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American Morning

Rescuers Pull More Bodies, More Survivors from Mudslide; Despite Violence, Iraqi Elections to Proceed; Plane Crash Caught on Tape

Aired January 12, 2005 - 09:00   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Digging by hand and by bucket. Rescuers searching through the debris from the L.A. -- the La Conchita mudslide, making grim discoveries this morning.
The power of the flood slammed eastward, more homes swallowed by the water.

A critical mission to the top of the world. A tiny village without any heat, while winds blow 60 below zero outside.

And the $12 million quest to get inside the mind of a terrorist. Is it money well spent on this AMERICAN MORNING?

ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.

BILL HEMMER, CO-HOST: Good morning, everybody, 9 a.m. here in New York. The work continues in coastal California. That mountain giving way, bearing 15 homes. Bodies of four more victims already found this morning. We'll check in with Rusty Dornin on the scene there.

Also, we'll talk with a woman who saw the mountain come crashing down. Her home just a couple hundred yards away from ones that were crushed. She is the second person in two days we have spoken to that just moved into the neighborhood. You'll hear her story in a matter of moments.

O'BRIEN: Some of these stories are so sad. In one family -- well, three children were killed. The father went out for just a little bit, and the mother and the three children -- by the time he came back, all swallowed up by the debris. Terrible, terrible stories to talk about.

Also this morning, a plane crash in Florida. The pilot was trying to make an emergency landing, but it was a landing that went horribly wrong. We're going to talk to a pilot who was there, and he's now credited with helping to save one person who was in that plane. We'll hear his story as well.

HEMMER: All right. Jack Cafferty, good morning again.

JACK CAFFERTY, CO-HOST: Good morning, Bill.

Less than three weeks to the Iraqi elections, insurgent attacks are on the rise. The interim president saying parts of the country are not safe enough for people to go and vote. If the elections happen as scheduled, will the results be considered legitimate? AM@CNN.com.

HEMMER: All right, Jack. Thanks for that.

Also, Kelly Wallace back with us today, looking at the headlines.

Kelly, good morning again to you.

KELLY WALLACE, ANCHOR: Good morning again to you. Good morning, everyone.

Now in the news, U.S. American -- U.S. Marines, excuse me, expanding tsunami relief efforts after word of a compromise. Work had been delayed for days because Indonesian officials objected to the presence of armed U.S. troops. A military official says American Marines have agreed to conduct humanitarian missions unarmed when on Indonesian soil.

In Fort Hood, Texas, now, the defense begins its case this hour in the military trial of Army Specialist Charles Graner. If convicted, Graner faces more than 17 years in prison on charges stemming from the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Graner is expected to take the stand as early as today or tomorrow.

A "CNN Security Watch" now: new warning measures being announced today for airline pilots following a number of laser beam incidents. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta will outline steps pilot should take in the event their cockpit is flashed by a laser. The FBI is reportedly investigating at least a dozen cases of lasers beamed at aircraft since last month.

And of course, stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

And finally, a crew is working this hour to restore power to the Alaskan village of Kaktovik. The team arrived yesterday amid sub freezing temperatures. The weather was too severe to drop any additional supplies for the 300 people left shivering without heat or light. We'll be following that story, hoping they can get power to that community very soon.

HEMMER: I've been up to that part of Alaska.

WALLACE: You have?

HEMMER: It is frozen tundra. And nothing but, especially this time of year, too. So that's true.

WALLACE: Not having power is not a good thing.

HEMMER: That's right. Thank you, Kelly.

Back to our stop story now, at least 10 are dead after Monday's mudslide in California. That death toll has been rising throughout the morning.

And Rusty Dornin on the scene there in La Conchita, California, north of L.A.

Rusty, hello again.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, it has been 37 hours since anyone was pulled alive from this mound of rubble. This morning, four people, four bodies were discovered. Three are very small in stature and believed to be children.

Now, they are still calling this a rescue operation, saying it's possible that there are voids or air pockets, where people can survive from four, five, even six days. They are using every means possible at this point to find survivors.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN (voice-over): In desperation, searching for any signs of life. In La Conchita, California, this neighborhood was destroyed, when the hillside that was once a scenic backdrop to this seaside town came crashing down on Monday.

Rescue crews work night and day in a scramble to find survivors. At least 10 people have been pulled out of the mud alive.

CHIEF BOB ROPER, VENTURE COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: The rescue teams are going in. They're finding voids, still, in the rubble pile that we believe are large enough that somebody could be in. As long as we're seeing that, then we hold out hope.

