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American Morning

White House Calling on Congress to Enact Law to Stop Cloning of Human Embryos; "New York Times" Reporting Bin Laden Might Be in Jalalabad

Aired November 26, 2001 - 08:10   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The White House says President Bush is 100 percent opposed to the cloning of human embryos and is calling on Congress to enact a law to stop it. Republican Congressman David Weldon of Florida has already co-authored legislation in the House to ban all human cloning. The Weldon Bill includes criminal and civil penalties for those who violate the ban, even for scientists who use clone cells purely for research.

The House has voted in favor such a ban and the Senate is now considering it. Congressman Weldon joins us now from Orlando - welcome.

CONGRESSMAN DAVID WELDON, (R), FLORIDA: Good morning. It's great to be with you.

ZAHN: Thank you. So Congressman, I don't know whether you had a chance to hear any of my conversation with Dr. West, but he makes a clear distinction between therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning. Do you?

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: Well you need to make a couple of points very clear. Theoretically, the so-called therapeutic cloning is a theory. It doesn't exist. You can not use this technology to treat anybody and Dr. West proposals that you can help treat all these diseases, it's very, very highly speculative.

I believe he was even quoted recently as saying the technology where you would take this and use it is at least 10 years away. And so, to call it therapeutic cloning, I think in and of itself is a little bit misleading because there are no therapies that can emerge from it.

The concern that I have and a vast majority of members of the House and it was a strong bipartisan vote, is that if you start allowing all these labs all over the place to create human clones, that it's only a matter of time before somebody tries to bring a baby to birth because the implantation of those cloned embryos would occur within the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship.

The other ... (CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Before you go any further, let me just ask you to address specifically what Dr. West said. He - you have just said that no therapies can emerge from this and yet Dr. West said ...

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: ... his scientists firmly believe that you can use this down the road to treat Alzheimer's, and heart disease and kidney failure ...

(CROSSTALK)

WELDON: They don't even have - they don't even have an animal model to do that - OK. I saw patients this weekend - I saw a patient with a stroke. There is not even an animal model of taking these embryo stem cells and using them to treat a known disease.

Now adult stem cells are being used extensively in clinical practice and they really help people. But it's very speculative that embryo stem cells will actually someday have a clinical application and certainly it's very speculative that the technology that he's proposing where you will create a clone, and mind you the clone you create you're going to kill when you extract the stem cells from it - the point I was trying to make earlier Paula is that he is trying to move the debate - it's no longer we're going to extract stem cells from excess embryos at fertility clinics.

It is now we're going to create human embryos for the purpose of extracting stem cells and killing them in the process of doing that. Creating human life for the purpose of exploiting it, and a lot of people have ethical problems with that as well.

ZAHN: All right, so essentially what you're saying that you think any of this research should be stopped even if you had assurances that there is no way anybody in the lab could abuse this and if you could limit them somehow, the use of the therapeutic cloning, would you be comfortable with that?

WELDON: No. Number one, if you allow this technology to proliferate it will only be a matter of time before somebody tries to create a baby, because you will be creating human clones in labs all over the country, all over the world. And so there's really no way to prevent what he says is not going to happen from happening.

Number two, I think there's a real serious moral and ethical hazard here. You're creating human life for the purpose of exploiting it and then killing it - creating human embryos, and I think that is morally and ethically wrong, and we should not allow that in the United States of America. And a strong bipartisan majority in the House agree the Senate needs to take this up immediately.

ZAHN: But once again, I guess in closing, I want to make sure the audience understands that Dr. West still makes the distinction that what he's doing is not reproductive cloning; it's therapeutic cloning.

WELDON: Right. He makes that distinction. The point I'm making is if the government of the United States is going to allow this to proliferate and labs like his company are making human clones all over the place, it will only be a matter of time before a doctor implants one of those embryos in a woman. It will occur within the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship. There will be no way to prevent ultimately a baby being created through this technology.

ZAHN: You're not opposed, though, to stem cell research on adult cells?

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: I'm just trying - you know the people out there who have family members, who have Alzheimer's who are looking to this potentially down the road as helping them are saying well wait a minute, you know, if this can be in some way regulated, what's the harm in allowing this kind of research to go on?

WELDON: Well adult stem cells have been used for 20 years to treat a whole variety of bone marrow disorders, anemia, and leukemia. Adult stem cells have been used to treat combined immunodeficiency disease in kids, lupus, multiple sclerosis and some very promising experimental or clinical trials.

