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American Morning
Emotions Running High in Gaza; A Powerful Earthquake Strikes Off Coast of Northeast Japan
Aired August 16, 2005 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Emotions running high in Gaza as Israeli troops fight off protesters. The deadline for all Jewish settlers to get out just hours away. Some are vowing to stay put, though. We're live in Gaza straight ahead.
Overnight, a powerful earthquake strikes off the coast of northeast Japan, collapsing buildings, triggering landslides, even touching off a small tsunami.
And medical news affecting millions of women who take over the counter painkillers. There could be potentially harmful side effects. A closer look at the new report on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.
O'BRIEN: Good morning.
Welcome back, everybody.
I'm Soledad O'Brien.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Carol Costello in for Miles.
We'll take you live to Gaza in just a moment.
But first, the morning headlines.
Kelly Wallace is here -- good morning.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you.
And good morning, everybody.
We are beginning with this story just in to CNN.
CNN confirming a passenger plane has crashed in western Venezuela. According to Colombian state television, the aircraft was apparently carrying some 152 people. An aviation official says the West Caribbean Airways plane was heading from Panama to Martinique when the pilot reported engine trouble. The fate of the people on board remains unclear.
We will keep you posted with any developments we get here at AMERICAN MORNING. Seventeen Spanish troops have been killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. That accident taking place in the western part of the country, near the city of Harat. The 17 troops were serving under NATO command and were part of a peacekeeping operation there. Spanish officials say the crash appears to be an accident and are ruling out hostile fire.
Authorities in Japan are taking a closer look at the damage from a major earthquake. A quake measuring 7.2 by the U.S. Geological Survey rattled the northeastern part of the country, including Tokyo. Police say at least 39 people are hurt, three of them seriously. Thousands of homes were left without power. That quake also triggering a small tsunami.
And a military mother whose son was killed in Iraq appears to be staying strong despite some more trouble at home. Cindy Sheehan's husband has filed for divorce. Sheehan says the death of her son has created the stress that led to the separation from her husband.
Meantime, Sheehan remains camped outside President Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch. She's been demanding a face-to-face meeting with the president and wants him to pull American troops from Iraq.
COSTELLO: Wow!
WALLACE: So some tough news for her. I believe they were separated since June, is that right?
COSTELLO: They were. They were separated and it was because he kind of like retreated and she like wanted to immense herself in all things her son.
WALLACE: I think there's a disagreement, too, in exactly how they're handling this.
COSTELLO: Yes.
WALLACE: And politically I think...
O'BRIEN: Yes, it's actually pretty common when someone loses a child that the families end up -- a high number of families get divorced. That's sad news for that family.
WALLACE: Very sad, sure.
O'BRIEN: Especially after the obviously other sad news they've had.
Kelly, thanks.
WALLACE: Sure.
O'BRIEN: The deadline now just hours away for all Jewish settlers to get out of Gaza. They have until midnight, which is 5:00 p.m. Eastern time. Well, this morning Israeli troops have been fighting to hold back protesters from getting into the settlements. Hundreds of people have been arrested. Israeli officials believe they're likely going to have to use force to get thousands of the settlers to go.
Debbie Rozen is being forced out of the Neveh Dekalim settlement and she joins us this morning.
Nice to see you, Ms. Rozen.
Thank you for talking with us.
The deadline, as we mentioned, midnight, 5:00 p.m. our time here.
Are you going to go?
DEBBIE ROZEN, GAZA SETTLER: Yes, I'm here.
O'BRIEN: Ms. Rozen, can you hear me?
This is Soledad O'Brien at CNN in New York.
I was asking you if, in fact, you will leave when the deadline approaches.
ROZEN: OK. Yes, I hear you.
O'BRIEN: OK, obviously she's having some audio problems. So let's see if we can fix those audio problems before we return to Ms. Rozen, who is one of many settlers who, at this point, still have not left the settlements. And clearly there are many issues here. Some of the settlers say that the compensation, which is at stake if they don't leave, is not enough, and they are arguing, as well.