DORNIN: The rains came down in torrents for five days in Southern California, causing massive flooding, mudslides, and traffic nightmares.

Near Topanga Canyon, this building-size bolder plopped down on the highway. And the only way anyone could make it budge -- was to blow it up.

In the Sierra Nevada, people are still digging out from the heaviest snowfall since 1916.

The fury of the storms raged eastward. Here, a house in Santa Clara, Utah, crumbles into the river.

In Arizona, it was a similar story: floodwaters trapping people in their homes and makes roads impossible.

Water, water, everywhere. And as one forecaster put it, the winter is still young.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: The good news here is that the skies are clear. There's not expected to be any rain for the next few days. But there is a crack a little farther up the road from the mudslide. But they say that's stable. That's fine, unless it begins to rain again.

This morning, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to do an aerial as well as a ground tour to assess the situation.

Still listing 13 people missing. They are going to be releasing those names just to be sure that all of those people can be accounted for, or perhaps they're not on vacation -- Bill.

HEMMER: The sun about to come up there in California, just a bit past 6 a.m. local time there. Rusty, thanks, we'll be in touch as always -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: As we've heard from any witness to the mudslide, it really came without warning and fast. Gina Hayess lives in La Conchita neighborhood, and I spoke with her a little bit earlier this morning about what she saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENA HAYESS, MUDSLIDE EYEWITNESS: I was -- I had been down around the freeway, because the freeway was about four feet deep in mud, and there were floating cars. So I had my camera and I was down looking at it, shooting it.

And we went through the neighborhood, and there were a few slides that went down the streets. And they were probably about two feet deep in mud and boulders. And the two guys that I was with, we were going to come back and shovel the dirt out, because it started to build up. And that was on the back street.

So I walked home to get the shovel. Noticed I had two phone calls to make, made two phone calls quickly -- and had I not, had I gone right back, I would have been right in front of the blast and had just walked past that right when it happened.

O'BRIEN: The two gentlemen -- the two guys who were with you, do you know, what's their status? Are they OK?

HAYESS: They're OK. The reason that I went ahead and made the phone calls is because he was taking pictures and he was going to e- mail them in. And so I thought it's going to take him a little time.

But I was standing on my porch on the phone when I felt the ground shaking. And I -- I peeked around the corner, and I saw the house sliding by. I said, "Oh, my god, oh, my God and the phone went -- just went blank." So my poor friend was having a heart attack and -- because he heard it all. He heard the telephone poles snapping, the lines were coming in, and the house was crunching and the wood cracking.

O'BRIEN: He could hear it as you were talking to him...

HAYESS: On the phone.

O'BRIEN: So what did you do? I mean, we're looking at pictures of this slide as it comes down. It is remarkable. Did you run away for your life or did you run in? Because obviously, it was coming down on top of lots of houses where people were inside.

HAYESS: Yes, and I'm two houses over. So my backyard is completely fenced in. The only way to go is through the gate and toward the fence. So I stood there and watched, and I didn't know what else was coming down on me. And so then I ran out the gate and down the street.

But there was nowhere else to go but towards the hill, actually. Because we have an entire fence around it, the yard, because of the dog.

O'BRIEN: Were you well aware of the dangers of mudslides in this area, the history of the area?

HAYESS: It's funny you ask. I heard that -- I heard a lot of different stories since this happened. But when I moved in, which was in April, I asked the local homeowners if they, you know, had any problems insuring the places. They said, no, no, not at all.

What they told me is there was an irrigation problem at Rencon Ranch (ph), which is above, and that it had since been fixed, so they weren't anticipating any slides. And it was fine. As long as nobody moved the existing structures that were crushed.

And those were the tow of the last slide. So they just had to stay put. They built a wall with it. Steel pylons went 60 feet down into the ground. That got dwarfed over this. I mean, it's just -- no, I did not anticipate it at all. I would not have moved in over there at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Dena Hayess, witness to the landslide, a little bit earlier on AMERICAN MORNING.

Rescue workers are still on scene there in California. They say they are still searching for as many as a dozen people, maybe even more -- Bill.

HEMMER: Now today to another new image from the tsunami disaster.

The U.S. government released new animation that shows the 9.0 magnitude quake that sparked the deadly tsunamis. It sent a ripple effect through every ocean on the planet. Effects were eventually visible on both coasts of the United States, as well.

