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American Morning

Victory for Hamas Could Mean Defeat for Mideast Peace Process

Aired January 27, 2006 - 08:00   ET

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

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

A victory for Hamas could mean defeat for the Middle East peace process. The U.S. says no to negotiations. We are live at the White House.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Soledad O'Brien.

A small child saved. You can see her in this sort of grainy surveillance tape. How did a diligent bystander rescue the girl from her accused abusers? Do you see her right there?

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Her face is blocked out, but she's holding that red hat and she's sort of twirling around a little bit. A woman looked at this videotape, thought something was wrong -- it just didn't sit right with her -- and got in touch with authorities. Her story is quite remarkable.

M. O'BRIEN: I'm dying to talk to her.

And the search for suitable housing along the Gulf Coast. Another hitch in FEMA's trailer program ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome, everybody.

A dilemma at the White House to talk about.

That's where we start.

After the big win by Hamas in the Palestinian elections, two big administration principles are in conflict. The first, promoting democracy. And the second, refusing to deal with a group that the U.S. calls a terrorist organization.

Let's get right to Elaine Quijano.

She's live for us at the White House this morning -- Elaine, good morning.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad.

President Bush says the United States is watching the formation of the Palestinian government very carefully. In his first news conference of the year, President Bush praised the democratic process that took place, but he also did not mince words, saying that Hamas, which has pledged to destroy Israel, must renounce violence before the United States will deal with the organization.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't see how you can be a partner in peace if you advocate the destruction of a country as part of your platform. And I know you can't be a partner in peace if you have a -- if your party has got an armed wing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUIJANO: The president's careful language underscores the complexity of the situation as the United States tries to determine how best to deal with a democratically elected government led, in large part, by Hamas, which the United States has labeled a terrorist group.

Now, also at that news conference, the president outlined some broad themes of his upcoming State of the Union address. That is set to take place on Tuesday, of course. The president discussed the war on terror, the economy and health care. And as for today, Soledad, later this morning, in just a few hours, President Bush will be sitting down with Saad Hariri. He is the son of the former Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated last year -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Elaine, at that same news conference -- and maybe we have the videotape of this that we could roll while I ask this question -- you can see the president's talking and then suddenly this thing starts dangling ahead of him, right? And then, you know, it sort of comes in. And he clearly doesn't know what's going on.

People are obviously commenting and cracking up. Let's -- there it is. There we go. You know, something's swinging -- and there he sees it suddenly.

What was that like, Elaine?

I mean it was kind of an odd moment to see.

QUIJANO: Yes, an unscripted moment, for sure, Soledad. I'm not sure at this point if we want to actually hear how it all took place, because the president had just walked in, he had just begun with his opening statement and he was talking about living in momentous times.

And let's take a listen now to hear exactly how it unfolded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: First, I recognize that we live in a momentous time and -- for those of you watching, we seem to have a mechanical flaw.

QUESTION: That was an accident, right?

BUSH: Yes. Are you wearing your helmets?

QUESTION: Is that like renovation?

BUSH: Exactly. Yes. I'll take it up with the first lady.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUIJANO: So a light-hearted moment there, Soledad.

I guess funny if you were sitting on one end of the room. Perhaps a bit dangerous and scary if you were sitting directly underneath it but...

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

Yes, not quite so hysterical if you're the one right underneath that camera that's going back and forth on that little teeny weenie tether.

QUIJANO: Right. Exactly right.

S. O'BRIEN: That was pretty funny. And when someone talked about renovations, he said you've got to speak to the first lady about that.

QUIJANO: That's right.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Elaine Quijano at the White House for us this morning.

Elaine, thanks.

QUIJANO: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, you probably thought that Alito confirmation vote was a done deal. But it appears that contentious confirmation debate could get even nastier next week. That's because one leading Democrat is working hard to stop the v. And he is a man who may have his eyes on the Oval Office in 2008, which factors into all of this.

CNN congressional correspondent Ed Henry on Capitol Hill with more on that -- hello, Ed.

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

That's right, former presidential candidate and Democratic nominee John Kerry is racing back right now from Davos, Switzerland, where he was attending the World Economic Forum, trying to get back here to Capitol Hill to lead an eleventh hour filibuster of Judge Samuel Alito.

