Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Guantanamo's Future; Powerless in Iraq
Aired June 15, 2005 - 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. 9:30. We are open for business yet again.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Exactly half past the hour, in fact. Welcome back.
Now that the Michael Jackson trial is over, the teenager who accused Jackson of molestation has had a chance to speak with prosecutors.
HEMMER: We will find out what the young man said when we talk to the D.A. Tom Sneddon is our guest, and there's Deputy Ron Zonen along with him, too, out of Santa Barbara. We'll get to that (INAUDIBLE).
O'BRIEN: All right. Before that, though, let's get another look at the headlines with Carol. Good morning again.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to all of you.
"Now in the News," a developing story out of South Carolina. An amber alert has been issued for a missing 2-year-old girl. Authorities in York County, South Carolina, are searching for Trinity Nicole Casey. They're apparently looking for a man in his late 50s or early 60s. It's not known if he's related to this girl.
Turning to Iraq now. At least 23 Iraqi soldiers have been killed in a suicide bombing. Iraqi Army officials say it happened at a restaurant on a military base northwest of Baquba. More than two other -- two dozen others are wounded.
An Australian hostage has been released in Iraq. Douglas Wood (ph), a civilian contractor, was kidnapped six weeks ago. Australia's prime minister says Wood was recovered by Iraqi and U.S. military forces. Wood, who is a longtime California resident, is reportedly doing OK.
Right now in Waco, Texas, a sentencing hearing is getting under way for a former Baylor University basketball player. Carlton Dotson pleaded guilty last week to the murder of teammate Patrick Dennehy in 2003. He could face life in prison. According to court documents, Dotson told officials he thought people were trying to kill him because he was Jesus.
In about two hours, Terri Schiavo's autopsy results are expected to be released. Her relatives say they're hoping the results can shed some light on what led to her collapse and severe brain damage 15 years ago. Schiavo died on March 31, nearly two weeks after her feeding tube was removed by court order.
And the Shuttle Discovery, rolling out to the launchpad. The four mile trip usually takes about six hours. It's a big load. This is the second time the shuttle has been rolled out. Back in early April, it had to go back for more safety work. Discovery is set to launch on July 13, thereabouts, depending on the weather. The shuttle has been grounded since the Columbia disaster in 2003. So they're hoping for the best this time.
HEMMER: Indeed.
O'BRIEN: Slow progress in this.
COSTELLO: Yes, it's really heavy. So they had to go really slowly.
O'BRIEN: All right, Carol, thanks.
Well, a hearing on the rights of detainees at Guantanamo is getting under way now in a Senate committee. Ed Henry live for us on Capitol Hill this morning. Ed, good morning to you. What can we expect from this hearing today?
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We can expect fireworks, because Democrats charge that this prison is a gulag, a legal black hole, where detainees are ruthlessly abused. In fact, some top Democrats on this Senate Committee believe that this has been so damaging to America's image around the world that the prison should be shut down altogether.
But Republicans insist these detainees have been treated humanely. And Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that very valuable information has been gleaned from some of these detainees, who are suspected terrorists out to do harm to the United States.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: They're not common car thieves. They're believed to be determined killers. Arguably, no detention facility in the history of warfare has been more transparent or received more scrutiny than Guantanamo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now, Secretary Rumsfeld added that there's no alternative to Gitmo, suggesting it makes no sense to just dump these prisoners back out on to the streets. Democrats insist that's not what they're advocating. They say they just believe if these detainees are, in fact, terrorists, they should be charged with a crime and put through the legal process. They that say some of these prisoners have been languishing at Gitmo for three years without any charges -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: As you well know, Ed, there's been lots of discussions about Guantanamo of late. But is there one specific thing that triggered these particular hearings? HENRY: I think what sparked this is in part is this "Time" magazine cover story showing confidential logs that one detainee was prevented from going to the bathroom, that he had to act like a dog during one long interrogation. And that has caught the interest of not just Democrats, but there's now one prominent Republican senator, Mel Martinez of Florida, who has said maybe this prison should, in fact, be shut down. He carries some weight because he's a former member of the Bush cabinet -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Ed Henry on Capitol Hill for us this morning. Ed, thanks -- Bill.
HENRY: Well, the Michael Jackson verdict, still a topic around water coolers today. Earlier today, I talked with the prosecutor Tom Sneddon about how Jackson's teenager -- teenage accuser, rather, responded to that verdict on Monday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM SNEDDON, SANTA BARBARA CO. D.A.: He was very down. He was -- he just didn't understand why people didn't believe him. A little cynical about the system. And I just encouraged him and told him what a hero he was and how courageous he was to come forward, and that he did the right thing. And that it was time for him to move on with his life and never look back, because he did the right thing.
HEMMER: So...
SNEDDON: And how much we believed in him and supported him.
HEMMER: Have you spoken to his mother?
SNEDDON: No, I didn't. I haven't at this point.
HEMMER: Would you like to?
SNEDDON: Well, I'm sure I will. It's just, there was a lot going on. But I wanted to talk to Gavin, because Gavin was somebody that, you know, we were all very close to and admired. And he was on the phone, and he was upset. And I felt it was important that I talk to him.