Later tonight, catch a special edition of CNN's "NEWSNIGHT." Aaron's program devotes the entire hour to nation's extremes: tsunamis and hurricanes, tornadoes and flooding. Is the Earth now trying to tell us something? Aaron has that for you tonight, later on prime time at 10 p.m. Eastern here on CNN.

Chad's watching that. He knows a little bit about this, too.

Hey, good morning. (WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: All right, Chad. Thanks very much.

An American soldier was killed in combat in Iraq today. U.S. forces also battled insurgents near Mosul, and early this morning detained six suspects in the assassination over the governor of Baghdad province.

American and Iraqi officials are saying that the January 30 elections will go ahead but admit the increasing violence cannot be ignored.

Barbara Starr's at the Pentagon for us this morning.

Good morning, again, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning again to you, Soledad.

Well, the Iraqi interim president, Ayad Allawi, says indeed, some parts of Iraq may be too dangerous for voters to come out on election day. But he says the elections will go forward. The stakes have never been higher.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): Less than three weeks until the scheduled elections in Iraq, a suicide car bomber targeted a police headquarters in Tikrit, killing six people.

Top officials insist the elections will go forward on January 30. But now a more realistic assessment about whether Iraqis across the country will participate, especially in the violent Sunni Triangle.

AYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER: Certainly there are some pockets who will not take part in these elections, but they are not many pockets.

STARR: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is minimizing expectations.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Just having elections in Iraq is an enormous success and a victory.

STARR: U.S. officials still hope troubled Iraqi security forces will take a high-profile role on election day.

But insurgents are growing more sophisticated, detonating explosives from farther away, making it more difficult to track them. It was 200 pounds of explosives that killed seven soldiers in a Bradley vehicle.

Senior U.S. military officials say even after the elections, they do not expect to see the violence necessarily decrease. And, therefore, it's unlikely there will be a significant drawdown in U.S. forces.

One senior official said the goal remains winning, not just getting out of Iraq. The elements of winning include getting Iraqi security forces to be able to defend the country, electing a representative government, establishing a secure economy.

RUMSFELD: This has been the coalition's goal: an Iraq run by Iraqis and secured by Iraqi security forces.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: But one indication, Soledad, of the sophistication of the insurgency: there are now intelligence reports that former leaders of Saddam Hussein's regime met in Syria last month to plot the future course of that insurgency. Just another indication of the money and muscle behind these attacks -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Interesting information there. Let's talk a little bit about WMD. With virtually no fanfare whatsoever, it seems that the search is over. What can you tell us about that, Barbara?

STARR: Well, intelligence officials have now confirmed that, essentially, the physical search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is over, that the personnel, the military and intelligence personnel that were in Iraq conducting those searches have really wrapped up their work. There's nowhere else to work, and there are no new fresh leads in the country, if you will.

They are back in the United States. They are working on their final report. And they are still looking through hundreds, if not thousands of pages of documents. They say if they find any new leads, they will go back and search again. But at this point, there doesn't seem to be much left to look at inside Iraq, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon for us this morning. Barbara, thank you -- Bill.

HEMMER: We saw this videotape a short time ago, Soledad. Amazing tape, too, out of Florida. Stunning airplane crash, caught on tape. How the man who recorded it may have helped save a life.

O'BRIEN: Also, can you stop terrorists just by studying what makes them tick? A very expensive project is raising some eyebrows. We'll talk about that.

HEMMER: Also, a rather scary report, too, this morning, on the possible dangers of cell phones and children. That's all ahead this hour on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: Investigators looking into the crash of a small plane in Florida yesterday near Orlando. Watching the videotape again today of the crash.

It happened as the plane headed for an emergency landing on a golf course, instead smashing into a utility pole. One man was killed. The other man on board is injured.

From Orlando, helicopter pilot Dan McCarthy, who rescuers say was instrumental in getting help to the crash site. Dan McCarthy is my guest now.

Good morning to you. I'm going to start in the very beginning. You're refueling at this point, you heard a distress call, and how did you respond, Dan?

DAN MCCARTHY, HELICOPTER PILOT: Exactly. I was at Orlando Executive Airport. We had just finished refueling the aircraft coming from another scene when I heard the pilot's initial call to the tower, saying that he had low oil pressure and he was eight miles northwest of Executive Airport. And he wanted direct clearance back to Executive.

HEMMER: So the tower tells you to shadow the plane. What does that mean, Dan?

MCCARTHY: At that point, they didn't tell me that. At that point, they cleared other aircraft away from the runway and away from the airport and notified the ground crews for a possible rescue.

