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Deadly Mudslides in California After Days of Rain, Snow Soak State; President Bush Meeting With European Leaders at NATO Headquarters
Aired February 22, 2005 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Villages flattened in Iran as a powerful earthquake hits the middle of that country. In this country, the nightmare scenario in California, landslides, floods and washouts, now even tornadoes, as the season of the storm continues.
President Bush meeting with NATO allies this morning. Did he get what he wanted, new promises on Iraq?
And police desperately trying to put together the clues to find a missing pregnant woman and her young son. A nationwide alert on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.
O'BRIEN: Good morning. Welcome, everybody. Bill Hemmer's got the day off. Miles O'Brien is back for another day.
Good morning.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to you.
S. O'BRIEN: In just a few minutes, the president's mission to Europe, trying to win over European leaders and maybe even some European citizens as well. We're going to talk to one of the people who's closest to the president, Dan Bartlett, about the high-level discussions this morning with NATO.
M. O'BRIEN: Also a case in Denver that has outraged people there, a man arrested in a series of rapes. Could a number of them have been prevented with just some proper record keeping. We'll talk to the district attorney about whether some really bad mistakes were made there.
S. O'BRIEN: A really shocking case there, just horrible.
Mr. Cafferty, good morning.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Mrs. O'Brien.
Whose job is it to go around the world spreading freedom and democracy everywhere? According to a new poll, a lot of people don't think that's America's job. We'll take a look at the numbers in a few minutes.
S. O'BRIEN: All right, Jack, thank you. Heidi Collins has got a look at the headlines.
Good morning, Heidi.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, and good morning to you, everyone.
Now in the news this morning, there's been an attack on a convoy in Baghdad. Within the past half hour, word coming in to CNN, three people were killed when an Iraqi special forces convoy was attacked. More than 30 others are injured. We're going to bring you more details just as soon as they become available to us.
Meanwhile, rescue-and-recovery efforts are now under way after a deadly earthquake in Iran. Officials say the 6.4 quake hit in the central part of the country, killing at least 270 people. Hundreds of people are injured, but those numbers could change. More than a year ago, an earthquake in the same region left about 26,000 people dead.
In Texas, there is still no sign of a missing pregnant woman and her 7-year-old son. Police found Lisa Underwood's SUV in a creek north of Dallas yesterday. The keys were spotted nearby. An Amber Alert was issued over the weekend when Underwood failed to show up to her baby shower. Investigators later found a large amount of blood in her Fort Worth home. Underwood is seven months pregnant. We will hear from a family member just ahead on the program.
And in health news, a new study suggests exercise may help ward off Parkinson's Disease. Researchers found men who exercise on a regular basis early in life drastically reduce their risk. They found no such link, though, with women who exercised regularly. The study is published today in the journal neurology.
Miles, over to you.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, thank you very much, Heidi.
Deadly mudslides in California after days of rain and snow have soaked the state. At least four deaths are reported as a result of the storms and the landslides. Highways are flooded, and hundreds of thousands have been affected by power outages.
Captain Bill Lynch is with the Glendale Fire Department. He joins us live now.
Captain Lynch, just bring us up to date. How are things going on the cleanup operations there?
CAPT. BILL LYNCH, GLENDALE FIRE DEPT.: Good morning.
Well, things are going pretty well here. We've been fortunate and have had a slowdown in the rain as of early this morning. Cleanup efforts are going well. Here in our city, we've had around 14 homes that had to be evacuated, a number of residents displaced. And we've had some great assistance from Red Cross and adjoining agencies. We've been fortunate, we have not had any injuries or deaths associated with these storms here in the city of Glendale. M. O'BRIEN: Of course, other parts of Southern California a different story. This obviously a very dangerous situation. How do you assess the situation and know whether to evacuate homes?
LYNCH: Well, you know, we oftentimes get calls for persons just wanting their evaluation, and we'll send fire companies out to evaluate in a cursory assessment of the slope instability, and maybe the mudslide that has already occurred, and we will make that determination at that point. Additionally, we'll have city officials come out and take a look.
M. O'BRIEN: You say that rain has subsided a little bit. Do you expect further evacuations in Glendale?
LYNCH: You know, we hope not. The storm is just hanging around and causing havoc everywhere. If it can hold the way it is now, I would say probably not. But the way this storm is, it's just comes in waves. And when it hits, it's hitting us real hard.
