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CNN Live Today

President Bush has Upbeat Chat With Soldiers in Iraq; Iraq Vote; Northeast Flooding

Aired October 13, 2005 - 11:00   ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: In the meantime, in the next hour of CNN LIVE TODAY, for those of you who think NASCAR racing is just an easy Sunday drive, Dr. Sanjay Gupta shows us what some of the top sports drivers do to get a fitness edge.
The second hour of CNN LIVE TODAY begins right now.

Here's a look at what's happening right "Now in the News."

A deadly strain of bird flu is confirmed in Turkey and suspected in Romania. If it's confirmed there, it would be the first case of the legal strain reaching Europe. Scientists worry the bird flu will mutate into a human virus and trigger a deadly pandemic.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March. The Millions More movement takes place this Saturday in Washington. Farrakhan is expected to discuss the event this morning. He says it's a way to focus on poverty and racism and inadequate schools and health care.

Gas prices have fallen a little further. AAA says the average price was down another 2 cents a gallon as of Wednesday. A gallon of self-serve regular now averages about $2.83.

Just in the last hour, President Bush had an upbeat chat with a group of U.S. soldiers in Iraq thanks to a Washington-to-Tikrit satellite hookup.

National Correspondent Bob Franken is at the White House this morning.

Very excited to get to you, Bob, clearly. Good morning.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

First, some of the particulars. There were 10 members of the 42nd Army Division stationed in Tikrit. There was also a member of the Iraqi security group that is being trained by the 42nd. They were there to give assurances to the president that Iraq is ready, that the security forces are ready to police the election, the referendum that's coming up this Saturday.

The president was here to assure the forces that he is proud of them and the work that they are doing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've got a strategy, and it's a clear strategy. On the one hand, we will hunt down these killers and terrorists and bring them to justice and train the Iraqi forces to join us in that effort. The second part of the strategy is a political strategy, based upon the knowledge that you defeat a backward, dark philosophy with one that's hopeful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: And a political strategy, of course, for the president to come up with ways to try and rally support in the United States, support that has been dwindling for the effort in Iraq -- Carol.

LIN: Bob, so how does a group of -- like this get organized? I mean, are they hand picked to talk to the president? Is this a bit like preaching to the choir?

FRANKEN: Well, it's a lot like preaching to the choir. And it's the commander in chief of the choir doing the preaching. They, of course, are organized as a military unit, and somebody decided that these would be the best people to sit down and participate in this event with the president.

LIN: All right. Bob Franken, thanks for that perspective. Fob Franken, live at the White House.

Well, we want to take a closer look at what's happening in Iraq right now. A major Sunni party is pledging to back the new draft constitution. That crucial vote is this Saturday.

Our correspondent Aneesh Raman is in Baghdad to talk more about this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A political breakthrough of sorts. Amid elaborate ceremony, a deal announced between the Shia-Kurd coalition and the largest Sunni political party.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): This is a historic day, a day of national consensus.

RAMAN: Consensus that the current draft constitution will not be the last, that changes can be made following December's general election and that another referendum will take place next year. A success with some Sunnis now urging a yes vote on Saturday.

But the most contentious issue, how powerful the central government will be now is...

MAHMOUD OTHMAN, NATIONAL ASSEMBLY MEMBER: Just delayed until the next assembly. The next assembly will deal with their problems.

RAMAN: Which is why not all Sunni parties are on board, still urging their community to vote down the constitution, despite the new compromise. And given only a few days remain until the referendum, the stage still set for a majority of Sunnis to do just that.

(on camera): To reject a constitution, a majority of voters, or two-thirds of three provinces, need to vote it down. But a failed referendum is not the worst case scenario. The greater fear is that it will pass, but barely.

(voice-over): Such an outcome could lead to further violence.

MICHAEL RUBIN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INST.: Because that's indicative that the Arab-Sunnis mobilize to vote and still lost anyway, and, therefore, they may feel even more disenfranchised.

RAMAN: But politics is zero sum. If the Sunnis win, others lose. A failed referendum means the arduous process starts over.

LEITH KUBBA, IRAQI GOVT. SPOKESMAN: It will add another six months of an interim period transitional government, and a lot of people would like to get on with their lives.

RAMAN: In a matter of days, questions of huge consequence will be answered. Will Sunnis participate in the political process or stay away? Will U.S. troops have to remain longer than anticipated? And most importantly, how many Iraqis will turn out to vote? How many are still invested in the country's democratic experiment?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAMAN: And Carol, voting already under way. Iraqis who are in the hospital, also non-convicted detainees, have started voting. But those big questions now, we'll get answers for them hopefully on Saturday. The results will take some five to 10 days before we know exactly by what margin the constitution has either passed or failed and how the turnout was, specifically among Sunnis -- Carol.

LIN: We'll find out Saturday. Thanks very much, Aneesh Raman.

Also now this hour, another rainy day threatens to bring more dangerous flooding to New England. New Jersey is under a flood watch right now. Streams and rivers are overflowing their banks, and residents of some communities have been evacuated.