Kerry says he's standing on principle. Republicans say it is all about presidential politics. Regardless of where you come down on that, though, even Kerry's allies acknowledge this is an uphill fight and Samuel Alito still is very likely to be confirmed next Tuesday.

This plan was quietly hatched Wednesday right here in the Capitol, a private closed door meeting of Democratic senators. I'm told that Kerry, as well as Senator Edward Kennedy, spoke very strongly, urged their colleagues to filibuster this nomination, charging that Samuel Alito is far out of the mainstream on issues like abortion, presidential power.

But White House aide Steve Schmidt tells CNN they are very confident they have at least the 60 votes they need to cut off this filibuster, Schmidt adding he believes this is, in fact, about presidential politics, not about Alito.

All I can tell you, in fact, Kerry's allies say they think this is a golden opportunity for him to reinsert himself into the national conversation right now, whip up support among the left who are -- as you know, liberals are very concerned that the high court is now shifting to the right with Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.

But there's also a real political danger here. Kerry could turn off middle of the road voters. In fact, some moderate Democrats have already signaled they are not going to support this filibuster, they're going to be voting with the Republicans to break it off.

The bottom line, the test vote on the filibuster will come Monday night. Kerry is expected to lost that v. Then a final vote on confirmation for Samuel Alito coming Tuesday morning -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, so whether it is, you know, election resume padding or not, how serious is this talk in the Kerry circle about another run?

HENRY: I think it's pretty obvious that he's likely to run at this point. He's certainly not going to make a final decision now. He, like all of the other candidates on both sides of the aisle, are saying they'll wait until after the midterm elections this November.

But I think this is a clear signal Kerry is trying to whip up the left. He knows they're angry about the Alito nomination. They think that some other Democratic congressional leaders are not standing up to the White House. They may now turn to Kerry.

But there obviously are a lot of other Democrats, like Hillary Clinton, who may have other designs, as well -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. A little different political landscape this go around.

All right, Ed Henry on Capitol Hill, always a pleasure.

Thank you.

HENRY: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's get some headlines.

Carol Costello with that -- hello, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, Miles.

Good morning to all of you.

Two German engineers held hostage in Iraq are asking their government for help. This video is being played on the Arab television network Al Jazeera. Keep in mind, hostages are often forced to make statements like these. But on this tape, the men are asking Berlin to intervene for their release.

Today also marks one week since the deadline set for American journalist Jill Carroll. Her kidnappers threatened to kill her unless the United States released all Iraqi women in its custody.

President Bush is spending part of the day prepping for his State of the Union address on Tuesday. The pressure is on given his latest approval ratings. A new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll shows 58 percent of people surveyed consider his second term a failure. And when asked about Bush's entire presidency, 52 percent rate it a failure, while 46 percent say it's been a success.

The president also focusing today on the Middle East. In about three hours, he'll meet with the son of the slain Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. We're expecting to hear directly from the president in about an hour. Actually, an hour after that.

New complaints about the Medicare drug plan. It seems thousands of patients are being denied access to intravenous and oral drugs. According to the "L.A. Times," Medicare will pay for the actual medication, but not the medical supplies and care needed to administer them. So instead of getting care at home, patients are told to go to nursing homes and hospitals and some are skipping treatments altogether.

Medicare officials say they're addressing the problem.

Authorities have found their fourth tunnel just this month in the San Diego area going from Mexico to the United States, and this one is really sophisticated. It's a half mile long tunnel. It began near the Tijuana airport and ended in a warehouse in San Diego.

Look at that. It was built with comment floors, it had lights and it even had a ventilation system.

Officials say they found more than two tons of marijuana -- two tons of pot -- in there. The drug was packed in hundreds of brown packages, stacked about five feet high. So someone has been getting very rich for a very long time.

M. O'BRIEN: I think people would buy tickets for that burning.

S. O'BRIEN: Wow!

M. O'BRIEN: Whenever it occurs, huh?

S. O'BRIEN: That's an amazing tunnel, I mean if you think about it.

COSTELLO: Yes, you can barely stand up, but it's very sophisticated because the ventilation system allows you to breathe and stay underground for a long time.

S. O'BRIEN: Right. Right. It's -- I mean it's a big old tunnel.

Wow!

I'm surprised by that.

All right, Carol, thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Thanks very much.

Coming up, what would you do if you saw a little girl in a convenience store and she had a blank look on her face? Would you shrug it off? Pay the cashier and get in your car? Well, not the women you're about to meet. What she did saved a little girl from a nightmare.