M. O'BRIEN: And just put it in perspective, personal perspective, you ever seen one like this, a series of storms like this?
LYNCH: No, I haven't. The month of January and February here in Southern California have been pretty phenomenal. I think that we're at fifth for the record rainfall and probably going to move up some more.
M. O'BRIEN: Captain Bill Lynch with the Glendale Fire Department, thanks for your time. I know you're a busy man this morning -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: In Sacramento, minor damage after at least two twisters touched down. Funnel clouds were sighted throughout the Sacramento area, though the National Weather Service confirmed only two of them. People reported flying debris created from damaged roofs an fences, as well as uprooted trees. No injuries, though, have been reported.
(WEATHER REPORT)
S. O'BRIEN: President Bush is meeting with European leaders at NATO headquarters this hour. Their gathered for a group photo. Earlier, NATO leaders announced that all 26 allies will help train Iraq's military. It is a step toward ending the bitter divisions brought on by the Iraq war. Yesterday, the president said he wants to, quote, "begin a new era of trans-Atlantic unity." But a poll shows that many Europeans don't think it should be the role of the U.S. to spread democracy around the world.
This morning, I asked Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, if this is going to be a tough sell for the president.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN BARTLETT, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think everybody around the world can come together with shared values to say everybody in the world deserves the right, just like we have the luxuries in the United States or the people's of Europe, to live in freedom. And it's going to happen at different paces and different parts of the country, or of the world that is. But it's important that the free world, that the democracies of the world work together to help the reformers, to help those people realize the type of freedoms we enjoy every day.
S. O'BRIEN: The president also spoke about Russia. He had some pretty tough words. Let's listen to a little bit of what he had to say yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For Russia to make progress as a European nation, the Russian government must renew a commitment to democracy and the rule of law. We recognize that reform will not happen overnight. We must always remind Russia, however, that our alliance stands for a free press, a vital opposition, the sharing of power and the rule of law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
S. O'BRIEN: In the growing list of the things that Russia has seemed to have done over the last several years, what does the president find most egregious?
BARTLETT: Well, Soledad, I think the important part here is that President Bush and President Putin have a very strong and constructive relationship, in which when they have dialogue, they can have a free- flowing, frank conversation on the issues of the day. We've been able to use that type of dialogue to accomplish a lot of good things -- the Moscow treaty that reduced the number of ballistic missiles, other aspects of working with NATO that are important to both the United States and to Russia.
There are some decisions, obviously, that President Bush is looking forward to hearing explanations from President Putin himself. I will leave those discussions to him privately, but it's important that all the free democracies who are working with Russia to remember some of these basic principles as we go forward -- rule of law, as he said, minority protection rights, making sure that there's checks and balances within the government, these are important steps to take in order for Russia to be accepted into the broader international community when it comes to issues such as the WTO. So these are important principles that we ought to adhere to, and we are adhering to. And they'll be important conversations that President Bush can directly have with President Putin Thursday.
S. O'BRIEN: You certainly laid out the importance, but I'm curious to know the tone. Some senators would like the president to be tougher on President Putin. Do you think that, in fact, that President Bush will be making demands of President Putin?
BARTLETT: Well, it's important that in these type of conversations that the two leaders can have a frank conversation on both areas of agreement and areas of disagreement, and you can expect that on Thursday.
But what's important is that these two leaders have shown the capacity to bring their governments together to work on common, shared goals, as well as to tackle some of the issues which we don't agree upon, and that's the type of relationship, constructive relationship, that will benefit both the United States and Russia going forward.
S. O'BRIEN: The president said this as well, Syria must end its occupation of Lebanon. What if Syria, in fact, does not oblige? What happens next?
BARTLETT: Well, I think it's important that we focus on that effort. The Security Council resolution 1559, which was sponsored not only by the United States, but by France, brings that issue to the fore, and it's important we work as an international community to help the Lebanese people have a free and fair election this spring. That's where our focus will be now. President Bush is having these type of discussions last night with President Chirac and with his European counterparts today to see how we can help the Lebanese people going forward.
S. O'BRIEN: The president asked for help with Iraq -- political help, economic help, help security-wise. Since many countries in Europe were against the war in the first place, what makes the president confident that, in fact, they're going to help?
