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CNN Live Today

New York City Subway Hoax?; Earthquake Aftermath; Suicide Bombings in Iraq

Aired October 11, 2005 - 12:00   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's check some of the stories "Now in the News."
New information is coming in to CNN about the New York City subway threat. Now government sources say the informant who told investigators of a plot to bomb the transit system is changing his story. A live report is moments away.

The waterlogged northeastern United States is trying to dry out. More rain could be on the way, though. Flood watches are up through tomorrow.

At least 10 deaths are blamed on the high water. And four people are still missing.

New Hampshire is especially hit hard. The flooding there has swept away homes and ripped up highways.

In New Orleans, Robert Davis, the retired school teacher who was videotaped being beaten by three police officers, says he doesn't have any animosity over the incident. The city's acting police chief has suspended the officers, who now face battery charges. And a federal civil rights investigation is now under way.

Bird flu remains a troubling concern for health officials in the U.S. Right now, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt is touring countries in southeast Asia hit by the virus. Leavitt has said the world is not prepared to respond to a global outbreak of bird flu.

Hello. And welcome to CNN LIVE TODAY. From CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Daryn Kagan.

An alleged plot to bomb New York City's subway stoked fears. It prompted plenty of criticism into the city's plan to boost security. And now government sources say the alleged plot was nothing but a hoax.

Our Justice Correspondent Kelli Arena gathering details in Washington.

Kelli, first, how was the hoax set up?

Well, apparently our hoax is with the microphone, because Kelli, we cannot hear you at all. All right, Kelli. From subways to microphones. We will definitely get Kelli back, because that is a fascinating story out of New York City and out of Washington, D.C.

But right now let's move on to the very latest from earthquake- battered South Asia. And the latest on that, while there still is no firm death toll, officials estimate that 20,000, perhaps more than 41,000 people, were killed. Most of the deaths are in Pakistan, where entire towns and villages are flattened.

Amid the devastation, there are rays of hope. Three days after the quake, survivors are still being pulled from the rubble.

To make matters worse, the weather has take an nasty turn in some parts. Storms and cold temperatures are hampering relief efforts.

All right. I think we have fixed the microphone with Kelli Arena. We'll get back to the earthquake story in a moment.

For now, the hoax.

Kelli, testing one, two, three.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: You got me. I was brilliant before. You just missed it.

KAGAN: I bet. You never sounded better. Sounded better than the hoax. So it was one big hoax this thing, the subway threat?

ARENA: It was. As you know, Daryn, this information was based on an informant in Iraq, at least according to the government officials that we spoke to. At first he was polygraphed, and now officials told us that he passed the part of the polygraph where he talked about this alleged plot but had failed other parts of the polygraph.

They said that he had been an informant who provided accurate information in the past. So this wasn't something that they could just ignore. They had to run the lead to the ground.

Well, it turns out after they ran the lead to the ground and couldn't corroborate any of the information, they went back to the source, and he had admitted that he had provided false information.

KAGAN: There's a dilemma here when you are dealing with these kinds of guys. You were explaining this in the last hour. These are not your most upstanding citizens.

ARENA: Well, exactly, Daryn. And every investigator will say to you, look, you know, these are obviously people who run in circles that you and I -- well, I don't know about you, but I don't run in. And so they -- you know, they -- some of them do provide very inconsistent information.

And as this source had provided, according to many government officials that we spoke to, he's provided inconsistent information, but some of it accurate. And so that's why they couldn't just dismiss what he was saying as false.

KAGAN: And so even when the information was available, some authorities thought they should go with it and some didn't.

ARENA: Well, I mean -- and you know. I mean, we talked about that a lot when the information first came out.

The officials that I spoke to, that Jeanne Meserve spoke to at Homeland Security, they said, look, we haven't been able to corroborate this information. It's of some questionable credibility, but it came from a source that we are comfortable with.

New York City officials, though, thought, hey, you know what? We have information here, it's pretty specific. We need to let the public know.

