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American Morning

Rocket Attacks; Airline Security

Aired August 19, 2005 - 09:30   ET

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

KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: To the Middle East now where Israeli troops are trying to clear out as many settlers as possible before the Jewish Sabbath begins little less than three hours from now. About 85 percent of all the settlers in Gaza have been evacuated. Troops are using bulldozers to demolish the empty settlements. The pullout is set to resume on Sunday. Officials saying that The evacuations could be complete by early next week.
A Moroccan man has been sentenced to seven years in prison for belonging to a terror group. It is the second trial for Moneer Al Multadeck (ph). He was accused of helping some of the hijackers on September 11th, but the court acquitted him on charges of accessory to murder in those attacks. Defense lawyers say they will appeal the conviction.

The BTK serial killer Dennis Rader is beginning to serve his life sentence in prison. New video in this morning shows Rader arriving at a maximum-security prison in El Dorado, Kansas. He was sentenced Thursday to 10 consecutive life terms. That's the maximum Rader could get because Kansas had no death penalty at the time the BTK murders took place.

And Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., has a long road to recovery. An Atlanta doctor confirming that King suffered a major stroke and mild heart attack earlier this week. She's apparently not able to speak or fully move her right side, but does recognize her surroundings. She'll remain hospitalized for several more days. I know, we wish her well and her family.

COSTELLO: She's a busy woman. You see her around Atlanta all the time.

WALLACE: A real life force.

We're hoping for a recovery, a speedy recovery for her.

COSTELLO: Thank, Kelly.

O'BRIEN: Thanks, Kelly.

WALLACE: Two ballistic rockets were fired at a pair of U.S. Navy ships in Aqaba, Jordan this morning, and a group with links to Al Qaeda claiming that it fired a rocked into nearby Eilat, Israel. The Jordanian government says all three rockets were launched from a warehouse in Aqaba. The ships immediately steamed out of port after the attempted attack. Alec Fraser is a former Naval captain. He runs Turner Global Properties. He's kind of kind of like our landlord. He joins us at CNN Center.

Alec, good to have you with us.

Let's talk about the defenses, a ship like this. This is an amphibious-assault ship. The defenses it would have. And there you see, this is just a file picture of the USS Ashland. What defenses would they have tied up to a dock?

ALEC FRASER, TURNER GLOBAL PROPERTIES: Basically against a ballistic rocket that was shot at it, have no defenses. After the Cole, a lot of small boats were put in the water, there were machine guns placed on the sides, but against a ballistic rocket -- a ship has many defenses like an exocept missile coming in at sea, but in port, the RAM (ph), the rotating air frame missile, the Phalanx gatling gun, with all the background return and heat coming off the shore with warehouses and buildings behind it, it's almost impossible to engage.

O'BRIEN: All right, there's a lot of jargon there. Let's try to walk people through this just a little bit. This gatling gun you talk about, which actually has an automatic mode, where radar kind of locks on, and if something comes within a certain perimeter while the vessel is at sea, it just takes aim kind of automatically, and this gatling gun just fires out lead like you would not believe. This would be a problem to leave that radar and that automatic capability in a dock, and in a port, as we look at file pictures of the Ashland there.

FRASER: That's right, if you leave it on in automatic mode, it would pick up a truck driving down a road or on the pier and actually fire at it.

O'BRIEN: That's not good.

FRASER: That's not a good.

O'BRIEN: So I guess the real conundrum, the catch 22 is here at some point when you go to shore and tie up at a dock, you're very vulnerable.

FRASER: That's correct. The only way to solve this problem would e to evacuate the pier side area or make sure that none of these rockets have been snuck in in the past few days or weeks. But it could be just placed on a modified stand inside a warehouse. The warehouse door opened, and it's fired. It's not very accurate, but if you're close enough, it's tough to miss.

O'BRIEN: Well, and of course, we're talking about some distance away. This may have the range of 10 miles, probably not very accurate at 10 miles. So, that does -- it's a wide swathe. You, obviously, can't shut down an entire port because a U.S. Navy vessel has come in.

