Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Deadly Storms; Star Witness in Enron Trial Back for Grilling Today; How's President Bush Doing?

Aired March 13, 2006 - 06:30   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Homes completely gone, businesses just ruined, and five people killed as tornadoes rips a path wide and long through Missouri and Illinois.
The port deal sank. Americans turning against the Iraq war. Now a senator is calling for censure for the president. A check on how the president is doing just ahead.

Justice for the Balkans in limbo today. Strongman Slobodan Milosevic died before his warm crimes trials could come to a conclusion.

Good morning. Welcome, everybody.

We're going to get to those top stories in just a few moments.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, but let's get to the weather first.

Severe weather battered the Midwest yesterday. And this morning they are trying to assess the damage in Missouri.

Deadly tornadoes cut a wide path of destruction. At least five were killed there on Sunday. One tornado touched down for 20 solid miles.

We'll have to ask Chad about that one. That sounds really unusual. It ripped through towns and destroyed homes.

More of the same in Illinois. Twisters there hit the capital of Springfield with a one-two punch last night and early this morning. At least 19 were injured and one is still missing as we speak. Power still out. Several roofs ripped off.

And classes are canceled today in Kansas, the University of Kansas, where two out of three buildings at the campus in Lawrence were damaged one way or another as a result of the wild weather. Hail the size of baseballs shattered windows in southern parts of Kansas.

Chad, a 20-mile long swath of a tornado. That's unusual, isn't it?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is unusual, and it is so unusual that, you know, it has to be a fairly wide tornado in the middle for a storm to travel that far before dying out or running into a new storm or cycling into another storm, because tornadoes can go up and down as the storm loses some of its rotation. The tornado will go back up into the sky and then the storm will gain a little bit more momentum because it grabs some more humidity or some more sunshine or heat from somewhere. Then the tornado can re-spin. But a 20-mile- long solid line is a long, live tornado, and the ones that really get in the way of something.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Chad. Thank you very much.

The extensive storm damage reported at the University of Kansas, as well. Classes are canceled today after the high winds tour off roofs and caused damage to what they're saying is 60 percent of the school's buildings.

Michele Rooney of our affiliate KNBC reports from Lawrence, Kansas, this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHELE ROONEY, REPORTER, KNBC (voice over): Huge trees down throughout Lawrence, Kansas, and a breathtaking sight on the KU campus. Students say as they heard the wind get stronger and stronger, the massive air-conditioning units on the roof of their dorm came crashing down.

THORNTON THOMPSON, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS STUDENT: It was very unnerving. So, you know, you always hear about this stuff happening, but you never really think that you're going to be in the middle of a storm like this, or a tornado if that's what it was.

ROONEY: The incredible wind left the parking lot below littered with smashed cars and shattered windows.

BRAD PAPINEAU, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS STUDENT: You come out, I'm just like, "Oh, god." I'm like, "This is just terrible. Like, what happened to my car?" Like, I mean -- I mean, I was devastated to see it like this.

ROONEY: Throughout Lawrence and other parts of Douglas County, the storm broke the silence of the early morning hours.

JOEL TIEGREEN, STORM WATCHER: We woke up and it was just crazy. The whole house was shaking and the winds was nuts. And looked out outside and there's just debris going all around.

ROONEY: That wind ripped this tree, its surrounding concrete, even the lamppost, right out of the ground. The homeowner says the kids began to cry as the winds started shaking the house and they heard the tree come down.

LEONA WHITEMAN, HOMEOWNER: I didn't know what to think. But nobody was hurt, anyway. So I'm glad that none of us decided to go somewhere at that moment.

ROONEY (on camera): This is a huge tree. The damage to the van, of course, is obvious, but what you can't see so easily from the street is there are three other vehicles under this tree further back, as well. One of them just purchased yesterday.

(voice over): The stories of damage go on and on -- roofing ripped off, trees into houses, street signs twisted and falling. And folks throughout the Lawrence area hoping the worst is over as the cleanup begins.

