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American Morning

Last-Minute Funding Goes to Renewable Energy; Search Continues for Survivors in Phillipines Mudslide

Aired February 21, 2006 - 08:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.
Welcome, everybody.

I'm Soledad O'Brien.

Miles has got a couple of days of vacation.

But Rob Marciano has been helping us out, so we appreciate that.

Thank you.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You're very welcome.

Good to be here.

O'BRIEN: Thank you.

We're watching an interesting turn of events in California. We've been talking about it all morning. A planned execution there now put on hold. It's due to a medical-moral dilemma. We're live with more on that story just ahead this morning.

Also this morning, necessary funding or is it just a P.R. ploy? That's what some people are asking as the president prepares for an important energy speech. We're going to take you live to the White House this morning.

MARCIANO: And rescue crews are still holding out hope that they'll find survivors in the Philippines. But now, bad weather could make their jobs both tougher and more dangerous.

And grandmothers become mothers again. Fertility drugs make late in life pregnancies easier, but is that a good thing?

O'BRIEN: Whoo!

And she could be the next American ice princess. Look at that lovely lady. That's Sasha Cohen. She steps onto the ice. She's trying to prove that she is an Olympic-sized talent. We're live in Torino ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Welcome back, everybody.

To some degree, the sincerity of President Bush's energy policy is being brought into question today. The Energy Department has restored funding to the National Renewable Energy Lab. That's going to allow the lab to bring back 32 workers who were just let go, fired, on February 7th.

Get this, the funding move comes on the eve of a visit by the president and it's raising some questions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TINA LARNEY, ADMINISTRATION ASSISTANT: I'm still questioning why the budget cuts even happened or why the layoffs had to happen in the first place, like how it can happen that two, three weeks later they can restore the money to the budget.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Let's get right to White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux.

She is at the White House this morning -- Suzanne, kind of an interesting question about timing, isn't it?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Oh, certainly, Soledad.

And, of course, a presidential visit always helps to highlight and address these things. The president is going to be touring that facility today in Golden, Colorado. And essentially the interesting side story, the back story to all of this is a couple of weeks ago, there were 30 something folks out of a job. They said a shortfall in the budget of $28 million.

Well, just over the weekend, the energy secretary, Samuel Bodman, found the money, essentially, $5 million of it, to restore those jobs. The explanation from the Energy Department, in a statement he says: "The action we are taking today, as in last night, will allow the dedicated employees to continue their work. That will bring us great innovation and renewable energy technologies."

So obviously transferring some of that money, finding it from other places, to allow these folks to get their jobs back.

The administration says, of course, it is part of the president's initiative, his energy initiative, to increase money when it comes to technology and research, alternative sources of energy, and part of a bigger picture that the president says to cut by 75 percent the imports of oil from the Middle East in the next 20 years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're vulnerable to high prices of oil. And we're vulnerable to sudden disruptions of oil. What I'm telling you is oil, the dependence upon oil is a national security problem and an economic security problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MALVEAUX: And, Soledad, of course, this comes after the president failed last year of trying to find places in the United States to dig for more oil. Essentially, the Alaska wildlife refuge did not go over well with members of Congress. This year he is pushing to find those alternative sources of energy.

And, of course, Soledad, there are a lot of other people who have lost their jobs. Ford plant workers who are asking, you know, when is the president going to come visit us, when can we get our money, as well.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

Would that help bring back some jobs there, maybe?

Suzanne Malveaux is at the White House for us this morning.

Suzanne, thanks.

When the president talks about his energy policy, CNN is going to bring that to you live.

It's around 11:30 a.m. Eastern time.

And, of course, with the nation's strong dependence on oil, when will alternative fuels become a reality?

We're going to check in with the editor of "Automobile" magazine about that very question. That's coming up in our 9:00 hour Eastern time -- Rob.

MARCIANO: Soledad, we're following two developing stories this morning.

