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CNN Live At Daybreak

Latest Developments in Investigation of London Terrorist Bombings; Hurricane Emily Hits Mexico's Yucatan Resort Area Overnight

Aired July 18, 2005 - 06:00   ET

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


BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: It is Monday, July 18, 2005.
Emily unleashes on Cozumel. Hurricane Emily hit Mexico's Yucatan resort area overnight. It is now a category two storm, with winds of 110 miles per hour. We're going to bring you a live report from the region in just six minutes.

Plus, a "Time" magazine reporter reveals his sources in the story that unmasked a covert CIA agent. We'll tell you who he's pointing the finger at.

Also, the cars go smash, the government takes a close look and two luxury cars come out on top in side impact collisions.

ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Center in Atlanta, this is DAYBREAK with Betty Nguyen and Chad Myers.

NGUYEN: Well, good morning, everyone.

I'm Betty Nguyen filling in now for Carol Costello.

We'll have more on the path of hurricane Emily in just a moment.

But we want to talk about some new developments in the investigation into the London bombing. We have some breaking news on that.

And also ahead, is there a way to tell whether a convicted pedophile will strike again? We'll talk with one man who has a theory.

And a former Army captain saw their small faces while serving in Iraq. Now he is working to improve the lives of these children.

First, now in the news, President Bush begins an important summit this morning with the Indian prime minister. The two are expected to discuss nuclear weapons, trade and even Bengal tigers. President Bush will also likely face questions about the Karl Rove situation during a news conference with the prime minister.

Victims of convicted bomber Eric Rudolph will get a chance to confront him. They will speak at his sentencing today in federal court in Alabama. Now, under a plea deal, Rudolph will eventually get four life terms for deadly bombings in Alabama and Georgia.

There is some tough going for residents in parts of northern New Jersey. Look at this. Heavy rains turn roads into rivers in several areas. Flash flood warnings have been issued all across the region. We're talking flooding today and we're talking hurricanes -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Sure are. Talking Emily, talking damage to Cozumel. Still no real phone lines out of Cozumel. No reports of damage, but we know what happened. The winds were 135. Cozumel tog the extreme northern eye wall, the most dangerous part of the storm, as it passed over the Yucatan Peninsula.

There is the storm itself. It was a category four. It was a larger category four for a while. In fact, when you see the eye right there, 155 miles per hour were the winds. Then it died down to about 135. That's still a category four. And if you move that storm on up into the Yucatan Peninsula and get it away from the water, that's why it's down to a category two now. That's why we've lost some of the intensity. But as soon as it gets back over this ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, it's coming back.

There's the eye seven hours ago. This little island right there, with a maximum elevation of 45 feet, was crossed exactly to the south, with the eye itself and the eye wall, the northernmost eye wall, the most dangerous part of the storm, rolled right over Cozumel. It's a huge port for all those ships that go out there. All the cruise ships always stop at Cozumel. There's extensive damage on the island. We just hope anyone -- no one got hurt out there today.

NGUYEN: Yes, hopefully not.

We'll be checking in with them.

Thank you, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

NGUYEN: We start now with new information on three of the suspects in the London bombings.

And for that, we want to go straight to London and CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson -- good morning, Nic.

What have you learned?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Betty.

Well, Pakistani intelligence and immigration officials are confirming that three of the suspected London bombers did go to Pakistan last year. Two of them arrived in November last year. They spent a week in the city of Karachi that they flew into. Then they were believed to have taken a train to the city of Lahore, to the north. They left the country about three months later, in February of this year.

The other bomber, the youngest of all, Hasib Hussein, he entered Pakistan on the 15th of July last year, entered in the same city, Karachi, was caught on cameras, security cameras at the airport. It's not known what he did. Pakistani officials are saying they don't know what the men did while they were inside Pakistan.

In the Pakistani community here, they -- people tell us it's not unusual for people to go back to visit their families. However, the man leading the investigation here, the chief -- the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Ian Blair, has said he expects to find an al Qaeda link in this case. And we know that in Pakistan over the last three or four years, a number of al Qaeda members have been arrested and detained in Pakistani cities.

We also understand that the British investigation is very likely to take in what's happened in Pakistan. So it cannot be confirmed at this time what the men were doing in Pakistan, but certainly it confirms speculation that they may have visited Pakistan.

Very likely this is going to be a strong line of inquiry for the British investigation team -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Now, when we spoke with you earlier, there is the possibility, the rumors that they may have even visited these radical religious schools there in Pakistan.

Are British investigators traveling to Pakistan to try to retrace the steps of these suspects?

