Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

News Conference in Landstuhl, Germany; First Major Storm of Winter Has Nation's Midsection Blanketed in Snow

Aired December 23, 2004 - 06:00   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.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Straight ahead in the second hour of DAYBREAK, a live update any moment now from Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. The wounded from the mess hall attack at a U.S. base in Iraq being treated there.
The first major storm of winter has the nation's midsection blanketed in snow just in time for the Christmas rush.

And if you're planning a holiday trip, you'd better check that route and check it twice.

It is Thursday, December 23.

You are watching DAYBREAK.

And good morning to you.

From the Time Warner Center in New York, I'm Carol Costello, along the Chad Myers.

Now in the news, within the hour, we are expecting that briefing from the hospital in Germany where the U.S. soldiers wounded in Mosul are being treated. We will, of course, have that live for you as soon as it happens.

More U.S. casualties in Iraq this morning. One soldier has been killed, two others wounded in a roadside bombing in Baghdad. That raises the total U.S. troop death toll in Iraq to 1, 320.

The woman charged with strangling a pregnant woman and cutting the baby from her womb will be back in court this morning. Lisa Montgomery has a hearing on transferring her case from Kansas to Missouri.

And just in time for the holiday, the first major storm this winter batters states from the Plains through the Midwest. Six people have been killed in weather-related traffic accidents and more snow is on the way.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes.

COSTELLO: How much -- Chad.

MYERS: Well, not very much. Actually, it's tapering down right now for a lot of folks.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: We are awaiting a news conference from Landstuhl, Germany. The Americans wounded in that awful attack -- in fact, it has started.

This is Colonel Rhonda Cornum, commander of the Landstuhl Military Hospital.

Let's listen.

COL. RHONDA CORNUM, COMMANDER, LANDSTUHL MILITARY HOSPITAL: ... people who are injured, I want to make sure that they understand that the medical departments of all the services are doing everything they can possibly do to get their loved ones back to them.

Since December -- the morning of December 22, we have received a total of 93 patients from down range. And more patients are expected to arrive today.

Of the patients that we have gotten to so far, that is -- and we have no more flights that are scheduled to arrive today -- 35 of the 45 suffering battle injuries came from the Mosul attack. At this time we have 17 severely injured people in our ICU. They are suffering from a variety of injuries -- abdominal injuries, shrapnel, broken bones and burns, and a couple of amputations.

We have so far returned 44 people to the continental United States and we have a flight out today that's going to the burn center at Brooke Army Medical Center and others will be going to Walter Reed tomorrow.

We have a very well trained, well equipped facility and staff that's working around the clock right now. In the last case yesterday -- well, it ended this morning. And we're operating again all day today. We think we have enough, but we have both alerted people in the local area that, in our local clinics, to help if we need it and we have had volunteers from all over Europe and, in fact, many places in the United States, if we are, in fact, overrun.

That's really all I have prepared to say.

I'll be happy to answer questions.

QUESTION: Of the 35 injured from, battle injuries from Mosul, how many of them are in critical condition and how many of them, if any, have been sent back to the States yet?

CORNUM: We, there is a -- there was a flight that went out. The number that have been sent -- the number of the -- the number of CCATs sent back, I will have to look that up. We have a flight going today that I believe has six. We should have had four more arrive this morning. So, of the critical care people. You know, a CCAT, a critical care transport team, can take up to three people per team that are ICU patients. And so we're expecting two teams of CCAT people to leave today.

QUESTION: And so of the 35 battle injuries from Mosul...

CORNUM: Of the 35 battle injuries, we have -- you want the exact number? I cannot tell you the exact number that are still in the ICU versus have moved to the ward, which have moved out.

QUESTION: Just to give a...

QUESTION: Can you give an approximation, perhaps?

CORNUM: Oh, probably half of that 35 are still in the ICU.

QUESTION: Can I just make sure I'm clear what you were just saying about the CCATs. You said that six people were expected to have been coming in today that were...

CORNUM: Four people...

QUESTION: Four people.

CORNUM: Four people arrived this morning on the CCATs.

QUESTION: Right.

CORNUM: We expect no more today.

QUESTION: And what's the six then?

CORNUM: And so six, I expect, are leaving with the flight going to San Antonio. We had eight arrive yesterday afternoon and I forget how many arrived yesterday morning versus the might before.

QUESTION: Colonel, is this the biggest single influx of patients from any one attack so far since the (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

CORNUM: Yes. At least since I have been here. It is possible that there was a single larger attack prior to my arrival in July of 2003. But since I've been here, this is -- obviously both Falluja in April and Falluja in November had more total patients, but it wasn't from one single event.

QUESTION: Colonel, is the pattern of injuries telling you anything about how the attack might have occurred, what might have been used, the presence of things like ball bearings, which would, again, speak to the question of (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

CORNUM: Well, what it -- the pattern of injuries, from our standpoint -- recognize that all these people have been operated on prior to their arrival -- is that it was obvious that they were not wearing their battle armor. I mean people are sitting down at lunch. So what is very different about these cases, from what we've been seeing lately, is normally the trunk, thorax and abdomen are quite well protected and there's a lot of extremity injuries. In this case, they were really primarily neck, chest, abdomen and not so much extremity injuries.

QUESTION: Has there been anything that would throw any light, to ask that question again, throw any light on the sort of devices used to cause the injuries?

CORNUM: Not from the Landstuhl perspective. I haven't -- I mean it's just -- it's -- by the time they get to us, most of the shrapnel has been removed. So whatever it was that caused the injury we don't, it's not present when they come here so.

QUESTION: But the suggestion that there may have been some kind of a device, an explosive device that could have had pellets or ball bearings in it, are the injuries that you've seen consistent with that possibility?

CORNUM: Well, as I said, I don't know what the injury looked like when the patient was injured. What we see, basically, is an open abdomen from, you know, from the chest to the cubic simphasis (ph). So it's hard to say what the injury looked like when they started.

You see, you know, when you operate you see evidence of repair of multiple internal injuries, but you can't tell what caused them. You can just see that they've been repaired.

So, from the Landstuhl perspective, I cannot shed any light on what caused this.

QUESTION: Have you seen other such -- the result of other bombings that have been taken (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

CORNUM: Well, we see the results of IEDs every day and -- but as I said, we normally see them when you see a pattern of shrapnel injury in all the extremities and, you know, maybe -- it depends on where the thing went off, whether it is mostly the left, mostly the lower extremities, mostly the upper extremities. But you'll see some evidence of injury in all of them. With a lot of these of these people it's -- there's really not very much on the extremities at all. But exactly what the wounds looked like that might shed some light on the device, that has pretty much been obliterated by the time they come to Landstuhl.