BARTLETT: Well, because he's had very constructive conversation with his European counterparts, as well as with the secretary-general of NATO. And as we speak right here, they're over there having this very conversation, where they're talking about the types of things that all 26 partners can contribute, whether it be financial, training. We all know that the way forward for the Iraqi people to protect their own country is to train Iraqi security forces. That is the focus. The NATO mission from the Istanbul summit last year helped create that mission. Now it's time to bolster it. We all know that we need to have more Iraqis trained, a chain of command, an officer corps. That's the type of conversations that are going on at this very minute, and we expect, and President Bush has been encouraged by the type of response he's getting from his European counterparts.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president.
Coming up in just about an hour, President Bush is expected to make a statement with NATO leaders. You want to stay tuned to CNN for complete coverage of the president's trip -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: The "New You Revolution" enters week six. Thekla learns how her legal skills will help her prepare for having a family. It's actually something every expectant mother should know.
S. O'BRIEN: Also, they were bitter rivals, but former presidents Bush and Clinton look like runningmates almost now. How do they become the newest political odd couple? A look at that is ahead. M. O'BRIEN: And authorities capture a suspected serial rapist. Did a police foul-up let him go free in the first place? That that's next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: People in Denver are outraged that a suspected serial rapist may have been taken off the streets sooner if it hadn't been for a computer mixup. Brent Brents was arrested on Friday after a massive manhunt. He's suspected of committing at least five rapes this month alone. Investigators also say evidence points to an attack last October. But that evidence was lost for two months after it was improperly uploaded into a computer database.
Joining us this morning to discuss all of this is Denver's district attorney, Mitchell Morrissey.
Nice to see you, Mr. Morrissey, thank you for talking with us.
MITCHELL MORRISSEY, DENVER DISTRICT ATTY.: Good morning.
S. O'BRIEN: It's a complicated case, so let's walk through it relatively slowly, if we can. October 27th, Brent Brents, it's believed, rapes a woman in Denver. It takes two months to process her -- the DNA that is captured from her in the hospital. Why does it take so long?
MORRISSEY: Unfortunately, because of the resources that we have, that's a fairly standard length of time when we don't have a suspect.
S. O'BRIEN: But you don't really know if you have a suspect until the DNA is tested, right, because you test it and then know if it's a match, you'd have a link and there would be your suspect?
MORRISSEY: Oftentimes, we have a suspect where, for instance in this crime we had a suspect. We have descriptions. We have identifications. Oftentimes, the DNA isn't as critical as it is -- as it turned out to be in this case.
S. O'BRIEN: OK, so then the samples are forwarded to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and they are uploaded into the computer, but there's no word back from the CBI, and so everyone assumed no word means no match, but, in fact, that's not the case. What happened there?
MORRISSEY: Actually, what happened is in early December, they uploaded -- they got a DNA profile. They uploaded it to the CBI, and actually got notification from the CBI that they had received the profile and started to run the profile, then there was a computer glitch and that particular profile, along with, I think, eight others, dropped out of the database.
S. O'BRIEN: Was it a computer glitch, or was it somebody was working on the computer at that time and basically lost the data?
MORRISSEY: It's my understanding they changed servers. So I don't know if you consider that a computer glitch or how that works. I'm not a computer guy.
S. O'BRIEN: No, I hear you, I'm just trying to understand this.
OK, so you think that there's no match, but in fact, there is a match, but nobody knows it yet. Then he goes, apparently, on this raping spree. He rapes five women in the month of February alone, it's believed. One is a 67-year-old grandmother who is home with her two 11-year-old granddaughters, who are also raped, which is horrible. Is it fair to say that if that computer glitch hadn't happened, if you hadn't been switching servers at the CBI at that time, these crimes in February could have been prevented?
MORRISSEY: I don't think so, because there's nothing to indicate that we had any contact with him. Had we known back in, I don't know, in early December when -- his name, we would have put a warrant out for him. There was a warrant out for him from a neighboring jurisdiction, and no one came in contact with him, no one arrested him on that warrant. So we would have known who we were looking for, but he wouldn't have come to our attention again until, unfortunately, the first of these attacks occurred.
