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American Morning
New Photos Emerge in Iraqi Prison Abuse Scandal; President Bush Trying to Rally Troops Amid Signs of Republican Discontent
Aired May 21, 2004 - 07:00 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. The FBI telling law enforcement to look out for suicide bombers. It listed disguises they might be wearing.
Will President Bush hold Republicans together with headlines in Iraq getting worse? The potential for a political split this morning.
And after two weeks of waiting, a woman comes forward to claim an abandoned little girl. Her attorneys tell us why it took so long on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, welcome everybody.
Other stories that we're following this morning. New photographs out in "The Washington Post" show what appears to be more instances of abuse in Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison. We're going to look at them this morning and hear what the Pentagon is saying about them as well.
HEMMER: Also today from the president on down, Americans and others around the world expressing outrage over the abuse story, but could it be that almost anyone in the position of those guards would do the same thing?
A psychologist with us this morning may have proved just that about 33 years ago. We'll talk about it in a moment.
O'BRIEN: Really fascinating study that he did. I remember studying it when I was in college.
Jack Cafferty, good morning.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: How you doing?
O'BRIEN: I'm great, how are you?
CAFFERTY: After weeks of out of town tryouts, the 9/11 Commission brought it's show in to New York City this week, and quite a show it was.
We will take a look at some of the repercussions of their visit to the Big Apple, and as their work begins to wind down, try to get a gauge on how worthwhile this exercise of looking into the rearview mirror has been. HEMMER: You know, from some people, they are none too happy about what went down, too.
CAFFERTY: Well.
HEMMER: Thank you Jack.
Top stories here on a Friday morning. Starting in Iraq where insurgents attacked the main police station in the city of Najaf.
Military officials say at least three U.S. soldiers slightly wounded there. In Karbala nearby, at least five Iraqis were killed in ongoing violence in that holy city.
That's according to hospital officials. An Arab journalist also said to be among the causalities. American gunships and tanks pounded militia positions overnight said to cause heavy damage in its wake.
More detainees are being released from the Baghdad area facility at the center of the abuse scandal. Busloads of Iraqi prisoners leaving Abu Ghraib earlier. The coalition says it plans to release about 500 today and the prison population eventually will be cut down to about 2500 detainees.
The lawyer in Oregon arrested in connection about two weeks ago with the terrorist train bombings in Madrid has now been released.
Brandon Mayfield, arrested two weeks ago, turns out detectives in Spain say the fingerprint on a bag containing the detonators was not his after all. When he was released, Mayfield, a Muslim convert, held up a Koran and prayer rug and said in both Arabic and English that God is great.
Workers at the country's number two local telephone company, SBC communications, have started a four-day strike.
About 20,000 union workers in Connecticut, Ohio, and Michigan walking off the job. About 80,000 more set to follow, we're told. The workers are upset about a cut in benefits and the latest contract offer. Andy is tracking this this morning.
We'll talk to "Drew" in a few moments here.
Also in sports last night Detroit Pistons knocking off the New Jersey Nets. The Nets go home 90-69 the final.
Detroit in control from the very beginning. Jason Kidd, very tough night. He failed to score for the first time in his playoff career. Kidd had a sore back, was playing on a bad knee, but refused to blame the injuries for his lackluster performance. Bottom line the Pistons win.
They now face Indiana as the playoffs roll on -- to be continued sometime in October -- so stay tuned for more.
(WEATHER REPORT) O'BRIEN: Well, new photos have emerged this morning in the Iraqi prison abuse scandal. This time in "The Washington Post."
The photos have not yet been authenticated, but apparently show more images of abuse of prisoners.
Barbara Starr is live for us this morning at the Pentagon. Barbara, good morning.
BARBARA STARR, PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad.
Well, as you say, the pictures appearing in this morning's edition of "The Washington Post."
Everyone can certainly look, make their own judgments, about what they think these pictures show, but they do appear to show more violence, more sexual humiliation, of prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison. The pictures tell us little at this point about who precisely ordered it.
But "The Washington Post" this morning also publishing some sworn statements from Iraqi prisoners, one man saying, quote, they forced us to walk like dogs on our hands and knees. We had to bark like a dog, and if we didn't do that they started hitting us hard.
Now for the Bush administration, of course, another chapter trying to determine how all of this happened, who ordered it, whether this is a widespread problem of abuse and, of course, getting ready today as these pictures will certainly make their way across the Arab world -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Barbara has this -- these recent pictures in any way changed the debate over whether all the pictures or more of the pictures or the bulk of the pictures should actually be released to the public?
STARR: Well, you know, this is not an unexpected development, as you say.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had said some days ago that there were many more pictures; Congress of course had viewed them. We don't know if they saw these particular pictures. Everyone who saw them said they were very difficult, very disturbing and upsetting to look at.
But Secretary Rumsfeld had said he would like to release all of them publicly, but Defense Department attorneys said it could be a violation of the Geneva Convention for the U.S. government to release these pictures and show the humiliation of people in their custody.