HEMMER: Yes. That takes us into the next issue. In listening to the jurors this past week, so many of them apparently had an issue with the credibility of the mother. Listen to this woman, who is almost 80, who sat on that jury, and then we'll talk about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELANOR COOK, JACKSON JUROR NO. 5: I disliked it intentionally when she snapped her fingers at us. That's when I thought, 'Don't snap your fingers at me, lady.'
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP) HEMMER: And, gentlemen, we heard from so many others who said that the accuser's mother literally had eye contact with them the entire time when she was on the witness stand. To Ron Zonen, did you instruct her to address the jury in that manner?
RONALD ZONEN, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: No, not at all. She was not somebody who was easily instructed. This is a person who's had a rather difficult life. And she's a victim of many, many years of domestic violence, and came to this courtroom certainly with a great deal of difficulty in her lifetime. I didn't give her instruction on what to do. We talked about her testimony previously before the grand jury. But for the most part she was testifying to events that she recalled to the best of her knowledge.
And she behaved as she behaves. This is her. She does snap her fingers when she talks to you. She has unusual behavioral patterns. I was hopeful that the jury would be able to understand that she is who she is and simply accept her testimony accordingly.
HEMMER: Some have suggested -- and listening to Mr. Zonen's answer, too, about the accuser's mother -- that this was the right charge, the right crime, but the wrong family. Mr. Sneddon, would you agree with that?
SNEDDON: Bill, you've been a prosecutor. I mean, you know that we don't take our victims -- we don't go out and say, OK, why don't you come on and be a victim this week. We take people that we get when they walk through door. And you have to do what you have to do with what's given to you.
And, frankly, I find it very difficult to visit the sins of a mother on a young boy who is 13 years old when somebody does something like he described in the courtroom. I mean, you would think that people would be discerning enough to allow his credibility to be judged individually, and let her credibility be judged on her basis and be discerning enough to realize there doesn't necessarily have to be a connection between the two.
HEMMER: Thank you for your time this morning. Tom Sneddon, Ron Zonen, from Santa Barbara.
SNEDDON: You're welcome.
HEMMER: Thank you, gentlemen.
ZONEN: Thank you.
HEMMER: Soledad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: It's been two years since the end of major combat in Iraq, but electrical service, still inconsistent at best. Jennifer Eccleston reports now on the current outlook for power.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JENNIFER ECCLESTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mehdi Abbas Mehdi considers himself a humanitarian. When his working-class Baghdad neighborhood Tubchi (ph) suffered from multiple power cuts, he took action. He brought this decrepit generator, ran hundreds of cables from his makeshift grid and offered his neighbors, at $20 a month, something Baghdad's power officials couldn't.
MEHDI ABBAD MEHDI, GENERATOR OWNER (through translator): I supply people with electricity twelve hours a day, four hours each time. I supply people more electricity than the national electricity grid, which is only six hours per day.
ECCLESTON: Thousands of generators like Mehdi's crowd Baghdad's alleyways and backyards. They're ubiquitous proof that after two years and billions of dollars in reconstruction aid, U.S. and Iraqi efforts to revive the country's electrical system are lagging. The power cuts are a huge source of public anger, anger that soars along with the thermometer during Iraq's punishing summers, when temperatures exceed 120 degrees and demand for power to run air- conditioners and fans doubles.
The slow pace of upgrading Iraq's 20-plus power plants is blamed on a number of factors. Lax maintenance and years of damage and neglect, after decades of war. And then there's the insurgency. Sabotage and kidnappings, adding millions of dollars in security costs. Iraq's minister of electricity says that's not the best use of resources, but a reality Iraqis have to accept.
MUSHIN SHALASH, IRAQI MINISTER OF ELECTRICITY: People know it's not an overnight thing. It takes time. But it will be gradually improved, as we all know.
ECCLESTON: Back in Tubchi, Rahim Abu Mohammed, his wife and nine children, enjoy the cool comforts of their locally powered home, thanks to neighborhood generator. Despite assurances that power generation will improve, Mohammed, like millions of Iraqis, remains perplexed about the pace of progress. A phrase commonly used here speaks volumes about the nation's frustration. If the Americans can put a man on the moon, why can't they give us electricity?
Jennifer Eccleston, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Doctors in Baghdad are reporting a spike in health problems related to the summer heat. The very young, obviously, and the very old, too, vulnerable to dehydration.
(WEATHER REPORT)
HEMMER: A major drug company has decided to ban advertisers for its own drugs. We'll get to that story.
O'BRIEN: Then, is Phil Jackson the right person for the Lakers? And can he and Kobe Bryant finally get along now that the coach is heading back to L.A.? We're talking about it, just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: We've been rocking out a lot lately on "90-Second Pop." And I have to say, (INAUDIBLE) I wouldn't mind (INAUDIBLE). Just kidding. I love that. U2 is great, of course.
Welcome back. It's time for "90-Second Pop." With us this morning, B.J. Sigesmund from "Us Weekly." Karyn Bryant from "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT." Andy Borowitz from borowitzreport.com.
Let's get right to it. "Batman." OK> With all due respect, hated the first one, loathed the second one. Horrible, bad, how is this one?
B.J. SIGESMUND, STAFF EDITOR, "US WEEKLY": This has nothing to do with the first four "Batmans." You'll be very happy to know, and it has none of the campy ironic tone that ruined the series, most people think. This is a much darker "Batman." It's a psychological study of this man dealing with the grief of losing his parents as a young boy.