In the Philippines first, a desperate search for survivors from that mudslide that buried a village. More than 1,000 people are missing. More rain today is making the search difficult. And the head of the Philippines Red Cross says the agency is shifting into relief mode, tending to the living, as well.

CNN's Harry Riminton has more on the disaster and the few survivors.

HUGH RIMINTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In this hospital corridor and in the wards to the left and right are the few, the very few, the survivors, 16 of them in this hospital. There were 21 pulled out of the rubble in the first few hours. None since.

Two of those have subsequently died. Three others have been flown off for emergency help in other more sophisticated hospitals.

And that leaves these. We've spoken to them. They have different stories. They're a testament to randomness. There's no pattern for their survival. They include the physically strong, but also the elderly, the oldest 72, the youngest a child of just one years old. Among them is a little girl, 6-year-old Rosemari Subunga (ph). Television cameras saw her being pulled out of the wreckage and being brought out from being entombed. She was lucky because on that particular day, she was too sick to go to school and so did not suffer the fate of her three siblings and her mother.

Also here among the survivors, Irinia Valasco (ph). She also was seen being pulled out of the mud. She was buried for five hours.

Now, these people, these survivors, share a number of things in common. Their stories of their survival might be different, but they say they have a bond between them. Whatever happens in the future, they want to stay together, to be resettled somewhere where this bond can be sustained.

This is the hospital in which they're trying to make their recovery, while up on the hill, the search continues for all the members of these people's families who are still missing.

And, in fact, that brings on the question of luck. These might be deemed the lucky ones. Many of them don't see themselves that way. One woman told me she doesn't feel lucky. She would happily give her life for the seven grandchildren who are still missing in the rubble.

Hugh Riminton, CNN, San Juan Hospital, the Philippines.

MARCIANO: To Mexico now.

Another desperate search. Rescue crews there battling the odds to save 65 miners trapped underground since Sunday.

Correspondent Moran Neill reports from the mine, about 85 miles south of the Texas border.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

MORGAN NEILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Outside the mine, they're praying, praying for a miracle. With relatives trapped deep underground, they're desperate for a sign. The few rumblings of hope are quickly shot down.

"There's been no contact with them," says state official Sergio Robles. "It's only a rumor."

For some of the handful of miners who escaped after Sunday's explosion and received treatment, the blast left a terrifying memory.

"All of a sudden I couldn't see anything," says survivor Ricardo Ramirez, "everything was dark, with powder everywhere."

Doctors say he should recover completely from his burns.

One bed over, Jose Guzman says the flames burst across his body, knocking him down. He, too, was badly burned, and hopes he will be able to use his hands again. He says he'll look for other work when he recovers. As for Ricardo, he says he's got no choice but to return. It's an economic necessity for him and his family.

That's an answer typical of these tough men, many of whom continue to risk their lives around the clock trying to reach their trapped friends and co-workers, even though they admit the chances of finding anyone alive are slim.

(on camera): Despite the lack of encouraging news, friends and family members of those trapped in the mine behind me continue to flock here, awaiting any update and offering comfort to one another.

Morgan Neill, CNN, San Juande Sabinas, Mexico.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

O'BRIEN: A terrible story.

California now -- an execution called off at the last minute. Early this morning in California, questions over the ethics of lethal injection is what caused the delay in the execution of Michael Morales.

Priya David of our affiliate KTVU is live in San Quentin this morning -- Priya, good morning.

What exactly is the status right now?

PRIYA DAVID, KTVU CORRESPONDENT: Soledad, they have decided to reschedule the execution for 7:30 tonight. So it is supposed to go on today. And they have to keep it within this tight 24-hour window, because that's the only time that the execution order is good for. After midnight tonight, they would have to go back and get another execution order again.

Here is how the delay began. Michael Morales, who is on death row for killing a 17-year-old girl back in 1981, his attorneys went to a judge and said look, lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment because the victim can actually feel the pain, the inmate can actually feel the pain as he's being executed.