Let me just -- I know you're in constant contact with your friends and former colleagues in the Navy. Do you have the sense that the lessons of the USS Cole, which you referred to, October 2000, suicide bomber, 17 sailors killed when it went right into the side of the Cole, those lessons are still being thought of and the security that came as a result of this, when you look at the Cole, the security that came as a result of this is being implemented.

FRASER: It's being implemented, and everything you could do against a boat attack has been done. You notice in harbors like Norfolk or San Diego there are big, floating barriers to any boat just being able to drive in next to a ship and do it, even in our harbors. And the same type of protection is done overseas, but against a rocket that could fire from five miles away, that's very, very difficult.

O'BRIEN: Alec Frasier, former Navy captain, and now boss of Turner Global Properties. Thanks for your time -- Carol.

FRASER: Thank you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETTY YONG (ph): There's somebody stabbed in business class, and we can't breathe in business class. Somebody's got mace or something. OK, our number one got stabbed. Nobody knows who stabbed who, and we can't even get up to business class right now, because nobody can breathe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: A CNN security watch now. Flight attendant Betty Yong describing the chaos on flight 11, after hijackers used box cutters to take over the plane. Box cutters, by the way, are among the objects banned on flights since 9/11, but the government is considering relaxing those rules. The flight attendants union calls the proposal, quote, "insane."

Patricia Friend is the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants. Good morning, Patricia.

PATRICIA FRIEND, PRESIDENT. ASSOC. OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Why do you think this is insane?

FRIEND: Well, clearly, introducing lethal weapons into the cabin of the aircraft puts the occupants of that aircraft at risk. The use of box cutters, as you mentioned, was the primary device on September 11th.

Now, the proposal is to allow knives and to allow bows and arrows. It simply makes no sense to us that anyone needs a lethal weapon inside the aircraft cabin.

COSTELLO: And, of course, this is just a proposal right now, but, obviously, the TSA thinks differently. Why do you think it feels so differently than you guys do?

FRIEND: Well, I'm not clear, Carol, and that's part of our problem, is that this is a proposal that was being secretly considered inside the TSA. Someone kindly leaked it out to the press, otherwise, none of us would have even known about it until it became a fact. I would very much like for someone from TSA to explain to all of us, those who work and those who travel on airplanes, how they believe deadly weapons inside an aircraft cabin does not reduce the level of safety. That's what they're saying.

COSTELLO: There's also this issue of what categories of passengers can go through security without being checked. The Airline Pilots Association is all for this. What do you think?

FRIEND: Well, we disagree. We disagree on two counts. Let me just say, first of all, that it makes no sense to me to exempt one category of airline worker with access to the airplane and not exempt everyone who has access to the airplane. Although we strongly disagree that any person with access to the airplane should be able to bypass screening. And I'll tell you why. Because, if you can bypass screening, then there is no way to ensure that that individual has not been compromised either voluntarily or involuntarily.

COSTELLO: Well, let me read to you a quote from the Airline Pilots' Association, because they think that these measures are more cosmetic procedures than hardcore security measures. This is what the head of security at the Airline Pilots Association told AMERICAN MORNING. He said, "People going through screening are treated with a broad brush. It diluted the screeners' effectiveness. Four years later, after 9/11, they can do a better job more efficiently, by screening passengers by their behaviors, or screening for intent." It makes sense.

FRIEND: I'm very much afraid that that approach is going to, once again, raise the question in the traveling public's mind about profiling. The way we're doing screening now, we're not screening based on appearance. We're screening based on whether or not a person is attempting to bring prohibited items onboard the aircraft, that they could then use to do harm to the occupants of that aircraft. My question to the Airline Pilots Association and to the TSA would be, are you going to ask everyone that you let bring a box cutter, or a knife or a bow and arrow on the aircraft if they promise not to hurt anyone with that? And that's going to be sufficient security for those of us who work and travel on that aircraft?

COSTELLO: Patricia Friend, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, thanks.

FRIEND: Stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Now what is more Australian than g'day mate?

COSTELLO: That was good.

O'BRIEN: How is that all right? Did I do OK?

