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American Morning

Energy Overhaul; Peter Jennings Dead at 67; Bird Flu Vaccine; Bin Laden Escape?

Aired August 08, 2005 - 07:30   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody. It is exactly half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING.
Coming up, a look at the life and the career of ABC newsman Peter Jennings. His friends remember him ahead -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Soledad, we're here at the shuttle landing facility, which is a glorified name for a long landing strip, which is where space shuttle missions generally end. It didn't happen this morning. The space shuttle Discovery still in space.

The crew of seven getting ready to enjoy a little bit of down time in orbit, looking out the window, as they wait for another opportunity to land tomorrow morning. There will be a couple of opportunities here, this location in the morning, and then some at Edwards Air Force Base, as well as White Sands Missile Range.

The point is that NASA has decided that tomorrow, one way or another, Discovery will come home to one of those locations.

This morning, the goal was to get Discovery on the ground here, because of the extra cost involved and extra time involved in landing in California and ultimately ferrying the orbiter back here. They were hoping to do that here this morning and didn't even try for Edwards Air Force Base this morning.

So, the mission, which has been quite a roller coaster ride, gets an extended day. And we will be watching that and watching the weather in all of these locations every step of the way, keeping you posted as the return-to-flight mission returns to Earth.

Now let's check the headlines with Carol Costello back in New York -- Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thank you, Miles.

"Now in the News." And good morning to you.

A day in court for the suspects of the July 21 attempted bombings in London. They face a number of charges stemming from bombs found on subway trains and a double-decker bus. A British judge decided four of them will be held until a hearing in November. Another suspect also appearing in court. Haroon Rashid Aswat (ph) faces extradition to the United States. He's accused of trying to set up a jihad camp in Oregon. A top resignation in connection with the United Nations oil-for- food scandal. Ben Zavan (ph) headed the $64 billion humanitarian operation until it ended in November of 2003. He is expected to be accused today of taking kickbacks for helping a company obtain lucrative oil contracts under the scheme. In a resignation letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Zavan (ph) says he's innocent and was sacrificed as a political tool. The Senate is conducting its own investigation into the U.N. scandal.

A long-awaited victory for President Bush today as he gets ready to sign his landmark energy bill. But some key changes have been made in the four years since he sent Congress its first draft.

Dana Bash live at the White House this morning.

Dana -- what are the major points of this bill?

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, first of all, something that Americans are probably most interested in right now is something that is not in this 1,700-page bill, and that is gas prices. Gas prices -- sky high gas prices will not come down as a result of this bill. Everybody agrees on that.

But what supporters say is most important is long-term reform, promoting cleaner and alternative energy.

Here are the key points supporters say this bill will do. First of all, $14.5 billion in tax breaks for energy companies. Opponents complain they are too heavily-weighted, though, for big oil and gas companies. But also this bill will create new efficiency standards for commercial appliances and new standards for the electric transmission grid. The hope there is preventing blackouts like the one that crippled the Northeast two years ago.

For consumers, there are some provisions in here. Tax credits for gas-electric cars and home energy improvements. And something that will affect everybody: daylight savings time will be extended by one month with this bill.

Now, Carol, the main reason that this -- the president is going to be able to sign this piece of legislation after it was stalled for more than four years is because it is missing one of the centerpieces of the Bush plan, and that is drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife. But Republican leaders hope and expect to be able to pass that later this fall -- Carol.

COSTELLO: We'll see. Dana Bash live at the White House this morning.

In the meantime, the mother of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq is protesting the president's policies by camping out near his Texas ranch. The woman says she'll stay on a strip of land in Crawford during the president's working vacation or until he comes out to talk to her. The woman's 24-year-old son was killed in Baghdad last year.

Firefighters in southeastern Washington State are hoping to cut off an unpredictable wildfire. The fire has now grown to 32,000 acres. The flames is inching towards private lands, including farms. Some 175 homes have been evacuated. And there could be more to come -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Those pictures. All right, Carol, thanks a lot.

COSTELLO: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, this morning, we are mourning the death of veteran ABC news anchorman Peter Jennings. The Canadian-born broadcaster announced back in April that he had lung cancer. He died last night at his home in New York City. He was 67 years old.

