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CNN Live At Daybreak

Getting Iraq on its Feet

Aired June 22, 2005 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It is Wednesday, June 22, and a family is reunited with a Cub Scout lost and now found.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I asked him his name, because I really couldn't remember his name exactly. You know, Brandon, Brennan, whatever. And I asked him his name. He says, "I'm Brennan." I thought, this is him!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And, indeed, it was. Days of searching and now a happy homecoming.

Also ahead, are there enough troops in Iraq to get the job done? We'll hear from commanders on the ground.

And the BTK suspect speaks. A TV station in Kansas gets an exclusive interview. What did Dennis Rader say?

ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello and Chad Myers.

And good morning to you.

More on those stories in just a moment.

Also ahead, should the runaway bride profit from her escapade? A community says no, she ought to pay.

And security concerns this morning about a popular pharmacy customer card.

But first, now in the news, going on right now in Brussels, Belgium, an international conference on Iraq. U.S. and European Union officials are pressing the interim government to make sure the minority Sunnis have a role in the country's future.

An American spy plane has crashed in Southwest Asia. The U.S. military is not disclosing the location of the U2 plane or the fate of the pilot.

And Colorado Springs -- what the hail? Oh, it's hail. Up to a foot of it fell on the city's southeast side.

Remember, you can view more CNN reports online. Just visit cnn.com, click onto "watch" and you can check out, oh, all different kinds of stories.

To the Forecast Center now and Chad -- good morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: Up first this hour, rebuilding Iraq and who pays? So far, Americans are footing most of that bill. But that could change, as foreign ministers gather at the European Union in Brussels this morning. Iraqi officials want the international community to know they need help. And its request is getting some serious backup from the U.S. secretary of state.

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CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We all recognize our obligation to help Iraq fulfill the promise of its democratic transformation. Iraq's neighbors, Syria in particular, must secure their borders from those who seek to destroy Iraq's progress. And all countries must deliver the material support they have already pledged to the government of Iraq.

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COSTELLO: And, we'll talk more about the Iraq rebuilding conference in just a few minutes. CNN's Robin Oakley will join us live.

Back at home, on the heels of saying, "I want to be president," Senator Joe Biden is accusing President Bush of misleading Americans about the war. He wants the president to change course in Iraq. Biden believes the current path is undermining support for U.S. troops.

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SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DW), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: The disconnect between the administration's rhetoric and the reality on the ground has opened not just a credibility gap, but a credibility chasm. Standing right in the middle of that chasm are 139,000 American troops, some of them, some of them on their third tour.

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COSTELLO: Speaking of troops in Iraq, U.S. Marine officials say the assault to oust insurgents has wrapped up, you know, in that border town near Syria. In Operation Spear, the Marines destroyed two car bombs, factories, including one with 16 car bombs in the making. They've also freed four Iraqi hostages, to of them former members of the border police. The Marines killed at least 50 insurgents and foreign fighters in the city of 60,000 residents.

And despite the advances made during Operation Spear, commanders on the ground are up against this simple reality -- there are not enough U.S. troops to put down the insurgency for good. So the focus is on getting Iraqi troops up to speed.

Jane Arraf has more on that.

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JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hundreds of miles from Baghdad, there's a battle being fought on Iraq's frontier for the survival of the country. Limited numbers of American forces move through towns and cities to keep insurgents and foreign fighters from digging in. There aren't enough American troops to eliminate the violence and stop all the foreign fighters still coming across from Syria. And, commanders say, it's unlikely there ever will be.

COL. STEPHEN DAVIS, U.S. MARINE CORPS: My mission out here is to make sure the insurgents don't get any more of a firm foothold than what they may have. We seek to interdict and disrupt them wherever they appear. So the forces I have are what I have.

ARRAF: The insurgency is a moving target. As the Marines destroy their safe havens, some of the insurgents and foreign fighters invariably slip away and reappear in other places.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We take it in chunks, you know. We had the Operation Matador. We cleared an area north of the Euphrates River a couple of weeks ago. It's just with the forces we have on hand we concentrate on areas where we think they are concentrated.

ARRAF: The latest operation was in the city of Karabila, five miles from the Syrian border, where foreign fighters are launching attacks on other parts of Iraq. Here Marines moved in with tanks, air strikes, missiles, destroying safe houses and car bomb factories. It's a very basic fight.

