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American Morning

Gitmo Realities; Melting Arctic; Wayward Whippet

Aired February 17, 2006 - 07:30   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: You're watching AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Do you see her? I don't see her.

ZAIN VERJEE, CNN ANCHOR: She's not there.

MILES O'BRIEN: I'm looking for Vivi.

VERJEE: No.

MILES O'BRIEN: I don't think she's made it across into Manhattan.

VERJEE: Poor Vivi.

MILES O'BRIEN: Vivi, the whippet. The whippet of great value, by the way.

VERJEE: $50,000.

MILES O'BRIEN: You know, as an owner of mutts, I love my mutts, but this is a dog that you can love and also have some value. Was at the Westminister Dog Show, big deal. And a tarmac incident. Managed to get out of her cage. We don't know where she is. We're going to talk to the owners in just a little bit . . .

VERJEE: We will.

MILES O'BRIEN: And see what do you do if you see Vivi. She can run at 25 miles an hour. You've got to know what to do.

VERJEE: Let's check in with Carol Costello and get a check of the headlines.

Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a little bit of trauma in Jacksonville, Florida. Take a look at this massive pileup. This is on a stretch of I-295. That's the highway around Jacksonville. It is shut down in both directions. We're hearing at least one person died in this mess. Seven other people were hurt. The incident apparently started when a tractor-trailer stopped in the middle of a highway, possibly due to the fog. Police say the cleanup is far from over. So if you're driving in rush hour this morning in Jacksonville, oh, take it easy and find another route. Former President Bill Clinton condemning those cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. He says Muslims have the right to protest peacefully. Clinton is in Pakistan surveying relief efforts after last year's massive earthquake. The cartoon sparking a new protest, though, in southern Pakistan. Security forces used tear gas to try to disburse the crowd. We also heard a Muslim cleric is offering a $25,000 reward for killing any cartoonist responsible.

Terror suspect Jose Padilla due in a Miami courtroom just about two hours from now. He's going to ask a judge to release him on bail. Padilla is challenging his pretrial detention. He's been held since June 2002 as an enemy combatant until he was finally charged three months ago with aiding al Qaeda. Prosecutors opposed bail saying Padilla is a danger to the community and a flight risk.

Some troubling news for women who use the birth control patch. A new study suggesting women on the patch are twice as likely to develop blood clots as those who take the pill. The study was financed by Ortho-Evra, the company that makes the patch.

And remembering Dale Earnhardt. Racers and fans at Daytona will mark the fifth anniversary of the legendary driver's fatal crash. Nascar executives announced they will honor Earnhardt with a new memorial called the Wall of Fame. It is set to be unveiled during the first lap of Sunday's season opening race. And man, Zain, it's sure to be emotional. Many people still miss him so much.

VERJEE: Carol Costello, thank you.

The U.N. is saying America tortures prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, that the detainees should get trials and that the center should be closed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: One cannot detain individuals for -- in (INAUDIBLE) and that they have to be -- charges have been to be brought against them and be given a chance to explain themselves. And prosecuted, charged or released I think is something that is common under any legal system. And I think sooner later there will be a need to close the Guantanamo.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERJEE: The Guantanamo Bay detention center is shrouded in secrecy. One person who's been there though is NPR's Jackie Northam and she joins us now from our Washington bureau.

Thanks for being with us, Jackie. You know, as I say, you've been there. And information, obviously, really difficult to come by. But from what you can tell us, are prisoners there being mistreated, tortured?

JACKIE NORTHAM, NPR NATL. SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly the number of times that I've been in Guantanamo, you would never ever see anything like that. And of course the administration and the Pentagon say no prisoners are treated inhumanely, there's no degradation, there's no abuse, there's no torture. It's simply interrogation tactics that they need to try and get information out of these prisoners.

There's about 500 prisoners there. We don't have an exact number. But, you know, many of them have been held there for four years. And this is one of the things that have led to this report. Saying, look, they either have to be tried in a competent court or just release them. And at the end of the day, really the U.N. report is calling for the closure of Guantanamo.

