Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Elections in Iraq; Body Snatchers?; Body Donation; Minding Your Business

Aired December 15, 2005 - 07:30   ET

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

ZALMAY KHALILZAD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: Well, good morning. I hope it doesn't get too cold for you.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We're inside a nice warm studio, sir. Don't worry about us at all. The folks outside, I can't speak for.

Give me a sense of how it is today. Have you been to polling places? What are the reports that you're getting about turnout and about violence?

KHALILZAD: I have been to the old city of Babylon, as well as to Baghdad. I'm going to one or two more after this show. And I'm getting reports from across Iraq. And I have to tell you that the reports are very positive. Turnout has been heavy so far. In some places, people have come to the voting center with their families, almost like going to a wedding. And the reports of security incidents and irregularities have been very few. So it has been a good day so far.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: That matches some of the reports that we're getting from our correspondents across Iraq today. Of course, what you're really looking at specifically when you talk about voter turnout is going to be Sunni participation. Any indication of how that looks right now?

KHALILZAD: Sure. It looks very good. And they're likely to vote in numbers larger than the previous election and larger than they voted they in the referendum. In the city of Falluja, as of two hours ago, for example, over 120,000 people had voted. So the indications are very good with regard to the Sunnis. And as you said, this is the most important development of the recent weeks.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Earlier this morning my colleague, Miles, was talking to Senator Biden, and he's in Baghdad as well, and here's what Senator Biden had to say about the potential for civil war depending on how this vote turns out. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN, (D) DELAWARE: The truth of the matter is, there's a simmering civil war here. But we have two major events, this election and the constitution, that may be able to avoid that from totally exploding.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Do you agree with his assessment? Do you think it comes down to successful elections versus civil war if the elections are not successful?

KHALILZAD: Well, I was with Senator Biden. We went to Hillah, together. There is the problem of sectarianism that could lead to civil war. But I think the participation of the Sunnis in the election indicates that that is an extremely good chance that we can avoid that. That politics, rather than violence, is going to be the dominant mode of behaving as we go forward.

But today's the first positive step. We'll have to have a good government formed, an effective government, a government in which all Iraqis can have confidence. We have some hard work and difficult days ahead, but for today, this has been one of the better days in Iraq.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Do you think that there is a direct correlation between the elections today and troop draw down, U.S. troop draw down? Maybe not draw down today, obviously, but within four months or six months?

KHALILZAD: I think we're heading, because of the success in terms of Sunni outreach and Sunni participation. Because of the training of the Iraqi security forces, that we can begin to draw down our forces in the aftermath of the elections and adapt our mission to one of increasingly supporting Iraqis. And our goal being to get Iraqis to stand on their own feet as soon as possible. Yes, some draw down can begin in the aftermath of the elections.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: You have an op-ed, an opinion piece, in "The Washington Post" today. You write about Syria and let me just read for everybody a little bit of what you say. You say, "in addition, the United States and the new Iraqi government will need to put continued and, if necessary, increased pressure on Syria to prevent Saddamists and terrorists from operating on its territory."

Can you be more specific? What do you mean by pressure? And what do you foresee when you talk about that?

KHALILZAD: Well, the Syrians are a source of instability in Iraq. Saddamists and terrorists come in to Iraq from the Syria territory. The Syrian media, controlled by the government, is very hostile to the new Iraq and, therefore, for Iraq to succeed, to become stable in the short term, the neighbors that are misbehaving like Syria have to change their attitude. And we need to continue to isolate them diplomatically, to threaten them with economic sanctions, consider other options if they continue with the current posture of supporting or allowing the transfer of terrorists and Saddamists into Iraq from Syria.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Zalmay Khalilzad is the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Thank you for talking with us this morning, Mr. Ambassador.

KHALILZAD: Well, thank you. And I wish you a good day.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Thank you. Likewise. We wish everybody in Iraq a good day, a good voting day today.

Let's get right to Carol. She's got a look at some of the other stories making news today.

Good morning.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Actually, a little more on the vote.

Good morning to all of you.

President Bush calls the parliamentary elections today a watershed moment. The president also taking blame for starting the war based on faulty intelligence. His comments came during his fourth speech on Iraq, aimed at getting more Americans on board with his Iraq policy. The president added that despite Saddam Hussein not having weapons of mass destruction, it was necessary to remove him from power to protect Americans.

