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American Morning

The Risk Journalists Take in Iraq; Iraqi Children Come to America for Life-Saving Heart Surgery

Aired January 19, 2006 - 08:30   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, it's a chip shot for space buffs. But do you know the answer? Before the break, we asked this, for those of you just tuning in. Who is the only U.S. president to be present at a shuttle launch? The answer is C, Bill Clinton. He and the former first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton were at the Kennedy Space Center for John Glenn's return to space in 1998. Ronald Reagan, incidentally, was there for the landing of the space shuttle ride of Sally Ride, the first woman -- U.S. woman to fly in space. There you have your space trivia.
I'm Miles O'Brien in New York. We're glad you're with us this morning. We're going to talk to Mike Mullane, who was in the same class of astronauts as Sally Ride. And within about two minutes about of meeting her, completely offended her, and she really hasn't talked to him since. We'll ask him about that and some other things about flying on the shuttle in just a little bit.

Soledad is in Washington this morning with -- after an impressive interview and a display of courage by the mother of that kidnapped journalist. Soledad?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, no question about that. The kidnapping of the American journalist Jill Carroll putting a spotlight, really, on the risks that journalists face in dangerous places.

And in that interview, I talked about the dangers of Baghdad with her mom, Mary Beth Carroll. She had a really interesting thing to say about the dangers. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY BETH CARROLL, DAUGHTER HELD HOSTAGE IN IRAQ: ... after being in Baghdad for two years that she knew what she was doing. She knew what the dangers were, she knew what the risks were. And she chose to accept those because what she was doing -- to communicate to the world the sufferings of the Iraqi people was important.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: That interview was seen on CNN nationally; CNNI, CNN International, as well, which, of course, is seen in every country in the Middle East and also is on our Web site at CNN.com.

Senior international correspondent Nic Robertson, you know a lot about the dangers, obviously, because you've been knee deep in many of these countries, Iraq specifically, for a long time.

You know, her mom almost describes it as a calling. Not to overinflate it, but that, you know, she had the sense she had to be there. The story was bigger than she is. Do you feel the same way as a journalist?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think a lot of journalists do. Baghdad is a dangerous place and you do have to evaluate and look carefully at the dangers. But it is a very, very important story.

I think most of the journalists that go there, all of them, feel that it's tremendously important to tell not just what's happening to the U.S. troops that are there, not just what's happening to the Iraqi people, but what is this country that's being rebuilt, what is its impact, how is it going to affect the world, how is it going to affect the United States, what's it going to do to the price of oil, what will it do to the economy.

So we all think on many levels that it is a very, very important story to tell and to be it there, despite those dangers.

S. O'BRIEN: So how dangerous is it, really? You know, people say it's incredibly dangerous. You obviously see and hear about kidnappings. And yet I've seen you on the streets of Baghdad walking around. You interview insurgents in that incredible interview that you did not too long ago. How dangerous is it, really, for you?

ROBERTSON: It's very dangerous and you should never, ever forget those dangers. And I think Jill's mother mentioned this, as well, that she didn't want her daughter to get complacent. And that's what you mustn't do there.

So whenever we go, even if we do those walk and talks on the street, it's always very carefully planned. We know where we're going, it's not in a really bad neighborhood. We've checked out the area before, we go at a time of day when it may be a little quieter. So it's -- we approach it very, very carefully. None of it is left to chance. You don't walk out of the building and just go and do something on the street.

S. O'BRIEN: How do you plan when you're doing an interview like you did with the insurgents? You're meeting with people who theoretically, it's not so hypothetical to think could in a moment grab you.

ROBERTSON: It's a real concern. I mean, you really don't know what's going to happen. Whenever they know specifically where you are, are they going to catch you there, are you going to ambush you on the way back? So again, you choose a location to meet where they will come to meet you, you will go to meet them, and both of you feel confident and comfortable about that location. But I think until you get back to base, you don't know if you'd been double-crossed or not. So it is a concern.

S. O'BRIEN: And when you talk to them and you say -- like Jill Carroll, here is an innocent young woman whose passion was to tell stories about the Iraqi people, has nothing to do with the government, has no dog in the war at all, in the race, so to speak. What do they say? They don't care?

