Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Saddam Hussein Trial; Pushing the Economy; Hurricane Katrina: The Blame Game

Aired December 05, 2005 - 08:31   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's keep talking about the Saddam Hussein trial, because as we said, it's just been absolutely riveting. We've been watching it all morning.
And in fact, what seemed to begin sort of as anarchy, with some of the defense attorneys just getting up and walking out, and then they went into a recess, seems to have gotten back on track. Let's get right back to Michael Sharp. He helped train some of the Iraqi judges and prosecutors who are on this case and he's been watching the trial, too, along with us this morning. He's in Cleveland.

Hey, Michael, nice to see you again.

MICHAEL SCHARF, CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY: HI, Soledad. Good to see you.

S. O'BRIEN: It seemed like things were really veering a little bit out of control, I think it's fair to say this morning. And then the first witness takes the stand, and it almost snaps back into what everybody is really there for, which is to hear about the crimes against humanity, and the crimes in this specific case in the massacre of Dujail. what did you make of this witness?

SCHARF: Well, you know, "The New York Times" bureau chief said yesterday that the war in Iraq is not going to be won on the battlefield, but on the television screen. And I think that during the height of this witness's testimony, there was a cut where you got to see Saddam Hussein's reaction, and he was literally seen laughing at the face of these just horrific descriptions of the worst kinds of torture, and I think that's going to be the image that the Iraqi public take away from today's day of the trial.

S. O'BRIEN: In some way, talking about it doesn't do even do it justice, as you know, because that witness went on to talk about seeing his 11-year-old sister shot, his brother tortured, he was tortured. I mean, and the details were horrible. Here's the first of what is certain to be a long line of witnesses with a personal, connected story. How long does this go on for, or do you think the strategy is just to have a few and not sort of make everybody annured (ph) to the horribleness and horrible details by having person after person after person?

SCHARF: Well, there are 40 or 50 eyewitnesses that are scheduled to testify, and unfortunately, I think every one of their stories is going to be quite different and quite horrific in its own way, and that people really aren't going to become numb to it. They will be fascinated by it, I think.

Ultimately, you know, this is really important because so many Iraqis saw the pictures that came out of Abu Ghraib, of the torture and the atrocities that American troops committed, but what we did, and now we're punishing those people, pales in comparison what we will be hearing in the next couple of days.

S. O'BRIEN: Before I let you, I want to ask you a question about Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general. You know, he was addressing the court. He finally won the right to address the court and talk a little bit about whether or not there should even be these proceedings, did this court sort of even have the right to exist. I've noticed that he had a very aggressive tone, I thought, with the judges. I was trying to sort of compare it to what we could see in this country. I can't imagine a lawyer sort of addressing the Supreme Court justices with that quite-hostile tone, even if they felt hostile toward the judges. I was sort of surprised. Am I wrong in my read of that?

SCHARF: Well, there's two things that are going on. One is that the Iraqi court system is a very different animal from the U.S. court system. They are used to having lawyers that are very aggressive court. And we're going to be seeing, throughout the trial, a lot of shouting by their lawyers, something that you would never see in an American court, but this is quite acceptable in Iraqi court.

The second thing that is different is Ramsey Clark is not an ordinary American lawyer. He's somebody who does have an emotional way of presenting himself, and so this is really par for the course for Ramsey Clark.

S. O'BRIEN: So he's a shouter anyway?

SCHARF: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: And they allow shouting in this kind of venue?

SCHARF: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Michael Scharf, always great to check in with you. Thanks, and thanks for watching this trial along with us -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: With his popularity polls sagging, the President of the United States will head to North Carolina today to a industrial facility to tout the economy, which is just humming along. The latest information is good news, 215,000 jobs created in the month of November alone. Unemployment rate right around five percent.

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez joins us from Washington to talk about these numbers.

Mr. Gutierrez, good to have you with us. I want to juxtapose those numbers against a poll which we had recently from "Time" magazine.