Trying to capture insurgents is a luxury the Marines don't believe they can afford. They were here to kill them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm out.

ARRAF (on camera): This is the kind of fight U.S. forces are facing here. In this house, they found a sniper rifle with armor piercing bullets. Just outside, they detonated a car bomb. The Marines have killed and captured foreign fighters and insurgents here, but soon they'll pull out, and no one is sure what will happen when they do.

(voice-over): It's a reoccurring pattern. Last year, Marine units here in western Al Anbar were pulled out to fight in Falluja. In the security vacuum that was left, Iraqi police forces just getting on their feet disintegrated. Insurgents retook control of some of the cities.

In northwestern Iraq, stretched U.S. forces all but pulled out last year, leaving only 400 troops in this vast territory stretching to the Syrian border. Now, the U.S. Army has poured in 4,000 soldiers. This month, they launched a major operation to uproot insurgents controlling parts of the city at Tal Afar. There are no illusions it's a lasting solution.

LT. COL. CHRIS HICKEY, U.S. ARMY: So far, we believe it's disrupted the terrorists. The question is for how long.

ARRAF: There are also no illusions that U.S. military force will defeat this insurgency. An Iraqi government and Iraqi troops will have to do that. U.S. troops there are still training Iraqis, like these soldiers brought in from other parts of the country who were part of the fight in Karabila.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not your fault. Let's try and fix it. This way they don't get mowed down.

ARRAF: A self-sufficient Iraqi Army is still a long way off. In the meantime, U.S. forces in this huge territory will keep moving, trying to keep the insurgents off balance until Iraqi forces are ready to step in.

Jane Arraf, CNN, Karabila, Iraq.

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COSTELLO: And still focusing on Iraq, the country's former foreign minister, you remember Tariq Aziz? Well, he's been questioned by the Iraqi War Crimes Tribunal. His lawyer says Aziz faced questions about his alleged role in mass killings prior to the fall of Saddam Hussein. Aziz denied any involvement in the killing or displacement of hundreds of thousands of Kurds.

Well, the insurgency does continue in Iraq. The Iraqi infrastructure has come under attack. The country needs help, and it's asking at an international conference on Iraq. It's going on right now in Brussels.

Our European editor -- our European political editor, Robin Oakley, is monitoring that from London this morning -- good morning, Robin.

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol.

Well, certainly this is a key conference, really, because two years ago, relations between the European Union leaders, particularly France and Germany, who had opposed the war in Iraq, and the United States, were at rock bottom on the whole question of the rights and wrongs of the war. Now, we have the E.U. and the U.S. coming together at the request of the Iraqi authorities to stage this conference jointly in Brussels today.

It's not exactly a donor conference, where a lot more money will be pledged, but a lot more practical assistance will be offered in terms of helping the Iraqis build their democracy, increase the rule of law and counter insurgency.

And at the same time, there is an attempt by the European Union to put a line under past differences and to say look, it's in the interests of everybody now to build a stable and democratic Iraq. Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary general, is one of those who has addressed the meeting of some 70 foreign ministers already. And he laid stress on the need for political transparency and for a very inclusive approach from the Iraqi authorities.

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KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL: Iraqis must come together to draft a new constitution in an inclusive, participatory, transparent process that responds to the demands of all constituencies. Achieving consensus on a new constitution will require compromise. But we have seen that compromise is possible and that it bears fruits.

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OAKLEY: So basically that's a call for the inclusion of more Sunnis, as well as the Shiites, in the bringing democracy in Iraq, a message that we heard underlined also by Condoleezza Rice.

And as for the Iraqis themselves, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister in the interim administration, he's calling on all the others involved in this conference to live up to the pledges that they have already made and to give Iraq the help it needs, particularly in countering insurgency -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Robin Oakley live in London this morning.

And now to a very public apology for what some say were outrageous comments. Remember what Dick Durbin said about Guantanamo? Well, the Democratic senator from Illinois had linked the treatment of terrorist suspects to what happened in prisons in the old Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

The White House called his remarks "reprehensible." Republicans called on him to apologize.

And on Tuesday, he did just that, in a sometimes emotional statement.

