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Al Qaeda Taking Responsibility for Series of Car Bomb Explosions in and Around Baghdad; Hurricane Ophelia's Effects Being Already Being Felt Along Carolina Coast

Aired September 14, 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: Welcome back, everybody.
I'm Soledad O'Brien in New York.

New developments in Iraq. Al Qaeda taking responsibility for a series car bomb explosions in and around Baghdad. More than 100 people confirmed dead, more than 200 others are wounded -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Miles O'Brien reporting live, floating above a flooded portion of the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans. This is not one of the neighborhoods that will open up any time soon. The mayor has some plans for opening up some other places. We'll tell you about that coming up -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: And Hurricane Ophelia -- we are keeping a close eye on this storm. The effects already being felt along the Carolina coast. The brunt of the category one storm expected to hit just hours from now. We are tracking Ophelia 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.

S. O'BRIEN: Good morning.

Welcome back, everybody.

You're looking at some live pictures from Atlantic Beach in North Carolina, where you can see the wind -- the surf is pretty strong. The wind, as we saw earlier in some live shots, also fairly strong. Flooding a major concern there today, as Hurricane Ophelia, now a category one storm, heads to that region.

More on that is just ahead.

First, though, let's check in with Miles once again in New Orleans -- Miles, good morning.

M. O'BRIEN: Good morning, again, Soledad.

Once again, I'm impressed by the contrasts of this city. You go to many parts of the French Quarter, the center part of town, uptown, as they call it, Artesia, and what you see there is a road to recovery. Damage, yes, but dry. And there is talk this morning about reopening large portions of the city pending an attest by the Environmental Protection Agency. The mayor announcing that yesterday, that he'd like to get at least four neighborhoods up and running, perhaps as many as 150,000 people moving in.

But look it here. In this neighborhood, fairly far away from the French Quarter, still, six, eight, 10 feet of water in some places here. These are members of the Massachusetts National Guard Task Force Yankee, who are part of the external fuel tank to go house by house and see if there's anybody still alive and also account for the dead -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, what a grizzly task. And, of course, I mean it's just gruesome when the bodies, those that remain, are under all that water and, you know, it's a miserable, miserable task, and even, frankly, when you're in waders, I know it's not pleasant where you're standing, as well.

Miles, thanks.

We'll check in with you once again.

Let's talk about Iraq this morning.

More than 100 Iraqis killed today in a wave of violence that was aimed at the Shiite majority. These attacks come on the same day that the final draft of the Iraqi constitution is being presented to the United Nations.

Jennifer Eccleston live in Baghdad for us this morning -- Jennifer, we know that al Qaeda in Iraq is claiming responsibility.

The question I have is why?

JENNIFER ECCLESTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they say it's on that Internet posting on an insurgent Web site, an extremist Web site, that the car bombings were in response to an operation that is taking place and has been taking place over the last couple of days in Tal Afar, in northern Iraq, just outside of the Syrian border. And it's called Operation Restoring Rights. And it is a joint Iraqi-American operations, with the Iraqis very much in the lead, taking the lead in that assault. And they're trying to root out insurgents, foreign and homegrown, that have taken safe haven in that city. And that is the -- that is what the statement has read on that Internet posting, that this is the reason why they launched these bombings today.

And, of course, as you mentioned, it's been a string of horrific attacks here in Baghdad. The latest a suicide bomb that rocked the entrance of an Iraqi Army base. That bomb was followed by a ground assault, where fighting ensued between the attackers and the Iraqi military. Three Iraqi soldiers and one civilian were killed in that attack and 25 were wounded.

But it really was a day, Soledad, of relentless violence against Baghdad's Shiite community. Suicide car bombers targeted two Shiite neighborhoods, the latest in Shula, in northwestern Baghdad. Four dead there and 22 wounded.

But the most deadly came this morning in a bomb attack involving a minibus. According to police, that bus exploded near a meeting point for day laborers in Kadhimiya, a Shiite neighborhood in north- central Baghdad.