Michele Rooney, KNBC, 9 News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: And KNBC, of course, our affiliate.

Lots more to tell you about this morning, other stories in the news. Carol has got that. She's in the newsroom this morning.

Hey, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Tough sell for President Bush. The president is giving a speech later today on the war in Iraq. It's expected to focus on the problems with security since the U.S.-led invasion nearly three years ago. The president will be at George Washington University.

CNN will have live coverage for you of the president's speech. That starts at 1:15 p.m. Eastern.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is heading overseas to talk about the war on terror, as well. She'll be in Indonesia. The Muslim nation has faced a major threat from al Qaeda-linked militants.

The bouncer working at a New York City bar where a graduate student was last seen alive is now considered a prime suspect in her killing. Darryl Littlejohn is being held on a parole violation. Investigators have linked his DNA to blood stains found with Imette St. Guillen's body found on these -- these ties she had around her wrists. Littlejohn's lawyer says police have the wrong man.

Enron's former finance chief Andrew Fastow expected to face another grilling this morning. The lead attorney for the Enron founder, Ken Lay, will cross-examine Fastow when the trial gets under way again in Houston. Last week, Fastow said Ken Lay knew about the company's financial troubles but instead chose to paint a rosy picture.

And author Dan Brown set to take the stand today in the -- "The Da Vinci Code" case in London. Two writers are suing Brown's publisher claiming Brown's best-seller "The Da Vinci Code" lifted ideas from their book, "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail."

Proceedings could wrap up this week. We'll be following that.

Back to you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Carol. Thank you very much. We'll be following it, too.

That's an interesting case.

M. O'BRIEN: It is. It is.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, following in the footsteps of Pat Tillman. Another NFL star hangs up his cleats for the military.

M. O'BRIEN: And nearly three years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, President Bush would like to assure Americans progress is, in fact, being made. What will it take to convince you?

S. O'BRIEN: And Motorola forced to pull a wildly popular cell phone right out of its stores. Andy is "Minding Your Business" with that.

Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: The star witness in the Enron trial back for a grilling today. Former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow expected to face tough questions from the lead lawyer for Enron founder Ken Lay, who Fastow accuses of hiding the company's financial troubles from investors.

Here's Chris Huntington with more from Houston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Ken Lay, the founder and former chairman of Enron, is in deep trouble. He's charged with deceiving the public about Enron's demise and talking up the stock while selling it himself.

Those charges based in part on what this man has to say, Enron's former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, who agreed to plead guilty and is now a crucial witness for the government. Last week, Fastow testified that Lay lied to Enron shareholders and employees when he told them just weeks before the company collapsed that business has "never been stronger," even though, according to Fastow, Lay knew the company was in a death spiral.

Lay's lawyer wants the jury to focus on Fastow as a liar and a thief.

MIKE RAMSEY, KEN LAY'S ATTORNEY: He was obviously stealing for himself. And he admitted that. And there's no way to avoid that because the paper trail (INAUDIBLE) demonstrating that he was stealing (INAUDIBLE).

HUNTINGTON: Fastow's infamous off-the-book deals that inflated Enron's profits also inflated his own bank account by siphoning tens of millions of dollars from the company. Fastow concedes Lay had no idea this was going on. In the fall of 2001, after reassuming the role of CEO after Jeff Skilling's abrupt resignation, Lay publicly proclaimed several times that Enron was in good shape. Fastow testified that Lay was part of Enron's culture of corruption, that Lay knew the company was in trouble but tried to convince investors otherwise.

Jurors must decide whether Lay was an upbeat leader or a liar. The wildcard is whether they believe Fastow.

DAVID HERMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That's the multimillion-dollar question. And that's what -- that's how these cases go every day in federal district courts and state courts all over the country. And when these cooperators get on the stand, if they can be perceived as being telling the truth, despite the fact that they've committed all these crimes, they get to jurors, and jurors believe it.