And I'll just share with you the results. And the issue is the president's handling of the economy, 40 percent approve, 55 percent disapprove. How do you explain the disconnect? Why are people so discontented about the economy, angst about the economy, whatever, if you will, and yet the numbers seem to indicate things are going well?

CARLOS GUTIERREZ, SECY. OF COMMERCE: Well, the economy is in excellent shape, Miles, and we need to focus on the fact that this is not just recent events. This has been going on for a while. We've had ten quarters of consecutive GDP growth above 3 percent, we've had 30 straight months of job creation. So the economy is in very good shape.

What's important is what consumers are doing, and how consumers are expressing their confidence at the cash register. We're seeing consumer expenditures growing above four percent. Very importantly, we're seeing businesses invest at about the rate of nine percent, which bodes very well for the future.

What tends to happen sometimes, Miles, is that people hear the bad news, the negative anecdotes, but there is not enough news about companies that are adding jobs. American workers that are doing a great job. The fact that our economy is strong is such a testament to the greatness of American workers, American companies, being able to withstand a hurricane, being able to withstand a recession, being able to get through a stock-market bubble, being able to get through 9/11, we should all be very proud of that.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, let's talk about this. I don't want to rain on your parade very much. You've been talking about the silver lining. Let's talk about a couple of clouds on the horizon. Tell me how this fits in. With the automobile industry, GM announcing 30,000 cutbacks. Ford, I think the total is about 40,000 auto jobs that are slated to be cut. And then couple that with what we see with the airline industry. Maybe it's those two stories that you're talking about, that people hear about and feel uncomfortable about the economy, but those are important sectors in our economy. How concerned are you about what impact those will have on future reports?

GUTIERREZ: Well, there's no question, any time you have a loss of jobs it is a concern to us. Our unemployment rate is down to five percent. And no one is satisfied with that, Miles. And the president has said that we're not going to stop working until every American who wants a job has a job. But five percent is below the average of the past three decades.

Now, for those companies that are going through these difficult decisions, and I know that these managements are having to make some very difficult decisions, there's so many other companies that are creating jobs that are adding growth that are innovating, that are investing in capital. We wouldn't be growing at a rate of four percent in the Katrina quarter. Our unemployment wouldn't be five percent. We wouldn't have more Americans working today than ever before. We wouldn't have more home ownership than ever before if we didn't have success stories out there. And, again...

M. O'BRIEN: Mr. Gutierrez, I just want to have one final thought here, if you don't mind. GUTIERREZ: If we could just wrap up with this, because I just want to get this in. Alan Greenspan, outgoing Fed chief, says he's concerned that the long-term growth of the economy will be adversary affected by all these deficits we're running. What do you say about that?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, I think what the chairman said, first and foremost, and what we have to pick up on is he said the last thing we need is to try to solve the deficit equation with a protectionist policy, or protectionist-type policies. We need to continue growing our exports. Our exports are growing at double-digit rates, up from a trillion dollars of business already. What we have to do is continue to hold our trading partners to agreements, continue to push for market access.

M. O'BRIEN: But do you think we should balance the budget? Isn't that important?

GUTIERREZ: Well, first of all, the -- when you talk about the federal budget, our budget this year, the deficit will come in $100 billion better than what was expect. Why? Because our economy is growing faster than we had expected, and a big reason for that is because we've kept taxes low. So, ironically, as taxes have come down, government revenues have picked up.

On the spending side, the president has called for a very strict and a very controlled budget for next year. And we are on track. We are on track to deliver the president's goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009.

M. O'BRIEN: Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, thank you very much.

GUTIERREZ: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, the post-Katrina blame game is back in the spotlight. More than three months later, thousands of pages of documents are shedding light on the political chaos that left victims desperately waiting for help.

Joining us from Washington, D.C. is former Louisiana John Breaux. Nice to see you, sir. Thanks for talking with us.

