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American Morning

Jewish Settlers Evicted from Gaza; Attacks in Baghdad Kill 43

Aired August 17, 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: A heated final stand inside the largest Jewish settlement in Gaza. Israeli troops are forcing thousands of settlers from their homes. Hundreds of others resisting Israeli forces from inside a synagogue. We're live in Gaza this morning.
In Baghdad today, deadly attacks. Forty-three people killed within minutes as three bombs explode inside the city. A live report from the Iraqi capital is ahead.

And gasoline hitting records again today. Soaring gas prices could cost you in ways you never imagined. A look at the ripple effect 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.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you.

Also ahead, we're about two hours away from the sentencing of the BTK killer, Dennis Rader.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, it actually could take a couple of days because they expect to hear from him and the family members, as well, or the family members of the victims, of course. They are expecting, they say, that he might detail some of these crimes in ways that have not been heard before, which will be just utterly horrifying for the family members, but will have an impact on how the judge could sentence him.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. And he has shown no remorse and is so matter of fact about it thus far, it's just hard to imagine that it could be any worse. But that is what we're going to do. We're going to talk about the mind of a serial killer, as well, with a forensic psychiatrist who has interviewed some of the most cold-blooded killers in modern history.

All of that is coming up.

Emotions running high in Gaza this morning, meanwhile. Tears and pleas from Jewish settlers being evicted from their homes. Just a short time ago, Israeli troops entered a synagogue where settlers had been holed up. They're refusing to leave Gaza. All settlers were supposed to be gone by now.

Neveh Dekalim is the largest Jewish settlement in Gaza and that's where CNN's Guy Raz is this morning -- Guy, what's the latest from there?

GUY RAZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

It's quite a down here in the past two hours. The Israeli Army has temporarily suspended the evacuations in order to allow the remaining residents here and their supporters a chance to pray. Now, earlier in the morning, the scene was quite different here. Soldiers confronting demonstrators. Some fierce clashes earlier this morning between the soldiers and the demonstrators. Several arrests were made. But in the end, the Army managed to clear the main road into this settlement to begin the process of evacuation.

Now, so far, it's mainly been about persuasion rather than force. There haven't been any scenes here so far of soldiers dragging people out from their homes. They're beginning by going house to house, door to door, to find those who are prepared to leave voluntarily.

Meanwhile, several hundred of the supporters here and the -- rather, the opponents of the disengagement plan -- remain holed up inside this settlement's largest synagogue. They say they will remain there until the Army comes to evacuate them.

Just a short time ago, we saw a young man headed toward that synagogue. We asked him what he's going to do when the Army arrives. He said, "I'll stand up and I'll leave and I'll get onto the bus" -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Guy, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon addressed the nation. He's described himself as being heartbroken.

Tell us what else he had to say.

RAZ: Well, the prime minister told the nation that he is weeping with them. The prime minister was primarily speaking to, of course, the settler community and the opponents of his disengagement plan. He also praised the Israeli military for the way in which they were carrying out this operation and he called on the settlers and the opponents of this plan not to blame the soldiers, but to blame Mr. Sharon himself -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Guy Raz in Gaza.

Thanks -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: A very deadly day in Iraq today, as bombs target civilians and U.S. troops engage in a firefight with insurgents on the streets of Baghdad.

Aneesh Raman is live in Baghdad for us this morning -- Aneesh, what's the latest on this violence?

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Soledad, good morning.

The casualty numbers continue to rise. At least 43 people now confirmed dead and upwards of 90 injured after a trio of car bombs detonated in the Iraqi capital early this morning. The first two came just before 8:00 a.m. local time at the al-Nahda bus station, one of the busiest in the capital, where at that hour there would presumably have been a good number of Iraqi civilians. Minutes later, as casualties from that first attack were being taken to nearby hospitals, another car bomb exploding at one of those hospitals, al- Kindi. In all, a very disastrous situation. One of the deadliest attacks we have seen in Iraq in weeks, Soledad, underlying the real need for security here and the very real concerns of Iraqi civilians -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: You know, Aneesh, if we're not talking about violence in Baghdad, then we've been talking about the constitution.

