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CNN LIVE SUNDAY

Car Bombs Kill Dozens in Iraq; Murderer Showed Off Stolen Baby; Small German Town Answers Santa Letters

Aired December 19, 2004 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: It is 11 in Washington, 7 p.m. in Baghdad. I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN global headquarters in Atlanta. Welcome to CNN LIVE SUNDAY.
Ahead this hour, deadly terror erupts throughout Iraq as insurgents try to ensure bombs and bullets, not ballots, rule that nation.

SARAH DORSEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Will your packages arrive on time this holiday season? I'm Sarah Dorsey, live at the FedEx super hub in Memphis. I'll have that story coming up.

WHITFIELD: And another sure sign of the holidays, letters to Santa. We'll take you to a village where thousands of those letters go.

But first, a check of the top stories.

A massive car bomb killed at least 30 people in Najaf, Iraq, today. The explosion happened near a sacred shrine, where a large crowd had gathered for a funeral profession.

Another car bomb in Karbala killed at least 14.

And in Baghdad, gunmen armed with hand grenades and machine guns opened fire on a carload of elections workers. At least three people reportedly died in that assault.

Authorities say Lisa Montgomery passed off as her own a baby girl cut from a mother's womb and then showed off the infant she named Abigail to friends. Montgomery allegedly confessed to killing Bobbi Jo Stinnett last week and cutting the fetus out of her womb. Montgomery is in custody. The baby girl is listed in good condition at a hospital. Her father has named her Victoria Jo.

And the unveiling of TIME magazine's "Person of the Year," President George W. Bush. Coming up, we'll hear from the magazine's managing editor on why the president was chosen.

Keeping you informed, CNN, the most trusted name in news.

We begin with the bloody Sunday in Iraq. Insurgents used kidnappings, street attacks and car bombings to terrorize Iraqis. At least 40 people have been killed and 10 others have been kidnapped.

The violence has been escalating ahead of the upcoming scheduled elections for January.

CNN's Karl Penhaul is live from Baghdad with the very latest -- Karl.

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Fredricka.

According to security officials and hospital workers, at least 46 people have been killed and close to 100 others wounded in two of separate car bomb attacks in two of the holiest cities of Iraq's Shiah Muslim majority.

The biggest of those explosions came mid-afternoon in the city of Najaf, just south of Baghdad. Thirty people, at least, were killed in that and more than 65 others wounded. Security officials do tell us that the toll there could rise because of the severity of some of the injuries there.

What seems to have happened was the car bomber drove his vehicle into a funeral procession as it made its way from the sacred Imam Ali stride (ph) towards the cemetery. It was the funeral procession for a prominent local tribal leader.

Two hours before that blast in the nearby town of Karbala -- that's about 50 miles away from Najaf -- another big car bomb there, this time at the city's main bus station. But that's also close to two holy Shiah shrines there.

Sixteen people, at least, were killed there, 30 others wounded. Again, though, the situation very fluid. And these casualty tolls, certainly the death tolls are rising as some of those who were wounded are dying of their injuries.

There has been no claim of responsibility for either of these attacks. Security officials do suggest that these may have been carried out by Sunni-based resistant fighters in an effort to try and stoke sectarian violence ahead of the January 30 elections.

But we have also spoken to some Shiah religious leaders, and they say that the attackers could well have come from within their own community. And this because of a recent edict last week, in fact, that threatened to expel some Shiahs from their own tribes if they continue to support anti-coalition violence.

And then, of course, in Baghdad, blood on the streets, once again. A group of election officials made their way down Haifa Street, a busy thoroughfare through the center of Baghdad close to the Green Zone, which is the headquarters of the U.S. in Iraq, the administration here.

It was an execution-style hit, according to police, because these election officials, in fact, a senior election official and two of his bodyguards, were dragged from their vehicle, made to kneel on the ground. And then gunmen put a bullet in the back of their heads -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Karl Penhaul, thanks so much for that report out of Baghdad.

We're keeping you updated on the situations in Iraq. On our web site, log on to CNN.com for in-depth reports. There, we also have the latest photos and video.

As American troops give their lives in the fight for Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld is personally reaching out to their families. The secretary of defense says he will now start personally signing every letter written to families of troops killed in action.

Rumsfeld made the statement in the military newspaper "Stars and Stripes." The secretary had been criticized for using a mechanical signature on those letters.

On the cover, once again, President Bush as TIME magazine's "Person of the Year." The magazine says Bush won by reshaping the rules of politics to fit his 10-gallon hat leadership style.

