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American Morning

More Than 116,000 People Confirmed Dead

Aired December 30, 2004 - 09:30   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.


RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. Half past the hour now, I'm Rick Sanchez, in for Bill Hemmer.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Heidi Collins in for Soledad O'Brien.

Here is what we now know about the tsunami disaster, more than 116,000 people are confirmed dead. Sumatra, closest to the epicenter of Sunday's earthquake, has been widely devastated. A geologist reports 75 percent of its coastline is broken and now beneath the sea. The loss of infrastructure there and in other hard-hit areas is keeping aid from reaching FIVE million survivors in desperate need of food, water and shelter, and also in danger of death from disease.

A dozen Americans are known dead, but the State Department is overwhelmed by phone calls; 3,000 Americans are still unaccounted for.

SANCHEZ: In Sri Lanka, the number of dead has risen to more than 24,000 people. Thousands more are injured. And doctors are going to the Sri Lankan coast to try and help some of the local medical teams there.

CNN's senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is there. He's joining us now from Dodangoda. That's in Sri Lanka. He's got an exclusive look inside a camp there for, well, those who have been displaced, and I imagine their numbers are large, Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Rick. Good evening from Sri Lanka, southern Sri Lanka, that is. About a million people in this country displaced. You heard the numbers of dead. But what happens to those people who are displaced? We talked a lot about settlement camps, camps for the displaced. We got an exclusive look into one of them. You see it right here behind me. This is what it looks like. Pile of clothing to the side. About 3,000 people are going to stay in this particular camp tonight between this infrastructure and the structure next to us. You can tell there's really not enough room. There's only three bathrooms here total. People are eating dinner right now. There is --seems to be enough safe food, enough safe water.

The question, though, for a lot of people is what next? they don't know what's going to happen next, and that's what they're trying to answer now -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: There's all this talk, Sanjay. You being a doctor, I'm sure you're extremely concerned about this, there's talk about epidemics, potential epidemics. What are you seeing? What's the situation there now?

GUPTA: Lots of things to talk about with regard to these epidemics. First of all, the concern is when you put a lot of people in aggregate like this, together in close quarters, with not the most sanitary of conditions, you could have epidemics of things like cholera, dysentery, typhoid hepatitis-a, malaria. Things like that are a concern. We haven't seen those here in southern Sri Lanka. We have heard about some outbreaks more on the western part of the country, the eastern part of the country, as well on the coasts, specifically talking about epidemics of dysentery, and in one case even chicken pox.

A couple of things, Rick. People have talked a lot about the decomposing bodies. Those in and of themselves really don't pose as much of a risk as people thought. Once the body dies, all the bacteria and the viruses die, as well. The bigger concern is living bodies. People living in unsanitary conditions.

And, Rick, we made this jaunt down from Colombo down the coast today and saw some of the devastation that has led to camps like this. You can see, I don't know if you can see some of the images there, but all these boats being thrown into the coast, boats broken in half. This was a fishing community. A lot of fishermen swept out to sea. This displacement camp made up predominantly then of widows and orphans as a result of that -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: I imagine you've had a lot of conversations with some of the people that we see there behind you. They're displaced. What are they saying? And what kind of hope is there for them? What's going to happen to them?

GUPTA: You know, it's sort of a little bit of an irony with regards to that, Rick. On one hand, you know, you look around a place like this and we don't see the utter despair that we would expect. People are smiling, they're eating. This is a real community of people. You come to the conclusion that this community of people probably existed before we actually got here and before they became displaced.

On the other hand there almost seems to be a bit of oblivion. People are oblivious to what the future holds for them. They don't know where they're going to go. They've got the water. They got the food. The biggest concern now, Rick, is where are they going to go live? The doctors we talked to said building housing, building structures is first and foremost now for a lot of the people here in the settlement camps -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Dr. Sanjay Gupta reporting to us from Dodangoda. That is in Sri Lanka. We thank you, Sanjay, for bringing us that report, and we'll certainly continue to check back in with you -- Heidi.