The judge said well, no, I'm not going to stay the execution, but I will order two anesthesiologists to be available at the execution so that Morales will be unconscious and won't suffer any pain at all.

Well, all time, the anesthesiologists balked, saying that this was unethical to be assisting in this sort of work, and they decided they were not going to participate in the process. So that's when the delay happened.

At this point, the prison has decided they will not use the lethal injection, which is their common form here in California, of execution. Instead, they're saying, they will provide a fatal overdose of barbiturate for the execution tonight.

So it is going on, but just a little bit later than scheduled -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: We'll watch and see.

Priya David for us this morning from our affiliate KTVU in San Quentin, California.

Priya, thanks a lot.

Headlines now.

Carol has got those.

She's in the newsroom for us -- hey, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.

Good morning to all of you.

Two Republican governors are threatening legal action to block an Arab company from taking over operations at six of the largest ports in the United States. New York's George Pataki and Maryland's Robert Ehrlich said they may try to cancel port lease arrangements because of the deal. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is defending the deal, saying the administration went through an extensive review process.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is expected to give an official letter of appointment today to the new Hamas prime minister. The move will allow Hamas to begin forming a new government.

It is down to business for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. He's beginning his first day on the bench. President Bush was part of the swearing in on February 1st. That day, Justice Alito broke ranks with other conservative justices and voted to stop the execution of a Missouri inmate.

And the women's figure skating competition gets underway in Toronto tonight. Ooh, and there's buzz about American skater Sasha Cohen. And there was an Olympic first on Monday, mind you. The American ice dancing pair won silver, the first medal in the event for the United States in 30 years.

We're going to take you live to Torino to talk more about it just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

Let's get back to you -- Rob.

MARCIANO: All right, Carol.

Thanks a lot.

Let's switch gears and take a look at weather.

We'll go to Bonnie Schneider, who's been in for Chad Myers all week.

She's down in Atlanta at the CNN Weather Center -- good morning again, Bonnie.

What's happening?

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, ATS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Rob.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, new accusations of government secrecy. Thousands of pages of public documents are suddenly reclassified. We'll take a look at what's going on there.

MARCIANO: Also, an outspoken author pays a huge price for denying that the Holocaust never even happened. We'll tell you what happened with that story.

O'BRIEN: And what's really happening at GITMO? We'll take a look at how efforts by one Pentagon lawyer to ban abuse might have been ignored.

All those stories are ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

Stay with us.

We're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The Bush administration says its policies on questioning detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere are within legal bounds. New disclosures, though, in this week's "New Yorker" magazine and they reveal that lawyers within the military itself argued very strongly that some of the methods bordered on torture.

Jane Mayer of the "New Yorker" magazine spoke with the former Navy general counsel, Albert Mora, and she joins us from Washington, D.C.

It's nice to see you.

Thanks for talking with us.

JANE MAYER, "NEW YORKER" MAGAZINE: Great to be here.

O'BRIEN: Thank you.

In a nutshell, what kind of conclusions did you come to in your reporting, in your article?

MAYER: Well, this was a piece about Alberto Mora, who was the general counsel at the Navy for the last four years and a staunch Republican and supporter of the administration. He was a political appointee himself. And he very strongly fought against the mistreatment of the prisoners in Guantanamo and tried to tell the Pentagon that what they were doing was really questionable legally, sort of beyond the law and also just plain unconstitutional and in violation of American values. And...

O'BRIEN: You wrote about a secret memo in your article and I'm curious to know how you got access to this memo and sort of what it says, in a nutshell.

MAYER: Well, the memo is a 22-page secret history that Mora wrote for one of the investigations of the Pentagon that took place, the one that was done by Admiral Church. And he tried to tell Church about how hard he had tried to stop this policy, because he really saw it as a sort of a tragic mistake for America.

And, you know, the memo was sent to -- to the investigative committee and it went to the Hill, I got a hold of it and I got a chance to talk to Mr. Mora, who has really been pretty much of an inside player. He's not really a bomb thrower or a whistleblower. He's a very loyal member of the administration.