ROBERTSON: Well, that's certainly being speculated in the British media at this time. A number of the madrassas, the religious schools, have a very -- preach and teach a very, very radical religious message. And it is likely that it's going to be those religious schools that the investigators are going to focus on.

London investigators believed that one of those suspects who went to Pakistan spent at least three or four days in one of those schools, very close to the city of Lahore, that he is believed to have traveled to. Again, this is speculation that's been in the British media. It's not confirmed by the British police investigation team at this time. But certainly it does seem to be the investigation is heading to Pakistan.

What officials here want to know is what motivated these young men. Did they make connections inside Pakistan, al Qaeda connections, that gave them, perhaps, the technology or the ideas or even convinced them that they should carry out a bombing in London?

All of these things are questions open to a lot of speculation in the British media at this time. But the very confirmation now that CNN has from two sources in Pakistan intelligence and immigration, clear evidence that three of those bombers visited Pakistan last year, a country where al Qaeda members have been arrested in the last number of years -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Well, what that means we will find out.

Nic Robertson, thank you.

And we do want to remind you that CNN is following all the events that are happening worldwide.

And weather wise, CNN is your hurricane headquarters. We are tracking hurricane Emily and we're keeping a close eye on where she is.

Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula resort areas have been battered.

And CNN's Karl Penhaul joins us now from Playa del Carmen with the latest on the situation there.

How's the weather outside right now -- Karl?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The winds are beginning to die down a lot, Betty. The bulk of the hurricane has now passed over this part of the Yucatan Peninsula coastline here in Playa del Carmen. We're still left with very strong winds, however. They're probably tropical storm force winds right now.

We finally emerged from the hotel room where we were barricaded for the last few hours and we're in the darkness still, but still taking a look around and trying to see what damages occurred.

And what we can see in the streets around us and also down on the beachfront is that there's a lot of trees blown over, a lot of damage to the rubber trees and to the palm trees. Many of those have blown over.

We can also see some power lines down, not necessarily the posts themselves, but the power lines. Some of the trees, in fact, have fallen on one of the vehicles that we traveled down to this area in.

But talking to the police in the last few moments here in Playa del Carmen, they say they have no reports of any injuries to any of the residents or any of the thousands of tourists here in the area. Part of that, I guess, is due to the evacuation plan that the authorities put in place before this storm actually struck.

Many of the thousands of tourists were taken either to temporary shelters elsewhere, outside their hotels, or otherwise they were moved back from oceanfront rooms to more solid structures such as ballrooms and convention centers inside the hotels. That certainly seems to have paid off because, as I said, so far, no reports from authorities about any injuries to residents or tourists -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Karl, is the Yucatan Peninsula basically shut down at this moment, folks are in those shelters, the airport is shut down? Has everything come to a standstill as you wait this out?

PENHAUL: It depends which part you look at, because if you look right at the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, the main tourist resort there of Cancun, that really wasn't hit by the hurricane at all. Meteorologists that we've managed to talk to in the last few moments have said that all they felt up there was tropical storm force winds. That's because this hurricane was pretty compact. Where we were, in Playa del Carmen, this was the area, the eye and that the heaviest winds would have passed over. But, again to us, it seems as if this storm was pretty compact, moving pretty fast. Yes, the winds were very strong, but it certainly didn't bring a huge amount of rain. In fact, right now, Betty, that rain has all but stopped, something that has surprised us quite a lot, because there had been predictions that it would bring a lot of rain and also that there would be high storm surges.

Again, we haven't seen any evidence of those high storm surges either.

NGUYEN: That is very good news considering the power of this hurricane and also the fact that some 130,000 tourists had to be evacuated.

Karl Penhaul, thank you for that update.

We'll be checking in with you throughout the day.

And we will continue to watch hurricane Emily throughout the day.

CNN is your hurricane headquarters.

Now, another name has entered the Karl Rove question concerning a CIA leak. That would be Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Libby is Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. "Time" magazine reporter Matt Cooper says Libby confirmed the identity of Joseph Wilson's wife as a CIA agent. Cooper now had first learned this fact from the president's Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. And Cooper's grand jury testimony said that Rove told him Wilson's wife was a CIA agent involved with weapons of mass destruction.

But, Cooper told CNN that Rove left out some details.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT COOPER, "TIME" MAGAZINE CORRESPONDENT: After that conversation, I knew that she worked at the CIA and worked on WMD issues. But as I made clear at the grand jury, I'm certain Rove never used her exact name and certainly never indicated she had a covert status.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: So, a lot of he said/she said, who's saying what? Well, we will have much more on Matt Cooper, what he is saying and what it means, a little bit later in the show, because national correspondent Bob Franken joins us at the bottom of the hour with a live report to help us sort it all out.