S. O'BRIEN: You mentioned the neighboring jurisdiction. That's Aurora, which is not too far away, and that's another misstep to talk about. I understand that this is not your jurisdiction, but let's lay out what happened there. An 8-year-old boy, who's the son of the woman that Brents apparently is dating, claims that Brents touched him inappropriately, molested him. And Brents, who;s brought in, says the boy's not lying. This is a guy who is a convicted pedophile who is a convicted rapist. Why, at that moment, is he not arrested?
MORRISSEY: Had it been Denver, he would have been. Under our procedures, he would have been arrested. There would have been a hold put on him, and we would have had 72 hours to decide if we were going to file charges or not. I'm not the district attorney in my neighboring jurisdiction, and I don't know their policies and procedures. But in Denver, we would have put normal custody, held him and made our decision.
S. O'BRIEN: Brent J. Brent's mother says that he started beating her up when he was 10 years old. His sister says now that he's captured, she hopes that he's killed. This is his family. What happens now if he is convicted? What does he face? I mean, he's never coming out, right?
MORRISSEY: Today, we will bring charges, either today or tomorrow, we're charging over 75 very violent offenses. He faces a potential life sentence on, oh, I'd say half of those offenses. So what our judges do is set a bottom level to life on sexual assaults. And we're going to be filing a number of sexual assaults today.
S. O'BRIEN: And I wonder as well if more women will come forward. Mitchell Morrissey is the Denver district attorney. Thank you so much for joining us and clarifying this confusion this morning -- Miles.
MORRISSEY: Thank you. Thank you. M. O'BRIEN: One automaker makes an unusual move that could turn out to be a heck of a deal for you. Andy's "Minding Your Business," next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody.
General Motors is slashing prices on some of its popular SUVs. With a look at that and the market as well Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business."
Good morning to you.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE": Good morning, Soledad. Nice to see you.
Let's talk about the markets a little bit first of all. Closed yesterday, Monday, for the holiday. Previous five sessions, though just sort of not a whole lot going on, Dow down 0.1 percent. That's for the whole week, by the way. Even though the market was up, Dow was up 30 points on Friday. Futures lower this morning, price of oil is higher. Marching towards 49-plus.
Let's talk about this sales-incentive situation in prices with general motors. We've been hearing about them raising price incentives to make buying cars more attractive. Now GM doing something very unusual. They're cutting prices. They actually don't do this very often, because they like to mess around with the financing and the cash back. But here's a situation where basically, they just priced themselves too high over the past couple years. And so they're having to cut prices now. So about $5,000 off for an SUV. An SUV goes for about $24,000, $34,000. There's an SUV right there.
Another car story, very quickly, Toyota, according to "The Wall Street Journal," is going to be opening up two more plants in North America, bringing the total to eight. And these are really big deals, because they employ between 4,000 and 5,000 people, and they spend about a billion or two billion dollars each. No word on where these are going to be, but obviously, some communities would be very about interested in getting them.
CAFFERTY: If they build Toyotas in the United States, are they still Japanese imports?
SERWER: They're not Japanese imports, but they're Japanese cars. That's a good question.
M. O'BRIEN: But it's not question of the day.
CAFFERTY: No.
SERWER: What is the question of the day, Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: What would be it be, Jack? CAFFERTY: Well, it's something besides Toyota. President Bush continuing his European reconciliation tour. He's calling on various European leaders to join his campaign to spread democracy around the world, especially in places in the Middle East, like Syria and Iran. But the majority of Europeans, a lot of them -- in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain -- say they don't think it's the United States' job to spread democracy. According to a new AP/IPSOS (ph) poll, resistance is strongest in France. There's a surprise. Eighty- four percent of the French disagree with America's role. Seventy- eight percent of Germans and two-thirds of the people in Britain also oppose the idea. So as the president sits down for French fries with Jacques Chirac and prepares for today's meeting with German President Gerhard Schroeder, here's the question, is it the United States' role to spread democracy abroad. Am@CNN.com.
S. O'BRIEN: Good question. And in fact, he did sit down with the French president...
(CROSSTALK)
S. O'BRIEN: That was an excellent question as well.
SERWER: We'll do that tomorrow.
S. O'BRIEN: He did. He said that freedom Fries are over. It's French fries again.
SERWER: Oh, we're back to that, good.
S. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much.