Christian Bale is who is...
SIGESMUND: Christian Bale...
O'BRIEN: And that was an interesting choice.
SIGESMUND: He's excellent. He is great in this movie. He really looks the part. He's buff. He fills up the suit really well. Yet, he's also, you know, full of melancholy and anguish over losing his parents. It's terrific. I think it's going to make a lot of money this weekend. It's opening on 4,000 screens today. The only weak link, I'm sorry to say, Katie Holmes. She's...
(CROSSTALK)
ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: Now that surprised me, because I heard Tom Cruise thinks she's great.
KARYN BRYANT, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT": She's great, right.
BOROWITZ: So that really surprises me.
O'BRIEN: How is she the weak link? Because the role is bad?
SIGESMUND: You know what she plays? An assistant D.A. She is supposed to be tough talking. Yet every time she opens her mouth, all I hear is this little girl who was on "Dawson's Creek." I just think she was miscast in the movie.
BRYANT: And the thing with this movie, too... O'BRIEN: Maybe that's what Tom likes about her.
BRYANT: ... is that people should know is it's not necessarily as action-packed as some of the other superhero movies. It is a little bit more brooding and stuff.
SIGESMUND: Absolutely.
BRYANT: But I'm a Christian bale fan. I think he's going to be hot.
O'BRIEN: I think it's a great choice. I may go see this one.
SIGESMUND: Absolutely.
O'BRIEN: And, again, I hated the other ones. Hated.
Let's talk about Phil Jackson. Speaking of sequels or prequels. Phil Jackson is back. This is a guy who left the Lakers under, I think you would call them, really bad circumstances.
BOROWITZ: Circumstances. Yes. Well, he gave his press conference yesterday and he said, this is a story of reconciliation and redemption. I think it's a story of $7 million to $10 million a year.
O'BRIEN: Exactly, exactly. Then there is that.
BOROWITZ: Reconcile that. That's pretty good.
BRYANT: But, you know, in Los Angeles, I mean, you can talk trash about somebody, and then three weeks later you really need them for your next project.
BOROWITZ: Is that how it works?
O'BRIEN: Sorry, I didn't realize we had the same agent.
BRYANT: Exactly.
SIGESMUND: Phil actually invited Kobe Bryant out for a face-to- face meeting, and Kobe turned him down and said, you know, I don't want to meet him. I don't want to be responsible if this thing doesn't work out. I don't want the blame put on me.
BOROWITZ: Well, Phil I guess had been quoted as saying that Kobe was uncoachable.
BRYANT: Right.
BOROWITZ: Amazingly, for $10 million, he's coachable. That's the great thing. That's a great thing.
O'BRIEN: And, of course, Phil was the one who was a big fan of Shaq's.
BOROWITZ: Right.
O'BRIEN: And he really dissed the Lakers, Kobe specifically, and the owner of the Lakers in his book that he...
BOROWITZ: Right.
O'BRIEN: I mean, how...
BRYANT: Even though he's dating the owner's daughter.
O'BRIEN: How do you make good on that?
SIGESMUND: It's like going back to...
O'BRIEN: Then there's that.
BRYANT: And then there's that.
SIGESMUND: It's like going back to a lousy marriage, you know, just because there was...
O'BRIEN: Hi, did you miss the $7 million to $10 million?
BOROWITZ: Well, the fact is there are only -- you know, there are only so many big market jobs in the NBA. This is one of them.
O'BRIEN: Do you think he can make them win? I mean, that's why he's back.
BOROWITZ: Yes. I mean, I think that's the goal. That's the goal. Who knows? Who knows? You know, there are only so many jobs and so many people to fill those jobs. It's just musical chairs.
O'BRIEN: Yes, definitely.
Sean Penn, he is in Iran this week.
BRYANT: He is.
O'BRIEN: And he is a journalist...
BRYANT: He is.
O'BRIEN: ... representing the "San Francisco Chronicle."
BRYANT: He is great friends with Phil Bronstein, and apparently this is his second assignment before he had been to Iraq. And, you know, he's over there with his little notepad, and he has got an interpreter. And he is trying to go over there and cover their upcoming presidential elections.
O'BRIEN: He looks like an actor playing a journalist in a movie in Iran. I'm sorry. I'm sure he -- I think he's very thoughtful, and I think he's well-read. I don't always agree with him, but I think he's well-read into a lot of issues. But in those shots, it almost looks like they are filming. BRYANT: Well, supposedly, they are. He is being well-received by the locals.
O'BRIEN: But for a movie.
BRYANT: Because they are fans.
BOROWITZ: Everywhere he goes, the Iranians are chanting specoli (ph). They are so stoked.
SIGESMUND: Do you know what's ironic?
(CROSSTALK)
SIGESMUND: He will stop and he will talk to Iranian men and women on the street, but he will not talk to other journalists.
BRYANT: Right.
SIGESMUND: I think that's great that he will not grant interviews to other journalists about his being a journalist there.
BRYANT: He's just trying to sell stories.
O'BRIEN: Didn't he say about that that there would be a time and a place for that? Like, in fact, that that's why he was here to talk to regular people and not journalists.
BRYANT: Right. And then he's going to file his story, and then he'll talk about it.
O'BRIEN: And then he'd talk to...
BRYANT: So....
SIGESMUND: He'll go on TV.
BOROWITZ: He's very professional.