But what was interesting was he tried to tell them that where they were going was in a wrong direction. And they -- in the end, they didn't listen to him. They just got other lawyers who basically told them they could go above the law.

And so when they say that everything they've done is within the law, it's certainly not true, according to some of the lawyers in their own administration.

O'BRIEN: It's fascinating. You're right about these sort of two meetings with William Haynes. William Haynes is the general counsel for the Pentagon. And these meetings took place in late 2002, early 2003. And this is written about in that 22-page memo. And here's what he writes in the memo, Alberto Mora.

He is frustrated by not having made much apparent headway: "I told him that the interrogation policies could threaten Secretary Rumsfeld's tenure, could even damage the presidency. 'Protect your client,' I urged Mr. Haynes."

When you talked to him, did you get a sense of -- what was your sense? Just deep frustration or just general concern for the presidency in the big picture?

MAYER: Well, here's a -- well, a tremendous concern for American law, also. I mean this -- this -- Mora is a man whose parents both fled communism and, you know, totalitarian dictatorships to come to America. His father was Cuban and his mother was Hungarian. And he has a great reverence for the law. And he just felt this was wrong. And he also felt it was unlawful and could wind up having the senior members of the Bush administration get into legal trouble. He felt the lawyers really didn't do their part to try to warn the top people in the administration that when they suspended the Geneva Conventions and allowed the maltreatment of the detainees in Guantanamo that they were breaking international law, and some American laws, too.

But there's military law that says soldiers are not supposed to mistreat prisoners and there's also the conventions against torture. But...

O'BRIEN: So what was the reaction, then? I mean what was the reaction by William Haynes and what was the reaction by Secretary Rumsfeld? What was the reaction by the slew of lawyers who then took a look at this memo and these warnings?

MAYER: Well, it was interesting to me is that it's clear that they -- well, the reaction was that they were consistently resisting any criticism on this. And they -- instead of listening to him, they basically found another lawyer, somebody in the Justice Department named John Yoo, who told them what they wanted to hear, which was they could pretty much do anything they wanted.

And so it seems that it was a -- it was a policy decision on their part. This wasn't an accident what happened in Guantanamo and what later happened in Abu Ghraib, in terms of mistreatment of prisoners. They did this with their eyes wide open.

O'BRIEN: Defense Department officials wouldn't speak on the record to you?

MAYER: No, they wouldn't. They gave me somebody to talk to on background who was a great help to me in helping me understand their point of view. What they would argue is that they never tortured anybody and they never treated anybody inhumanely. But they stretched the words in such a way that it's almost meaningless, I think.

O'BRIEN: I've got to tell you, it's a fascinating article.

It's in the "New Yorker" magazine.

MAYER: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: And Jane Mayer is the author.

Thanks for joining us this morning to talk about it.

MAYER: Great to be here.

O'BRIEN: Thank you.

MAYER: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Rob.

MARCIANO: Soledad, coming up, why did the government suddenly reclassify thousands of pages of public documents? We'll look at that controversy.

Plus, an outspoken author is going to pay the price for saying that the Holocaust never happened.

That story and more straight ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARCIANO: Time to talk Olympics again.

Who will be the next ice princess?

The last Olympics, American Sarah Hughes was the darling of the Games. And now her sister has a shot at duplicating that performance. But it's a long shot.

CNN's Larry Smith has been live from Torino all week -- Larry, no Michelle Kwan, but definitely some others to watch tonight.

I'm hearing rumors that the Japanese girls may be even throwing up some quadruples?

O'BRIEN: Women, they're called.

MARCIANO: Oh, women.

O'BRIEN: Thank you.

MARCIANO: Young ladies.

Sorry.

O'BRIEN: Nowadays we call them women.

Thank you.

MARCIANO: I'm corrected, Larry.

Please take it away.

LARRY SMITH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I'll take it away from there, Rob.

I'll let you guys work on that.