Witnesses say that when that van pulled up, the driver called the workers to come over to his vehicle and then he detonated his bomb. At least 80 people were killed there and 162 were wounded.

Iraqi civilians are bearing the brunt of today's violence, but the military was also a target, as was indicated there. And the U.S. military also targeted this day. Six attacks on U.S. convoys. Five soldiers, as a result, being injured -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, just a brutal day there.

All right, Jennifer Eccleston with an update on what's happening in and around Baghdad this morning.

Jennifer, thanks.

Let's get right back to Miles now -- Miles, good morning again.

M. O'BRIEN: Good morning again, Soledad.

We've gone out. We're in a boat and we've set off with members of the Massachusetts National Guard. We're at Elysian Fields and New York Avenue right here in the Gentilly District of New Orleans, where there still is a tremendous amount of water.

I remember yesterday we were at that levee breach in the 17th Street Canal. Much of the water that came from that is here now. It's being pumped out at a rate of nine billion gallons a day by the Corps of Engineers. That's good news and it is receding, but there's still a long way to go here.

Meanwhile, another storm to think about. Ophelia is still out there. It has changed directions so many times, I've lost track. It's become a hurricane, back to a tropical storm, and again and again, and now is threatening parts of South Carolina and North Carolina today, making landfall probably today.

CNN's Rob Marciano in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina with more on that -- good morning, Rob.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Miles.

We're still like 100 miles from the center of this storm, as we continue to get peppered. We're getting a squall right now. Rain man out. A rain man coming through. We've had winds sustained at 33 miles an hour average and the latest max wind gust I've had is already 51 miles an hour. So it's going to be a long afternoon.

We're on a pier here in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. Behind me is the surf. It's obviously rough. It's low tide right now. Where normally high tide would be, you can see the sand whipping across the beach, zamboning the beach, pretty much, like an ice skating rink.

Look at the sand dunes, though. This is what's different about the North Carolina Outer Banks as compared to the Gulf Coast. These sand dunes, you need a storm surge eight, nine, 10 feet to breach those dunes. So we don't think that's going to happen. That's what protects the inland areas. But there are -- there's bays and sounds in there that are filling up with water and we could see storm surge flooding up to 50 miles inland up some of these rivers -- Miles.

This is the worst squall we've seen so far. We'll be here all day. The biggest problem is going to be, it's just going to pound us all day long. We're not even close to the center of this thing -- back to you.

M. O'BRIEN: CNN's Rob Marciano with Ophelia.

And this is what happened -- that's what happens when a storm is approach. This is what happens, unfortunately, when a killer storm comes through. The Massachusetts National Guard Task Force Yankee in boats right now beginning their day of search and rescue missions here in the Gentilly District of New Orleans.

Chad Myers has been watching Ophelia -- Chad, we have been talking about Ophelia now for, has it been two weeks?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Not quite, but it seems it, yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

MYERS: I mean we had Maria, then we had Nate, then we had Ophelia. So it really, it's only been out here for about eight days, Miles. But it seems like two weeks. And the entire area here now kind of getting battered by this storm. The entire area just getting pushed in one squall line after another. Wilmington, Cape Fear and all the areas up through here, right through Myrtle Grove.

Now, Myrtle Beach is down here and the winds are actually offshore for u. But the winds onshore Topsail Beach all the way up to Atlantic Beach. And right there, that's where Rob Marciano is, right there. And that was that little band that he was talking about.

The only problem with what Rob's got right now is that he is still, he literally is still 18 hours, 18 hours from the worst of it. So you can see what it is now, 30, 40 miles per hour. But there's the eye. There's Rob. It's only moving at five miles per hour and that slow movement is going to be the problem for the entire day.

Battering waves, battering winds, a lot of rain coming through here. Many areas already picking up four inches of rain. And that wind, as it blows the water into these rivers, will start to push up the water levels in places that didn't expert that storm surge -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Chad.