So the decision has pretty much been made to show them to Congress in a restricted atmosphere, but not to release them publicly. However, the Pentagon knew full well that many media outlets including "The Washington Post" had additional pictures and were likely to show them in the days ahead -- Soledad. O'BRIEN: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon this morning. Barbara, thank you.
Perhaps the most disturbing element of these pictures is seeing American soldiers from ordinary backgrounds who seem to be capable of monstrous things. It raises the question is the capacity for cruelty inherent in all of us?
Phil Zimbardo, Professor of psychology of Stanford University asked a similar question in a famous experiment three decades ago, and he joins us this morning from New Haven, Connecticut.
Nice to see you, professor. Thanks for being with us. Give me as briefly as possible a description of your experiment from 33 years ago.
PHIL ZIMBARDO, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY: What we did is created a mock prison where we had college students play the roles of prisons and guards for two -- it was supposed to go for two weeks -- and what happened is I had to end it after six days because it was out of control.
Boys we selected because they were good, normal, healthy young men -- if they were playing the role of guards, began to abuse those roles, be cruel and even sadistic, doing all the things you see here at the Iraqi prison.
Stripped the prisoners naked, put bags over their heads, chain them, and then began to humiliate them and finally began to do the sexual humiliation which approximates what we see in Iraq.
O'BRIEN: These are all things that you say happened in the study that was supposed to last for two weeks and you ended it, cutting it off at six days. How quickly did things get out of control, to use your phrase?
ZIMBARDO: Well, it was probably the third or fourth day. Our situation was very, very intense so it accelerated what in Iraq probably took a month or so to get into.
And I think what we've seen in Iraq we have to really understand that this is a process that when you see a picture, you think that that moment but in fact this happened over a month.
So these young men and women got socialized into this new role into this role of prison guard who is there to abuse these prisoners, to break them, to get confessions.
O'BRIEN: In your study, was the group or was there a handful of sort of bad apples in the group who were these college students who were prison guards who basically brought everybody else along with them?
ZIMBARDO: No, see that's what's been happening all of the -- from Bush down we're saying it's a few bad apples, it's isolated. What's bad is the barrel. The barrel is the barrel I created in my prison and we knew we put good boys in just as in this Iraqi prison and the barrel corrupts.
It's the barrel of the evil of prisons with secrecy, with no accountability, which gives people permission to do things they ordinarily would not. So in this -- in the Iraqi situation, I know that this boredom, it's incredibly stressful job, it's -- they're very much afraid.
There's no accountability and what you didn't have in my prison you didn't have the CIA encouraging them to do it. And I think what's critical is trying to understand these trophy pictures which doesn't make sense.
Why would you take a picture of yourself in front of your crime if you thought about the consequences? And that's where what I call the Mardi Gras effect comes in. These people were trapped in a time -- a present-oriented time zone in which you never think of the future, you never think of the past.
So at no point did they ever say you know gee we will be in trouble if these pictures ever come out. These are trophy pictures.
O'BRIEN: How do you explain, though, the two or more who said no? I refuse to be involved?
ZIMBARDO: Oh, see, those are the heroes. I mean, in our study we had good guards who didn't get involved, but in our study they never challenged the bad guards.
So what you have is powerful situational forces that get the majority to do things they say they would never do and this is not just my study there's 30 years of studies by social psychologists.
But the interesting thing is there's always a few people who blow the whistle at Enron at in My Lai, which is again a direct parallel. But those are the rare people; those are the exceptions.
We like to think we would be the heroes but in fact most of us, the majority, would go along, would blindly obey authority, would do these dehumanizing things to other people.
O'BRIEN: It's a fascinating study from 33 years ago that does seem particularly relevant today. Profess Zimbardo joining us this morning.
Professor of psychology at Stanford University. Thanks for being with us.
ZIMBARDO: Thank you Soledad.
HEMMER: At 11 minutes past the hour in a new terror warning from the FBI telling state and local law enforcement agencies to be on the alert for suicide bombers. Now there is no hard evidence of a planned attack here, but there is concern that summer events like the political conventions, the Democrats in Boston, the Republicans here in New York, may encourage terrorists.
The FBI bulletin advising those to watch for signs such as people wearing bulky jackets in warm weather, or smelling of chemicals on their fingers or even people in stolen police uniforms or possibly disguised as pregnant women.
There are others who say these are not guidelines you can use at all. If Israel can't stop it for 30 years what can we do here? Nonetheless the warning has gone out.
O'BRIEN: Oh, things have become very strange descriptions of what you should be looking for.
HEMMER: There's something in there that says look out for people with clenched fists. I don't know if that leads you to anything but the word is out.
O'BRIEN: Interesting. All right, still to come this morning, President Bush tries to rally the GOP troops on Capitol Hill. Could discontent in the Republican Party hurt his chances in November? We've got analysis ahead from Jeff Greenfield.