O'BRIEN: Yes, exactly. He'll be very professional. Well, it's just the weirder and weirder and weirder. You guys, as always, I thank you very much. Oh, we should mention Karyn, of course, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" weeknights on Headline Prime. Country music superstar and the yummy Dwight Yoakum pays a visit tonight. That's at 7:00 Eastern on Headline News -- Bill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: All right, Soledad. Eleven before the hour. Eleven minutes away before seeing Daryn Kagan.
What you working on down there, Daryn? Good morning.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Bill, got a lot for you. Earlier, you mentioned the Terri Schiavo case. Well, we have another story that raise the same issues. A pregnant woman, ravaged by cancer. She's clinically dead, but her unborn child is very much alive. How long can doctors wait to deliver the baby as the cancer spreads?
Plus, pets on planes. Which airline is safest for Fido or Fluffy. There are some new rules today. We'll break it down for you on CNN LIVE TODAY.
Bill, back to you.
HEMMER: Look forward to it. Thanks, Daryn. See you at 10:00 a.m.
One drug company takes a novel approach to protecting patients, banning commercials for its own product.
We'll explain that in "Minding Your Business" after a break here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Welcome back, everyone.
One pharmaceutical company saying it will wait before it advertises a new drug. That's kind of a novel idea. Also, check out business down on Wall Street. Here's Gerri Willis, working for Andy Serwer yet again, "Minding Your Business." How's Wall Street looking?
GERRI WILLIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, things are looking good, Bill. I think we're going to see that the Dow is up some 23 points -- 25 points now. So good day in the markets.
We have some economic news to thank here. Consumer price index says that -- yes, what of as of may, consumer prices lower than expected. And if you take out the effective energy and food, which is pretty volatile, up just a little bit. But the experts had expected a big increase. Also notable here, the OPEC -- OPEC, the oil cartel that essentially controls our oil prices -- is going to lift the oil production ceiling, which is good news for prices.
HEMMER: Just in time for summer, too.
WILLIS: Yes.
HEMMER: I like that. What's happening with Bristol-Myers Squibb and why have they reached this decision not to advertise their new drug on the market?
WILLIS: Isn't this amazing? I mean, this is a voluntary ban on advertising of drugs by Bristol-Myers. And we're talking about new drugs, here, for an entire year after their launch. The reason this is happening is that -- look, these ads have been really controversial, particularly when it comes to the painkillers called cox-2 inhibitors, which were later shown to be linked to cardiac problems. It was ads that really pushed those drugs and got them going. So now, the industry's starting to say, hey, maybe we're a little too successful with these ads, we're going to pull a little back.
HEMMER: Very interesting, too. We'll watch it. Thank you, Gerri.
WILLIS: You're welcome.
HEMMER: See you tomorrow?
WILLIS: Yes.
HEMMER: OK. Here's Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Coming up tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, some new dads are losing their most important job in the delivery room, capturing the birth on videotape. Well, these days many hospitals are saying no to home movies. Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a look at the reasons why, tomorrow.
We're back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Sweet. Here comes mom. Get back in that stroller.
Welcome back, everyone. The trial's over, we know that, but the late-night hosts are keeping Michael Jackson the top of their hit list. David Letterman, from last night, on "The Late Show."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW": The category is top ten messages left on Michael Jackson's answering machine.
Number five, Happy Father's Day from the lab where we artificially inseminated your sham wife.
Whoa! It's a little rough.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never heard anything...
LETTERMAN: And the answering machine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rough.
LETTERMAN: You know, if you don't like it, unplug your machine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.
LETTERMAN: Number four, change your outgoing message, dude. "Thriller" was like 20 years ago.
It's Martha. Disregard the letter with cell decorating tips.
Number two. Tom Cruise here. I'm calling every person in America to tell them I'm in love with Katie Holmes.
And the number one message left on Michael Jackson's answering machine. Hi, it's Saddam Hussein, how do I get one of them idiot juries? (END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Kind of harsh, didn't you think?
HEMMER: And plenty of material, too, going forward.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
COSTELLO: I thought it was harsh, too.
O'BRIEN: That was really kind of...
HEMMER: You know, we were sitting here yesterday at this time, saying, you know, we're going to hear from Michael Jackson today, weren't we? That was Tuesday.
O'BRIEN: We thought maybe we would hear from Michael Jackson.
WILLIS: We're keeping score here.
COSTELLO: I'm telling you, he's going to rest up, he's going to be looking great, and...
O'BRIEN: Uh-huh.
COSTELLO: OK.
O'BRIEN: No, go on. I really want to hear this.
COSTELLO: And he's going to have his military-type outfit on and his glove and he's going to do a press conference. Don't you think so?
HEMMER: I don't know.
COSTELLO: I think he will.
O'BRIEN: I don't -- actually, my prediction? Totally new Michael, as his attorney said. We will hear not a peep from him. Maybe he'll go do a show. He'll go overseas where he's huge, make a ton of money there.
COSTELLO: I think he's coming back.
O'BRIEN: He's done. Neverland's going to be -- either he'll just stay there and never leave, or it will be shut down.
COSTELLO: Well, he can't afford it, probably, anymore.
HEMMER: I got a buck on your theory and a buck on yours.
COSTELLO: It's courageous of you.