Still to come this hour, can you tell if a sexual offender will offend again? One researcher says there's a way. And he's going to join us live at 16 after.

Plus, he fought on the battlefield. Now he is fighting for the future of Iraq's children. At the half hour, we will talk to a very special soldier. And they're luxurious, but are they tough? We will give you a crash course on the latest crash tests at a quarter until the hour.

But first, here's a look at what else is making news on this Monday morning, July 18.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: We have your news, money, weather and sports.

The time, 6:14 Eastern.

And here is what is all new this morning.

Breaking news in the London terrorist bombing investigation.

CNN has learned that three of the four suspected bombers traveled to Pakistan last year. They are rumored to have attended radical Islamic schools there. But that has not been confirmed as of yet. We're staying on top of this story.

In money, "Harry Potter" is a best seller already. Are you surprised? The sixth book in the series sold nearly seven million copies in the first day. And that's just in the U.S. Sales of "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" are averaging, get this, 250,000 copies every hour.

In culture, the happiest place on Earth is 50 years old. Thousands of fans waited for hours to take part in Disneyland's 50th birthday party. They were even given golden Mickey ears to wear for the celebration. And here's a bit of Disney trivia. A ticket on that first day cost just $1. Now, it's $56.

In sports, Tiger Woods won the British Open by five strokes. It was his second career British Open win and the victory put Tiger into third all time, with 10 major victories. He trails only Walter Hagen and Jack Nicklaus -- Chad, if only you could shoot like that.

MYERS: You know, he just, he just coasted yesterday. He was so far ahead of the field.

NGUYEN: He was, what, 12 under at one point?

MYERS: Yes, then got to 14 under and everyone else was...

NGUYEN: Wow!

MYERS: They were throwing away strokes and he just didn't let the course beat him. He just beat everybody.

NGUYEN: He was a tiger.

MYERS: Yes, he was. He really did play very, very well yesterday.

(WEATHER REPORT) NGUYEN: Well, recent high profile cases of sex crimes against children have put the problem of pedophilia in the spotlight.

Just this weekend, Dylan Groene was buried on what would have been his tenth birthday. Some 700 people attended.

Repeat sex offender Joseph Duncan is accused of kidnapping the Idaho boy and his sister Shasta.

So how do we protect our children?

Well, Canadian psychologist Karl Hanson has a formula for predicting repeat offenders.

And he joins us now from Ottawa, Ontario to talk about this formula.

First of all, how does this work exactly, in the simplest terms possible, if you would, please?

KARL HANSON, PSYCHOLOGIST: Yes, predicting whether somebody will do a sex crime again, it's much like predicting, well, it's partially like predicting the weather or predicting whether somebody will have a car accident. A lot of what we know has to do with very basic elements of their history, what they've done in the past, their age and types of things like that, and just like the actuarial tables that are used for predicting whether somebody will get into a car accident, they, you know, the age, previous number of history of accidents, we use that type of information, as well, for predicting whether somebody will commit a new sex crime.

NGUYEN: We're going to put your formula up on the screen so we can see exactly how it works, this prediction that you have and all the different criteria for it. But, you know, when you come to predicting, often there is a lot of different elements that come into play.

So how accurate is this text when -- this test, when you take the number of prior sex offenses and then the current age and the gender and the relationships with the victim? When you put all that together and work it out and punch the numbers, how accurate is it?

HANSON: Well, it's moderately accurate. Those people who score high on this test, most of them will be caught for a new sex crime. It's between 50 and 60 percent will be caught. And we know that not all sex offenders are caught. And those people who score low, maybe be less than 10 percent will go on to reoffend. So that's, you know, it's not perfect, but it's enough to pay attention to.

NGUYEN: Well, I wanted to ask about that, too, because, you know, when you're talking about human behavior, there are different triggers, different reasons why people do the things that they do.

So do you take all of that into account? I mean how do you put that in that formula? HANSON: Right. The formula is the starting point. And it doesn't measure everything. But it's a good place to get people into the group that they most closely resemble. So you start with the group based on their criminal history, age and factors like that. Then you look at other factors that are developing for the particular case.

NGUYEN: All right, let's look at Joseph Duncan, the man accused of killing Dylan Groene.

HANSON: I won't be able to make...

NGUYEN: You can't make any predictions here?

All right, well, of course, that's what has put a lot of this in the spotlight as of recently; also, John Couey and the Jessica Lunsford case.

But according to your formula, then, since we can't talk specifics, who would be the most dangerous person to re-offend? How would they rate and what are some examples of their characteristics?