QUESTION: How many of the 35 that you have are in a, are in what you would call critical condition? How many would you say are likely to recover quickly?

CORNUM: Well, I would say that the vast majority of them we expect to recover. Now, recover quickly is certainly a relative term. And so everybody that's in our intensive care unit is "critical." We've got 17 people there.

QUESTION: And in terms of degree of criticalness, presumably of that half of the 35, the 17, there is a category of people who perhaps are not expected to make it through their injuries?

CORNUM: I certainly don't have anybody in my hospital right now that we are not expecting has a reasonable chance of recovery.

QUESTION: And just checking, you haven't had any deaths since arrival?

CORNUM: No, ma'am.

QUESTION: OK.

QUESTION: Can you tell us anything about the unit the people have come from? Any units or any affiliation service?

CORNUM: Well, they're primarily Army and contractors. You know, frequently -- in our normal patient flow, it's a mix of Marines mostly, you know, Army and Marines and contractors and whatever else. But in this case, it's all Army and contractors.

(AUDIO GAP)

COSTELLO: Apparently we have lost this -- there, we got it back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But yesterday we had seven civilians.

QUESTION: So we can't be certain about the total? But it's at least seven civilians?

CORNUM: Right. I can be -- I can find that out, but I don't know right now, no.

QUESTION: Is seven, seven of the 35? Or not necessarily?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No,. That was seven of the 35.

CORNUM: But whether they arrived yesterday, whether they arrived today or yesterday may not be quite so obvious.

QUESTION: And these civilians, are they all U.S. nationals? Do we know that?

CORNUM: It is known -- I can't right now guarantee that that's true. I think it is true. All the ones that I have seen it is true. But I can't tell you for sure that every single one of them is. You know, we -- our primary mission is taking care of them and it really is irrelevant to their medical care where they're from. We worry about that when we have to find a disposition for them but...

QUESTION: Do you know which contractors they were -- can you name any who they were working for?

CORNUM: I know that they're not all KBR. But I don't know the name of the company that at least one of these other, one of these guys is with.

QUESTION: You don't know any specific names of a company or can you tell us from any specific contractor where they're from?

CORNUM: I don't know where they're from.

QUESTION: But they're not all KBR?

CORNUM: But they're not all KBR. I do know that.

QUESTION: OK.

CORNUM: Whereas the majority of people that come are.

QUESTION: What kind of a time frame are we looking at for these 35 injured from Mosul to be turned around and stable and strong enough to (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

CORNUM: I expect the majority of them will be evacuated by probably Monday.

QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

CORNUM: I expect the majority of these people will have been evacuated on, probably by about Monday.

QUESTION: Is there any chance that any of them would get home by Christmas?

CORNUM: Well, the people we're sending -- it's unlikely they will get home. It is likely they will get back to the States in time for at least their families to meet them at the hospitals there.

QUESTION: For Christmas Day?

CORNUM: Yes. Yes. We are -- we worked very diligently to accomplish that. We have a flight out today, we have a flight out tomorrow and we're actually working on a flight for Christmas.

QUESTION: Do you -- can you give a figure when you'll be able to give a figure on how many of those who will be here are likely go get back for Christmas Day?

CORNUM: Sir, we don't really know that until after we've continued to...

QUESTION: How much of a strain has -- I know you receive, on a normal basis, around 50 patients here a day of different kinds, and correct me if I'm wrong. But these are obviously more severe wounds than many of those people that you would receive here normally.

How much of a strain has that put on your (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

CORNUM: Well, actually, it's interesting you would say that. They're not more severe wounds in terms of the potential for life changing events. It is certainly -- they're very severe. They're very sick. But an inter-abdominal problem is no -- is certainly not any more difficult to repair than extremities. And so I expect many of these people to get back to a hundred percent, which is much more difficult when you have badly shattered limbs.

So it's -- I don't -- this is not a -- it is horrifying in the magnitude and that it happened to people who were not protected and not participating in a military event at the time, but the wounds themselves are not any more problematic for the staff than usual.

QUESTION: So it didn't create any extra staffing problems for you here in terms of the...

CORNUM: Just the fact that they -- that so many very sick people came at once. That was really the only problem. You know, when we had eight critical injured patients arrive on the same flight, that did cause a very large flurry of activity in everywhere, whether it's in the operating rooms, but it's in the lab and -- they all needed another C.T. scan, for example. I mean they all need stuff. And when they all arrived at the very same time, that does make you very busy for a while.

QUESTION: If seven of the 35 are civilians, does that mean that the rest are U.S. Army personnel?

CORNUM: As far as I can tell. We have -- part of -- not everyone is exactly identified when they come because as they are taken care of wherever they are, you know, they may be missing all of their clothing, all of their I.D. And so sometimes people arrive and we are not a hundred percent sure of who they are when they get here.

QUESTION: Colonel?

CORNUM: Yes, ma'am?

QUESTION: You said you were expecting to receive some more injured in the next couple of days.

Do you have any idea about the numbers there?

CORNUM: Actually, I'm not ex -- at this very moment, I mean, you know, we look and they fill out their patient movement requests down range and that's visible to us. There's only nine scheduled to come tomorrow and so far those nine are not battle injuries. But as we say, the flight can build. And so I, you know, I don't know what's going to be on it by the time it gets here.

QUESTION: Colonel, given the nature of the ongoing investigation in Mosul, has any U.S. federal agency, the FBI, for example, requested permission to speak to any of the patients you have here in the hospital?

CORNUM: Not to my knowledge.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, are we finished with the questions?

Yes?

OK, we're going to take a couple minutes break.

QUESTION: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and then we're going to start...

COSTELLO: All right, we're going to step away.

You've been listening to Colonel Rhonda Cornum, the commander at Landstuhl Military Hospital.

You heard her say 35 of the 45 wounded came from Mosul yesterday. Seventeen are seriously injured.

General Don Shepperd, our military analyst, is on the phone with us right now live from Phoenix -- hello, General Shepperd.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: I don't know if you heard all of that, but she mentioned something interesting, Colonel Cornum did. She says most of the injuries to these soldiers were in the neck, chest and stomach, which means they weren't wearing their body armor. And I would suppose that would be because they were in that mess tent.