HEMMER: Also, more mystery yet again today in that case of that abandoned girl in Baltimore. Two people claiming to be her parents now come forward. The lawyers for one of them join us in a moment here.
O'BRIEN: And this little nickel worth millions of bucks. We'll explain as AMERICAN MORNING continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: To politics now. President Bush is trying to rally his troops amid signs of Republican discontent. The president went to Capitol Hill yesterday for a pep talk and some damage control with fellow Republicans.
Bad news out of Iraq and Mr. Bush's record low approval ratings have some shaken in the Party faithful.
CNN's senior analyst Jeff Greenfield joins us to tell us what it all means. Good morning, nice to see you as always.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.
O'BRIEN: These rumblings. How significant are they and what are the focus of the complaints?
GREENFIELD: I don't think that right now the political significance is great is at all.
You always have members of a president's Party in Congress who are just not that happy, mostly because a president can't do as much as folks in Congress would like.
Presidents are usually less ideological than the House and Senate members of a Party, particularly in the House these days.
What is true is that the grumbling gets louder when a president's poll numbers go down, in part there's a fear that if the top of the ticket is weaker maybe the Congressional chances for reelection gets weaker.
By the way, that's almost stopped being true in the modern era. Most House seats are totally safe. But there is discontent on two substantive fronts.
First, obviously, Iraq. The news has been grim.
And the other one is spending.
For a lot of Republicans Bush' spending on the prescription drug bill, on the highway bill, the fact that he's never vetoed anything in three and a half years is a deviation from the traditional Republican handbook.
You know, fiscal discipline. But as a sign of any real political trouble from his own Party right now I think that's a stretch.
O'BRIEN: So then what in your mind would be a sign of political trouble?
GREENFIELD: The most obvious one is defections. We seen one example on the Democratic sign outgoing Georgia Democratic Senator Zell Miller has endorsed Bush and has been criticizing Kerry in very tough terms. Expecting may be speaking at the Republican convention this summer.
You're going to see a handful of Southern Democrats and Northeastern Republicans who are going to keep their distance from the presidential nominee but in general the passions are running so high this year on both sides that the need to win that I really don't expect to see much of that. For Bush, once again, the potentially toughest area is Iraq.
Senators McCain and Chuck Hagel have been critical for months and Senator Richard Lugar who -- Indiana senator who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been increasingly publicly unhappy with the policy.
If the toll in terms of lives and money keeps growing, I think the most dangerous sign for Bush would be not defections but sharper questions and comments from the Republican side of the aisle feeling the heat back home and one point that is in either count it starts sinking in the polls, then you're going to hear some real complaining because I have this blazingly original insight. Politicians do not like to be associated with losing.
O'BRIEN: Shocking. Shocking. Exactly. You got that sense from Congressmen Ray LaHood. He had to say was, quote, if it was October, I'd probably be having a heart attack. Ray LaHood of Illinois.
And another Republican who is close to the president said that the members of the Party is basically a who's who of Nervous Nellies.
Where do you -- where do you think the truth lies? Is it Nervous Nellies?
GREENFIELD: You know it -- in terms of November, yes. But every time one of these guys goes up or down the polls, members of his own Party go oh, this is terrible.
But in terms of the story of Iraq, there I think you're seeing something different. I think there are some real concern within the Republican ranks on substance. I think it's a $200 million cost, which wasn't supposed to happen; Republicans don't like spending tons of money.
And it isn't going the way they were promised it was going a year ago. And on that one I think we're seeing a little less politics and a little more substantive concern.
O'BRIEN: Jeff Greenfield, as always. Excellent analysis, and I love when you go out on a limb.
GREENFIELD: You mean like politicians hate losing?
O'BRIEN: That one, yes. I'm going to write that one down.
GREENFIELD: Well, you know television is visual medium.
O'BRIEN: Thanks. Bill.
HEMMER: Soledad, back to the story we talked about yesterday. Some new twists today now added to that mysterious story of an abandoned girl.
Authorities in Baltimore have been trying to find the family of a 3-year-old for two weeks now.
So a man who says he is the father has come forward and a woman, Patricia Harper, who says she's the little girl's mother planning to ask a judge later today to grant her custody.
The attorneys, Gary Gerstenfield and Rebecca Cosca of the woman are live in Bethesda, Maryland.
Good morning to both of you -- and to Mr. Gerstenfield, I want to clear up a few things here.
Why is this girl giving the name Courtney if apparently that is not her real name? Her real name we hear now is Akasha (ph).
GARY GERSTENFIELD, ATTORNEY FOR WOMAN CLAIMING TO BE ABANDONED GIRL'S MOTHER: Well, it's probably as good a guess on your part as ours, but if we were to speculate, it's probably because the father has been hiding out in Baltimore and he's been hiding out to keep the little girl away from her mother so he changed her name, told her that she was Puerto Rican instead of African-American and has been hiding away from the law.