Australian lawmakers thought it was too informal, though. They passed a law on Thursday banning security guards at the parliament house from addressing visitors as mate. Instead, they were told to say sir or ma'am. That sounds very un-Aussie. The decision sparked a nationwide uproar, and today lawmakers backed down. Prime Minister John Howard called the ban ridiculous.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN HOWARD, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Well, these things are all a matter of context, and that's why it's impractical and absurd to try to ban something, and we all use the word mate, depending on the context. I had that experience on radio. People would bring me up, and I might start off saying, yes, sir, as a matter of courtesy, which I normally do, and then we lapse into it, and we might say mate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Mr. Howard famously referred to President Bush as "mate" in the past.

COSTELLO: It sounds so much better when he says it.

O'BRIEN: I'm doing the best I can.

COSTELLO: There is much more AMERICAN MORNING to come.

Ahead on "90-Second Pop," rough times for Eminem. First, he's by his own family. Now he's in rehab. The pop panel weighs in on his problems.

Plus, Pierce Brosnan license to kill is revoked. Who's next in line to play Bonds, James Bond? That's ahead, on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Today marks one year since Google went public. We've got some big birthday plans in the works.

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look, I don't get what happened the last time, so now at the price that Google is at. Take a look. This is one year, by the way. Happy birthday, Google. Let's look at what the stock has done in a year. Google announced yesterday that it is going to issue -- I mean, look at that, they went from around 100 bucks to over 300 bucks, and it's now issuing some new shares, not just some new shares, 14,159,265 new shares, because that's the mathematical value of pie.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: It never ends. Being cute never ends with these guys.

O'BRIEN: What is supporting this? There is no reason.

VELSHI: People continue to buy this thing, thinking that they are the best of brands, continue to own what it is. Google's got a piece of the Chinese market. They maybe will -- it's $4 billion bucks they're going to raise out of this thing. That tells you they've got some plans.

O'BRIEN: So if you have Google stock now, you shouldn't be worrying about it going down?

VELSHI: One might, right? One would think, supply and demand. Fourteen million more shares, you know, this defies gravity. As you know so much about flying in space, this is a stock that operates in space. Stocks are moving right now, and oil is up a little bit. You can see the Dow is up 29 points. Nobody seems too alarmed by it. Oil is up by about a buck. We don't want to directly tie it to anything going on, but obviously when you see activity in the Middle East, some people get a little panicked about the whole thing, so.

O'BRIEN: There you have it.

All right. So you're watching oil, you're watching stocks. You're watching Google, which is in the stratosphere.

VELSHI: Yes, and we're watching Northwest, which may not be in the stratosphere.

O'BRIEN: Could happen?

VELSHI: That's right. It's tonight at midnight.

O'BRIEN: Tonight at midnight. OK, so be careful travelers. By cognizant of all of that as you fly today, all right.

VELSHI: We'll keep an eye on it all.

O'BRIEN: Ali Velshi, thank you.

COSTELLO: My head is reeling. "LIVE TODAY" coming up next.

Daryn, what you working on?

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, we've got help for the parents out there, Carol, and they need it, we know. Get this, kids see an average, just as an average, 40,000 TV commercials a year, 20 million different ads by the time they turn 20. So how do you raise a savvy consumer? We're going to give you top five tips how to do that.

Plus, it might be the most expensive piggyback ever. The Space Shuttle Discovery gets a ride home this morning. We'll show it to you on CNN LIVE TODAY.

I know we'll have one viewer. Miles wouldn't miss it, Carol, our space geek.

COSTELLO: Somehow I think he has his TiVo running at home, so he can play it again and again.

O'BRIEN: My favorite channel, Nasa TV.

KAGAN: There you go.

COSTELLO: All right, thanks, Daryn.

KAGAN: See you.

COSTELLO: "90-Second Pop" is coming your way next. Today the soap opera that is Eminem's life. He's being sued by his family, and now he's in rehab. Is the bad boy rapper in big trouble? That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC)

COSTELLO: Remember that song when it was popular back in the day? Yes. It's "90 Second Pop" for a Friday with guest stars Bradley Jacobs from "US Weekly," Sarah Bernard from "New York" magazine and Aaron Hicklin from "Black Book" magazine. Welcome to you all.

And we must start with Eminem, because his star is fading.

