Transcript: Dec. 6, 2005

Prepared by The Transcription Company, www.transcripts.net, (818) 848-6500 Which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription.

23:35:02 CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, ABC NEWS Tonight on "Nightline," anatomy of an attack. For the first time, the classified video of that deadly assault on the American consulate in Saudi Arabia. How defenses failed, guards fled and so much else went wrong.

GRAPHICS: ANATOMY OF AN ATTACK

23:35:19 CYNTHIA MCFADDEN A daughter's pain. Her Christian activist father held hostage in Iraq, under threat of death. Tonight, her first interview.

GRAPHICS: A DAUGHTER'S PAIN

23:35:26 KATHERINE FOX, DAUGHTER I do not think a loss of his life benefits their cause.

23:35:30 CYNTHIA MCFADDEN And, "you're a rich man Charlie Brown." Now Snoopy and company rake in the money with America's favorite rerun. Good grief. It's a sign of the times.

GRAPHICS: YOU'RE A RICH MAN

23:35:43 ANNOUNCER From the global resources of ABC News, with Terry Moran in Washington, and Martin Bashir and Cynthia McFadden in Times Square, New York, this is "Nightline." December 6th, 2005.

GRAPHICS: NIGHTLINE

23:35:56 CYNTHIA MCFADDEN

(OC) Good evening, I'm Cynthia McFadden. Martin Bashir is on assignment. We're about to get a close and chilling look at a terror assault. One year ago today, a terrorist team launched a carefully-planned raid on the American consulate in Jeddah, a major port city in Saudi Arabia. Considering Saudi Arabia's recent history with Islamic extremism, one might think a US government headquarters there would boast strong defenses. They did not, as you will see. ABC's chief investigative correspondent, Brian Ross, is back with us tonight. Brian?

23:36:29 BRIAN ROSS, ABC NEWS (OC) Cynthia, the State Department has tried to keep these tapes from being made public. They show just how easy it was for the al Qaeda terrorists to break into the compound, despite billions of dollars spent to enhance diplomatic security worldwide. It took only five seconds.

23:36:46 BRIAN ROSS (VO) The assault in Jeddah began at 11:16 in the morning, on a day when the US compound was supposed to at a critical threat level. A US consulate vehicle pulls up to a side gate and waits for two security barriers to be opened. The terrorists, chanting over a cell phone to their accomplices with almost perfect timing pull up in their four-door sedan, just as the consulate car is cleared.

23:37:12 TONY DEIBLER, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL Obviously, they had done a surveillance detection on this facility.

23:37:16 BRIAN ROSS (VO) We showed the tape to former State Department security officer Tony Deibler.

23:37:20 BRIAN ROSS (OC) So they knew exactly how long it would take for the barrier to go down?

23:37:22 TONY DEIBLER Yes. Yes.

23:37:24 BRIAN ROSS (VO) The terrorists' car is blocked. But they exit on foot and open fire. Within five seconds, they will be through the security gates, including an expensive vehicle obstacle called a delta barrier.

23:37:36 TONY DEIBLER So did the delta barrier do what it was designed to do, i.e., stop the car? Yes. Did it prevent the bad guys from getting in? No.

23:37:44 BRIAN ROSS (OC) It should have, or something should have?

23:37:46 TONY DEIBLER Something should have.

23:37:49 BRIAN ROSS (VO) As the terrorists run inside, the Saudi national guard troops assigned to protect the consulate, run in the opposite direction, away from the fight.

23:37:57 TONY DEIBLER I hate to say it, because I have a lot of friends on the Saudi national guard, but they're running away. At least that national guardsman took his weapon with him. Although he's going the wrong way.

23:38:09 BRIAN ROSS (VO) It will be 1 hour and 15 minutes before the Saudi national guard mounts a counterattack on the terrorists inside the compound.

23:38:17 BRIAN ROSS (OC) Does this suggest you can't really count on the Saudi national guard?

23:38:24 TONY DEIBLER It would definitely lead me, personally, to have real serious reservations. I mean, their one unit ran away. The other unit takes them an hour and 15 minutes to get there.

