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The Stress of War; Waiting For Trailers In New Orleans; Turning Point In Iraq?; 'Minding Your Business'

Aired December 13, 2005 - 07:30   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: You're watching AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: What is steaming down there?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Steam. Hot water. I don't know.

MILES O'BRIEN: What is steaming down there?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I don't know what that -- what is that? Does anybody know?

MILES O'BRIEN: Oh, it's the top of the building there. It's the top of the building.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh, that's helpful, the top of the building. Thanks so much whoever that was who just mentioned that in our ears.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody.

If you're just joining us right now, you have missed a lot of AMERICAN MORNING. We have a new start time now. We begin at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time and we hope that you'll join us then every morning.

MILES O'BRIEN: It's kind of a steaming hour at 6:00 a.m., so please join us then.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: We steam along.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes, we do. Yes.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Let's get right to Carol Costello.

MILES O'BRIEN: (INAUDIBLE).

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: She's got a look at some of the top stories we're following.

Good morning.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Good morning to all of you. If you're just joining us, his appeal is exhausted. After some 20 years, Stanley "Tookie" Williams walked calmly into California's death chamber and was put to death. There were 50 witnesses, including six chosen by Williams who mouthed the words "God bless you" and "I love you," as Williams lifted his head to look at them before the lethal drugs were given to him. Hundreds of people, most of them against the death penalty, kept vidual outside of the prison. Some had argued that Williams deserved clemency because he spoke out against gang violence and wrote anti-gang stories for children while he was behind bars.

Today Medicare tops President Bush's agenda. He'll be delivering a speech later this morning in Virginia. It will be a short break from his speeches aimed at generating more support for his plan for victory in Iraq. In Philadelphia, the president gave the third in a series of talks. He drew similarities in the struggle for democracy in Iraq to the birth of the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is important to keep this history in mind as we look at the progress of freedom and democracy in Iraq. No nation in history has made the transition to a free society without facing challenges, setbacks and false starts. The past two and a half years have been a period of difficult struggle in Iraq. Yet they've also been a time of great hope and achievement for the Iraqi people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The president will give his fourth speech on Iraq tomorrow in Washington.

Also in Iraq, today marks the 1,000th day of the war and the second anniversary of Saddam Hussein's capture. In the meantime, Iraqi ex-patriots have begun casting their ballots ahead of Thursday's parliamentary elections. More than a million Iraqi in the U.S. alone are expected to take part. On Monday, Iraqi soldiers were among the first to vote.

In Seattle, Washington, talk about a great Christmas present. A U.S. soldier and his wife, quadruplets! Yes, they had quadruplets. After trying to conceive for seven years, Robin and Kathy Kenard (ph) became parents of three newborn girls and a boy. The babies arrived two months earlier than expected. They each weigh under three pounds but they're in very -- look how cute! They're in very good health. Rob Kenard is enjoying each precious moment, though, because his time here is limited. He belongs to the Army's 1st striker brigade and he's scheduled to return to Iraq in June. But at least he was there for the birth. And I'm sure his wife was very happy about that.

MILES O'BRIEN: I should say. Talk about stress returning, though, for him, you know.

COSTELLO: Oh, yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: It would be hard to leave those babies behind.

And Kelly Wallace has been looking into that. As a matter of fact, all this week, post-traumatic stress, which is a lot more serious than the kinds of stress we deal with on a normal basis. These are situations when people go to war and come back and face all kinds of anger issues and depression and so forth. Kelly's been looking into this and she joins us with part two of her series.

Good morning.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

You know, and a big part of it is still a little bit of a taboo subject. You know, men and women and their families don't think it exists. Some of them don't think it exists, don't want to confront it or they're just not aware that post-traumatic stress disorder is real. So today we wanted to shift our focus a little bit and talk about what can be done if you or someone you know might have what is a very real illness and how the military is going places it has not gone before to try to deal with it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE, (voice over): In the small town of Emmetsburg, Iowa, Army National Guard Reservist Tyler Peters likes to keep busy.

How much is that keeping your mind off other things?

TYLER PETERS, DIAGNOSED WITH POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS: Quite a bit.

WALLACE: Spending his day studying auto collision technology is one of the ways he tries to cope with his illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, commonly known as PTSD.

How hard has all this been for you?

PETERS: Hmm, very hard.

WALLACE: According to a study published in "The New England Journal of Medicine" last year, as many as 17 percent of the men and women who served in Iraq have shown signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or anxiety. That's a higher rate than the study found for Afghanistan veterans but believed to be lower than what we saw after Vietnam. Still, many may not be getting help. Fewer than 4 percent of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have sought medical treatment for PTSD according to the Department of Veteran Affairs.