There's been a warrant out for his arrest and trying to keep the child away from her mom.
HEMMER: And let me go back to your client here, the mother. Why has it taken her two weeks to come forward?
GERSTENFIELD: Well it's taken two years to find the child. It took about maybe ten minutes to get from the Washington area all the way up to Baltimore City.
I think they broke a few speed records in their effort to get to Baltimore to try to get their daughter.
HEMMER: Let me just stop you there. You said two years. Why two years? What happened there?
GERSTENFIELD: He left. He left the area; he took the child; he went into court and got what's called an ex parte order, and this is an order where a judge grants custody temporarily to a parent.
What happened is the father had a visitation with the child and took the child and went into court and claimed that the child was being physically abused and that he was being physically abused by the mother.
He was able to get temporary custody and then from that point took off for Baltimore. Of course we didn't know that. The court -- we filed some papers once we found out what had happened because the mother was not aware that he had gone into court.
We, representing the mother, went into court having that order that was issued for the father rescinded. Judge Crowser (ph), the Circuit Court of Prince George's County, realized the mistake, ordered that custody be given back to the mother.
That order now is two years old and the police have been looking for the little girl. But we've been looking in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties. We were not looking in Baltimore City and certainly we weren't looking for a little girl named Courtney.
HEMMER: All right then, if I could just interject here -- we're getting pretty knee deep in this custody battle between these two individuals.
Ms. Cosca, this father who comes forward last night claiming to be the father anyway. What's his story, how does he fit into this picture today?
REBECCA COSCA, ATTORNEY FOR WOMAN CLAIMING TO BE ABANDONED GIRL'S MOTHER: Well, he is the father of the little girl. Unfortunately, he took off with her two years ago. We've been looking for him since that time. We've been unable to find him.
Apparently, he's been kind of living hand to mouth, he has no driver's license, no steady employment. So it's very hard to track him down. He had changed the little girl's name to Courtney.
And so -- but -- apparently he had went to buy drugs and when he did that he left the little girl with a stranger. He was subsequently arrested and when he didn't come back that stranger then turned the little girl into Social Services.
HEMMER: So then why yesterday was all the talk focused on New York City and not the Baltimore area?
COSCA: Well, apparently the little girl had been living on Brooklyn Avenue in Brooklyn Park in Baltimore City, and so all she knew was that her name was Courtney and that she was from Brooklyn.
HEMMER: All right.
Well, listen, just -- the bottom line here -- Courtney or Akasha (ph) or whatever her name is and whoever her parents are, apparently they -- hopefully came forward and look out for the best interests of the little girl.
There's a court hearing later today and we'll follow it.
Thanks, that's Rebecca Cosca and Gary Gerstenfield down there in Bethesda, Maryland. Good luck later today -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning the FBI issues a new terror warning. We're going to have more details on that just ahead and Israeli troops begin pulling out of Gaza as Palestinians dig through debris after a deadly assault.
Those stories ahead as AMERICAN MORNING continues right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Welcome back everybody. Time for the Cafferty File and the "Question of the Day" from Jack. Hello.
CAFFERTY: Thank you, Soledad. Hello.
The FBI is warning of possible suicide bomb attacks here in our country. Everyone agrees its not if the U.S. will be attacked again but when its going to happen.
Meanwhile, a lot of attention focused on what did happen two and a half years ago, the 9/11 Commission brought their show into the big city this week. Two days in New York.
Former Navy Secretary John Lehman touched off a firestorm when he said the level of coordination between the police and fire departments was, quote, not worthy of the Boy Scouts.
Very dumb thing to say. Probably won't get elected mayor of the town any time soon.
Editorials have accused other members of the Commission of grandstanding, engaging in public theatrics. Their final report is due out in July. So as the hearings wind down now, here's the question on this Friday -- how worthwhile do you think these 9/11 hearings have been? And you can e-mail us your thoughts on that at am@cnn.com and we'll read some of the letters later.
HEMMER: Pretty fair question if you listen to the family members who were there this past week.
CAFFERTY: Well, yes the family members justifiably upset.
On the other hand, nobody had any idea that two commercial airliners were going to fly into the World Trade Center that morning and the effort that was made on the part of the New York City police and fire departments that day given the situation and the technological limitations for what they were able to do, nothing short of phenomenal. And to say its not worthy of the Boy Scouts is just an outrage.
HEMMER: He's going to be on at 8:00 by the way.
CAFFERTY: I know he is.
HEMMER: OK?
CAFFERTY: I know he is.
HEMMER: We'll keep you fired up until then. Another story we're going to talk about a coin from 1913 is not worth a nickel, it's worth $3 million.
That's what an anonymous coin collector paid yesterday for a 1913 liberty head nickel. There are only four others like it, we're told. This one was owned by Egypt's King Farouk, and was also the subject of an episode of "Hawaii Five-Oh."
I remember that episode. Hang ten.