SHEPPERD: That's exactly right. When you go into eat, you'll disrobe. The body armor is uncomfortable. It's very bulky. It's hot. And you take it off when you go inside your quarters or inside a mess hall or that type of thing, when you're not on a military operation. A lot of people in, you know, when you're on base don't wear it just walking around either.

So the injuries that she mentioned are consistent with the blast where they weren't -- where they were -- they didn't have body armor that protected their torso. And that's what she was describing.

COSTELLO: It would seem if you're sitting, though, on what turned out to be a soft target that you would want to wear your body armor all the time.

SHEPPERD: Carol, unless you've been there, unless you've been in military operations, I know it's very difficult to understand this. There are lots of soft targets over there. You're soft any time you're walking around on a base because someone can lob in a rocket or a mortar. It happens all the time. We are not -- we were not expecting suicide attacks on the base because we thought base security was good enough. So it's not something you would normally do.

You take off body armor many times when you're not on the combat operation. It's just too uncomfortable to live in.

COSTELLO: The military suspects that one suicide bomber is responsible for this huge blast in Mosul.

Does that seem plausible to you?

SHEPPERD: Absolutely it does. I've been to Israel. I've talked to the families of people that were -- who had family members killed in these suicide attacks. I've seen the results of them. And, yes, absolutely. You can strap a lot of explosives -- and it doesn't take a whole lot to produce a great blast, especially when you're sitting around people gathered in close proximity.

You fill the -- you fill belts with pellets, nails, this type of thing, as they do in Israel -- and as we've seen in Iraq, also -- and you're going to produce this kind of injury.

So it's not, it's not something unexpected at all.

COSTELLO: General...

SHEPPERD: Big blasts from these things.

COSTELLO: It was a huge blast.

General, I want to read you a quote from General Richard Myers. He said, "The U.S. commander in Mosul, Brigadier General Carter Hamm, has a very good plan for force protection, but we have no front lines. We have had a suicide bomber apparently strap something to his body and go into a dining hall. We know how difficult this is, to prevent people bent on suicide and stopping them."

But if any place -- I mean shouldn't you be able to stop him inside of a U.S. military base?

SHEPPERD: Absolutely you should. There should have been screening procedures. You know, I lived through this in Vietnam, Carol. In fact, I sent some friends pictures of the base workers last night coming onto our base right outside of our quarters. These workers were supposed to be screened. About every third of them was screened. People get sloppy. People make mistakes.

You should be able to protect the people. You should have vetting of the workers themselves, which of course is hard to do in Iraq, and also you should have screening of the people as they come on the base itself.

So somebody messed up here, no question about it. You shouldn't be able to do it.

COSTELLO: So, General, what should happen then?

SHEPPERD: Well, you're going to have to review all of your procedures. You're going to have to tighten them up. You're going to have to provide some type of screening. Like you know the screening we go through at airports? There needs to be screening for explosives. There needs to be screening for metal. And they've got to review everything that they've done. The main thing is to find out who this guy was and how he got inside the facility, who he worked for. All those are important things, just like a police investigation -- Carol.

COSTELLO: General Don Shepperd joining us live from Phoenix this morning.

Thank you.

We're going to take a short break.

We'll be back with much more on the attack at Mosul.

Stick around. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Let's get back to Landstuhl, Germany.

Matthew Chance has been monitoring that news conference that was just held by the colonel in charge of the Landstuhl Military Hospital there, talking about the injuries to the troops that were terribly hurt by that blast in Mosul.

Matthew -- good morning.

CHANCE: Good morning to you, as well, Carol.

We just had a bit of new, fresh information coming from the commander of the Landstuhl regional medical facility here where I'm talking to you from right now. Colonel Rhonda Cornum telling us that at least 35 people -- so they've revised that figure to 35 battle injuries from Mosul in that attack on the dining facility, coming to the Landstuhl regional medical facility over the course of the last 48 hours.

Approximately half of that number are said to be in intensive care. The wounds, according to Dr. Rhonda Cornum, Dr. Rhonda Cornum, rather, saying that there are absolutely -- they look just like you would expect them to look if the troops weren't wearing their body armor. In other words, there were severe abdominal injuries, unlike in normal battle injuries that you get from Iraq, she was saying, where the extremities, the arms and legs, are injured most.

In this case, it was the abdominals of the individuals that sustained the most damage. She said there were broken bones. There were abdominal wounds, shrapnel wounds and also a number of amputations, as well. So some quite grizzly wounds there.

But what she also pointed out, which was quite interesting, that there was no indication from her examination, from her doctor's examinations of the wounds, as to what kind of device it was that actually caused those injuries, because obviously there's been a great deal of talk about this being a suicide bombing, which would involve a device using ball bearings, rather than a mortar or a rocket attack, which it was initially believed to be.

What Colonel Cornum is saying is that from the injuries that she has seen, there's been, there's no, it's not easy, it's impossible, she's saying, to see what kind of device it was that caused these very terrible injuries to so many American soldiers in that dining facility -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Yes, because most of the shrapnel is taken out back in Iraq and then they're flown to Landstuhl. So maybe that's why, I don't know.

Matthew Chance reporting live...

CHANCE: That's absolutely right. So...

COSTELLO: Go ahead.

CHANCE: I was going to say, that's absolutely right. What she is saying, though, is that at least half of that number of 35 people are in intensive care. She says that she expects the vast majority of that number will recover, but the implication, obviously, is in that the death toll may rise here at the Landstuhl regional facility.

COSTELLO: Matthew Chance live in Germany this morning.

Thank you.

Let's talk about the weather, because some serious storms have been brewing in the Midwest.

I want to bring Chad on in this, too, because we're going to go live shortly to Jacqui Jeras, who is in Evansville, Indiana -- Chad.

MYERS: Yes, ma'am?

COSTELLO: Is the snow tapering off now?

MYERS: It is for a lot of spots now, Carol. There's so much dry air wrapping into this system, being entrained here, dry air coming out of the West, that we're beginning to drop off the snow totals here. Even in the line all the way right along the Indiana-Ohio border, that snow has now gone away.

Still a little bit of snow north of Indianapolis. Still snowing heavily in Toledo and into Detroit, all the way up even into about Flint. And then Sandusky seeing the snow. East of there into Cleveland, it is ice still. And Columbus, Ohio, you're still seeing the sleet and freezing rain there. Everything east of there, Carol, is all rain.