Army Captain and Psychologist Dr. Bobby Sidell represents one of the military's newest tools to deal with PTSD. Therapists like himself going where they have not gone in previous wars, to the front lines. Sidell spent one year in Iraq.

CAPT. BOBBY SIDELL, U.S. ARMY PSYCHOLOGIST: If you can go take care of the issue before it becomes a major problem, it has a lot of carryover effect. Obviously the soldiers are able to carry on with their mission, as well as when they get home, they're going to have an easier time transitioning back with their families and friends and loved ones.

WALLACE: Tyler Peters says he didn't have any access to counselors in Iraq, in part because he was almost always on the road. Instead, about six months after he came home, he went to a V.A. hospital, got medication, and received one-on-one counseling at a Vet Center like this one here in Des Moines. Katina Mack is the center's director.

KATINA MACK, DIRECTOR, DES MOINES VET CENTER: It can be a very big problem, especially if it's ignored. I would like to use the example of Vietnam veterans. I'm still seeing Vietnam veterans 25, 30 years later coming through the door that said they've never addressed these issues.

WALLACE: Dr. Steven Hagemoser of the VA Medical Center is central Iowa is currently treating veterans from Iraq with PTSD.

DR STEVE HAGEMOSER, TREATS PTSD VICTIMS IN IOWA: We don't use the word cheerer (ph) with our veterans, but we do like to let them know the truth that there is life after PTSD.

WALLACE: Doctor Hagemoser tells his patients the stakes couldn't be higher. That left untreated, the high risk behaviors of PTSD will only continue. Tyler Peters knows that firsthand.

PETERS: Like you said with the whole anger thing, God only knows where I would be. Prison. Wherever. Because I couldn't -- I wasn't myself. Couldn't control myself.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And he hopes other veterans from Iraq keep going as well by getting the help they need. If you want more information about post-traumatic stress disorder, here are a couple of places you can check out. The Department of Veterans Affairs. You can check out its website at www.va.gov. Or the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder at www.ncptsd.org. Some important information for families there.

MILES O'BRIEN: And just quickly, by getting people out in the trenches, literally, psychologists, is this removing that sigma, do you think?

WALLACE: It's one of the ways to try and remove the stigma. But even Doctor Sidell in our -- you know, who we talked to, said the stigma's still there. There are men and women who still think you're weak if you admit that you have post-traumatic stress disorder. Or if you want to be a career military man or woman, if you come forward and say you have PTSD, what's that going to mean for their future. So they hope this is one way.

Also, more public awareness about the issue that it's a disorder. It doesn't mean you're losing your marble. They hope that will help remove the stigma as well.

MILES O'BRIEN: Good job, Kelly. WALLACE: Thank you, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: Thank you very much.

Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Well, thousands of people who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina still looking for places to live. They expect and hope to spend time in a FEMA trailer but those FEMA trailers just haven't come. So now they just wait and wait and wait. Henry "Junior" Rodriguez is the president of St. Bernard Parish. He's in New Orleans this morning.

Henry, good morning. Nice to talk to you.

Let's break it down by the numbers. My understanding in that your parish you have one trailer site operational and others kind of being brought up-to-speed. So you've got about 110 temporary homes. Is that about right?

HENRY "JUNIOR" RODRIGUEZ, ST. BERNARD PARISH PRESIDENT: Yes, ma'am, that's correct. We have one trailer site that has about 50, 55 trailers. And we have another one that may go on the line with about 45 trailers in probably a couple of days. But this -- we're at 106 days away and this is all we have. That's unacceptable.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: A hundred and ten temporary homes now. How many do you think you need?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, we have 26,000 homes in the parish and we're anticipating 40 percent of those people coming back. It adds up to about 12,000 trailers that we -- a minimum of 12,000 trailers we're going to need. But in order to have these trailers, we need to have these interim housing sites, these trailer sites, and so far we've only got one and the possibility of another one. That's only 100 and something trailers can fit in those sites. We got a serious problem.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Explain to me the delay. I mean, I've been to St. Bernard Parish. There's plenty of space to put a trailer in. Why aren't they being brought up-to-speed any faster?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, I wish I could explain the situation to you, because in order for me to explain the situation to you, I'd have to explain FEMA. And that's a problem. I don't know who can explain FEMA. Even the FEMA people themselves are dissatisfied with the way the operation is running.

It's not the people themselves, it's the whole scheme of things. We got a serious situation in St. Bernard Parish. This is the winter time. It's 106 days later and we got people living in tents, we got people living in automobiles, we got people living in barns, we got people living in their houses in tents. This is the beginning of the winter. This is unacceptable.

And then we've got FEMA threatening to put people out January the 15th. Where are these people going to go? I mean they have nowhere to go. There's something seriously wrong here.

You know, nothing is, to me, seems to be organized. It's very disorganized. You have a problem with FEMA. You've got a problem with the EPA. You've got a problem with the corps. It's not just FEMA, it's the process. It's the whole process.