Word today that Italy is pulling more of its troops out of Iraq. Italy's defense minister says 300 troops are being brought home. That troop reduction comes after Italy pulled 300 out in September. This latest troop reduction will leave some 2,600 Italian troops in the country.

Bob Novak, columnist, says the public should leave him alone and instead "bug the president." According to a North Carolina newspaper, Novak says he's confident President Bush may know who leaked the identity of a former CIA operative. He says the public should press the president to reveal his source. Novak, who was the first to publish Valerie Plame's identity, has never publicly named his source.

Taxies, private cars and sensible shoes may be the only things running in New York City come Friday morning. That's because the subway trains and busses could be shut down altogether. Negotiations over a pay raise for transit workers are going nowhere. Already Mayor Bloomberg is warning people to be ready to ride their bikes or walk wherever they need to go. If there is a deal, a city wide shut down of mass transit -- if there is not a deal I should say, that transit system could shut down at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Friday morning. Keep in mind, 7 million people take mass transit in New York City. So you can only imagine.

Oh, you're not going to believe -- well, actually, you will believe this next story because we have the pictures to prove it. Take a look. These people are outside of a burning apartment building in New York as a mother, a desperate mother, throws her baby out of the window into the waiting arms of these men. The baby wasn't breathing when they caught him, so they had to give the baby CPR. He was a maintenance guy. Give the baby CPR, saved the baby's life. Fire fighters were eventually able to get the mother out of that burning apartment and they saved her. We're expecting to hear from the man who caught the baby. His name is Felix Vasquez (ph). He'll be our guest in a few moments. And I guess, you know, they have a company baseball team, softball team. He plays catcher. SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Does he really?

COSTELLO: Yes, he does.

MILES O'BRIEN: (INAUDIBLE).

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Good hands Vasquez is what they call him.

COSTELLO: That's right. That's right.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Good for him.

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, good thing he didn't try to work that baby around the horn afterwards, you know, that would have been bad.

Yes. All right. Anyway, we'll look forward to meeting him.

Let's get a weather check in. Jacqui Jeras with that.

Hello, Jacqui.

(WEATHER REPORT)

MILES O'BRIEN: Still to come, a chilling scandal. Some are calling it the dirty little secret of the death industry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's an outrage not just to the families who without consent saw their loved ones body parties used in others, but it's an outrage to those people who received tissues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MILES O'BRIEN: Doctors and funeral homes suspected of selling body parts for profit and not telling the families of the dead. It's a story you'll see only on CNN. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: You may want to send the kids out of the room for this next story. It's a little disturbing. CNN is investigating a possible real life body snatchers case that is playing out in New York. We're looking into allegations that some funeral homes may be selling off body parts unbeknownst to the grieving families. CNN's Deborah Feyerick has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Michael Bruno was a good old New York City cab driver with an opinion about everything, even his own death.

VITO BRUNO, ALLEGED VICTIM'S SON: My father had requested to be cremated.

FEYERICK: And today, in this box, lie Michael Bruno's remains. At least that's what Vito used to think. Now he's not so sure.

BRUNO: I don't know what this is. Don't know what's in here at all.

FEYERICK: That's because Michael Bruno may have unwillingly become the victim of a scandal that's making ghoulish headlines. It's sending shock waves through a billion dollar industry that until now has remained out of the spotlight, the business of human body parts. By one estimate, a single body chopped into pieces can be worth up to $150,000. The donor never sees a penny, but it seems everyone else does, including the funeral home, which can charge a thousand dollars per body for storage and transportation.

TODD R. OLSON, PH.D., ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLAGE OF MEDICINE: We are dealing simply with an open market where the supply and the demand is the only limiting factor on how much people are going to be able to profit.

FEYERICK: New York City investigators believe Michael Bruno is one of hundreds, if not more, whose body parts were taken without permission and passed off as legitimate donations to companies which make money processing the bodies and providing them to the medical community.

Now, the Brooklyn District Attorney is leading a massive investigation, which could implicate as many as six New York City funeral homes and a company that procures organs for hospitals and research. At the center of the case, two men, Dr. Michael Mastromarino of Bio Medical Tissue Services in New Jersey, and his partner, embalmer Joseph Mowselli (ph). Both are under investigation for allegedly carving up bodies without consent.

BRUNO: Just beyond anything anybody could ever comprehend.

