Good evening, im Chris Matthews in washington. Were continuing to follow breaking news from brussels, where earlier this morning, a series of bombing at the airport, and in the subway system, killed 31 people and injured nearly 200 more. The first two blasts hit the departure hall of brussels main airport around 8 00 a. M. Local time or 3 00 a. M. Eastern time here. Another explosion went off about an hour later near a metro station near the european union. The authorities released this photo a short time before the airport blast. They are pushing luggage carts,
as you see. Belgium Authorities Say possible suicide bombing. The third man in the light colored coat to the right is thought to still be at large. Police conducted raids throughout the city today. One house, they found an explosive device packed with nails and an isis flag. Isis claimed responsibility for todays attack. Belgians Prime Minister said this is a dark moment for the country, and president of france said we are at war. We begin tonight with nbcs bill neely in brussels. So i guess we all, those of us who have been busy at work doing other things and not watching the news, need to know the news. What are the facts about todays terrible attack . Reporter yeah, chris. Well, brussels is in shock tonight, after two absolutely horrific attacks. One underground. It began around 8 00 this
morning at the Main International airport in brussels. At least 11 people were killed. In the first of those explosions, just minutes later, rushing towards the exits, near a starbucks shop, another explosion. Police say three men were involved. In that photograph that you mentioned, they are seen wheeling luggagetsith suitcasesn top. Now, ver latest news, just within the last hour, is belgian tv is reporting a cab driver told police that he picked up these three men. He took them to the airport. They had great difficulty getting their heavy bags out of his car. After the explosions, he went to police and he led police to a house in brussels, where those explosive residues and bomb making material were found, that you mentioned. But look, chris, this is an intelligence failure, first and
foremost. First of all, the airport explosions, and then horrifyi horrifyingly, more People Killed underground, in a metro car. An intelligence and police failure. The Big Questions now are how big was this terror cell. How many people exactly are on the lose. Is this the last act of the terror cell that bombed paris. Whh Salah Abdeslam was volved. It is jus four days since he was arrested. Police were jublent. They were worried there may be some kickback, maybe a attack, but nothing on this scale. So was it the las act of Salah Abdeslam cell, or the first act of a new terror cell that clearly the Brussels Police and Intelligence Services knew nothing about. Im having problems with the sound for bill ely. I j bco n and author defeating isis. Malcolm, tell about this, and at it says, when you say, when bill sd an intelnce ile, what does it mean here . In this case, clearly, a failure of belgian and frenc rrying out a massivehunt ever s the paris raids. Theyve raided hdrf houses. Afe houses, but still didnt get to ts where they could disable the entirewo in order for that network to fail atryt thei ied th attack out ccsfly a as far as were concerned, you reached the point of failure. Point, theyre going to hav to refocus, restarnd tn reengage back to determine whether are any more plots
out there. Chris, i would be cautious about using the word failure when were talking about the work of the Police Authorities have cut out on this. I think its about the application of resources and manpower. Like most things in this borld, everything comes back to money. If you look at what is going on in iraq and syria in terms of air strikes at the moment, the u. S. Led coalitions spend over 11 million a day, 6 billion since 2014 on air strikes. We have to have a really serious conversation about were applying the manpower and resources. Over 5,000 jihadists that have come from europe from syria and back again. We need to understand where we need to apply the resources for signals intelligence, human intelligence, imaginary, on top of that the e. U. , last december, signed accord with turkey to prevent the migration flows
coming from turkey. They offered turkey 3 billion, and also offered to open the conversation about turkey being exceeded into the european block. That means 18 million turks. This is a circular approach. I dont think we should put all the blame on intelligence. Malcolm, lets go back to the basics. If you have all kinds of people in europe as well as here today, and theyre all free to move about the various countries of europe, theyre united that way, wide open. And of course, its not a police state. We dont have Police States in europe generally now. A person gets into a cab carrying explosives. Who in the world would stop that person from getting to an airport, all the way to security, the security chec at that point, you are checked. But if this happened tomorrow morning, what would stop it . The same exact thing, what would
stop it. Nothing if youre talking about physically stopping someone who has the capable teef bringing a bomb, a Weapon System and driving it to an airport. To michaels point, intelligence is forward. We try to stop these plots by gaining information at their point of origin, and theng to follow it back with communication nets, human intelligence nets, by working our agents and operatives and trying to gain the information so we stop it before we have reached the term of art, which we call point of failure. Yes. We have a network of information that did not lead to that bomb attack. That is called an absence of intelligence, you know. But it still is to a certain extent, an intelligence failure. Ive worked in the process for over 30 years. When the enemy gets there and adaptive and overcomes your ability to stop him, well, then you have reached the point of failure. At this point you have to regroup. This is just one punch in a
