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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Report Blames Lax Procedures, Carelessness for Shoot-Down of Missionary Plane Over Peru

Aired August 02, 2001 - 20:00   ET

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.
KATE SNOW, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight: dramatic new video from the April shoot-down of a missionary plane over Peru.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't shoot. Tell him to terminate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: How could a drug interdiction effort go so tragically wrong?

High drama on Capitol Hill as the House considers a patients' bill of rights.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RICHARD GEPAHRDT (D-MO), MINORITY LEADER: This is a stunning abdication of what we should be fighting to protect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CHARLES NORWOOD (R), GEORGIA: I took the best deal I could get to get us there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: The president plays up his health care compromise and proclaims victory on a controversial energy bill. But is he setting himself up for a fall? Opponents are mobilizing in the House, and in the Senate. We'll get the latest.

How bruising have these battles been? I'll speak with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and I'll ask him what the future holds for embattled Congressman Gary Condit.

It seemed like a hot tip in the Chandra Levy case. How do investigators separate the hard leads from the hoaxes?

I'm Kate Snow reporting from Capitol Hill. Wolf Blitzer is off. Tonight there's a dramatic account of confusion during April's deadly shoot-down of a U.S. missionary plane in Peru. CNN State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel has details, and that's our top story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PILOT TO U.S. ICO: OK, I understand this is not our call, but this guy is at 4,500 feet, he is not taking any evasive action. I recommend we follow him. I do not recommend phase three at this time.

U.S. ICO TO PILOT: Roger that. Has the host nation been in touch with them?

PILOT TO THE ICO: Aider, aider.

ICO TO PILOT 1 (translated on screen): Yes, Bob, what's going on?

U.S. ICO TO PILOT 1: Have you been in touch with the aircraft, over?

MSO: No.

PILOT 1 TO U.S. ICO: We have not made contact with the aircraft.

PILOT 1 TO THE ICO: Aider, are we sure this guy is a bad guy?

CO TO PILOT 1: No.

PAP CO TO THE ICO (translated on screen): Authorized. Phase three authorized.

ICO TO PILOT 1: Bob.

PILOT TO ICO: Yes.

ICO TO PAP CO (translated on screen): Papa echo nine, do you confirm authorization for phase three?

PILOT 1 TO ICO: But he is not taking any evasive action, aider.

ICO TO PILOT 1: What?

PILOT 1 TO ICO: He is not trying to run, is he?

MSO (translated on screen): No communication with the plane, right? Yes?

ICO TO PAP CO (translated on screen): Papa echo nine, do you confirm authorization for phase three?

PILOT 1 TO ICO: Have the A-37s pulled up in front of him, and tried to see who it is?

PAP CO (translated on screen): Papa echo nine, gator one. OK, authorized for phase three.

PILOT 1: Oh, man.

PILOT 1 TO ICO: The plane is talking to Iquitos tower on VHF.

ICO TO PILOT 1: Right, OK, OK.

OB-140B PILOT (translated on screen): They're killing me! They're killing us!

PILOT 1 TO ICO: Tell him (the A-37) to terminate.

PILOT 2: No! Don't shoot! No more, no more.

ICO TO A-37 PILOT (translated on screen): Stop! No more! No more! No more, Tucan, no more!

A-37 COPILOT TO ICO (translated on screen): Roger, we're terminated, he's on fire.

KOPPEL: But it was too late. The Peruvian Air Force Pilot had already shot down the plane. American pilot Kevin Donaldson crash landed the single-engine Cessna in the water where it eventually turned over and sank. An American missionary and her 7-month-old daughter were killed.

(on camera): A joint U.S.-Peruvian report, released Thursday, concludes that last April's tragic shoot-down was caused by lax procedures in the U.S.-Peruvian aerial drug interdiction program. That was compounded by language problems and communications overload.