And, you know, it's very hard to explain to the average guy on the street and the person that you're representing because they have a tendency to take it out on the local officials and it's not the local officials. You know, we're distraught just like everybody else is. We're trying our best and we just can't seem to get them -- FEMA is stuck on stuck and that's just the way it is.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Well, you know, and we should remind people . . .

RODRIGUEZ: (INAUDIBLE) whatever it takes to get involved.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Forgive me for interrupting you, but we should remind people who don't realize that it gets cold in the winter in New Orleans. I mean people who are out in a tent are going to be very, very chilly.

Now, what has FEMA said when you get on the phone with them and you say, we've got trailers sitting here that are available but the guy is going to take them back if we don't pay for them. We need the money. What's the answer to that question?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, I just -- and I don't understand and I don't know the answer to that question. I just can't comprehend it. We identified these trailers six days after the hurricane. We knew we were going to need trailers. So we identified a gentleman that had 6,500 trailers. We have been, for the last 106 days, we've been for the last 100 days trying to get FEMA to pick up the tab for these trailers. The gentlemen who's sending these trailers in . . .

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Let me interrupt you there for a second. So what's the cost for these 6,500 trailers? And we're looking at pictures of them right now. Just kind of parked and waiting for people to take them away. What's the cost? What's the tab that you need FEMA to pick up for these trailers?

RODRIGUEZ: These -- the cost on these trailers is around $13,000 per trailer. And that's about $1,500 less than what FEMA is paying for other trailers of the same type. That's a big savings when you multiply that by 6,500. I can't understand it. Is it the point that they just don't want to save money? Somebody has to explain that to me.

And just three days ago, four days ago, Friday, I gave them a list of 4,500 trailers that are $3,000 cheaper than what they're paying for trailers. And I talked to that gentleman just yesterday and he says they haven't even talked to him about it. It just seems that FEMA doesn't want to save money.

I tell you, I'll be honest with you, FEMA will drive this country broke. This country cannot afford FEMA. The waste is terrible. Every time I go to Washington, all I hear is corruption in Louisiana. Well, these congressmen need to clean up their own house first because waste is terrible with FEMA. I mean, the money's just thrown away on these national contractors and I got local contractors that can do the same work at a much reduced cost and a savings to FEMA and these people can't get a shot at doing the work.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Well, Junior, you know what we're going to do?

RODRIGUEZ: Something's wrong somewhere.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: We're going to get to the bottom of this because we're going to talk to FEMA and figure out why this bill has not been paid for because none of this, of course, makes any sense. And it certainly doesn't make sense to any of the tax payers who at the end of the day are funding a lot of what needs to happen here. So we're going to -- this -- we're not done yet. We're going to be talking with you again.

He is, of course, the St. Bernard Parish president. Henry Rodriguez, thanks for talking with us.

MILES O'BRIEN: The scale of it is hard to imagine, you know. He needs -- 40 percent of St. Bernard Parish is coming back and they still need 16,000 trailers. That's amazing.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: We've got to get to the bottom of this.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: We've got to talk to FEMA and figure out why they're not getting a check cut for trailers that are parked right there and could be put into use immediately. That's the bottom line.

MILES O'BRIEN: It's beyond frustrating.

Coming up, new worries about bankruptcy at the world's biggest car maker. Andy "Minding Your Business" on that.

And next, the vice president's wife, Lynne Cheney, will join us live. The White House making a big push this week to get Americans behind the president's Iraq strategy. We'll ask Mrs. Cheney what it will take. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: The president of the United States yesterday once again defending the administration policy in Iraq. Tomorrow will be the fourth in the series of speeches. Meanwhile, the American public, while indicating increase support for the president's popularity and the way he's handling the war in Iraq, still not entirely convinced about the plan for Iraq and ultimately removing troops from there and achieving some sort of victory.

Lynne Cheney joins us now from the White House. Is it correct to call you the second lady, by the way? LYNNE CHENEY, WIFE OF VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: Sure. That would be great.

MILES O'BRIEN: OK. All right. Good to see you, by the way.

First of all, you're going to talk to some fourth graders today and I know you're going to trying to make some historical parallels here between the American Revolution and what's going on in Iraq. And I wonder if that's stretching things a little bit, because what you saw in the American Revolution was kind of a home-grown fight against the British. In this case, we sort of brought the revolution to Iraq and I don't see any Samuel Adams or Thomas Paynes or, you know, Benjamin Franklins among the Iraqis, do you?

CHENEY: You know, what I'm going to talk to kids about today is the fact that Iraq is at a historical turning point. I think it's really important for kids and for all of us to understand that history is something that's happening right now. It's not something that existed in the distant past. And to see the Iraqi people who two and a half years ago were under the heel of Saddam Hussein, to see them out voting for the first time under their constitution is remarkable and we need to talk to our kids about it.

