Defending America; America's Railways Vulnerable?
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Welcome. Glad to have you with us tonight. While this week's inauguration is not a first for President George W. Bush, it is the first since the war on terror began. And for that reason, security will be like nothing we have ever seen before. And for that reason, today is day one of our CNN series "Defending America." We sent dozens of reporters and producers out to answer one basic question: Is the nation really safer now than it was on 9/11? Much of what we found, both the strength and weaknesses, will surprise you. Of course, tonight, we'll show you the unprecedented measures being taken to protect the 250,000 people expected at the inauguration on Thursday. We'll also take a critical look at our railways. Train systems have been targets of terrorists in other countries, too, as you know, with deadly results. Could it happen here and what can we learn from those attacks? We try to answer those questions tonight as well. But we begin tonight in a city that has been aware of the terrorist threat and preparing for the worst since even before 9/11. Los Angeles was the target for a foiled bomb plot four years ago, just before the millennium. And in many ways, L.A. is just as much a symbol of America as New York and Washington. So, our series "Defending America," starts with an L.A. story. Here's Frank Buckley.</s>FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's been hit hard by fires and floods.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Grab the rope. Grab it tight.</s>BUCKLEY: Earthquakes and riots. But it's the disaster Los Angeles hasn't experienced, a major terror attack, that keeps the LAPD's counterterrorism chief, John Miller, on full alert. (on camera): Do you believe that we will be attacked here in Los Angeles?</s>JOHN MILLER, COMMANDING OFFICER, LAPD COUNTERTERRORISM BUREAU: I believe that Los Angeles is as high a threat of a city as New York or Washington.</s>BUCKLEY (voice-over): Which is one reason why Los Angeles area agencies drill together on all manner of potential attacks, from dirty bomb drills like this one, to deadly chemicals released in a shopping mall, to a terrorist takeover at LAX, to a hijacking at L.A.'s port. They've gamed out what could happen and how police and other agencies would respond. But Miller says it's the attack they haven't anticipated that robs him of his sleep.</s>MILLER: Three times a week, you know, I'll be laying in bed in the middle of the night and think of some version of some combination of attack that we hadn't thought of before, and we'll trot that in here to our hazmat people or to our intelligence people and say, what about this?</s>BUCKLEY: You might have seen his face before. He was anchor on ABC's "20/20." One of his biggest interviews, the man in the picture on the wall. Long before 9/11, Miller tracked down and interviewed Osama bin Laden.</s>MILLER: I feel I understand bin Laden, and perhaps understand him more than others who are in this role in other places. Los Angeles encompasses some things that, if you are Osama bin Laden, goes to the heart of what you don't like about America. We have some of our favorite things about ourselves, in a word, Hollywood.</s>BUCKLEY: Miller says bin Laden shapes his work. So, too, does this man, Ahmed Ressam, an al Qaeda-trained terrorist convicted of a plot to blow up parts of LAX as America celebrated the millennium. But Miller is quick to say he's not the only counterterror official in Los Angeles. And the LAPD is only one of the agencies charged with preventing or responding to the next potential plot. In fact, it's L.A.'s multiple agencies, in a county of 88 cities, who have gained a national reputation for working together against terror.</s>TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Your efforts and example show the nation a level cooperation, coordination and communication that reflects the urgency of our challenge to prevent a terrorist attack and respond to any emergency.</s>BUCKLEY: The same multiagency approach L.A. brought to disasters, it is applying to terror.</s>SANDRA HUTCHENS, LOS ANGELES SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: We've had the fires, the floods, the earthquakes, the riots, and by necessity, we have worked together and as a result have a very strong relationship.</s>BUCKLEY: Potential rivals, like the FBI, the Sheriff's Department and the LAPD, work shoulder to shoulder. Intelligence is shared. Equipment is purchased in consultation with surrounding cities to reduce redundancy.</s>HUTCHENS: If we have an event, we're going to be responding as a region.</s>BUCKLEY: It's not only L.A.'s cooperative approach against terror that's been recognized by national officials. It's the innovations. (on camera): This LAPD bomb truck an example of that new technology. It's a total containment vessel that's been designed to handle chemical, biological or radiological devices. In older versions of this truck, in the event of explosion, the air would have vented out. You don't want that in a chemical, biological or radiological device, because that would contaminate the outside air. So, this truck has been modified. Newer technology is used in combination with somewhat older technology, like this robot that can be remotely operated from a safe distance by bomb squad members. This robot can actually place the explosive device inside that truck.</s>BUCKLEY (voice-over): And there's this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the only remote-controlled forklift of its kind in the country. So if you had to go down range, it's capable of picking up a large vehicle bomb and driving off with it.</s>BUCKLEY: Another innovation, a microscope in a suitcase designed in response to the anthrax scares.</s>MILLER: Our hazmat people, using this microscope, can actually send pictures from the scene right back to the lab. They can assess what they're looking at through the microscope and say this is nondairy creamer, it's sugar, it's baking soda, it's definitely not anthrax or anything else hazardous, without blocking off any streets, evacuating any buildings or turning life upside-down, the way we used to have to.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boomer, come.</s>BUCKLEY: The LAPD also has Boomer, a first of its kind, according to the department, a K-9 that works off leash at an airport. His handler demonstrating how Boomer is trained to find people with explosives strapped to their bodies.</s>SGT. BLAINE BLACKSTONE, LAPD: If a human being were packing explosives, like a suicide bomber, Boomer would alert to that.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boomer, come.</s>BUCKLEY: Human officers, meanwhile...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're looking for major body count.</s>BUCKLEY: ... are focusing on a new joint effort with the Department of Homeland Security called Archangel, a program that will eventually be offered across the nation. Just last week, officers began training on how to inventory the hundreds of high-priority, high-risk potential targets in Los Angeles.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're looking for the major, oh, my God locations on a large scale.</s>BUCKLEY: Eventually, an incident commander will be able to call up detailed tactical information on a threatened site, with the decision-maker, maybe even in the White House Situation Room, on the same page thousands of miles away.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They can literally do it at the stroke of a key any time, any day, anywhere.</s>BUCKLEY: Which also happens to be when terror could strike again.</s>MILLER: The terrorists don't think in the terms that we think in. They don't think from year to year or fiscal year to fiscal year or election year to election year. They think in terms of a longtime battle.</s>BUCKLEY: It is a battle in which Miller, the former journalist, is now fully engaged as a combatant.</s>MILLER: It's not the critic who counts, according to Teddy Roosevelt. It's the person who is actually in the arena doing the job. I feel a lot better leaving the critic's desk and getting into the arena.</s>BUCKLEY: Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.</s>ZAHN: And when "Defending America" continues, the Bush inaugural, the most intense security operation ever. We'll show you what's in the works. And mistakes made, lessons learned. Nearly a year after the Madrid train bombings, a survivor makes an emotional return to the scene of the attack. Then, how safe are American trains?</s>KAREN CALLAHAN, SUBWAY RIDER: I feel like a sitting duck. That's what I feel. I feel like, every time I get on a train, it could happen.</s>ZAHN: We put security to the test in the country's busiest rail terminal. We'll tell you what we found when our CNN "Security Watch," "Defending America," continues. We'll be right back.