Do you think there's a link between the two?

RAMAN: Well, there will certainly be more pressure now on the Iraqi street from civilians to get compromise on the key issues that remain in the constitutional debate. They see that as a key step toward any sense of stability. The political timeline is essential toward a new permanent Iraqi government coming into power that perhaps could help curb the insurgency.

But for many Iraqis, that is talk of the future and they need this government facing a Herculean task of dealing with the future and the present, to fix a situation they confront on a daily basis -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: A little more pressure there.

Aneesh Raman for us this morning out of Baghdad.

Aneesh, thanks.

It's time to get a look at some of the other stories that are morning headlines this morning with Carol Costello -- good morning, again.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.

Good morning to all of you.

Now in the news, police in Bangladesh have reportedly made a number of arrests today in connection with a series of bombings. That's according to the Associated Press. Police say 350 bombs went off in and around government buildings. At least 115 people were hurt. There is also word of at least one death. An Islamic militant group is claiming responsibility for those attacks.

Investigators are sifting through the wreckage of a Colombian airliner trying to determine what caused its engines to fail. The West Caribbean Airways jet crashed on Tuesday in a remote area of Venezuela, killing all 160 people on board. Officials say most of the passengers were from Martinique.

A mother protesting the Iraq war is moving closer to the president's Texas ranch. A neighbor is allowing Cindy Sheehan's supporters to camp out on his property. Sheehan says she wants to meet with the president before he ends his working vacation in Crawford at the end of the month. In the meantime, some 1,000 anti- war vigils are being planned for tonight across the country.

And a plan to tackle obesity in kids by limiting soda pop. The American Beverage Association is now saying all soft drinks are not inherently bad, but it is recommending that access to soda be limited in schools. Most elementary schools have already committed to being soda-free. The group suggests offering only bottled water and 100 percent fruit juice to younger students.

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

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Hey, Chad, how many computers do you have up there? What, about 12?

MYERS: Probably more like 17.

M. O'BRIEN: Seventeen computers.

How many of them run Windows 2000?

MYERS: Not one.

M. O'BRIEN: Not -- oh, you're good. You're a lucky man.

MYERS: We had a -- well, we run a lot of Linux software, the Red Hat software, and also we run X.P. for a lot of our stuff. So we're good this morning.

M. O'BRIEN: There you go. No virus for you. All right, glad to hear that, Chad, because he's really lost without his computers.

MYERS: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: When you get to work this morning, you may find your computer freaking out. It's because of a worm that's already hit computers at about 125 major corporations, including this one, CNN.

The Senate got hit. Not the House, though, interestingly. That's kind of odd.

CNN technology correspondent, Daniel Sieberg, at the CNN Center in Atlanta -- Daniel, explain what happened.

Was it a virus, a worm or one of these things called a bot that I've been reading about?

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's actually technically speaking a bot worm or a worm bot. And we can get into the difference between those in just a minute. But, you know, if you come in this morning and you see your computer support guys, your tech support guys looking a little frazzled, well, you can forgive them. It's probably because they've been up all night fighting this worm, patching your system so you can have a productive day today.

I can tell you from firsthand experience, it was especially frustrating here at work last night trying to research this story and access e-mail contacts while our own computers here were shutting down in the newsroom.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

SIEBERG (voice-over): There's a reason it's called malicious software. It goes by a couple of names -- Zotab (ph) or Arbot. But the names don't matter. What matters is that the latest Internet worm has caused a loss of productivity and maybe worse for several major companies and even home users across the country.

PETER ALLOR, INTERNET SECURITY SYSTEMS: It's spreading across the Internet. It's looking for vulnerable machines. And if it finds a vulnerable machine, it infects -- it opens a command on your machine and downloads a file to your machine. And from there, you'll try to -- your machine will try to infect other machines, as well.