COLLINS: One California couple was scuba diving off Phuket, Thailand, as the tsunami passed right over them. Earlier I spoke to Fay Wachs and Eugene Kim about their harrowing tale of survival. I asked Eugene what was the first indication he had that something was wrong. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EUGENE KIM, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: The first was when the current was so strong that I got separated from my wife and the divemaster. Things got totally whited out, meaning I had no visibility, zero visibility, and I could feel myself kind of being tossed around. I looked down at my gauge as I making my ascent and noticed that I was still dropping. So it was very, very scary.

We -- when we reunited back on the boat, we kind of talked about just how crazy things were down in the water, and we ended up doing another dive, and it wasn't until later in the afternoon when we returned to the harbor that we realized the tsunami had passed through the ocean where we were diving.

COLLINS: Faye, what was that like? I mean, when you hear this, it's just unbelievable that you were out in the water and had no idea what had happened.

FAYE WACHS, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: Well, as we came in to shore and we began to see the wreckage, and we received a text message from one of the other divers that had just happened to climb to the top point of the island at that moment, saying catastrophe. It was a very surreal experience to be coming in and just seeing television sets, dressers, chairs, floating by, just wreckage, entire platters of food that looked like they had just been set out in the restaurant, and then eventually bodies floating by in the water.

It was an -- unbelievable to go and see the island that we had just left that had been. I mean, truly, we had been going out on the boat saying this is such a beautiful place, what a beautiful day. And coming back, and seeing it just completely destroyed, and realizing just how truly lucky we had been.

COLLINS: Yes. And your hotel completely destroyed I understand, as well.

WACHS: Yes, our room was flattened.

COLLINS: Wow. Do you think, is it fair to say, that by staying under water, where you were, that may have saved your life, Gene?

KIM: It's really -- you know, I've thought about that a lot. It's tough to speculate on that, I think, with any certainty. All I'll say is we were extremely lucky, and it was just an extremely eerie feeling knowing that something that terrible had passed over us and we were completely unscathed.

COLLINS: How were you able to let everybody know that you were OK?

WACHS: Well, people on the island were great. Anyone who had a cell phone tried to help us call out. But unfortunately, none of the signals were going through at that point. And it was probably almost 30, 36 hours before we were able to get to a phone. But once we -- because we were helping people, we were on the island awhile. But when we got to land the Thai government had set up an immigration point and they were providing free long-distance phone calls to everyone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Gene Kim and Faye Wachs who survived the tsunami while scuba diving. They said they'll definitely dive again and would like to return to Thailand to see it rebuilt.

SANCHEZ: New bulletin by the Department of Homeland Security is detailing how al Qaeda chooses potential targets and techniques the terrorist group uses for surveillance here in the United States.

Also today in our CNN Security Watch, we're looking at this new development. CNN homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve is live with us from Washington.

What's the situation, Jeanne?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Trick, this bulletin which we've obtained, eight pages long, is as one expert put it, a research paper of sorts. A detailed analysis of how al Qaeda conducts surveillance, and what it's looking for. It was sent to homeland security officials and law enforcement so they can use it to address vulnerabilities and draw up security plans. It is based on documents seized last summer in Pakistan that resulted in a hike in the terrorist threat level around financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Is this sort of surveillance going on right now? Well, a former Department of Homeland Security official put it this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD FALKENRATH, FMR. DEP. ADVISER, HOMELAND SECURITY: We don't know that they have anyone here today doing this. If we did, the FBI would identify them and arrest them. And there was nothing in the bulletin released by the government last night suggesting that there was information that people were carrying out these activities right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MESERVE: At the time the threat level was raised, government officials said the surveillance information was extraordinarily detailed. The new bulletin provides some examples how one building contained an acre and a half of glass, how a security guard at another building carried a colt .45 pistol. Government officials say there is nothing to indicate al Qaeda has moved to an operational phase and in fact, the threat level around those financial targets was lowered shortly after the election because working from the seized surveillance documents, authorities were able to address the building's vulnerabilities -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Jeanne, let me ask you about this laser beam incident we've been hearing about. Laser beams directed at pilots. As many as six have been reported. Does the FBI know the nature of these, for example, whether they were intentional?

