Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

London Police Arrest Nine More People in Terror Bombing Case; Shuttle Fleet Grounded; Homosexuality Conversion Camps

Aired July 28, 2005 - 07:30   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. Coming up on the program, an important challenge for police in London, getting suspects in that bombing case to talk.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: But first we're going to talk to an expert in terror groups about just what interrogation techniques work the best. We're also going to talk about, of course, the scope of this investigation and how it's really grow leaps and bounces. First, though, a look at the headlines with Carol Costello.

Good morning.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to all of you.

Now in the news, we begin in Iraq where a train carrying fuel to a refinery in Baghdad was hit by a roadside bomb. It happened just a short time ago in an area known for insurgent activity. Iraqi police say the attack may have been targeting a nearby police checkpoint. At least two were killed, six others are hurt this morning.

Torrential downpours in India triggering deadly landslides. More than 400 people have died, their deaths blamed on the weather after parts of the city of Mumbai got more than 35 inches of rain in a single day. But officials now say the water is starting to recede.

A $10,000 reward is being offered for information about a missing pregnant woman. Twenty-four-year-old Latoya Figueroa was last seen one week ago in Philadelphia. Friends and relatives say Figueroa would not abandon her seven-year-old daughter. Police have no suspects in the case.

President Bush is now expected to address the National Boy Scout Jamboree in Virginia tonight. Wednesday's visit was postponed because of the threat of severe thunderstorms. Some 300 people, mostly scouts, were treated for heat-related conditions as they waited and waited for the president to arrive. It has been a really rough week for the jamboree. In addition to the stifling heat, four scout leaders were killed Monday in an electrical accident.

And NASA says the Space Shuttle Discovery has now docked at the International Space Station. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Alpha Discovery, we have contact and capture. The shuttle is in (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Contact and capture. They are there. These are new pictures we're showing you this morning. It is the first time that a shuttle has docked at the station in almost three years. Discovery is carrying much needed supplies for the station, but it's not been all smooth sailing. We'll talk more about the controversy, the concerns for NASA, just ahead. And I know you'll be talking to a NASA engineer, and I'm excited to hear what he has to say.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, there's a lot of disappointment, quite frankly, that that big piece of foam fell off. The good news is, no danger to the crew. The bad news is what it means for the shuttle program.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, huge implications. We'll talk about that ahead.

First, though, let's get back to London. London police arrested nine more people this morning in the terror bombing case. None of them, though, are believed to be among the actual bombers. But one of the four men who is suspected of trying to set off the bombs in London last week is now being questioned. Sajjan Gohel is the director of international security for the Asia Pacific Foundation. He is in London this morning. Nice to see you. Thanks for talking with us.

Let's talk a little bit about the nine who have now been arrested. Are you surprised, one, by the number, that the scope of this investigation is growing and growing? And also, who are these nine guys potentially?

SAJJAN GOHEL, ASIA-PACIFIC FOUNDATION: Well, this is part of an ongoing investigation. What we're seeing is that the authorities are following all the leads and information that they're getting. They have to follow it, up because if they don't, it could lead to more problems. There is already a lot of criticism that they didn't act in advance.

So certainly the heat is on. The key is now to find out where the remaining three bombers of the July 21st blast are, because of course the major fear, is will they try to plan something again. They failed the first time. They wouldn't want to repeat that the second time.

S. O'BRIEN: Sir Ian Blair said, in fact, that failure should not be interpreted as any kind of incompetence. Let's first listen to what he had to say, and then I'm going to ask you a question on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IAN BLAIR, LONDON POLICE COMMISSIONER: The second attacks on the 21st of July should not be taken as some indication that the weakening of the capability or the resolve of those responsible. This is not the B team. These weren't the amateurs. They made a mistake, only made one mistake, and we're very, very lucky. (END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Do you think the tone has changed, that they're taking these guys more seriously? For a while, it sort of looked as if, boy, this is a group of copycats, maybe they didn't really know what they were doing?

GOHEL: Well, this seemed very much like a coordinated follow-up attack. As we've seen in past Al Qaeda-type operations, they like to do a second attack to keep the wounds of the previous atrocity fresh in our mind, the scar etched in our head, and of course it is a major worry that this cell was very well planned. It was organized, timed in advance. We were lucky because the material, the acetone peroxide, which was the explosive substance, it degrades very quickly, and it was just by pure chance and luck that they weren't able to orchestrate another mass-casual atrocity, because if they had been successful, we would have had a lot of people dead.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, we look at some of the pictures of these bombs and they were gotten, I believe, by ABC News from a government official. I want to show them here to you while we talk a little bit about what information is coming from Yasin Hassan Omar. Is he essentially the key to all of this? Is that why we're seeing more arrests and more progress in the investigation?