Let's get back and see if Debbie Rozen has fixed the audio problems and see if that's working.
Ms. Rozen, this is Soledad O'Brien at CNN in New York.
And I'm going to ask you the same question I started with.
ROZEN: OK.
O'BRIEN: Which is this -- are you going to leave when the deadline comes?
ROZEN: No, we are not going to leave. Most of the people here in Neveh Dekalim, the majority of us, want to stay even though they are going to give us the eviction orders that they planned to give us yesterday. Even -- there are a lot of people who also rented a place to the government, already prepared for them, and there's nothing prepared. They didn't even get the key. They said that they're -- at least give us to put our stuff that they put in the container, just to put them inside the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that the government built and they said there was nothing prepared.
They are going to send them to hotels in different parts of the country. One of them are going to stay in hotels in the Dead Sea and also in Askilon (ph)...
O'BRIEN: You're making a point...
ROZEN: ... and they are going to send our community to...
O'BRIEN: You're making it sound as if it's very...
ROZEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
O'BRIEN: I'm going to interrupt you.
Ms. Rozen, can you hear me?
You're making it sound as if it's very, very chaotic. But I want to clarify a point.
Are you saying you're not going to leave because you're not sure where you're supposed to go, because the government hasn't made the plans clear? Or are you saying because of moral reasons and personal reasons, you will not leave your home? Which one is it?
ROZEN: OK, first, the majority of Neveh Dekalim, which is the main community, decided to stay because it's our home. And even though the government said that they have a solution, there is no solution for us. And we are going to stay in our homes even though they say that they are going to -- not going to give us the compensation, because there are things that are much more important than money.
They are things that you can't buy by money, like values, which unfortunately my prime minister forgot about what is Zionism, what does home means for us, what happens to the education of our kids. This is home and this is not the way that he should relate to his residents.
O'BRIEN: A...
ROZEN: When he said two years ago that we are his favorites.
O'BRIEN: Obviously...
ROZEN: We are the people in the front lines.
O'BRIEN: Obviously it's...
ROZEN: There is nothing to be (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
O'BRIEN: Obviously this is very emotional and very, very upsetting for you.
I want to ask you, though, what will you do when the soldiers come, as they have promised to do at the deadline, and start forcibly removing you and all the other settlers who've said they're not going to go?
ROZEN: We are not going to use any violence. We are going to talk to the soldiers because the army are part of us. We had five years of water (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and a lot of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and a lot of terror attacks in this area. And we used to have a very good relationship with the army. And you have to remember that the army is actually my sons, my husband, our neighbors. It's part of the Israeli society.
We are going to explain to them, we are going to talk to them. We are not going to use any violence because we had so much reasons to use violence during these years. We have never thought about using violence as a language. Not again, against our neighbors and, of course, not against our brothers.
So I don't think that thinking about violence is a part of our struggle.
O'BRIEN: Neveh...
ROZEN: We always said that we are going to win in love and I think that we will win this struggle. And I think that the government realized that he has nothing to do with us because we win.
O'BRIEN: Ms. Rozen...
ROZEN: And the only (UNINTELLIGIBLE) will happen, I mean the crisis would be in the Israeli society the day after.
O'BRIEN: I'm going to stop you there.
Thank you.
We're out of time.
We certainly appreciate it.
Obviously, as we mentioned, emotions running very, very high.
Thank you for talking with us this morning.
She, of course, is in the Neveh Dekalim settlement, where, as she pointed out, many of the people who live there do not want to leave the homes that they have known for many years.
A tough, tough situation for them.
COSTELLO: You know, and having seen them talking to the soldiers that -- they just converge on them en masse and just talk to them and talk to them and talk to them...
O'BRIEN: And some are...
COSTELLO: And the soldiers just stand there taking it.
O'BRIEN: And sometimes hug them.
COSTELLO: Yes.
O'BRIEN: And they cry together. And they've made it clear they will remove them forcibly, as well.
By staying there, she loses a lot of the -- all of the compensation, potentially.
COSTELLO: Yes. They get $200,000, don't they?