But when I finally got clearance to get in the air, probably two, three minutes later, the pilot then announced that he no longer had an engine. His engine had just quit, and he was turning around to land or attempt to land at a golf course that he had passed over.

At that point, the tower called me to see if I had a visual on the aircraft and if I could shadow or follow the aircraft to the ground, make sure that -- if he was OK, and that if rescue crews were need.

HEMMER: So you were the eyes in the sky, basically, for the tower, is that right?

MCCARTHY: Yes. Yes, they...

HEMMER: What happened when that pilot tried to land?

MCCARTHY: Bad luck, obviously, from the video. He hit some wires, and he -- looks like he overshot the golf course and hit the wires, hit the pole. And the -- and crashed, as you can see. I -- hard to say exactly.

We were probably initially 4 1/2 miles away from him, chasing after him, to catch up to him before he landed. And talking with the tower.

We could tell -- I could tell -- I talked to the tower moments beforehand. And said, "This isn't going to be good. You need to get the crews rolling right now." Because I knew he wasn't going to make the golf course.

HEMMER: You know, part of the reason why we have you on today was you were essentially the eyewitness in the air for the tower and also crucial in the rescue as well. Do you think you saved the life of the second person in that plane, Dan?

MCCARTHY: I don't think so. I've got to give credit to the people on the ground. I mean, there were a lot of people that were on top of that plane. You've seen the video. There were people, golfers, people working in the restaurant, driving by, that were on top of that plane within seconds.

And one person in particular -- I still don't know his name, climbed into the aircraft and pulled one of the pilots out.

So I was just doing my job. I was helping the tower. I was just giving them the information, letting them know where to send the crews and what was going on to the tower.

HEMMER: At a minimum, you were a very important part of a team effort down there in Orlando, Florida. Thanks for sharing your story with WKMG, Dan McCarthy, the helicopter pilot down there, thanks Dan.

MCCARTHY: Thank you, Bill.

HEMMER: Soledad.

O'BRIEN: As we have seen from the pictures, winter has just been relentless out west. But is there finally an end in sight? We'll look at that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Jack is back with the question of the day.

HEMMER: Thanks, Soledad.

The Iraqi elections are less than three weeks now. The Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, acknowledged for the first time yesterday that pockets of Iraq are simply too dangerous for people to vote.

There's been a sharp increase in insurgent attacks in the last month. Iraq's largest mainstream Sunni Party has withdrawn from the current interim government, and Sunni leaders are saying now they'll boycott the upcoming election. The Sunnis make up 20 percent of Iraq's population, almost five million people.

The question is this: will the results of the January 30 election in Iraq be legitimate?

Steve in Braden, Florida, writes, "How can democracy on the fly be legitimate? This democracy was thrown together like a shotgun wedding. Even America's first election wasn't quite legitimate. If you were black, Native American, female, or didn't own property, you couldn't vote."

Alan in Waterville, Minnesota: "Let's have the elections and then let's get out of there."

Phil in Las Vegas, Nevada: "How can Iraq under American occupation ever come to believe that their election process is legitimate? We cannot cram the concept of western democracy down their throats."

And Jim in Phoenix writes, "Don't worry about the upcoming Iraqi elections. The Diebold voting machines have been installed, and George Bush is happy with the planned results."

HEMMER: Hanging chads in Baghdad?

CAFFERTY: I don't...

HEMMER: I wonder, if you delay this vote, what's the risk you take? Do you give the insurgents a lift...

O'BRIEN: Yes.

HEMMER: ... in their efforts?

CAFFERTY: Yes, but the other side is, you tell -- it's a message to the Sunnis, we care about you being able to participate, and we're going to put it off until we see if we can make it safe enough for you to vote. So it's a coin toss.

HEMMER: The word is that on the inside, the back-story on all this is that they're negotiating right now in the back doorway to bring Sunnis into the process. Whether that works in the next 19 days is an open question.

Thank you, Jack.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

HEMMER: The U.N. is using comedy for the serious business of fighting AIDS. The new ads are on the Web. Here's one of them now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you never try for sex on the first date?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Never. We just talk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, about stuff and everything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see, manhood today, it's like a spiritual thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Volunteers made 20 of these ads online, available in 41 different languages.

O'BRIEN: I don't get it. I'm not sure I get them.

HEMMER: To the web site we go.

O'BRIEN: Hopefully the whole thing is a little more understandable... HEMMER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... then that little snippet we saw.