SERWER: Well, a devastating earthquake in the Middle East. Hundreds are dead, nearly a thousands others injured. We've got an update on this developing story, just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired February 22, 2005 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Villages flattened in Iran as a powerful earthquake hits the middle of that country. In this country, the nightmare scenario in California, landslides, floods and washouts, now even tornadoes, as the season of the storm continues.
President Bush meeting with NATO allies this morning. Did he get what he wanted, new promises on Iraq?
And police desperately trying to put together the clues to find a missing pregnant woman and her young son. A nationwide alert on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.
O'BRIEN: Good morning. Welcome, everybody. Bill Hemmer's got the day off. Miles O'Brien is back for another day.
Good morning.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to you.
S. O'BRIEN: In just a few minutes, the president's mission to Europe, trying to win over European leaders and maybe even some European citizens as well. We're going to talk to one of the people who's closest to the president, Dan Bartlett, about the high-level discussions this morning with NATO.
M. O'BRIEN: Also a case in Denver that has outraged people there, a man arrested in a series of rapes. Could a number of them have been prevented with just some proper record keeping. We'll talk to the district attorney about whether some really bad mistakes were made there.
S. O'BRIEN: A really shocking case there, just horrible.
Mr. Cafferty, good morning.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Mrs. O'Brien.
Whose job is it to go around the world spreading freedom and democracy everywhere? According to a new poll, a lot of people don't think that's America's job. We'll take a look at the numbers in a few minutes.
S. O'BRIEN: All right, Jack, thank you. Heidi Collins has got a look at the headlines.
Good morning, Heidi.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, and good morning to you, everyone.
Now in the news this morning, there's been an attack on a convoy in Baghdad. Within the past half hour, word coming in to CNN, three people were killed when an Iraqi special forces convoy was attacked. More than 30 others are injured. We're going to bring you more details just as soon as they become available to us.
Meanwhile, rescue-and-recovery efforts are now under way after a deadly earthquake in Iran. Officials say the 6.4 quake hit in the central part of the country, killing at least 270 people. Hundreds of people are injured, but those numbers could change. More than a year ago, an earthquake in the same region left about 26,000 people dead.
In Texas, there is still no sign of a missing pregnant woman and her 7-year-old son. Police found Lisa Underwood's SUV in a creek north of Dallas yesterday. The keys were spotted nearby. An Amber Alert was issued over the weekend when Underwood failed to show up to her baby shower. Investigators later found a large amount of blood in her Fort Worth home. Underwood is seven months pregnant. We will hear from a family member just ahead on the program.
And in health news, a new study suggests exercise may help ward off Parkinson's Disease. Researchers found men who exercise on a regular basis early in life drastically reduce their risk. They found no such link, though, with women who exercised regularly. The study is published today in the journal neurology.
Miles, over to you.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, thank you very much, Heidi.
Deadly mudslides in California after days of rain and snow have soaked the state. At least four deaths are reported as a result of the storms and the landslides. Highways are flooded, and hundreds of thousands have been affected by power outages.
Captain Bill Lynch is with the Glendale Fire Department. He joins us live now.
Captain Lynch, just bring us up to date. How are things going on the cleanup operations there?
CAPT. BILL LYNCH, GLENDALE FIRE DEPT.: Good morning.
Well, things are going pretty well here. We've been fortunate and have had a slowdown in the rain as of early this morning. Cleanup efforts are going well. Here in our city, we've had around 14 homes that had to be evacuated, a number of residents displaced. And we've had some great assistance from Red Cross and adjoining agencies. We've been fortunate, we have not had any injuries or deaths associated with these storms here in the city of Glendale. M. O'BRIEN: Of course, other parts of Southern California a different story. This obviously a very dangerous situation. How do you assess the situation and know whether to evacuate homes?
LYNCH: Well, you know, we oftentimes get calls for persons just wanting their evaluation, and we'll send fire companies out to evaluate in a cursory assessment of the slope instability, and maybe the mudslide that has already occurred, and we will make that determination at that point. Additionally, we'll have city officials come out and take a look.
M. O'BRIEN: You say that rain has subsided a little bit. Do you expect further evacuations in Glendale?
LYNCH: You know, we hope not. The storm is just hanging around and causing havoc everywhere. If it can hold the way it is now, I would say probably not. But the way this storm is, it's just comes in waves. And when it hits, it's hitting us real hard.