O'BRIEN: Well, if she stays and has to be forcibly removed, she does not. So obviously a tough time for folks there.
COSTELLO: All right.
Well, let's move on to Iraq now.
Leaders there say there has been no movement on the issues holding up the drafting of the constitution. As you know, last night parliament granted negotiators seven more days to finish this document.
Aneesh Raman is live in Baghdad -- Aneesh, I just talked to the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. He says this is no big deal.
How do you see it?
ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, it is a huge deal. For days leading up to yesterday, Iraqi politicians, as well as the U.S., told us that they had full confidence that the deadline would be met and that the draft was essentially complete.
Neither turned out to be true. This was not a good day for Iraq's transitional government. Twice today the national assembly convened with minutes to go until it was set to be dissolved. The stakes could not have been higher. And they virtually amended the law to give themselves more time.
It's something they had the power to do, but it's something they legally could have done and were to have done by August 1st. They chose not to, confident that they could make this deadline.
That raises serious questions about whether seven days can really bring this process to a conclusion, when the issues remain so fundamental -- federalism, the role of Islam, these are big, weighty issues with a lot of specifics being negotiated. And strong rhetoric coming out today, Carol, from the various groups, the Sunnis, the Shia and the Kurds. It seems yesterday could have perhaps even deepened the divide among these groups.
Now, the U.S. ambassador also raised the point of what this all means for the Iraqi people. He said it's essentially too early to tell.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZALMAY KHALILZAD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: Well, the Iraqi citizens are represented by the assembly. We have not done a survey yet of the attitude of the Iraqi people. But I suspect they will understand, they will be supportive of the fact that they needed a few more days to work out the difficult, difficult issues that the country is facing, and facing with in order to put the constitution together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAMAN: But, Carol, for many Iraqis who are dealing with daily violence, with the lack of basic services, they don't care as much about the future as they do about a government that can help them in the present, in their day to day lives -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Aneesh Raman live from Baghdad this morning.
O'BRIEN: Another look at the weather this morning with Chad, who's at the CNN Center -- hello, Chad.
Good morning.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Soledad.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: Still to come, a mother and daughter prepare for deployment to the Middle East together. They will tell us how the rest of the family is reacting.
O'BRIEN: Also, a new study affecting millions of women links popular painkillers to high blood pressure. Find out what you need to know just ahead.
COSTELLO: And as the BTK killer, Dennis Rader, prepares for sentencing, one woman works to ensure his victims' families are in court to see it. She will talk about her effort just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: You know, many moms across this great country are sending their sons and daughters to serve in Iraq and Kuwait, and around the world. It's not often you hear about a mother who is going to serve with her daughter. They're both being deployed.
And they/'re joining us this morning.
Sergeant First Class Brenda Berrios and Sergeant Karissa Smith, both members of the Oregon National Guard.
This is a first. I think that you're making history.
SGT. KARISSA SMITH, OREGON NATIONAL GUARD: I think so. I've never heard of it before, so.
COSTELLO: Me neither.
Whose idea was this?
Let's ask mom. Brenda?
SGT. BRENDA BERRIOS, OREGON NATIONAL GUARD: Well, I guess it was the Army's idea. At the beginning, when the unit was first alerted, I was not going to go with the unit. Chris volunteered and rejoined the unit and decided to go with the unit on deployment. And then July 25th I found out that I actually was able to deploy with the unit and it just kind of ended up that we're going to together now.
COSTELLO: So you're both going to go through combat training at Fort Bliss, correct? BERRIOS: Correct.
SMITH: That's correct.
COSTELLO: So, Karissa, what's it like to take combat training with your mom?
SMITH: You know, actually, it's going to be a great experience because we talk about this stuff all the time at home and I never know what -- how she reacts in a combat zone, or, actually, in training. So it's going to be very interesting to see, you know, how we both react to this and maybe, you know, we're going to bond on this whole experience. I think it's going to be a great time.
COSTELLO: Oh, I think you will bond.
Brenda, I know your husband is a military man.