S. O'BRIEN: Also ahead this morning, the road to recovery in the Gulf Coast. Why is FEMA putting folks up in trailers that cost more than a big old apartment?

M. O'BRIEN: And later, remember the Challenger crew 20 years after the shuttle disaster? We'll ask the widow of the Challenger commander about life after the tragedy.

Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: In Alabama, a woman acts on her gut instinct and it leads to the arrest of a sex offender and it releases a little girl from hell.

Tracie Lee Dean saw a 3-year-old girl in a convenience store -- look in the mid right part of your screen. We've blotted her face, protecting her identity. But if you could see that face, you would probably agree with Tracie Lee that there was something not right, a blank look. And she persuaded -- and this was a lot of persuasion -- the police to check out the store's convenience surveillance tape. And that ultimately led to the arrests of two people now accused of sexual abuse on that little girl.

Tracie Lee now joins us.

Tracie Lee Dean, you did a great thing. And it's not a pure happy ending story, because she was the victim of such terrible abuse.

But let's go back to that moment, because I think a moment like that would be very easy to dismiss as just a kid being a kid.

What was it about this little girl that sort of stuck with you? TRACIE LEE DEAN, HELPED SAVE 3-YEAR-OLD GIRL: Well, the fact that she was alone in a convenience store. A small child alone in a convenience store is a red flag. But also just when I said hi to her, it was just that connection. When she said hi back, which I still -- the only thing that really concerned me was that she was alone.

So when she went around the store and came back to me, you know, I asked her, "Does your mommy work here?," because I thought surely her mom must work here if she's alone in this store. She seems like she comes in here a lot or something.

And that's when the man from across the room, you know, said, "Elizabeth." And he walked over and said, "Are you trying to find a new mommy?"

And those words just...

M. O'BRIEN: Wow!

That was a...

DEAN: ... stuck.

M. O'BRIEN: That would, yes.

DEAN: That wasn't a warm...

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

DEAN: It wasn't a statement that seemed warm or friendly. She seemed tense. He seemed tense. And I was just in the middle.

M. O'BRIEN: Right.

That is unusual. And, you know, it's not that you're trained to look for the signs of this with children. So this is just your -- are you a mother?

DEAN: No.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes?

DEAN: No.

M. O'BRIEN: OK.

DEAN: I have a motherly instinct, though.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes? Yes?

DEAN: And I work with a children's charity, a homeless children...

M. O'BRIEN: OK, so you know about...

DEAN: ... homeless children. M. O'BRIEN: You know what...

DEAN: ... in Georgia.

M. O'BRIEN: ... with kids...

DEAN: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: ... how they should react.

OK. So the next step was to, what, did you pick up the phone and call 911 immediately or?

DEAN: No, actually when I went to leave the store, she had gone right to the front door and had both hands on the front door. And I realized -- she was up under me -- and I realized that she thought she was going with me.

M. O'BRIEN: Really?

DEAN: And she wouldn't let go of the door and I wouldn't let go of the door. And the man said, "You can let go of the door now."

So when I got in my car I thought she was trying to leave with me. So I drove around and got his license plate, put it in my navigation system and realized that Washington State was nearly 3,000 miles away.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow!

So?

DEAN: So then I called 911.

M. O'BRIEN: So you called 911. And did you -- was it difficult to persuade them that something was wrong here?

DEAN: I mean it wasn't difficult. I just gave them the facts. I gave them the location, the time, what they were wearing, what they looked like, what happened, the license plate number. And, you know, they called back five minutes later and said this tag was registered to a 2001 Honda, which he was in an older model Suburban. And then they called back five minutes later and said it was the grandfather, everything checked out fine.

M. O'BRIEN: Huh.

DEAN: And I said what about the tag? And she said everything checked out fine.

M. O'BRIEN: So what happened then?

DEAN: Well, I wasn't buying it, you know, because when I got back to Atlanta, I looked at my cell phone and basically I made a three minute 911 call and then there were only nine minutes remaining for them to basically either go to the convenience store or pull the man over and identify that this was his granddaughter, which I just didn't think was possible.

M. O'BRIEN: Right. So?

DEAN: So I got on the Web site, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and I typed in, you know, brown hair, brown eyes, between the ages of four and seven. And I found a girl that it appeared to be and then contacted the Missing, you know, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I called them and I gave them every detail that I gave 911.