Here's a question for you. Would you trust the war on terror to a group of academics? An expensive new program is making some headlines. We're going to talk to the man in charge, just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired January 12, 2005 - 09:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Digging by hand and by bucket. Rescuers searching through the debris from the L.A. -- the La Conchita mudslide, making grim discoveries this morning.
The power of the flood slammed eastward, more homes swallowed by the water.

A critical mission to the top of the world. A tiny village without any heat, while winds blow 60 below zero outside.

And the $12 million quest to get inside the mind of a terrorist. Is it money well spent on this AMERICAN MORNING?

ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.

BILL HEMMER, CO-HOST: Good morning, everybody, 9 a.m. here in New York. The work continues in coastal California. That mountain giving way, bearing 15 homes. Bodies of four more victims already found this morning. We'll check in with Rusty Dornin on the scene there.

Also, we'll talk with a woman who saw the mountain come crashing down. Her home just a couple hundred yards away from ones that were crushed. She is the second person in two days we have spoken to that just moved into the neighborhood. You'll hear her story in a matter of moments.

O'BRIEN: Some of these stories are so sad. In one family -- well, three children were killed. The father went out for just a little bit, and the mother and the three children -- by the time he came back, all swallowed up by the debris. Terrible, terrible stories to talk about.

Also this morning, a plane crash in Florida. The pilot was trying to make an emergency landing, but it was a landing that went horribly wrong. We're going to talk to a pilot who was there, and he's now credited with helping to save one person who was in that plane. We'll hear his story as well.

HEMMER: All right. Jack Cafferty, good morning again.

JACK CAFFERTY, CO-HOST: Good morning, Bill.

Less than three weeks to the Iraqi elections, insurgent attacks are on the rise. The interim president saying parts of the country are not safe enough for people to go and vote. If the elections happen as scheduled, will the results be considered legitimate? AM@CNN.com.

HEMMER: All right, Jack. Thanks for that.

Also, Kelly Wallace back with us today, looking at the headlines.

Kelly, good morning again to you.

KELLY WALLACE, ANCHOR: Good morning again to you. Good morning, everyone.

Now in the news, U.S. American -- U.S. Marines, excuse me, expanding tsunami relief efforts after word of a compromise. Work had been delayed for days because Indonesian officials objected to the presence of armed U.S. troops. A military official says American Marines have agreed to conduct humanitarian missions unarmed when on Indonesian soil.

In Fort Hood, Texas, now, the defense begins its case this hour in the military trial of Army Specialist Charles Graner. If convicted, Graner faces more than 17 years in prison on charges stemming from the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Graner is expected to take the stand as early as today or tomorrow.

A "CNN Security Watch" now: new warning measures being announced today for airline pilots following a number of laser beam incidents. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta will outline steps pilot should take in the event their cockpit is flashed by a laser. The FBI is reportedly investigating at least a dozen cases of lasers beamed at aircraft since last month.

And of course, stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

And finally, a crew is working this hour to restore power to the Alaskan village of Kaktovik. The team arrived yesterday amid sub freezing temperatures. The weather was too severe to drop any additional supplies for the 300 people left shivering without heat or light. We'll be following that story, hoping they can get power to that community very soon.

HEMMER: I've been up to that part of Alaska.

WALLACE: You have?

HEMMER: It is frozen tundra. And nothing but, especially this time of year, too. So that's true.

WALLACE: Not having power is not a good thing.

HEMMER: That's right. Thank you, Kelly.

Back to our stop story now, at least 10 are dead after Monday's mudslide in California. That death toll has been rising throughout the morning.

And Rusty Dornin on the scene there in La Conchita, California, north of L.A.

Rusty, hello again.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, it has been 37 hours since anyone was pulled alive from this mound of rubble. This morning, four people, four bodies were discovered. Three are very small in stature and believed to be children.

Now, they are still calling this a rescue operation, saying it's possible that there are voids or air pockets, where people can survive from four, five, even six days. They are using every means possible at this point to find survivors.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN (voice-over): In desperation, searching for any signs of life. In La Conchita, California, this neighborhood was destroyed, when the hillside that was once a scenic backdrop to this seaside town came crashing down on Monday.

Rescue crews work night and day in a scramble to find survivors. At least 10 people have been pulled out of the mud alive.

CHIEF BOB ROPER, VENTURE COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: The rescue teams are going in. They're finding voids, still, in the rubble pile that we believe are large enough that somebody could be in. As long as we're seeing that, then we hold out hope.