How does he feel about both his wife and daughter going off to serve? BERRIOS: Well, he's a trooper. You know, at first when Karissa was going, he was a little bit more standoffish about him going. Any time you send -- parents send children into a combat zone, it's, you know, it's not a good thing. But when I found out I could go, he was good with that. He knows from a soldier's point of view what it's like not to be able to go with your unit. So when I found out I could go with my unit, he was happy for me. And he's good with the both of us going together, to kind of watch out for each other.
COSTELLO: Now, from my perspective, it would be so hard to serve.
So I'm going to ask you both this question.
Brenda, is it -- does it give you some comfort to be serving with your daughter, knowing that she's going to be there anyway? BERRIOS: Oh, absolutely. When I didn't think I was going, you know, of course I was devastated and wondering what was going to happen with Karissa. But now that we're both going together, it's a little bit of comfort to have my daughter there and part of my family there when I have those bad days.
COSTELLO: So, Karissa, I'm going to ask you the same question.
Does it give you some comfort to be able to serve with your mom?
SMITH: It does give me -- it actually gives me a lot of comfort. I think this whole few days that we've been here would have been a little bit harder if it wasn't for her being here and just her -- just seeing her face kind of reminds me a little bit of home. So I think that it will be a lot easier when we go over into a combat zone and knowing that she's here, if something happens that she'll be, you know, not very far away.
COSTELLO: And, Brenda, I want to quickly ask you about things -- you guys are so cute.
Brenda, I want to quickly ask you about Cindy Sheehan.
She's the military mom who lost her son in Iraq. She's been camping outside of President Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch. She wants the president to come out to see her.
When you see those images on television, what do you think of Cindy Sheehan? BERRIOS: My heart goes out to Cindy and all the mothers and fathers who have lost soldiers in this war. I guess that kind of keeps me grounded and makes me very fortunate that I do get to go with my daughter and we're going to go through this together.
COSTELLO: Well, good luck to both of you.
SMITH: Thank you.
COSTELLO: Sergeants Brenda Berrios and Karissa Smith, stay safe. BERRIOS: Thank you.
COSTELLO: And thank you for being with us this morning -- Soledad.
SMITH: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, an Arab-American actor's dilemma -- how can he play terrorists on the big screen and then fight Hollywood stereotypes all at the same time? A look at what he's trying to do coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: The bad guy in Hollywood action films these days is often a terrorist, and more than likely an Arab. And that's not a positive image that many Arab-Americans want portrayed.
CNN's Sibila Vargas sat down with one Arab-American actor who's trying to change all that.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sayed Badreya loves his adopted country.
SAYED BADREYA, ACTOR: America, I love America.
VARGAS: His children...
BADREYA: I'm lucky. I'm very lucky, yes.
VARGAS: ... and the duke.
BADREYA: I watched John Wayne when I grow up.
VARGAS: The Egyptian born actor is a big fan of the USA. But on screen, he couldn't be more anti-American.
(VIDEO CLIP FROM "THE INSIDER," COURTESY OF TOUCHSTONE PICTURES)
VARGAS: Because of his Arabic looks, Hollywood most often casts him in the role of a terrorist.
(VIDEO CLIP FROM "THE INSIDER," COURTESY OF TOUCHSTONE PICTURES)
VARGAS: That's him in "The Insider" and "True Lies."
(VIDEO CLIP FROM "TRUE LIES," COURTESY 20TH CENTURY FOX)
VARGAS: He's a Muslim hijacker in "Executive Decision." He's played terrorists so often, it made an impression on his young daughter.
BADREYA: The teacher asked my daughter what your father do for a living. And, you know, he asked all the kids and someone said my father is a doctor, my father is an engineer. And he came to Jolie (ph) and she said my father hijacks airplanes, because all the movies I am in I am having a gun and I'm hijacking an airplane.
(VIDEO CLIP FROM "ROCKY IV," COURTESY MGM)
VARGAS: During the cold war, Hollywood cast Russians as villains, as in "Rocky IV." It was Nazis during World War 2. Think of "Casablanca." With terrorism constantly in the news, Hollywood's villains of the moment are Arabs.