And each and every time, Daryn, that's going to be a judgment call. And so that was left up to the people in charge in New York. They decided to go with it. But again, of course now there's going to be a lot of, you know, second guessing, and should somebody have said something, the information wasn't corroborated.

I mean, this is -- this is very much an art. It's not a science. You know, in retrospect, if they found out that it had been true, you know, it would be a whole different story. So everybody's just playing it by the seat of their pants -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right. Kelli Arena, from Washington, D.C. Sounding good. Thank you.

ARENA: You're welcome.

Now more to the earthquake in battered South Asia. There are many victims burying their dead. But, you know, there's also reason for some of them to have some hope. Survivors, many of them children, are still being pulled from the rubble.

With more on that, here's ITN's Paul Davies from the devastated city of Balakot in Pakistan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL DAVIES, REPORTER, ITN (voice over): In the face of so much death and misery, it would be easy to give up hope. But they don't, and this is why. In the Pakistani town of Balakot, beneath the rubble that was once a school, this French rescue team have heard voices.

Tiny cameras inserted down into the collapsed building confirm a small miracle. A boy, four years old, trapped in an air pocket.

They must work very gently now, creating a tunnel down to the child. But suddenly, there he is, passed from one pair of hands to another until he's back above ground in the arms of his father.

For a moment, there's a reason to cheer. One child saved where so many of his little classmates have died. "Nearly three hours to reach him. We're exhausted. But you forget that when you see him being pulled out," said this French rescue worker. A 4-year-old girl was saved from the same site.

A British team continues its efforts to find survivors in this collapsed tower block in Islamabad. They've already rescued a woman and child and believe more people are alive in the wreckage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, at the moment, we've located two people. We've had verbal contact with them. And so what we are doing now is trying to get down and actually get them out. It sounds like it possibly could be two women.

DAVIES: But such stories are rare. For so many thousands of victims, there will be no rescue.

And as well as the ever-increasing death toll, there are the millions left homeless in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Their plight, a challenge to which the world is now responding.

The first consignment of American aid seen here arriving in Rawalpindi, about to be helicoptered to the most stricken areas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are taking food rations. We are also medevacing and moving casualties that were injured in the earthquake. We are here to provide any assistance that this country needs us to help with. And we are happy to be a part of this.

DAVIES: But such is the desperation. The arrival of aid has sparked looting. Here in Muzaffarabad, where people have been queuing for days for food and blankets, fought with each other as the first convoy reached them.

Paul Davies, ITV News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: To Pakistan's capital now. The death toll there is still rising. There are frantic rescue operations continuing as well. Islamabad is one of the dozens of cities and towns across the region where the damage is catastrophic.

And our Becky Anderson is keeping track of the latest developments there and joins us live now.

Becky, hello.

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, by no means the worst devastation here in Islamabad in the Margalla Towers and apartment complex, where a 10-story building collapsed on Saturday. But certainly for friends and family who are just keeping a vigil at this site, they are hoping that there will be more good news from this site.

You just heard in that report people have been being brought out alive from this debris. And once again, about four or five hours ago, a 75-year-old lady and her 55-year-old daughter were pulled from this site.

Now, the grandmother effectively was heard to say to the rescuers who had effectively been in contact with her for some 60 hours -- they knew where she was. They were just trying to get to her. She said to them, "Please tell me that the rest of my family were alive."

And she was able to hear her sons who were waiting for her, hoping for some sign of her out here. They called to her, and she was then pulled out alive, along with her daughter.

So there's some good news from this site here tonight.

Elsewhere, as you've heard, things are really quite desperate. And the bad weather really hampering international relief efforts to the north -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Becky, with the building behind you, as I understand it, one of the shocking things is that is relatively new construction. It should have been built to withstand an earthquake of this magnitude?

ANDERSON: You're absolutely right. They started it in 1992, this complex, and finished it about 1997. So it's less than 10 years old.

And I was reading in the local newspaper -- I can't confirm this today -- but the guy who was in charge of building this, who actually has about three or four apartments here (INAUDIBLE) in a couple of the apartments that didn't come down, is being sought for extradition from the U.K. I can't confirm that, but that was certainly one of the newspaper stories today. And he is being sought for manslaughter, effectively.