Marcus Solis of our affiliate WABC is in Lodi, New Jersey, with more on the flooding there. And meteorologist Dave Hennen tracking the forecast.

But right now we begin with you, Marcus. What's happening right now?

MARCU SOLIS, WABC: Well, it started raining right on cue, Carol. We had a little bit of respite for a couple of hours, but the rain has picked up again.

Behind me, if you can see, is the Saddle River. And that is really close to its banks. And we are in the parking lot of an apartment complex, and overnight, that water just overflowed its banks. In fact, we were here at around 5:00 in the morning, and this part was waist deep in water. It has receded quite a bit.

About 30 folks along this stretch have been evacuated. They took off for the night.

Now, there is flooding in this area. It's nothing new. However, there has been almost seven days of nonstop rain here. And it has really caused the streams and rivers throughout the state to back up.

You name it, the Ramapo, the Passaic, the Wonacu (ph), all these rivers in northern New Jersey, central New Jersey are overflowing their banks. In some cases, it's three feet of standing water.

It has led to road closures, neighborhood flooding. Basements are flooded out. And so it is just a mess.

And some of these rivers are not expected to crest until tomorrow. And we could get another couple of inches of rain.

So the situation here continues to progress. You see some folks here who had just cleared out for the night. They've come back to pick up some belongings, and then they're going to probably take off again because the river here is expected to crest tomorrow.

That's the latest from Saddle River, Marcus Solis.

LIN: All right. Thanks, Marcus.

Let's get the latest on the forecast for the northeast. Meteorologist Dave Hennen watching the weather for us in the United States this morning.

(WEATHER REPORT)

LIN: Setting up shelters, in the meantime, for thousands displaced by the South Asia earthquake. The latest straight ahead as more aftershocks rattle the devastated region.

And later, allegations at a New Orleans hospital. What really happened there in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? It is a story you will only see on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: A strong aftershock today jolted areas of Pakistan still reeling from Saturday's massive earthquake. Pakistan's president says 23,000 deaths from the quake have been reported. And some estimates put the death toll even higher.

Tens of thousands of people are injured. And as many as 2.5 million are homeless. Now, trucks and helicopters continue to deliver food and equipment to quake-ravaged areas. Pakistan's government says the relief effort is in full swing and entering another phase. Now that many survivors have received food, the focus is on building tent cities to house them. Still, aid has yet to reach some of the more remote areas.

Now, American-Muslims are reaching out to earthquake victims in South Asia. Several major organizations have pledged to raise $20 million for earthquake relief. They made the announcement in a news conference last hour in Washington.

In the meantime, hope of finding more earthquake survivors fades with each passing hour. And sometimes even the tales of survival are reminders of how much has been lost.

CNN's Matthew Chance has the story of one boy who was spared and hundreds of dreams buried beneath the rubble.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Imagine being the only kid in class to survive, friends, teachers all buried beneath the rubble.

MOHAMMAD WASEEM, EARTHQUAKE SURVIVOR (through translator): We were taking our exams when the whole building started to shake and collapse. I think a few on the ground floor scrambled out, but the students on the upper floors all died.

CHANCE: Crushed in a school turned concrete, too, the hundreds of its children. All that remains are painful reminders of what could have been. A drum kit from the music class, a young scientist's microscope.

"In a few violent minutes," Waseem told me, "this earthquake shattered far more than just buildings."

WASEEM (through translator): We were all hoping to be engineers or doctors. But now we can't even think about our futures. We have nothing left.

CHANCE (on camera): Children like Waseem are among the few who escaped this destruction. All over this area, hundreds of crowded schools like this have been laid to waste. Now, across this disaster zone, it seems almost an entire generation has been lost.

(voice over): But survivors are now crucial to the recovery effort. Waseem guides rescue workers to where he last saw his classmates last. So many days after the quake hit, though, there's little hope.

WASEEM (through translator): If they had come on the first day to help, maybe they could have saved my friends. But they didn't come until now. And they can't even find their dead bodies.

CHANCE: It is a missed opportunity that the may have cost more young lives, and one Waseem says he'll never forget.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Unnecessary roughness or proper use of force? Up next, you are going to hear from the attorney for the New Orleans police officers charged in connection with that videotaped beating.

That is straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: New power to announce for the CIA director. It tops our "Security Watch" today.

Officials tell CNN Porter Goss will take charge of spy-gathering operations across all 15 U.S. intelligence agencies. An announcement could come as early as today. The move beefs up his role in intelligence gathering.

And an apparent airplane joyride is raising new questions about your security. How safe are the skies after 9/11?

Here's CNN's Kathleen Koch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Investigators say it may have been a joyride that brought the business jet from St. Augustine, Florida, to a small airport near Atlanta. Daniel Andrew Wolcott of Buford, Georgia, has been charged with one felony count of theft and five of reckless conduct. Wolcott does have a commercial- rated pilot's license and may have had a connection to the Georgia airport.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think he was a full-time employee. Maybe a part-time employee, but he did hang out at the Briscoe Airfield.

