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American Morning

National Guard Cuts; Swamped; Cosmic Booty

Aired January 13, 2006 - 09:34   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The National Guard troops were at the forefront of relief efforts in the Gulf Coast. And for the troops not responding to Katrina, they had other missions, like the one in Iraq. But now there may be fewer of them to respond to national emergencies.
For more on that, we turn to CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol.

Well, The state governors are furious, members of Congress are mad, but the Army says it's got to save some money.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 50,000 National Guard troops responded to this country's worst natural disaster. In Iraq, one-third of American ground combat forces are National Guard troops. But now, the defense department is considering massive cuts in the Guard to save money.

Senior commanders tell CNN the cuts, if approved by the Pentagon and Congress, could seriously hurt the Guard's ability to respond to a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, or even an outbreak of bird flu. Guard commanders, known as adjutant general, say they have to be prepared 24/7.

BRIG. GEN. STEPHEN KOPER (RET.), PRES., NATL. GUARD ASSN.: Mother Nature doesn't consult with the adjutant general and come ashore where all of his forces are. He has to be prepared to respond anywhere in the state.

STARR: Military sources confirm to CNN the Guard could be forced to trim 17,000 troops next year. The number of brigades could would be cut from 34 to 28. More than 200 Army National Guard armories and 14 Air National Guard units across the country could be eliminated. And what about the war in Iraq?

KOPER: By the Army's own testimony, they could not prosecute the conflict without the Guard and the Army Reserve. And so the consequence of making cuts at this stage of a shooting war just does not make any sense to us at all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: Carol, the proposed cuts are part of the army's budget plan next year. But clearly, Washington politics, critics of the plan are leaking details now in hopes of making sure Congress never approves it -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Barbara Starr live at the Pentagon, thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And now Miller time, in more ways than one. American sensation on the ski slopes Bode Miller is normally a no fear, no apologies kind of guy, a free spirit, savors life on the edge.

But the best U.S. skier in recent memory, and maybe ever, is digesting a little humble pie this morning, saying he's sorry for leading "60 Minutes" to believe he has raced downhill wasted. He had reason to fear this time, fear that the quip might send his career downhill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BODE MILLER, U.S. OLYMPIC SKIER: I want to come straight out and apologize to -- you know, mostly my family, friends.

O'BRIEN (voice-over): One of America's best bets for Olympic skiing gold on the edge as usual. This time, on a slippery PR slope. Bode Miller raised eyebrows this week when he told "60 Minutes" about his episodes of skiing while drunk, and suggested he might even do it again. Fans and sponsors expressed outrage, and suddenly his spot on the Olympic team was in jeopardy.

MILLER: Obviously, the message that came through was not something that I would promote, or that I'm about in any aspect of my sporting career.

O'BRIEN: Miller is not cut from the same straight-laced cloth as most ski racers. He is well-known as a free spirit, on and off the slopes. He once said athletes should only be tested for drugs that are dangerous to their health. He was born and raised in New Hampshire, home-schooled in a house without running water.

Reaction there to his mea culpa? A mixed bag.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know why the U.S. ski team would consider kicking him off the team anyway. They would be the losers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he has a strong performance in Torino, then he'll be able to put it behind him, people will forget about it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's great the fact he apologized, but you can't ski drunk, and that's wrong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Earlier on AMERICAN MORNING, I talked with John Meyer, who covers the Olympics and skiing for "The Denver post." He also is ghost writer for a column with Bode Miller for the past three years. I asked him about Miller's comments about skiing while under the influence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN MEYER, "DENVER POST": Well, if you take Bode at his word, he did not ski drunk. I spoke to him Sunday to do the column for this week, and he clarified that he has competed hungover before. He referred to a specific incident at the World Cup finals last year, which I could tell you about, if you're interested,, but he said he has never skied drunk.

If you take him at his word, he used the wrong word with "60 Minutes," because he used the word wasted. I mean, most people would interpret wasted as being drunk. So perhaps he could of chosen...

O'BRIEN: Of course the effects can be kind of similar if you've had a rough night, as we all know.

Does Bode Miller really owe anybody an apology, do you think?

MEYER: Well, I don't know that it's for me to say as a reporter covering the team. I'm told that he came to the conclusion by himself that he should apologize. The president of the U.S. skiing went to have a serious meeting about this, and I'm told that before he had a chance to explain -- or demand that Bode deal with this, Bode said here's what I'm going to say tomorrow, and that was fine. That's what they wanted to hear.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: So I guess that's the end of that chapter.