So this building, for some reason, came down when the rest of the apartment complex withstood the shock of the earthquake on Saturday. Nobody can tell us why that is. But certainly what they can tell us at this point is there are people alive, and as we speak they are hoping to pull somebody else out from the debris.

So there are still people alive at this point. That is what they're telling us. So let's hope -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Becky Anderson, live from Islamabad. Thank you.

Now here's the number for one of the many agencies welcoming donations. UNICEF has established a hotline: 1-800-4UNICEF, or you can log on to unicefusa.org.

To Iraq now. Insurgents there determined to wreck that country's march towards democracy. They have launched another round of bloody attacks. Suicide bombings today have killed dozens of people, and they come just four days before Iraqis vote on a constitution.

CNN's Aneesh Raman joins us now live from Baghdad.

Aneesh, hello.

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, good afternoon.

Four suicide car bombs detonating in Iraq today. All in largely Sunni areas. Clear intimidation by the insurgency to keep Sunnis away from the polls at that constitutional referendum now just days away.

The deadliest attack in the town of Tal Afar, in northwestern Iraq near the Syrian border. At least 30 people confirmed there dead. Forty-five others wound after a suicide car bomb detonated at a marketplace.

Not far from Tal Afar is the city of Mosul. There today, two suicide car bombs detonating about an hour apart from each other. At least one Iraqi civilian killed in those incidents.

And here in the capital, Daryn, in the western part of Baghdad, a neighborhood called Al Mariya (ph), a largely Sunni population there, a suicide car bomb detonating as an Iraqi army convoy was passing by. Iraqi police say at least four people were killed. Some eight others wounded. Plumes of smoke rose from that area as ambulances and other emergency vehicles rushed to the scene to help the injured.

The sign, though, clearly something that matters. If we are just four days away from that Iraqi constitutional referendum, the big question is whether attacks like this will keep Iraqis at home.

Some 15.5 million, Daryn, Iraqis have registered to vote. That's a rise in number from what we saw in January. And a good reason for that is that the Sunnis are starting to come into this political fray.

And so that is why we have seen U.S. military operations in western Al Anbar province, as well as military operations in and around the areas we saw attacks today, to try and bring stability and a sense of safety to the Sunni areas so that they will turn out. In some parts of Iraq, voters just getting now a glimpse at the constitution. But this vote not just on the document, also on the political process.

If this constitution gets rejected, Daryn, this entire process starts all over again. And we won't have a new constitutional referendum perhaps until mid next year -- Daryn.

KAGAN: It's going to be a fascinating week ahead.

Aneesh Raman live in Baghdad.

Thank you.

Back here in the U.S., thousands of New Orleans residents are still -- still displaced. Michael Attison's (ph) family remains in a Baton Rouge shelter while he is looking for work. You're going to meet Michael and hear how his new life is coming together in just a few minutes.

The secretary of Health and Human Services says a bird flu pandemic is highly likely. But is the U.S. prepared? See the disturbing response to the latest test. And next up, hear what Pakistani-Americans are doing to help the victims of this weekend's devastating earthquake.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Along the U.S. Gulf Coast rebuilding efforts are in full swing. And today, President Bush is back in the region. This is his eighth trip since Hurricane Katrina slammed into Louisiana and Mississippi six weeks ago.

Mr. Bush started the day in the New Orleans area, where he pitched in to help Habitat for Humanity workers build a new home. Then he headed east to Pass Christian, Mississippi, to attend a reopening of an elementary school. It's the only school left standing in the town after Hurricane Katrina.

A federal civil rights probe has been launched into a videotaped beating of a retired school teacher. You've seen the violent video. It was taken Saturday night from New Orleans' French Quarter.

Robert Davis appeared with his attorney on CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING" today. He spoke about the events leading to the attack.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERT DAVIS, BEATING VICTIM: Well, I was walking down Bourbon Street, and I wasn't sure about the time of the curfew. I was very concerned about that, and I had been asking several law enforcement officers about the curfew.