O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, running out of a dream. An Olympic hopeful faces some time off and "Shrek" gets set for a big weekend. "90-Second Pop" just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired May 21, 2004 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. The FBI telling law enforcement to look out for suicide bombers. It listed disguises they might be wearing.
Will President Bush hold Republicans together with headlines in Iraq getting worse? The potential for a political split this morning.
And after two weeks of waiting, a woman comes forward to claim an abandoned little girl. Her attorneys tell us why it took so long on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, welcome everybody.
Other stories that we're following this morning. New photographs out in "The Washington Post" show what appears to be more instances of abuse in Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison. We're going to look at them this morning and hear what the Pentagon is saying about them as well.
HEMMER: Also today from the president on down, Americans and others around the world expressing outrage over the abuse story, but could it be that almost anyone in the position of those guards would do the same thing?
A psychologist with us this morning may have proved just that about 33 years ago. We'll talk about it in a moment.
O'BRIEN: Really fascinating study that he did. I remember studying it when I was in college.
Jack Cafferty, good morning.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: How you doing?
O'BRIEN: I'm great, how are you?
CAFFERTY: After weeks of out of town tryouts, the 9/11 Commission brought it's show in to New York City this week, and quite a show it was.
We will take a look at some of the repercussions of their visit to the Big Apple, and as their work begins to wind down, try to get a gauge on how worthwhile this exercise of looking into the rearview mirror has been. HEMMER: You know, from some people, they are none too happy about what went down, too.
CAFFERTY: Well.
HEMMER: Thank you Jack.
Top stories here on a Friday morning. Starting in Iraq where insurgents attacked the main police station in the city of Najaf.
Military officials say at least three U.S. soldiers slightly wounded there. In Karbala nearby, at least five Iraqis were killed in ongoing violence in that holy city.
That's according to hospital officials. An Arab journalist also said to be among the causalities. American gunships and tanks pounded militia positions overnight said to cause heavy damage in its wake.
More detainees are being released from the Baghdad area facility at the center of the abuse scandal. Busloads of Iraqi prisoners leaving Abu Ghraib earlier. The coalition says it plans to release about 500 today and the prison population eventually will be cut down to about 2500 detainees.
The lawyer in Oregon arrested in connection about two weeks ago with the terrorist train bombings in Madrid has now been released.
Brandon Mayfield, arrested two weeks ago, turns out detectives in Spain say the fingerprint on a bag containing the detonators was not his after all. When he was released, Mayfield, a Muslim convert, held up a Koran and prayer rug and said in both Arabic and English that God is great.
Workers at the country's number two local telephone company, SBC communications, have started a four-day strike.
About 20,000 union workers in Connecticut, Ohio, and Michigan walking off the job. About 80,000 more set to follow, we're told. The workers are upset about a cut in benefits and the latest contract offer. Andy is tracking this this morning.
We'll talk to "Drew" in a few moments here.
Also in sports last night Detroit Pistons knocking off the New Jersey Nets. The Nets go home 90-69 the final.
Detroit in control from the very beginning. Jason Kidd, very tough night. He failed to score for the first time in his playoff career. Kidd had a sore back, was playing on a bad knee, but refused to blame the injuries for his lackluster performance. Bottom line the Pistons win.
They now face Indiana as the playoffs roll on -- to be continued sometime in October -- so stay tuned for more.
(WEATHER REPORT) O'BRIEN: Well, new photos have emerged this morning in the Iraqi prison abuse scandal. This time in "The Washington Post."
The photos have not yet been authenticated, but apparently show more images of abuse of prisoners.
Barbara Starr is live for us this morning at the Pentagon. Barbara, good morning.
BARBARA STARR, PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad.
Well, as you say, the pictures appearing in this morning's edition of "The Washington Post."
Everyone can certainly look, make their own judgments, about what they think these pictures show, but they do appear to show more violence, more sexual humiliation, of prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison. The pictures tell us little at this point about who precisely ordered it.
But "The Washington Post" this morning also publishing some sworn statements from Iraqi prisoners, one man saying, quote, they forced us to walk like dogs on our hands and knees. We had to bark like a dog, and if we didn't do that they started hitting us hard.
Now for the Bush administration, of course, another chapter trying to determine how all of this happened, who ordered it, whether this is a widespread problem of abuse and, of course, getting ready today as these pictures will certainly make their way across the Arab world -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Barbara has this -- these recent pictures in any way changed the debate over whether all the pictures or more of the pictures or the bulk of the pictures should actually be released to the public?
STARR: Well, you know, this is not an unexpected development, as you say.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had said some days ago that there were many more pictures; Congress of course had viewed them. We don't know if they saw these particular pictures. Everyone who saw them said they were very difficult, very disturbing and upsetting to look at.
But Secretary Rumsfeld had said he would like to release all of them publicly, but Defense Department attorneys said it could be a violation of the Geneva Convention for the U.S. government to release these pictures and show the humiliation of people in their custody.