(VIDEO CLIP FROM "TRUE LIES," COURTESY 20TH CENTURY FOX)
VARGAS: But well before terrorism became a national concern, Hollywood depicted Arabs negatively. Consider "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or the sheikh from the silent era.
JACK SHEEHAN, AUTHOR, "REEL BAD ARABS": The Arab Muslim stereotype is as solid as a prehistoric rock that has not bent, that has been there decades before 9/11 and it persists today.
BADREYA: You know, he tortures people, his dream is the torturer.
VARGAS: Badreya prepares for his latest audition. The role? An Arab who plots to kill the president.
(on camera): And here again you're playing a terrorist.
BADREYA: My conscious saying hey, big guy, you know, you're doing the wrong thing. Easy to work. Nobody will hire me.
VARGAS (voice-over): Badreya says he doesn't mind playing terrorists, but he'd like to improve the image of Arabs by playing some good guys, too.
BADREYA: OK.
VARGAS: He's developing a feature film called "American East" which he says will offer a more balanced view of Arab-Americans. It will star Badreya's friend, Tony Shalhoub, who is of Lebanese descent.
TONY SHALHOUB, ACTOR: All of these constant negative, you know, images, negative portrayals, are not helping. We're trying to offset that.
VARGAS: Shalhoub and Badreya have started a program to fund movies by Arab-American filmmakers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BADREYA: My god is what (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VARGAS: Badreya recently starred in a student film by an Iraqi- American director, playing the kid of three dimensional Arab character rarely seen in Hollywood films.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BADREYA: That is why I'm here. That's why I came here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BADREYA: So here I don't have to say I kill you or from the name of god, I've got, you know, real emotion, I cry, a big Arabic man, you know? This is good.
VARGAS: He worked on that film for free. But to feed his family and to bankroll movies that would improve the image of Arab-Americans, Badreya needs a paying job. That may mean playing another Arab terrorist in a Hollywood movie, something he knows would harm the image of people like him.
(on camera): Do you ever feel like you're sort of, you know, selling your soul to the devil?
BADREYA: All the time. All the time. But do you know something? To make my movies, I can deal with the devil. To tell my story, I can deal with the devil. I can lie and many believe the devil, as he does it to me. It's life. That's America.
VARGAS (voice-over): Sibila Vargas, CNN,
(END VIDEO TAPE) COSTELLO: That's life.
O'BRIEN: That's America.
COSTELLO: Then he drinks his Starbucks.
O'BRIEN: Yes. But, you know, it's kind of an interesting issue. You know, does he feel like he's selling his own people down the river? And you actually, I think, hear similar things many actors will say. I do the indies and then I do the blockbuster. I do what I believe in but I do the blockbusters to fund what I believe in, which is what I really want to do, but I can't just do what I believe in.
COSTELLO: Yes, so what's he going to -- and plus, what's he going to do, turn all the acting jobs down, not make any money, not follow his dreams?
O'BRIEN: His conscience is poking at him, clearly. (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
COSTELLO: Money talks louder sometimes, you know? And plus he can affect change when he's in the business, right?
O'BRIEN: Right. Right.
COSTELLO: Right.
Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, medical news affecting millions of women who take popular painkillers. A closer look at a surprising new study.
That's just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Overcast this morning.
Welcome back, everybody.
Just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING.
I'm Soledad O'Brien.
COSTELLO: And I'm Carol Costello in for Miles.
Coming up, more on the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
O'BRIEN: New questions this morning about whether U.S. taxpayers will pay to relocate Jewish settlers who are being removed from their homes. The price tag is about $2 billion. We've got a live report just ahead from the White House.
First, though, a look at the headlines with Kelly Wallace -- good morning, again.
WALLACE: Good morning again and hello to all of u. Now in the news, a developing story. More details about that plane crash in Venezuela we told you about earlier this hour.
Aviation officials say 152 people were on board the West Caribbean Airlines flight. The plane had left Panama and was heading for Martinique when the plane's pilot reported engine troubles. It is not clear if anyone survived the crash. And we will keep us posted on any developments we get here.
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