23:38:39 BRIAN ROSS (VO) By 11:17, one minute into the attack, the terrorists have the run of the compound. Employees can be seen running for their lives. At 11:18, the terrorists open fire on several buildings. But by 11:19, all Americans are safely secure. Most inside the consulate's main building, following what's called the "duck and cover" alarm. The terrorists can be seen outside, trying without success, to get past security doors. Trying to rig an explosive charge that later fails. At 11:23, the Marines inside release tear gas. But the State Department uses a weaker version than the military and the gas appears to have little effect on the terrorists.

23:39:23 TONY DEIBLER You can see it's dissipating already. And it's not - not having any effect at all.

23:39:28 BRIAN ROSS (OC) Is this known at the State Department that this is not really that effective?

23:39:33 TONY DEIBLER Yes.

23:39:35 BRIAN ROSS (VO) At 11:47, the terrorists take down the American flag in front of the consulate. Over the next 43 minutes, out of sight of the cameras, they will be unchallenged as they take four US employees and a local guard hostage. All of whom will be killed. Ten others under the protection of the US Consulate will be injured.

23:39:54 TONY DEIBLER I think we're very, very lucky. Had it been at lunchtime or early in the morning, when people were going to work, could it have been a different story? Very much so.

23:40:05 BRIAN ROSS (VO) The State Department has called what happened a success story because no US citizens were harmed.

23:40:11 RICHARD CLARKE, FORMER COUNTER-TERRORISM CHIEF When US government employees are killed on embassy grounds or on consulate grounds, that's a failure, no matter how you look at it.

23:40:21 BRIAN ROSS (VO) Finally, at 12:30, Saudi police enter through the compound's alpha gate. One terrorist is shot dead trying to run away. Three others are reported killed in a gun battle. The people in charge begin their own bureaucratic version of duck and cover, trying to avoid blame.

23:40:38 RICHARD CLARKE The State Department should have been on alert, should've been on high security standards in Jeddah.

23:40:43 BRIAN ROSS (OC) And the fact that they weren't?

23:40:45 RICHARD CLARKE The fact that they weren't means that someone wasn't doing their job.

23:40:49 BRIAN ROSS (VO) A secret State Department review of the incident, obtained by ABC News, found that while security measures met standards, they were inadequate to stop the terrorists.

23:40:59 RICHARD CLARKE The implications of that are pretty serious because it means the worldwide standards being used to secure our hundreds of diplomatic installations aren't good enough.

23:41:09 BRIAN ROSS (VO) But at the State Department today, a spokesman praised the efforts during last year's attacks.

23:41:14 ADAM ERELI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN It was thanks to the courage, the bravery and the quick thinking of our American and local staff that those terrorists were either killed or captured and that they were not able to penetrate the consulate building.

23:41:32 BRIAN ROSS (VO) The secret State Department review concluded no one breached his or her duty, but noted leadership problems in general. And found that officials in charge of security received little support from the Counsel General. The Counsel General, Gina Abercrombie Windstanley, is no longer posted in Saudi Arabia. She declined to speak about the incident in an appearance last week in Cleveland. The secret review also found a widespread negative perception among the consulate staff of the Counsel General's degree of concern for security. No surprise to former State Department security officer Tony Deibler. He says over his 27 years of service worldwide, where he often faced armed attackers, including this incident in Liberia, he repeatedly found ambassadors and other senior diplomats giving short shrift to security concerns.

23:42:23 TONY DEIBLER The man that broke me in when I first joined diplomatic security told me one day, he said you have to decide something right now. You have to decide, do you want a career or do you want to do the right thing?

23:42:37 BRIAN ROSS (OC) So, to challenge the ambassador on security is not really...

23:42:40 TONY DEIBLER Is the kiss of death.

23:42:41 BRIAN ROSS (OC) That's the kiss of death?

23:42:42 TONY DEIBLER Yes.

23:42:43 BRIAN ROSS (VO) Since 1998, more than 260 people have died in terrorist attacks on US diplomatic facilities.