(voice-over): State Department officials say if the Peruvian Air Force had followed established safeguards instead of rushing through them, the shoot-down never would have happened. Andrea Koppel, CNN, the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: This just in from overseas: Scotland Yard tells CNN an explosion occurred near a subway in London tonight and there do appear to be people wounded. The Associated Press reports the explosion occurred about 300 feet from the Ealing Broadway Station in West London, just about an hour ago. The cause is not yet known.

President Bush today took a victory lap on Capitol Hill after making a deal on patients' rights, and gaining passage of his energy bill in the House of Representatives. But the battle isn't over on either front. Senate Democrats are vowing to pull the plug on the president's energy plan, and the House right now is voting on the president's compromise on a patients' rights, which would, among other things, guarantee access to specialists, such as OB/GYNs, and permit patients to sue their health insurers within limits. Most Democrats say this doesn't go nearly far enough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GEPAHRDT: I defy any of us to go into a hospital room of someone who has been done-in by bad decisions made by HMOs and health insurance companies and look them in the eye and say, I voted today to take away your rights, to preempt your rights.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: House Speaker Dennis Hastert told me a short while ago the measure will give patients the protections they need.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT (R-IL), HOUSE SPEAKER: There are some folks who would just assume have the politics and not the policy and I think those are the ones that are crying the loudest right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: I'll have more of my interview with Speaker Hastert coming up shortly. But first, let's turn to our congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl and CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace. First we go to Jonathan Karl.

This vote, just about to happen now. The president's compromise on a patients' bill of rights. Do we know that it's going to pass?

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is the big vote. And what's interesting about this is people on both sides of this expect the president's compromise to prevail. It may be a very close vote. All but a handful of Democrats are going to vote against this and a few Republicans are going to vote against it as well.

So it's going to be a very close vote, but what a difference a day makes. Just yesterday the president was thought to be headed toward defeat up here. A rival measure that he opposed and threatened to veto, expected to pass. That Charlie Norwood moment was so important.

And I am told, by the way, Kate, that the reason that the president brought him in front of the cameras immediately after their handshake in the Oval Office is they were afraid that that he was going to change his mind.

SNOW: Really?

KARL: So get him in from of the cameras, get him to commit on national television...

WALLACE: Which was last night, last night when he the compromise. Kelly, how is the White House feeling about this?

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Kate, feeling very, good indeed. In fact one senior administration official describing the mood around here is like a Rocky Mountain high. Good feelings indeed as you noted. The president headed up to Capitol Hill earlier today for a victory lap, meeting with House and Senate Republicans. The White House feeling very good, very confident that his patients' bill of rights will pass, a bill the president can support.

The president, then, dodging a political bullet by avoiding what could have been a very politically difficult veto. And also the president getting credit for helping to get this measure through Congress.

The White House, Kate, also feeling very good about another issue, and that is energy. Many parts of the president's energy bill passing in the early-morning hours in the House of Representatives.

The White House feeling good that about 36 Democrats joined with Republicans to support key provisions of the president's energy plan, including the most controversial, and that is drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Kate, the White House is gearing up for a little bit more of a victory lap of sorts, putting out these talking points to Capitol Hill members, talking about the first six months, breaking gridlock and saying that the next six months will be even better, but of course as you know, big challenges are ahead.

SNOW: Let's talk about that with John. Is this a full-blown victory for the White House or does he have to temper a little bit?

KARL: Well in each of these battles energy and the patients' bill of rights, they have to face the other chamber, the Senate, which is of course in Democratic control. And you have dueling Democratic presidential hopefuls, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, both taking on the ANWR position, in terms of the energy bill. And also, listen to what Ted Kennedy had to say about the patients' bill of rights a short while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: This issue is not going away. They may have had a temporary victory this afternoon and it will be a temporary victory, but it's not going away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: So the Republicans go on August recess, a four-week, five- week recess with some victories under their belt but some big battles ahead in the fall.

SNOW: Jonathan Karl here on Capitol Hill and Kelly Wallace at the White House, thanks.

A federal prosecutor will be the new boss of the FBI. Robert Mueller's nomination glided through the Senate this evening with unanimous approval. Mueller says his top priority is to restore the public's confidence in that agency.

