, well it’s tough to have a traffic jam. But it’s unnecessary.

MAY: This is not an easy thing to settle, because what you’re talking about — both of you — is how much risk do we want? How popular is it?

NOVAK: Risk. There’s no risk!

MAY: No. When he talks about somebody going through the Capital in a plane hitting that particular truck just as it passes the White House or Congress. You’re talking about — somebody can calculate that risk at one in 10 million or whatever it is. We need to figure out what — do we need to evacuate the entire city or just the Capitol?

NOVAK: For a little plane?

MAY: But here’s the good news, Michael Chertoff, who is the new director of Homeland Security, he is doing this not in the impressionistic way. He’s doing it in a scientific way. He has statisticians and mathematicians, and they are figuring out what are the odds and then they are going to do it in a very rational way.

Let me also, if I can, just point out to you two Sunday ago, Washington Post, not a conservative paper, progress on the home front, U.S. sees drop in terrorist threats. That shows we’re making progress. It shows we’ve got the terrorists tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places.

BRAZILE: We are — how would you grade Homeland Security?

CROWLEY: I think it’s the forgotten dimension of national security. For example, yesterday we passed an $82 billion supplemental for the war on terror. $76 billion goes to the military. I don’t begrudge that. $794 million, less than 1 percent, goes to the Department of Homeland Security. We’re not treating Homeland Security anywhere near we are the urgency that we are with Iraq and Afghanistan.

And here’s the problem, you know, the president says we’re battling terrorists in Baghdad so we don’t have to face them here. We do have to face them here. And the question is, we can’t stay on the offensive forever. At some point our troop will come home. And when they do, we’re going to have to take a pause. And when we do that, we need to have done a lot more than we currently done to protect our economy, protect our society, protect our people.

(APPLAUSE)

MAY: I would just argue that what we have to do is stay on the offensive. The best thing we did for national security and homeland security was capture Abu Faraj al Libbi who was the operations officer of al Qaeda. It’s not so easy for Osama bin Laden to put a want ad out and get another good operations officer to take care of his terrorists all around the world.

(APPLAUSE)

NOVAK: All right. We’re going to take a break. And when we come back, does the color coded terrorist alert system work? And what did actor Macaulay Culkin have to say about Michael Jackson today? I bet you’ll want to know that. Wolf Blitzer has the latest just ahead.
NOVAK: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE.

The response to today’s alert in the skies over Washington was quick enough to avoid any damage or injuries, but was there overreaction? And is there a way to avoid these false alarms? Still in the CROSSFIRE, P.J. Crowley, former National Security Counsel spokesman, and Cliff May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, still on.

BRAZILE: Since leaving the government, former Homeland Security Secretary Ridge has basically come out against the color-coded systems. You all believe it’s dysfunctional and should it be replaces? And if so, what system would be adequate?

MAY: Basically, I’d say it’s not a great system, but it’s probably better than nothing. But — and I haven’t heard anybody, and maybe P.J. can come up with a better idea.

CROWLEY: Well, I think it needs to be a simpler system. Obviously, we haven’t had…

MAY: What colors? How much simpler can we get?

(LAUGHTER)

CROWLEY: Well, today’s example of how the system worked. It was very localized. Now, the other thing that Secretary Ridge said was, that, in some cases, he didn’t want to change the alert system last year but he was told to by the White House, which means one of two things. One is they were covering their ass, which they were doing before the election. Second, they were manipulating the fear factor to help gain in the election. I think they were doing both.

(APPLAUSE)

NOVAK: Let me — let me ask you this. (INAUDIBLE) I grew up and used to have policeman, in a very calm voice, when there was trouble saying, walk, do not run. We had today, policeman, sounding hysterical, yelling, get out of here, get out of here, and saying run, run, run. Isn’t there a possibility, with more people, when you have an evacuation — I have never heard of that, telling people to run. You could have some serious damage, some — a stampede and people very badly hurt.