M. O'BRIEN: And just put it in perspective, personal perspective, you ever seen one like this, a series of storms like this?
LYNCH: No, I haven't. The month of January and February here in Southern California have been pretty phenomenal. I think that we're at fifth for the record rainfall and probably going to move up some more.
M. O'BRIEN: Captain Bill Lynch with the Glendale Fire Department, thanks for your time. I know you're a busy man this morning -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: In Sacramento, minor damage after at least two twisters touched down. Funnel clouds were sighted throughout the Sacramento area, though the National Weather Service confirmed only two of them. People reported flying debris created from damaged roofs an fences, as well as uprooted trees. No injuries, though, have been reported.
(WEATHER REPORT)
S. O'BRIEN: President Bush is meeting with European leaders at NATO headquarters this hour. Their gathered for a group photo. Earlier, NATO leaders announced that all 26 allies will help train Iraq's military. It is a step toward ending the bitter divisions brought on by the Iraq war. Yesterday, the president said he wants to, quote, "begin a new era of trans-Atlantic unity." But a poll shows that many Europeans don't think it should be the role of the U.S. to spread democracy around the world.
This morning, I asked Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, if this is going to be a tough sell for the president.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN BARTLETT, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think everybody around the world can come together with shared values to say everybody in the world deserves the right, just like we have the luxuries in the United States or the people's of Europe, to live in freedom. And it's going to happen at different paces and different parts of the country, or of the world that is. But it's important that the free world, that the democracies of the world work together to help the reformers, to help those people realize the type of freedoms we enjoy every day.
S. O'BRIEN: The president also spoke about Russia. He had some pretty tough words. Let's listen to a little bit of what he had to say yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For Russia to make progress as a European nation, the Russian government must renew a commitment to democracy and the rule of law. We recognize that reform will not happen overnight. We must always remind Russia, however, that our alliance stands for a free press, a vital opposition, the sharing of power and the rule of law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
S. O'BRIEN: In the growing list of the things that Russia has seemed to have done over the last several years, what does the president find most egregious?
BARTLETT: Well, Soledad, I think the important part here is that President Bush and President Putin have a very strong and constructive relationship, in which when they have dialogue, they can have a free- flowing, frank conversation on the issues of the day. We've been able to use that type of dialogue to accomplish a lot of good things -- the Moscow treaty that reduced the number of ballistic missiles, other aspects of working with NATO that are important to both the United States and to Russia.
There are some decisions, obviously, that President Bush is looking forward to hearing explanations from President Putin himself. I will leave those discussions to him privately, but it's important that all the free democracies who are working with Russia to remember some of these basic principles as we go forward -- rule of law, as he said, minority protection rights, making sure that there's checks and balances within the government, these are important steps to take in order for Russia to be accepted into the broader international community when it comes to issues such as the WTO. So these are important principles that we ought to adhere to, and we are adhering to. And they'll be important conversations that President Bush can directly have with President Putin Thursday.
S. O'BRIEN: You certainly laid out the importance, but I'm curious to know the tone. Some senators would like the president to be tougher on President Putin. Do you think that, in fact, that President Bush will be making demands of President Putin?
BARTLETT: Well, it's important that in these type of conversations that the two leaders can have a frank conversation on both areas of agreement and areas of disagreement, and you can expect that on Thursday.
But what's important is that these two leaders have shown the capacity to bring their governments together to work on common, shared goals, as well as to tackle some of the issues which we don't agree upon, and that's the type of relationship, constructive relationship, that will benefit both the United States and Russia going forward.
S. O'BRIEN: The president said this as well, Syria must end its occupation of Lebanon. What if Syria, in fact, does not oblige? What happens next?
BARTLETT: Well, I think it's important that we focus on that effort. The Security Council resolution 1559, which was sponsored not only by the United States, but by France, brings that issue to the fore, and it's important we work as an international community to help the Lebanese people have a free and fair election this spring. That's where our focus will be now. President Bush is having these type of discussions last night with President Chirac and with his European counterparts today to see how we can help the Lebanese people going forward.
S. O'BRIEN: The president asked for help with Iraq -- political help, economic help, help security-wise. Since many countries in Europe were against the war in the first place, what makes the president confident that, in fact, they're going to help?