DORNIN: The rains came down in torrents for five days in Southern California, causing massive flooding, mudslides, and traffic nightmares.

Near Topanga Canyon, this building-size bolder plopped down on the highway. And the only way anyone could make it budge -- was to blow it up.

In the Sierra Nevada, people are still digging out from the heaviest snowfall since 1916.

The fury of the storms raged eastward. Here, a house in Santa Clara, Utah, crumbles into the river.

In Arizona, it was a similar story: floodwaters trapping people in their homes and makes roads impossible.

Water, water, everywhere. And as one forecaster put it, the winter is still young.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: The good news here is that the skies are clear. There's not expected to be any rain for the next few days. But there is a crack a little farther up the road from the mudslide. But they say that's stable. That's fine, unless it begins to rain again.

This morning, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to do an aerial as well as a ground tour to assess the situation.

Still listing 13 people missing. They are going to be releasing those names just to be sure that all of those people can be accounted for, or perhaps they're not on vacation -- Bill.

HEMMER: The sun about to come up there in California, just a bit past 6 a.m. local time there. Rusty, thanks, we'll be in touch as always -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: As we've heard from any witness to the mudslide, it really came without warning and fast. Gina Hayess lives in La Conchita neighborhood, and I spoke with her a little bit earlier this morning about what she saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENA HAYESS, MUDSLIDE EYEWITNESS: I was -- I had been down around the freeway, because the freeway was about four feet deep in mud, and there were floating cars. So I had my camera and I was down looking at it, shooting it.

And we went through the neighborhood, and there were a few slides that went down the streets. And they were probably about two feet deep in mud and boulders. And the two guys that I was with, we were going to come back and shovel the dirt out, because it started to build up. And that was on the back street.

So I walked home to get the shovel. Noticed I had two phone calls to make, made two phone calls quickly -- and had I not, had I gone right back, I would have been right in front of the blast and had just walked past that right when it happened.

O'BRIEN: The two gentlemen -- the two guys who were with you, do you know, what's their status? Are they OK?

HAYESS: They're OK. The reason that I went ahead and made the phone calls is because he was taking pictures and he was going to e- mail them in. And so I thought it's going to take him a little time.

But I was standing on my porch on the phone when I felt the ground shaking. And I -- I peeked around the corner, and I saw the house sliding by. I said, "Oh, my god, oh, my God and the phone went -- just went blank." So my poor friend was having a heart attack and -- because he heard it all. He heard the telephone poles snapping, the lines were coming in, and the house was crunching and the wood cracking.

O'BRIEN: He could hear it as you were talking to him...

HAYESS: On the phone.

O'BRIEN: So what did you do? I mean, we're looking at pictures of this slide as it comes down. It is remarkable. Did you run away for your life or did you run in? Because obviously, it was coming down on top of lots of houses where people were inside.

HAYESS: Yes, and I'm two houses over. So my backyard is completely fenced in. The only way to go is through the gate and toward the fence. So I stood there and watched, and I didn't know what else was coming down on me. And so then I ran out the gate and down the street.

But there was nowhere else to go but towards the hill, actually. Because we have an entire fence around it, the yard, because of the dog.

O'BRIEN: Were you well aware of the dangers of mudslides in this area, the history of the area?

HAYESS: It's funny you ask. I heard that -- I heard a lot of different stories since this happened. But when I moved in, which was in April, I asked the local homeowners if they, you know, had any problems insuring the places. They said, no, no, not at all.

What they told me is there was an irrigation problem at Rencon Ranch (ph), which is above, and that it had since been fixed, so they weren't anticipating any slides. And it was fine. As long as nobody moved the existing structures that were crushed.

And those were the tow of the last slide. So they just had to stay put. They built a wall with it. Steel pylons went 60 feet down into the ground. That got dwarfed over this. I mean, it's just -- no, I did not anticipate it at all. I would not have moved in over there at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Dena Hayess, witness to the landslide, a little bit earlier on AMERICAN MORNING.

Rescue workers are still on scene there in California. They say they are still searching for as many as a dozen people, maybe even more -- Bill.

HEMMER: Now today to another new image from the tsunami disaster.

The U.S. government released new animation that shows the 9.0 magnitude quake that sparked the deadly tsunamis. It sent a ripple effect through every ocean on the planet. Effects were eventually visible on both coasts of the United States, as well.

Later tonight, catch a special edition of CNN's "NEWSNIGHT." Aaron's program devotes the entire hour to nation's extremes: tsunamis and hurricanes, tornadoes and flooding. Is the Earth now trying to tell us something? Aaron has that for you tonight, later on prime time at 10 p.m. Eastern here on CNN.