SIEBERG: It spreads without the user even seeing it. There are no e-mail attachments. It looks for computers running Windows 2000 or some versions of Windows X.P., and ones that have an unpatched Microsoft hole.

When the worm finds a hole, it causes the machines to reboot over and over again and could open a back door so someone out there could take over your computer.

DEBBY FRY WILSON, MICROSOFT: Certainly a worm, by definition, is malicious software. It is somebody intending to cause harm to computer users. This is criminal activity and we are working with law enforcement to identify who is it -- who's responsible.

SIEBERG: Security analysts say it's unclear who is to blame or whether certain companies were targeted. With CNN, ABC and the "New York Times" all reeling from this latest computer worm, some speculate it's at least an attempt to garner media attention.

The best course of action at this point, head to microsoft.com and get the patch.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

SIEBERG: And, of course, keep your anti-virus and firewall software up to date all the time, not just when there's a big worm going around on the Internet. You know, I've talked to a number of anti-virus and security experts out there. They're saying it's mainly affecting corporations and companies and some big ones. Not just media companies, although it did sort of seem like that yesterday. At least one anti-virus expert I talked to said that several major and some Fortune 500 companies were hit. So it's really been spreading around -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, here's the catch-22, though. If you turn on your computer this morning and it starts that reboot routine, how do you get the patch?

SIEBERG: Right. I knew you were going to ask that question. And we've been asking people that, as well. And really it is going to be tricky for certain people. If your computer is rebooting like that, the first thing you need to do is disconnect from the network, get away from the Internet, so to speak. Then you're going to have to reboot your system in safe mode or from a CD.

Now, these anti-virus companies are going to have to put out a patch for this for people that, in many cases, is going to have to come on a CD or some other way to put it on your system. If you're lucky, your system may stay up long enough to get to an anti-virus site and get the update, but that's going to be tricky for a lot of people.

Again, though, a lot of companies are dealing with this and they have other ways of putting the patch out there.

We do need to keep this in perspective, Miles. It's not as big as some people might have thought. It didn't reach the scope or level of some worms and viruses we've seen in the past. So good to keep that in mind.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, a 10 second definition of a bot.

SIEBERG: A 10 second definition of a bot, something that does its own thing, automatically looking for computers to infect. In this case, a worm. It doesn't need any user intervention. It does its own thing without you doing anything, which is problematic because you never see it.

M. O'BRIEN: Daniel Sieberg, always a font of information.

Thank you.

SIEBERG: All right.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, a look at the ripple effects of high gas prices. We'll find out how prices at the pump are costing you more elsewhere, sometimes in places you wouldn't necessarily think.

M. O'BRIEN: Think plastics, for example. That's kind of a graduate thing there.

All right, also, the latest on Judith Miller. We'll tell you why the "New York Times" reporter received a jail visit from Bob Dole.

S. O'BRIEN: And inside the mind of the BTK killer. A forensic psychiatrist tells us what we can expect from Dennis Rader during his sentencing today.

That's coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: In just about two hours from now, the BTK serial killer will face the families of his victims in a Wichita courtroom. Dennis Rader has already pleaded guilty to 10 murders. Today, the sentencing hearing begins. Prosecutors are going to push for the maximum sentence of life in prison for each killing. Rader can't be sentenced to death, though, because the murders took place before Kansas reinstated the death penalty.

The judge must decide whether Rader serves 10 sentences consecutively or concurrently. Consecutive sentences would mean a minimum of 175 years without a chance of parole.

It'll be Rader's first court appearance since he delivered that chilling detached account of the 10 murders that he committed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENNIS RADER, CONFESSED MURDERER: Then I proceeded to tie her up. She got sick, threw up. I got her a glass of water, comforted her a little bit and then I went ahead and tied her up and then put a bag over her head and strangled her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Dr. Park Dietz is a forensic psychiatrist.

He's interviewed serial killers.

