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CNN Live Today

The Fight for Iraq; Women Bombers; Just a Bus Ride

Aired December 01, 2005 - 10:59   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And let's begin by taking a look at what's happening "Now in the News."
A Florida jury is expected to begin deliberating a sentence today for the man convicted of killing 11-year-old Carlie Brucia. Jurors will decide whether to recommend life in prison for Joseph Smith or the death penalty. The judge will have the final say.

New pictures coming in from California's San Fernando Valley. A metro orange line bus apparently collided with a pickup truck in Van Nuys, causing at least one injury. This is the fourth accident involving these buses since the service began a month ago.

If you rely on a BlackBerry for your text paging service you're going to want to listen to this story. Its e-mail service in the U.S. could be blocked. A federal judge has refused to give final approval to a preliminary settlement over alleged patent violations. BlackBerry's maker says it's working on technology that would prevent a services disruption for the gadget's 3.6 million users here in the U.S.

From China to California, people around the world are making the battle against an invisible killer. You're looking at a World AIDS Day march in India. We're waiting for the human rights campaign news conference on its report card on AIDS. That's ahead. We'll talk also with a man from Los Angeles trying to save Africa's youngest victims.

And people around the U.S. are marking 50 years since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus to a white passenger. School children in Montgomery are holding a commemorative walk today. Parks' arrest became a catalyst for the civil rights movement. We'll have more on the tributes just ahead.

Good morning once again. We continue here on CNN LIVE TODAY.

As we check the time around the world, it is 5:00 p.m. in Brussels; just after 11:00 a.m. here in Atlanta, Georgia; and just after 7:00 p.m. in Baghdad.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Daryn Kagan.

In Iraq today, there is more violence and word of more insurgent arrests two weeks before the next round of elections.

For all of that, let's turn to our CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson in Baghdad.

Nic, hello.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, hello.

There were 33 insurgents arrested in an operation just south of Baghdad. But the bigger operation that's going on in Iraq at the moment is in the west of the country. That started yesterday, Operation Iron Hammer.

It is along the very strategic Euphrates River Valley. The Euphrates River Valley runs from the Syrian border all the way down to Baghdad. Coalition officials believe that is a route that insurgents use to come from outside of Iraq and get into Baghdad and set off roadside bombs.

The operation is focussed on the town of Hit -- Al Hit. What they have done is gone across the Euphrates River to the quieter side of the river, away from the main roads where they believe al Qaeda and Zarqawi, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have been building -- building bombs, have bomb-making factories. And coalition officials believe that the operations that they've had along the Euphrates River Valley, Operation Steel Curtain, a month or so ago, up towards the Syrian border, is now having an impact on Zarqawi's ability to build bombs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJ. GEN. RICK LYNCH, MULTINATIONAL FORCE, IRAQ: We believe that Zarqawi and the terrorists and foreign fighters are using the Euphrates River Valley as this line of operation into Baghdad to conduct his horrific acts of violence. One of the munitions that he uses is BB IEDs, car bombs.

In the month of November, there's only been 68 car bombs. Last February, there were 130 car bombs. We had 11 car bombs this past week, 24 the week before. So as you look at trim lines, you see a significant reduction in car bombs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: But there is a warning that comes with this positive view of the recent weeks. The next 15 days coalition officials say critical in the run-up to the elections, and they say they do expect a surge and spikes in violence before the elections -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Nic Robertson, live from Baghdad.

Thank you, Nic.

It is the day after President Bush unveiled his strategy in Iraq. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is vowing to stay the course. General Peter Pace told a crowd just a short time ago the U.S. cannot afford to lose against the insurgents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. PETER PACE, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: A question that I get frequently is, "Wouldn't we all just be better off if we just left them alone?" The answer that I give is, "That would be nice if it would work. But that's not the world we live in."

On September 11, 2001, we were leaving them alone. That was the day we realized in the United States that we were at war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: And now these latest numbers. A CNN "USA-Today"-Gallup poll shows most Americans do not believe President Bush has a plan to win the Iraq war. One important note here, this poll was taken yesterday, before most folks saw or even heard about the president's speech.

Of more than 600 people questioned, 41 percent believe Mr. Bush has a plan for victory in Iraq. Fifty-five percent say they don't think he has a plan. Fifty-nine percent said the U.S. should withdraw its troops only when its goals were achieved. Thirty-five percent favored a specific timetable.

Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton says the U.S. must finish what it started in Iraq but it shouldn't plan on staying in that country forever. She gave a speech yesterday, where Senator Clinton blasted the handling of the war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: So we're living, unfortunately, in what I sometimes refer to as an evidence-free zone with the current administration. They are not willing to look at the facts and the evidence. And that's not good for us and it's not good for our brave men and women who serve us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: Senator Clinton also accused the administration of turning a deaf ear to military planners.

This story now out of Europe, where terrorists appear to be using a new strategy. Police are telling CNN that a Belgian is believed to be the first Western woman to carry out a suicide attack in Iraq.

CNN's Jim Bittermann joins us now on the phone from Brussels to tell us more about what they have learned.

Jim, hello.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Daryn. Hello.