JOHN BREAUX, FORMER LOUISIANA SENATOR: Good morning, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: We know now that Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana, has released some -- a hundred thousand pages of documents, a whole stack of documents. Overall, what do these documents show, do you think?

BREAUX: Well, I think it shows a lot of people trying to do a lot of things all at the same time. And that's understandable. I mean, it shows that Governor Blanco declared a state of emergency before the hurricane hit. She asked for a federal declaration of the disaster before the hurricane hit. She invoked a contraflow evacuation plan, which got out over a million people very successfully. All that was done even before the hurricane hit New Orleans.

S. O'BRIEN: The release of these documents paints the governor in a good light. Do you think it assigns a lot of the blame, the bulk of the blame, 99 percent of the blame, to the feds?

BREAUX: Well, I'm not really in the blame game, Soledad, but I do think it shows how a lot of things can be done differently. I think there has to be a lot better coordination. Hopefully, we learned from this experience that the federal government has to be a partner with the state. It doesn't have to take over the state and it shouldn't. But it has to be a better coordinated partner.

The federal government can do a lot of things like provide communications, helicopters, mobile hospitals, food and water. But they have to do that in partnership with the state. I think that's what you see the state saying, look, we need everything you've got. Send us everything. Let's not debate over what we need. We need everything you have. Please send it to us as fast as you can. And that was happening, I think, in Louisiana.

S. O'BRIEN: One of the more surprising correspondence that we saw in this release of all these documents was this back and forth with the White House. And I want to show it to you. I'm sure you're aware of it. The governor made a request.

Five days later, the White House got back to her, and a White House aide got back with her with this: "We found it, the governor's letter on the governor's Web site, but we need an original for our staff secretary to formally process their request."

When you think of all people who were sort of sitting around and just literally just waiting for someone to come in and help them, you got to be angry, surprised, infuriated by that kind of back and forth?

BREAUX: Soledad, it's very frustrating to see that. You know, it's like a person walking into the emergency room of a hospital bleeding and the doctor say, what would you like us to do to help you? Well, the doctors are supposed to know that they should do everything possible to help the patient. You can't argue about specifics. What would you like us to do, when would you like us to do it?

I mean, this time gap I think is very significant and I think very unfortunate. And hopefully it can be cleared up if we have another disaster like this one.

S. O'BRIEN: They've -- there's been a request for $200 billion in aid. Many people said it was a request that was very, very padded. Where does that stand right now?

BREAUX: Well, it's certainly been pared down. I mean, I think our senators, Senator Landrieu and Senator Vitter and the congressional delegation were trying to include everything that they were being asked for from the state, knowing full well that it wasn't going to completely be all granted, that it would be reduced substantially.

But you got to make sure the needs you're hearing about are at least on the table to be discussed. And I think that's exactly what they were doing. It's going to be a lot less than that, but it has to be more than the numbers I've been hearing about.

S. O'BRIEN: John Breaux's a former senator from Louisiana. Nice to see you, Senator. Thanks for talking with us.

BREAUX: Thank you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles?

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Andy's got a look at business. What's ahead this morning?

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" COLUMNIST: Soledad, is the federal government finally ready to step up and help hurricane victims? Could be. We'll tell you all about it, coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: A little bit of good news for hurricane victims getting some info about their mortgage payments. Gosh, this is much needed, certainly, but it doesn't affect everybody.

SERWER: It isn't, but it's thousands of people, Soledad, are really going to be getting some relief here from the federal government, more than a gesture. This really could be a very meaningful act by the Federal Housing Authority, which has decided that it will reach out to over 20,000 homeowners in the five states affected by the three major hurricanes this past fall and, basically forgive their mortgages for one year if they have FHA loans. And FHA loans are loans that generally go to low and middle income Americans.