series of blows that are being levied on europe. We have no earthly idea, or well find out in the next few days, whether this was one isolated cell that was compartmented away from Salah Abdeslam and the paris attackers or whether were talking about a constellation of cells who are all operating indepenntly out there, h ality to brg punishment down on europe. , go back to michael, i could go back and forth on this. It seems easy, highly sophisticated. What is so sophisticated about people blowing up open spaces. These are easily penetrated spaces, you walk into an airport, nobody checks you as far as i know, most countries overwhelmingly, i travel constantly, you walk into an airport, before you to have to show security badge or passport or anything, youre there, in the same with the subway system. Why is this why are these called sophisticated attacks,
when they look like they could be done by amateurs. Terrorism has been around for centuries, chris. Globalization is effectively everything becoming more interconnected and the way that the Islamic State transcends its boundaries. For example, social media, the applications, what is up, telegram. Theyre encrypted. A lot of the Islamic States talk to each other. Thats something that the west have to learn to understand how to decode. I think its really important, when malcolm is talking about the intelligence piece and i have a lot of respect and admiration for his background, but intelligence is broken up into a number of areas when it comes down to intelligence. We can collect heaps of intelligence, because its the processing and simulation of intelligence that takes eyes, manpower to go over the mir i
didnt do myriad of data that might give the game away. I go back to being a resource manpower problem, and along with the globalization piece, holistic approach. So we must, we must understand that the application of military hardware will not solve this problem. Listic approach and look at how the recruitment pipelines work, you know, the north africa we never talk about. We dont talk about, you know, back ra hiram, just the other week, there was an attack. You know, the whole thing needs a holistic approach. The islamic part of the effect it is going into europe is because of libya, effectively there was a reigime change. It needs a multifaceted and layered analysis. Not just about military application. Thank you, michael and malcolm. Any way, nbc news tom costello has been following the story at home. The investigation thats underway all day today, tom, ive been watching you. I guesses the average american has a sim pi question. Should we be afraid today, tomorrow, the next day . Reporter u. S. Airports, the short answer is no, no more so than you were kbred. The tsa has been in a forward leaning posture. They collaborate as you know with the local police, state police, and with Homeland Security. Homeland security tonight is coming out saying that they are going to add some nuanced improvements or upgrades, much ofwont wwe wont see, we saw i already today in miami for example, at newark airport, we
saw it out west, at l. A. Thats likely to continue. And it will be up to individual airports to deploy those resources as they see fit. In addition, incoming passengers coming from belgium, they will have the passports screened maybe more closely than usual as they continue to watch for anybody who might be on the terror watch list. As for brussels itself, the u. S. Government in brussels, the embassy is asking any u. S. Government employee to delay travel for at least a week until the 29th. The airport is a mess, and not operative at the moment. Youve got this major tactical operation underway, and its simply in the view of many u. S. Authorities simply not safe in many places right now. So thats ongoing. U. S. Airlines, to fly into brussels, thursday seems unlikely, friday would be the earliest, but nobody is committing to that. When there is talk about the
airports here in the United States, chris, the talk is always where is the weak point. The truth is, at an airport like this that is open and in which people come and go everyday all day, it is going to be vulnerable. Pick your airport any where in the country, it is going to be vulnerable. But it is more vulnerable between the parking garage and the tsa checkpoint because youve not gone through security. It is entirely possible somebody might breng a weapon or bomb in. How do you get around it . Most Security Experts ive talked to say its usually a matter of heightening the Police Presence or military presence. Were not talking about a cop on a moped kind of thing. Were talking about significant armed Tactical Units roaming the airports that can be enough of a deter enter, and it has to be constant. How you put it in place in europe, you may have to call out the military in many countries, chris. Tom, before and after, after
the fact, we know three guys walking through the airport this morning in belgium, three of them, brussels, two of the three, looking at it right now they had these gloves on their right hand. Had that happened in real time, if this happens this afternoon at reagan, or at Dulles Airport works anybody stop these three guys and say stop, youre suspicious . Would anybody do . I dont think so. If youre honest about it, highly unlikely. Now listen, Homeland Security, tsa will say there are many things you dont see. Undercover officers, behavior detection officers, canines, canines that not only will specifically sniff your bag, but canines that are walk the terminal, trying to pick up the wafe in the air, does anything come across the nostrils, incredibly sensitive senses on these dogs. Its entirely possible that somebody could have carried out the same scenario here in theUnited States. Thats just the way it is. Listen, i used to live in brussels. Ive been to that airport many times. My wife and kids are belgian and i