TIME's deputy managing editor Steven Koepp spoke earlier on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE KOEPP, TIME MAGAZINE: We just believed in the end that Bush is an important figure. Like him or not, he's a bold leader and the risks he's taking will change our lives.

People also felt he was so steadfast, stood his ground in terms -- in terms of following up and following through, that -- I think that that carried the day in terms of giving him another shot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: And stay with CNN to see how TIME magazine actually selects the candidates for "Person of the Year." That special airs today at 2 p.m. Eastern Time.

In our security watch, combating cyberterrorism. It's a real threat to it security of the homeland, and with just a stroke on the keyboard, terrorists can launch an attack that could paralyze the nation.

Here's CNN's Kareen Wynter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This just in to CNN, word of a significant power outage in New York City.

KAREEN WYNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rush hour in the Big Apple. Thousands of New Yorkers jam the streets of Manhattan after the lights go out.

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, NEW YORK MAYOR: There was a power failure in northern New York or southern Canada.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Declare a state of emergency. WYNTER: The cascading power outage from southern Canada to Detroit to Pennsylvania.

No foul play here. Rather, the aging electric grid.

But what if al Qaeda was just a click away from pulling the switch on a nuclear power plant or tapping into the country's water supply system?

(on camera) Officials are now taking lessons learned during the blackout to protect against what they call the real threat of a cyberterror attack that could be launched from thousands of miles away.

(voice-over) Former White House cyber security czar Richard Clarke called the scenario a digital Pearl Harbor. Years later, experts say the threat is still real.

MATTHEW DEVOST, TERRORISM & RESEARCH CENTER: We've built these critical infrastructures that are incredibly dependent on information technology, and we've found, over time, that that information technology is inherently vulnerable, which provides a perfect target of opportunity for a terrorist organization.

WYNTER: A congressional subcommittee on homeland security issued a report this month, calling for more government resources devoted to combating the cyber threat.

REP. MAC THORNBERRY (R-TX), CHAIRMAN, CYBERSECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE: In cyber, you have to look at the whole range of possibilities. Obviously, the one that concerns people the most is if you use the Internet to affect physical things like a water treatment plant or a dam or a nuclear power plant or something -- or a chemical plant.

WYNTER: Representative Mac Thornberry says it's especially challenging to secure privately owned assets.

THORNBERRY: It's the computers of the banks. It's the privately held fiber optic lines that go across the country. And so there has to be the kind of cooperative partnership with government and with private sector that we haven't seen that much of.

WYNTER: The Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or CERT, monitors the Internet 24-7, ready to act when problems arise.

ANDY PURDY, HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT: So we are acting aggressively and proactively to try to reduce the risk that we face and mitigate the vulnerabilities.

WYNTER: The blackout that gripped the northeast last year ended when the lights came back on. But it serves as a reminder of what can happen when a vital infrastructure is rocked.

Kareen Wynter, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Now to the heart-wrenching store of that stolen baby in Missouri.

New details are emerging about the hours after the child was cut from her mother's womb. Witnesses say that suspect Lisa Montgomery actually showed off the infant in her small Kansas town.

Reporter Sandra Olivas with affiliate KCTV has more from Melvern, Kansas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE WHEATLY, PASTOR: She was precious. You know, one of the prettiest babies I've seen for a long time. They always look a little smooshed up and wrinkled and stuff when they're first born, but -- and all bright red and everything. She was -- this baby was beautiful.

SANDRA OLIVAS, KCTV REPORTER: Pastor Mike Wheatly and his wife are used to welcoming families and their new babies into the church, so it wasn't unusual when they got a call yesterday morning from Lisa Montgomery and her husband about stopping by to show off their new baby girl they had named Abigail.

WHEATLY: We got to hold the baby and just love on it (ph). And she sat there and just watched us and telling me about the delivery and about how her water broke. And my wife asked her where she'd it. And she said she had it at the birthing center in Topeka.

OLIVAS: Pastor Wheatly says for months Lisa had everyone, including her own husband, convinced she was pregnant.

WHEATLY: She was pretty small, and I commented to her about it. I asked her if -- if she was due -- when she was due. And she said she was due in December. And I said, well, you're kind of small to be having a baby that soon. And she said, "Well, I always had small babies." And so I just let it go at that.

OLIVAS: Investigators say Lisa confessed she went to the home of Bobbie Jo Stinnett in Skidmore, Missouri, strangled her from behind and cut the fetus from her womb.