(CROSSTALK)
HEMMER: Here's Daryn Kagan at the CNN Center. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired June 15, 2005 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. 9:30. We are open for business yet again.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Exactly half past the hour, in fact. Welcome back.
Now that the Michael Jackson trial is over, the teenager who accused Jackson of molestation has had a chance to speak with prosecutors.
HEMMER: We will find out what the young man said when we talk to the D.A. Tom Sneddon is our guest, and there's Deputy Ron Zonen along with him, too, out of Santa Barbara. We'll get to that (INAUDIBLE).
O'BRIEN: All right. Before that, though, let's get another look at the headlines with Carol. Good morning again.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to all of you.
"Now in the News," a developing story out of South Carolina. An amber alert has been issued for a missing 2-year-old girl. Authorities in York County, South Carolina, are searching for Trinity Nicole Casey. They're apparently looking for a man in his late 50s or early 60s. It's not known if he's related to this girl.
Turning to Iraq now. At least 23 Iraqi soldiers have been killed in a suicide bombing. Iraqi Army officials say it happened at a restaurant on a military base northwest of Baquba. More than two other -- two dozen others are wounded.
An Australian hostage has been released in Iraq. Douglas Wood (ph), a civilian contractor, was kidnapped six weeks ago. Australia's prime minister says Wood was recovered by Iraqi and U.S. military forces. Wood, who is a longtime California resident, is reportedly doing OK.
Right now in Waco, Texas, a sentencing hearing is getting under way for a former Baylor University basketball player. Carlton Dotson pleaded guilty last week to the murder of teammate Patrick Dennehy in 2003. He could face life in prison. According to court documents, Dotson told officials he thought people were trying to kill him because he was Jesus.
In about two hours, Terri Schiavo's autopsy results are expected to be released. Her relatives say they're hoping the results can shed some light on what led to her collapse and severe brain damage 15 years ago. Schiavo died on March 31, nearly two weeks after her feeding tube was removed by court order.
And the Shuttle Discovery, rolling out to the launchpad. The four mile trip usually takes about six hours. It's a big load. This is the second time the shuttle has been rolled out. Back in early April, it had to go back for more safety work. Discovery is set to launch on July 13, thereabouts, depending on the weather. The shuttle has been grounded since the Columbia disaster in 2003. So they're hoping for the best this time.
HEMMER: Indeed.
O'BRIEN: Slow progress in this.
COSTELLO: Yes, it's really heavy. So they had to go really slowly.
O'BRIEN: All right, Carol, thanks.
Well, a hearing on the rights of detainees at Guantanamo is getting under way now in a Senate committee. Ed Henry live for us on Capitol Hill this morning. Ed, good morning to you. What can we expect from this hearing today?
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We can expect fireworks, because Democrats charge that this prison is a gulag, a legal black hole, where detainees are ruthlessly abused. In fact, some top Democrats on this Senate Committee believe that this has been so damaging to America's image around the world that the prison should be shut down altogether.
But Republicans insist these detainees have been treated humanely. And Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that very valuable information has been gleaned from some of these detainees, who are suspected terrorists out to do harm to the United States.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: They're not common car thieves. They're believed to be determined killers. Arguably, no detention facility in the history of warfare has been more transparent or received more scrutiny than Guantanamo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now, Secretary Rumsfeld added that there's no alternative to Gitmo, suggesting it makes no sense to just dump these prisoners back out on to the streets. Democrats insist that's not what they're advocating. They say they just believe if these detainees are, in fact, terrorists, they should be charged with a crime and put through the legal process. They that say some of these prisoners have been languishing at Gitmo for three years without any charges -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: As you well know, Ed, there's been lots of discussions about Guantanamo of late. But is there one specific thing that triggered these particular hearings? HENRY: I think what sparked this is in part is this "Time" magazine cover story showing confidential logs that one detainee was prevented from going to the bathroom, that he had to act like a dog during one long interrogation. And that has caught the interest of not just Democrats, but there's now one prominent Republican senator, Mel Martinez of Florida, who has said maybe this prison should, in fact, be shut down. He carries some weight because he's a former member of the Bush cabinet -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Ed Henry on Capitol Hill for us this morning. Ed, thanks -- Bill.
HENRY: Well, the Michael Jackson verdict, still a topic around water coolers today. Earlier today, I talked with the prosecutor Tom Sneddon about how Jackson's teenager -- teenage accuser, rather, responded to that verdict on Monday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM SNEDDON, SANTA BARBARA CO. D.A.: He was very down. He was -- he just didn't understand why people didn't believe him. A little cynical about the system. And I just encouraged him and told him what a hero he was and how courageous he was to come forward, and that he did the right thing. And that it was time for him to move on with his life and never look back, because he did the right thing.
HEMMER: So...
SNEDDON: And how much we believed in him and supported him.
HEMMER: Have you spoken to his mother?
SNEDDON: No, I didn't. I haven't at this point.
HEMMER: Would you like to?
SNEDDON: Well, I'm sure I will. It's just, there was a lot going on. But I wanted to talk to Gavin, because Gavin was somebody that, you know, we were all very close to and admired. And he was on the phone, and he was upset. And I felt it was important that I talk to him.
HEMMER: Yes. That takes us into the next issue. In listening to the jurors this past week, so many of them apparently had an issue with the credibility of the mother. Listen to this woman, who is almost 80, who sat on that jury, and then we'll talk about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELANOR COOK, JACKSON JUROR NO. 5: I disliked it intentionally when she snapped her fingers at us. That's when I thought, 'Don't snap your fingers at me, lady.'
