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American Morning

U.S. Officials Say It Was Probably Not Enemy Fire That Caused U.S. Helicopter to Crash; Some Signs of Kidney Failure When Some Witnesses Last Saw Bin Laden

Aired January 21, 2002 - 07:05   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: Up front this morning, the war in Afghanistan. U.S. officials are saying now it was probably not enemy fire that caused a U.S. helicopter to crash in the snow covered mountains just south of Bagram, killing two Marines.

And Taliban American John Walker could arrive in the United States to face a civilian trial in Virginia very soon, according to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

CNN's Martin Savidge is standing by in Kandahar. He now has the very latest for us -- Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Paula.

As you reported, the CH-53 Super Stallion, that is a marine corps heavy lift helicopter, went down around 7:30 yesterday morning, Sunday morning our time. That would have been about 10:00 p.m. Eastern time. It had a crew of seven marines on board. Two of those marines were killed. Five others were injured. The marines here -- or their injuries, here, rather are being described as moderate.

Now, reportedly the helicopter went down at a very high altitude, in fact, running into a mountainside that was at about an elevation of 9,000 feet. It was also said to be on a resupply mission in northern Afghanistan. Now, what you can infer from that was it was probably resupplying U.S. special forces that are operating in the region, bringing in food, bringing in ammunition.

And the way that they reportedly knew that there had been survivors was the fact that apparently one of those survivors was able to trudge out in the snow the letters SOS. That is, of course, the international signal for distress. It came as a relief. It also came as a great help to the rescue crews. A second helicopter was dispatched to the scene and they were able to retrieve those that were injured as well as those that were killed and those that have been identified are described now as Staff Sergeant Walter F. Cohee. He's 26 years old, Wicomico, Maryland, and also Sergeant Dwight J. Morgan, 24 years of age, Mendocino, California.

There is going to be a memorial service that will be held here at the Kandahar Airport tomorrow morning. The loss of any marine is felt by all. The loss of any military person during this operation here in Afghanistan is deeply felt by all those that continue the operation.

John Walker, the speculation is he's going to be moved to the United States -- he's the American Taliban -- some time this week. We do know that he's being held on board a U.S. Navy ship somewhere out in the Arabian Sea. He's been moved a couple of times. The big question is would he come here to the Kandahar Airport for his trip back to the United States?

A couple of reasons why he might. First of all, there's a very long runway here. That means that they could bring in a long range aircraft to facilitate the move. I could give you about 40 reasons why they may not bring him here. That is about the number of media personnel that are gathered in this particular place, the military not wanting to turn it into a dog and pony show. That is not to say it wouldn't be possible for the military to fly John Walker in here, perhaps, transfer him on to an aircraft outside of our vision and outside of our knowledge.

But there's also a number of other bases that are in the region that could be used to facilitate his movement without the media ever having a clue -- Paula.

ZAHN: Martin Savidge, thanks so much for that update. Good to see you on the ground in Kandahar.

Now to our big question this morning -- is Osama bin Laden dead or alive? There is growing speculation he may have died from kidney disease. Pakistani President Musharraf told CNN he believes that is the case. And in the bin Laden videotape that was released in late December, Pakistani officials say there are clear signs that show that the al Qaeda leader was seriously ill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, PAKISTAN: I give the highest priority now, to be frank, that he's dead for the reason that he is a patient. He is a kidney patient and I know that he had -- we know that he had donated two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. One was specifically for his own personal use and the other for general use.

Now, I really don't know whether he's getting or he's been getting all that treatment in Afghanistan now. So -- and the photographs that lately have been shown on the television show him extremely weak and I personally feel, I would give the first priority that he's dead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld admits the U.S. doesn't know if anything has happened to bin Laden, but they're still in hot pursuit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: You know, the reality is he could be dead, he could be alive, he could be in Afghanistan, he could be somewhere else. We're looking for him. I think we'll find him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Well, reports of bin Laden's death may be premature, but there are some telltale signs of kidney failure when, perhaps, some witnesses last saw him.

CNN's medical analyst Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now from Atlanta this morning with more on that -- good to see you, doctor.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: For a point of reference, I'd like for you to analyze these pictures of Osama bin Laden that apparently were taken prior to September 11. Describe to us the color and the tone of his skin and then I want you to contrast that with pictures we know to have been taken much later. Let's roll that video as, doctor, you walk us through this.

GUPTA: OK. Well, certainly here this looks like the tape from December 26. You can look here and notice that he has what some doctors refer to as sort of a frosting over of his features, his sort of grayness of beard, his paleness of skin, very gaunt sort of features. A lot of times people associate this with chronic illness. Doctors can certainly look at that and determine some clinical features. But even more than that, it's sometimes possible to differentiate the specific type of disease or illness that he may be suffering from. The sort of frosting of the appearance is something that people a lot of times associate with chronic kidney failure, renal failure. Certainly someone who's requiring dialysis would have that.

He's also not moving his arms, Paula. I looked at this tape all the way through its entire length. He never moved his left arm at all. The reason that might be important is because people who have had a stroke -- and certainly people are at increased risk of stroke if they also have kidney failure -- he may have had a stroke and therefore is not moving his left side. In the rest of the videotape he does move his right side a little bit more than he does his left.

So those are some of the things that are sort of of note here in this more recent videotape.

ZAHN: And then I think we need to remind the viewers once again that the president of Pakistan talked about his importing two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. Of course, no one other than the president of Pakistan right now is confirming that he, in fact, needed dialysis.

GUPTA: That's right. And, you know, again, renal dialysis is something, you know, talk about hemodialysis, it's something that really is reserved for patients in end stage renal failure. That means their kidneys have just completely shut down. The most common causes of something like that would be diabetes and hypertension.

Once that's happened, Paula, if you're separated from your dialysis machine -- and incidentally, dialysis machines require electricity. They're going to require clean water. They're going to require a sterile setting. Infection is a huge risk with that. If you don't have all of those things and a functioning dialysis machine, it's unlikely that you'd survive beyond several days or even, or a week at, really, the most.

ZAHN: And how much help, if you had all of the things you're talking about to keep the dialysis machine running, how much help does he need around him to administer the treatment?

GUPTA: Excellent point. You certainly need someone who really knows how to run that dialysis machine. You have to have someone who is actually assessing his blood, Osama bin Laden's blood, to see what particular dialysite he would need and to be able to change his dialysite as needed.

So you'd need a kidney specialist, a technician, quite a few people around him, Paula.

ZAHN: All right, we're going to be talking more about this speculation throughout the morning.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you much for your insights this morning.

GUPTA: Thank you, Paula.

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