Within an hour of the gruesome crime, Pastor Wheatly now says that Lisa's web of deceit was unraveling.

WHEATLY: She calls me at 3:15 in the afternoon on Thursday and wanted to talk to my wife and tell her about the baby. And I said, "Well, did you -- do we have a baby yet?"

She said, "C.J.'s holding it right now."

OLIVAS: The pastor says Montgomery's husband had no idea the baby wasn't his wife's. He even brought the newborn here to the town cafe to show her off to friends.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were going around town flaunting the baby to everyone.

OLIVAS: She was known as a good neighbor, a nurturing mother and a caring Christian woman. Now the townspeople of Melvern say it was all a lie.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very psychotic. Just completely insane.

WHEATLY: Felt betrayed, we were angry, but most of all, we're very, very, very sad.

OLIVAS (on camera): Lisa Montgomery is in the custody of federal authorities in Leavenworth, Kansas. She could face the death penalty.

Reporting for CNN, I'm Sandra Olivas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Next, safety under fire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF FRED EGGERS, JERSEY CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT: It's never a crisis until an incident happens, but the incident can happen at any moment and at any place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Some cities face a firefighter shortage. Details coming up.

And it's crunch time to get those holiday gifts in the mail. Coming up, we'll take you live to one of the busiest shipping hubs in the country.

And a small town prepares for a huge visit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: With less than a week to go until Christmas, it's definitely crunch time if you're just now mailing your holiday packages.

CNN's Sarah Dorsey is with us now from one of the busiest places in the country, the FedEx hub in Memphis -- Sarah.

DORSEY: Hi, Fredricka.

I am in what is called the matrix. This is the nerve center for the FedEx of processing of all the boxes that come through here. One hundred sixty thousand packages are processed per hour.

And to put that into some perspective for you, in 1973 when the company first started, they processed only 186 packages per day. So, it's come quite a ways.

But FedEx says they couldn't have come this far without their employees, 50,000 of them in all now. In fact, they have a neat little program around the holidays called corporate volunteers.

And Alex Vergos is with us, joining us. He's a corporate volunteer. What this program does is it brings you out of your corporate job down here to help sort, and it has to be a lot different than what you do in I.T. Is that correct?

ALEX VERGOS, SENIOR TECHNICAL ADVISER, FEDEX: That's correct. By day, I actually in the organization that develops and support the systems that help this facility operate.

DORSEY: Tell me -- tell me why, exactly, you decided to take part in the corporate volunteers program?

VERGOS: Well, FedEx does a lot for the employees, and this is really a small way that people like myself and a big percentage of the corporate employees will come back and volunteer. It's something we can do to help the company.

DORSEY: Tell me how different is this when you're down here? What do you have to do that really sticks out in your mind as different from what you do on a daily basis?

VERGOS: I think the really thing -- the nice thing about this is that I get a view of what the other employees in the company are doing, because this company is made up of a lot of segments of different employees. And I don't really see what the sort operation does normally.

DORSEY: OK. Alex Vergos, thank you very much for joining us.

You can see there a live look of all the packages coming down here. In fact, this room, combined with the small package processing center here in FedEx, will clear 500,000 packages per hour. So, that's quite a lot going on here.

And Fredricka, I have my eye out to find your Christmas presents. I'll bring them home with us if we come tonight.

WHITFIELD: OK. How sweet and thoughtful. Sarah Dorsey, thanks so much.

Let's find out what the weather picture is like out there for those FedEx planes and trucks. Will they be making it to their destinations on time?

Rob Marciano.

(WEATHER REPORT)

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks a lot, Rob.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You bet.

WHITFIELD: When we come back, a last-ditch effort to get Scott Peterson off Death Row.

But first, here's Howard Kurtz with a preview of "RELIABLE SOURCES."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Coming up, the nominee's nightmare. Bernie Kerik's withdrawal and the tabloid frenzy that followed. How much is too much?

Plus, the media is still exploiting the Scott Peterson verdict, a new book about the Jayson Blair scandal at "The New York Times." And truth or fiction, one writer leaves us guessing. That's all ahead on "RELIABLE SOURCES."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A look at other stories making news across America now.

A Florida vacation turns tragic for two British families. Three people, including a husband and wife, died when their minivan ran into a gas tanker truck on a central Florida highway. Four children in the van were seriously injured.