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SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: In the end, I don't want anything in my public career to detract from my love for this country, my respect for those who serve it in this great Senate. I offer my apologizes to those who were offended by my words. I promise you that I will continue to speak out on the issues that I think are important to the people of Illinois and to the nation.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Human rights activists and the International Red Cross have criticized the treatment of prisoners at GITMO.

Still to come this hour, four nights alone in the mountains and this little trooper is only 11. More on the rescue of the lone Cub Scout.

And delays in another search mission. We'll take you live to Aruba on the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.

Plus, from condoms to birth control, the kind of personal purchases you may not want to share with just anyone in cyberspace. One company is watching your back.

But first, here's a look at what else is making news today.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Number eight, Cal Ripken, Jr.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): He's baseball's iron man, a player's player whose work ethic and energy made him a perennial fan favorite.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cal, we love you!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go, Cal!

PHILLIPS: Cal Ripken, Jr. was born into a baseball family and stayed true to the family business throughout his 20-year career with the Baltimore Orioles. Ripken was a great player, earning league MVP honors. But he is best known for the streak.

Ripken played 2,632 consecutive major league baseball games, breaking Lou Gehrig's record. The streak ended in 1998 and Ripken retired from baseball three years later.

CAL RIPKEN, JR.: It's been a great run, a fabulous career.

PHILLIPS: Now 44, Ripken lives in Maryland with his wife Kelly and their two children. Baseball's iron man and his brother Billy have a baseball talk show on X.M. Satellite Radio.

RIPKEN: I really enjoy, actually, promoting and talking about the game and really trying to, to push that and get a few more back stops built up around the country, as well.

PHILLIPS: Ripken also owns a minor league team, the Aberdeen IronBirds. And he's established the Cal Ripken Senior Foundation, providing baseball programs to underprivileged kids.

RIPKEN: If I am remembered, I hope it's because by living my dream I was able to make a difference.

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COSTELLO: He's sunburned and a little disoriented, but he's home safe. Utah Cub Scout, 11-year-old Brennan Hawkins, was gone for four days before a volunteer spotted him on a dusty trial.

For the latest on his rescue and reunion with his parents, we turn to CNN's Rusty Dornin.

She's in Summit County, Utah this morning -- good morning, Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, he was lost and wandered the woods for days, but now Brennan Hawkins is back with his family, surrounded by loved ones. He was released from the hospital just a few hours ago.

As his mother put it, prayers are answered and children do come home.

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DORNIN (voice-over): Four days of fear and frustration turned to unabated joy as Jody Hawkins saw her son Brennan wheeled into Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. Thousands of volunteers combed rivers and beat mountain brush searching for her 11-year-old son and she won't forget it ever.

JODY HAWKINS, BRENNAN'S MOTHER: Our deepest thanks goes to the Summit County sheriffs, search and rescue teams, the Swift Water rescuers, the dog handlers, I don't even know all the people that were there. We thank you. We have never known men of such integrity and faith and honor in our lives.

DORNIN: Brennan had last been seen Friday at a rock climbing wall near camp in the mountains about 80 miles east of Salt Lake City. The youngster was found standing in the middle of a trail, wet and dirty, by house painter Forrest Nunly.

FORREST NUNLY, FOUND BRENNAN HAWKINS: He was a little delirious, you know? I just sat him down, got him dry. And I was giving him food.

DORNIN: Given his exposure to wild animals and the weather at more than 8,000 feet, doctors said Brennan was in remarkably good shape, but didn't emerge wholly unscathed.

DR. EDWARD CLARK, MEDICAL DIRECTOR: He is sunburned. He is bumped and scraped and bruised. And he is dehydrated. And our team is currently evaluating him for other potential injuries or medical conditions.

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DORNIN: Well, obviously they didn't find any other injuries. And I just spoke to the hospital spokeswoman who said look, you know, they said you're fine. Given the opportunity to spend the night in the hospital or go home, of course, a youngster took going home. Presumably his family took him back to this hometown of Bountiful, which is about 30 miles from Salt Lake City -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Rusty Dornin live in Utah with a happy ending this morning.

Watt. In other "News Across America" now, sentencing will take place this morning for a former Klansman convicted of manslaughter. A jury in Mississippi found Edgar Ray Killen guilty in the deaths of three civil rights workers back in 1964. He'd been charged with murder but the jury instead convicted him of the lesser charge. The 80-year-old faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on each count.