In fact, we've been following the story all day long. We'll be filing something a little later on this evening to sort of show what we found out.

It really is a pretty shocking story for this small town in Belgium where this woman came from, Muriel Degauque, who came from a town in -- near Shalawa (ph), which is really a heavily industrial, sort of a grimy suburb of Brussels, to the south of Brussels, and grew up basically in a normal fashion, went to the local school.

Occasionally, according to the neighbors, anyway, went to church and then got into some -- sort of with the wrong crowd, got into some drugs, alcohol, that sort of thing. Eventually came out of that, but married a Muslim man who asked her to convert, divorced, and then as her life just continued to go from one hard place to another, she came upon a rather radical Moroccan man who managed to, apparently, talk her into becoming the first Western European to blow herself up against American troops in Iraq.

Her husband, by the way, died, we are told. And we're not 100 percent sure, but died earlier in Iraq fighting American troops.

KAGAN: Jim, are they saying how they're able to put the story together and trace this woman's identity?

BITTERMANN: Well, in fact, apparently the Americans found in the destruction that was caused by the bomb that this woman set off, they found a Belgian passport. And that's what tipped them off.

It should be said, however, that the parents talked to reporters here yesterday and told them -- the mother said, anyway, that when she heard that a Western woman was thought to have been the first western woman to blow herself up, a Belgian woman had been one of the first Western women to blow herself up in Iraq, she said immediately that she thought of her daughter and thought it was probably her.

KAGAN: Jim Bittermann, live on the phone from Brussels.

Jim, thank you.

Experts do say that female suicide bombers are growing tactic (ph) with al Qaeda and its affiliates. We saw it most recently in the hotel bombings in Jordan. Experts say most of the women are young and in their early 20s, and they generally wear looser clothing than men. That makes it easier to conceal a so-called suicide belt.

Culture also plays a role here. There's a reluctance to search women in Middle Eastern societies.

Back here in the U.S., to California, there is a race against time to save a convicted killer. A number of celebrities turned out yesterday to read works by Stanley "Tookie" Williams. He suffered a blow when the state Supreme Court refused to stop his execution, which right now is set for December 13.

Williams co-founded The Crips street gang but has since become an anti-gang activist. The reading was interrupted when actor Jamie Foxx got a call from death row.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STANLEY WILLIAMS, CALIF. DEATH ROW INMATE: I believe that regardless of whatever happens to me, whether I'm alive or executed, that all of you will remember me. And this isn't a good-bye. The fact of the matter is, I'm (INAUDIBLE) for life, not dead.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: Williams was convicted of killing four people. He says he's innocent. His attorney is seeking clemency from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Well, you might remember the story of Terrell Pough. He was the teenage dad shot to death outside of his Philadelphia home two weeks ago. Police say they've arrested two people in the killing after recovering Pough's stolen car. The suspects are expected to be arraigned today.

Pough received the vehicle after he was profiled in "People" magazine for his devotion to his 2-year-old daughter.

To Milwaukee now. A tragic fire killed two small children just days after fire officials handed out smoke alarms in this neighborhood. The fire chief says there were six smoke detectors in the house, none was working. And he says the children, who were ages 2 and 3, had been playing with matches.

And this has got to be the video of the day. Hang on to your seats to watch it.

Gusting winds in downtown Denver turned scaffolding into a high- rise battering arm. Keep in mind there are two window washers holding on for dear life. I can tell you they were eventually rescued. One only slightly hurt. Federal authorities are investigating that incident.

All right. Admit it, stress makes many of us slip up and say a bad word from time to time. But do you really want your kids tossing around those nasty words in the hallways at school? We're going to see how one principal is handling profanity.

And 50 years after she took a stand by sitting down, America honors its civil rights heroin. We're going to take you live to one of the events honoring Ms. Rosa Parks.

Plus, they are the innocent victims of the AIDS epidemic. You're going to meet a man behind an organization working to help kids who have lost their parents to AIDS.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: This just in to CNN. It involves the woman who is known as the cell phone bandit, caught using her cell phone as she was trying to rob a number of banks. She could still face trial, but now we're getting word that Dave Williams, her 19-year-old boyfriend, has now pleaded guilty in court to conspiracy to commit bank robbery and to brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence.

He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. He has admitted to conspiracy with Candice Rose Martinez, who is the woman you see on your screen there. She is the so-called cell phone bandit. She is accused of robbing banks in four locations in northern Virginia.

Not the way you're supposed to go about getting your money, but if you go about it honestly, you might be interested in business news. Here's Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: It's December 1. It was on this day 50 years ago that Rosa Parks stood up to segregation laws without getting out of her seat. The lady refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, and in doing so, helped kick off the civil rights movement.

Various tributes across the country are marking that huge event, one of them in Montgomery, Alabama, where her action triggered a 381- day boycott of the city bus system.

Last hour, I had a chance to talk with former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young, a noted civil rights activist and a friend of Rosa Parks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW YOUNG, FMR. U.N. AMBASSADOR: There's been many other people who had tried to sit down in the front of the bus. They, too, had been thrown in jail. But nobody paid any attention to it. They called them troublemakers.