COSTELLO: It's not going to hurt his career. It's going to make him more popular.

O'BRIEN: Here's the thing, it's going to help his career. That's my prediction. He has a bunch of Nike ads coming out. Nike is not bailing out. Nike, as a matter of fact, kind of relishes this, you know, "bad boy within boundaries" image.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Look at these pictures just coming into us right now. This is from the city of New Orleans. And you see helicopters, the kind of thing you normally see for forest fire fighting. And what is burning there is some of the -- what do we say, 30 million garbage cans full worth of debris.

COSTELLO: Exactly.

O'BRIEN: That exists in the city of New Orleans. This in particular is an area that has some of the refrigerators. I saw this refrigerator pile when I was flying in a helicopter up New Orleans a couple of months ago. It is unbelievable. It is miles and...

COSTELLO: It's like a mountain.

O'BRIEN: It's a mountain, and they're all stacked along.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Can you say toxic, that smoke.

O'BRIEN: Well, that's just it. Think about what's in the refrigerator, the plastic and all that stuff. Now they do remove the freon before they put them in the dump. That was the one thing that they were doing was mitigating the freon issue. But still, it's plastic. But it's plastics, and so this is going to be a fire -- you know, you think of those tire fires that burn for years. This could be...

COSTELLO: This could be the refrigerator fire that burns for years.

O'BRIEN: The beat goes on, yes.

COSTELLO: We'll keep follow that.

We want to get back to a story now we've been following here on AMERICAN MORNING about a stubborn fellow down in the Florida swamps. Had a big spread in the Everglades and the state wanted it bad. They finally got him to take millions for it, but don't think for a minute that made him happy.

Here's more from John Zarrella.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jesse James Hardy didn't want the money. At 70 years old, there's not much, he says, he can do with it.

JESSE JAMES HARDY, FORMER SWAMP OWNER: Hell, I don't want to chase no women! I can't eat them big steaks anymore, them big dinners or anything.

ZARRELLA: But after three years fighting the state of Florida, it's over. He's been forced to take close to $5 million in exchange for his land, 160-acre spot in the middle of nowhere in the Everglades.

The state, under its eminent domain authority, is taking it for Everglades restoration. Thursday was Hardy's last day here in the place he's called paradise for three decades.

HARDY: Ain't that beautiful? Ain't that beautiful? You know, that's the Oscars.

I walk along the canal bank, and I see the otter and stuff swimming in the canal and all this. This is all fixing -- it's going to be over with for me.

ZARRELLA: To look at this place, it doesn't look like much, but it was everything to Hardy. Nestled in scrub pine and cabbage palms, he had a generator for power, propane to run appliances. He built his tin roof wooden home by hand.

HARDY: See that beam right there.

ZARRELLA (on camera): Right.

HARDY: See that there beam, see how big that beam is? That beam is bolted to that.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): Friends helped Hardy pack up 32 years of his life. All day he made runs up to his new house, brick and mortar, on less than three acres.

HARDY: This here, I don't want this damn place! That's $800,000 -- $800,000 for what? For what? they said Florida was overpriced. Take a good look. There it is, folks.

ZARRELLA: All Jesse Hardy wanted to do, he says, is finish out his life out there in the middle of nowhere.

HARDY: I watch TV out there. I took a shower out there. I didn't hear no sirens. I didn't hear nobody hollering. There was no traffic.

ZARRELLA: In exchange for his peace and quiet and his ponds stocked with catfish, Jesse James Hardy has a whole lot of money he never asked for.

HARDY: I had all -- everything I wanted.

ZARRELLA: John Zarrella, CNN, Collier County, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And differing opinions on this, because I think it's refreshing that someone would not want an $800,000 home. Andy, on the other hand...

SERWER: I think it's stupid someone doesn't want $5 million, but...

O'BRIEN: Money isn't everything, Andy Serwer.

SERWER: It's almost everything. But then again, I am a business person.

COSTELLO: It's almost everything.

(MARKET REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Coming up on the program. Look, up in the sky, it's a bird it's a plane, no, it's a coma. The coma of a comet. The Stardust Spacecraft will streak home over the weekend, perhaps unlocking some big mysteries of our solar system. Details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) O'BRIEN: If you're a police dispatcher working the graveyard shift in the Northwest U.S. this weekend, get ready for some wild calls about a UFO. It is not the war of the worlds, though. It's manna from heaven for astronomers who want to unlock mysteries of the solar system. We're talking about the return of the Stardust Spacecraft.