GOHEL: Well, he is a central card. In fact, he was arrested in the city -- northern city of Birmingham, and it's believed that direct intelligence led to his whereabouts. Now it's going to be critical to find out from him where the three other individuals are, in particular Muktar Said Ibrahim, who's the other chapter, has been identified, and of course we need to find out how big the cell is, and a critical dimension to all of this is see who the handlers were, the people that put the logistics, financing, the operations together, because these are the guys that control all the cells. And the fear is there are more out there, more sleeper cells.

S. O'BRIEN: But, Sajjan, you know, you're talking about a guy, Omar, who is willing to blow himself up. I mean, why possibly would he give information to investigators? Why wouldn't he say, I'm not saying a thing?

GOHEL: Well ,I think the investigators are going to try and play on his social conscience, to talk about the fact what he has done has disgraced his entire family, that they are going to face a lot of scrutiny from within the U.K. They'll try and hope to change his mindset. This guy has been indoctrinated into believing that being a martyr, shaheed (ph), for his cause is somehow a legitimate thing. These are people that cherish death as much as you or I would embrace life. They have to try and change, reverse the whole ideological indoctrination that's taking place. It's going to be a long process. And of course what is worrying for the authorities is that he could be playing a game of waiting, give the other guys a chance to move, change their location, find a new safehouse.

So the time is ticking, and it's, of course, a major concern of what could happen next. S. O'BRIEN: Clearly. Sajjan Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation. It's nice to see you as always. Thanks for talking with us -- Miles.

GOHEL: My pleasure.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, what seemed like a perfect launch has quickly become NASA's worst nightmare. The shuttle program grounded once again this morning. The space agency spent more than two years trying to prevent big pieces of falling foam from leaving the external fuel tank of the shuttle.

Well, of course, as you know, that's what doomed the Columbia crew two-and-half years ago. But it happened again during Tuesday's launch of the Shuttle Discovery. You see the piece there. NASA believes the orbiter was not damaged, as you can see. The crew is safe.

Randy Avera is a former NASA engineer, author of the book "The Truth About Challenger," and the newly released "Memories of Columbia." He joins us from Orlando.

Good morning, Randy.

This was a very close call, wasn't it? .

RANDY AVERA, FMR. NASA ENGINEER: A very close call, but we're not quitters. We're going to continue with the American space program, and return to the moon, Mars and beyond.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's help people understand how critical the timing of this event was. In the case of Columbia, it was about 80 seconds after launch when the foam fell off. The aerodynamics are such that it sent it into the leading edge of the wing. In this case, it was two minutes and change after launch. Different scenario, and that's why it did not go into the orbiter itself.

AVERA: That's correct. And NASA is on a direct goal and mission to try to understand the structural dynamics of the external tank, and the insulation foam that's sprayed on to the outside and the interaction of the structure of the external tank to that foam, and that includes aerodynamic effects, vibrations and aero-thermal loads, the actual heat generated by transitioning up through the atmosphere into space.

M. O'BRIEN: What's the chance, Randy, that this is just basically a fundamental design flaw? You've got the insulation on the outside, and you've got the space shuttle orbiter downstream of that insulation. This is a fundamental issue, which may not ever be able to be fully addressed without a complete redesign.

AVERA: Well, what we're learning -- I call this a horizontally stacked rocket where you have the external tanks, two solid rocket boosters and orbiter laterally placed, as opposed to like in the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury programs where they were vertically stacked. But the way I measure it, we're about 33 years behind in our design programs for future programs in the United States. Since the end of the Apollo program in 1972, the space shuttle is really the only manned space program that the United States has. It's still an amazing vehicle and provides a tremendous variety of services for lower orbit.

M. O'BRIEN: But, Randy, can it be made safe enough to fly again, or is this, perhaps, the end?

AVERA: I don't believe that it is the end. It's a presidential mandate as well.

But as far as the development of the vehicle, NASA is working on these problems, and the solution to the problems will come from understanding what the problems are.

M. O'BRIEN: But can we ever really have confidence? They spent two-and-half years trying to fix the foam on the tank. A big piece fell off. How do you get to a point where you fly again and fly with some degree of assurance that it will be safe enough?