can tell you that i have seen police dogs in the brussels airport. Ive seen the military police, the national police, or always in the airport. That wasnt enough of a deter rent for this particular day in brussels. Ive seen, ive been traveling, just the other day, i kind of remember, i was watching the dogs sniffing passengers as they waited in line. It may have been a tsa or the regular line. Would that have stopped these guy . Would those dogs have been able to pick up the scent of the explosives they were push ago long in the carts . Even if they had picked up the scent, if it is true that these guys had the detonate tore in their hand inside that gloved hand all they had to do is push the button, right. Youre still not solving the problem. If youre going to have, listen, in my view, having covered the tsa and Homeland Security for the better part of 10 or 11 years, you know, youre constantly fighting the odds, right. You try to stack the odds in your favor, but they only have to be lucky one time. They have to get through once. Weve been lucky in this country, but weve had as you know some very serious plots. The shoe bomber plot, Atlantic Ocean that were supposed to go off on airliners. The underwear bomber, the printer cartridge bomber. Terror network for the better part for 15 years, even longer if you go back before 9 11 and they seem very determined. Some people are out there protecting them, too. Thank you so much, tom. Im joined by polititara fr politico in brussels. We dont have perspective, what
we havent been covering in the news, in terms of the attack today. Well, the actual e. U. Area, which is the capital of europe essentially, is extremely quiet. Eerily quiet. People will not be going to work tomorrow. Its been very strange. Its like being under lockdown. And you know, weve been hearing explosions. I was at the airport this morning. I felt one of the third explosions going off when they detonated the last suicide belt that wasnt used. Its just been a really hard time in brussels over the past four months. Weve gone through multiple periods of time under the highest level of security threat. I moved here from new york about a year ago, and its been on and off high insecurity, lockdowns, and fears of imminent attacks. I was actually optimistic last
week when i heard they captured Salah Abdeslam, that they were getting good intel from him, that the last player in the major paris attack ring was caught and we might be safer than we were before, but it seems thats not the case. What do you make as an american reporter over there covering that country of belgium, the fact that they have a neighborhood, molenbeek, a homeland for terrorism. How do you explain it within a modern european country . Its really difficult, because they have privacy laws that we dont have. They cant do raids after 5 00 p. M. In 120 days since the a ta, they only did 120 raids on homes. Theyre just, they dont have the same intelligence capabilities that we have. Before the taxes, they were
spending 50 Million Euros on counter intelligence. This was not a priority for the belgians before this, even though obviously, there were jihadists growing in the backyard. Also a problem of integration in the neighborhoods. Very segregated from the rest of the belgian community, and theyre having a hard time integrating, second generation, second generation, people coming from north africa, midwest east and unable to become belgian, the way that americans come that they feel theyre american when they i they immigrate. Whose fault . The belgian nationals, or is it the people coming who dont want to integrate themselves . I think its a whole combination. I mean, you have really interesting ecosystem in belgium, where you have flemish people, and they dont get along with each other, they dont speak the same language. They share a government, but
barely speak to each other. One will speak in french and the other in dutch. Then you have these, yeah then you have these neighborhoods that each have their own nmayor, own police departments, 18, so segregated. Communities outside of belgium, you have the french and u. K. , United States, very reluctant to share information with Belgian Security officials because they know it tends to leak because of the bad communication of the people there. Ive been told that they feel it will leak out because it spreads down to the local police level in the attempt to try to navigate potential threats. I love your reporting. I learn a lot in a few minutes. Thank you, tara, who is in brussels. Up next, Homeland Security committee o committee, peter king, we know hell be here. Our coverage will continue after this. Rd miles on your Airline Credit card. Now you just book a seat, right . Not quite. Sometimes those seats are out of reach, costing an outrageous number of miles. Its time to switch. To the capital one venture card. With venture, youll earn unlimited double miles on every purchase, every day. And when youre ready to travel, just book the flight you want, on any airline and use your miles to cover the cost. Now thats more like it. Whats in your wallet . patrick 2 pretty great. Ke to be the boss of you . patrick 1 how about a 10 raise . patrick 2 how about 20 . patrick 1 how about done . patrick 2 thats the kind of control i like. And thats what they give me at national car rental. I can choose any car in the aisle i want without having to ask anyone. Who better to be the boss of you. patrick 1 than me. I mean, you. Us. vo go national. Go like a pro. And clean and real and inside jokes and school night. Good, clean food pairs well with anything. Try the clean pairings menu. At panera. Food as it should be. A 401 k is the most sound way to go. Lets talk asset allocation. Sure. You seem knowledgeable, professional. Would you trust me as your Financial Advisor . I would. I would indeed. Well, lets be clear here. Im actually a dj. [ dance music plays ] [laughs] no way i have no Financial Experience at al