ROBERTSON: We haven't asked them specifically about that question, but when you ask them about, you know, the impact and the deaths of Iraqis, they just don't care. They say, this is the cost of the war. And for them, a kidnapping could mean they can make a huge amount of money or they can publicize their cause. So, for them, they don't care. The people that are getting killed on the streets, people like Jill that have been kidnapped, just -- their lives are not important to these insurgents.

S. O'BRIEN: Hopefully her mom's plea has fallen on some ears that are listening. And I know Jill has a lot of friends in Iraq and maybe some have sway with whoever it is that's captured her and we'll hear good news on that front.

Nic, thank you very much. It goes without saying, be careful when you're out there, please.

(NEWSBREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Third time the charm for NASA? Weather conditions much better for the launch of the mission to Pluto today, as Chad just told you. The launch scrubbed yesterday and the day before, yesterday on account of bad weather in Maryland, where the control center is.

In any case, the New Horizon spacecraft will explore Pluto, assuming it gets there, and it will take almost a decade to do that. The launch is scheduled for 1:08 Eastern time. And you want to tune into CNN. We'll bring you launch coverage live on Kyra Phillips' LIVE FROM and I'll be there to help get new horizons on its way to Pluto.

While NASA aims for the edge of the solar system, the space agency is also aiming to get the space shuttle fleet flying again. The current thinking is they will have rectified those problems with the falling foam and be ready to launch in July.

Now, we mention this at a time when people at NASA are reminded of the risks of manned space flight. The Apollo I fire in 1967, the Challenger accident in '86 and Columbia three years ago all falling in this time of year.

One of the first people selected to fly the shuttle is Mike Mullane. He has a new book out. It's a very candid memoir of life inside the shuttle program called "Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut."

Joining us from -- actually he's in Birmingham, Alabama. I thought you were in New Mexico.

MIKE MULLANE, AUTHOR, "RIDING ROCKETS": Albuquerque.

M. O'BRIEN; You're in Albuquerque?

MULLANE: I'm in Albuquerque.

M. O'BRIEN: I'm so confused. They tell me Birmingham there, you're in Albuquerque there. You're sure you're in Albuquerque, right?

MULLANE: I'm positive I'm in Albuquerque. Good morning, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Mike, good to have you with us. Let's talk about this time of year. Let's start with the serious stuff for just a moment. I want to put up a couple images. This morning, we were -- we looked at this and I immediately said, oh, my gosh, that's Columbia. But, actually, it's not. And if you look there, this is Challenger. And if you look right in there, where I've highlighted there, that is the pretty much intact crew compartment of the space shuttle Challenger.

And, you know, of course, the parallels are so deep and so embedded in NASA between Challenger and Columbia. You were much more familiar -- obviously, you knew all those people very well on board Challenger. Do you have the sense that NASA is set up to repeat the same mistake again?

MULLANE: Well, first of all, you're right about the tragedy of Challenger. It affected me significantly. There were four people from my class of astronauts that were killed on Challenger, including Judy Resnik, who -- her and I flew together on our first, our rookie ride in 1984.

But I think the NASA -- everything I hear and read about the current NASA, certainly new NASA administrator Michael Griffin is saying the right things. I mean, he's admitted -- stood in front of Congress and said the shuttle is a flawed system, it has no crew escape system. He wants to fly it a minimum amount of times to complete our build out of the International Space Station, perhaps go up and visit Hubble space telescope and update that and then retire the vehicle and move on to the next rocket.

M. O'BRIEN: But as you well point out in this book -- and I think a lot of people woo are not totally plugged under to the shuttle aren't aware of this -- this is the only manned spacecraft ever devised without an escape for the crew. Is it safe to keep flying it? Wouldn't it be better just to move on to the next thing now?

MULLANE: Well, I mean, the reality is that you would have to abandon the space station if you did that. I think that the team, they have a great team there that is trying to make the shuttle as safe as humanly possible.