So the decision has pretty much been made to show them to Congress in a restricted atmosphere, but not to release them publicly. However, the Pentagon knew full well that many media outlets including "The Washington Post" had additional pictures and were likely to show them in the days ahead -- Soledad. O'BRIEN: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon this morning. Barbara, thank you.
Perhaps the most disturbing element of these pictures is seeing American soldiers from ordinary backgrounds who seem to be capable of monstrous things. It raises the question is the capacity for cruelty inherent in all of us?
Phil Zimbardo, Professor of psychology of Stanford University asked a similar question in a famous experiment three decades ago, and he joins us this morning from New Haven, Connecticut.
Nice to see you, professor. Thanks for being with us. Give me as briefly as possible a description of your experiment from 33 years ago.
PHIL ZIMBARDO, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY: What we did is created a mock prison where we had college students play the roles of prisons and guards for two -- it was supposed to go for two weeks -- and what happened is I had to end it after six days because it was out of control.
Boys we selected because they were good, normal, healthy young men -- if they were playing the role of guards, began to abuse those roles, be cruel and even sadistic, doing all the things you see here at the Iraqi prison.
Stripped the prisoners naked, put bags over their heads, chain them, and then began to humiliate them and finally began to do the sexual humiliation which approximates what we see in Iraq.
O'BRIEN: These are all things that you say happened in the study that was supposed to last for two weeks and you ended it, cutting it off at six days. How quickly did things get out of control, to use your phrase?
ZIMBARDO: Well, it was probably the third or fourth day. Our situation was very, very intense so it accelerated what in Iraq probably took a month or so to get into.
And I think what we've seen in Iraq we have to really understand that this is a process that when you see a picture, you think that that moment but in fact this happened over a month.
So these young men and women got socialized into this new role into this role of prison guard who is there to abuse these prisoners, to break them, to get confessions.
O'BRIEN: In your study, was the group or was there a handful of sort of bad apples in the group who were these college students who were prison guards who basically brought everybody else along with them?
ZIMBARDO: No, see that's what's been happening all of the -- from Bush down we're saying it's a few bad apples, it's isolated. What's bad is the barrel. The barrel is the barrel I created in my prison and we knew we put good boys in just as in this Iraqi prison and the barrel corrupts.
It's the barrel of the evil of prisons with secrecy, with no accountability, which gives people permission to do things they ordinarily would not. So in this -- in the Iraqi situation, I know that this boredom, it's incredibly stressful job, it's -- they're very much afraid.
There's no accountability and what you didn't have in my prison you didn't have the CIA encouraging them to do it. And I think what's critical is trying to understand these trophy pictures which doesn't make sense.
Why would you take a picture of yourself in front of your crime if you thought about the consequences? And that's where what I call the Mardi Gras effect comes in. These people were trapped in a time -- a present-oriented time zone in which you never think of the future, you never think of the past.
So at no point did they ever say you know gee we will be in trouble if these pictures ever come out. These are trophy pictures.
O'BRIEN: How do you explain, though, the two or more who said no? I refuse to be involved?
ZIMBARDO: Oh, see, those are the heroes. I mean, in our study we had good guards who didn't get involved, but in our study they never challenged the bad guards.
So what you have is powerful situational forces that get the majority to do things they say they would never do and this is not just my study there's 30 years of studies by social psychologists.
But the interesting thing is there's always a few people who blow the whistle at Enron at in My Lai, which is again a direct parallel. But those are the rare people; those are the exceptions.
We like to think we would be the heroes but in fact most of us, the majority, would go along, would blindly obey authority, would do these dehumanizing things to other people.
O'BRIEN: It's a fascinating study from 33 years ago that does seem particularly relevant today. Profess Zimbardo joining us this morning.
Professor of psychology at Stanford University. Thanks for being with us.
ZIMBARDO: Thank you Soledad.
HEMMER: At 11 minutes past the hour in a new terror warning from the FBI telling state and local law enforcement agencies to be on the alert for suicide bombers. Now there is no hard evidence of a planned attack here, but there is concern that summer events like the political conventions, the Democrats in Boston, the Republicans here in New York, may encourage terrorists.
The FBI bulletin advising those to watch for signs such as people wearing bulky jackets in warm weather, or smelling of chemicals on their fingers or even people in stolen police uniforms or possibly disguised as pregnant women.
There are others who say these are not guidelines you can use at all. If Israel can't stop it for 30 years what can we do here? Nonetheless the warning has gone out.
O'BRIEN: Oh, things have become very strange descriptions of what you should be looking for.
HEMMER: There's something in there that says look out for people with clenched fists. I don't know if that leads you to anything but the word is out.
O'BRIEN: Interesting. All right, still to come this morning, President Bush tries to rally the GOP troops on Capitol Hill. Could discontent in the Republican Party hurt his chances in November? We've got analysis ahead from Jeff Greenfield.
HEMMER: Also, more mystery yet again today in that case of that abandoned girl in Baltimore. Two people claiming to be her parents now come forward. The lawyers for one of them join us in a moment here.