Appreciate that.

As you know, CNN is your hurricane headquarters.

Stay with us for coverage of Ophelia, as well as we continue our coverage of the aftermath of Katrina.

And speaking of that, the people involved in this mission today are really pulling for the speedy return the Pump Station Number Six. That is the granddaddy of all pump stations for the City of New Orleans. And much of the infrastructure there, the machinery there, dates back to the 1920s. And getting it back online has not been easy. But once it is back online, this water will recede much quicker than it already has.

It's going down pretty quickly, at a rate of about nine billion gallons a day. But we're talking in excess of 30, maybe 40 billion gallons of water. It's hard to even comprehend those numbers covering these neighborhoods.

CNN's Sean Callebs is at that pump station with more on the effort to pump the city dry and the effort by the mayor to open some doors for business -- Sean.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Indeed. The mayor has an ambitious plan to hopefully open four sections of this city, perhaps by Monday. You mentioned earlier, he's waiting for some key information from an EPA report. At a news conference yesterday, he said he had been getting basically an oral version of that report and he said the news was very good; as soon as he got the written report, he would pass that on.

One of the areas, certainly, the mayor wants to open quickly, the French Quarter, to breathe some business life, just some entertainment back into the city that really needs it.

Miles, we're actually at Pump Station Number Three. If you look behind us, you can see the debris left over from the floodwaters and opening this area, the Seventh Ward, isn't going to happen any time soon.

If you look just down the street, you can see the floodwater under the overpass. You can also see mosquitoes landing on that. A huge problem. They're going to start spraying for mosquitoes later today.

Here's Pump Station Number Three. And one of the problems, the floodwaters came well up in this area. As I wade through this much, you can see just how high the floodwater came up. It was up to here. So it swamped this pumping station, shutting off all three pumps.

Now this water in this canal here is being brought in from various parts of the city. It's sucked into here, then it goes through the pumping station, then pumped out into the London canal.

Now, there are three pumps that are supposed to be operating in Number Three here. Only one is up and running and that happened yesterday.

Miles, you talked about Pump Station Number Six. That one takes care of sewage treatment, as well as waste water. This one here is supposed to take care of just drainage water, but because there is so much waste, it is also pumping that directly into the canal -- Miles, back to you.

M. O'BRIEN: Sean Callebs.

And you take a look at some of that, really, what this water is, is largely effluent. It is largely sewer water that we are on right now as the sun rises here in the Gentilly District of New Orleans.

We are going to continue with the National Guard here as they begin their mission this morning. Search and rescue, it is still called. Not highly optimistic they're going to find anybody alive in homes at this juncture, but just the day before yesterday, they did find a 70-year-old woman who was in her house, was scared and they finally coaxed her out.

So it's an amazing story when you think about what that must have been like to be inside that house for some 15, 16 days -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: And what a contrast with that beautiful sunrise and really, I know how nasty that water is and how bad it smells, Miles.

Miles, we'll get back to you in just a little bit, OK?

We want to talk about the president. President Bush is going to address the United Nations in just over an hour-and-a-half from now. He's going to speak for the United States in front of about 150 presidents and prime ministers. It's the largest summit of world leaders in history.

Dana Bash is traveling with the president in New York and she join us this morning -- Dana, good morning to you.

What's the president's message today?

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the crux of his message, Soledad, is to push what he thought would be the hallmark of the second term, and that is pushing democracy in Iraq and elsewhere around the world. But, of course, this was the body, the U.N. that heard the administration make the case for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So it's clearly a very skeptical body.

But the president will talk about a host of other issues, we're told, including fighting the global war on AIDS, fighting terrorism, of course, the need for free trade. But he will start the speech, we are told, Soledad, by thanking countries around the world for offering their help for the U.S. victims of Katrina.

S. O'BRIEN: Dana, the president talked about taking responsibility yesterday when he was at a press conference with the Iraqi leader.