But, as Michael Griffin, again, the NASA administrator admitted, human perfection is impossible to attain. It's a complicated vehicle. Mistakes can be made. You know, so there is risk when they launch these things. And for the shuttle, the risk is significantly greater than what astronauts who flew earlier rocket space, because it lacks escape systems. The earlier astronauts riding on top of Atlases and Saturns, had an escape -- a tractor escape rocket that would pull the capsule away and parachute them to safety in the event of booster failure. On the shuttle, if there's a catastrophic failure, you're trapped. There's no ejection seats, no time.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. And as every astronaut will tell you, the astronaut prayer, they don't talk about necessarily being scared. They say dear lord, please don't let me be the one that screws up. It's a different story, though, for those who are left behind. You talk a lot about the impact on families and wives, in particular.

There's a couple of pictures here I want to show. This -- it's really in many respects -- I mean, because you're getting to do -- live out a dream. You're getting the thrill of a lifetime. There's your wife on the roof of the launch control center, sweating bullets with somebody beside her who is her "escort," quote, unquote. As she describes it, "escort into widowhood." What's it like for a family through all of this?

MULLANE: It is incredibly stressful for the family. I actually was one of these -- my wife called escort into widowhoods. One of the astronauts escorts on the roof of the LCC building. That's where the families watch the launch from. And it is -- you can just see the tremendous pressure that the wives, that the husbands, the children are under as they watch their loved ones ride that rocket.

It is very difficult in words to capture how terribly stressful that is. Everybody knows that a disaster could be at hand and they could be witnessing it. And that's why that escort, that astronaut escort, is there to make sure there is somebody right there.

M. O'BRIEN: You offer great insights. I want to go to this last picture as we talk about this. You offer great insights and rich color on the program, including -- there's a nice picture here of, you know, what is an astronaut do when he has to go to the bathroom on the launch pad? Depends. Depends, right? There it is. You wear a diaper.

MULLANE: Yes, embarrassed.

M. O'BRIEN: But you also talk about what I thought was most interesting. This culture crash between the right stuff world of, you know, days gone by, which you were more a part of and the sort of -- the Ph.Ds, which became a part of the astronaut core. And you conflicted in particular -- Sally Ride, for example, you told an off- color joke in front of Sally Ride, she barely talked to you. So it was a very interesting time to be in the astronaut office, wasn't it?

MULLANE: It was very unique dynamics there with the military Vietnam veterans and then you had post-doc civilians who basically had been permanent students in their lives. The six women that came in, quite an interesting mix in human dynamics. And the military males, certainly myself, were brain dead when it came to working with professional women. I was 32 years old when I walked into NASA and that was the very first time in my life I ever had to work with professional women. I went to West Point, no women, went to the Air Force, no women in the flying side. And so I didn't have a clue and most of the military people didn't have a clue on how to act around professional women, what was appropriate, what was inappropriate. And, as a result, it did not go down well. And, in fact, I ought to make a point here. This book is R-rated. This is not a children's book.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

MULLANE: I just want to make sure that...

M. O'BRIEN: I wanted to button it up. If you see it. You see on the book, you say riding rockets, oh, that would be good for Johnny. Don't do it. Believe.

MULLANE: Don't do it, no.

M. O'BRIEN: This is a real story. This reminds me of Walt Cunningham's book, "The All-American Boys," where he kind of, you know, talked of the Apollo era...

MULLANE: There's a little bit of that in there.

M. O'BRIEN: Mike, I wish you could tell more stories, but you'll have to get a book is. You'll learn what an A.D. is, and what TFNG stands for, among other things, just to give you a little tease for the book. It's a great read. You do a good job writing, Mike. And congratulations with the book. Once again, the title is...

MULLANE: Thank you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: My pleasure. "Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut." Mike Mullane is the author. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: This is a war story with a heart. The U.S. flexing its military and medical muscle so that four Iraqi children can live. They came to America in need of life-saving surgery and now their hearts are on the mend.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN (voice-over): On a cold December night, four children arrive at New York City's JFK Airport. They're smiling, but very sick. All these children need open heart surgery to save their lives, the kind of medical help that's virtually impossible to get in their native Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From all over Iraq...

S. O'BRIEN: Helping them is Marikay Satryano. She's an Army Reserve staff sergeant and sort of a commander for this mission, dubbed "Operation Iraqi Hearts."

