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American Morning

Government Investigates FEMA's Katrina Mistakes; World Watches Saddam on Trial

Aired October 20, 2005 - 08:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: So pretty, isn't it?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It is.

COSTELLO: Makes you want to run outside to Central Park.

O'BRIEN: I don't know where you get that. I have no desire to run outside to Central Park. I'd rather, like -- extra cup of coffee would be good.

COSTELLO: OK, you can stroll through Central Park.

O'BRIEN: We -- first of all, Soledad just left. She up and left.

COSTELLO: What is going on with that?

O'BRIEN: She's trying to get the kids in school. You know, and in New York City, that's a big deal. You have to apply -- even though it's kindergarten, it's really like trying to get into an Ivy League school. So she's off to an interview. So we wish her well on that. Hopefully they won't ask those hard questions. You know, like, if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? That kind of stuff. You know, whatever they ask, you know.

Did you see this Chertoff hearing yesterday?

COSTELLO: Oh, yes.

O'BRIEN: Isn't that something? Couple things here that really strike me. First of all, he couldn't get ahold of Mike Brown of FEMA the day that Katrina hit. Just unavailable.

COSTELLO: He had communications problems.

O'BRIEN: Well, imagine that. Only one FEMA person was in New Orleans when Katrina struck. One person. And he is going to testify today and I think this is going to be the bombshell moment. Because he was Blackberrying rather specific, you know, listen to me, this is a big deal stuff, and it was...

COSTELLO: Well, the bombshell moment for me in yesterday's hearing was when he said that he had no problem in communicating with the Louisiana governor and the mayor of New Orleans. It wasn't their fault. He blamed everybody on Michael Brown.

O'BRIEN: Interesting, the dysfunctional Louisiana people could communicate. I'd say the finger pointing continues.

COSTELLO: It's true.

(NEWSBREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right. Onward. Let's talk more about Katrina issues and FEMA issues and what is apt to be -- you'll be watching this one. The hearing today as a FEMA foot soldier who is on the ground there -- as a matter of fact, the only one on the ground when Katrina struck in New Orleans. I was going to talk about some e-mails he was sending out, like, you know, people are dying here. Can you send help? And apparently they were not responded to in a timely way.

Republican Congressman Christopher Shays is on the special investigative panel that is trying to sort through the Katrina/FEMA mess. He joins us now.

Congressman Shays, good to have you back on the program.

REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS (R-CT): Good to be with you.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about yesterday's hearing first. Michael Chertoff seemed to point the finger right at his FEMA director. What did you think of that?

SHAYS: Well, first off, it was very clear to me that he was pretty disengaged from Katrina, that he wasn't focused on it.

O'BRIEN: He was working at home, right?

SHAYS: He was working at home. He didn't really get involved, in my judgment, until after the storm hit.

And when we passed the legislation putting FEMA under the Department of Homeland Security, we envisioned a very proactive secretary involved in issues like this. So that was one of my reactions.

The other was that the communication between Mr. Chertoff and Brown appeared to be almost nonexistent. And I thought to myself, not only was the local government dysfunctional, the state government dysfunctional, but within the Department of Homeland Security, there was a tremendous amount of dysfunction.

O'BRIEN: Yes, there's more dysfunction to go around here, I think.

And today we're going to hear from this guy -- I'm going to mispronounce it -- Marty Bahamonde, who's the only FEMA member there in New Orleans, which to me is remarkable, because didn't Mike Brown say there were a dozen FEMA staffers there at the time?

SHAYS: Yes, I'm surprised to learn that from you. I had spoken to an individual from FEMA who was predeployed there, and he told me it was absolute chaos. And that when we came down for our briefing and met with the National Guard, this FEMA employee came up to me and said everything I was being told by the National Guard about the Superdome was simply not true. So that's on our schedule of interviews with this individual.

O'BRIEN: And supposedly this FEMA foot soldier, who was there at the Superdome witnessing this, like all of our reporters were at the time -- he's got his Blackberry going and he's saying, "You know, people are dying. You've got to do something fast." And he's not even getting a response. As a matter of fact, apparently, one of his responses, according to a report that NBC has out is, "Mike Brown needs a little more time for dinner in Baton Rouge. He'll get back to you" -- absolutely outrageous stuff.

SHAYS: It is outrageous.

And we will get to the bottom line of this. You know, different people have to account for their own actions. But, you know, I do think that we will be better off with Wilma than we were with Katrina...

O'BRIEN: Well, let's hope.

SHAYS: ... which isn't saying much, I realize.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about that. You kind of alluded to the whole structure thing here. A lot of people said the problem was taking FEMA out of the Cabinet, putting it under homeland security, putting in a bureaucracy -- homeland security, that is -- which in and of itself has its severe organizational issues.

Do you think that's the real root problem here?

SHAYS: I'm not there but I'm willing to be open-minded about it.

I had voted to put FEMA under the Department of Homeland Security. I think the breakdown was with Mr. Brown and a -- not a proactive secretary of homeland security. But I may, you know, have a different view later.