M. O'BRIEN: And they were the ones that were able to ultimately lead to this arrest? Is that?

DEAN: No. No, no, no. They...

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, there's more to it?

DEAN: Yes. They said they would get the tip right out to the detective. The next day, I called the detective myself. It was Martin Luther King Day so he wasn't in the office. So I called America's Most Wanted. I gave them the same tip. The following day I called the detective because he was in the office on Tuesday. I gave him all the information. He had not received either one of my tips from America's Most Wanted or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He never asked for my name or phone number and -- but he told me he would get the tip from those two places and follow up.

But I didn't feel like anyone was taking me seriously.

M. O'BRIEN: So you kept going?

DEAN: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: You kept going.

When did you finally get some action?

DEAN: On Wednesday night I typed a long e-mail to America's Most Wanted, asked to please C.C. John Walsh on that e-mail, because I felt -- I said shame on you all, no one is paying attention to me. And on Thursday, I finally called the Alabama Bureau of Investigations and got the Division of Missing and Exploited Children and told them, urged them, begged them to please get either the little red cowboy hat with her fingerprints or the surveillance video to compare it to this child.

They told me they were not able to do that without a court order and so I told them to get a court order because that was their job.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow!

DEAN: And...

M. O'BRIEN: So finally...

DEAN: So I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. I couldn't get return calls. People started avoiding my phone calls.

So I called the gas station and went to the gas station and said can I come? And they said under the circumstances, we will allow you to.

I grabbed two girlfriends. We drove 289 miles back to the gas station.

Officer Brian Davis from the Conecuh County Sheriff's Department happened to walk in while we were viewing those tapes. And he was the first person that said wait a minute. What? He's like a child is involved? I didn't know anything about this.

He immediately sprang into action, called his boss. Five policemen showed up, wrote a report and they were on their way to find this man.

M. O'BRIEN: But this took -- this was much more effort than it should have been. It reminded us this morning, you remember Shasta Groene? Do you remember that story from over the summer?

DEAN: No, I'm sorry.

M. O'BRIEN: A little girl who was taken from her home in Idaho. And ultimately there was a picture.

DEAN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: You see this picture right here. And she was in a convenience store. Ultimately she was saved by a waitress at a restaurant. But she had that same kind of vacant look.

Why was it so difficult? What does this tell you about the system that is designed to protect children?

DEAN: Well, it tells me that while I have the opportunity, I need to be here telling every single person I can this story because, you know, if you're the mother or the relative of a missing or exploited child, you need to be very in tune with every single tip that comes in. And there was a break down somewhere in the system that these tips did not get to the appropriate person and that someone wasn't able to obtain a court order to go and look at this videotape.

I would have been very easily proved wrong within a matter of an hour, but it took me four days and myself and a couple of friends to prove myself right.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow!

DEAN: And Brian Davis, you know? And he didn't sleep that night. He couldn't find the man. He couldn't sleep. So the next morning he called and said Tracie, we will find this guy. And two hours later he called me back and he had found him.

M. O'BRIEN: Great job.

DEAN: So I give him a lot of credit, too.

M. O'BRIEN: You could have been a police officer or a private investigator.

DEAN: My dad and my uncle were retired policemen.

M. O'BRIEN: There you go. It's in your blood.

DEAN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Tracie Lee Dean, fantastic work, police work.

DEAN: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: And I hope everybody is listening to all of this.

DEAN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: And next time when they get a call like this, they will take some action.

DEAN: Thanks.

M. O'BRIEN: Thanks for being with us.

DEAN: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Back with more in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: A real shocker from Oprah Winfrey. Not backing the James Frey book, "A Million Little Pieces," anymore. First, she apologized to her show. Then she sort of got right to the author and let him have it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM )

OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers and that bothers me greatly. And so now as I sit here today, I don't know what is true and I don't know what isn't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: The lies and inconsistencies in the book were exposed by the Web site, The Smoking Gun.

William Bastone is one of the founding editors.

Nice to see you.

WILLIAM BASTONE, THE SMOKING GUN: Good morning. S. O'BRIEN: We should mention, a corporate cousin, because you're owned by Time Warner Center, in part, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Vindication? There's a question that Oprah asked that directly involves you and your company.

BASTONE: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's listen to what she says first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WINFREY: First of all, I wanted to start with The Smoking Gun report titled, "The Man Who Conned Oprah." And I want to know were they right?