COSTELLO: OK.

So let's head live to Evansville, Indiana now and our fellow meteorologist, or your fellow meteorologist, Jacqui Jeras.

MYERS: Right.

COSTELLO: Good morning -- Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning.

Can I just say one thing?

MYERS: It's cold.

JERAS: Whooo! Whooo! It is cold out here. In fact, I can't remember the last time I was this cold. Chad tells me the wind chill is four below in Evansville right now. The winds have been gusting and that is the big problem. The good news is that the snow has stopped, or at least that's what Chad tells me. But as you look around here, it looks like it's still coming down. I think that's because the winds are so strong. This is a very light, fluffy snow and it is really starting to blow and drift. Look how deep this is. Way behind me is where the snow plows came through and put up that pile. But all of this down here is drift. So we're talking about a good two feet drift. Snowfall totals right about where we are -- we're in northern Vandenberg County, kind of near the Gibson County line. Snowfall totals here are about a foot, a foot and a half. But just to our south across the river, about two feet of Snowfall has come down.

A beautiful ride in this morning. We are staying at a hotel about nine miles down U.S. 41. We've got some pictures we want to show you out of there. It just looked like a ghost town. There were cars parked all over the place. Some were stuck. I think some people just kind of gave up altogether. And also downtown Evansville kind of turned into a ghost town yesterday. A state of emergency has been declared for Vandenberg County, along with numerous adjacent counties. But the problem today is certainly going to be those winds, which are going to be picking up. We're going to see gusts at times around 30 miles per hour. Right now our gusts are about 20. So blowing and drifting snow is going to be a good possibility.

I don't know if you can see over here back behind me. Check out all these semi trucks, Carol and Chad. There are about 75 trucks parked back here where truckers have just given up. They say we're spending the night. They've been sleep here. Some of the workers inside of the store here, they have been here since about midnight yesterday morning. So we're talking about they've been here about 36 hours already.

COSTELLO: Wow!

JERAS: Maybe got an hour nap, is what they're telling me, inside of this store here. So we're all kind of camped out hoping to get out, maybe, later on today -- Carol, Chad.

COSTELLO: Oh, we hope so.

Thank you, Jacqui.

We appreciate it.

And thank you, too, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: It is a touchy subject, literally. Numerous complaints have led to an immediate change of policy for the Transportation Security Administration. Beginning today, airport screeners will no longer be able to pat down a woman's breast area unless there is adequate cause. I know you're thinking what the heck is that? Many passengers had complained that screening is overly intrusive. But the TSA says that if a metal detector wand goes off, then a search is still warranted. So I guess that would be the adequate cause.

Some confusion, though, will certainly ensue at the airport this morning. You have to take your coat off, yes. But what about your blazer? Yes, you have to take off your shoes, but what if they're tennis shoes? And what about that fruitcake? You might want to check that.

To help us sort it out, especially in light of the nasty weather in some parents of the country, "USA Today's" travel expert, Ben Mutzabaugh.

Good morning, Ben. BEN MUTZABAUGH, "USA TODAY" TRAVEL WRITER: Good morning, Carol.

Good morning.

COSTELLO: Do you want to start with the weather delays and options?

MUTZABAUGH: Well, I'm sure that travelers would just like to bypass the Midwest altogether this morning. But in short, it's just going to be a bad travel day for just about everyone. By evening, delays are going to ripple into the West and the Northwest. Parts are seeing relatively good weather. You saw the snow, obviously, in the Midwest, and that's going to affect airports like Cincinnati and Cleveland and Detroit hub airports. But by afternoon, that wind and rain is going to start affecting airports like Atlanta, airports in New York, airports in Washington and Boston.

So it's going to be a mess all over. Even in Dallas, you might get some deicing delays this morning. So it's just going to be bad pretty much everywhere.

COSTELLO: OK. Well, let's say your flight takes off on time, and I hope many do, you know, I fly a lot. I'm still confused by these rules by the TSA.

Let's talk first about this new rule that just came down that they're no longer able to pat the breast area.

MUTZABAUGH: Right.

COSTELLO: Do you know anything more about that?

MUTZABAUGH: I do. And actually, I think what you said earlier is a hundred percent correct. This is in response to -- they've had at least 400 complaints, mostly from women, who obviously did not like the very personal touch the screeners had when checking for bombs that might be hidden under travelers' clothing. And to try to make their service, hopefully, a little more customer friendly, they've now changed that search to only the perimeter area around the chest, is what they're calling it, for women. And unless the metal detector goes off, the handheld metal detector goes off in the that area, they won't touch on or between your breasts.

COSTELLO: OK. Only around the perimeter.

OK, let's talk...

MUTZABAUGH: That's what they say.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about shoes, because some airports even make you take off your tennis shoes.

MUTZABAUGH: Right.

COSTELLO: But I thought tennis shoes were OK.

MUTZABAUGH: Well, you know, I even checked with the Transportation Security Administration yesterday just to make sure. And the official policy is that shoes are not required to come off to go through a metal detector.

Now that said, you have to consider that there are certain types of shoes that screeners are trained to look for. Some of them involve the size of the heel. Some say maybe anything over an inch. There are other things they look for that could indicate that these shoes could be used to conceal explosives. You know, with the plastic explosive, it's not so hard to do anymore. And if there's any doubt, they're going to make you take off the shoes, even if they're sneakers, although more cases than not you should be OK with sneakers.

COSTELLO: Yes, you can...

MUTZABAUGH: There has been one rule...

COSTELLO: You can actually...

MUTZABAUGH: There is one rule that you should probably follow that -- I'm sorry -- that you should dress for going to the airport. Make sure that your shoes are easy to take off, and that goes for just about anything really.

COSTELLO: Gotcha. And finally, I just want to get into the fruitcake, because, according to FAA guidelines, the fruitcake will set off the alarms. So, it's better to check it.

MUTZABAUGH: That is true. And it's not just fruitcake. Even things like chocolate or peanut butter, when they got through the explosive detection machines they sometimes have an appearance that's similar to a bomb. And you can make your own jokes about a fruitcake resembling a bomb, but leave it at home. If you've got to arrive with food or chocolates, buy them at your destination.

COSTELLO: That's right. Not only will it help you, but it will help your family as well to leave that fruitcake behind.

MUTZABAUGH: Exactly.

COSTELLO: Ben Mutzabaugh from "USA Today," thanks for joining DAYBREAK.