You know, certainly a lot of competition out there in the figure skating world. Don't forget, too, Russia's Irinia Slutskaya, as well. She won silver in Salt Lake City.

Emily Hughes, you know, who's to say she can't win it? Her sister Sarah four years ago was a long shot, surprised the world when she won gold in Salt Lake. So certainly at 17 years old, she needs to be considered.

Sasha Cohen, 21 years old, her first world or national title was just a month ago at U.S. Nationals. But she may be the world's most gifted skater. Maybe this is the time that she finally comes up and shows the world that she is the best overall.

And don't forget the 16-year-old Kimmie Meissner, as well. She's from Maryland. She's only the second woman ever, after Tanya Harding, to land a triple axle. So very athletic and maybe, too, she also could come through with a big surprise here in Torino this week -- Rob.

MARCIANO: So 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds, these are officially women now, right?

O'BRIEN: Yes, women. Yes.

MARCIANO: Young ladies.

All right, let's talk about the other skating event happening, the...

O'BRIEN: Touche.

MARCIANO: ... the ice dancing, Larry, before I get hit again.

What's happening with ice dancing?

SMITH: Here you go. Well, if we can go there, too, Tanith Belbin is 21 years old. Her partner is Ben Agosto. He is 24. Just make sure we've got everyone checked here. But they make history last night in ice dancing. What a phenomenal performance this was. Russia taking the gold, as they have done so dominant in figure skating here this week.

But Belbin and Agosto taking a silver. Now, this was the first medal won by the U.S. in ice dancing since a bronze back in 1976.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TANITH BELBIN, HALF OF SILVER MEDAL DUO: We actually never imagined that we would be able to come to our first Olympic Games and come out with a silver medal. And the competitors that were with us on the podium have been to the Olympics two or three times. So it's great that even without that experience behind us, that we can still capitalize on the moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: Now, Belbin is an interesting story, because she was -- she is Canadian and she was just naturalized as a U.S. citizen on New Year's Eve and now here she is just weeks later, a gold medal, a silver medalist, I should say, for the U.S. of A.

Let's get back to you.

MARCIANO: All right, Larry.

Larry Smith live for us in Torino.

A great job out there, buddy.

SMITH: OK.

O'BRIEN: Oh, I love watching those -- the pairs dancing.

Thanks, Larry.

That was great.

And she's so beautiful, isn't she?

MARCIANO: She's a lovely young lady.

O'BRIEN: I've scared you forever, haven't I?

MARCIANO: Yes. I don't want to get hit again.

O'BRIEN: That's all right.

That doesn't really hurt when I do that?

MARCIANO: No.

O'BRIEN: We're talking New Year's resolutions. We're on week seven. Can you believe it? And it looks like -- you know our hyper competitive twins? There they are right now, the Rasch twins. They're making pretty big progress. Look at him moving as he runs.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is going to join us with a checkup on them.

Plus, a follow-up on the story we told you about yesterday, that 62-year-old woman, she's a great grandmother. She gave birth, had a baby on Friday.

Oh my goodness, why would you want to have a baby when you're 62 years old? Well, we're going to check in with a mom who was 56 years old when she gave birth to twins. She's going to join us live in the studio.

That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

We're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: You're watching AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.

O'BRIEN: The sun rising over Central Park. A beautiful day here in New York.

MARCIANO: Certainly.

O'BRIEN: Certainly warmer than it's been over the last couple of days. We're happy about that, not that I'm whining to the weatherman...

(CROSSTALK)

MARCIANO: ... you know, just look at that. A little haze. It almost could look like summer, kind of, sort of, in a way.

O'BRIEN: In a really fuzzy, out of focus shot maybe, possibly.

MARCIANO: Yes.

It will be warmer for a lot of folks around the country.

O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody.

Miles is on a little vaca, but Rob has been helping us out.

We appreciate that very much.

MARCIANO: It's been fun.

Thanks.

O'BRIEN: Let's get right to Carol.

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