STAFF SGT. MARIKAY SATRYANO, U.S. ARMY RESERVES: They came to us in Baghdad. They made their way there. It's not always easy, but through word of mouth, through other soldiers, people can find their way to the Iraqi Assistance Center and then they send their information to me. And then it's my job to go out and try to match these resources, such as with the Gift of Life.

S. O'BRIEN: Four small children, reams of red tape and a trip through Iraqi insurgent territory, to get from their homes in Iraq to a plane in Amman, Jordan, finally to Montefiore Children's Hospital in New York City. The Rotary Club's Gift of Life International is helping foot the bill. Montefiore Hospital, and the Rachel Cooper Foundation are picking up the tab, as well.

Dr. Samuel Weinstein of Montefiore is volunteering his services.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very happy to take care of his child.

S. O'BRIEN: There's 12-year-old Ashton (ph). Born with a hole in her heart, doctors say she could die of congestive heart failure before adulthood. She was strip-searched for five hours at the Iraqi- Jordanian border.

And Fivar (ph), the little 6-year-old with the infectious toothless grin, also has a hole in his heart and obstruction of blood going to his lungs. It makes him look a little bit blue, and so tired he'll often crouch down to catch his breath.

Assad (ph) is 14 years old with a heart defect so severe he looks much younger. It stunted his growth and prevented him from attending school for the past three years.

And Wsim, age 11, the most seriously ill, so sick he suffered seizures on the plane. Doctors weren't sure he'd survive the trip.

Dr. Weinstein is optimistic on all their results. Seventy-two hours after arriving in the United States, the children are prepped for surgery. Three days, four surgeries, all complex. Fivar's operation requires reconstruction of his heart. Ever smiling, he's rolled into surgery. For his father, it's difficult.

Three hours into surgery, Fivar suffers a cardiac arrest. Doctors need to use paddles to jumpstart his heart. The operation is a success.

DR. SAMUEL WEINSTEIN, DIR., PEDIATRIC HEART SURGERY: Everything looks great. He's already pink.

I think when you meet the fathers and the children you realize no matter what's going on around the world, that we're really all pretty much the same. The fathers have the same needs and wants for their children, the kids have the same wants and desires as our children. I think if we could see each other closer up like this, it would help with a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is breathing on his own.

S. O'BRIEN: Two weeks after surgery, that saves their lives, the joy is obvious as the children leave the hospital.

WSIM RABEA, 11-YEAR-OLD HEART PATIENT (through translator): I used to have too much pain in my chest. I felt heaviness, my heart very heavy. Now, I'm very comfortable, thank God.

S. O'BRIEN: And within three weeks of surgery, the children, once deathly ill, are being treated to the big apple circus in New York City. There a universal language is spoken -- laughter.

(on camera): What's in the bag, can I see? I've never seen a smile so big and so beautiful.

(voice-over): Big changes for the children physically, and for Ashton a new name.

(on camera): Is it true that she's changing her name? I understand it means sadness, and that she's changing it to joy, is that right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He says by the will of God, they will go ahead and change her name, because it does mean sadness.

S. O'BRIEN: These children will leave this country after putting their faith in the hands of complete strangers, strangers who saved their lives. And while the reality of what they may face when they go back to Iraq is always present, for this night, they're just kids having fun.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: Aston, and Fivar and Assad and Wsim are doing well. They're scheduled to return home on Saturday. If you want to make a donation, you can go to www.giftofoflifeinternational.org. We're going to repeat that in just a moment if you didn't get a chance to grab it.

Short break. We're back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Coming up, in case you missed it, Soledad sat down a little while ago with the mother of that kidnapped journalist, Jill Carroll, Mary Beth Carroll. I was just bowled over, Soledad, at her composure through all of that.

S. O'BRIEN: You know, what was interesting it me is she made it very clear that she and Jill had conversations about the possibility that Jill could be kidnapped. They both very much understood how dangerous Jill's chosen profession was, and I think it is now giving her great comfort to know that they have had a very clear conversation. Yes, and I think that's also, Miles, to your point, helping her feel very composed, because she knows she has a message for her daughter's captors, and she has a message for her daughter as well. We'll show you that whole interview in just a little bit this morning.

M. O'BRIEN: It was interesting, though, when she said, it's all been said. Don't worry, it's all been said.

All right, back with that in just a moment and back with much more after a break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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