We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back with much more.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired December 23, 2004 - 06:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Straight ahead in the second hour of DAYBREAK, a live update any moment now from Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. The wounded from the mess hall attack at a U.S. base in Iraq being treated there.
The first major storm of winter has the nation's midsection blanketed in snow just in time for the Christmas rush.

And if you're planning a holiday trip, you'd better check that route and check it twice.

It is Thursday, December 23.

You are watching DAYBREAK.

And good morning to you.

From the Time Warner Center in New York, I'm Carol Costello, along the Chad Myers.

Now in the news, within the hour, we are expecting that briefing from the hospital in Germany where the U.S. soldiers wounded in Mosul are being treated. We will, of course, have that live for you as soon as it happens.

More U.S. casualties in Iraq this morning. One soldier has been killed, two others wounded in a roadside bombing in Baghdad. That raises the total U.S. troop death toll in Iraq to 1, 320.

The woman charged with strangling a pregnant woman and cutting the baby from her womb will be back in court this morning. Lisa Montgomery has a hearing on transferring her case from Kansas to Missouri.

And just in time for the holiday, the first major storm this winter batters states from the Plains through the Midwest. Six people have been killed in weather-related traffic accidents and more snow is on the way.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes.

COSTELLO: How much -- Chad.

MYERS: Well, not very much. Actually, it's tapering down right now for a lot of folks.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: We are awaiting a news conference from Landstuhl, Germany. The Americans wounded in that awful attack -- in fact, it has started.

This is Colonel Rhonda Cornum, commander of the Landstuhl Military Hospital.

Let's listen.

COL. RHONDA CORNUM, COMMANDER, LANDSTUHL MILITARY HOSPITAL: ... people who are injured, I want to make sure that they understand that the medical departments of all the services are doing everything they can possibly do to get their loved ones back to them.

Since December -- the morning of December 22, we have received a total of 93 patients from down range. And more patients are expected to arrive today.

Of the patients that we have gotten to so far, that is -- and we have no more flights that are scheduled to arrive today -- 35 of the 45 suffering battle injuries came from the Mosul attack. At this time we have 17 severely injured people in our ICU. They are suffering from a variety of injuries -- abdominal injuries, shrapnel, broken bones and burns, and a couple of amputations.

We have so far returned 44 people to the continental United States and we have a flight out today that's going to the burn center at Brooke Army Medical Center and others will be going to Walter Reed tomorrow.

We have a very well trained, well equipped facility and staff that's working around the clock right now. In the last case yesterday -- well, it ended this morning. And we're operating again all day today. We think we have enough, but we have both alerted people in the local area that, in our local clinics, to help if we need it and we have had volunteers from all over Europe and, in fact, many places in the United States, if we are, in fact, overrun.

That's really all I have prepared to say.

I'll be happy to answer questions.

QUESTION: Of the 35 injured from, battle injuries from Mosul, how many of them are in critical condition and how many of them, if any, have been sent back to the States yet?

CORNUM: We, there is a -- there was a flight that went out. The number that have been sent -- the number of the -- the number of CCATs sent back, I will have to look that up. We have a flight going today that I believe has six. We should have had four more arrive this morning. So, of the critical care people. You know, a CCAT, a critical care transport team, can take up to three people per team that are ICU patients. And so we're expecting two teams of CCAT people to leave today.

QUESTION: And so of the 35 battle injuries from Mosul...

CORNUM: Of the 35 battle injuries, we have -- you want the exact number? I cannot tell you the exact number that are still in the ICU versus have moved to the ward, which have moved out.

QUESTION: Just to give a...

QUESTION: Can you give an approximation, perhaps?

CORNUM: Oh, probably half of that 35 are still in the ICU.

QUESTION: Can I just make sure I'm clear what you were just saying about the CCATs. You said that six people were expected to have been coming in today that were...

CORNUM: Four people...

QUESTION: Four people.

CORNUM: Four people arrived this morning on the CCATs.

QUESTION: Right.

CORNUM: We expect no more today.

QUESTION: And what's the six then?

CORNUM: And so six, I expect, are leaving with the flight going to San Antonio. We had eight arrive yesterday afternoon and I forget how many arrived yesterday morning versus the might before.

QUESTION: Colonel, is this the biggest single influx of patients from any one attack so far since the (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

CORNUM: Yes. At least since I have been here. It is possible that there was a single larger attack prior to my arrival in July of 2003. But since I've been here, this is -- obviously both Falluja in April and Falluja in November had more total patients, but it wasn't from one single event.

QUESTION: Colonel, is the pattern of injuries telling you anything about how the attack might have occurred, what might have been used, the presence of things like ball bearings, which would, again, speak to the question of (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

CORNUM: Well, what it -- the pattern of injuries, from our standpoint -- recognize that all these people have been operated on prior to their arrival -- is that it was obvious that they were not wearing their battle armor. I mean people are sitting down at lunch. So what is very different about these cases, from what we've been seeing lately, is normally the trunk, thorax and abdomen are quite well protected and there's a lot of extremity injuries. In this case, they were really primarily neck, chest, abdomen and not so much extremity injuries.

QUESTION: Has there been anything that would throw any light, to ask that question again, throw any light on the sort of devices used to cause the injuries?

CORNUM: Not from the Landstuhl perspective. I haven't -- I mean it's just -- it's -- by the time they get to us, most of the shrapnel has been removed. So whatever it was that caused the injury we don't, it's not present when they come here so.

QUESTION: But the suggestion that there may have been some kind of a device, an explosive device that could have had pellets or ball bearings in it, are the injuries that you've seen consistent with that possibility?

CORNUM: Well, as I said, I don't know what the injury looked like when the patient was injured. What we see, basically, is an open abdomen from, you know, from the chest to the cubic simphasis (ph). So it's hard to say what the injury looked like when they started.

You see, you know, when you operate you see evidence of repair of multiple internal injuries, but you can't tell what caused them. You can just see that they've been repaired.

So, from the Landstuhl perspective, I cannot shed any light on what caused this.

QUESTION: Have you seen other such -- the result of other bombings that have been taken (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

CORNUM: Well, we see the results of IEDs every day and -- but as I said, we normally see them when you see a pattern of shrapnel injury in all the extremities and, you know, maybe -- it depends on where the thing went off, whether it is mostly the left, mostly the lower extremities, mostly the upper extremities. But you'll see some evidence of injury in all of them. With a lot of these of these people it's -- there's really not very much on the extremities at all. But exactly what the wounds looked like that might shed some light on the device, that has pretty much been obliterated by the time they come to Landstuhl.