MESERVE: No, they really don't. There have been six of these incidents, as you mention, over the last five days. One of them on Monday as a plane made an approach to the Cleveland airport. In that case, it happened about 15 miles out from the airport. They think they know the general area from which it came and they are investigating here. They don't know whether these were kids playing with something they got for Christmas, or whether this was an intentional effort to disrupt the aircraft.

We do know that back in November a bulletin was sent out, warning that terrorists were interested in these laser beams. And also we've looked at an FAA report that was done on this, indicating that these beams can affect the vision of pilots and copilots and that the possibility does exist for some sort of accident if somebody used them in just the right way.

SANCHEZ: CNN homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve, bringing us up to date on both of those developments. We thank you, Jeanne.

COLLINS: I'm going to check on the other headlines this morning with Carol Costello. And Carol's starting with that awful story in Kansas City.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. An update on that now. Good morning, everyone. The woman accused of strangling a pregnant woman and snatching her baby appears before a federal judge again today. Lisa Montgomery has a detention hearing scheduled in Kansas City, Missouri. Prosecutors have charged her with kidnapping resulting in death. It's considered unlikely the judge will allow couldn't Montgomery free on bond pending trial.

And the Big Apple is gearing up for the big ball drop. The New York City police department is beefing up security in anticipation of the 750,000 people expected to pack Times Square on New Year's Eve. Event organizers are preparing to drop more than a ton of confetti at midnight. Yesterday crews tested it out to make sure it falls just right. And the weather, oh, it's expected to be absolutely fabulous for the festivities. Right, Chad?

(WEATHER REPORT)

SANCHEZ: Well, you can find out what corporate America is doing to try and provide tsunami relief. Andy's going to be "Minding Your Business."

COLLINS: Also, violence threatens the election in Iraq. Some say go forward as planned. Others say, you have to postpone it. But is there a third solution? We'll talk about that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: In Iraq, voters are scheduled to go to the polls just a month from now. That, amid a backdrop of daily insurgent violence and calls to delay the vote.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Richard Lugar shared some thoughts on the subject earlier on "American Morning."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

U.S. SENATOR RICHARD LUGAR (R-IN): I would just simply say that there is no end of potential reasons to postpone, to temporize, to try to do something to tweak the system. Ultimately we have to come down to a thought that there is going to be an election. Now, January 30th, all parties agree now is going to be that time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: So, can Iraqis and the world expect to see free and fair elections there?

We are joined by Iraq's ambassador to the U.N., Samir Sumaidy, for more on that.

Now, you heard what the senator said. What do you think two or three weeks of postponement would do for the election process?

AMBASSADOR SAMIR SUMAIDY, IRAQI PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED NATIONS: I don't think, first of all, that two or three weeks will be seen as a major postponement. I have defended the date, the 30th of January, throughout, and will continue to do so.

We don't want a major postponement such as was talked about, three to six months. That would be seen as victory to the terrorists. But two to three weeks would give us time for getting the Iraqis outside Iraq to have an opportunity to vote -- more of them. Because at the moment they have only one week to register, and thus far too short.

COLLINS: OK. We have heard an awful lot about either keeping the elections, you know, scheduled for January 30th, or postponing them in some way. You actually say, according to the op-ed that you wrote in Washington Post that there's a third way. What is that third way?

SUMAIDY: The third way is to go ahead with the election. But the point I make in that op-ed is that the national assembly that is produced as a result of this election, if it's not broadly representative, then it should not go ahead and write the constitution. That's really the central point I'm making. It should delay the writing of the constitution.

We should not delay the elections.

Let's just remind you, this idea of delaying of two weeks or three weeks is an afterthought, and it's not really the central part of my theme. You might remember that the TAL, the Transitional Administrative Law was delayed by two weeks or three weeks and it was not considered as a delay. So we should be on target. We should proceed with the political process according to the time line. But we must be careful about when and how to write the permanent constitution of Iraq.