So adult stem cells have - are being used. They've been used for years. It is a theoretical possibility that embryo stem cells will someday have clinical applications and it is a further theoretical leap to say that this so-called therapeutic cloning will have some clinical applications in the treatment or management of disease, and my position is that this is a very slippery slope we're stepping down and we're going to create a lot of problems if we are allowed to proceed with this.

ZAHN: We are going to follow this debate very closely Congressman Weldon. Thank you very much for dropping by here this morning.

WELDON: Well I enjoyed being on the program. Thank you.

ZAHN: Thank you.

Now back to the war zone with U.S. Marines now in Afghanistan, the hunt for Osama bin Laden is heating up. Where is the suspected terrorist mastermind? Miles O'Brien is back with us with some possible new clues. Miles ...

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Before you get back to serious business, I haven't talked to you all morning. Did you have a good holiday with your family?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I did - I did.

ZAHN: Good. O'BRIEN: It was a nice little break. I know you had a few days off. I hope you enjoyed it.

ZAHN: I did.

O'BRIEN: All right. Good.

ZAHN: Loved it.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about Osama bin Laden for a moment. Of course we don't know where Osama bin Laden is. If we did, a lot of problems would be solved, wouldn't they? But "The New York Times" over the weekend and this morning is reporting that Osama bin Laden might be hiding in an area in and around Jalalabad.

As a matter of fact, about 40 miles southwest of Jalalabad at a camp called Tora Bora (ph). Let's take a look at an animation that will get you into that location there and give you a sense of the kind of rugged terrain we're talking about. This is right along the Khyber Pass - -we've been telling you about it.

There's the capital of Kabul and as you move towards Jalalabad, which is very close to the Pakistani border, which is right along here and go about 40 miles to the southwest, on the other side of this mountain range you'll find this Tora Bora camp. Let's take a look at some images which we have captured from the globalsecurity.org Web site, its actual satellite imagery taken in 1999 of the Tora Bora camp.

Some of these camps used to train terrorists - al Qaeda terrorists and as you can see here, there are clearly delineated tunnel entrances there - very sophisticated tunnels. Let's bring in our military affairs analyst General Don Shepherd, retired U.S. Air Force to talk a little bit about knowing what we know now; what the U.S. might be able to do in this case.

General Shepherd, we're told that the road to Tora Bora, it's one way in and one way out. I guess that can be good and bad for U.S. forces.

GEN. DON SHEPHERD, RETIRED U.S. AIR FORCE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It can be good and bad for U.S. forces Miles, but also it provides some problems for Osama bin Laden if indeed he is there. And again, you and I don't know if he's there. If we did, we'd turn him in for the $25 million and split it, I'm sure.

The area there is difficult terrain. It's across from Jalalabad, across the area called the White Mountain, supposedly heavily wooded. One way in that provides Osama bin Laden an ability to watch the people coming in. But he needs multiple exit strategy, if you will, places to go.

Now it also simplifies if there's only one way in, one way out, it simplifies the ability to bottling him up with U.S. and coalition military forces. Now this is a difficult area, very complex tunnel complexes. We know a lot about them from the Soviets. We're getting more information from captured prisoners and other people in the area.

And he's going to have a big entourage around him. He's going to stand out. The key is to find out where he is exactly, block him up, surround him, and then go get him.

O'BRIEN: All right as we're talking here General Shepherd, I'm going to take you down to Kandahar, which is another location where many suspect Osama bin Laden might be. As a matter of fact, his official biographer is doubtful he is in and around the Jalalabad area in as much as the coalition forces, the allies, the U.S. controlling that particular area - the Northern Alliance.

Let me just, as we look at this graphic describing this intricate nature of some of these tunnels, perhaps what is most interesting to many of us this morning is the fact that many of these tunnels were buterous (ph) and improved during the Soviet occupation of the '80s in essence financed by the CIA. This - these tunnels are the kinds of tunnels a person could stay in for quite some time. Aren't they?

SHEPHERD: Indeed, he could stay in there a long time, but remember a couple of other things he's got going against him. He's got no vacancy signs posted in a lot of nations that used to be places that he could go. Also the country is being gradually taken over by the - by the Northern Alliance and the Pashtun tribes now down in the Kandahar area.

Soon he may have an entire nation of 25 million people looking for him as opposed just the U.S. special forces. So these complex tunnel complexes, when we find them, it's going to be hard to dig him out, but it's getting easier and easier where we can concentrate our sensors, concentrate our ...

(CROSSTALK)

SHEPHERD: ... our human intelligence to find where he is.

O'BRIEN: General Shepherd, I apologize, but we have run up against a hard break warning here, so we're going to have to pause it to break. Thank you very much as always for your insights. We appreciate it. We'll be back with more in just a bit.

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