THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS
FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH
TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE
UPDATED. AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John King, it's
Aaron.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESP.: I
am standing across from the White House. I am told by Secret
Service and administration sources that all of the principles,
all of the protectees, meaning the President, the Vice
President, and the first lady and Mrs. Cheney, are safe. They
do not want us disclosing their locations, but I am told by a
senior administration official that the plan and the priority
is to get President Bush back to the White House as soon as
they believe it is safe.
Now, there are both
operational and political reasons for wanting to do that. The
White House situation room in the view of White House
officials is the best place from which to monitor events and
direct any operations. And that is a fortified structure
within the White House compound where we know that the vice
president was when everyone else was evacuated from the
premises earlier.
Again, the secret service does not
want to confirm for us for security reasons, or administration
officials the same, tell us where those people are now.
Although, I was told a short time ago, the Vice-President is
still in a position to be monitoring and directing the
response to these developments. And the President who is en
route back to Washington, we are told Andrews Air Force Base
is on full alert.
I was also told that there are extra
precautions that were taken to ensure the President's flight
back to Washington was a safe one. You can read into that that
additional fighter jet escorts. Air Force I always has some
escorts with it. That additional fighter jet escorts were put
up for that.
Now the political reason, they want to
get the President back to the White House is rather obvious.
The White House believes this has been a tragic terrorist
attack and they want to send the signal that the president is
back on the job back at the White House. Priority one, though
officials say is to guarantee that he can be safely brought
back safely brought back to the White House.
And in
the past half-hour or so, we have seen security precautions on
the street, checks being taken out on the street on the
grounds around the White House. There are snipers up on the
roofs of the White House itself including buildings around it.
And a military helicopter gunship flew over the premises not
that long ago, about 15 minutes or now. And then it circled
back over toward the Pentagon, where from my location you can
still see smoke coming in to the sky in from there. But we are
told the Vice-President is still in the position to monitor
all of this as the president makes its way back (AUDIO GAP)
BROWN: John, thank you. Our senior White House
correspondent John King. As John mentioned, the President was
in Sarasota Florida, making his way back to Washington.
Whether he'll be taken directly to the White House or not is a
little bit unclear. The Secret Service wants to make sure that
the building is safe. It is, I would add, one other symbolic
reason why you would want to get the president back into the
White House. And that's to send a message to whoever is
responsible for this, that yes you have caused extraordinary
damage and a great deal of tragedy here. But what you haven't
done is shut down the American government. The President will
want to get home.
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