23:42:51 RICHARD CLARKE The State Department's focus on security usually lasts a few months after a facility has been attacked. And then, they go back to making waivers and allowing facilities to be built which are inherently not secure.

23:43:05 BRIAN ROSS (OC) US officials said today they've made a number of improvements at Jeddah since last year's attacks. Cynthia?

23:43:09 CYNTHIA MCFADDEN (OC) But Brian, it seems so counterintuitive that diplomats wouldn't be concerned about their own safety and that of their staff.

23:43:15 BRIAN ROSS Well, of course they are but there's a kind of culture clash here. Tight security, good security can get in the way of the kind of open access diplomats seek when they're overseas.

23:43:23 CYNTHIA MCFADDEN (OC) Any indications that those kind of attitudes persist?

23:43:26 BRIAN ROSS (OC) Well, they still are, according to Richard Clarke and others and we've talked to. For instance, there's a requirement now that all embassies must be 100 feet back from the street. Yet, waivers are sought again and again. The US is building a new embassy in Berlin, right on the street, in violation of the guidelines set to provide safety.

23:43:43 CYNTHIA MCFADDEN (OC) So, in many cases, these diplomatic outposts remain vulnerable targets?

23:43:46 BRIAN ROSS (OC) Absolutely.

23:43:48 CYNTHIA MCFADDEN (OC) Brian Ross, thank you so much for the report. Coming up on 'Nightline," a daughter's plea. Her father held hostage in Iraq. Now, her message to his captors in her first interview.

GRAPHICS: A DAUGHTER'S PLEA 23:43:59 ANNOUNCER ABC News 'Nightline." Brought to you by...

COMMERCIAL BREAK

23:47:05 ANNOUNCER "Nightline" continues from Washington. Here is Terry Moran.

EOF999 SHOW: NTL AIRDTE: 05/12/06 SEGMNT: 03 LENGTH: 00:17:00 STORY: A DAUGHTER'S PLEA STORY2: AMERICAN HOSTAGE IN IRAQ CORR: TERRY MORAN CORLOC: NEW YORK, NY USA ANCH: CYNTHIA MCFADDEN ANCLOC: WASHINGTON, DC USA TOPIC: CONTENT: 23:47:08 Prepared by The Transcription Company, www.transcripts.net, (818) 848-6500 Which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription

23:47:08 TERRY MORAN, ABC NEWS (OC) It's been ten days now since four Christian peace activists, idealists working in a dangerous land, were kidnapped near a mosque they were visiting in Baghdad. Tonight, time may be running out for them. Their captors have vowed they will kill all four on Thursday, unless all Iraqi prisoners in US and Iraqi detention centers are released. It is a demand both the US and Iraqi governments have rejected. One of the four hostages is an American, Thomas Fox of Clearbrook, Virginia. A Quaker, a musician and a father.

23:47:45 TERRY MORAN (VO) This grainy video aired last week on the Arab network al-Jazeera, is the last communication from the kidnappers of Thomas Fox and his three fellow peace activists. It shows Fox, 54 years old, looking tired but calm. The four activists are victims of a disturbing resurgence in Iraq. In the past 11 days, seven Westerners have been abducted. Asked about the US hostages today, President Bush declared that there will be no bargaining for their freedom.

23:48:15 PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, UNITED STATES We, of course, don't pay ransom for any hostages. What we will do, of course, is use our intelligence gathering to see if we can't help locate them.

23:48:28 TERRY MORAN (VO) Kidnapping is a grim fact of life in Iraq. 254 nationals have been abducted since May 2003. And there are thousands of Iraqi victims. No one knows exactly how many. The danger has forced most aid organizations, from the UN to Doctors Without Borders to CARE International to sharply cut back their programs or pull out of Iraq altogether.

23:48:54 MARK BARTOLINI, INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE The brutality, the torture that's occurred in some of the kidnappings and the beheadings is really unprecedented in terms of what aid workers have faced.