AVERA: The way you get there is to identify the problems and redesign and test them and fly. And, certainly, this is a high- performance vehicle. And people are really beginning to understand what we've said for years -- this is a research and development program, not so much an operational program as it has been tagged in the past. But we're learning a lot about the chemistry and physics of the materials on this vehicle and what we learn will go directly into design programs, for not only government finance programs, but commercial programs that will be in orbit around the Earth, moon, Mars and beyond.

M. O'BRIEN: Former NASA engineer Randy Avera, thanks for your time.

AVERA: You're welcome, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad?

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on the program, critics said it would hurt American workers, but a new trade deal backed by the White House passes Congress anyway. Andy will tell us about CAFTA in just a little bit.

S. O'BRIEN: And then later, controversy over a program that claims to help gay teenagers go straight. We'll explain, as AMERICAN MORNING continues after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. The Central American Free Trade Agreement, A.K.A, otherwise known as CAFTA, has passed the House by a hare's breath. Andy Serwer's breaking it down for us this morning as he minds your business. Good morning.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE COLUMNIST": Good morning, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: It was close.

SERWER: It was much closer, in fact, than the administration had hoped. The vote was 217-215, and ll the big guns were out. Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney and the president himself, personally lobbying to get this through, and it did pass. The CAFTA bill trade agreement opens trade with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. These six countries trade in one year as -- what Mexico trades with the United States in five weeks.

So it's relatively small, but still very important because of the amount of trade that could come after the agreement is passed. Organized labor opposed this pact, so did textile manufacturers and sugar producers. Concerned about jobs and business here in the United States, fearing that jobs would be lost. The administration, obviously, thought this was important, not only for trade, but also to continue to promote democracy in the region as well.

S. O'BRIEN: Huge political implications, really, for the president had it not gone through.

SERWER: I think that's right. It would have been -- it would have been a very significant defeat, Soledad, so they're breathing a sigh of relief in the White House.

Let's talk a little bit about the markets this morning. Yesterday, stocks continued their climb. You can see here the Dow is up 57 points, Nasdaq, S&P 500 as well. The S&P 500, a four-year high and up 2 percent for the year. The Dow is still down for the year, however -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Andy, thanks.

SERWER: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles?

M. O'BRIEN: We just got some news coming in as you were speaking. This coming to us from the Associated Press. I'm not sure if we need to attribute to them or we have this on our own, as well, but the Irish Republican Army now saying it will end its arm campaign, resume disarmament, reviving the march toward peace in Northern Ireland. We'll have further details for you on this as they become available. Once again, the Irish Republican Army saying it will end its armed campaign in Northern Ireland.

Still to come, conversion camps and the controversy over sending gay teenagers away to set them straight. That's next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Nature or nurture? Choice or no choice? These are the questions that are often debated when talking about sexual orientation. Either way, some parents are making a radical move by sending their gay children off to conversion camps to try to make them straight.

CNN's Deborah Feyerick has our story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) .

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Memphis, Tennessee, home to the blues, Elvis, some 2,000 churches and one program that claims to help gay and lesbian teenagers give up homosexuality.

(on camera): How many teens are here at any given time?

REV. JOHN SMID, LOVE IN ACTION: We have had anywhere from two to six at any given time in the youth program. One of the reasons, of course, as you have experienced...

FEYERICK (voice-over): It's called Refuge. And it's run by Reverend John Smid as part of a larger program, Love in Action.

(on camera): So, when people say you cure gays, what's your answer?

SMID: I don't cause it, I don't cure it, I don't create it. There's no way I can cure gays. There isn't a cure for homosexuality. What we find is, there is an opportunity to learn how to live responsibly, even with homosexual attractions or desires.

FEYERICK: But that's not the way 18-year-old Ben Marshall first saw it. Last summer, his parents told him he was going, whether he liked it or not.

BEN MARSHALL, LOVE IN ACTION GRADUATE: I was just so angry that my parents weren't accepting who I thought I was and that they were sending me to get fixed. I told all my friends they were sending me to straight camp.

FEYERICK: Religion has always been a big part of Ben Marshall's life. He was raised Southern Baptist. His parents were strict. Dating wasn't allowed. Then, last year, Ben told friends he was gay.

B. MARSHALL: It was surprising to me how much -- people just flocked to me after I came out and how all these people that I considered untouchable, as far as popularity was concerned, wanted to hang out with me now.

FEYERICK: Three months later, the boy who had never dated anyone was with his first serious relationship with a high school senior. It was short. It was painful and Ben wondered whether it was right.