It was because Rosa Parks throughout her life had lived a simple, humble, beautiful life that people said, no, this has got to change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: Rosa Parks almost lived to see this day. She died October 24 at the age of 92.

In the last hour, President Bush signed a bill authorizing a statue of Rosa Parks to stand in the Capitol's Statuary Hall. The civil rights heroin will be the first African-American woman represented in that hall.

Let's go to the site where Rosa Parks was arrested exactly a half-century ago.

Tonya Terry of our affiliate WSFA joining us live with that.

Tonya, hello.

TONYA TERRY, REPORTER, WSFA: Good morning, Daryn.

It is quite a day here in downtown Montgomery as we mark the 50th anniversary of that historic day when Rosa Parks, as you've been saying all morning long, refused to give up her seat to a white man on a public bus here in Montgomery, and sparking the civil rights movement, changing the capital city of Montgomery forever, and the nation, and the world, for that matter. So we're very proud as the national spotlight is on Montgomery this morning.

All morning long we've been here in this location because of its historic significance. We're right outside of the Troy University Rosa Parks Library and Museum. It's a 55,000 square foot facility, 7,000 of that has replicas, it has pictures, it's very interactive. And all day long today, it's free and open to the public until 5:00. Anybody in this area who wants to see the inside of this museum can see it.

And I'm not sure -- yes, you can see that, the historic marker that's right there. That's the exact place that the bus stopped to let Rosa Parks off where she was arrested on this day 50 years ago.

And then, of course, four days later, they had the historic meeting and the bus boycott started. It lasted some 381 days.

So a big, big celebration planned as about 5,000 children down the street there make their way up to the state capitol. Once they get there, a huge ceremony planned there. And so many other events throughout the day today and the weekend, for that matter, here in Montgomery, Alabama.

An exciting time here.

KAGAN: Tonya Terry.

Thank you, Tonya.

Tonya live from Montgomery, Alabama.

Coming up, the youngest patients fighting AIDS, many of them live in countries where it's tough to get medical attention. We're going to meet the founder of a group that helps the children of Africa.

And we'll take you inside a school that's making kids pay up for speaking out with vulgar language.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Somebody has been a very naughty, naughty kitty cat. Emily is flying from Paris to Newark this hour. The adventure, this cat is on her way home to Appleton, Wisconsin. She appeared in late September -- apparently she got inside of a crate that was bound for Belgium by ship.

Emily spent a month in the container at sea. She turned up thin and thirsty at a work site in France.

Emily's tag had her vet's phone number. After a month in French quarantine, Emily is almost home. Hopefully a smooth flight for her.

CHAD MYERS, CNN SEVERE WEATHER EXPERT: Yes.

KAGAN: Maybe she'll get smiles.

MYERS: Maybe she will get -- I hope she has her winter coat on already.

KAGAN: She does.

MYERS: Because it's certainly winter in Wisconsin, but it may not be quite winter yet in France. It's been fairly mild there.

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: Chad, thank you for that.

MYERS: You're welcome.

KAGAN: Well, if you're a parent out there, you probably know your kids hear a lot at school that you really don't want them to say at home. Now one school is laying down the law on bad language.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If a kid blurts something out by mistake, then they know they're not going to get a ticket. But if they blatantly get into a teacher's face and they swear, it's going to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: Oh, boy. You're going to hear how students and parents are reacting to a new crackdown on cussing. That's next on CNN LIVE TODAY.

First, though, let's take another look at another candidate for "TIME's" "Person of the Year."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): With a watchful eye over what pop culture craves, Steve Jobs' innovations are transforming the way we interact with our mobile entertainment. He's a visionary who's now a candidate for "TIME" magazine's "Person of the Year."

ADI IGNATIUS, EXEC. EDITOR, "TIME": Well, Jobs is very, very, very involved in everything that happens at Apple. He is on top of that company, and he is on top of his design teams. And he's demanding results and creativity. And he's found a way to get it from his teams.

Now, Steve Jobs and Apple continue to come up with innovations that just change the way we live, change the way we play. The nano, the iPod video, these are innovations that are fascinating technologically and also gorgeous in terms of design.

JAN SIMPSON, ASST. MANAGING EDITOR, "TIME": The video iPod is going to change the way we watch television. We now will get things when we want it, where we want it. This year, Steve's been really right on the sweet spot of technological change.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: We are coming up on the half-hour. I'm Daryn Kagan. Here's a look at what's happening "Now in the News.".

To Iraq. The U.S. military says troops are focussing on the volatile city of Ramadi as they look to stabilize the region ahead of this month's elections. Insurgents have been chased out of other areas, are said to be gravitating toward that city and the surrounding regions.

Earlier, an eyewitness told CNN that an Iraqi government building came under attack in Ramadi today. But the military says there was no significant insurgent activity in the city today.

A Florida jury begins deliberations today in the sentencing phase of Carlie Brucia and her murder trial. Joseph Smith faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole, as we look at live pictures from Florida right now. Smith was convicted last month for the kidnapping and murder of the 11-year-old girl.

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