BARTLETT: Well, because he's had very constructive conversation with his European counterparts, as well as with the secretary-general of NATO. And as we speak right here, they're over there having this very conversation, where they're talking about the types of things that all 26 partners can contribute, whether it be financial, training. We all know that the way forward for the Iraqi people to protect their own country is to train Iraqi security forces. That is the focus. The NATO mission from the Istanbul summit last year helped create that mission. Now it's time to bolster it. We all know that we need to have more Iraqis trained, a chain of command, an officer corps. That's the type of conversations that are going on at this very minute, and we expect, and President Bush has been encouraged by the type of response he's getting from his European counterparts.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president.
Coming up in just about an hour, President Bush is expected to make a statement with NATO leaders. You want to stay tuned to CNN for complete coverage of the president's trip -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: The "New You Revolution" enters week six. Thekla learns how her legal skills will help her prepare for having a family. It's actually something every expectant mother should know.
S. O'BRIEN: Also, they were bitter rivals, but former presidents Bush and Clinton look like runningmates almost now. How do they become the newest political odd couple? A look at that is ahead. M. O'BRIEN: And authorities capture a suspected serial rapist. Did a police foul-up let him go free in the first place? That that's next on AMERICAN MORNING.
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S. O'BRIEN: People in Denver are outraged that a suspected serial rapist may have been taken off the streets sooner if it hadn't been for a computer mixup. Brent Brents was arrested on Friday after a massive manhunt. He's suspected of committing at least five rapes this month alone. Investigators also say evidence points to an attack last October. But that evidence was lost for two months after it was improperly uploaded into a computer database.
Joining us this morning to discuss all of this is Denver's district attorney, Mitchell Morrissey.
Nice to see you, Mr. Morrissey, thank you for talking with us.
MITCHELL MORRISSEY, DENVER DISTRICT ATTY.: Good morning.
S. O'BRIEN: It's a complicated case, so let's walk through it relatively slowly, if we can. October 27th, Brent Brents, it's believed, rapes a woman in Denver. It takes two months to process her -- the DNA that is captured from her in the hospital. Why does it take so long?
MORRISSEY: Unfortunately, because of the resources that we have, that's a fairly standard length of time when we don't have a suspect.
S. O'BRIEN: But you don't really know if you have a suspect until the DNA is tested, right, because you test it and then know if it's a match, you'd have a link and there would be your suspect?
MORRISSEY: Oftentimes, we have a suspect where, for instance in this crime we had a suspect. We have descriptions. We have identifications. Oftentimes, the DNA isn't as critical as it is -- as it turned out to be in this case.
S. O'BRIEN: OK, so then the samples are forwarded to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and they are uploaded into the computer, but there's no word back from the CBI, and so everyone assumed no word means no match, but, in fact, that's not the case. What happened there?
MORRISSEY: Actually, what happened is in early December, they uploaded -- they got a DNA profile. They uploaded it to the CBI, and actually got notification from the CBI that they had received the profile and started to run the profile, then there was a computer glitch and that particular profile, along with, I think, eight others, dropped out of the database.
S. O'BRIEN: Was it a computer glitch, or was it somebody was working on the computer at that time and basically lost the data?
MORRISSEY: It's my understanding they changed servers. So I don't know if you consider that a computer glitch or how that works. I'm not a computer guy.
S. O'BRIEN: No, I hear you, I'm just trying to understand this.
OK, so you think that there's no match, but in fact, there is a match, but nobody knows it yet. Then he goes, apparently, on this raping spree. He rapes five women in the month of February alone, it's believed. One is a 67-year-old grandmother who is home with her two 11-year-old granddaughters, who are also raped, which is horrible. Is it fair to say that if that computer glitch hadn't happened, if you hadn't been switching servers at the CBI at that time, these crimes in February could have been prevented?
MORRISSEY: I don't think so, because there's nothing to indicate that we had any contact with him. Had we known back in, I don't know, in early December when -- his name, we would have put a warrant out for him. There was a warrant out for him from a neighboring jurisdiction, and no one came in contact with him, no one arrested him on that warrant. So we would have known who we were looking for, but he wouldn't have come to our attention again until, unfortunately, the first of these attacks occurred.