KOCH: Police say they have spoken to five people who say they were on the plane with Wolcott. Police haven't said whether the plane, owned by Pinnacle Air, was locked. Business aviation experts say such aircraft are not easy to access nor to fly.

DAN HUBBARD, NATIONAL BUSINESS AVIATION ASSN.: First, you've got to get through the hardened locked doors and compartments. Then once you get into the aircraft, you have to understand the complex process involved in starting and flying the aircraft.

KOCH: While there are federal guidelines for security at the nation's 19,000 small airports, they are voluntary. Some states have requirements like New Jersey, which mandates all unattended planes have two separate locks

Congressman Ed Markey has introduced a bill to beef up security at all small airports.

REP. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: My concern is that al Qaeda could take one of these small planes, load it with biological or chemical agents, and then descend upon a major American city, causing massive injuries and massive panic.

KOCH: A recent General Accountability Office study criticized the Transportation Security Administration for not conducting "an overall systematic assessment of threats to or vulnerabilities of general aviation to determine how to better prepare against terrorist threats."

And many believe an aircraft this size could become a powerful weapon, since empty, it weighs nearly 12,000 pounds. Still, the Transportation Security Administration opposes requiring tighter security at small airports, saying, "Only the airport owner-operator with intimate knowledge can best decide security enhancements for their airport."

(on camera): While Wolcott is charged with violating criminal law, it's unclear whether or not he broke any aviation rules. The Federal Aviation Administration so far has found no radar data on the plane, nor any indication Wolcott communicated with air traffic controllers during his 350-mile journey.

Kathleen Koch, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

This just in to the CNN center. The Reuters wires reporting that al Qaeda's wing in Iraq is rejecting as "a fake letter" by top group leader Ayman al-Zawahiri which was issued by U.S. officials this week. In that letter, al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, was critical of the brutal tactics being used by al Qaeda leaders in Iraq against its hostages, that it may be alienating Muslims. It condemned the beheadings as alienating Muslims to the cause.

I want to go to CNN's David Ensor with more on this.

David -- excuse me, Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon with more on this.

Jamie, what do you know about this?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this point, U.S. officials are not backing away from their claim that this letter, they believe, is authentic. In fact, the director of national intelligence has posted both the original Arabic and English language versions of this 13-page letter on its Web site, along with a statement "that the United States government has the highest confidence in the letter's authenticity."

The letter is dated July 9, and the U.S. government claims that it shows the clearest yet, the clearest depiction of al Qaeda strategy in Iraq, the fact that it doesn't just end with trying to get U.S. troops out of Iraq, but it extends beyond Iraq. And there's also some acknowledgement of some of the difficulties they're having with funding, and also with communications in terms of knowing what's going on.

Again, the U.S. government claims that this letter was recovered during counterterrorist operations in Iraq. They believe it's authentic. And again, people, if they want to look at it to try to judge for themselves, they can find both the Arabic and English translations on the Web site of the national intelligence director. And the fact that they posted the entire letter is an indication of how confident the U.S. government is that they -- that it is genuine.

We haven't had specific reaction yet to the claim from al Qaeda in Iraq, but you can guess that the U.S. government is going to suggest that those claims are not necessarily reliable -- Carol.

LIN: All right. Jamie, now that CNN has confirmed that al Qaeda in Iraq says that the captured letter is a fake, we have this ourselves, and as you've been reporting this. So what are the implications of this?

MCINTYRE: Well, it's what you would expect al Qaeda and Iraq to say, assuming that the letter was genuine and revealed some things that made al Qaeda look like it's not in the best position, that it's suffering some difficulty. At this point, we have nothing to go on except the U.S. government claim that they captured the letter under the circumstances that would lend it to believe that it was genuine and that they believe it's genuine. And they've, again, posted it on the Web site so that people can look at it.

You know, it's going to be a claim and a counter-claim at this point.

LIN: Jamie, I want to clarify, because I'm getting information from the producers to our air as it's developing here. So I just want to be clear now that they've got it clear that this was a confirmation, CNN has confirmed this was posted on the Web site, as are you reporting it right now from the Pentagon.

All right. So how is the U.S. supposed to respond to this then?

MCINTYRE: Well, I don't think you're going to see really much of a response, except that the government is going to stand by its contention that this is an authentic letter, that it shows insight into what al Qaeda is thinking, and some of the difficulties they're facing. And I think they're just going -- going to stand by it, unless, of course, there's some real convincing evidence that it is in fact a fake.

But they've already made the assessment. They believe it's genuine based on the way they obtained it and what it says, and other analysis that, frankly, we're not privy to. So I think it's going to be their word against the U.S. government's word, and people just have to decide who they want to believe. LIN: Got you. Jamie McIntyre, thank you very much. Jamie live at the Pentagon.

In the meantime, allegations at a New Orleans hospital. Up next, what really happened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It is a story you will only see on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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