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP) HEMMER: And, gentlemen, we heard from so many others who said that the accuser's mother literally had eye contact with them the entire time when she was on the witness stand. To Ron Zonen, did you instruct her to address the jury in that manner?
RONALD ZONEN, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: No, not at all. She was not somebody who was easily instructed. This is a person who's had a rather difficult life. And she's a victim of many, many years of domestic violence, and came to this courtroom certainly with a great deal of difficulty in her lifetime. I didn't give her instruction on what to do. We talked about her testimony previously before the grand jury. But for the most part she was testifying to events that she recalled to the best of her knowledge.
And she behaved as she behaves. This is her. She does snap her fingers when she talks to you. She has unusual behavioral patterns. I was hopeful that the jury would be able to understand that she is who she is and simply accept her testimony accordingly.
HEMMER: Some have suggested -- and listening to Mr. Zonen's answer, too, about the accuser's mother -- that this was the right charge, the right crime, but the wrong family. Mr. Sneddon, would you agree with that?
SNEDDON: Bill, you've been a prosecutor. I mean, you know that we don't take our victims -- we don't go out and say, OK, why don't you come on and be a victim this week. We take people that we get when they walk through door. And you have to do what you have to do with what's given to you.
And, frankly, I find it very difficult to visit the sins of a mother on a young boy who is 13 years old when somebody does something like he described in the courtroom. I mean, you would think that people would be discerning enough to allow his credibility to be judged individually, and let her credibility be judged on her basis and be discerning enough to realize there doesn't necessarily have to be a connection between the two.
HEMMER: Thank you for your time this morning. Tom Sneddon, Ron Zonen, from Santa Barbara.
SNEDDON: You're welcome.
HEMMER: Thank you, gentlemen.
ZONEN: Thank you.
HEMMER: Soledad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: It's been two years since the end of major combat in Iraq, but electrical service, still inconsistent at best. Jennifer Eccleston reports now on the current outlook for power.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JENNIFER ECCLESTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mehdi Abbas Mehdi considers himself a humanitarian. When his working-class Baghdad neighborhood Tubchi (ph) suffered from multiple power cuts, he took action. He brought this decrepit generator, ran hundreds of cables from his makeshift grid and offered his neighbors, at $20 a month, something Baghdad's power officials couldn't.
MEHDI ABBAD MEHDI, GENERATOR OWNER (through translator): I supply people with electricity twelve hours a day, four hours each time. I supply people more electricity than the national electricity grid, which is only six hours per day.
ECCLESTON: Thousands of generators like Mehdi's crowd Baghdad's alleyways and backyards. They're ubiquitous proof that after two years and billions of dollars in reconstruction aid, U.S. and Iraqi efforts to revive the country's electrical system are lagging. The power cuts are a huge source of public anger, anger that soars along with the thermometer during Iraq's punishing summers, when temperatures exceed 120 degrees and demand for power to run air- conditioners and fans doubles.
The slow pace of upgrading Iraq's 20-plus power plants is blamed on a number of factors. Lax maintenance and years of damage and neglect, after decades of war. And then there's the insurgency. Sabotage and kidnappings, adding millions of dollars in security costs. Iraq's minister of electricity says that's not the best use of resources, but a reality Iraqis have to accept.
MUSHIN SHALASH, IRAQI MINISTER OF ELECTRICITY: People know it's not an overnight thing. It takes time. But it will be gradually improved, as we all know.
ECCLESTON: Back in Tubchi, Rahim Abu Mohammed, his wife and nine children, enjoy the cool comforts of their locally powered home, thanks to neighborhood generator. Despite assurances that power generation will improve, Mohammed, like millions of Iraqis, remains perplexed about the pace of progress. A phrase commonly used here speaks volumes about the nation's frustration. If the Americans can put a man on the moon, why can't they give us electricity?
Jennifer Eccleston, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Doctors in Baghdad are reporting a spike in health problems related to the summer heat. The very young, obviously, and the very old, too, vulnerable to dehydration.
(WEATHER REPORT)
HEMMER: A major drug company has decided to ban advertisers for its own drugs. We'll get to that story.
O'BRIEN: Then, is Phil Jackson the right person for the Lakers? And can he and Kobe Bryant finally get along now that the coach is heading back to L.A.? We're talking about it, just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: We've been rocking out a lot lately on "90-Second Pop." And I have to say, (INAUDIBLE) I wouldn't mind (INAUDIBLE). Just kidding. I love that. U2 is great, of course.
Welcome back. It's time for "90-Second Pop." With us this morning, B.J. Sigesmund from "Us Weekly." Karyn Bryant from "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT." Andy Borowitz from borowitzreport.com.
Let's get right to it. "Batman." OK> With all due respect, hated the first one, loathed the second one. Horrible, bad, how is this one?
B.J. SIGESMUND, STAFF EDITOR, "US WEEKLY": This has nothing to do with the first four "Batmans." You'll be very happy to know, and it has none of the campy ironic tone that ruined the series, most people think. This is a much darker "Batman." It's a psychological study of this man dealing with the grief of losing his parents as a young boy.
Christian Bale is who is...