HANSON: Yes, the offenders who are more likely to re-offend are, first of all, those people with a history of prior offenses, prior sex offenses, as well as people who have especially unrelated male victims and who themselves are at a young age, the younger they are.

NGUYEN: OK. And who does your formula determine who might be least likely, because a lot of times when you're dealing with sexual offenders, especially if they've already served time, many will say, well, you know what? I've learned my lesson, I'm not going to do it again.

So do you take that into account?

HANSON: Well, a lot of what they actually say about whether they've learned their lesson is that it actually doesn't predict very well. People often have the strong motivation to appear safe and so a lot of -- whether they say they've, you know, they've changed or whether they feel guilty about it really doesn't make a large difference in predicting the offending.

What does make a difference are things such as age. You know, the older the guy, the less likely they are to re-offend. The extent to which they have changed their lifestyle in a fundamental way, the extent to which they no longer have a much -- or no longer have an unstable lifestyle. They have, you know, jobs. They have commitments to -- they have good friends, they've got -- they've really made a difference in their life. And this does make a difference...

NGUYEN: Hey, Karl, let me ask you this just really quickly, if you would, please?

HANSON: Sure.

NGUYEN: Should this formula work hand-in-hand with law enforcement? Is it that good?

HANSON: Well, it does work -- law enforcement are regular users of this particular formula. It's actually written into the statutes in Virginia. It's not perfect, but it is better than, you know, just guessing.

NGUYEN: OK, Karl Hanson, senior researcher at Canada's Office of Public Safety and Emergency.

A very interesting formula there.

We thank you for your time and your insight.

And we want to give you a footnote on this story.

Here are some examples of where sex offenders have not been allowed recently. Six Flags Amusement Parks across the country reserves the right to keep them out; also, Florida shelters during hurricane Dennis; and within 2,500 feet of schools, bus stops, daycare centers, parks or playgrounds in Miami Beach.

Still to come, it is a move that could keep an American company in America. Carrie Lee explains right after the break.

And the government puts a round of vehicles through front and side impact crashes. A little bit later, you will see which cars pass the muster.

But first, we want to say good morning to a very cloudy Boston, if we can get it up on the screen. Well, you know what? We're not going to be able to show that to you right now. We'll try to get it to you a little bit later on.

You're watching DAYBREAK for a Monday morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

Massive layoffs are expected at Hewlett-Packard this week. Industry analysts say it is part of a restructuring plan to try to bring the computer maker's costs in line with business and its rivals numbers. Observers spectacle layoffs could range between 5,000 and 25,000 jobs.

Also this week, Bank of America will start integrating its system with Fleet Bank's operations. Now, it's a huge task. Fleet has nearly five million customers in the Northeast. Bank of America bought Fleet last year, establishing a bank with nearly a trillion dollars in assets.

And the Maytag man is not lonely this morning, as a third bidder makes an offer for the appliance company.

Carrie Lee joins us now from New York with more on this bidding war, I hear. CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Betty.

Whirlpool is the latest company to make an offer for Maytag. Its unsolicited $1.36 billion offer trumps the offers from an American investment firm and a Chinese conglomerate. But Whirlpool's offer does include cash and stock. The others are for all cash. And as the saying goes, cash is king. So investors may prefer those deals.

So what does this latest offer mean?

Well, number one, we probably haven't heard the end of this story. One or more of the bidders earlier will likely raise their offers. Also, number two, politicians and others wary of Chinese groups buying American companies will lobby for the Whirlpool bid. And then number three, if Whirlpool does eventually win Maytag, it would combine the number one and three appliance makers and that would probably result in layoffs and less competition.

So we'll see what happens, Betty.

But likely not the end of this story. Things are really heating up.

NGUYEN: Oh, yes. Not soon.

All right, thank you, Carrie Lee.

LEE: Sure.

NGUYEN: In New York for us this morning.

Well, making news in -- making news this week, I should say -- a state visit by India's prime minister begins today. President Bush will greet the Indian leader at an elaborate arrival ceremony on the White House lawn. And India is seeking support for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

The Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest at Sloppy Joe's Bar is just part of the action at Key West's Hemingway Days. Look at all of them. The 25th anniversary celebration continues through the weekend.

And Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has a date on Capitol Hill, where he will no doubt further confound Congress about the financial state of things.

Still to come, under pressure a reporter reveals his sources, but the Bush administration may not be happy about it.

And we will introduce you to an American soldier who left Iraq determined to make a difference in the lives of children there.

You're watching DAYBREAK for Monday, July 18.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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