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American Morning

9/11 Aid Abused; Attack on U.S. Convoy in Baghdad; Mob Violence in Milwaukee

Aired December 29, 2005 - 8:59   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Miles O'Brien.
Flood warnings posted all across northern California as a relentless series of rainstorms bears down. The next big one on its way, and it could spread problems into southern California.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Carol Costello, in for Soledad today.

More than 100 homes in ruins in Texas and Oklahoma this morning after wildfires bring another day of destruction. This is a live picture from Cross Plains, Texas, dry and windy again today. More danger ahead. We'll take you there live again.

O'BRIEN: And literally billions of dollars set aside to help businesses rebound after 9/11. So why did the money go to companies that weren't even touched by the disaster? Some serious questions ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.

COSTELLO: Wow, the morning is flying by. It's already 9:00 Eastern Time.

O'BRIEN: Breezing by.

Good morning to you. We're glad you're with us on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Lots to cover.

COSTELLO: Lots to cover, indeed.

A new money scandal in Washington over 9/11. Billions of dollars have been lent out to businesses that never suffered from terrorism. Investigators and now the Senate are asking how this federal program got so out of control.

AMERICAN MORNING'S Bob Franken live in Washington for us to explain.

A lot of money flying around, and I just don't understand how it got to Utah.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, neither did the inspector general, apparently, from the Small Business Administration, which was supposed to administer the program. He says, according to The Associated Press, that a full 85 percent of those who received loans under a program that was set up for businesses affected by the September 11th attacks, a full 85 percent of them did not get properly vetted. Not necessarily, according to the administrator of the agency, that the wrong people got the loans, only that there was never any way to find out if they were qualified.

And so what you ended up with is a bunch of, like a hundred, Dunkin' Donuts around the country -- establishments got loans, as well as a dog boutique in Utah and a perfume shop in the Virgin Islands and a radio station in South Dakota. So these were loans that were going out, where lending officers, according to the inspector general, did not ask the proper questions. Oftentimes, the recipients of the loans, he said, did not even realize that they were getting the money under this program.

Now why, you ask, would this happen? Remember now that lenders are out to make a profit. And we've all dealt with them when we've bought a home or something like that, and we know that they can get quite creative.

The real question the Senate's going to ask is, how could the agency that administered this money allow this to happen without checking up on what was going on with those billions of dollars?

COSTELLO: You know what would be really interesting? You know, you say these companies didn't realize they were getting this money because of 9/11. Although, you know, wouldn't you wonder why you were getting this money? I would. But would those companies have to pay it back?

FRANKEN: Well, first of all, it would have to be established -- this report did not do that -- it would have to be established that they had improperly gotten the money. This report does not quite take that step. What it does say is that there's no way to determine that.

Now, the question will probably be asked, what about those lending institutions? Were they acting in proper ways, or, frankly, were they acting legally?

COSTELLO: Well, we'll continue to follow this story. And I'm sure it will get quite interesting.

Bob Franken live in Washington for us this morning.

O'BRIEN: And now to those terrible fires in Texas and Oklahoma. Still a big threat this morning even as people try to pick up the pieces in their wake. Two deaths are blamed on the fires. Wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma have scorched thousands of acres now.

These are new pictures this morning. Members of this church will mark its 120th anniversary on New Year's Day. The flames destroyed 96 homes in the community of 1,000 residents.

Earlier this morning, I spoke with a woman whose son saved their house and several others from the flames.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PATRICIA COOK, HOME SPARED IN FIRE: We had people stop that we didn't know that were from other towns that said -- grabbed a hose and started watering the grass and houses, and just trying to keep the fire from spreading. We knew if it left one spot then we would lose the entire block. And that's where we made our stand. We were saving our block.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Now, higher humidity helped firefighters battle the wildfires in several Oklahoma counties on Wednesday. Coming up at the half-hour, about 25 minutes from now, we'll talk to the pastor of a church destroyed by those wildfires.

In northern California, it is the other extreme. Rain is the huge troublemaker there. They've already seen lots of it. More on the way.

Flood warnings are out, rivers are at seven-year high levels, and a series of even more intense storms expected to hit the state beginning tonight. The wet weather hitting the Sierra Nevada is expected to bring more snow to the area, making driving difficult. But, of course, skiers and snow boarders happy.

Let's check in on the weather now. Jacqui Jeras with that.

Good morning, Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Miles.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: A late development now on an attack on a U.S. convoy in Baghdad. It comes after a suicide bomber strikes at the heart of the Iraqi government.