Another one of President Bush's picks ran into trouble today. Along party lines the Senate Commerce Committee rejected the nomination of Mary Sheila Gall to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

A tip that was at first taken seriously in the disappearance of Washington intern Chandra Levy is now being dismissed as a hoax. CNN national correspondent Bob Franken is here to fill us in from our Washington bureau. What do we know about this tip, now, Bob?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As you just quoted, one of the law enforcement sources that has reacted to the way that the day panned out, calling it is a hoax. Another one just said, it didn't pan out. And we were starting to get a hint about it last night at this time when the FBI made it clear that it was not even really planning to do its search of the Fort Lee, Virginia area.

Fort Lee was the location that a person who had phoned in a tip to a Web site that specializes in tips in cases like this, he had said that Chandra Levy's body was buried at Fort Lee, Virginia about two hours south of Washington in a parking lot under construction. And that's why police officials at least at the beginning thought this was more than just the a normal kind of anonymous tip.

So, at Fort Lee, the normally obscure Army post there in Virginia, there was heavier security than normal. Every car was checked as it entered the base and that's because of the heavy, heavy media presence that had been inspired by the this particular tip. But as the day wore on, it became clear that there were just not enough facts that matched.

The FBI put out a news release that said: "The FBI has investigated a tip that alleged that the body of Chandra Levy was buried in an area near Fort Lee. The FBI in concert with Fort Lee officials have determined that there is no site on or around the Fort Lee Military Base that corresponds with the information provided in the anonymous tip."

And so it ends up, Kate, more than three months after Chandra Levy disappeared, as being one more frustration for investigators.

SNOW: Bob, we have been talking about Congress and all that they have been doing, they are very busy up here, but they are just about to leave on a big recess. Do we know what Congressman Gary Condit is going to be doing over the recess?

FRANKEN: We do not really know. We know that he's going back. We are told by his handlers that what he's going to try and do is spend some time with his family, try and repair the relationship there, and decide about his future.

SNOW: OK. Bob Franken in Washington, thank you.

While authorities say the tip turned out to be a hoax, law enforcement agencies around the country depend on tips, day in and day out. More now from CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From "America's Most Wanted" to private Web sites, venues for providing tips to law enforcement are more popular than ever. DAVID ECKERT, WETIP.COM: They are received, they're recorded into a data base. A tip is generated and then it's forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement agency or agencies.

ARENA: While many, like the latest of the hundreds of tips about Chandra Levy, prove to be wrong, tips remain an important law enforcement tool.

ROBERT CASTELLI, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: If you get one that's a home run, even if there are 100,000 that are not, in some cases it's the only piece of evidence you have that will allow you to solve the crime.

ARENA: Tips have helped investigators track down Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, known as the Railway Killer, and the seven fugitives who escaped from a Texas prison earlier this year. Rewards add incentive.

The trick: determining which tips are credible. Police look for details that can be corroborated, especially with anonymous tips.

LOUIS HENNESSY, FORMER D.C. HOMICIDE COMMANDER: You look at the information that they provide and see if it contains any details that's not known to the public. So if they do, then obviously, you give that a little bit more credence.

ARENA: Investigators can sometimes trace tipsters with technology and subpoenas for phone records. But they rarely do, saying anonymity keeps information coming. And while it is a crime to mislead a police investigation, prosecutors rarely pursue those cases.

SGT. JOHN ROPER, MIAMI DADE COUNTY POLICE: We can tell whether a caller is giving us information because they're upset with somebody or it's a boyfriend-girlfriend type dispute, or if it's a total nutcase. You know, maybe we have somebody who just wants to exploit the system.

(TELEPHONE RINGS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Crime stoppers.

ARENA: Like many cities, the Miami-Dade County Police Department works with a private crime stoppers tip line. Since 1981, the effort has helped put 472 murderers behind bars. But investigators caution, a tip is just a starting point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drugs? OK, do have you an exact address on it?

