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American Morning

Heated Debates in Washington Over Pre-War Intelligence; Forty Percent of New Orleans Still Without Power

Aired November 22, 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: Corporate downsizing. Tens of thousands of GM workers now searching for new jobs 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.

O'BRIEN: Good morning. Welcome, everybody. Miles O'Brien is not here. He's on vacation enjoying the warm weather. We're very, very jealous. Rick Sanchez is filling in for him, though.

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: So they brought in a guy from the warm weather to come up to the cold weather.

O'BRIEN: It looks like we're having bad weather. So good for you. Nice to have you in terrible weather.

SANCHEZ: Thank you very much.

O'BRIEN: What a bizarre story. The latest developments in this case out of Pennsylvania we were following all last week. This 14- year-old girl and her 18-year-old boyfriend and the murder of her parents.

SANCHEZ: And it's looking like it's not a kidnapping now. It's looking like she voluntarily chose to go with her boyfriend after allegedly -- and according to police -- he had shot her parents. It is a bizarre story.

O'BRIEN: The details are just coming out and Carol's going to update us with some more of them just ahead this morning.

First, though, Washington, D.C. Some scathing new attacks from both sides of the aisle about the war in Iraq. But since returning from Asia, President Bush so far is staying above the fray.

Andrea Koppel's covering the White House in Washington. Andrea, good morning to you. When will we hear from the president?

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Soledad, we're going to hear from the president sometime early this afternoon during the annual pardoning of the turkey, but we won't likely hear him talk about Iraq.

That certainly was the subject on Monday when Vice President Cheney assumed what has become a very familiar role for him, as a defender of the White House policy on Iraq, much as he did before the U.S. invaded Iraq. Mr. Cheney took the White House critics head-on, in this case accusing mostly Democrats of lying when they said that President Bush twisted pre-war intelligence to make his case for war in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT: A few politicians are suggesting these brave Americans were sent into battle for a deliberate falsehood. This is revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety. It has no place anywhere in American politics, much less in the United States Senate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: Now, the vice president's speech is coming just days after the White House had accused Democrat John Murtha of Pennsylvania, who is a highly decorated war veteran, of extreme liberal policies, of being close to the filmmaker Michael Moore in his ideology.

Vice President Cheney, for his part during his speech, called Mr. Murtha somebody who is a friend and a former colleague. But he clearly, Soledad, was sticking to the script. The White House's new strategy, really, to try to reverse the president's downward slide in the polls and to take their critics head-on -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: A friend and a colleague, but he disagrees. Can we talk for a moment about this turkey pardon? You know, every year at this time, the president pardons a turkey. We've seen it cajillions of times. This year, they're doing something a little weird, right?

KOPPEL: Cajillions of times?

O'BRIEN: It's a very large number.

KOPPEL: Yes, we've seen it a lot! That's right, a large amount, 58 times. I tell you, you know, I've had to learn all kinds of facts during my career here in Washington. But I've never had to bone up on -- no pun intended -- on turkey trivia. Yes, in fact, this year, the tom turkey and his -- I didn't even know there was a surrogate that goes in case he can't make it for some reason. So two turkeys are going to be pardoned. And guess where they're going! They're going to Disneyland!

O'BRIEN: Why?

KOPPEL: I don't know. I think they're going there because they're supposed to head up, you know, the various parades that our kids like to watch and they'll be there marching along. But I also read some very sad facts -- and that is that most presidential turkeys don't live until the next Thanksgiving because they're so fat.

O'BRIEN: Oh, my gosh!

KOPPEL: Sorry to be a downer there. O'BRIEN: They pardon -- they send them to Disney World and then they die anywhere. Huh, OK.

KOPPEL: Exactly. It's really -- it's a sad fact. Hopefully, many kids are not watching this right now.

O'BRIEN: You know, I'm not telling my children that's a fact. All right, Andrea Koppel for us. Thanks, Andrea.

That's just weird.

SANCHEZ: Yes, just when we had PETA officials doing backflips, we give them the bad news.

Well, as the debate over troop withdrawal rages on here in the United States, so, too, has the violence in Iraq. This morning, a mortar attack on U.S. and Iraqi officials. This is in Tikrit, we understand.

And Barbara Starr is live at the Pentagon now. Barbara, the violence does not appear to be letting up at all, does it?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: To say the least, Rick. And in fact, we do have those pictures to show of this mortar attack in Tikrit earlier today. Now, thankfully, no one was injured. But this is what passes for a typical day in Iraq. U.S. forces were participating in a ceremony with the Iraqis. Mortars came in and everyone immediately, of course, went to duck and cover.

Again, thankfully, no one hurt. But top U.S. officials, top military commanders, were there at the time. Now, here back in Washington, back in the United States, of course, the debate rages on every day now about the question of U.S. troops in Iraq, the question of troop withdrawals, how many troops are there and when they will come home.