QUESTION: How many of the 35 that you have are in a, are in what you would call critical condition? How many would you say are likely to recover quickly?

CORNUM: Well, I would say that the vast majority of them we expect to recover. Now, recover quickly is certainly a relative term. And so everybody that's in our intensive care unit is "critical." We've got 17 people there.

QUESTION: And in terms of degree of criticalness, presumably of that half of the 35, the 17, there is a category of people who perhaps are not expected to make it through their injuries?

CORNUM: I certainly don't have anybody in my hospital right now that we are not expecting has a reasonable chance of recovery.

QUESTION: And just checking, you haven't had any deaths since arrival?

CORNUM: No, ma'am.

QUESTION: OK.

QUESTION: Can you tell us anything about the unit the people have come from? Any units or any affiliation service?

CORNUM: Well, they're primarily Army and contractors. You know, frequently -- in our normal patient flow, it's a mix of Marines mostly, you know, Army and Marines and contractors and whatever else. But in this case, it's all Army and contractors.

(AUDIO GAP)

COSTELLO: Apparently we have lost this -- there, we got it back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But yesterday we had seven civilians.

QUESTION: So we can't be certain about the total? But it's at least seven civilians?

CORNUM: Right. I can be -- I can find that out, but I don't know right now, no.

QUESTION: Is seven, seven of the 35? Or not necessarily?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No,. That was seven of the 35.

CORNUM: But whether they arrived yesterday, whether they arrived today or yesterday may not be quite so obvious.

QUESTION: And these civilians, are they all U.S. nationals? Do we know that?

CORNUM: It is known -- I can't right now guarantee that that's true. I think it is true. All the ones that I have seen it is true. But I can't tell you for sure that every single one of them is. You know, we -- our primary mission is taking care of them and it really is irrelevant to their medical care where they're from. We worry about that when we have to find a disposition for them but...

QUESTION: Do you know which contractors they were -- can you name any who they were working for?

CORNUM: I know that they're not all KBR. But I don't know the name of the company that at least one of these other, one of these guys is with.

QUESTION: You don't know any specific names of a company or can you tell us from any specific contractor where they're from?

CORNUM: I don't know where they're from.

QUESTION: But they're not all KBR?

CORNUM: But they're not all KBR. I do know that.

QUESTION: OK.

CORNUM: Whereas the majority of people that come are.

QUESTION: What kind of a time frame are we looking at for these 35 injured from Mosul to be turned around and stable and strong enough to (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

CORNUM: I expect the majority of them will be evacuated by probably Monday.

QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

CORNUM: I expect the majority of these people will have been evacuated on, probably by about Monday.

QUESTION: Is there any chance that any of them would get home by Christmas?

CORNUM: Well, the people we're sending -- it's unlikely they will get home. It is likely they will get back to the States in time for at least their families to meet them at the hospitals there.

QUESTION: For Christmas Day?

CORNUM: Yes. Yes. We are -- we worked very diligently to accomplish that. We have a flight out today, we have a flight out tomorrow and we're actually working on a flight for Christmas.

QUESTION: Do you -- can you give a figure when you'll be able to give a figure on how many of those who will be here are likely go get back for Christmas Day?

CORNUM: Sir, we don't really know that until after we've continued to...

QUESTION: How much of a strain has -- I know you receive, on a normal basis, around 50 patients here a day of different kinds, and correct me if I'm wrong. But these are obviously more severe wounds than many of those people that you would receive here normally.

How much of a strain has that put on your (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

CORNUM: Well, actually, it's interesting you would say that. They're not more severe wounds in terms of the potential for life changing events. It is certainly -- they're very severe. They're very sick. But an inter-abdominal problem is no -- is certainly not any more difficult to repair than extremities. And so I expect many of these people to get back to a hundred percent, which is much more difficult when you have badly shattered limbs.

So it's -- I don't -- this is not a -- it is horrifying in the magnitude and that it happened to people who were not protected and not participating in a military event at the time, but the wounds themselves are not any more problematic for the staff than usual.

QUESTION: So it didn't create any extra staffing problems for you here in terms of the...

CORNUM: Just the fact that they -- that so many very sick people came at once. That was really the only problem. You know, when we had eight critical injured patients arrive on the same flight, that did cause a very large flurry of activity in everywhere, whether it's in the operating rooms, but it's in the lab and -- they all needed another C.T. scan, for example. I mean they all need stuff. And when they all arrived at the very same time, that does make you very busy for a while.

QUESTION: If seven of the 35 are civilians, does that mean that the rest are U.S. Army personnel?

CORNUM: As far as I can tell. We have -- part of -- not everyone is exactly identified when they come because as they are taken care of wherever they are, you know, they may be missing all of their clothing, all of their I.D. And so sometimes people arrive and we are not a hundred percent sure of who they are when they get here.

QUESTION: Colonel?

CORNUM: Yes, ma'am?

QUESTION: You said you were expecting to receive some more injured in the next couple of days.

Do you have any idea about the numbers there?

CORNUM: Actually, I'm not ex -- at this very moment, I mean, you know, we look and they fill out their patient movement requests down range and that's visible to us. There's only nine scheduled to come tomorrow and so far those nine are not battle injuries. But as we say, the flight can build. And so I, you know, I don't know what's going to be on it by the time it gets here.

QUESTION: Colonel, given the nature of the ongoing investigation in Mosul, has any U.S. federal agency, the FBI, for example, requested permission to speak to any of the patients you have here in the hospital?

CORNUM: Not to my knowledge.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, are we finished with the questions?

Yes?

OK, we're going to take a couple minutes break.

QUESTION: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and then we're going to start...

COSTELLO: All right, we're going to step away.

You've been listening to Colonel Rhonda Cornum, the commander at Landstuhl Military Hospital.

You heard her say 35 of the 45 wounded came from Mosul yesterday. Seventeen are seriously injured.

General Don Shepperd, our military analyst, is on the phone with us right now live from Phoenix -- hello, General Shepperd.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: I don't know if you heard all of that, but she mentioned something interesting, Colonel Cornum did. She says most of the injuries to these soldiers were in the neck, chest and stomach, which means they weren't wearing their body armor. And I would suppose that would be because they were in that mess tent.