Chad's watching that. He knows a little bit about this, too.

Hey, good morning. (WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: All right, Chad. Thanks very much.

An American soldier was killed in combat in Iraq today. U.S. forces also battled insurgents near Mosul, and early this morning detained six suspects in the assassination over the governor of Baghdad province.

American and Iraqi officials are saying that the January 30 elections will go ahead but admit the increasing violence cannot be ignored.

Barbara Starr's at the Pentagon for us this morning.

Good morning, again, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning again to you, Soledad.

Well, the Iraqi interim president, Ayad Allawi, says indeed, some parts of Iraq may be too dangerous for voters to come out on election day. But he says the elections will go forward. The stakes have never been higher.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): Less than three weeks until the scheduled elections in Iraq, a suicide car bomber targeted a police headquarters in Tikrit, killing six people.

Top officials insist the elections will go forward on January 30. But now a more realistic assessment about whether Iraqis across the country will participate, especially in the violent Sunni Triangle.

AYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER: Certainly there are some pockets who will not take part in these elections, but they are not many pockets.

STARR: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is minimizing expectations.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Just having elections in Iraq is an enormous success and a victory.

STARR: U.S. officials still hope troubled Iraqi security forces will take a high-profile role on election day.

But insurgents are growing more sophisticated, detonating explosives from farther away, making it more difficult to track them. It was 200 pounds of explosives that killed seven soldiers in a Bradley vehicle.

Senior U.S. military officials say even after the elections, they do not expect to see the violence necessarily decrease. And, therefore, it's unlikely there will be a significant drawdown in U.S. forces.

One senior official said the goal remains winning, not just getting out of Iraq. The elements of winning include getting Iraqi security forces to be able to defend the country, electing a representative government, establishing a secure economy.

RUMSFELD: This has been the coalition's goal: an Iraq run by Iraqis and secured by Iraqi security forces.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: But one indication, Soledad, of the sophistication of the insurgency: there are now intelligence reports that former leaders of Saddam Hussein's regime met in Syria last month to plot the future course of that insurgency. Just another indication of the money and muscle behind these attacks -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Interesting information there. Let's talk a little bit about WMD. With virtually no fanfare whatsoever, it seems that the search is over. What can you tell us about that, Barbara?

STARR: Well, intelligence officials have now confirmed that, essentially, the physical search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is over, that the personnel, the military and intelligence personnel that were in Iraq conducting those searches have really wrapped up their work. There's nowhere else to work, and there are no new fresh leads in the country, if you will.

They are back in the United States. They are working on their final report. And they are still looking through hundreds, if not thousands of pages of documents. They say if they find any new leads, they will go back and search again. But at this point, there doesn't seem to be much left to look at inside Iraq, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon for us this morning. Barbara, thank you -- Bill.

HEMMER: We saw this videotape a short time ago, Soledad. Amazing tape, too, out of Florida. Stunning airplane crash, caught on tape. How the man who recorded it may have helped save a life.

O'BRIEN: Also, can you stop terrorists just by studying what makes them tick? A very expensive project is raising some eyebrows. We'll talk about that.

HEMMER: Also, a rather scary report, too, this morning, on the possible dangers of cell phones and children. That's all ahead this hour on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: Investigators looking into the crash of a small plane in Florida yesterday near Orlando. Watching the videotape again today of the crash.

It happened as the plane headed for an emergency landing on a golf course, instead smashing into a utility pole. One man was killed. The other man on board is injured.

From Orlando, helicopter pilot Dan McCarthy, who rescuers say was instrumental in getting help to the crash site. Dan McCarthy is my guest now.

Good morning to you. I'm going to start in the very beginning. You're refueling at this point, you heard a distress call, and how did you respond, Dan?

DAN MCCARTHY, HELICOPTER PILOT: Exactly. I was at Orlando Executive Airport. We had just finished refueling the aircraft coming from another scene when I heard the pilot's initial call to the tower, saying that he had low oil pressure and he was eight miles northwest of Executive Airport. And he wanted direct clearance back to Executive.

HEMMER: So the tower tells you to shadow the plane. What does that mean, Dan?

MCCARTHY: At that point, they didn't tell me that. At that point, they cleared other aircraft away from the runway and away from the airport and notified the ground crews for a possible rescue.

