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CNN SHOWDOWN: IRAQ
Homeland Air Defense
Aired April 2, 2003 - 12:47 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Since the war began in Iraq some two weeks ago, there's been increased security in the United States on the ground and from the air.
Our Jeanne Meserve joins us now from an airport in New Jersey with the latest in homeland defense and the increased air patrols that are underway.
Jeanne, tell us what's happening.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, you're looking right now at a P-3 aircraft. This is an airborne early warning aircraft. It's distinctive because of that rotating dome on top which allows the aircraft to see other aircraft more than 200 miles away. I'm inside the aircraft right now with the crew. The immigration and customs enforcement company have 16 of them. But five of these have been diverted now to the northeastern United States. They are patrolling the border from Chicago to Maine, and also taking a look at that restricted airspace over Washington and also New York City.
With me right now is Tom Hildenbrand (ph). Tom, tell me about what you can see in these monitors.
TOM HILDENBRAND (ph): What we're doing, we're monitoring the Canadian border, and we can detect planes coming across. As soon as we detect them coming across, we'll call ATC and try to get them identified. And if ATC can't identify them, then we'll request for an interceptor to come up, and as soon as they launch an interceptor, we'll take control of the interceptor and do the intercept on the target coming across, an interceptor going there and identify the target, try to get a tail number off of the airplane, what type of airplane it is.
MESERVE: Now, how can you distinguish a friendly aircraft from one that might be suspicious?
HILDENBRAND: Well, a friendly aircraft is going to be squawking a certain IFF code, and ATC will have that in the records. And soon as we tell them their IFF squawk, he can pull up their flight plans, and the type of aircraft and even who's flying it.
ZAHN: Tom, thanks.
Rich Schaffer (ph) is all with us.
Rich, if it is a bad guy coming in, the Blackhawks are sent up, right? RICH SCHAFFER (ph): Correct.
MESERVE: And what do they do?
SCHAFFER: They're the apprehension phase of the event, and they'll bring well-armed, well-trained officers for the apprehension of the suspects, and ultimately take them to jail.
MESERVE: But those aircraft are not armed, the Blackhawks?
SCHAFFER: Aircraft are not armed.
MESERVE: So what do they do? They go up to an intruder, approach them, and what do they do?
SCHAFFER: Makes a lot of noise. It's very impressive when it comes on, and doors slide open, guys jump out, very aggressively take down the target.
MESERVE: Is this system fast enough? You have to see an aircraft coming in. If a Blackhawk's not up, you have to put one up into the air, go do the intercept. If you had a really determined terrorist coming in by air, could you move fast enough to stop them.
SCHAFFER: I can't speak for the whole program. I think with the proper coordination, aircraft out on patrol, we have a chance at it, and we'll only improve in time.
MESERVE: OK, great. Thanks so much.
This whole process is expensive. It's costing about $500,000 per month just to do the air patrols over Washington D.C. As for how long they're going to last, no one can say definitively, but they say they do not expect that will become a permanent feature in the airspace over New York and Washington.
Wolf, back to you.
BLITZER: Very interesting. Thanks very much, Jeanne Meserve. She's monitoring homeland defense for all of us.
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