SIGESMUND: Christian Bale...
O'BRIEN: And that was an interesting choice.
SIGESMUND: He's excellent. He is great in this movie. He really looks the part. He's buff. He fills up the suit really well. Yet, he's also, you know, full of melancholy and anguish over losing his parents. It's terrific. I think it's going to make a lot of money this weekend. It's opening on 4,000 screens today. The only weak link, I'm sorry to say, Katie Holmes. She's...
(CROSSTALK)
ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: Now that surprised me, because I heard Tom Cruise thinks she's great.
KARYN BRYANT, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT": She's great, right.
BOROWITZ: So that really surprises me.
O'BRIEN: How is she the weak link? Because the role is bad?
SIGESMUND: You know what she plays? An assistant D.A. She is supposed to be tough talking. Yet every time she opens her mouth, all I hear is this little girl who was on "Dawson's Creek." I just think she was miscast in the movie.
BRYANT: And the thing with this movie, too... O'BRIEN: Maybe that's what Tom likes about her.
BRYANT: ... is that people should know is it's not necessarily as action-packed as some of the other superhero movies. It is a little bit more brooding and stuff.
SIGESMUND: Absolutely.
BRYANT: But I'm a Christian bale fan. I think he's going to be hot.
O'BRIEN: I think it's a great choice. I may go see this one.
SIGESMUND: Absolutely.
O'BRIEN: And, again, I hated the other ones. Hated.
Let's talk about Phil Jackson. Speaking of sequels or prequels. Phil Jackson is back. This is a guy who left the Lakers under, I think you would call them, really bad circumstances.
BOROWITZ: Circumstances. Yes. Well, he gave his press conference yesterday and he said, this is a story of reconciliation and redemption. I think it's a story of $7 million to $10 million a year.
O'BRIEN: Exactly, exactly. Then there is that.
BOROWITZ: Reconcile that. That's pretty good.
BRYANT: But, you know, in Los Angeles, I mean, you can talk trash about somebody, and then three weeks later you really need them for your next project.
BOROWITZ: Is that how it works?
O'BRIEN: Sorry, I didn't realize we had the same agent.
BRYANT: Exactly.
SIGESMUND: Phil actually invited Kobe Bryant out for a face-to- face meeting, and Kobe turned him down and said, you know, I don't want to meet him. I don't want to be responsible if this thing doesn't work out. I don't want the blame put on me.
BOROWITZ: Well, Phil I guess had been quoted as saying that Kobe was uncoachable.
BRYANT: Right.
BOROWITZ: Amazingly, for $10 million, he's coachable. That's the great thing. That's a great thing.
O'BRIEN: And, of course, Phil was the one who was a big fan of Shaq's.
BOROWITZ: Right.
O'BRIEN: And he really dissed the Lakers, Kobe specifically, and the owner of the Lakers in his book that he...
BOROWITZ: Right.
O'BRIEN: I mean, how...
BRYANT: Even though he's dating the owner's daughter.
O'BRIEN: How do you make good on that?
SIGESMUND: It's like going back to...
O'BRIEN: Then there's that.
BRYANT: And then there's that.
SIGESMUND: It's like going back to a lousy marriage, you know, just because there was...
O'BRIEN: Hi, did you miss the $7 million to $10 million?
BOROWITZ: Well, the fact is there are only -- you know, there are only so many big market jobs in the NBA. This is one of them.
O'BRIEN: Do you think he can make them win? I mean, that's why he's back.
BOROWITZ: Yes. I mean, I think that's the goal. That's the goal. Who knows? Who knows? You know, there are only so many jobs and so many people to fill those jobs. It's just musical chairs.
O'BRIEN: Yes, definitely.
Sean Penn, he is in Iran this week.
BRYANT: He is.
O'BRIEN: And he is a journalist...
BRYANT: He is.
O'BRIEN: ... representing the "San Francisco Chronicle."
BRYANT: He is great friends with Phil Bronstein, and apparently this is his second assignment before he had been to Iraq. And, you know, he's over there with his little notepad, and he has got an interpreter. And he is trying to go over there and cover their upcoming presidential elections.
O'BRIEN: He looks like an actor playing a journalist in a movie in Iran. I'm sorry. I'm sure he -- I think he's very thoughtful, and I think he's well-read. I don't always agree with him, but I think he's well-read into a lot of issues. But in those shots, it almost looks like they are filming. BRYANT: Well, supposedly, they are. He is being well-received by the locals.
O'BRIEN: But for a movie.
BRYANT: Because they are fans.
BOROWITZ: Everywhere he goes, the Iranians are chanting specoli (ph). They are so stoked.
SIGESMUND: Do you know what's ironic?
(CROSSTALK)
SIGESMUND: He will stop and he will talk to Iranian men and women on the street, but he will not talk to other journalists.
BRYANT: Right.
SIGESMUND: I think that's great that he will not grant interviews to other journalists about his being a journalist there.
BRYANT: He's just trying to sell stories.
O'BRIEN: Didn't he say about that that there would be a time and a place for that? Like, in fact, that that's why he was here to talk to regular people and not journalists.
BRYANT: Right. And then he's going to file his story, and then he'll talk about it.
O'BRIEN: And then he'd talk to...
BRYANT: So....
SIGESMUND: He'll go on TV.
BOROWITZ: He's very professional.