ARENA: Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Should Congressman Gary Condit face an ethics investigation? I'll ask the speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SNOW: Welcome back. As Congress battles over hot-button issues such as patients' rights and energy, it has a hot issue involving one of its own. There have been calls for Congressman Gary Condit either to resign or face an ethics probe of his actions in the Chandra Levy case. I spoke with House Speaker Dennis Hastert earlier on INSIDE POLITICS. Now, as we continue the interview, I asked him about Condit's future.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask you a little bit about the Chandra Levy case. Congressman Gary Condit, a Democrat from California, has been connected with that case.

There's a rule in the House, and it reads like this: "Members, officers, and employees of the House should conduct themselves at all times in a manner that reflects credibly on the House." Has he brought discredit to this House?

REP. DENNIS HASTERT (R-IL), HOUSE SPEAKER: That's not a question for any individual member of the Congress to make, but actually a collective sense to the Congress. If there's somebody who brings charges against him to our Ethics Committee -- our ethics is chaired by a very capable and honorable member of the Congress, Joel Hefley -- and if that case goes there, then this decision and deliberation goes through that process.

SNOW: In your opinion, as speaker, has he brought discredit?

HASTERT: I think I would defer to the collective opinion of the Congress.

SNOW: You brought up the Ethics Committee. There have been requests for an investigation. Is it possible that there's already an ongoing investigation that we don't know about, going on?

HASTERT: There could be.

SNOW: And you don't know.

HASTERT: No, I wouldn't know.

SNOW: OK. Congressman Bob Barr, a Republican, has called for Condit to resign. Would you agree with that?

HASTERT: Well, I mean, that's something that resignation that certainly Congressman Condit and his constituency have to reconcile themselves with. And that's a personal decision. It's a personal decision that's going to have to be made among a lot of people out in California. They have to weigh that decision. And you know, Gary Condit has to make that decision himself.

SNOW: On the Ethics Committee there was also a letter sent by Congressman Scott McInnis, and he said: "I propose that we amend the Rules of the House or the Ethics Committee issue an advisory memorandum to strictly prohibit inappropriate relationships between members of Congress and interns."

What's wrong with having a rule that lays it out specifically that that's inappropriate conduct?

HASTERT: I think if that's the wisdom of the House and he brings it before the House and it's a resolution, that's something that could happen.

SNOW: Something that you would potentially favor?

HASTERT: I think that's something we have to have some debate about.

SNOW: I want to move on to other important issues. Actually, I want to ask you, do you worry that all of this attention on Congressman Condit has in any way overshadowed what you're trying to get done here on the Hill?

HASTERT: I think people have some grave reservations about all of these things that get reported in the press. But on the other hand, Congress, I think, has been very, very productive over the last couple of months. We have given the American people a tax cut. They're going to either have gotten that check in the mail -- it wasn't just a promise, it's actually in the mail or they have cash in their pocket already. That's a good thing. I think that's something that's going to help this economy.

We've addressed an energy policy in this Congress. That's something that's going to affect our economy and make things better in this country for years to come. And we passed an education bill. We're waiting for action in the Senate to get out, into the conference committee and out of the conference committee. We think that that's a good thing. So we've been pretty active.

SNOW: You have been pretty busy lately. There was an article this week in "The New Republic," typically a publication that's not -- it's often very critical of Republican. Let me tell you what they said: "If President Bush had a congressional champion during his first months in office, it was Dennis Hastert. Hastert executed the White House game plan brilliantly, despite a thin 10-seat margin. Bush was thrilled."

Some high praise there. Do you feel like you are working for the White House? Do you feel like -- especially with the Senate in Democratic control now, that you're the one who has to pull off their agenda?

HASTERT: Most of us at Congress have been working on this agenda for a long time -- tax cuts for the American people, reform education for all kids so no child gets left behind, that we do a better job for our the military, that we can do a good job on energy policy. And we have been able to do it. And to pass that on and have somebody on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue who will actually sign it has been helpful, too.

SNOW: How much weight is on your shoulders, though? I mean, how much do you feel like you really have to bear that?

HASTERT: We've had some pretty heavy days, lately.