And I think a very good way to talk about it is in terms of our own constitutional process. It was 217 years ago that we held our first vote under our constitution. And we started then on a path that the Iraqis are walking now. A path in which the Iraqi people, just as we did, want to secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and those who come after them. So I think it is a very important, historical parallel.

MILES O'BRIEN: Of course a big difference, though, when you start walk down this history on parallels, is that everything in Iraq is viewed through a religious prism. As a matter of fact, the insurgents are denouncing the balloting as a satanic project. And it's very difficult to extricate religion from this whole debate, making it also very difficult to create a country out of this.

CHENEY: Well, I'm not sure you're right, actually. It is true that the enemies of democracy have used language like that. But there was a recent poll which showed only a small minorities of Iraqis want an Islamic state. So I think that Iraqis is committed to -- most Iraqis are committed to a government in which people will be free to worship as they choose. They're committed to a government in which women will have full and equal rights. They're committed to a government in which all groups in Iraq, the Kurds, the Shia and the Sunni will be a part of the process.

And it is interesting, if you look back on the ratification of the Iraqi constitution, in order to get the Sunni to agree to ratifying the constitution, a compromise had to be made in which amendment is possible after this election. We did much the same thing in terms of our own constitution. There were many who were reluctant to ratify it until they were told that there could be amendments afterwards and the results of that was our Bill of Rights. So there are, indeed, many historical parallels. And I look forward to talking with kids about it today.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. Let's look at some poll numbers for just a moment. CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup Poll. These questions were asked before the speech yesterday, so factor that in. The question, does Mr. Bush have a plan that will achieve victory in Iraq? Only 38 percent of Americans think that the Bush White House has plan for victory there. That's not a very good number.

CHENEY: Well, I think the numbers are improving. I think the president's speeches are bringing home to the American people our strategy for victory in Iraq. And as the president himself has said, and I've heard the vice president say many times too, poll numbers aren't the issue. Progress on the ground is the issue. And as Senator Lieberman so eloquently has spoken about in recent days, we are making progress in Iraq. It is a watershed issue that we're approaching.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes, but how would you quantify that progress though?

CHENEY: Well, one of the ways in which the president has quantified it, is in terms of the number of Iraqis who are now in the fight, as the phrase goes. The Iraqi forces are gaining in terms of expertise and in terms of their ability to be in the fight. The president's speech yesterday, though, was the one that, as a historian, struck me most. The progress that the Iraqis have made in terms of the timetable that they set for themselves. First, in terms of electing an interim government, in terms of getting their constitution written and now having their first vote under that constitution.

There will be millions of Iraqis voting on Thursday. This is a remarkable thing in Iraq and in the Middle East and it's something that we should take great pride in. The kids I'm talking to today are at Quantico Marine Base and at Fort Belvoir. Many of them have had parents deployed to Iraq. And I think as we take pride to what the Iraqi people are doing, as we share their pride with what they're doing, we should also feel very good about ourselves and the way we've help in their effort.

MILES O'BRIEN: Lynne Cheney, we're out of time, thank you very much.

Back with more in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Business news now. There are some new questions about whether General Motors could be headed for bankruptcy. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" this morning.

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

And, you know, a lot of talk about GM filing for bankruptcy. The company has poo-pooed that notion so far. But yesterday, Standard & Poor's, one of the nation's most respected credit rating agencies, said that it was, "not far-fetched that the company file for bankruptcy if present trends continue." And it cut its credit rating at that point.

The company's lost $4 billion recently. GM responded by saying it is making progress. There is a stock chart. It is not good.

Meanwhile, over across the street at Ford Motor Company, they are introducing a Mount Everest sized SUV. This according to "The Detroit News." Now you may remember, they just got rid of the Ford Excursion, which was just a giant of a car. This is it on the road right now. There are no pictures of this new car, the Ford Everest, but it's going to be about 19 feet long the newspaper says. So I mean they said they're getting rid of these . . .

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: How (INAUDIBLE) that than the Excursion, which is the last -- isn't that's the last really . . .

SERWER: It's smaller than the Excursion but bigger than the Expedition.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh.

MILES O'BRIEN: The Excursion was the one that Bill Ford called the "valdez."

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Yes, you couldn't put in your garage.

SERWER: That's right, the valdez.

MILES O'BRIEN: The Ford valdez, yes.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: All right.

MILES O'BRIEN: You dock it, you don't park it. All right.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Thank you, Andy.

SERWER: You're welcome.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: We're just a little more than 30 minutes away from some pretty big news out of Hollywood. The nominations for the 63rd annual Golden Globe. The big, old gorilla. There he is. He's one of the favorites. We're going to have the nominations for you live just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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