Let's listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Was that, I mean you talked yesterday, you and I talked yesterday about a moment of leadership that people have been waiting for.

Is this the moment? And is this a surprise?

BASH: Well, you know, we did talk about that. And we also talked about how uncharacteristic it was for the president to sack a top aide under fire.

Soledad, this is another very unusual and out of character moment, saying I take responsibility, essentially accepting a blame for a major failure. And what this is, it is a bit of a surprise, but it's the White House trying to come up with another tactic to get themselves out from under the weight of criticism against the federal government, personally against the president, for not coming quickly enough -- quickly to the help of the victims of Katrina.

So essentially it is making clear that what they were talking about before, the blame game, wasn't working. And they essentially had to accept some blame, and the president had to do it personally.

S. O'BRIEN: Dana Bash is traveling with the president.

Dana, thanks.

We'll check in with you again.

BASH: Thank you. S. O'BRIEN: Earlier this morning, I asked CNN political analyst Ron Brownstein for his reaction after President Bush, as you just heard a moment ago, accepted responsibility for the federal response to Katrina.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON BROWNSTEIN, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": In one sense, these were remarkable comments from the president. This is a president, after all, who famously drew a blank at a press conference some time ago when asked to name a single mistake that he had made.

On the other hand, as I was speaking with someone in the White House yesterday about it, it's not remarkable in this sense. He's also a president who tends to wear his emotions and his thoughts on his sleeve. And although he has been defending the federal response in public, it's hard to imagine that the president, like any other American, wasn't surprised and disappointed in what he saw. And I think that private response migrated its way to a public response.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Ron Brownstein's analysis on what the president said. We're going to hear from President Bush in the next hour at the United Nations. Then tomorrow night, on Thursday night, the president speaks to the nation from Louisiana. We're going to see that at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time.

We've got some other stories making headlines this morning.

Let's get a look at that with Carol Costello -- good morning again, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.

Good morning to all of you.

Now in the news, chief justice nominee John Roberts facing another round of questioning. The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to reconvene in the next hour. So far, Roberts has refused to answer some questions on hot button issues like abortion. CNN will have coverage over the Roberts' confirmation hearings. There will be a special "SITUATION ROOM." That begins at 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

Criminal charges against the owners of a New Orleans area nursing home where 34 people drowned in the wake of Katrina. Louisiana's attorney general says the couple had the time and the resources to move patients from St. Rita's Nursing Home and did not. But a lawyer for the nursing home owner says the couple stayed and ended up saving more than 52 lives.

And a bumpy ride for two big airlines. There is word Northwest and Delta are expected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, perhaps later today. That would mean that more than half of the seven major U.S. airlines are operating in the red. United and US Airways have both filed for bankruptcy protection.

So we'll keep you posted on that -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Carol, thank you very much.

Still to come this morning, Katrina's economic impact on New Orleans. Tens of thousands of businesses were shut down by the hurricane. So how many of them can actually ever recover? Plus, homeowners across the Gulf Coast are getting more bad news. Their insurance is not going to cover the damage from Katrina. We'll tell you why not ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Welcome back.

I'm Miles O'Brien reporting live from the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans and I'm with the Massachusetts National Guard, the oldest regiment in the United States Army.

And they're beginning their mission today of search and rescue. They're here for a long period of time as they, you know, try to help out, securing neighborhoods, going house to house. And you're not going to believe this, but this water, as awful as it is -- we've got some ducks here. Life goes on in the City of New Orleans in spite of -- if you could only smell what we smell now, it's hard to imagine life existing as it does. And the guys here are giving them a little bit of food, a little bit of food that's a little bit safer to eat certainly than what is here.

The economic impact of all of this is hard to comprehend when you think about it. The mayor yesterday saying he'd like to open up large swathes of the city, but this is a huge swathe of the city still underwater. And so the economic livelihood of New Orleans is in jeopardy for quite some time to come.