SNOW: Going into this recess, the Patients' Bill of Rights took a while to get here. There have been some criticisms that perhaps you didn't have everybody onboard -- Republicans onboard. What do you make of that?

HASTERT: Well, the important thing is to get a bill that the president can sign. You don't have legislation, you don't have law unless you can get the Congress to act and the president to sign that legislation.

Some pieces in that legislation the president said he couldn't sign, because he was afraid that people would lose their health care. That's pretty -- that's a pretty tough concern. And so, what we try do is get the top advocate of health care, Charlie Norwood in this country right now, a member of Congress from Georgia, to sit down and to negotiate and to agree with the president to try to find a good solution to this problem.

I think we have found a good solution, and hopefully it becomes law.

SNOW: Energy. Last night, very late, you passed the president's energy bill, another accomplishment, as you just ticked off earlier. Part of that, though, is a controversial measure about the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. And you've limited that somewhat. Why do you think you had to limit it?

HASTERT: Well, the fact is, what we need to do is a series of things we didn't have law. First of all, we need to conserve energy. We need to do renewable fuels. And we need to find new sources of energy in this country. And we need to do the exploration and then drilling of energy, and one of those places may be the National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, the ANWR refuge as people call it.

Well, you know, what we have asked is to take 2,000 acres, which is a little bit bigger than a golf course, and impose it on a land mass the size of South Carolina and say, let's see if we can find oil, petroleum in this area and do it in an environmentally sound way. That's what vote was, and I think it was a good vote.

SNOW: A lot of people said it would never pass, and then the unions actually came in and helped you, didn't they? In some way, get this through?

HASTERT: Well, I mean, there was a bipartisanship effort, so it's not only unions, but it was small business people and it was people on the other side of the aisle. So, we need to find a solution to the problem, and I think that was the key.

SNOW: You're coming off a pretty good day here and a pretty good couple of weeks. Do you feel like you are on top of your game?

HASTERT: No, not yet. SNOW: Do you know why I am asking?

HASTERT: Yeah, absolutely.

SNOW: The last time you and I talked, you said you'd probably get out of this job when you were at the top of your game?

HASTERT: Not there yet.

SNOW: Thank you very much.

HASTERT: Thank you. My pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Speaker Dennis Hastert.

The morning commute can be a headache and a hassle, but an upstream battle? These drivers thought so. And the queen mother has 101 reasons to return home for her big date. Queen mum and more, just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: Welcome back. In other stories making news, the most senior Bosnian Serb official ever brought to trial at The Hague was sentenced today. The war crimes tribunal found former General Radislav Krstic guilty of genocide, and sentenced him to 46 years in prison. He was accused in the massacre of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war.

Flash flooding in the Chicago area turned cars into boats today, and knocked out power to thousands of customers. As much as four inches of rain soaked parts of the city, delays of up to three hours were reported at both of Chicago's major airports. On the up side, all that water turned the heat down after several days of sweltering temperatures.

In London, Britain's queen mother needing just a little assistance as she goes home from the hospital. Her office says she received a blood transfusion yesterday to treat anemia. The queen mother will turn 101 on Saturday.

And when we come back, the House of Representatives has just finished voting on the patients' bill of rights. I'll tell you the results next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: Before we go, we want to update you on the patients' bill of rights here on Capitol Hill. The House has just passed an amendment with the changes the president was seeking, by a vote of 218 to 213. A final vote is expected tonight. Please stay with CNN throughout the night for more on that.

More on the Chandra Levy case, coming up at the top of the hour on "LARRY KING LIVE." And up next, Greta Van Susteren, standing by to tell us what she has -- Greta.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST, CNN'S "THE POINT WITH GRETA VAN SUSTEREN": Kate, the American media isn't the only media covering the Chandra Levy investigation. Stick around, and you will hear how it's being covered in Japan, Germany, England and more -- Kate.

SNOW: Thanks, Greta. Sounds good.

Thanks very much for watching tonight. I'm Kate Snow in Washington. "THE POINT WITH GRETA VAN SUSTEREN" begins right now.

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