O'BRIEN: And this little nickel worth millions of bucks. We'll explain as AMERICAN MORNING continues.
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O'BRIEN: To politics now. President Bush is trying to rally his troops amid signs of Republican discontent. The president went to Capitol Hill yesterday for a pep talk and some damage control with fellow Republicans.
Bad news out of Iraq and Mr. Bush's record low approval ratings have some shaken in the Party faithful.
CNN's senior analyst Jeff Greenfield joins us to tell us what it all means. Good morning, nice to see you as always.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.
O'BRIEN: These rumblings. How significant are they and what are the focus of the complaints?
GREENFIELD: I don't think that right now the political significance is great is at all.
You always have members of a president's Party in Congress who are just not that happy, mostly because a president can't do as much as folks in Congress would like.
Presidents are usually less ideological than the House and Senate members of a Party, particularly in the House these days.
What is true is that the grumbling gets louder when a president's poll numbers go down, in part there's a fear that if the top of the ticket is weaker maybe the Congressional chances for reelection gets weaker.
By the way, that's almost stopped being true in the modern era. Most House seats are totally safe. But there is discontent on two substantive fronts.
First, obviously, Iraq. The news has been grim.
And the other one is spending.
For a lot of Republicans Bush' spending on the prescription drug bill, on the highway bill, the fact that he's never vetoed anything in three and a half years is a deviation from the traditional Republican handbook.
You know, fiscal discipline. But as a sign of any real political trouble from his own Party right now I think that's a stretch.
O'BRIEN: So then what in your mind would be a sign of political trouble?
GREENFIELD: The most obvious one is defections. We seen one example on the Democratic sign outgoing Georgia Democratic Senator Zell Miller has endorsed Bush and has been criticizing Kerry in very tough terms. Expecting may be speaking at the Republican convention this summer.
You're going to see a handful of Southern Democrats and Northeastern Republicans who are going to keep their distance from the presidential nominee but in general the passions are running so high this year on both sides that the need to win that I really don't expect to see much of that. For Bush, once again, the potentially toughest area is Iraq.
Senators McCain and Chuck Hagel have been critical for months and Senator Richard Lugar who -- Indiana senator who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been increasingly publicly unhappy with the policy.
If the toll in terms of lives and money keeps growing, I think the most dangerous sign for Bush would be not defections but sharper questions and comments from the Republican side of the aisle feeling the heat back home and one point that is in either count it starts sinking in the polls, then you're going to hear some real complaining because I have this blazingly original insight. Politicians do not like to be associated with losing.
O'BRIEN: Shocking. Shocking. Exactly. You got that sense from Congressmen Ray LaHood. He had to say was, quote, if it was October, I'd probably be having a heart attack. Ray LaHood of Illinois.
And another Republican who is close to the president said that the members of the Party is basically a who's who of Nervous Nellies.
Where do you -- where do you think the truth lies? Is it Nervous Nellies?
GREENFIELD: You know it -- in terms of November, yes. But every time one of these guys goes up or down the polls, members of his own Party go oh, this is terrible.
But in terms of the story of Iraq, there I think you're seeing something different. I think there are some real concern within the Republican ranks on substance. I think it's a $200 million cost, which wasn't supposed to happen; Republicans don't like spending tons of money.
And it isn't going the way they were promised it was going a year ago. And on that one I think we're seeing a little less politics and a little more substantive concern.
O'BRIEN: Jeff Greenfield, as always. Excellent analysis, and I love when you go out on a limb.
GREENFIELD: You mean like politicians hate losing?
O'BRIEN: That one, yes. I'm going to write that one down.
GREENFIELD: Well, you know television is visual medium.
O'BRIEN: Thanks. Bill.
HEMMER: Soledad, back to the story we talked about yesterday. Some new twists today now added to that mysterious story of an abandoned girl.
Authorities in Baltimore have been trying to find the family of a 3-year-old for two weeks now.
So a man who says he is the father has come forward and a woman, Patricia Harper, who says she's the little girl's mother planning to ask a judge later today to grant her custody.
The attorneys, Gary Gerstenfield and Rebecca Cosca of the woman are live in Bethesda, Maryland.
Good morning to both of you -- and to Mr. Gerstenfield, I want to clear up a few things here.
Why is this girl giving the name Courtney if apparently that is not her real name? Her real name we hear now is Akasha (ph).
GARY GERSTENFIELD, ATTORNEY FOR WOMAN CLAIMING TO BE ABANDONED GIRL'S MOTHER: Well, it's probably as good a guess on your part as ours, but if we were to speculate, it's probably because the father has been hiding out in Baltimore and he's been hiding out to keep the little girl away from her mother so he changed her name, told her that she was Puerto Rican instead of African-American and has been hiding away from the law.
There's been a warrant out for his arrest and trying to keep the child away from her mom.
HEMMER: And let me go back to your client here, the mother. Why has it taken her two weeks to come forward?