Senator Joseph Biden spoke about that just a little while ago, of course, on AMERICAN MORNING.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: The military and the commanding general said we're going to draw down 50,000 troops next year and then a hundred thousand will be dealt with after that. The question is whether we draw them down in the face of winning this effort or we draw them down in the face of losing. And we have to change strategy in order to draw them down in the face of winning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: Here's how the debate is shaping up. Current U.S. troops in Iraq cannot be sustained indefinitely. The Iraqis don't have enough troops fully trained to take over. Senator Biden and others now making the case that this notion of an immediate troop withdrawal is not the way to go, that the country might implode into civil war and that there needs to really be some sort of new political consensus inside Iraq between the Shia and the Sunni after the December elections for a new, more stable government in order to make all of this really work -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Barbara Starr bringing us the very latest out of Iraq.

(NEWSBREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

SANCHEZ: Coming up, talk about rocks in hard places, this is a tough place. An update on efforts to try to get the lights back on in New Orleans. Almost half of the city still in the dark and the power company is bankrupt. How is that going to affect the recovery? How are they going to get the lights back on, period?

O'BRIEN: Also this morning, reaction to those massive job cuts at GM. We'll talk to mayors of two hard-hit cities ahead.

SANCHEZ: And more on the debate over pre-war intelligence, who knew what when it comes to believing the White House, one former senator says buyer beware. He's going to join us on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: As lawmakers prepare to head home for the Thanksgiving holiday, the debate over intelligence before the war in Iraq continues unabated. Here's the vice president, Dick Cheney, speaking yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: What is not legitimate and what I will say again is dishonest and reprehensible is the suggestion by some U.S. senators that the president of the United States, or any member of his administration purposely misled the American people on pre-war intelligence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Vice President Dick Cheney there.

Former Democratic Senator Bob Graham was the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the run-up for the Iraq war. He joins us from Tampa, Florida, this morning. It's nice to see you, Senator. Thank you for being with us. Certainly appreciate it.

BOB GRAHAM (D), FMR. FLORIDA SENATOR: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: Do you think that, in fact, the administration deliberately -- deliberately misled the people and maybe even misled some of the lawmakers, as well, on Iraq intelligence?

GRAHAM: What I think is that the administration had a serious problem. It wanted to go to war in Iraq, but the people were supporting the war in Afghanistan, which was coming close to capturing and killing Osama bin Laden and crushing al Qaeda. The administration felt the only way to build up the emotional steam to get us to move from Afghanistan to Iraq was by threatening that we were under imminent assault by weapons of mass destruction.

I believe that there was selective use of intelligence, such as alleging that there was nuclear material going from Africa to Iraq. I also believe there was a failure to tell the American people that we were totally reliant on exiles and third countries for our information of what was going on in Iraq because we didn't have a single American who had the assignment and the capabilities to assess what was going on in Iraq.

O'BRIEN: Does that selective use and does that failure to give the whole story, in your mind, add up to manipulation of intelligence by the administration?

GRAHAM: Well, I'm not going to put a description on what happened, but the facts were that we were winning in Afghanistan with strong public support. The administration wanted to shift the attention to Iraq. The determination was made that weapons of mass destruction was the emotional hot button to do that. And they presented a case which was distorted and based on soft information and, after the fact, turned out to be untrue.

O'BRIEN: You, as the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, arguably got more access to intelligence and information than anybody else in the nation after the administration. What did -- what were you able to see that some of your colleagues in the Senate were not able to see?

GRAHAM: Well, I was able to see a practice of purposeful blindness. The most important intelligence document produced by the American intelligence community is called a national intelligence estimate. These are secured before major policy decisions are made.

The White House never requested a national intelligence estimate prior the decision to go to war in Iraq. It was only after the U.S. Senate made that request that one was produced. And when it was produced, it was filled with dissent and conditionalities, agencies like the Department of Energy and State arguing that the information that the CIA had was soft or inaccurate. That information never came to the American people, so that they could make a judgment as to whether what they were being told was reliable.

O'BRIEN: You wrote in "The Washington Post" this: "The president has undermined our trust. No longer will the members of Congress be entitled to accept his veracity. Caveat emptor has become the word. Every member of Congress is on his or her own to determine the truth."

You know, as a member of the voting public, what does that mean to me? Caveat emptor?

GRAHAM: What that means is the president has said that the Congress, because it had intelligence, although clearly, less than what was available to him, that they should have independently verified that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I always thought from the time I was in school studying George Washington that the American people and the Congress had the right to believe that what the president was telling us was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and we didn't have to independently go behind him to verify that.

The president has changed the rules of the game now, and I think fundamentally shifted the relationship between the presidency and the American people and the executive branch and the Congress.

O'BRIEN: Former Democratic Senator Bob Graham, who's now at Harvard's School of International Politics. Thank you, sir, for talking with us.

GRAHAM: Thank you very much.

O'BRIEN: Rick?