Jennifer Eccleston following these stories. She's live in Baghdad.

Jennifer, tell us more.

JENNIFER ECCLESTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Carol.

The American military has announced today the death of a soldier in an eastern Baghdad neighborhood. This after the convoy he was traveling was struck by an IED. That's an improvised explosive device, something we've been hearing about so much over the course of the last year or so. It's being called the insurgents' deadly weapon of choice, and today, once again, it did so.

And as you mentioned, also this morning there was a suicide bomber. He detonated his explosives belt at a checkpoint leading to the Baghdad office of the Ministry of Interior. Three police died in that attack, as well as one civilian. Eight others, including five police, were wounded -- Carol. COSTELLO: Let's talk about something else. You got an exclusive with the Iraqi prime minister, the former Iraqi prime minister, I should say, Ayad Allawi.

What did he tell you about the elections?

ECCLESTON: Yes, we talked a lot about these protests that have been going on up and down the country. Thousands of people calling for a new ballot after claims of systematic fraud in the December 15 vote, that historic vote. And as you mentioned, we talked with Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, the interim prime minister.

He is one of the high-profile voices in this ongoing controversy. He of course is the head of an umbrella grouping of secular Shiites and Sunnis who are running for office. And as you mentioned, in an exclusive interview with CNN, he offered us specific evidence of these voter regularities.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AYAD ALLAWI, FMR. IRAQI PRIME MINISTER: We tried to play by the rules ourselves. We never thought of a gang (ph) or intimidating anybody. We are respected and still respect democracy, and we think that democracy at the end of day will prevail here in Iraq. Unfortunately, others use the different tactics, and they used religious symbols, intimidations, assassinations, (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ECCLESTON: Now, he's also demanding that Iraq's electoral board and the governing Shiites address these allegations before any final results are released next week. However, he says there's been no response so far, and if there are attempts to form a government before the controversy is addressed, then he said democracy in this country has failed -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Jennifer Eccleston live from Baghdad this morning.

Thanks.

O'BRIEN: From Pakistan, a shocking story of a so-called honor killing. A man described as totally unrepentant calmly recounting how he slit the throats of his three little girls and a 25-year-old stepdaughter. He said he did so to restore the family honor, killing the older girl because he thought she had committed adultery and the other girls -- and their ages are 4 to 8 -- to prevent them from doing the same later in life.

Now, here are the man's sons, aged 11 and 13, seated at home in a rural Pakistani village. The man's wife tell authorities she looked on helplessly as those girls were killed.

Apparently, there are hundreds of honor killings of Pakistani women and girls each year. You can find out more about this story by visiting cnn.com. Police in Milwaukee searching for suspects in the brutal beating of a man dragged from his car by an angry mob after he honked his horn at them.

Correspondent Keith Oppenheim live now in Milwaukee with more.

I know, Keith, that the family of the victim in this case is speaking out.

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are speaking out, Miles. What we know from the family, as well as police, that it was on Monday night that 50-year-old Samuel McClain was driving in a residential neighborhood and he honked his horn just to get some young people out of the way in the street. Instead, what happened was he was pulled from his car.

As you can see, his face was brutally beaten. Apparently, people were jumping on his face on the street. Hospital spokespeople to the hospital that he went to said he wasn't even able to breathe when he got to that hospital.

And while police are investigating what he was doing in that neighborhood, police say he was clearly a victim in this case. And his family members, his son, Shavonta, told us that there's no way that this attack could have been justified.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHAVONTA JOHNSON, VICTIM'S SON: What could have really made somebody this mad to do something like this to an old man? You know? Especially for them to continue to do what they did. You know? It just wasn't right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OPPENHEIM: Police are looking for as many as 15 suspects in this case between the ages of 16 to 23 years of age, Miles. And interestingly, the mayor of Milwaukee is quite concerned about the willingness of residents to talk about what happened. The mayor, Tom Barrett, is concerned about a mob mentality and that residents, witnesses, possible witnesses, would be intimidated.

O'BRIEN: Well, Keith, there is a little bit of history here on this as well. Milwaukee has kind of been beset by this mob violence in recent years.

OPPENHEIM: That's true. In fact, last summer, in 2004, I was doing a story about four mob beatings that happened in the course of four weeks. One of those led to a fatality. And in 2002, there was another case where someone was beaten by a group, and that victim, he also died.

So the concern here is not just for the safety of residents, Miles. It's also a concern about the image of the city.

O'BRIEN: Keith Oppenheim in Milwaukee. Thank you very much.