23:48:59 TERRY MORAN (VO) But Tom Fox and the Christian peacemaker team he is a member of were determined to brave the danger to make a difference. They work with the families of detainees, seeking to highlight the abuse of prisoners. That anti-war agenda has made Tom Fox and his colleagues the target of some conservatives, including Rush Limbaugh, who lambasted the four even while they were facing death in Iraq.

23:49:26 RUSH LIMBAUGH, TALK SHOW HOST And some of you might say, gosh, that's horrible, peace activists taken hostage. Well, here's why I like it. I like anytime a bunch of leftist, feel-good hand-wringers are shown reality.

23:49:39 TERRY MORAN (VO) Tom Fox has written that he believes, "there is that of God in every person." And he left instructions before going to Iraq that no military or violent police action be taken to free him in the event he was kidnapped.

23:49:54 TERRY MORAN (OC) We'll have the first interview with Tom Fox's daughter, Katherine, when we come back.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

23:53:02 TERRY MORAN (OC) Earlier this evening, I spoke with Tom Fox's daughter, Katherine Fox, who's in Los Angeles. And I asked her if she had any news from the US government or other sources about her dad.

23:53:14 KATHERINE FOX Nothing concrete. We know that diplomatic approaches are still being taken. That we are consistently trying to make contact to send out positive messages about what kind of work they've been doing. But I have no specific information in regard to contact at this time.

23:53:33 TERRY MORAN (OC) I want to talk about the work your father's doing in Iraq. But first, do you feel you are getting all of the support you need from the United States government, that the Administration is doing everything it can and should in these circumstances?

23:53:46 KATHERINE FOX I think that it proves difficult, in that the reasons that my father is in Iraq and his principles and his beliefs and my own, run somewhat in conflict to the approach that the government is presently taking. They would like to support me. However, their means of support are not the direction that I would like to be taking. And my father's explicitly stated that he does not want to have taken.

23:54:12 TERRY MORAN (OC) How do you mean, exactly?

23:54:14 KATHERINE FOX In that he, before he left, he wrote a very concise, precise statement of conscience and conviction, that if he were to ever be taken hostage that he does not support violent means to come in and to potentially release him, to rescue him. That he doesn't support that way of dealing with the problem. That there needs to be talks. That we need to keep seeing these people as human beings. And...

23:54:43 TERRY MORAN (OC) Seeing - his captors as human beings?

23:54:48 KATHERINE FOX As human beings. That - and this is, I think, something that's very, very difficult for other people to understand, that don't come from that same point of view because this is not at all a validation of kidnapping. He rejects that, as do I.

23:55:01 TERRY MORAN (OC) Well, he's a man of conviction, clearly. And I want to ask you about that. What was he doing in Iraq? Christian peacemaker teams, what does that mean? What was he actually doing on the ground?

23:55:13 KATHERINE FOX Well, my father's a Quaker. Long-standing belief in nonviolence for the last 22 years has been his mindset, the way that he lives his life. Specifically, when he arrived, most of his work is with the detainees. And more so with the families in Iraq. Has been very welcomed, very welcomed, by his neighbors and by the people that he's been working with, trying to work with the government and also with the families to connect them to loved ones that have been held at times illegally and get them released through different channels.

23:55:47 TERRY MORAN (OC) I want to ask you about the debate in this country. Your dad has now become part of it, it seems. What Rush Limbaugh and others are saying, that essentially someone as idealistic as your father, in Iraq without a lot of protection around him, was essentially asking for trouble. How do you respond to that?

23:56:10 KATHERINE FOX I don't think that he even saw it as asking for trouble. He saw a need. It was not going to make a statement. It was not agenda-driven. There's a need to help the Iraqi people, especially at a time when so many organizations are no longer able to be present because of the danger. But didn't feel that that danger outweighed the need and is committed to being there. Which I think is ultimately courageous to believe that he can still be of help and that he can approach things nonviolently. I think that's far more courageous than so many I hear right now giving him credit for.

23:56:47 TERRY MORAN (OC) Well, you're certainly showing some courage as well here. And I want to ask you, how are you doing?