SHEPPERD: That's exactly right. When you go into eat, you'll disrobe. The body armor is uncomfortable. It's very bulky. It's hot. And you take it off when you go inside your quarters or inside a mess hall or that type of thing, when you're not on a military operation. A lot of people in, you know, when you're on base don't wear it just walking around either.

So the injuries that she mentioned are consistent with the blast where they weren't -- where they were -- they didn't have body armor that protected their torso. And that's what she was describing.

COSTELLO: It would seem if you're sitting, though, on what turned out to be a soft target that you would want to wear your body armor all the time.

SHEPPERD: Carol, unless you've been there, unless you've been in military operations, I know it's very difficult to understand this. There are lots of soft targets over there. You're soft any time you're walking around on a base because someone can lob in a rocket or a mortar. It happens all the time. We are not -- we were not expecting suicide attacks on the base because we thought base security was good enough. So it's not something you would normally do.

You take off body armor many times when you're not on the combat operation. It's just too uncomfortable to live in.

COSTELLO: The military suspects that one suicide bomber is responsible for this huge blast in Mosul.

Does that seem plausible to you?

SHEPPERD: Absolutely it does. I've been to Israel. I've talked to the families of people that were -- who had family members killed in these suicide attacks. I've seen the results of them. And, yes, absolutely. You can strap a lot of explosives -- and it doesn't take a whole lot to produce a great blast, especially when you're sitting around people gathered in close proximity.

You fill the -- you fill belts with pellets, nails, this type of thing, as they do in Israel -- and as we've seen in Iraq, also -- and you're going to produce this kind of injury.

So it's not, it's not something unexpected at all.

COSTELLO: General...

SHEPPERD: Big blasts from these things.

COSTELLO: It was a huge blast.

General, I want to read you a quote from General Richard Myers. He said, "The U.S. commander in Mosul, Brigadier General Carter Hamm, has a very good plan for force protection, but we have no front lines. We have had a suicide bomber apparently strap something to his body and go into a dining hall. We know how difficult this is, to prevent people bent on suicide and stopping them."

But if any place -- I mean shouldn't you be able to stop him inside of a U.S. military base?

SHEPPERD: Absolutely you should. There should have been screening procedures. You know, I lived through this in Vietnam, Carol. In fact, I sent some friends pictures of the base workers last night coming onto our base right outside of our quarters. These workers were supposed to be screened. About every third of them was screened. People get sloppy. People make mistakes.

You should be able to protect the people. You should have vetting of the workers themselves, which of course is hard to do in Iraq, and also you should have screening of the people as they come on the base itself.

So somebody messed up here, no question about it. You shouldn't be able to do it.

COSTELLO: So, General, what should happen then?

SHEPPERD: Well, you're going to have to review all of your procedures. You're going to have to tighten them up. You're going to have to provide some type of screening. Like you know the screening we go through at airports? There needs to be screening for explosives. There needs to be screening for metal. And they've got to review everything that they've done. The main thing is to find out who this guy was and how he got inside the facility, who he worked for. All those are important things, just like a police investigation -- Carol.

COSTELLO: General Don Shepperd joining us live from Phoenix this morning.

Thank you.

We're going to take a short break.

We'll be back with much more on the attack at Mosul.

Stick around. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Let's get back to Landstuhl, Germany.

Matthew Chance has been monitoring that news conference that was just held by the colonel in charge of the Landstuhl Military Hospital there, talking about the injuries to the troops that were terribly hurt by that blast in Mosul.

Matthew -- good morning.

CHANCE: Good morning to you, as well, Carol.

We just had a bit of new, fresh information coming from the commander of the Landstuhl regional medical facility here where I'm talking to you from right now. Colonel Rhonda Cornum telling us that at least 35 people -- so they've revised that figure to 35 battle injuries from Mosul in that attack on the dining facility, coming to the Landstuhl regional medical facility over the course of the last 48 hours.

Approximately half of that number are said to be in intensive care. The wounds, according to Dr. Rhonda Cornum, Dr. Rhonda Cornum, rather, saying that there are absolutely -- they look just like you would expect them to look if the troops weren't wearing their body armor. In other words, there were severe abdominal injuries, unlike in normal battle injuries that you get from Iraq, she was saying, where the extremities, the arms and legs, are injured most.

In this case, it was the abdominals of the individuals that sustained the most damage. She said there were broken bones. There were abdominal wounds, shrapnel wounds and also a number of amputations, as well. So some quite grizzly wounds there.

But what she also pointed out, which was quite interesting, that there was no indication from her examination, from her doctor's examinations of the wounds, as to what kind of device it was that actually caused those injuries, because obviously there's been a great deal of talk about this being a suicide bombing, which would involve a device using ball bearings, rather than a mortar or a rocket attack, which it was initially believed to be.

What Colonel Cornum is saying is that from the injuries that she has seen, there's been, there's no, it's not easy, it's impossible, she's saying, to see what kind of device it was that caused these very terrible injuries to so many American soldiers in that dining facility -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Yes, because most of the shrapnel is taken out back in Iraq and then they're flown to Landstuhl. So maybe that's why, I don't know.

Matthew Chance reporting live...

CHANCE: That's absolutely right. So...

COSTELLO: Go ahead.

CHANCE: I was going to say, that's absolutely right. What she is saying, though, is that at least half of that number of 35 people are in intensive care. She says that she expects the vast majority of that number will recover, but the implication, obviously, is in that the death toll may rise here at the Landstuhl regional facility.

COSTELLO: Matthew Chance live in Germany this morning.

Thank you.

Let's talk about the weather, because some serious storms have been brewing in the Midwest.

I want to bring Chad on in this, too, because we're going to go live shortly to Jacqui Jeras, who is in Evansville, Indiana -- Chad.

MYERS: Yes, ma'am?

COSTELLO: Is the snow tapering off now?

MYERS: It is for a lot of spots now, Carol. There's so much dry air wrapping into this system, being entrained here, dry air coming out of the West, that we're beginning to drop off the snow totals here. Even in the line all the way right along the Indiana-Ohio border, that snow has now gone away.

Still a little bit of snow north of Indianapolis. Still snowing heavily in Toledo and into Detroit, all the way up even into about Flint. And then Sandusky seeing the snow. East of there into Cleveland, it is ice still. And Columbus, Ohio, you're still seeing the sleet and freezing rain there. Everything east of there, Carol, is all rain.