B. MARSHALL: And that became my identity, was just Ben the homosexual. I liked the attention that I got from that.

FEYERICK: His parents, Sharon and Larry, didn't like it at all. LARRY MARSHALL, FATHER OF BEN: I had had enough as a parent, and I felt that, with my beliefs and with my rights, that this is the way it's going to be.

FEYERICK: Sharon packed up the family camper, leaving Pensacola, Florida, driving Ben eight hours to Tennessee.

SHARON MARSHALL, MOTHER OF BEN: And I said, OK, Lord, we're going to go to Memphis.

FEYERICK: In Memphis, they met program director Reverend Smid. Married 16 years, he renounced his own homosexuality two decades ago after attending a similar program. At Refuge, there is no touching, no flashy clothes. Teens and young adults study scripture, attend group therapy, pray and keep journals, what they call moral inventories.

SMID: When they express things that have gone on internally, and they find other people have shared those thoughts or feelings, it actually releases the shame.

FEYERICK: Yet others say the opposite is true.

DR. JACK DRESCHER, AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION: It increases their feeling of shame. It increases their feeling of failure. It makes them feel worse about themselves when they're done.

FEYERICK: Dr. Jack Drescher has written a book on homosexuality and psychoanalysis. He says programs like Love in Action are misguided.

DRESCHER: It offers the possibility that somehow homosexuality is a result of not being religious enough, not having enough faith, and if you just increase your faith, then that should help the homosexuality go away, which would be nice, I suppose, if that were true.

FEYERICK: Not being religious enough certainly wasn't true for evangelical Christian Brandon Tidwell. In the summer of 2002, he spent three months at Love in Action's adult program.

BRANDON TIDWELL, LOVE IN ACTION GRADUATE: I was at a place of such desperation, believing that the only alternative was to not be gay, not being able to see things from a different perspective that I see it from now. And so it was, in my opinion, the last and only attempt to get fixed.

FEYERICK: But something else happened instead.

TIDWELL: I realized, quite quickly, that I could be a person of faith and embrace who God had made me to be.

FEYERICK: Tidwell, a trained social worker, is critical of Love in Action's counselors. Only one is licensed. Last month, state agencies began investigating after a teenager entering the program described his feelings of depression on a Web log. Reverend Smid is confident the state will find nothing wrong. But the blog struck a chord with Ben Marshall.

B. MARSHALL: There was one comment that he made about, if he did come out fixed on the other side, he was going to be so depressed and emotionally unstable. That was what I kept telling my parents, so...

FEYERICK: Yet, not only did Ben survive the initial two-week program. He stayed eight months.

B. MARSHALL: There is that lust that's still there. It's subsiding. I don't know that it will ever go away altogether. But it's not nearly as strong as it used to be. I don't go to the same places in my head that I used to.

FEYERICK: Asked if he's gay?

B. MARSHALL: I have trouble with the word gay, period, because that is a label, and I don't necessarily think anyone is clearly heterosexual or homosexual.

FEYERICK: Before Love in Action, Ben planned to go to New York to study journalism. Now he's part of a church group and plans to study psychology in Memphis, with an eye towards theology and a seminary. As for a wife and children:

B. MARSHALL: I think it's possible. I think I'm attracted to women enough right now that it can eventually develop into a relationship. I know I'm capable of that. If it don't get that, that's fine. Celibacy is an option for me right now.

FEYERICK: Texas-born Brandon Tidwell is also staying in Memphis. He goes to church regularly with his new boyfriend and trains young people to become community leaders.

TIDWELL: I have never felt more true to myself, more true to my community, more true to my family and to my relationship with God than I do now.

FEYERICK: Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Memphis, Tennessee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: Love and action is supported by several Memphis-area churches. It's accredited by Exodus International Group, that says its mission is to quote, "minister to those who are affected by homosexuality."

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, that's a tough one. I'm sure a lot of parents watching that. I think, you know, what would happen, what would I do. And I think the thing to do is to just love your kids as they are, probably is the simplest way to do it.

S. O'BRIEN: The young man, when Deb asked him are you gay, he sort of spent such a long time answering that question that I think he's got a lot more thinking to do about it.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, didn't have an easy answer. Nothing easy about that story, either.

In a moment, GM's dropping its hugely successful employee discount for all program. I missed out. Damn.

S. O'BRIEN: You got time. August 1st.

M. O'BRIEN: Oh good. So why did it work so well and what does it mean if you're shopping for a new car now? That is ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com