But when I finally got clearance to get in the air, probably two, three minutes later, the pilot then announced that he no longer had an engine. His engine had just quit, and he was turning around to land or attempt to land at a golf course that he had passed over.

At that point, the tower called me to see if I had a visual on the aircraft and if I could shadow or follow the aircraft to the ground, make sure that -- if he was OK, and that if rescue crews were need.

HEMMER: So you were the eyes in the sky, basically, for the tower, is that right?

MCCARTHY: Yes. Yes, they...

HEMMER: What happened when that pilot tried to land?

MCCARTHY: Bad luck, obviously, from the video. He hit some wires, and he -- looks like he overshot the golf course and hit the wires, hit the pole. And the -- and crashed, as you can see. I -- hard to say exactly.

We were probably initially 4 1/2 miles away from him, chasing after him, to catch up to him before he landed. And talking with the tower.

We could tell -- I could tell -- I talked to the tower moments beforehand. And said, "This isn't going to be good. You need to get the crews rolling right now." Because I knew he wasn't going to make the golf course.

HEMMER: You know, part of the reason why we have you on today was you were essentially the eyewitness in the air for the tower and also crucial in the rescue as well. Do you think you saved the life of the second person in that plane, Dan?

MCCARTHY: I don't think so. I've got to give credit to the people on the ground. I mean, there were a lot of people that were on top of that plane. You've seen the video. There were people, golfers, people working in the restaurant, driving by, that were on top of that plane within seconds.

And one person in particular -- I still don't know his name, climbed into the aircraft and pulled one of the pilots out.

So I was just doing my job. I was helping the tower. I was just giving them the information, letting them know where to send the crews and what was going on to the tower.

HEMMER: At a minimum, you were a very important part of a team effort down there in Orlando, Florida. Thanks for sharing your story with WKMG, Dan McCarthy, the helicopter pilot down there, thanks Dan.

MCCARTHY: Thank you, Bill.

HEMMER: Soledad.

O'BRIEN: As we have seen from the pictures, winter has just been relentless out west. But is there finally an end in sight? We'll look at that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Jack is back with the question of the day.

HEMMER: Thanks, Soledad.

The Iraqi elections are less than three weeks now. The Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, acknowledged for the first time yesterday that pockets of Iraq are simply too dangerous for people to vote.

There's been a sharp increase in insurgent attacks in the last month. Iraq's largest mainstream Sunni Party has withdrawn from the current interim government, and Sunni leaders are saying now they'll boycott the upcoming election. The Sunnis make up 20 percent of Iraq's population, almost five million people.

The question is this: will the results of the January 30 election in Iraq be legitimate?

Steve in Braden, Florida, writes, "How can democracy on the fly be legitimate? This democracy was thrown together like a shotgun wedding. Even America's first election wasn't quite legitimate. If you were black, Native American, female, or didn't own property, you couldn't vote."

Alan in Waterville, Minnesota: "Let's have the elections and then let's get out of there."

Phil in Las Vegas, Nevada: "How can Iraq under American occupation ever come to believe that their election process is legitimate? We cannot cram the concept of western democracy down their throats."

And Jim in Phoenix writes, "Don't worry about the upcoming Iraqi elections. The Diebold voting machines have been installed, and George Bush is happy with the planned results."

HEMMER: Hanging chads in Baghdad?

CAFFERTY: I don't...

HEMMER: I wonder, if you delay this vote, what's the risk you take? Do you give the insurgents a lift...

O'BRIEN: Yes.

HEMMER: ... in their efforts?

CAFFERTY: Yes, but the other side is, you tell -- it's a message to the Sunnis, we care about you being able to participate, and we're going to put it off until we see if we can make it safe enough for you to vote. So it's a coin toss.

HEMMER: The word is that on the inside, the back-story on all this is that they're negotiating right now in the back doorway to bring Sunnis into the process. Whether that works in the next 19 days is an open question.

Thank you, Jack.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

HEMMER: The U.N. is using comedy for the serious business of fighting AIDS. The new ads are on the Web. Here's one of them now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you never try for sex on the first date?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Never. We just talk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, about stuff and everything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see, manhood today, it's like a spiritual thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Volunteers made 20 of these ads online, available in 41 different languages.

O'BRIEN: I don't get it. I'm not sure I get them.

HEMMER: To the web site we go.

O'BRIEN: Hopefully the whole thing is a little more understandable... HEMMER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... then that little snippet we saw.

Here's a question for you. Would you trust the war on terror to a group of academics? An expensive new program is making some headlines. We're going to talk to the man in charge, just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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