FEYERICK: Vito Bruno says he learned of the alleged theft when a New York City detective showed up at his door with a donation consent form Bruno had supposedly signed.

BRUNO: It was not my signature, so they forged my name.

FEYERICK: Also changed, according to Bruno, was his father's cause of death, listed as hearth disease, instead of kidney cancer.

BRUNO: I was really angry and really concerned. You know, concerned that these body parts went into other people, people got diseased body parts.

FEYERICK: In Denver, Colorado, some 1,800 miles away, an apparent whistle blower.

DR. MICHAEL BAUER, BONFILS BLOOD CENTER: We have had a recent case where we've traced it back and there were over 90 different patients who were benefiting.

FEYERICK: Michael Bauer tests donated tissue for disease. He says he discovered phone numbers on donor records sent by Mastromarino's company were bogus.

BAUER: What was going through my mind was, Dr. Mastromarino had not received permission to recover these tissues.

FEYERICK: It was then, Bauer says, that he called the New Jersey doctor.

BAUER: His answer to me was, I wasn't calling the families, the funeral homes were.

MARIO GALLUCCI, DR MATROMARINO'S ATTORNEY: Dr. Bauer is being less than forthcoming with you and the public.

FEYERICK: Mario Gallucci is the attorney for Dr. Mastromarino.

What is being alleged is serious. That is, signatures were forged, medical records were doctored. Can you see, not as it relates to your client, how this would be shocking to many people?

GALLUCCI: Without a doubt. I'm a human. I would be very upset if to find out that my loved one, who I didn't consent to, had tissue taken from them without my consent. Of course I'd be upset.

FEYERICK: But your client had nothing to do with it?

GALLUCCI: Nothing at all.

FEYERICK: For more than a year, tissue from Mastromarino's company was distributed to doctors and hospitals throughout the U.S. and Canada. So far, there have been no reports of illnesses stemming from those tissues.

Sanford Rubenstein is Bruno's attorney in a lawsuit against the New Jersey doctor, his partner and the funeral home which handled his father's cremation.

SANFORD RUBENSTEIN, VITO BRUNO'S ATTORNEY: This is a double outrage. It's an outrage not just to the families who without consent saw their loved ones body parts used in others, but it's an outrage to those people who received tissues.

FEYERICK: Federal law prohibits the sale of any human body part, but it does allow for go-betweens to be reimbursed for reasonable expenses. The problem is, there are no limits as to what's considered reasonable and no paper trail to track the movement and there's little regulation or oversight.

OLSON: There are more laws that regulate shipping ahead of lettuce into the state of California than there would be to ship a human head.

FEYERICK: People are calling your client Dr. Frankenstein, a ghoul, a grave robber. What's your response?

GALLUCCI: It's a pioneer in the industry. He's making mankind better. Nobody's shown us that absolutely anything has been done inappropriately. These allegations, nobody's been charged with any crime.

FEYERICK: In New York, investigators have begun the grizzly task of digging up bodies from cemeteries like this one, to see for themselves if bones, limbs and other body parts are missing. The funeral home which handled Michael Bruno's body denied any ties to the alleged body snatching ring. Embalmer Joseph Mowselli and his attorney both denied our requests for an interview. Vito Bruno, meanwhile, is left with anger and doubt.

BRUNO: Sounds like a bad movie, doesn't it?

FEYERICK: Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN: Amazing story. It leaves us with quite a few questions. And to answer some of them, we are joined by Todd Olson, who is the chairman of the Associated Medical Schools of New York, the Anatomical Committee. He's also an anatomy professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. You saw him in Deborah Feyerick's piece.

Dr. Olson, good to have you with us.

Let's just clarify a few things. Explain just what is a body donation?

TODD OLSON, PH.D., ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Thank you, Miles.

In considering making a donation, people need to be aware that there are basically three distinct types of donations. One is organ donation, and most people are aware of kidneys, but we also can make donations from hearts, lungs, livers, and pancreas. There are also tissue donations. And again, people are aware of corneas and skin donations, which are tissue donations. And the third type of donation is a whole body donation which people make to medical schools for education and science.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. So if someone desires to do these kinds of things, you have to be very clear about what your intentions are in this case. Let's talk about how you clarify what you want donated.

OLSON: The first thing you need to do is again be clear on what type of donation that you're interested in making. The second is, I encourage people to make their own decision, to think about this themselves and come to a decision about what their values and what their objectives are. They need to tell people. They need to tell their next of kin, they need to tell their lawyers and they need to tell their friends. And the third thing they need to do is ask questions, which is the big advantage of making the decision yourself.