Dr. Dietz is in Irvine, California this morning.

Nice to see you, sir.

Thank you for talking with us.

You've been through this, the sentencing part of these -- the trial, many times.

Generally, do killers want to talk? Do they want to explain? Are they more emotive or do they say nothing?

DR. PARK DIETZ, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: Well, he's not really going to have a desire to talk. If the court compels him to in light of his guilty plea, he would, of course, have to. But there's very little he has to say to anyone at this point. He would probably express remorse given the opportunity and in the hope that might mitigate his sentence.

But it's not really going to make any difference what he has to say.

S. O'BRIEN: You know, many people, me included, were struck by just how clinical he was, almost, and cold. We saw in that clip from the last court hearing.

And let's play another one, where he talked about these projects, really.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RADER: Potential hits. You know, in my world that's what I called them. So many projects, hits.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. And why did you have these potential hits? Was this to gratify some sexual interest or...

RADER: Yes, sir. I had a lot of them, so it just -- if one didn't work out, I just moved to another one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: You know, it always struck me that he was describing it almost like he was a hired killer, which, of course, the truth is that he was getting sexual gratification by watching people over and over grasp -- gasp for their very last breath. I mean he was a sexual pervert, less than a, certainly, a hired gun or something like that.

Do you think he is intentionally positioning himself a certain way? Because being a pervert is more shameful?

DIETZ: Oh, absolutely. If he were to describe why he was really doing this and what he was getting out of it, the whole world would know how perverted he is and he'd be ashamed for people to see him that way; whereas if he describes himself as a hit man, that sounds much more respectable, particularly in light of the population he's going to be dealing with for his remaining days.

S. O'BRIEN: What do you think -- let me ask you about him now, though? I mean is he reveling in all the celebrity? Is he enjoying being the focus? And I'm sure he's being plied with requests for interviews and people who want to know what makes him tick.

Is he -- does he love that?

DIETZ: No, I don't think so. And I think he realizes that his fame is a problem. He's going to prison for the rest of his life and sex offenders are at the bottom of the food chain. His victims included young ones and that makes him a target. The fact that he's older and he's soft makes him a very high risk target in prison.

S. O'BRIEN: Is it possible that his wife, who has since divorced him, didn't have any clue as to what was going on? Can a serial killer operate with an entire family not having the slightest idea what's happening?

DIETZ: Well, you know, that's how you get to be a serial killer. If you give it away too easily or get caught too easily, you don't get the body count that makes you a serial.

S. O'BRIEN: Do you think the people who are in courtroom today, and maybe tomorrow, and maybe even for the third day of sentencing, if it goes that long, will get any closure out of what he has to say?

DIETZ: I don't think there's any real closure possible in these cases. How could a parent or another person who loved the decedent possibly grasp that the life was taken just to gratify his sexual needs? It's incomprehensible to anyone who cared about the whole person.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, it's going to be such a brutal couple of days for those folks. You're absolutely right.

Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist.

Thanks for talking with us this morning.

DIETZ: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come, with the rising price of gasoline, you may notice you're also paying more for a plane ticket or to send something by UPS. Stay with us for an explanation as AMERICAN MORNING continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: The gas pump isn't the only place you're paying for rising fuel costs. You're also paying more to fly, to ship packages, even for things you use in your own home. According to the AAA, gas prices are at a record high, $2.56 per gallon for regular. Of course, you already knew it was at an all time high.

Crude oil prices currently are hovering around $66 a barrel. That is near the record high.

Russell Pearlman, senior writer for "Smart " magazine.

He was smart enough to walk in, thus not using any fossil fuels.

Russell, smart of you to do that.

RUSSELL PEARLMAN, SENIOR WRITER, "SMARTMONEY": Thanks for having me.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, let's talk airlines, first of all.

British Airways, American Airlines, Continental, Delta, a bunch of others adding, what, fuel surcharges to tickets? Is that how they're doing it?