S. O'BRIEN: You mentioned the neighboring jurisdiction. That's Aurora, which is not too far away, and that's another misstep to talk about. I understand that this is not your jurisdiction, but let's lay out what happened there. An 8-year-old boy, who's the son of the woman that Brents apparently is dating, claims that Brents touched him inappropriately, molested him. And Brents, who;s brought in, says the boy's not lying. This is a guy who is a convicted pedophile who is a convicted rapist. Why, at that moment, is he not arrested?
MORRISSEY: Had it been Denver, he would have been. Under our procedures, he would have been arrested. There would have been a hold put on him, and we would have had 72 hours to decide if we were going to file charges or not. I'm not the district attorney in my neighboring jurisdiction, and I don't know their policies and procedures. But in Denver, we would have put normal custody, held him and made our decision.
S. O'BRIEN: Brent J. Brent's mother says that he started beating her up when he was 10 years old. His sister says now that he's captured, she hopes that he's killed. This is his family. What happens now if he is convicted? What does he face? I mean, he's never coming out, right?
MORRISSEY: Today, we will bring charges, either today or tomorrow, we're charging over 75 very violent offenses. He faces a potential life sentence on, oh, I'd say half of those offenses. So what our judges do is set a bottom level to life on sexual assaults. And we're going to be filing a number of sexual assaults today.
S. O'BRIEN: And I wonder as well if more women will come forward. Mitchell Morrissey is the Denver district attorney. Thank you so much for joining us and clarifying this confusion this morning -- Miles.
MORRISSEY: Thank you. Thank you. M. O'BRIEN: One automaker makes an unusual move that could turn out to be a heck of a deal for you. Andy's "Minding Your Business," next on AMERICAN MORNING.
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S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody.
General Motors is slashing prices on some of its popular SUVs. With a look at that and the market as well Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business."
Good morning to you.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE": Good morning, Soledad. Nice to see you.
Let's talk about the markets a little bit first of all. Closed yesterday, Monday, for the holiday. Previous five sessions, though just sort of not a whole lot going on, Dow down 0.1 percent. That's for the whole week, by the way. Even though the market was up, Dow was up 30 points on Friday. Futures lower this morning, price of oil is higher. Marching towards 49-plus.
Let's talk about this sales-incentive situation in prices with general motors. We've been hearing about them raising price incentives to make buying cars more attractive. Now GM doing something very unusual. They're cutting prices. They actually don't do this very often, because they like to mess around with the financing and the cash back. But here's a situation where basically, they just priced themselves too high over the past couple years. And so they're having to cut prices now. So about $5,000 off for an SUV. An SUV goes for about $24,000, $34,000. There's an SUV right there.
Another car story, very quickly, Toyota, according to "The Wall Street Journal," is going to be opening up two more plants in North America, bringing the total to eight. And these are really big deals, because they employ between 4,000 and 5,000 people, and they spend about a billion or two billion dollars each. No word on where these are going to be, but obviously, some communities would be very about interested in getting them.
CAFFERTY: If they build Toyotas in the United States, are they still Japanese imports?
SERWER: They're not Japanese imports, but they're Japanese cars. That's a good question.
M. O'BRIEN: But it's not question of the day.
CAFFERTY: No.
SERWER: What is the question of the day, Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: What would be it be, Jack? CAFFERTY: Well, it's something besides Toyota. President Bush continuing his European reconciliation tour. He's calling on various European leaders to join his campaign to spread democracy around the world, especially in places in the Middle East, like Syria and Iran. But the majority of Europeans, a lot of them -- in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain -- say they don't think it's the United States' job to spread democracy. According to a new AP/IPSOS (ph) poll, resistance is strongest in France. There's a surprise. Eighty- four percent of the French disagree with America's role. Seventy- eight percent of Germans and two-thirds of the people in Britain also oppose the idea. So as the president sits down for French fries with Jacques Chirac and prepares for today's meeting with German President Gerhard Schroeder, here's the question, is it the United States' role to spread democracy abroad. Am@CNN.com.
S. O'BRIEN: Good question. And in fact, he did sit down with the French president...
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S. O'BRIEN: That was an excellent question as well.
SERWER: We'll do that tomorrow.
S. O'BRIEN: He did. He said that freedom Fries are over. It's French fries again.
SERWER: Oh, we're back to that, good.
S. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much.
SERWER: Well, a devastating earthquake in the Middle East. Hundreds are dead, nearly a thousands others injured. We've got an update on this developing story, just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
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