SARAH BERNARD, "NEW YORK" MAGAZINE: You are so harsh. You are so harsh.

COSTELLO: I'm sorry. He's being sued by his family, he's now going into rehab. He might be hooked on Vicodin, because, you know, he has that tattoo.

BERNARD: Yes, he does have a Vicodin tattoo. Well, it's been a really rough week for Eminem. You obviously have no sympathy for him, but I feel bad. His week started with Mariah getting upset because...

COSTELLO: That was mean!

BERNARD: He has been little mean. During his concert, he has a kind of skit where he plays a voice mail message that may or may not be from Mariah saying, you know, I really want to see you and then he literally pretends to puke into a toilet. Not so nice. But, really, the week ended much worse for him than Mariah, because he's now in rehab -- and people, this is the kind of the joke that celebrities play on us. They say that they're going to cancel something because of exhaustion. Which is just like a euphemism for a million different things, which leads to us to say, what is really going on here?

BRADLEY JACOBS, "US WEEKLY": Well, but he's come up with a new euphemism this time. And maybe it's not a euphemism, to be fair. But he says he's checking into rehab because of his addiction to sleeping pills. Most people say pain killers, but what is sleeping pills? Shades of Marilyn Monroe. Ambien -- I mean, Ambien as much as the next guy, but I don't...

BERNARD: We're going to be reading about you.

COSTELLO: Yes, really, you have an Ambien tattoo on your arm, don't you?

JACOBS: Right here. BERNARD: I think the really funny thing about this is when Mariah Carey had her kind of breakdown a couple years ago, she said she was suffering from exhaustion. So maybe this is all kind of like a joke about Mariah, again.

JACOBS: Maybe they did get to know each other a little bit better than they're admitting.

COSTELLO: Maybe so. Hmm.

Let's talk about James Bond, Aaron. Because poor Pierce Brosnan, he got a call saying he's not going to be James Bond any more over the phone?

AARON HICKLIN, "BLACK BOOK": Well, this has been on the cards for a while.

COSTELLO: Still, that's cold.

HICKLIN: Well, that's Hollywood, you know? I mean, I think Eminem wants to reinvent himself. There's a perfect role for him there. Sean Connery was 32 when he first played Bond, Eminem's 32. I mean what better than to remark Dr. No -- have Dr. Dre as Dr. No, Beyonce is money penny. I mean, the show -- the franchise, frankly, is tired. It's had 22 outings. They kind of need to reinvent themselves, as well.

COSTELLO: And make it more current for women. I know they tried to with Halle Berry, but it didn't quite do it for me, somehow.

HICKLIN: You know, I think the magic -- I mean, Pierce Brosnan's being kind of -- taking pot shots at the franchise for a while, saying he doesn't like these corny one-liners. I think the corny one- liners, the kind of faint whiff of sexism, is part of James Bond. I mean, without that, I don't think it's going to be...

BERNARD: I mean, it's kind of...

COSTELLO: Let's talk about the -- who could possibly replace, if the franchise goes on, that is -- so who are the frontruners?

HICKLIN: Well, in the U.K., second guessing the next James Bond is a national pastime. I mean, they've had Hugh Grant. They've been talking about Clive Owen for some time.

COSTELLO: And this guy David Craig, who is he?

HICKLIN: Daniel Craig. Daniel, yes. They say if you look at the franchise, they've always gone for someone who no one's heard of before.

COSETLLO: There he is.

HICKLIN: Daniel Craig, a British hunk. He starred in, I think, very good British movies, one called "Layer Cake," which came out this summer. Didn't do too well, but the critics loved it. His performance is a kind of suave gangster. Showed that he could handle a weapon. Last year he was in "Enduring Love," another nice British movie, a very sensitive kind of portrayal.

COSTELLO: OK, so, since we don't know him, we don't want to hear any more about him. We like Clive Owen, though. Because we just saw his picture. I like him.

BERNARD: I think they should go in a totally different direction. Angelina Jolie, a woman Bond.

COSTELLO: That would be fantastic. And she's been getting a lot of pub lately.

BERNARD: Yes, people have heard of her, though. She's not so unknown.

COSTELLO: Exactly. A lot of -- another actress who's been a lot of pub. Rachel McAdams. Loved her in "The Notebook."