COLLINS: Now, you are part of the Sunni tribe and there's been a lot of concern about Sunnis, you know, boycotting the elections, the largest party anyway, largest members. In this op-ed you also say that if the Sunnis don't show up in adequate numbers, then one possible mechanism could be to leave a number of seats vacant for the unprecedented provinces. What does that mean? How long would these seats stay open?

SUMAIDY: Well, they would stay open until the next election. And, again, this is not the central point I make. These are various ideas for debate.

There is a debate going on in Iraq now, how to get out of this difficult situation, because we know that in some of the areas, the security situation is not sufficient to assure citizens to go out and vote freely.

So we've got to find a way to assure these people that they will not be forgotten, that they will not be disenfranchised, and to tell them, fine, we'll go ahead with the election but you will be remembered.

COLLINS: So as you envision this process taking place on the 30th, what do you see in your mind?

SUMAIDY: I see in my mind that it will go ahead more or less quite well and demonstrably cleanly in the majority of Iraq. But there will be areas which will be -- where it will be difficult for people to go out and vote, because insurgents and terrorists will intimidate people and frighten them out of going to elections.

The majority of the country will vote on time.

COLLINS: We appreciate your time on this issue that we'll be talking about for some time to come, that is for sure.

Ambassador Samir Sumaidy, thank you.

SUMAIDY: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Corporate America showing it truly is the season of giving. You're going to find out how you can help businesses provide relief for tsunami victims. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: And we welcome you back. The market's open. A check on that. Also a plan to forgive some debt for some of the countries that have been hit the hardest by these tsunamis. Andy Serwer "Minding Your Business."

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: It's been a long day with all these stories coming out of Southeast Asia continuing to come out and the pictures we're looking at, Rick.

Let's go down to wall street, though, take a bit of a break in the action and see what's happening. Up nine for the Dow industrials this morning, trading expected to be slow today and tomorrow as we head in to the final trading days of the year and the holiday weekend.

Yes, debt relief. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is proposing debt relief for both Indonesia and Somalia, two countries that owe western nations billions of dollars. It would be a debt moratorium, so they wouldn't be making interest payments on the debt that they owed to the West, an interesting idea. We'll see, obviously, where that plays over the next couple days.

More stories about how corporate America is responding to the crisis, and it's encouraging to see big companies, along with ordinary Americans stepping up. Here are some big names. Abbott Labs giving $4 million in cash and in pharmaceuticals. Citibank, which, of course, has a presence all over the globe, Cisco Systems and Pepsico, as well.

Here are some other stories that are of interest. Starbucks Coffee, you'll be happy to note that the network you're watching, CNN, has just made a contribution by buying this back of sumatra coffee from Starbucks, $2 of which goes to the relief effort for every pound that you buy. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, the richest man in the world, has donated $3 million, also in Seattle. Here's an interesting one, university of California Santa Barbara Gauchos Basketball game tonight, against the Irvine Anteaters. Admission is free if you bring donations. And on and on it goes across the country.

SANCHEZ: That's great. Good to hear. Did you spring for that yourself, by the way?

SERWER: No, CNN bought it. I may use it.

COLLINS: Thank you, Andy -- Toure.

TOURE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Susan Sontag was one of America's most popular public intellectuals. She appeared on "The Simpsons" and in the lyrics to "Rent." On Tuesday she died of leukemia in Manhattan, cutting short a four-decade career that's still very much in motion.

She's also one of my all-time favorite writers, and if you want to get to know a little bit more about her work, here's three suggestions: "On Photography" was her landmark appreciation of the art of photography, exploring how photographers don't simply record moments, but are part of inventing them. She wrote a masterful fictional short story called "The Way We Live Now," about a circle of people transformed by AIDS, which is collected here in the best American short stories of the century. And in her nonfiction book, "Illness as Metaphor and AIDS in Its Metaphors," she attacks the fraudulent idea that AIDS is punishment for deviant sex. That book began with the lines, "Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship in the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick." Sontag was freed from the kingdom of the sick on Tuesday. She was 71, and she will be missed.

SANCHEZ: AMERICAN MORNING will be back in just a moment.

