Nuclear Plant Terrorism Warning Same As FBI Warning From Last Year
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Now, a developing story on another potential terrorist concern. CNN has learned that a government memo, warning the nation's nuclear power plants that they could be possibly the next target of terrorist hijackers. Susan Candiotti now watching this live in Washington. It broke late yesterday. What do we have today? Susan, good morning.</s>SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Bill. That memo, an update it was called, was put out by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week. It talks about information coming to it from the FBI from a senior al Qaeda operative, about a plan to fly a commercial airplane into a nuclear power plant. But a senior FBI official tells CNN it's the same information they put out to nuclear power plants late last year. Then and now, the official tells CNN, the threatened attack could not be substantiated or verified. Meantime, the FBI's Infrastructure Protection Center issued a new bulletin yesterday, saying it found a computer -- quote -- "A computer that belonged to an individual with indirect links to Usama bin Ladin (sic) that contained structural architecture computer programs that suggested the individual was interested in structural engineering as it related to dams and other water-retaining structures." Now the president and the Pentagon are talking about finding diagrams and photos in Afghanistan of the U.S. nuclear power plants, dams and other landmarks. And the FBI director says trained terrorist sleepers are still in the U.S., he believes, but Robert Mueller says he doesn't know how many or of any specific plans to attack. Now, terror experts say that makes it difficult to prepare.</s>BEN VENZKE, TERRORISM EXPERT: The extreme difficulty is -- is that if these sleeper cells are not previously known to the intelligence community, and if they've been here for the last couple years, it is infinitely difficult to be able to identify them and find them, if they are, in essence, asleep. They're not doing anything illegal. They're simply residing, and they're waiting for the right time.</s>HEMMER: Susan, for the past four and a half months, we have been battling this problem her and this question about whether or not the threats that are announced eventually are taken seriously or not, given the number that we have had. What do officials say in Washington about the possibility that some of this may be watered down at this point?</s>CANDIOTTI: Well, it's an ongoing concern that the public might get so used to hearing about these things that they'll start taking them for granted. But it is the hope of authorities that Americans remain on alert. The FBI, the White House, the Pentagon are continuing to take all of this information -- all the information that they're gathering and continuing to gather -- very seriously. And they're also very concerned about the upcoming Super Bowl, the Olympics, the World Economic Forum, and as FBI Director Mueller said just yesterday, "We have moved heaven and earth," as he put it, "to try to provide the very best security at all those locales."</s>HEMMER: And best of luck this weekend too. Susan, thanks. Susan Candiotti in Washington.