SANCHEZ: Big story we're following. Forty percent of the people in New Orleans still without any kind of power, and the company in charge of fixing the problem is bankrupt. So how are they going to be able to get the lights on and what is it going to cost the people who are already strapped? That's what we're going to look into for you next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Imagine not being able to cook your -- any of your food or wash your clothes or even have power or turn on your lights. That's the situation for four out of ten people who have returned to New Orleans and are trying to make a living there.

Daniel Packer is CEO of Entergy. He's the primary power company -- or it's the primary power company, I should say -- for the New Orleans area. And he's good enough to join us now from Kenner, Louisiana.

Mr. Packer, thanks so much for being with us.

DANIEL PACKER, CEO, ENTERGY NEW ORLEANS: Glad to be here. That's president and CEO of Entergy New Orleans, which is a subsidiary of the Entergy, the holding company.

SANCHEZ: Safe to say, sir, that your company was responsible for most of the energy and most of the power and electricity in the New Orleans area, right?

PACKER: Well, all of the -- yes, yes, that's true. All of the power and gas in New Orleans.

SANCHEZ: Forty percent of the people still without power. Why?

PACKER: Well, we have a completely devastated electric system and, as you know, we're in Chapter 11 bankruptcy because of cashflow. But by the end of the year, we're going to have pretty much everybody back on. But even right now, we have power available to about 115,000 customers and only about 50,000 to 55,000 are taking it.

SANCHEZ: You're saying that you're trying to get Washington to help you out a little bit. I understand that you've been to Washington three times, gone just this last week. You're asking for something like $400 million?

PACKER: About $400 million; $325 million of that on the top end are restoration costs. And that's about 82 percent of our capitalization and we've been -- we were hit pretty hard.

SANCHEZ: Help me -- help us make some news here on AMERICAN MORNING. What are they telling you in Washington? That they're going to give you the money?

PACKER: Well, I think that we're going through a very deliberative process right now with the Congress. And they're trying to get everything ready for the third supplemental to the appropriations bill this year. And that's really where we're placing most of our hopes. It's hard to say. Until we get back, until Congress gets back next week, we won't really know.

SANCHEZ: ConEd got something like $90 million after 9/11. I imagine you're going to use that as part of your argument, right?

PACKER: Well, yes ConEd is an investor-owned utility and they had one square mile they had to worry about in lower Manhattan. We have about 150 square miles in New Orleans with a very devastated area also.

SANCHEZ: Mr. Packer, tell us this. What happens if you're not able to get any funding from the feds? What will this mean for the people of New Orleans?

PACKER: I think possibly -- in fact, the main remedy is probably municipalization of the utility, where it becomes a public utility. And, from there, the Stafford Act may very well apply, just like it does for all public utilities. And the federal government ends up funding the restoration effort anyway.

SANCHEZ: We're hearing that the rates there for people could rise as much as 140 percent. That's a startling number. Is that possible?

PACKER: That is very possible if we don't get federal funding. Even though I don't think the regulator -- we're a regulated monopoly -- I don't think the regulator would do that. They would look for other remedies, including municipalization. But it would take about 140 percent rate increase in order to fund our restoration effort and to get us back on our feet.

SANCHEZ: That's got to be real tough. And I imagine part of the problem is you don't have any customers basically giving you enough revenues to be able to get back on your feet right now, right?

PACKER: That's correct. You know, most of our customer base was evacuated. Right now, we only have about one-fourth of the number of customers that we normally have in that 50,000. And, of course, that revenue stream is just starting up. Because people are just getting back. We're hoping to have, though, even with all of that, we'll have most of the city ready for energizing by the end of the year.

SANCHEZ: Well, we wish you luck. Entergy CEO Daniel Packer. You've got some job on your hands, sir. Thanks so much for being with us this morning on AMERICAN MORNING.

PACKER: Thank you very much.

SANCHEZ: Soledad, back over to you.

O'BRIEN: All right, Rick, thanks. This week on American, we're calling it our "Week of Giving." We're highlighting the stories of people who have been affected by this year's hurricanes. Here is just one story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMY MARQUEZ, TEACHER: This is Amy Marquez. My Sunday school class from First Presbyterian Church in Jackson showed up unasked the day after the storm to help my dad and some friends remove a tree from my roof and attic, patch my roof and ceiling and clean the damage inside.

A few days later, two Indiana Power workers repaired the power lines to my house, which had been snapped by the same tree. I am thankful for these volunteers who made my home livable after Katrina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: If you've got a story to tell, you can e-mail us at CNN.com/am. We're going to post some of your responses on our Web site and maybe we'll ask you to share your story with us right here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Ahead this morning, Oprah Winfrey does her part to help out the heroes of Hurricane Katrina. A look at the huge surprises she had in store for her audience that was full of relief workers. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: It's rainy, but, look, they're moving forward with the preparations for the Thanksgiving Day parade, which is going to happen right under our window.

SANCHEZ: Isn't that great?

O'BRIEN: Yes, that will be fun to watch. I can't wait.

SANCHEZ: And I like the football games that come afterward, too.

O'BRIEN: Yes, blah, blah, blah for the football.

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