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Aired December 30, 2004 - 09:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. Half past the hour now, I'm Rick Sanchez, in for Bill Hemmer.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Heidi Collins in for Soledad O'Brien.

Here is what we now know about the tsunami disaster, more than 116,000 people are confirmed dead. Sumatra, closest to the epicenter of Sunday's earthquake, has been widely devastated. A geologist reports 75 percent of its coastline is broken and now beneath the sea. The loss of infrastructure there and in other hard-hit areas is keeping aid from reaching FIVE million survivors in desperate need of food, water and shelter, and also in danger of death from disease.

A dozen Americans are known dead, but the State Department is overwhelmed by phone calls; 3,000 Americans are still unaccounted for.

SANCHEZ: In Sri Lanka, the number of dead has risen to more than 24,000 people. Thousands more are injured. And doctors are going to the Sri Lankan coast to try and help some of the local medical teams there.

CNN's senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is there. He's joining us now from Dodangoda. That's in Sri Lanka. He's got an exclusive look inside a camp there for, well, those who have been displaced, and I imagine their numbers are large, Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Rick. Good evening from Sri Lanka, southern Sri Lanka, that is. About a million people in this country displaced. You heard the numbers of dead. But what happens to those people who are displaced? We talked a lot about settlement camps, camps for the displaced. We got an exclusive look into one of them. You see it right here behind me. This is what it looks like. Pile of clothing to the side. About 3,000 people are going to stay in this particular camp tonight between this infrastructure and the structure next to us. You can tell there's really not enough room. There's only three bathrooms here total. People are eating dinner right now. There is --seems to be enough safe food, enough safe water.

The question, though, for a lot of people is what next? they don't know what's going to happen next, and that's what they're trying to answer now -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: There's all this talk, Sanjay. You being a doctor, I'm sure you're extremely concerned about this, there's talk about epidemics, potential epidemics. What are you seeing? What's the situation there now?

GUPTA: Lots of things to talk about with regard to these epidemics. First of all, the concern is when you put a lot of people in aggregate like this, together in close quarters, with not the most sanitary of conditions, you could have epidemics of things like cholera, dysentery, typhoid hepatitis-a, malaria. Things like that are a concern. We haven't seen those here in southern Sri Lanka. We have heard about some outbreaks more on the western part of the country, the eastern part of the country, as well on the coasts, specifically talking about epidemics of dysentery, and in one case even chicken pox.

A couple of things, Rick. People have talked a lot about the decomposing bodies. Those in and of themselves really don't pose as much of a risk as people thought. Once the body dies, all the bacteria and the viruses die, as well. The bigger concern is living bodies. People living in unsanitary conditions.

And, Rick, we made this jaunt down from Colombo down the coast today and saw some of the devastation that has led to camps like this. You can see, I don't know if you can see some of the images there, but all these boats being thrown into the coast, boats broken in half. This was a fishing community. A lot of fishermen swept out to sea. This displacement camp made up predominantly then of widows and orphans as a result of that -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: I imagine you've had a lot of conversations with some of the people that we see there behind you. They're displaced. What are they saying? And what kind of hope is there for them? What's going to happen to them?

GUPTA: You know, it's sort of a little bit of an irony with regards to that, Rick. On one hand, you know, you look around a place like this and we don't see the utter despair that we would expect. People are smiling, they're eating. This is a real community of people. You come to the conclusion that this community of people probably existed before we actually got here and before they became displaced.

On the other hand there almost seems to be a bit of oblivion. People are oblivious to what the future holds for them. They don't know where they're going to go. They've got the water. They got the food. The biggest concern now, Rick, is where are they going to go live? The doctors we talked to said building housing, building structures is first and foremost now for a lot of the people here in the settlement camps -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Dr. Sanjay Gupta reporting to us from Dodangoda. That is in Sri Lanka. We thank you, Sanjay, for bringing us that report, and we'll certainly continue to check back in with you -- Heidi.