This program could amount to 200 millions of dollars of relief. And it doesn't mean that these people won't have to pay that amount, but it means that they won't have to pay it right away. Ultimately, they will have to repay this money to the FHA, but it will be interest-free. And there's nothing like an interest-free mortgage loan.

And, of course, this time is a critical point because many of them don't have jobs and are unable to return to their homes. So, finally, we're seeing something by the government here which amounts to a lot of money, I think, really being spent in a very good place and for a very good purpose.

SERWER: Yes, let's talk about that quickly. Futures are off a little bit this morning as the storm heads towards the East Coast, pushing oil prices higher. Last week, we saw a dip by the Dow. The Nasdaq is up. These are weekly numbers, only 54 points down on the Dow for the entire week. So nothing too terrible there. And of course, we've been up five weeks in a row previous to that, so I guess we're entitled to a little bit of a breather -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: I think that's true. All right, Andy, thank you very much.

SERWER: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come, we will show you some live pictures coming up right now, Ft. Lauderdale. This is the courtroom where Lionel Tate is facing a hearing on a probation violation. Also an accusation that he was involved in a robbery of a pizza-delivery man. Lionel Tate, you'll recall, was 12 years old when he killed a girl named Tiffany Eunick. He became the youngest person ever sentenced to life in prison in American history. The judge there reading some instructions. We are following that for you, along with other things. So stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: A joyful, although small sign of recovery in New Orleans. A dance hall heavily damaged by Katrina, reopened last night. And for people who came to dance, the big band music is a step in the right direction.

CNN's Ed Lavandera was there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you doing?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's Sunday night at the Jefferson Orleans dance hall.

PAT BARBEROT, BIG BAND LEADER: How are you doing?

LAVANDERA: And Pat Barberot is back where he belongs.

BARBEROT: Would you believe I have butterflies?

LAVANDERA: Leading the band like he always has since 1940.

BARBEROT: It's really great to see you guys again. And I want to say, welcome home!

LAVANDERA: Hurricane Katrina left his dance hall silent for more than three months. But the glitter and shine is back. The dancers don their finest attire and polished jewels. The sound of swing is sweet, especially now.

WILLIAM WALSTEN, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: If this place disappeared, we'd really be devastated, you know. We waited a long time. I talked to a lot of people, you know. We've been waiting a long time for this night, and we're really going to appreciate it, really from the bottom of our hearts.

CORLISS SCHMIDT, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: Everybody loves Pat's music. It's the 1940 music, which we all grew up with during the wartime.

LAVANDERA: But Pat Barberot needed a little push to get his band onstage again.

BARBEROT: A real good friend of mine since World War II days, he called me and he said, in fact, I'm going to tell this tonight.

He said, you can't wait. You got to set a date and get the club opened.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good to see you!

LAVANDERA: These friends are seeing each other for the first time since the hurricane. They share sad stories.

SCHMIDT: Well, to tell you the truth, I said I have a 1993 Buick and a cell phone. I said, that's all I have.

LAVANDERA: Corliss Schmidt's home was destroyed by more than six feet of floodwater and mold. But getting her through the loss was the hope of finding a dress and a night of dancing.

SCHMIDT: So many people our age, we have nowhere else to go.

BARBEROT: This is a home to them once a week. They look forward to this night. People tell me, Pat, don't ever stop doing this. I said, well, one of these days, I'll have to stop.

LAVANDERA: These dancers know the music can end any day. Hurricane Katrina reminded them to cherish each Sunday night as if it were their last.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: It's great to hear that music and see them cutting the rug out there. A little bit of normalcy. Just a little sign there.

S. O'BRIEN: Little bit at a time.

M. O'BRIEN: Baby steps, to say the least.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, right.

Ahead this morning, after weeks of delays, we're actually hearing some testimony in the Saddam Hussein trial. Pretty riveting words from a man, this man here, who says he was an eyewitness to crimes against humanity in Dujail. We're going to take you live to Baghdad for a full report at the top of the hour on AMERICAN MORNING.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com