PEARLMAN: Right. They've already had several fuel charges already. We saw on Tuesday American imposed another $10 per flight for international flights, $20 round trip. British Airways already charges about $80 round trip for flights originating from the States going abroad.

So not only have air fares been going up because demand is going up, but they're imposing these surcharges of anywhere between $10 and $40 a ticket.

M. O'BRIEN: Now, why do they do surcharges instead of just raising fares?

PEARLMAN: Well, I mean, sometimes they just -- they feel like a -- people are willing to absorb the, you know, $10 to $20 in the name of fuel costs as opposed to $10 to $20 in the name of the airline wants to make more money.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. An interesting little psychological shift there.

Let's talk about shipping companies. FedEx and UPS are the biggies. Once again, surcharges are the way they're going here.

PEARLMAN: Well, FedEx has done this for a while. They will impose -- right now they're imposing a 12 1/2 percent fuel surcharge on their priority service...

M. O'BRIEN: Because they're going faster?

PEARLMAN: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: So they're burning more gas.

PEARLMAN: Right. Well, burning more jet fuel.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

PEARLMAN: And then on the ground business, when -- because normal gasoline is a little bit less than jet fuel. It's 2.75 percent. UPS is a little bit lower charges. But these change monthly. So if the price of jet fuel or normal gasoline goes up, you'll see their surcharges go up. So they reset on a monthly basis.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about utility rates. That inevitably is affected by this.

PEARLMAN: Right. And I mean the price of oil and natural gas, as well. As those go up, most utilities just pass along the cost right to end-users.

What you might see later in the year is, as we get into winter months when people might need heating oil for their -- to heat their homes, the price of heating oil is probably going to be at record highs, or close to record highs this winter. So people are going to see a lot higher winter utility bills than perhaps they're used to seeing.

M. O'BRIEN: What about on the shelves? Plastics come to mind. Of course, that's an oil-based kind of thing.

PEARLMAN: Right. We haven't seen a kind of a broad-based jump in a lot of different consumer goods, because for the most part, corporations have been willing to eat the increased costs of fuel.

I don't know if that's going to continue to last. So you're going to have to look to see if like companies that use a lot of plastic, everything from, you know, food containers to detergent containers, you might see a few pennies passed along because of increased fuel costs, because, again, plastics are very much an oil- based thing.

And there's also one other thing. Pizza deliveries. Prices have gone up for pizza deliveries. You see Dominoes, Papa John's imposing anywhere from, you know, $0.75 to $1.25 delivery searching to help their drivers recoup the costs of fuel.

M. O'BRIEN: And the anchovy surcharge, as well.

PEARLMAN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's -- Wal-Mart. I'm a little confused, because Wal-Mart the other day came out and said, you know, this is affecting spending. You know, people are finally being hit by this.

PEARLMAN: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: And then I see a lot of other things. People aren't canceling vacations and that historically while $3 is a big number, historically it is less, when you adjust for inflation, than it has been in the past.

PEARLMAN: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: So what is really going on? Are people really getting hit yet or are they just sort of taking this in stride?

PEARLMAN: I think that, you know, it depends on what your income level is. I mean, you know, a rising gasoline price is essentially just, it's a consumption tax. And, you know, the people who use cars a lot, they're going to have -- they're going to be, their income is going to be affected considerably more.

Wal-Mart's announcement, they much more said they were concerned about rising fuel costs. And then you also saw a bunch of other retailers reporting good news. I'm not sure. We're going to have to see a kind of broad-based across-the-board drop in retail sales before we can, you know, definitively say yes, oil prices have had a major impact on consumer spending.

M. O'BRIEN: But when Wal-Mart speaks, people listen.

PEARLMAN: That's right.

M. O'BRIEN: Russell Pearlman, senior writer for "Smart Money" magazine, thanks for being with us.

PEARLMAN: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Appreciate you walking in and saving those fossil fuels -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, an update on reporter Judith Miller's time behind bars. Find out why former Senator Bob Dole paid her a visit.

That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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