COLLINS: One California couple was scuba diving off Phuket, Thailand, as the tsunami passed right over them. Earlier I spoke to Fay Wachs and Eugene Kim about their harrowing tale of survival. I asked Eugene what was the first indication he had that something was wrong. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EUGENE KIM, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: The first was when the current was so strong that I got separated from my wife and the divemaster. Things got totally whited out, meaning I had no visibility, zero visibility, and I could feel myself kind of being tossed around. I looked down at my gauge as I making my ascent and noticed that I was still dropping. So it was very, very scary.

We -- when we reunited back on the boat, we kind of talked about just how crazy things were down in the water, and we ended up doing another dive, and it wasn't until later in the afternoon when we returned to the harbor that we realized the tsunami had passed through the ocean where we were diving.

COLLINS: Faye, what was that like? I mean, when you hear this, it's just unbelievable that you were out in the water and had no idea what had happened.

FAYE WACHS, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: Well, as we came in to shore and we began to see the wreckage, and we received a text message from one of the other divers that had just happened to climb to the top point of the island at that moment, saying catastrophe. It was a very surreal experience to be coming in and just seeing television sets, dressers, chairs, floating by, just wreckage, entire platters of food that looked like they had just been set out in the restaurant, and then eventually bodies floating by in the water.

It was an -- unbelievable to go and see the island that we had just left that had been. I mean, truly, we had been going out on the boat saying this is such a beautiful place, what a beautiful day. And coming back, and seeing it just completely destroyed, and realizing just how truly lucky we had been.

COLLINS: Yes. And your hotel completely destroyed I understand, as well.

WACHS: Yes, our room was flattened.

COLLINS: Wow. Do you think, is it fair to say, that by staying under water, where you were, that may have saved your life, Gene?

KIM: It's really -- you know, I've thought about that a lot. It's tough to speculate on that, I think, with any certainty. All I'll say is we were extremely lucky, and it was just an extremely eerie feeling knowing that something that terrible had passed over us and we were completely unscathed.

COLLINS: How were you able to let everybody know that you were OK?

WACHS: Well, people on the island were great. Anyone who had a cell phone tried to help us call out. But unfortunately, none of the signals were going through at that point. And it was probably almost 30, 36 hours before we were able to get to a phone. But once we -- because we were helping people, we were on the island awhile. But when we got to land the Thai government had set up an immigration point and they were providing free long-distance phone calls to everyone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Gene Kim and Faye Wachs who survived the tsunami while scuba diving. They said they'll definitely dive again and would like to return to Thailand to see it rebuilt.

SANCHEZ: New bulletin by the Department of Homeland Security is detailing how al Qaeda chooses potential targets and techniques the terrorist group uses for surveillance here in the United States.

Also today in our CNN Security Watch, we're looking at this new development. CNN homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve is live with us from Washington.

What's the situation, Jeanne?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Trick, this bulletin which we've obtained, eight pages long, is as one expert put it, a research paper of sorts. A detailed analysis of how al Qaeda conducts surveillance, and what it's looking for. It was sent to homeland security officials and law enforcement so they can use it to address vulnerabilities and draw up security plans. It is based on documents seized last summer in Pakistan that resulted in a hike in the terrorist threat level around financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Is this sort of surveillance going on right now? Well, a former Department of Homeland Security official put it this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD FALKENRATH, FMR. DEP. ADVISER, HOMELAND SECURITY: We don't know that they have anyone here today doing this. If we did, the FBI would identify them and arrest them. And there was nothing in the bulletin released by the government last night suggesting that there was information that people were carrying out these activities right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MESERVE: At the time the threat level was raised, government officials said the surveillance information was extraordinarily detailed. The new bulletin provides some examples how one building contained an acre and a half of glass, how a security guard at another building carried a colt .45 pistol. Government officials say there is nothing to indicate al Qaeda has moved to an operational phase and in fact, the threat level around those financial targets was lowered shortly after the election because working from the seized surveillance documents, authorities were able to address the building's vulnerabilities -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Jeanne, let me ask you about this laser beam incident we've been hearing about. Laser beams directed at pilots. As many as six have been reported. Does the FBI know the nature of these, for example, whether they were intentional?