Lawyers for Scott Peterson are looking for financial help to keep investigating the case. A web site, PetersonInvestigation.com, says Peterson was unjustly convicted of killing his wife and unborn child and asks for donations to help pay for private investigators.

Missy Jenkins graduated from Murray State University this weekend in Kentucky. Jenkins was one of the students shot by Michael Carneal at a Kentucky high school back in 1997. She lost the use of her legs because of the shooting. Several other students were wounded. Three were killed.

Jenkins says she now wants to work with troubled kids like Carneal to make sure no one else does what he did.

Well, there may be another burning problem in parts of America: not enough firefighters. Billions in federal funds to beef up fire response isn't getting out, apparently.

Alina Cho explains how the shortages are impacting some towns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A normal day for Jersey City firefighters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let see what we got here.

CHO: Engine Company 6 responds to a chemical spill. Nothing serious, but the big call could come at any time. Fire Chief Fred Egger says that's a problem.

EGGERS: The city of Jersey City is forced to close two companies a day because of the shortage of staffing.

CHO: Jersey City isn't alone. The National Fire Protection Association says two-thirds of the nation's fire departments are under staffed.

Places like Cleveland where seven percent of the city's firefighters were laid off this year. Houston where several firehouses have shut down temporarily. And New York City where six fire companies have closed permanently since 2001.

Eggers says it's like playing Russian roulette.

EGGERS: It's never a crisis until an incident happens. But the incident can happen at any moment and at any place.

CHO (on camera): Firefighters don't just fight fires: they're also first responders like on September 11. And that that only amplifies the problem.

HAROLD SCHAITBERGER, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIREFIGHTERS: It's a crisis for them, personally, endangering them unnecessarily. And it certainly is affecting the capacity for them to deliver an efficient and effective level of protection for their community.

CHO (voice-over): Take the high-rise fire in Chicago earlier this month. Four hundred fifty firefighters responded. The windy city was lucky; it has full staffing.

SCHAITBERGER: If that fire had occurred in another major city in this country where the equipment was only staffed with three firefighters or less, that fire would have been much more difficult to bring under control.

CHO: Congress passed the Safer Act in 2003, pledging $7.6 billion over seven years to hire more firefighters. But very little of this money has yet been distributed.

TIM RADUCHA-GRACE, NYU CENTER FOR PREPAREDNESS: Cities, states, counties across the United States are facing significant budget shortfalls. At the same time, they have a significant homeland security burden that's been placed on them. So it's put them in a tough spot to make some very tough decisions.

CHO: So fire departments, including Jersey City's, across the river from Ground Zero, will continue to do more with less.

Alina Cho, CNN, Jersey City, New Jersey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And when we come back, trading his sleigh for a bike. Santa makes a test run in Germany.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: It's a very busy time for old St. Nick, so Santa's helpers have been answering the boss' mail. Kids from around the world have been sending Santa their Christmas list to little German town called Heaven's Gate.

Here's CNN's Chris Burns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Himmelthault (ph) of Heaven's Gate, children sing the German version of "Jingle Bells" with the refrain, "Nicholas, unpack your bag."

Here, St. Nick's sack is loaded with letters full of kids' hopes and dreams and a little something for those who came to this tiny town north of Berlin to deliver their requests in person.

Never mind the shameless advertising for Germany's postal service. Santa's got a brand new bag.

The hand carried letters join the others sent by up to 200,000 children around the world, flooding Himmelthault (ph), population 600. A small army of Santa's helpers handles the sorting and replies.

In one letter 8-year-old Floria (ph) offers a poem to Santa about three kings from tomorrow land.

Other kids get straight to the point. "I would like an Autobahn for a remote controlled car, a book and other things," he says.

Some are more modest. "I would like a little Diddle Mouse doll, pens and nothing else," she says.

For others, it's a big dilemma. Santa has a tricky job of checking his list of naughty and nice against those wish lists. Baby dolls, teddy bears, some computers, but also nonmaterial wishes like peace on earth, that's what kids are wishing for.

Peace on earth. Something Santa wishes he could simply pull out of his sack.

Chris Burns, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Still much more ahead on CNN SUNDAY. In a few moments, at the bottom of the hour, "RELIABLE SOURCES" and the media coverage of Bernard Kerik and Scott Peterson.

At noon eastern it's "LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER." Among Wolf's guests are Treasury Secretary John Snow and the chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

And at 2 Eastern, a special program on TIME magazine's "Person of the Year."

But first, a look at the headlines.

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