JAMES FREY, AUTHOR: I think most of what they wrote was pretty accurate. Absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: What you wrote was that the bulk of what he claimed about his law enforcement experience -- being in jail -- was a lie.

BASTONE: Sure. Yes, I mean he said most of it. All of it was correct. I mean we don't -- we weren't looking for him to vindicate that. I mean when we posted the story almost three weeks ago, we knew it was accurate. We showed everyone the documents. Every person we spoke to was on the record in the story.

So there was no doubt about the accuracy of it. It just, I think it's taken him a bit of time to finally acknowledge that.

S. O'BRIEN: It took Oprah a bit of time, too. The last we heard from her, she was on "LARRY KING LIVE" and she was saying, essentially, you know, this is a lot of tempest in a teapot. The message resonated and that's what's important.

She has changed 180 degrees.

BASTONE: Well, I don't think ever in her career she's been the subject of negative editorials in the "New York Times," in the "L.A. Times," in the "Boston Globe" and found herself on the end of criticism from major columnists across the country and small papers across the country. And I think she stepped back and realized, you know what? They're right. And I mean I -- and there was a lot of people who were writing into her Web site on the Oprah.com message boards who were very upset with her and thought she was essentially abetting a liar. And they didn't want to stand for that.

S. O'BRIEN: I thought on the show she was upset. I mean she clenched her fists the whole -- she was near tears a couple of times and she was so angry. Let's listen to a little bit of what she said about that phone call to Larry King not long ago.

BASTONE: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: We don't have that sound bite.

Well, anyway, she gets -- what she said, and really, right at the top of the show, was, "This has been very embarrassing to me. I deeply regret leaving the impression that I did from the "LARRY KING" show that the truth doesn't matter because it does."

What do you think of James Frey's admissions, or lack of, in some of this?

BASTONE: Well, I mean we'll see whether the story continues from here. I think he hasn't -- he still hasn't been entirely truthful about a wide array of things in his first book and he never really addressed a lot of stuff in the second book. Whether he ever is going to do that, again, or whether that session with Oprah has kind of scared him off of doing that again, we'll see.

But I think that, you know, when it came down to it yesterday, he said -- she asked him, "What else in the book is fake?"

And he sat there and he thought and the only thing he could come up with was that when he left rehab, in the book he said he was accompanied by two people when, in fact, it was one person. That was all he could come up with. And...

S. O'BRIEN: Which I think are the kind of admissions people actually would, you know, let go in a memoir, you know, as sort of irrelevant.

BASTONE: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Was there anything in this show, Oprah's show, that surprised you, that you didn't know?

I know your investigation focused, really, on the things that you could track down, like the prison time and things like that, and charges.

BASTONE: Sure. Well, I mean, I think what was unfortunate is that he had the chance on a couple of occasions to actually answer some substantive questions about one of the main characters in the book, her demise, that he avoided. And I think that's because some of the characters don't really exist in real life.

He's had opportunities to provide people with records that could substantiate a lot of the stuff that he claims went on while he was in rehab. He's turned down our requests. He's turned down the requests from the "New York Times."

S. O'BRIEN: Do you think he's lying about all the rehab stuff, too? BASTONE: Well, I think he was in rehab. But I think that that was a jpg off point for these flights of fantasy about what happened there and what happened to him subsequently.

He was in rehab and then pretty much everything else, I think, is...

S. O'BRIEN: Not quite true.

BASTONE: You can't trust any of it.

S. O'BRIEN: Is your story, "The Man Who Conned Oprah," still on your Web site?

BASTONE: Yes. We put it back on the front page of our Web site.

S. O'BRIEN: I've got to tell you, that is an excellent read. Anybody who has an interest in this story needs to look at this, "The Man Who Conned Oprah," from Thesmokinggun.com.

BASTONE: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: A fantastic story.

William Bastone is one of the founding editors of that Web site. And, again, a corporate cousin of ours, owned by Time Warner -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Soledad.

Coming up, why is FEMA paying $3,300 a month to put Katrina victims up in a tiny trailer when it could be renting out huge apartments for a whole lot less?

And later, he's the one they call the Sundance Kid. We'll show you how a small town guy made it really big at the Sundance Film Festival, with a little bit of help from mom, dad and about 16,000 good friends. The story is ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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