VERJEE: You're in quite a unique position because you have been there. Give us a sense of what it was like, what you had a chance to see and observe.

NORTHAM: Well, you know, I've been there about six times now and I do the standard tour, frankly, where you go. They take you through Camp Delta, which is where most of them are housed right now. You can't talk to any of the prisoners whatsoever. They let you get a closeup look at them and really the minimum security part of that prison and they're out playing soccer and that type of thing.

But these are really closely tailored tours that you get. At one point we were allowed to see an interrogation. And it was only after several people, journalists have been on that -- during that interrogation, watching the same thing, that we realized that it was the same two people, the interrogator and the prisoner, and we started to think, well maybe this was all sort of made in Hollywood for us. We don't know.

But again, you only see what the military wants you to see down at Guantanamo. It's very much a closed shop.

VERJEE: In spite of that, with what you were able to see, even seeing the prisoners at some distance, what were your impressions?

NORTHAM: Well, you know, Guantanamo is an extremely disturbing place and it's things that they don't really want you to see but sometimes you do down there. For example, one time we were doing a tour of Camp Delta. And when you walk in, there's many, many doors and chains you have to go through. And lined up outside where things that looked pretty much like baseball gear. There was leg pads. There was helmets. There were everything like this.

VERJEE: Right.

NORTHAM: And what those were, were put on when they try and extract prisoners out of the cells. And this is a team of five people that go in there. And if a prisoner doesn't want to get out, they send these team into these very small cells with all this riot gear on essentially and pull them out. So it's that type of thing that is quite disturbing. You don't know. You never see it but you know it's going on.

VERJEE: Right. Well the U.N. report is saying, look, you know, here's what's going on. There's excessive forces that's being used during transportation. They're force-feeding detainees through nasal tubes when they're on hunger strikes. There's shackling. There's chaining. Hooding of prisoners. Threatening them with dogs.

The U.S. is saying, look, how can the U.N. say that, they haven't even been there to interview these people. What do you think the American people should take away from all of this? What should they understand about Guantanamo Bay?

NORTHAM: Well certainly I wouldn't want to speak for the American people collectively by any stretch. The administration did offer the U.N. to go down there. Initially it balked for about a year and a half the Pentagon didn't want them down there. Then they said, you can go down but you cannot talk privately to any detainee.

And so yesterday when the report came out, the administration said, look, you know, all they've got is second-hand information. They've talked to prisoners who have been relaxed who might have an ax to grind. They talked to lawyers for detainees's that are currently still being held. They're using old news reports, not that that's bad. That type of thing. So they don't have firsthand information. That's what the administration is saying. And they're quite right.

But, you know, there has been enough disturbing -- there's been enough reports, even Pentagon reports, that have come out that are worrying about, you know, the interrogation tactics there. That type of thing. So I wouldn't want to speak again for the American public but, you know, they are calling for the closure and they are saying give these guys their day in court or let them go.

VERJEE: Is there any chance the U.S. would close Guantanamo?

NORTHAM: I don't think so any time soon. The last time I was down there was about six months ago and they had just broken ground on the new psychiatric hospital for the prisoners. They were building a new hard-wall prison, unlike the chain link type of cells that they have now. And they have just finished a huge intelligence headquarters and it was up and running.

You know where the soldiers are kept, that type of thing, that's all being beefed up and made better. There's windmills that create electricity for the base. There is really no sign that this place is closing down any time soon.

VERJEE: Some good perspective on Guantanamo Bay from NPR's National Security Correspondent Jackie Northam, who's been to Gitmo six times. Thank you.

NORTHAM: Thank you.

VERJEE: Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: Another piece of troubling evidence on the whole notion of global warming and climate change, might be happening faster than we originally thought. A new study which just came out yesterday in "Science" magazine, which is a peer review journal. Scientists look at these things very closely. They carry a lot of weight. Eric Renyo (ph) is the lead researcher on it. He works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA. And the whole notion of Arctic ice caps and the Antarctic ice cap perhaps melting faster is what we're talking about.