Keith is on this story all day. He'll be working on it, getting community reaction for you. He'll have a report for you on the Paula Zahn program, "PAULA ZAHN NOW," 8:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

Coming up on our program, the White House wiretap controversy. Could convicted terrorists use it to escape justice? We will have a closer look at that.

COSTELLO: Also, is it time to change what you eat? Reports that Vitamin D can reduce the risk of several kinds of cancer by as much as 50 percent. We're going to go talk to an expert next in "Morning House Call."

O'BRIEN: And a little later, more on the devastating wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma. Dozens of families in one small town not only lost their homes, they lost their church. We'll look at how that community is coping. We'll talk to their pastor ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: And now the latest on that domestic spying campaign that was sanctioned by the White House. Still a lot of debate over whether it is legal for the National Security Agency to listen in on our conversations without a warrant. But defense attorneys representing terror suspects see it as an opportunity to get their clients off the hook, perhaps.

Stuart Taylor is a constitutional law expert. He is a columnist for the "National Journal."

Stuart, good to have you with us.

STUART TAYLOR JR., "NATIONAL JOURNAL" COLUMNIST: Nice to be here.

O'BRIEN: What's your take on it, first of all? Do you think -- your understanding of the Constitution, was the president within bounds in sanctioning these wiretaps without warrants?

TAYLOR: I think it's not an open and shut question. It's highly debatable.

The Supreme Court has never decided definitively whether the president can order a warrantless wiretap in a national-international terrorism matter without getting judicial approval. Congress has passed a law that says, no, the president has to get judicial approval. But the president claims that that's been trumped by the more recent law authorizing use of force against the terrorists responsible for 9/11.

He also claims inherent constitutional power toward such wiretaps. And it's kind of up for grabs who would win a case like that if it ever got to the courts. O'BRIEN: So if you are a defense attorney representing a terror suspect, do you first have to prove one way or another -- prove that claim that the wiretaps in the first place were illegal?

TAYLOR: Well, it actually comes in the other order. The first thing you have to do is get into court and get the court to say you're entitled to raise that claim.

So, for example, the most conspicuous possibility, a man named Iyman Faris, who pled guilty to a terrorist plot to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge, the government has said that the warrantless wiretap program is one of the ways in which he was caught. So, presumably, he could say, well, I'm entitled to raise this issue.

However, because he pled guilty, the government would, no doubt, say, sorry, he's waived any right to challenge the evidence against him. He pled guilty, case closed.

And so there would be a procedural battle with any defendant like that as to whether he was even entitled to go into court and raise the claim before the court would ever get to the actual constitutionality of the wiretapping.

O'BRIEN: So his case is unusual on two fronts. First of all, he pled guilty. Secondly, you had a very clear inkling that those wiretaps were used. In most cases...

TAYLOR: Exactly.

O'BRIEN: ... there is no indication one way or another, and what the government could say is, that's a matter of national security, it's secret, right?

TAYLOR: Right. And the defense lawyers could very plausibly say, hey, we're entitled to know whether the evidence that was used against our client was illegally obtained. And if they have some basis for raising a suspicion that was obtained through this program, they might be able to get into court.

It's an uphill battle, but it's -- but they would at least have a chance. It's also possible that someone could bring a lawsuit, as opposed to a defense in a criminal case, against the government, seeking a court order that they stop this activity.

Again, there would be problems getting into court because you have to show that somehow you were injured by it before you can sue about it. But someone might possibly be able to make that claim and then get the courts to the question of, OK, was it -- was it legal or not?

O'BRIEN: So murky legal waters at best.

Let me just ask you this -- and I know you really can't speak for the government in this case. But looking at this, why didn't they just retroactively get the warrants in these cases to protect themselves down the road if this did in fact come up? TAYLOR: They've suggested two reasons. One, they suggested we need to move faster. Now, there was a provision for...

O'BRIEN: Yes, but they could do that. They could do that, right?

TAYLOR: Right.

O'BRIEN: Get the wiretap and then get the one afterwards, right?

TAYLOR: Right. And -- they could. And I'm not sure why that's not good enough.

I think the other reason that may be at the bottom of all this that's gotten little attention is the possibility that they were using a much broader sweep called a data mining program to monitor lots and lots and lots of phone calls without any particular reason to suspect that any one of those phone calls or communications was a terrorist communication, in the hope of looking for patterns and so forth.