The chancellor of the university that is right behind me, the University of New Orleans, is Tim Ryan.

He joins us now.

He's in Baton Rouge.

Chancellor, good to have you with us.

You're an economist by training.

TIM RYAN, CHANCELLOR, UNIVERSITY OF NEW ORLEANS: That's right.

M. O'BRIEN: Have you really sat down and thought a little bit about what the impact will be or is it too hard to comprehend?

RYAN: Well, no, I've thought a great deal about it in the last two weeks. And it is difficult to get your hands around it. But the city economically is, two years from now, is going to look completely different than it did two years ago. So I think this is a whole restructuring of the city's economy. And it's almost impossible to measure.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, and as you think about, you know, it has been said a clean slate. In some cases it's actually a rather dirty slate. There's a lot of things that need to be done. When you're talking about rebuilding a city on kind of a wholesale basis, how do you make room and find a place for everybody at every level of income, rich and poor?

RYAN: Well, that's going to be the challenge. I think for upper middle level incomes, the market is going to take care of that. People will find -- they'll find a niche. There's going to be an enormous amount of money flowing through the New Orleans area economy over the next 18 months as insurance money, as private money, as government money comes in to rebuild the city.

I think those in the middle and upper class, those who have skills, especially if you have technical skills, carpentry skills, plumbing, electricians, the market will take care of that.

For those at the low income level, that's going to be a much bigger question. M. O'BRIEN: You know, and the real question that's been on my mind is as you look at this terrible devastation here and perhaps 160,000 houses need to be leveled, when it comes time to rebuild those levees, it's going to be a tremendous cost. And the question that really needs to be asked is should there be an effort to rebuild here or is this a place that is just untenable?

RYAN: Well, I think we perhaps should have asked that question 300 years ago when we built the City of New Orleans where it did. I don't think anybody would say a city of that size, 1.4 million people in the metro area, should not be rebuilt. We could ask the same question about San Francisco and Los Angeles being on a fault. We all keep saying it's just a matter of time before the big earthquake happens there.

So we clearly have to rebuild the City of New Orleans. It is a critical part of the nation's economy, with one of the largest port systems, with the oil and gas industry right off of the shore. So I don't think there's a question about it.

Now, we have to build it differently. If the Corps of Engineers had spent maybe $100 million a couple of years ago, they could have saved $100 billion now. So it's a question of doing things smart and doing things right. And that's something that we should be able to figure out how to do.

M. O'BRIEN: It reminds me of that expression, pay me now or pay me later.

RYAN: Absolutely.

M. O'BRIEN: In New Orleans they are paying later, for sure.

RYAN: Absolutely.

M. O'BRIEN: Tim Ryan is the chancellor of the University of New Orleans and he is a Ph.D. in economics. And he's got a lot to think about on that front in the months and years ahead -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles, continuing on that front, in fact, it's back to business in the Port of New Orleans. We're going to talk more about that just ahead as we continue right here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Business news now. And it's back to business at the New Orleans port.

Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business."

So, that's good news.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: It really is good news and very unexpected, Soledad. The Port of New Orleans was supposed to be closed for months. But yesterday they managed to clear a road out and turn on the juice, get the electric going, and it opened up for business. At 8:30 p.m. last night, a ship called the Lights Flyer docked there and unleaded its cargo of plywood and coffee beans. Both, by the way, are in short supply and both of those, there has been concern about shortages of coffee and plywood, obviously, in great need in that area to rebuild homes.

So it really is encouraging news. And they said that the people down there, it was a great effort of having teams of union workers, city officials, construction crews, really all coming together and opening this port up, which is really fantastic news for not only the area, but also the country at large.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, and finally, everybody seems to be at least kind of working together.

SERWER: That's right.

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

SERWER: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, bad news for homeowners hit hard by Katrina. The reasons why some insurance companies are saying no to their claims. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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