GERSTENFIELD: Well it's taken two years to find the child. It took about maybe ten minutes to get from the Washington area all the way up to Baltimore City.
I think they broke a few speed records in their effort to get to Baltimore to try to get their daughter.
HEMMER: Let me just stop you there. You said two years. Why two years? What happened there?
GERSTENFIELD: He left. He left the area; he took the child; he went into court and got what's called an ex parte order, and this is an order where a judge grants custody temporarily to a parent.
What happened is the father had a visitation with the child and took the child and went into court and claimed that the child was being physically abused and that he was being physically abused by the mother.
He was able to get temporary custody and then from that point took off for Baltimore. Of course we didn't know that. The court -- we filed some papers once we found out what had happened because the mother was not aware that he had gone into court.
We, representing the mother, went into court having that order that was issued for the father rescinded. Judge Crowser (ph), the Circuit Court of Prince George's County, realized the mistake, ordered that custody be given back to the mother.
That order now is two years old and the police have been looking for the little girl. But we've been looking in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties. We were not looking in Baltimore City and certainly we weren't looking for a little girl named Courtney.
HEMMER: All right then, if I could just interject here -- we're getting pretty knee deep in this custody battle between these two individuals.
Ms. Cosca, this father who comes forward last night claiming to be the father anyway. What's his story, how does he fit into this picture today?
REBECCA COSCA, ATTORNEY FOR WOMAN CLAIMING TO BE ABANDONED GIRL'S MOTHER: Well, he is the father of the little girl. Unfortunately, he took off with her two years ago. We've been looking for him since that time. We've been unable to find him.
Apparently, he's been kind of living hand to mouth, he has no driver's license, no steady employment. So it's very hard to track him down. He had changed the little girl's name to Courtney.
And so -- but -- apparently he had went to buy drugs and when he did that he left the little girl with a stranger. He was subsequently arrested and when he didn't come back that stranger then turned the little girl into Social Services.
HEMMER: So then why yesterday was all the talk focused on New York City and not the Baltimore area?
COSCA: Well, apparently the little girl had been living on Brooklyn Avenue in Brooklyn Park in Baltimore City, and so all she knew was that her name was Courtney and that she was from Brooklyn.
HEMMER: All right.
Well, listen, just -- the bottom line here -- Courtney or Akasha (ph) or whatever her name is and whoever her parents are, apparently they -- hopefully came forward and look out for the best interests of the little girl.
There's a court hearing later today and we'll follow it.
Thanks, that's Rebecca Cosca and Gary Gerstenfield down there in Bethesda, Maryland. Good luck later today -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning the FBI issues a new terror warning. We're going to have more details on that just ahead and Israeli troops begin pulling out of Gaza as Palestinians dig through debris after a deadly assault.
Those stories ahead as AMERICAN MORNING continues right after this.
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O'BRIEN: Welcome back everybody. Time for the Cafferty File and the "Question of the Day" from Jack. Hello.
CAFFERTY: Thank you, Soledad. Hello.
The FBI is warning of possible suicide bomb attacks here in our country. Everyone agrees its not if the U.S. will be attacked again but when its going to happen.
Meanwhile, a lot of attention focused on what did happen two and a half years ago, the 9/11 Commission brought their show into the big city this week. Two days in New York.
Former Navy Secretary John Lehman touched off a firestorm when he said the level of coordination between the police and fire departments was, quote, not worthy of the Boy Scouts.
Very dumb thing to say. Probably won't get elected mayor of the town any time soon.
Editorials have accused other members of the Commission of grandstanding, engaging in public theatrics. Their final report is due out in July. So as the hearings wind down now, here's the question on this Friday -- how worthwhile do you think these 9/11 hearings have been? And you can e-mail us your thoughts on that at am@cnn.com and we'll read some of the letters later.
HEMMER: Pretty fair question if you listen to the family members who were there this past week.
CAFFERTY: Well, yes the family members justifiably upset.
On the other hand, nobody had any idea that two commercial airliners were going to fly into the World Trade Center that morning and the effort that was made on the part of the New York City police and fire departments that day given the situation and the technological limitations for what they were able to do, nothing short of phenomenal. And to say its not worthy of the Boy Scouts is just an outrage.
HEMMER: He's going to be on at 8:00 by the way.
CAFFERTY: I know he is.
HEMMER: OK?
CAFFERTY: I know he is.
HEMMER: We'll keep you fired up until then. Another story we're going to talk about a coin from 1913 is not worth a nickel, it's worth $3 million.
That's what an anonymous coin collector paid yesterday for a 1913 liberty head nickel. There are only four others like it, we're told. This one was owned by Egypt's King Farouk, and was also the subject of an episode of "Hawaii Five-Oh."
I remember that episode. Hang ten.
O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, running out of a dream. An Olympic hopeful faces some time off and "Shrek" gets set for a big weekend. "90-Second Pop" just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
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