In other words, from the secretary's standpoint, he basically gave the director of FEMA everything he wanted. He put him in charge. He said, "You're in charge, and here are your resources." And what's interesting is FEMA declined a lot of the resources that were being offered to them.

O'BRIEN: Declined?

SHAYS: And, you know, others requested resources, and they were also declined as well.

So, you know, the Red Cross was willing to do more. Folks were willing to do more, and FEMA was putting the brakes on people.

O'BRIEN: So it's a crisis of leadership as opposed to a crisis of the flow chart, I guess you'd say.

SHAYS: Well, that's where I'm at. And I think it's almost letting these folks off the hook to say it was the flow chart.

O'BRIEN: OK.

Final thought here: Tom DeLay. You know, book 'im Dano kind of stuff. And that's a picture you don't want to it see floating around the Internet -- Tom DeLay's mug shot.

What's the hall talk among Republicans about all this? he is -- they don't call him the hammer for nothing. Without him there's an organizational problem for Republicans in the House?

SHAYS: Let me say a few things. First off, Texas must be a different place because what would happen in Connecticut is once you've indicted someone, you tell them to show up and they show up and you take over there. Here they're acting like as soon as he steps off the plane he's going to be arrested. I think that's a little dramatic and frankly, looks a little political to me. In terms of his impact on us, our Republicans need to get their moral foundation back. We have lost what god has -- got us here in '94 and we better grab it soon or we're going to be in deep trouble.

O'BRIEN: That's quite a statement there, though.

SHAYS: Well, it's what I believe. I'm absolutely convinced of it. The power corrupts -- power has corrupted absolutely and some of our leaders need to recognize that they caused us tremendous harm. We need to get back to what got us here in '94 and that was strong stance on ethics, strong stance on campaign finance reform, strong stance on having an agenda the American people want.

O'BRIEN: Should DeLay resign?

SHAYS: I don't think he should resign, but he clearly should have stepped down as leader and shouldn't be -- being a leader in the background. Knee he needs to worry about his problems right now.

O'BRIEN: Congressman Christopher Shays thanks for joining us today.

SHAYS: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about Saddam Hussein. Around the world Wednesday, Arabs were glued to their television sets, watching Saddam Hussein on trial. It was a surreal moment for many.

CNN's senior Arab affairs Octavia Nasr joins us from the CNN Center in Atlanta with more on the reaction.

Good morning, Octavia.

OCTAVIA NASR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: So overall, what were your impressions?

NASR: Definitely an important moment in Arab history. Arabs in the streets and in the media stopped and paused to contemplate this moment, which is huge.

Here, let's take a look at some of the comments that we read, for example, in different newspapers around the Arab world. This comes from Kuwait. The editorial says, "Iraq's Satan in the Defense Cage." And then it continues, "The moment seems surreal when the dictator of the Middle East stood in front of Iraqi justice." Certainly a lot of appreciation for the moment, that is also heard on other media outlets.

COSTELLO: Well, you can understand why Kuwait would report it like that, because of the problems between Iraq and Kuwait, but other headlines were quite different, weren't they?

NASR: They were a bit different, maybe a little bit more sober. Take this example from "Haid (ph)," newspaper, which is a pan-Arab newspaper based in London. The editor-in-chief there writes, "The Middle East is not used to such scenes. Even the idea of a former president is almost unthinkable. (INAUDIBLE) definitely puts it in perspective, why people are interested, why it's such an enormous moment in the history.

COSTELLO: Explain to us, because as Americans, maybe we don't really get that, why it's so amazing to see a former president on trial in the Arab world.

NASR: Because that's never happened before. And as (INAUDIBLE) said, the idea of a former president or a former dictator is just unheard of in the Arab Middle East. I mean, you have leaders that are on forever, and then they pass on the power to their sons. So it stays in the family. It's something really surreal, and obviously the media expressed it. Let's take some cartoons, political cartoons. They always express the feelings and emotions without even the need for words.

This one, for example, is from the United Arab Emirates, a (INAUDIBLE) newspaper. You see Saddam Hussein weighed in under the pressure of papers. You know, on the left-hand side is the Iraqi charges, on the right-hand side, the international charges. And it's interesting to see in all cartoons that I looked at, Saddam Hussein looks like a small man. You see how he's small compared to these charges.

On other cartoons, you see also a small Saddam Hussein in the defense pen. Look at this, for example, you see how small he is on the side. And then his own statute that fell in 2003 with the fall of Baghdad, pointing the finger at him, really very symbolic. Arab media expressing itself clearly. Not feeling sorry for the man, saying basically he is for his own doing.

COSTELLO: I want to get into, before you have to go, I want to get into how Al Arabiya was reporting this, because they started video of evidence against him. Why is that significant?

NASR: It is significant, because you know, the video that they're talking about is from Dujail, and Dujail is the first trial, first charges that Saddam Hussein is facing. What we saw yesterday was for Dujail. Here you're looking at those images, which show -- CNN also obtained, but Al Arabiya had them earlier. But basically here we see him question himself, interrogate the suspects, and at the end of that dialogue, a short conversation, he basically gives orders to kill them, one at a time. So it is very important, because it's Saddam Hussein really giving you the evidence about what he did in Dujail.