There is virtually nothing left of a Detroit warehouse that used to house the Studebaker production plant. About 150 firefighters were called in to battle a giant blaze in the building. It was visible for miles around. Two of those firefighters were treated for minor injuries. Nobody knows what caused this fire.

Airbus has chosen Mobile, Alabama as the site for its newest manufacturing plant. That's where it'll make tankers used for in- flight refueling. The project could create as many as 1,000 jobs. Cities in Mississippi, Florida and South Carolina were also in the running.

In a "New York Times" article, former President Bill Clinton laid out his agenda for tsunami relief. As the United Nations special envoy, Clinton stressed the importance of an early warning systems. He talked about loans, reestablishing tourism, jobs and reconstruction. He also shared a personal story, and I'm quoting here. He said: "I met a woman who had lost nine of her 10 children. She introduced me to the youngest camp member, a 2-day-old boy. She said the child's mother wanted me to give him a name. I asked if there was an appropriate Indonesian word for a new beginning and was told that there was, Dawn, which is their language is a boy's name. I think a lot about that little boy and our obligation to give him a new dawn. We can do it together."

Still to come on DAYBREAK, would you want everyone to know what you buy at the pharmacy? One drugstore chain is taking extra care this morning to change the way it does business.

We'll be right back.

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COSTELLO: Time now for a little "Business Buzz."

Supermarket chain Winn-Dixie is closing its stores in four Southern states. That's 22,000 jobs lost and more than 300 supermarkets closed down. It's all part of the company's bankruptcy reorganization plan.

The nation's number two theater chain, AMC Entertainment, says it will buy the next largest competitor, which would be Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corporation. Once the deal is completed, the new AMC Entertainment will have nearly 6,000 movie screens and 450 theaters and will challenge market leader, Regal.

Ford Motor Company says it's cutting 1,700 management jobs. The cuts come after 1,000 salaried employees lost their jobs in April. Ford also lowered its earnings guidance for 2005. The company is blaming weaker North American sales for the moves.

Well, your neighbors, coworkers and even family members could know which personal products you buy at the corner drugstore just by using the Internet.

Carrie Lee joins us with more on that.

What do you mean?

CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Should we just change this to "Security Breach Buzz" instead of "Business Buzz?"

COSTELLO: Yes, let's do that.

LEE: We're talking about this every day, but here's the latest. CVS, the big drugstore chain, says information about its customer purchases was too easily available over the Internet. What happened is a consumer group went fishing, discovered a big security flaw, which could allow access to personal information on the 50 million holders of the drugstore's Extra Care card.

Now, with only the card number, the zip code and the customer's name, the consumer group was able to access customers' purchase information. The information available did not include Social Security numbers, credit card numbers or prescription drug information, but a list of potentially embarrassing purchases -- you know what people buy in drugstores, things like condoms or pregnancy tests -- was available.

Now, CVS has taken down access to the site until it can put in place password protection or other security measures. The company says it has no knowledge of anyone accessing the information improperly, but still, 50 million customers and this is a big deal.

So that is the latest.

COSTELLO: We're sharing...

LEE: Yes, thank you.

COSTELLO: We're sharing a microphone here because we had a little technical problem, so we're just passing it back and -- A quick look at the futures, Carrie?

LEE: I feel like a sportscaster.

Futures looking a bit higher. We did see a mixed session yesterday. Ford, Carol, you were talking about earnings and job cuts, down 3 1/2 percent late last night.

COSTELLO: Thank you, Carrie Lee.

LEE: All right.

COSTELLO: We're going to toss it to a break.

We'll get this figured out, don't worry.

We'll be right back.

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ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello and Chad Myers.

COSTELLO: Good morning to you.

Thank you for waking up with us.

Also coming up this half hour, an exclusive interview from behind bars with the man who police say is BTK. It's a very strange interview. You'll want to stick around for this.

And some new recommendations for people who live or work in high rise buildings.

But first, now in the news, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has joined Iraqi officials in calling for international help in rebuilding Iraq. More than 80 nations and groups are attending the conference right now at European Union headquarters in Brussels.

In the meantime, the Iraqi city of Najaf -- thousands of supporters of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took to the streets today. They were demanding Iraq's new government and U.S. authorities release detainees being held in U.S. prisons in Iraq.

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