I asked our friend Jack Horkheimer, director of the Miami Planetarium, about the cosmic payoff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Thanks very much for being with us, Jack. Let's first of all, before we talk about what is in this spacecraft, which is very interesting on its own right, let's talk about how people will be able to see it. This will be essentially a streaking meteor and a lot of folks will get quite a show if they know where to look. Tell us where to look and when.

JACK HORKHEIMER, DIRECTOR, MIAMI PLANETARIUM: Well, you have to be in the Northwest part of America. Northern California, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Washington, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. And people out there should check their local paper to the last minute to get the last details or Google, as I always do, to get the very up- to-date last minute trajectory of this space capsule.

It will be very bright for about 90 seconds. In fact, it will be brighter than the brightest planet, Venus. And that is super bright. It will look like a very bright pink streak of light flashing across the sky.

And NASA is asking everyone and JPL to try to videotape this and photograph it from various locations so they can compare the brightness levels and the trajectory from various angles from all these different states.

It's going to be very exciting. I wish I could be there.

O'BRIEN: Oh, you're kind of on the wrong end of country, aren't you, there in Miami.

Let's show people exactly what's happening as this reentry capsule comes in and why it is such a streaky media. First of all, this is the rendezvous which occurred back in 2004 with the comet Wild 2. Looks like Wild II, but it's Wild 2.

And what happened was this -- it had, well, a little comet dust catcher on there, which captured some of the comets' tail. And that's the portion that is coming back. It's made of aerogel, which is the lightest substance that we know of. And on it, come backs. What is in that comet tail that is so interesting to scientists?

HORKHEIMER: Well, we have to really consider this an archaeological extraterrestrial expedition. It's really space archaeology. You see, four and a half billion years ago, when all the planets formed, comets also formed. But the planets have changed drastically many, many times over the periods of billions of years.

Comets are some of the few things we believe still contain the original unchanged pretty much stuff, the original stuff from the formation of the solar system. So if we can capture this stuff from the tail and from the head, the coma of the comet, and analyze it, we'll better be able to tell what kind of material in its original state was floating around the solar system just as the planets were being born, including our Earth.

O'BRIEN: Here's another interesting way people can participate, not just videotape the entry. They also can help analyze the data. I find this very intriguing. People can actually see the close-up pictures of what comes down and what is trapped in that sort of comet dust catcher and participate. Tell us about that.

HORKHEIMER: Well, this is ultimate hands-on space mission. If you go to the right Web site, you'll be able to download hundreds of thousands of pictures of these space particles that landed in the aerogel in the spacecraft. And NASA and J.P. Allen, the U.S. Air Force, want everybody -- as many people as possible -- to look at the pictures in specific ways and thus narrow down the research to make the research move faster along.

O'BRIEN: Jack Horkheimer, it's time for your signature tag line.

HORKHEIMER: Well, I hope that everyone, especially in Nevada, early Sunday morning, will remember to go outside and keep looking up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: I know you'd like to get a few specifics. I'm sorry here --I'm over with my telestrator. Go to the telestrator. Stay with me. Oh, there you go. All right, here we go.

Let's take a look at the image. This is the -- why don't you freeze it right about there? And I'm going to draw the time zone in for you. Go ahead and freeze it. Go ahead and freeze it. Thank you. All right, here is the division between Pacific and Mountain time. OK. That's Pacific and that's Mountain Standard Time.

Last time I did this, I did it wrong. My friend Jeff Marcie (ph), who's a great planet hunter, sent me an e-mail. He said the landing time is 2:12 Pacific, 3:12 Mountain. But really the time to start watching is the most important, about 20 minutes prior. So 1:50 a.m. Sunday Pacific, which is 2:50 mountain time. If you live along that Interstate-80 corridor out there, get up, go outside, wake the kids, phone the dog and check out Stardust.

COSTELLO: Phone the dog?

O'BRIEN: Check out Stardust.

COSTELLO: Fido?

O'BRIEN: Fido, check it out. Anyway. Monday on AMERICAN MORNING, we'll show you the pictures of that, which will be, I'm sure, good to see. All right, yes, take your video camera out. By all means, send us the video. And Golden Globes, as well. Streaking stars, Stardust, you see how this all comes together...

COSTELLO: That's a beautiful segue.

O'BRIEN: ... in segue synergy. Tune in Monday starting at 6:00 a.m. Eastern and we'll tell you all about the Golden Globe Awards, which are held that evening and delivered. And we'll give you a preview. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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