COSTELLO: OK.

So let's head live to Evansville, Indiana now and our fellow meteorologist, or your fellow meteorologist, Jacqui Jeras.

MYERS: Right.

COSTELLO: Good morning -- Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning.

Can I just say one thing?

MYERS: It's cold.

JERAS: Whooo! Whooo! It is cold out here. In fact, I can't remember the last time I was this cold. Chad tells me the wind chill is four below in Evansville right now. The winds have been gusting and that is the big problem. The good news is that the snow has stopped, or at least that's what Chad tells me. But as you look around here, it looks like it's still coming down. I think that's because the winds are so strong. This is a very light, fluffy snow and it is really starting to blow and drift. Look how deep this is. Way behind me is where the snow plows came through and put up that pile. But all of this down here is drift. So we're talking about a good two feet drift. Snowfall totals right about where we are -- we're in northern Vandenberg County, kind of near the Gibson County line. Snowfall totals here are about a foot, a foot and a half. But just to our south across the river, about two feet of Snowfall has come down.

A beautiful ride in this morning. We are staying at a hotel about nine miles down U.S. 41. We've got some pictures we want to show you out of there. It just looked like a ghost town. There were cars parked all over the place. Some were stuck. I think some people just kind of gave up altogether. And also downtown Evansville kind of turned into a ghost town yesterday. A state of emergency has been declared for Vandenberg County, along with numerous adjacent counties. But the problem today is certainly going to be those winds, which are going to be picking up. We're going to see gusts at times around 30 miles per hour. Right now our gusts are about 20. So blowing and drifting snow is going to be a good possibility.

I don't know if you can see over here back behind me. Check out all these semi trucks, Carol and Chad. There are about 75 trucks parked back here where truckers have just given up. They say we're spending the night. They've been sleep here. Some of the workers inside of the store here, they have been here since about midnight yesterday morning. So we're talking about they've been here about 36 hours already.

COSTELLO: Wow!

JERAS: Maybe got an hour nap, is what they're telling me, inside of this store here. So we're all kind of camped out hoping to get out, maybe, later on today -- Carol, Chad.

COSTELLO: Oh, we hope so.

Thank you, Jacqui.

We appreciate it.

And thank you, too, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: It is a touchy subject, literally. Numerous complaints have led to an immediate change of policy for the Transportation Security Administration. Beginning today, airport screeners will no longer be able to pat down a woman's breast area unless there is adequate cause. I know you're thinking what the heck is that? Many passengers had complained that screening is overly intrusive. But the TSA says that if a metal detector wand goes off, then a search is still warranted. So I guess that would be the adequate cause.

Some confusion, though, will certainly ensue at the airport this morning. You have to take your coat off, yes. But what about your blazer? Yes, you have to take off your shoes, but what if they're tennis shoes? And what about that fruitcake? You might want to check that.

To help us sort it out, especially in light of the nasty weather in some parents of the country, "USA Today's" travel expert, Ben Mutzabaugh.

Good morning, Ben. BEN MUTZABAUGH, "USA TODAY" TRAVEL WRITER: Good morning, Carol.

Good morning.

COSTELLO: Do you want to start with the weather delays and options?

MUTZABAUGH: Well, I'm sure that travelers would just like to bypass the Midwest altogether this morning. But in short, it's just going to be a bad travel day for just about everyone. By evening, delays are going to ripple into the West and the Northwest. Parts are seeing relatively good weather. You saw the snow, obviously, in the Midwest, and that's going to affect airports like Cincinnati and Cleveland and Detroit hub airports. But by afternoon, that wind and rain is going to start affecting airports like Atlanta, airports in New York, airports in Washington and Boston.

So it's going to be a mess all over. Even in Dallas, you might get some deicing delays this morning. So it's just going to be bad pretty much everywhere.

COSTELLO: OK. Well, let's say your flight takes off on time, and I hope many do, you know, I fly a lot. I'm still confused by these rules by the TSA.

Let's talk first about this new rule that just came down that they're no longer able to pat the breast area.

MUTZABAUGH: Right.

COSTELLO: Do you know anything more about that?

MUTZABAUGH: I do. And actually, I think what you said earlier is a hundred percent correct. This is in response to -- they've had at least 400 complaints, mostly from women, who obviously did not like the very personal touch the screeners had when checking for bombs that might be hidden under travelers' clothing. And to try to make their service, hopefully, a little more customer friendly, they've now changed that search to only the perimeter area around the chest, is what they're calling it, for women. And unless the metal detector goes off, the handheld metal detector goes off in the that area, they won't touch on or between your breasts.

COSTELLO: OK. Only around the perimeter.

OK, let's talk...

MUTZABAUGH: That's what they say.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about shoes, because some airports even make you take off your tennis shoes.

MUTZABAUGH: Right.

COSTELLO: But I thought tennis shoes were OK.

MUTZABAUGH: Well, you know, I even checked with the Transportation Security Administration yesterday just to make sure. And the official policy is that shoes are not required to come off to go through a metal detector.

Now that said, you have to consider that there are certain types of shoes that screeners are trained to look for. Some of them involve the size of the heel. Some say maybe anything over an inch. There are other things they look for that could indicate that these shoes could be used to conceal explosives. You know, with the plastic explosive, it's not so hard to do anymore. And if there's any doubt, they're going to make you take off the shoes, even if they're sneakers, although more cases than not you should be OK with sneakers.

COSTELLO: Yes, you can...

MUTZABAUGH: There has been one rule...

COSTELLO: You can actually...

MUTZABAUGH: There is one rule that you should probably follow that -- I'm sorry -- that you should dress for going to the airport. Make sure that your shoes are easy to take off, and that goes for just about anything really.

COSTELLO: Gotcha. And finally, I just want to get into the fruitcake, because, according to FAA guidelines, the fruitcake will set off the alarms. So, it's better to check it.

MUTZABAUGH: That is true. And it's not just fruitcake. Even things like chocolate or peanut butter, when they got through the explosive detection machines they sometimes have an appearance that's similar to a bomb. And you can make your own jokes about a fruitcake resembling a bomb, but leave it at home. If you've got to arrive with food or chocolates, buy them at your destination.

COSTELLO: That's right. Not only will it help you, but it will help your family as well to leave that fruitcake behind.

MUTZABAUGH: Exactly.

COSTELLO: Ben Mutzabaugh from "USA Today," thanks for joining DAYBREAK.

We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back with much more.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com