I'm not sure they could do that under the existing law. The question that would raise is, OK, if the existing law wasn't good enough, why didn't you go to Congress and get a new law? And that's where -- that's where the answers become a little bit -- a little bit controversial -- more than a little bit. I think they've essentially suggested, well, Congress might have said no.

O'BRIEN: Final quick thought here. Do you think anybody will walk on account of this perhaps technicality being raised?

TAYLOR: Possible, but very unlikely.

O'BRIEN: Stuart Taylor, columnist for the "National Journal."

Thanks very much -- Carol.

TAYLOR: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Coming up, your "Morning House Call." Are foods rich in Vitamin D the key to preventing cancer? We'll take a closer look just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: In this morning's "House Call," loading up on Vitamin D could cut the risk of cancer in half. We first told you about this exciting new research on Wednesday.

Joining us now from San Diego, Cedric Garland, professor of family and preventative medicine at the University of California San Diego.

Welcome, sir.

CEDRIC GARLAND, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO: Thank you, Carol. COSTELLO: Let's take a look at these statistics, because they're just incredible. You say Vitamin D reduces the cancer risk by half in colorectal cancer cases, a third breast cancer, a third ovarian cancer.

That just seems unbelievable.

GARLAND: It's based on an analysis of 63 studies that involved 2.3 million person (ph) years of observation, including some of the best studies available in the world, the Nurse's Health Study and Health Professional Study, and is a consensus estimate derived from a summary of all those studies synthesized in the recent paper.

COSTELLO: Now, it seems to take a lot of Vitamin D to achieve these results, because you mentioned a figure, a thousand international units of Vitamin D. What is that?

GARLAND: Well, it's the amount of Vitamin D contained in a diet that would have a variety of foods in it that contained Vitamin D: milk, preferably nonfat or low-fat, it can be obtained by orange juice, it's present in some brands of yogurt, many brands of cheese, and it's also available from fish, such as tuna or salmon.

Each of the milk products contains about 100 international units in a serving, whereas the salmon contains about 200...

COSTELLO: OK. Well, let's get even more specific.

GARLAND: OK.

COSTELLO: Like, a thousand international units. So how many glass of milk would I need to drink to get the required Vitamin D to cut my chance of breast cancer by a third?

GARLAND: Well, you wouldn't be doing it because you'd have to drink 10 glass. So it's not practical to do it that way. It's better to seek a balance of different foods, and, if necessary, a supplement.

COSTELLO: So give me your typical diet per day so that I can achieve the maximum results.

GARLAND: Well, I would say three or four glasses of nonfat milk, I'd say two to three servings of, say, non-fat yogurt. Maybe a glass of orange juice, a serving or two of cheese. And maybe a supplement for a small amount if it doesn't quite add up to a thousand units.

But we do know that any dose below a thousand units does not produce this effect. It absolutely requires that much Vitamin D.

COSTELLO: Well, see, that's what I wanted to ask you about. So that if you don't take these thousand doses of Vitamin D, then that negates the whole thing? I mean...

GARLAND: Yes, it does. It's not exactly a thousand doses, but it's a thousand international units. And it's well within the safe, tolerable range. And it is true that there will be no benefit below a thousand international units.

COSTELLO: Well, that's interesting, because you really have to keep track, you know, to know that you're taking the proper dosage of Vitamin D to achieve the results every single day for how long? Like, a year, five years, 10 years?

GARLAND: Well, you'd have to keep track of it every day, and ideally for at least 10 to 15 years to see the maximum effect. Cancer has a 15 to 20-year latency period, so you do have to start early and stick with it throughout life.

COSTELLO: Wow. That's a difficulty. Can't I just take a vitamin with Vitamin D in it?

GARLAND: The ideal way is to get it from food, but if someone can't tolerate, say, lactose in milk, then, yes, it could be taken as a vitamin. But it would be get better to take it from food.

COSTELLO: OK. Advice taken.

Thank you very much for joining us this morning.

Cedric Garland, professor at the University of California San Diego.

O'BRIEN: Coming up on the program, our special series on newsmakers of the year, "Five in '05" we call it. Today, Terri Schivo, her life and death part of a family feud that played out for the entire country. It raised a lot of important questions for all of us.

Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: First light in Cross Plains, Texas. That's what remains of the First United Methodist Church there. On Sunday, they were planning a celebratory service to mark their 120th anniversary. Not going to be a celebration.

COSTELLO: No. The wildfires took care of that, didn't it?

O'BRIEN: Yes, they did. Well, we'll talk to the pastor about how they go on from here in just a little bit.

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