I had heard several different times, 8:00, 10:00 and 12:00. So I finally decided to ask one of the New Orleans police officers who was on horseback at the corner of Contie (ph) and Bourbon. And he proceeded to give me the time.

And during that I was interrupted by another police officer who was walking by, really. And he interrupted our conversation, and I told him that was very unprofessional. And I proceeded to walk on across the street, at which times he punched me, I guess.

And from there I don't remember much other than a lady in the crowd who was I guess just a bystander who kept hollering, "He didn't do anything! He didn't do anything!."

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The chief of the New Orleans Police Department had suspended the officers who were involved. Let's listen to a little bit of what he had to say.

RILEY: In this particular case there was video which gave a clear depiction of our officers using force beyond what I describe -- force that was beyond what was necessary in this incident based on the video. But we will take decisive action once we gather all of the facts.

S. O'BRIEN: The acting Chief Riley there.

Joseph Bruno, as we mentioned, you're the attorney. Do you think this was race-related?

JOSEPH BRUNO, DAVIS' ATTORNEY: You know, I know there's a big temptation to go there, but my client firmly believes that that's not what's involved here. In fact, he has indicated to anybody who would listen that he doesn't hold the entire police department responsible for this.

We've been through too much. There are a lot of great heroic guys on that police force. There's a couple of rotten apples that need to be dealt with.

We applaud the police department for their quick and appropriate response to this event. The only thing we're waiting for now is for them to drop the charges against my client so we can proceed with determining an appropriate amount of compensation to bring him back to where he was.

O'BRIEN: Those charges are public intoxication, battery on a police officer and resisting arrest.

Were you -- were you intoxicated?

DAVIS: No. I haven't drank for 25 years. That's what -- that's the amazing part.

I hold no animosity against anyone. I want to thank our new police chief for his quick action. I really do. I mean, that's the first time I've known it to happen. But I also want to have the officer who was on that horse, who was black, by the way, I'd like to have him suspended because I feel that he had some complicity in this situation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Davis says he has not seen the video. The three officers pleaded not guilty on Monday to battery against a suspect. They have been suspended from duty without pay.

Several people are missing, thousands are without power. Flooding in New England has proven to be even worse than predicted. The forecast does not offer much reprieve.

Residents in Colorado are in the midst of another snowy commute. We'll check in with weather coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Hello, Denver, Colorado. A live look at your morning.

The season's first snowstorm should dissolve into plain old rain in the Mile High City. The sudden burst of winter delayed flights, it closed major roads, and kept plenty of kids home from school. Denver has about three inches of snow on the ground, other parts of Colorado getting up to 20 inches.

Jacqui Jeras is looking at Colorado, but also New Hampshire.

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: Let's show our viewers pictures we are just getting in here to CNN, live pictures. This is Lawrenceville, Georgia, a story we are just picking up on right now. Just a little bit of information.

A S.W.A.T. team has surrounded this house in Lawrenceville. It's just outside of Atlanta. They believe they have reports that an explosive device might be inside the house.

That's all we know right now. We'll continue to follow the story, look for live pictures and more information as it becomes available.

Meanwhile, move over Smokey the Bear. Make room for the Energy Hog. We're going to introduce you to the nation's latest public service mascot.

He's cute.

And officials are saying a bird flu pandemic is highly likely. But a recent test of the system finds the U.S. is not prepared. That full report is coming up.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Let's go ahead and check the headlines "Now in the News."

Insurgents bent on disrupting a nationwide vote in Iraq Saturday. They are blamed for a string of suicide car bombings today. Four bombings primarily in Sunni areas killed at least 35 people. At least four were killed in this attack in Baghdad.

In Guatemala, authorities have called off its search for bodies in some of the villages that are now buried in tons of mud. But in other areas the search goes on. Mudslides triggered by Hurricane Stan have killed hundreds of people in the Central American country.

Until now, relief workers weren't able to get into some of the hardest-hit areas. But now eight operations are in full swing.

Watch out below. More than 2,000 pounds of explosives brought down a portion of the Pearman Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina, today. The bridge was built back in 1966.

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