23:56:54 KATHERINE FOX I am not at my best, as one might imagine. It's very difficult for me to not be able to just experience this as a daughter who wants her father home very much. But also, I mean, as you just referenced, all the political aspects of this that also get thrown onto me or to the other family members. That, our family members are there because of what they believe but mostly because they want to help. And they're committed to that. And we're committed to them. And that does give me strength that - that kind of strength that my dad has, I try to think about right now to help me.

23:57:35 TERRY MORAN (OC) And Katherine if, let's hope somehow the captors are available to hear you, is there anything that you'd want to say to them?

23:57:45 KATHERINE FOX I just want to remind them how welcomed my father has always felt. We would speak once a week. So welcomed by all the Iraqi people. How well his neighbors took care of him, a guest in their country. That he is opposed to the occupation, has been, has campaigned against it. And that the work he is there to do is the same work that they would like to see done. And that I do not think a loss of his life benefits their cause.

23:58:15 TERRY MORAN (OC) Katherine Fox, I know you know that the hopes and prayers of almost all your fellow citizens are with you and your father tonight. Thank you for being with us.

23:58:22 KATHERINE FOX Thank you so much.

23:58:25 TERRY MORAN (OC) There are a surprising number of Westerners in Iraq. Most of them, contractors of one sort or another making significant bonuses to work to build that country. There are very few volunteers, like Tom Fox and his colleagues. We'll be back.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

00:01:47 CYNTHIA MCFADDEN (OC) And finally this evening, pricey peanuts. If you're the parent of a young child or if by chance you're still a child at heart, you may just have enjoyed the yearly rerun of the Charlie Brown Christmas special here on ABC. And as Jake Tapper reports, the show's popularity is a sign of the times.

00:02:10 JAKE TAPPER, ABC NEWS (VO) That sleepy, hearthy, Vince Garaldi jazz. That kid, doing that weird dance on the right side of the stage there. Charlie Brown's pathetic sapling.

00:02:29 CARTOON CHARACTER, MALE I've killed it.

00:02:31 JAKE TAPPER (VO) Yes, folks, it's a 'Charlie Brown Christmas," which aired earlier this evening, right here on ABC. When they made this animated special, which first aired 40 years ago this week, 'Peanuts" creator Charles Schultz insisted that the show not become yet another way that Christmas was commercialized.

00:02:48 CARTOON CHARACTER Look, Charlie, let's face it, we all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket.

00:02:53 JAKE TAPPER (VO) He wanted the point of the show to be answering this question...

00:02:57 CARTOON CHARACTER Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?

00:03:01 JAKE TAPPER (VO) Which is why the climax comes when learned Linus lets loose with Luke.

00:03:06 CARTOON CHARACTER For on to you is born this day, in the city of David, a savior, 'tis Christ the Lord.

00:03:16 JAKE TAPPER (VO) Executives at CBS, which first ran the show, reportedly hated it, some thinking it was too slow. An Emmy and Peabody award, and 40 years later, ABC entertainment folks have to beat back advertisers with a stick. Demand is so high, "The Los Angeles Times" reports ad rates topped $200,000 for 30 seconds. More than many of ABC's biggest prime-time shows.

00:03:39 CARTOON CHARACTER Merry Christmas Charlie Brown.

00:03:44 JAKE TAPPER (VO) Schultz's tribute to the true meaning of Christmas has become a commercial cash cow. Good grief.

00:03:53 CYNTHIA MCFADDEN (OC) Another interesting note. "Forbes" magazine says that there is only one 'dead celebrity" who is more highly paid than Charles Schultz. The King of Rock 'N Roll himself, Elvis Presley.

00:04:08 CYNTHIA MCFADDEN (OC) That's our report on 'Nightline." Tomorrow on our broadcast, God, Narnia, they go to the movies. The mystery at the heart of one of the world's most-beloved tales. I'm Cynthia McFadden. Jimmy Kimmel is next. For Martin Bashir, Terry Moran, and all of us at ABC News, good night, America.

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