First I want to tell you -- show you what we're talking about, first of all. If you want to find water in the world, where would you look? Let's take a look at our globe there. You might think, well, we go here. Here's the water. Well the truth of the matter, that's salt water.

If you want to look for fresh water, where would you look? The Great Lakes? No. Let's start with Antarctica. If you take the glaciers, which sit on top of land in Antarctic, in some cases the ice there is two miles thick. And then let's go up to Greenland and take a look at the glaciers there. In many cases as thick or getting close to that thickness. Combined, 70 percent of the fresh water in the world is in glaciers which sit on land. If all of that were to melt, it would rise sea level 230 feet.

Here is what the researchers are finding, though, as we take a look at Greenland. Of course, Greenland was named as a bit of a joke. Nothing green about it. As we zoom in on Greenland, you'll see what we're talking about there with the glaciers there. They are calving, or shedding or melting faster than we had initially anticipated.

And take a look at this imagery from our NASA satellite. And there's what we're talking about. We're not talking about glaciers that are in the water already, because that's like ice cubes in your water. As they melt, that doesn't change the overall water level. This is ice that sits on land and, as it melts, drops into the sea and it creates the problem of rising sea levels.

Now, originally scientists thought that we'd have a foot and a half rise in sea level over the next century. That doesn't sound like much, but that represents a tremendous loss of property and potential implications to the climate.

Let's look and explain to you why this is a little more subtle, a little more interesting. If we could go to the animation showing the global sea currents and give you a sense of what that's all about. Next, let's get into that animation. There you go.

Now anybody see the movie "Day After Tomorrow"? There's the counterintuitive notion that global warming leads to a chill down. Let me explain what's going on here.

As you look at these. These are sea currents. And there's a conveyor belt motion which sends warm temperatures, warm sea area up here. That's what keeps London and Europe warmer than they would be. Look how far north they are. They're way up above Maine and Newfoundland and yet they have temperate weather there.

And what happens is, as that fresh water, cold water, comes off those ice packs there, it gets in the way and throws a blocking motion to this conveyor belt. The conveyor belt, if it shuts down, could put Europe into an ice age.

Now we've had ice ages before, 20,000 years ago, it happened because fresh water, we think, was -- it got in the way of some of these natural ocean currents. That lowered sea level significantly during the ice age. The last time there was a natural warming event, the seas were up 18 feet above what we know now.

Here's the big issue. How much are we contributing to all of this by adding fossil fuels, carbon gases into the atmosphere? It creates a kind of blanket effect. It allows sunlight in, the heat, but traps that radiant heat inside like a greenhouse. There you have the greenhouse effect. And there's a lot of talk about what we should be doing about it perhaps now.

Bonnie Schneider, take it away. Let's talk weather.

(WEATHER REPORT)

VERJEE: Andy is "Minding Your Business."

What do you have coming up?

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I am, Zain.

Is XM Radio out of cash? Will Oprah get stiffed? Plus, the juggernaut that is myspace.com goes wireless. We'll explain coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: Now let me just ask you this. I've wondered this often. If you wear mascara, are you an American idiot?

SERWER: No.

VERJEE: No.

MILES O'BRIEN: It's OK to wear it?

SERWER: He's pointing fingers.

MILES O'BRIEN: Oh, he's pointing fingers?

SERWER: Yes, he is.

MILES O'BRIEN: Not back at himself?

SERWER: No.

MILES O'BRIEN: OK. No, I'm a big fan . . .

SERWER: Big fan.

VERJEE: Of mascara?

SERWER: Of Green Day. MILES O'BRIEN: Of Green Day, not mascara.

VERJEE: Ah.

MILES O'BRIEN: Let's -- XM, not static at all.