Senior CNN analyst Jeff Greenfield worked with Peter Jennings at ABC News for 14 years. And Jeff joins us by phone from Alberta, Canada.

Jeff, thank you for talking with us. You know, it's such sad news. And I have to say, it's still such a surprise even though we all knew that Peter Jennings was very, very ill.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: That's exactly right. I don't think anybody who saw him and heard him on the air in April held out anything but the wildest of hopes that somehow this would be beaten. This is a ravaging, wretched disease, but it still is. It felt like a major loss when we heard last night that he had died, not just because Peter had been on the air in so prominent a role for so long, but I think because he embodied a kind of journalism that is under great threat today. And that is the determination to try to figure out, in this medium where time is of the essence, how do you tell as full a story as you can about some incredibly complicated, really important stuff?

This is a fellow who stepped down from the anchor desk after five years back in '73, partly voluntarily because he felt he didn't have the experience, and literally traveled the world covering every conceivable story.

And the thought occurred to me, of all the times to lose someone who was versed in places like the Middle East, the whole issue of Islam and the modern world, the stress on America's role in the world because of new competitors, he knew these kinds of stories backwards and forwards.

And to lose Peter now is not just the loss of a former colleague and a friend, but it's the loss of a kind of journalist who is in desperately short supply and who is needed at this point more than ever.

S. O'BRIEN: He had been everywhere that he was talking about from the anchor desk, really. You know, you hear stories, Jeff, about the interest that he took in his younger colleagues, especially the reporters who -- I think someone said, you know, the only thing worse than having him not like your story was having him take an interest in your story, because he held everybody to such high standards. GREENFIELD: Yes. Nobody ever said that Peter was easy to work for. And there are a lot of complicated reasons for that, I think. But one of them was he did say, look, if you're coming into this position of visibility on my program -- he took the managing editor role possibly more seriously than he took even the anchor role in the sense of really caring -- you'd better get your facts right. You better know as much of the story as you can.

And he often delighted in tormenting correspondents just before they went on the air by calling them and saying, by the way, what about "x?" And it was a way of saying, don't slide by. This stuff is too complicated, and it's too important. And if you miss this detail starting out in your career, you're likely to take a wrong track. That's very much true that he saw himself as a mentor. He really pushed journalists to write well.

Peter was trained -- Peter didn't go to college, which is one of the reasons I think why he was embarked on a lifelong career of self- education. But he cared very much about the use and abuse of language, and it may well be a losing fight given what we often hear on our air waves. But he was determined that on his show this was not going to happen.

S. O'BRIEN: Jeff Greenfield joining us with his thoughts this morning. Jeff, thanks a lot. As always, appreciate it.

In other news now, medical news, a new vaccine developed to protect human beings in the event of a bird flu outbreak could be mass-produced in the U.S. as early as next month.

Joining us this morning to talk about that is Dr. Anthony Fauci. He, of course, is the director of National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases.

Nice to see you, as always, Dr. Fauci. Thanks for being with us this morning.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATL. INST. ALLERGIES INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: You know, when we talk about the Asian flu, it's been a huge problem, obviously, in Asia. And then it's moved to Russia. But do you expect it here anytime soon in the United States?

FAUCI: That's very difficult to predict. The thing that we're concerned about is if this virus develops the capability of efficiently spreading in a sustained manner from person to person, which it has not yet developed that capability. It spreads relatively inefficiently from chickens to humans, and in a very rare case from human to human.

Once a virus like this, an influenza virus, does -- and we hope it never does -- but once it does develop that capability of spread efficiently from humans to humans, it's inevitable that it will get to the United States with the jet travel and the global nature of all of our interacting societies. S. O'BRIEN: How likely is it, though, that it would, in fact, get more efficient, as you say? Do most viruses become more efficient as they mutate and change?

FAUCI: They're extremely unpredictable, Soledad. It's very, very difficult to say. All of the factors are in place now that worry us. Namely, there's considerable amount of infection in chicken flocks in Asia and now in Russia. In addition, it's in migratory birds which continue to cross-contaminate flocks in various countries in Asia and Southeast Asia.