COSTELLO: And just an aside, Al Arabiya also spoke to one of Saddam Hussein's daughters. She was quoted as saying, "She was watching her father with much pride. She called him a hero, a lion, a hawk. She said he made the entire family proud by challenging the court, and that he was never squared or submissive." I found that fascinating as well.

Octavia Nasr, fascinating as always. Thank you.

NASR: Anytime.

O'BRIEN: I just love the way Octavia gives me insight into the Arab world. It's really useful to me.

COSTELLO: Those cartoons were...

O'BRIEN: Yes, she said, you know, sometimes the pictures tell all. Doesn't need much of a translation either, does it?

O'BRIEN: No.

COSTELLO: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, we're tracking Wilma for you, category four now, headed -- I don't -- I think the forecasters are a little bit stumped on this one. Slowing down, could go south of Florida. We don't know. We're watching it, though, as best we can.

Stay with us for more.

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(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, a big dilemma for America's newest multimillionaire. Should it the Jaguar or the BMW? The real dilemma is, should the $340 million Powerball winner take the cash in payments or all at once?

M. O'BRIEN: Always take it at once, I think.

COSTELLO: Well, we'll see what Andy Serwer says. He's coming your way next.

M. O'BRIEN: It's going to ruin his life, don't worry. I mean, it is. It always does.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's not the worst of problems, but what is better? Whether to get your lottery winnings in one lump sum or spread it out over the years. With that and a look at the markets, Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" this morning.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" COLUMNIST: This is an important question. Miles is even paying attention, I can see.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Take the cash, Monty, I want the cash!

SERWER: Well, what's going on here, in case you don't know -- Powerball, $340 million jackpot. Apparently someone in Oregon has purchased the ticket, but hasn't come forward to collect the money yet. This is the second biggest jackpot in U.S. history. The first was a $363 million prize in 2000, a megamillions thing here. I was in Oregon a couple weeks ago. Maybe I -- no, I wasn't in Oregon.

COSTELLO: Yes, right. You wouldn't be here this morning.

SERWER: No, I wouldn't be here. So how do you like it? I mean, it's not pick your poison. It's pick your fantasy. You can either get it in an annual payment of $7.59 million a year -- that's after tax. Because you're in a 50 percent tax bracket all of a sudden. I mean, you are -- all of a sudden, you're going to be lobbying to get rid of the estate taxes, you're going to be lobbying to cut taxes, you're going to be playing bridge with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. It's a whole different thing here.

Or you could take it in a lump sum of $110 million, right up front. Now, obviously, they want you to take the $7.59. They want you to spread it out. You get more -- $227 million over 30 years if you took it in payments, annual payments. You'd get $227 million, as opposed to the $110. But if you took the $110 and invested it, you'd have more over time. But who would ever do that? I mean, you want to just spend this thing.

COSTELLO: Exactly.

SERWER: You'd want to buy Bentleys, you'd want to buy homes, you'd want to just quit your job. That's what you really want to do. Quit your job.

COSTELLO: Even if it was more financially sound to take the lump sum, I would take the guaranteed every year, because that would prevent me from spending it all.

SERWER: Oops, it's June, another $3 million is coming my way. And you know, the highest numbers that were played the most in this thing -- it's really interesting. You know the TV show "Lost" on ABC? Well, this has been part of the plot, was a character named Hurley who got these lottery tickets, lottery numbers, I should say from a mental patient and won the jackpot, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. Hundreds of people across the country playing these numbers. Hurley won this multimillion-dollar jackpot, but then was cursed and had bad luck happen to him. So let's just hope this doesn't happen to this person in Oregon.

COSTELLO: No, the numbers were completely different from the "Lost" numbers.

SERWER: They didn't work, no. They didn't work. But everyone played them.

O'BRIEN: All right, I have one quick question, though.

SERWER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: If you die...

SERWER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... the annuity gets passed on to your heirs?

SERWER: I don't know the answer to that one.

O'BRIEN: See, that would be a good reason to take the lump sum, right?

SERWER: Yes. Let's check that out. We'll look at the rules.

O'BRIEN: I think the answer is no. So, of course you're dead, you don't care. But your kids, probably saying lump sum, lump sum!

COSTELLO: Well, if you knew the answer, Miles, why did you ask Andy?

O'BRIEN: I'd like to...

SERWER: We're going to find -- we can find it. We'll tell you in the next hour.

O'BRIEN: We did do quick research. Fully one-third of lottery winners end up bankrupt. One-third. And 83...

COSTELLO: That's why to not take the lump sum.

SERWER: Bentleys.

O'BRIEN: And 83 percent are miserable.

SERWER: They're not miserable. Quitting your job.

O'BRIEN: Little bit of sour grapes here, maybe, you might say.

In a moment, today's top stories, including Hurricane Wilma. We are watching for the latest. I mean, Jacqui said it might steer clear of Florida. Might go south of the Keys. Anyway, we're watching it. Category 4 storm, moving slowly and unpredictbly. Ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

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