O'BRIEN: Yes, exactly. He'll be very professional. Well, it's just the weirder and weirder and weirder. You guys, as always, I thank you very much. Oh, we should mention Karyn, of course, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" weeknights on Headline Prime. Country music superstar and the yummy Dwight Yoakum pays a visit tonight. That's at 7:00 Eastern on Headline News -- Bill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: All right, Soledad. Eleven before the hour. Eleven minutes away before seeing Daryn Kagan.
What you working on down there, Daryn? Good morning.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Bill, got a lot for you. Earlier, you mentioned the Terri Schiavo case. Well, we have another story that raise the same issues. A pregnant woman, ravaged by cancer. She's clinically dead, but her unborn child is very much alive. How long can doctors wait to deliver the baby as the cancer spreads?
Plus, pets on planes. Which airline is safest for Fido or Fluffy. There are some new rules today. We'll break it down for you on CNN LIVE TODAY.
Bill, back to you.
HEMMER: Look forward to it. Thanks, Daryn. See you at 10:00 a.m.
One drug company takes a novel approach to protecting patients, banning commercials for its own product.
We'll explain that in "Minding Your Business" after a break here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Welcome back, everyone.
One pharmaceutical company saying it will wait before it advertises a new drug. That's kind of a novel idea. Also, check out business down on Wall Street. Here's Gerri Willis, working for Andy Serwer yet again, "Minding Your Business." How's Wall Street looking?
GERRI WILLIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, things are looking good, Bill. I think we're going to see that the Dow is up some 23 points -- 25 points now. So good day in the markets.
We have some economic news to thank here. Consumer price index says that -- yes, what of as of may, consumer prices lower than expected. And if you take out the effective energy and food, which is pretty volatile, up just a little bit. But the experts had expected a big increase. Also notable here, the OPEC -- OPEC, the oil cartel that essentially controls our oil prices -- is going to lift the oil production ceiling, which is good news for prices.
HEMMER: Just in time for summer, too.
WILLIS: Yes.
HEMMER: I like that. What's happening with Bristol-Myers Squibb and why have they reached this decision not to advertise their new drug on the market?
WILLIS: Isn't this amazing? I mean, this is a voluntary ban on advertising of drugs by Bristol-Myers. And we're talking about new drugs, here, for an entire year after their launch. The reason this is happening is that -- look, these ads have been really controversial, particularly when it comes to the painkillers called cox-2 inhibitors, which were later shown to be linked to cardiac problems. It was ads that really pushed those drugs and got them going. So now, the industry's starting to say, hey, maybe we're a little too successful with these ads, we're going to pull a little back.
HEMMER: Very interesting, too. We'll watch it. Thank you, Gerri.
WILLIS: You're welcome.
HEMMER: See you tomorrow?
WILLIS: Yes.
HEMMER: OK. Here's Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Coming up tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, some new dads are losing their most important job in the delivery room, capturing the birth on videotape. Well, these days many hospitals are saying no to home movies. Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a look at the reasons why, tomorrow.
We're back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Sweet. Here comes mom. Get back in that stroller.
Welcome back, everyone. The trial's over, we know that, but the late-night hosts are keeping Michael Jackson the top of their hit list. David Letterman, from last night, on "The Late Show."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW": The category is top ten messages left on Michael Jackson's answering machine.
Number five, Happy Father's Day from the lab where we artificially inseminated your sham wife.
Whoa! It's a little rough.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never heard anything...
LETTERMAN: And the answering machine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rough.
LETTERMAN: You know, if you don't like it, unplug your machine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.
LETTERMAN: Number four, change your outgoing message, dude. "Thriller" was like 20 years ago.
It's Martha. Disregard the letter with cell decorating tips.
Number two. Tom Cruise here. I'm calling every person in America to tell them I'm in love with Katie Holmes.
And the number one message left on Michael Jackson's answering machine. Hi, it's Saddam Hussein, how do I get one of them idiot juries? (END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Kind of harsh, didn't you think?
HEMMER: And plenty of material, too, going forward.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
COSTELLO: I thought it was harsh, too.
O'BRIEN: That was really kind of...
HEMMER: You know, we were sitting here yesterday at this time, saying, you know, we're going to hear from Michael Jackson today, weren't we? That was Tuesday.
O'BRIEN: We thought maybe we would hear from Michael Jackson.
WILLIS: We're keeping score here.
COSTELLO: I'm telling you, he's going to rest up, he's going to be looking great, and...
O'BRIEN: Uh-huh.
COSTELLO: OK.
O'BRIEN: No, go on. I really want to hear this.
COSTELLO: And he's going to have his military-type outfit on and his glove and he's going to do a press conference. Don't you think so?
HEMMER: I don't know.
COSTELLO: I think he will.
O'BRIEN: I don't -- actually, my prediction? Totally new Michael, as his attorney said. We will hear not a peep from him. Maybe he'll go do a show. He'll go overseas where he's huge, make a ton of money there.
COSTELLO: I think he's coming back.
O'BRIEN: He's done. Neverland's going to be -- either he'll just stay there and never leave, or it will be shut down.
COSTELLO: Well, he can't afford it, probably, anymore.
HEMMER: I got a buck on your theory and a buck on yours.
COSTELLO: It's courageous of you.
(CROSSTALK)
HEMMER: Here's Daryn Kagan at the CNN Center. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