So, although we don't know whether it will happen, the fact is that it would contribute to this evolution of a virus to become more and more efficient are there. We hope it dead-ends. That's what everyone is hoping. But you certainly cannot assume that.

S. O'BRIEN: And I guess, of course, the bigger worry is that it's so deadly. I think it was something like 112 people infected. More than 50 percent of those infected have died. So, if it does become or did become a pandemic, as has been predicted by some, it would be a disaster.

FAUCI: Indeed. In fact, the thing -- the reference point we keep going back to is the 1918 pandemic flu that really -- it killed 40 to 50 million people worldwide and over a half-a-million people in the United States. That was a very unusual event, but that is the kind of pandemic flu that we're concerned about when a virus thrusts itself into a society in which there's no background immunity, no protection, no prior experience to that, which is the reason why it's so important to develop a vaccine against this bird flu.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about this vaccine then. It's -- how do you know how effective it is? And not only getting it here in the United States, but obviously if the issue and the problem right now is in Asia and in Russia, are they going to have access to this medication soon?

FAUCI: Well, first, with regard to, how do you know it's effective or not, you never know if it's truly effective unless you try it in the field during a pandemic and show that it works. But there are certain laboratory parameters that when you vaccinate people the way we did in this particular study that we're talking about, and you induce a measurable response that is predictive, that this would, in fact, be protective, then you can get a reasonably good feeling that it would be at least partially and maybe very well protective.

We've seen that kind of good immune response albeit at a very high dose, a dose that we can attain, but nonetheless it would make the availability and the production of this even more problematic, which gets to your next question. One of the stumbling blocks that we're facing always with influenza vaccine, particularly in the pandemic flu vaccine, is the production capacity globally. We just don't have throughout the world the capacity to make doses of vaccine that's influenza, and particularly pandemic influenza, for all of those who need it. So that's the real obstacle that we're facing right now. S. O'BRIEN: Dr. Anthony Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases. Nice to see you, Dr Fauci. Thank you.

FAUCI: Good to be here.

S. O'BRIEN: Thanks.

It's time to take another look at the weather this morning.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, a follow-up to a story that we reported last week. Did Osama bin Laden slip away at the battle of Tora Bora? A former CIA officer challenges the Pentagon's version of events. We'll look at that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: A former CIA field commander is suing the agency, claiming it's holding a publication of his tell-all book. The book supports the long-contested theory that late in 1991 Osama bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora in Afghanistan, and that the U.S. military may have missed a chance to catch him.

Gary Bernsten, the author of the book, "Jawbreaker," commanded the CIA unit at Tora Bora at the time. And Bernsten's attorney, Roy Krieger, joins us from Washington this morning.

It's nice to see you, Mr. Krieger. Thank you very much for being with us.

ROY KRIEGER, ATTORNEY FOR GARY BERNSTEN: Good morning.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: "Newsweek" is reporting that Bernsten, your client, says this: Osama bin Laden was in Tora Bora in 2001. The military missed him. Is this essentially the nut that is in his book and the nut that everybody is fighting over?

KRIEGER: Well, we're not really sure exactly what the CIA is going to try to redact from the manuscript. The manuscript covers the entire career of my client and begins with his participation in the intelligence response to the East Africa embassy bombings. And certainly a major focus of his book is his command of the Jawbreaker team in Afghanistan, where he led the attack on Kabul and the attack on Tora Bora.

Now, what we're asking, first of all, is the agency simply to do their job, and that is give us back the manuscript. They've had it now for some 80 days. And as my client has stated to in other interviews, it only took us about 70 days to oust the Taliban, and the agency has been unable to review his manuscript in more time than that.

S. O'BRIEN: On that time issue, though, usually, I guess the time limit is about 30 days. But 80 days, all things considered, is not that long if you're looking at a book with a lot of historical, important, crucial facts that have to be gone through and reviewed. Isn't it possible that the CIA is just working on the book?