MESERVE: No, they really don't. There have been six of these incidents, as you mention, over the last five days. One of them on Monday as a plane made an approach to the Cleveland airport. In that case, it happened about 15 miles out from the airport. They think they know the general area from which it came and they are investigating here. They don't know whether these were kids playing with something they got for Christmas, or whether this was an intentional effort to disrupt the aircraft.

We do know that back in November a bulletin was sent out, warning that terrorists were interested in these laser beams. And also we've looked at an FAA report that was done on this, indicating that these beams can affect the vision of pilots and copilots and that the possibility does exist for some sort of accident if somebody used them in just the right way.

SANCHEZ: CNN homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve, bringing us up to date on both of those developments. We thank you, Jeanne.

COLLINS: I'm going to check on the other headlines this morning with Carol Costello. And Carol's starting with that awful story in Kansas City.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. An update on that now. Good morning, everyone. The woman accused of strangling a pregnant woman and snatching her baby appears before a federal judge again today. Lisa Montgomery has a detention hearing scheduled in Kansas City, Missouri. Prosecutors have charged her with kidnapping resulting in death. It's considered unlikely the judge will allow couldn't Montgomery free on bond pending trial.

And the Big Apple is gearing up for the big ball drop. The New York City police department is beefing up security in anticipation of the 750,000 people expected to pack Times Square on New Year's Eve. Event organizers are preparing to drop more than a ton of confetti at midnight. Yesterday crews tested it out to make sure it falls just right. And the weather, oh, it's expected to be absolutely fabulous for the festivities. Right, Chad?

(WEATHER REPORT)

SANCHEZ: Well, you can find out what corporate America is doing to try and provide tsunami relief. Andy's going to be "Minding Your Business."

COLLINS: Also, violence threatens the election in Iraq. Some say go forward as planned. Others say, you have to postpone it. But is there a third solution? We'll talk about that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: In Iraq, voters are scheduled to go to the polls just a month from now. That, amid a backdrop of daily insurgent violence and calls to delay the vote.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Richard Lugar shared some thoughts on the subject earlier on "American Morning."

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U.S. SENATOR RICHARD LUGAR (R-IN): I would just simply say that there is no end of potential reasons to postpone, to temporize, to try to do something to tweak the system. Ultimately we have to come down to a thought that there is going to be an election. Now, January 30th, all parties agree now is going to be that time.

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COLLINS: So, can Iraqis and the world expect to see free and fair elections there?

We are joined by Iraq's ambassador to the U.N., Samir Sumaidy, for more on that.

Now, you heard what the senator said. What do you think two or three weeks of postponement would do for the election process?

AMBASSADOR SAMIR SUMAIDY, IRAQI PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED NATIONS: I don't think, first of all, that two or three weeks will be seen as a major postponement. I have defended the date, the 30th of January, throughout, and will continue to do so.

We don't want a major postponement such as was talked about, three to six months. That would be seen as victory to the terrorists. But two to three weeks would give us time for getting the Iraqis outside Iraq to have an opportunity to vote -- more of them. Because at the moment they have only one week to register, and thus far too short.

COLLINS: OK. We have heard an awful lot about either keeping the elections, you know, scheduled for January 30th, or postponing them in some way. You actually say, according to the op-ed that you wrote in Washington Post that there's a third way. What is that third way?

SUMAIDY: The third way is to go ahead with the election. But the point I make in that op-ed is that the national assembly that is produced as a result of this election, if it's not broadly representative, then it should not go ahead and write the constitution. That's really the central point I'm making. It should delay the writing of the constitution.

We should not delay the elections.

Let's just remind you, this idea of delaying of two weeks or three weeks is an afterthought, and it's not really the central part of my theme. You might remember that the TAL, the Transitional Administrative Law was delayed by two weeks or three weeks and it was not considered as a delay. So we should be on target. We should proceed with the political process according to the time line. But we must be careful about when and how to write the permanent constitution of Iraq.