MILES O'BRIEN: In the process of asking these questions, we must contend with some difficult issues that a lot of people don't like to deal with. But this is very important to -- if you're considering it, to get the information, isn't it?

OLSON: Yes. You need to seek out qualified professionals, as well as the people who you go to for advice about spiritual issues that relate to your body, but you can call people at medical schools who are trained to deal with this and people at hospitals who are also trained to provide you with the relevant information you need to know to make this decision.

MILES O'BRIEN: You mentioned medical schools. If you are interested in a body donation to be used by a medical school, should you just deal with that medical school directly?

OLSON: You can do that. And some states you are not dealing with the medical school, but they have a state board. This is one of the reasons why you need to be informed because the laws that regulate donation vary by state and sometimes by municipality.

MILES O'BRIEN: Dr. Todd Olson from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, thanks for coming in.

OLSON: Thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN: Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Business news just ahead. And Andy's "Minding Your Business."

What you got working on?

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Soledad, if you've rented movies from Blockbuster, you might want to return them because they could be costing you more than you think, coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh.

SERWER: That's some clash.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Stuart Townsend. He's dating Charlize Theron.

SERWER: A little pop culture quiz for you all, right?

MILES O'BRIEN: I flunked.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Happy birthday to all you handsome men.

SERWER: Yes, I noticed that. Was that your call?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: No, I have nothing do with the birthday list, so I can't take credit for that.

Let's get to business news. No late fee. That's good news.

SERWER: Yes. Well, they're getting rid of it, though. And you may remember this. It's kind of been an ongoing story, Soledad. Blockbuster's no late fee program may be going the away of the buggy whip. This is a story is that has a few wrinkles. Remember last winter Blockbuster, with great fanfare, rolled out the no late fees program, except if you look at the fine print, there actually sort of were late fees that you would actually have to buy the video and there were restocking fees and they got in trouble in 47 states because of this fine print. They kept the program and now, though, it looks like in some states, southern states, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, they're actually quietly getting rid of the program altogether. So check and see if you've got any DVDs or videos from blockbuster.

Of course, this has everything to do with the businesses collapsing, which is to say renting videos and DVDs from stores because of Netflicks, because Wal-Mart's in the business, because of video on demand, because of downloading video from iTunes.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh, that's an ugly graph.

SERWER: And there's a stock chart which reflects that this business is definitely, definitely changing. And I don't know if you guys have done any of those new kinds of things, which is get movies online and things from Netflicks.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Yes.

SERWER: But it's really a very different ball game all of a sudden, isn't it?

MILES O'BRIEN: It is. It is.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Yes. Well, that's very interesting.

MILES O'BRIEN: And you don't have to worry about that late fee.

SERWER: No, you don't. Or trucking off to the store in the snow to return it or pick the video up or the DVD, which is difficult.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Well, that's how they make a bunch of their money too.

SERWER: Yes, that's right.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: All right, Andy, thank you very much.

SERWER: You're welcome.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Coming up, get on your feet. Really. Get on your feet. Oh, Gloria . . .

SERWER: There you go again.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I hope she's not in the green room. She's in the studio, though. We're going to be talk to her in just a few minutes. Here is a woman who could easily be the busiest woman alive. She's got restaurants. She's a Grammy Award winner. She performs all the time. And now she's written a children's book and it's really cute. Just in time for the holidays.

MILES O'BRIEN: And she -- I must say, she looks fabulous.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: And she looks pretty darn good too.

MILES O'BRIEN: Oh, can I say that?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Of course you can.

SERWER: That white suit, Miles, don't you think.

MILES O'BRIEN: Wow. Yes.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: We're going to talk to her -- and she's writing a screenplay. We're going to talk to her about all of that and much more.

MILES O'BRIEN: It's in her spare time, a screenplay.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: In her spare time. Oh, and she's a mom.

MILES O'BRIEN: She did that "American Idol" thing. You remember that?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh, yes. That's all ahead when we talk to Gloria. Stay with us. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: Good morning. I'm Miles O'Brien.

History unfolding in Iraq as we speak. Millions of Iraqis ignoring threats of violence to cast ballots for a new future. We'll go there live.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I'm Soledad O'Brien.

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