CROWLEY: Certainly, and I think we do definitely need to do a better job of national preparedness, helping people understand where there’s a threat and knowing in advance, what do you do when the threat occurs? But part of that is going to be resources. Right now, 88 percent of what we spend on national security is for military affairs. They are always the first option. Homeland security has been the last option. We’re simply not devoting enough resources to make ourselves better prepared to deal with these kind of situations.

MAY: Here’s what I’d hope they do. After a — don’t worry you had a false alarm today. As we’ve said, as I think we’ve agreed, it’s probably a good thing in a certain way. Now, have a, what they call, a post-action review. Now, take a look at all the film that was done — as you say, there’s film all over the city…

NOVAK: Find out where they’re running.

MAY: …and let’s critique everybody.

NOVAK: What do you think of telling the people to run? What do you think of that?

MAY: That sounds like something you probably don’t want to be doing. You’re right. You don’t say — you would say, walk, don’t run. Don’t run with scissors.

BRAZILE: Or run to the nearest CNN station, because that’s what many members of Congress had to run to find a TV and learn from CNN what was happening.

Cliff, there are over 7 million Americans who live in this so- called no fly zone. Should it be enlarged to perhaps give those of us who live in the central city better time to evacuate or make preparations?

NOVAK: Oh, jeez.

MAY: I think — Look, I think Bob’s is right. I think the system worked today. The plane didn’t land on the Capitol. It didn’t go over the White House. You had planes in the air to escort it down. I think what we found out today is at least that part of it worked well. Let’s figure out what doesn’t. I don’t think we need to go crazy. I think what we need to do is take prudent precautions, not just do everything.

NOVAK: Let me ask you, you gentlemen are both experts in foreign policy as well as other things. What does it look like for a great nation, the most powerful nation in the world, evacuating everybody, the House Democratic leader lost her shoes I understood. I mean, what — because a little plane flew — got — cut a corner in this no-fly zone. How does it look to the rest of the world?

RAY: Well, Robert, I think the key is that we’ve really forgotten that there is still a risk here, and obviously we’re rusty a little bit today, and we need to learn from it. We need to do better, but we also need to devote more attention and resource than what the Bush administration is doing.

RAY: The rumor that Nancy Pelosi’s shoe was returned by a prince is not true. I want to get that out of the way, right now.

NOVAK: Out of the way!

BRAZILE: Well, I heard Tom DeLay was going to buy her a new pair of shoes with some more fees from lobbyists.

RAY: Look, I think — we live in Washington, D.C. This is dangerous place to live. A lot of people feel that way. We need prudent precautions. I think you make a good point, you can go overboard.

(CROSSTALK)

CROWLEY: Avoid the nuclear option.

NOVAK: (INAUDIBLE) …Crowley.

From political enemies to political allies, find out why Hillary Clinton and Newt Gingrich face the cameras together. Oh, they were so together today.

NOVAK: Remember the political feud when Hillary Clinton was first lady and trying to socialize American medicine? Republicans in Congress led by then-speaker Newt Gingrich fought against that proposal and defeated it. So, why was Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich together on Capitol Hill this morning? They claim to be part of a nonpartisan effort to reform healthcare for the 21st century. In fact, Gingrich says this about his so-called nonpartisan partner, quote, “Hillary has become one of the very few people who know what to do about healthcare,” end quote. Shakespeare was right about strange bedfellows, especially when politics are involved.

BRAZILE: Well, Bob, look, if this helps bring 44 million people closer getting health insurance, I’m all for it. Kum bah yah (ph), Hillary and Newt.

NOVAK: I smell — I think you’re a very evil Democratic operative and you want Newt as the sacrificial Republican candidate in ’08 and Hillary will just chew him up.

BRAZILE: Oh, Newt Gingrich did a great job, joining Hillary.

From the left, I’m Donna Brazile. That’s it for CROSSFIRE.