COLLINS: Now, you are part of the Sunni tribe and there's been a lot of concern about Sunnis, you know, boycotting the elections, the largest party anyway, largest members. In this op-ed you also say that if the Sunnis don't show up in adequate numbers, then one possible mechanism could be to leave a number of seats vacant for the unprecedented provinces. What does that mean? How long would these seats stay open?

SUMAIDY: Well, they would stay open until the next election. And, again, this is not the central point I make. These are various ideas for debate.

There is a debate going on in Iraq now, how to get out of this difficult situation, because we know that in some of the areas, the security situation is not sufficient to assure citizens to go out and vote freely.

So we've got to find a way to assure these people that they will not be forgotten, that they will not be disenfranchised, and to tell them, fine, we'll go ahead with the election but you will be remembered.

COLLINS: So as you envision this process taking place on the 30th, what do you see in your mind?

SUMAIDY: I see in my mind that it will go ahead more or less quite well and demonstrably cleanly in the majority of Iraq. But there will be areas which will be -- where it will be difficult for people to go out and vote, because insurgents and terrorists will intimidate people and frighten them out of going to elections.

The majority of the country will vote on time.

COLLINS: We appreciate your time on this issue that we'll be talking about for some time to come, that is for sure.

Ambassador Samir Sumaidy, thank you.

SUMAIDY: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Corporate America showing it truly is the season of giving. You're going to find out how you can help businesses provide relief for tsunami victims. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

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SANCHEZ: And we welcome you back. The market's open. A check on that. Also a plan to forgive some debt for some of the countries that have been hit the hardest by these tsunamis. Andy Serwer "Minding Your Business."

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: It's been a long day with all these stories coming out of Southeast Asia continuing to come out and the pictures we're looking at, Rick.

Let's go down to wall street, though, take a bit of a break in the action and see what's happening. Up nine for the Dow industrials this morning, trading expected to be slow today and tomorrow as we head in to the final trading days of the year and the holiday weekend.

Yes, debt relief. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is proposing debt relief for both Indonesia and Somalia, two countries that owe western nations billions of dollars. It would be a debt moratorium, so they wouldn't be making interest payments on the debt that they owed to the West, an interesting idea. We'll see, obviously, where that plays over the next couple days.

More stories about how corporate America is responding to the crisis, and it's encouraging to see big companies, along with ordinary Americans stepping up. Here are some big names. Abbott Labs giving $4 million in cash and in pharmaceuticals. Citibank, which, of course, has a presence all over the globe, Cisco Systems and Pepsico, as well.

Here are some other stories that are of interest. Starbucks Coffee, you'll be happy to note that the network you're watching, CNN, has just made a contribution by buying this back of sumatra coffee from Starbucks, $2 of which goes to the relief effort for every pound that you buy. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, the richest man in the world, has donated $3 million, also in Seattle. Here's an interesting one, university of California Santa Barbara Gauchos Basketball game tonight, against the Irvine Anteaters. Admission is free if you bring donations. And on and on it goes across the country.

SANCHEZ: That's great. Good to hear. Did you spring for that yourself, by the way?

SERWER: No, CNN bought it. I may use it.

COLLINS: Thank you, Andy -- Toure.

TOURE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Susan Sontag was one of America's most popular public intellectuals. She appeared on "The Simpsons" and in the lyrics to "Rent." On Tuesday she died of leukemia in Manhattan, cutting short a four-decade career that's still very much in motion.

She's also one of my all-time favorite writers, and if you want to get to know a little bit more about her work, here's three suggestions: "On Photography" was her landmark appreciation of the art of photography, exploring how photographers don't simply record moments, but are part of inventing them. She wrote a masterful fictional short story called "The Way We Live Now," about a circle of people transformed by AIDS, which is collected here in the best American short stories of the century. And in her nonfiction book, "Illness as Metaphor and AIDS in Its Metaphors," she attacks the fraudulent idea that AIDS is punishment for deviant sex. That book began with the lines, "Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship in the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick." Sontag was freed from the kingdom of the sick on Tuesday. She was 71, and she will be missed.

SANCHEZ: AMERICAN MORNING will be back in just a moment.

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