JACOBS: Yes. Well, this is a weekend that two new actors are going to become household names at the box office. Rachel McAdams is going to blow them away in "Red Eye." I saw the movie, and I'm very happy to tell you, this is my favorite thriller of the summer.

COSTELLO: Really?

JACOBS: It is awesome. It's directed by Wes Craven, who's very skilled at suspense. He did the "Scream" movies and before that, the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies. She's a young woman who works at a hotel who gets on a red eye to go home. And she meets Cillian Murphy, the guy from "Batman."

COSTELLO: What a name.

JACOBS: And he -- and she 's waiting for the flight and she flirts with him and they have a drink. She's get on the flight, she finds out she's his seat mate. Wow, how great. Only as soon as they take off, the tables turn and he terrorizes her and he says he's going to have her father killed if she doesn't do some work for him over the air phone with the -- to do with her hotel. So, anyway, it's a killer performance for her. Total crowd pleaser. I'm expecting it to do really big business.

COSTELLO: Oh, I hope so, because I do like her.

BERNARD: And then she -- we have to also talk about the fact that she was the star of "Wedding Crashers," as well. So she's had an amazing summer.

COSTELLO: She has. And you go, girl. You go, Rachel!

Let's talk about the virgin movie, because it strikes me as so funny. Because Steve Carell actually had his chest hair really waxed for the movie. Not many men would do that.

JACOBS: No, he's the other big breakout star of this weekend. Steve Carell, you know him from "Anchorman," from "Bruce Almighty." He's had really great supporting parts. He's, of course, in the American version of "The Office." This is his big breakout role. You've seen him in the posters for "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." And that scene, actually, where he gets his -- the hair ripped off his chest, it's real life, and it's real blood and you see and real pain. He wanted to give -- talk about the method.

COSTELLO: A method actor.

JACOBS: He really wanted to give it his all. But, yes, this is a big breakout weekend for him. I expect this movie to also do pretty well. It's pretty crass and vulgar, but it does have...

COSTELLO: Oh, well, then it will do well.

JACOBS: ... a tender side, as well.

COSTELLO: Crass, vulgar and tender.

Thanks so much. Bradley Jacobs, Sarah Bernard, Aaron Hicklin. Thanks for playing.

We'll be back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right, should we do the Carol Burnett song now? "I'm so glad we had this time."

COSTELLO: Good, Miles, keep going.

O'BRIEN: You're not going to go with me on this? All right, yes. After three years...

WALLACE: We left you out there on your own.

O'BRIEN: We're vacating this set. This couch will be eBay in about 20 minutes.

WALLACE: Remember, Jack Cafferty used to get e-mails from people, wondering where do you get the couch?

O'BRIEN: Where do you get a couch like this?

WALLACE: Yes. Now you'll find out.

O'BRIEN: Let us explain to you. We are .7 miles away, three- quarters of a mile away, from the control room. Take a look at the control room. Now there's some people there, I think. Yes, I hear their voices.

COSTELLO: There they are.

WALLACE: There they are.

O'BRIEN: Oh my goodness, they have faces. Which one is my boss? Kim, where are you?

WALLACE: There, she just waved.

O'BRIEN: That's Kim. There's -- Alex is around. There's Ted, and everybody. And we're going to be actually very close to them. And I'm not sure if they're happy about that, but we're happy that we're moving to Time Warner Center to some new digs. We'll be in temporary digs for a while, and then we're going to have a spectacular new set toward the fall. And the window set is now moving on.

COSTELLO: It is moving on.

WALLACE: Sad to leave, but...

COSTELLO: It is.

WALLACE: ... nice to move on...

O'BRIEN: We'll be back on Monday.

WALLACE: ... to bigger and better places.

VELSHI: Everybody, carry a box on your way out.

COSTELLO: We're like the Jeffersons, we're moving on out.

VELSHI: There's been no news on this show for the last hour and a half because everybody's just piling things up. It's like, we've been hearing news about things happening -- it's like, we'll get to it later.

O'BRIEN: All right, Daryn Kagan, in this same place, will be in the same place Monday, and we'll see you on Monday.

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