SERWER: XM. Well, a little bit, though, Miles. You know XM and Sirius are both spending tons of money trying to build up market share. Carrie Lee (ph) called it a land grab earlier in the program, and she's right.

Now what's happening is that XM Radio, a director quit yesterday saying they're facing a cash crisis and if they don't cut their spending, they could be in big, big trouble. The company lost $268 million in the most recent quarter. That's up from $188 million. They're spending $89 per person to try to get them to be a customer. That's up from $64. It's not so bad. It would take seven months to recoup it because it costs $12.95 a month.

Still, you know, you have to wonder, are these companies ever going to make any money? And this is one of these situations where it's great to be a customer. I don't know about being an investor.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes.

SERWER: You know, I mean it's great to use the service, but would you want to own it?

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, it remains to be scene. There's probably only room for one of them now, right?

SERWER: Could be. Yes, although, I . . .

MILES O'BRIEN: I mean, ultimately, don't you think it will do one of those hockey stick deals, right?

SERWER: Yes, I wonder if -- I mean then you face potential anti- trust problems if you only have one. But interesting to see whether they compete with other radio companies or not.

VERJEE: Myspace.com going wireless is another big story today.

SERWER: It is a big story, Zain, thanks. And myspace is a juggernaut. If you have kids or know young people or if you are a young person, how about that, this is one of the biggest Web sites out there in terms of traffic. And owned by News Corps, which is owned by -- controlled by Rupert Murdoch. They are going to be going to phones now. Wireless service.

MILES O'BRIEN: Oh, great.

SERWER: So you don't have to do it on your PC. You can have it on your phone.

VERJEE: It's too much information.

SERWER: It's controversial.

VERJEE: I mean you guys are parents. Do you worry about that?

SERWER: I do.

MILES O'BRIEN: If you're a parent, you should know about this. Because if your child is putting their information out there, it is a dangerous thing.

SERWER: You're supposed to be 16 years old to use it, but younger people do use it. And, you know, then there's problems with stalkers and Rupert Murdoch acknowledged that yesterday. Not yesterday, recently. It's a very contentious thing.

VERJEE: Andy, thanks.

SERWER: You're welcome.

MILES O'BRIEN: Thank you, Andy Serwer.

Coming up on the program, from the vice president's hunting accident to the blistering House Katrina report, you might say it's been a rough week for the president. We'll take a look at what he can do to get things back on track.

Plus, the formal search for Vivi is over but the wayward whippet is still missing. What do her owners do now? One of them will be with us in just a little bit on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: Where in the world is Vivi, the whippet? The champion show dog was at the Westminister Dog Show just the other day. On her way back home to California, there was a little incident on the tarmac as she was being loaded aboard a Delta Airlines plane. Somehow she broke free of her sky kennel and off she went toward the swampy areas near John F. Kennedy Airport here in New York City. Paul Lepiane is Vivi's co-owner, along with Jil Walton.

Paul, welcome to the program. You must be worried sick right now.

PAUL LEPIANE, CO-OWNER OF LOST DOG: Yes. We've had a break because the weather's been relatively mild. But tonight it's supposed to get really cold. So that's what we're most concerned about.

MILES O'BRIEN: So today will be an important day.

LEPIANE: Very important.

MILES O'BRIEN: What is the strategy? We're talking -- and just to give people a sense, I think we have zoomed in on some of our satellite imagery with our Google map. John F. Kennedy airport is a 5,000 acre facility. Obviously she's not on the airport. They would have seen her by now. She's -- there's a swampy area right there. As you can see, Jamaica Bay not far away there, obviously. And if she made her way into that swampy area, it's going to be difficult to find her, right?

LEPIANE: Right, because a heavily wooded area sort of on the Rocaway (ph) Boulevard side of the airport. And we're just hoping she's hiding in there somewhere and, you know, will come out today.

MILES O'BRIEN: And this heavily wooded area is not so swampy. So there's dry land.

LEPIANE: Correct.

MILES O'BRIEN: She could presumably stay warm.