KRIEGER: Well, they've been telling us that for weeks. And that's why we finally sued them, because for the last several weeks they've been telling us that you'll get the manuscript tomorrow, you'll get it the next day, you'll get half of it on Friday, you'll get half of it the following Monday. And we've received absolutely nothing. And we have had no meaningful indication of when we're going to receive anything.

So we finally filed suit, and we've asked the judge to order expedited proceedings in the case, because ordinarily the government has 60 days to respond to a lawsuit, and we've asked that it be shortened dramatically.

S. O'BRIEN: Why is Gary Bernsten, why is he so certain that, in fact, Osama bin Laden was at Tora Bora and that he was missed? Because as you well know, many people completely disagree with that.

KRIEGER: Mr. Bernsten was the ground senior intelligence commander. And if anyone would know if Mr. bin Laden was in Tora Bora, it would be my client, Mr. Bernsten. There were a variety of intelligence collection methods that were used to establish his presence. And unfortunately -- I don't mean to sound cliche-ish, but you're going to have to read the book, because I can't go into them right now simply because we don't know which ones the CIA are going to consider are still classified.

S. O'BRIEN: So that's really why you've been so really quiet about the facts of the book. I mean, getting information on the information has been like trying to squeeze water out of a rock.

KRIEGER: That's an interesting metaphor, yes. We really can't comment to any great extent on the details in the manuscript, because we just don't know what the CIA is going to classify and what they're not going to classify.

The real battle begins here when they give us back the manuscript, and we start going back and forth and trying to negotiate and write around whatever material that they redact out of the manuscript, and if necessary pursue a court challenge and ask the court to order them to declassify additional information. But right now, we're just asking them to do their job, and that is, give us back the manuscript in a timely fashion.

S. O'BRIEN: You say your client would be in a position to know, and yet you look at what Tommy Franks had to say, which is, we don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December of 2001, bin Laden was never within our grasp, completely contradicting your client. And President Bush himself said our intelligence reports place bin Laden in any of several different countries at the time. I mean, these are two people, you might argue, who actually would also be in a position to know.

KRIEGER: Well, as my client said in response to General Franks' comments, he has the highest respect for General Franks, but General Franks was not there on the ground at that particular point in time. My client was. He was the senior intel officer. And if anyone is going to know, it's going to be him.

S. O'BRIEN: Attorney Roy Krieger, nice to see you. Thanks for talking with us.

KRIEGER: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, we're "Minding Your Business." Investors looking for the next Google find a hot new IPO. We'll tell you what it is, up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: The American debut of a Chinese company has many investors thinking back to the dot-com boom. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" this morning.

What are we talking about?

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: We are talking about a Chinese company called Baidu that is very similar to Google here in the United States.

S. O'BRIEN: The search engine.

SERWER: The search engine, exactly. We remember what happened with Google. It's been a year since that company went public, and it's gone from less than $100 to over $300. All of us have Google envy, don't we, Soledad?

This company, Baidu, went public on Friday, and it just soared. It was up over 350 percent. In fact, we can compare -- this is a great scream. These are Baidu employees, suddenly millionaires, suddenly multi-millionaires, very, very happy. And we can compare here. Here's a little tale of the tape, Baidu versus Google. You can see Beijing versus California.

The one-day change is interesting, Soledad, because Baidu has already gone up almost as much as Google did over the past 12 months. And you can see that Google is a lot bigger than Baidu. Baidu has only made a million dollars in profits.

S. O'BRIEN: So does that mean that this really is at the end of the day a bust? Or does that mean it's going to be bigger than Google?

SERWER: It could be. Obviously the population in China is huge. So if you extrapolate and suggest that it could get, you know, that big in China, then maybe it's still has a lot of room to grow.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. Let's do the market.

SERWER: Yes, let's talk about that. A little bit of a setback last week, not too much, though. You can see here all of the indexes down. A big Fed meeting tomorrow, Soledad, and bet on Alan Greenspan and company raising interest rates yet again.

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

SERWER: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's go back to Miles. He's in Kennedy Center in Florida this morning.

Hey -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Hello, Soledad.

In a moment, more from the Kennedy Space Center. We'll take a closer look at NASA's decision to delay Discovery's re-entry. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

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