LEPIANE: Correct.

MILES O'BRIEN: You know, I've known some whippets over the year. They don't have a lot of fur. They have very thin skin. They're not hearty -- this is the opposite of a husky would be a whippet, right?

LEPIANE: Exactly. Exactly.

MILES O'BRIEN: So how does she do in the cold?

LEPIANE: Well, down into the 40s, like it was the last couple of nights, that's cold but she would be OK. But below freezing would be really treacherous. And they're only about 30, 35 pounds, so there's not a lot of body mass there.

MILES O'BRIEN: Exactly. Now she has a sweater on or did.

LEPIANE: She did but it was just -- had velcro fasteners, so it's probably come off by now.

MILES O'BRIEN: So who knows. Probably long -- and she -- when a whippet is scared, first of all, they can move very quickly.

LEPIANE: Yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: These are kind of like Greyhound cousins, right?

LEPIANE: Like small cousins, right.

MILES O'BRIEN: Can move 25 miles an hour.

LEPIANE: Easily.

MILES O'BRIEN: So if you start, you know, doing the math on that, she could be any number of places.

LEPIANE: Right. Right. I think just because of the water surrounding JFK and the secure fencing, she's probably still in that vicinity.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes. So what's the strategy then? How are you going to go about it today? Are you foot soldier, you going to hire some helicopters, infrared? There's all kinds of ways to go about it. LEPIANE: Right. They've been using all those tactics so far. Today we hope to get some search and rescue dogs out there to go into the wooded area and sniff her out. If that -- if we can't get that organized, I want to place lots of like cans of cat food, something with a lot of odor, all along the perimeter fence so maybe she'll come out with that smell. So we're hoping to flush her out today.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes. And she's worth a lot of money, isn't she?

LEPIANE: Yes, but it's hard to put a price on it. And it's Jil, the co-owner's, only dog and it's her house pet. She's with her 24 hours a day. So how do you put a value on that?

MILES O'BRIEN: So it's really not just a show dog . . .

LEPIANE: Right.

MILES O'BRIEN: This is a member of the family to her?

LEPIANE: Oh, totally. Totally.

MILES O'BRIEN: How did it happen? How could she possibly have gotten out of the cage? There was a lock on it, right?

LEPIANE: Well, a latch. It wasn't paddocked.

MILES O'BRIEN: Right. One of those squeeze latches that you're more familiar with.

LEPIANE: Yes. And she has traveled in that crate a lot. She was flown in that crate a lot. And all we know is we checked her in at 9:45, Jil did, and everything was fine. Jil was waiting on the plane and at noon, right before the plane was due to take off, they notified her the crate was there but there was no dog in it.

MILES O'BRIEN: Wow. So no one knows.

LEPIANE: We don't know. And there was a port authority policeman followed her for a while and saw her go through a break in the fence out into the marshlands.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. Is there a chance there was any malicious foul play involved in all this?

LEPIANE: We don't know.

MILES O'BRIEN: You don't know.

LEPIANE: We just don't know.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right, quickly, if somebody should see this dog, what do they do?

LEPIANE: Most important thing is call port authority at JFK or animal control. Don't chase her. That's the worst thing. Get down low, kneel down and call her name and maybe she'll come to you. MILES O'BRIEN: Yes, she's - you're certainly not going to keep up with her anyway.

LEPIANE: Right. Right.

MILES O'BRIEN: Paul Lepiane, who is Vivi's co-owner, we wish you luck today.

LEPIANE: Thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN: This is an important day. We hope you find her.

LEPIANE: Yes. Thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN: Zain.

VERJEE: Miles, today's top stories are coming up.

Plus, kids in Florida may have found an easy way to get away with playing hook, just pay off the teacher. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

And later, folks are lining up for a shot at winning a record Powerball jackpot, $365 million. What would you do with that? What kind of stuff would you want to buy with all that money? Our friend Danielle Romano (ph) from Daily Candy has some ideas ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. Will you be rich?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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