HUNTINGTON: Chris Huntington, CNN, Houston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Now for their part, Lay and Skilling claim there was no fraud at Enron. They blame the company's failure on negative publicity that shook the confidence of investors -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: That's spinning that.

M. O'BRIEN: They're working on it. They're working on a defense...

S. O'BRIEN: Certainly. Absolutely.

M. O'BRIEN: ... any way they can.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about President Bush. He's once again defending the war in Iraq to a more and more skeptical public. The war tops a growing list of trouble for the president.

AMERICAN MORNING'S Bob Franken, on the streets of Washington, D.C., taking the pulse of the public, so to speak.

Hey, Bob. Good morning.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. And, of course, this is a company town, so people here have particularly well- informed opinions about President Bush.

We're outside Union Station. As you can see, it's right over by the Capitol, just a couple blocks from the Capitol, where so many people go to work. It's surrounded by buildings from companies that do a lot of business, feed at the trough, so to speak. And it's a place where even early, early in the morning, when we began today, people have opinions about the president.

This being the third anniversary -- coming up on the third anniversary of the war in Iraq. People have strong feelings around the United States. What we found among those who were here very early was quite a bit of support for the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a president, I think he's doing pretty good as far as making sure the nation is safe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't vote for him, actually, and I am a Washingtonian. But he's not a favorite of mine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: So what we have is a woman, that last woman in particular, said, nevertheless, when it came to the war on terror, she did support the president.

We're speaking now live with somebody who we have just basically kidnapped here outside Union Station, Michelle Chargois, who works for an economic services company around -- nearby.

MICHELLE CHARGOIS, WASHINGTON RESIDENT: That's correct. That's correct.

FRANKEN: And this is totally unrehearsed.

What is your feeling about the president?

CHARGOIS: Actually, I think he's lost a lot of popularity. I think -- I am supportive of the troops that are in the war and that are fighting, the ones that are still going over, but I feel that it's time for us to pull out. I really do.

I think -- and it's time for us to come to a head. Maybe even focus more in Afghanistan than Iraq. I just think that the president needs to reevaluate the situation quite closely and try to get us -- some of us to come home.

FRANKEN: So we're talking -- as I said, we're going to be doing this all morning with people who have an intimate knowledge of government since they work so closely with it -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. We're looking forward to hear what the people on the street have to say. Thanks, Bob.

Andy's "Minding Your Business" just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

What you got for us?

ANDY SERWER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "FORTUNE": Soledad, a couple phone questions this morning.

First off, is Verizon poised to strike back at AT&T?

And second, what's wrong with hot Razr phone?

We'll tell you all that coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, the -- apparently died of a heart attack. So says the official autopsy, at least.

Milosevic was on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo wars. The chief U.N. prosecutor says his death makes it more urgent that other top war crime fugitives be captured and tried.

Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour has covered this story from the very beginning, including the four-year-long now trial. She is live on the phone from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on assignment on other matters.

Christiane, first of all, when I -- when I heard that Milosevic was dead, I think many people would have come to the conclusion that it was suicide.

What are your thoughts on that?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I did not come it that conclusion, and I didn't think that would be the case at all, because, you know, he's had his four-year trial. If he was going to commit suicide, it wasn't going to be now, in my estimation. And I knew and many people knew that he had been ill for, you know, several years.

The court and the trial has been suspended several times because of his illness, his heart-related illness and other such things. So I actually immediately thought that it was natural causes, and the autopsy has now confirmed that.

M. O'BRIEN: He was suspicious of being poisoned. And there are those who would suggest that somehow, some way, somebody was out to get him. And that certainly wouldn't be outside the realm, would it?

AMANPOUR: No. No, maybe if he was Serbia that might have been a possibility. But let's not forget he was in the control and command of the United Nations, U.N. guards at a U.N.-organized tribunal, and he was in court most of the time.

And just to be honest with you, this controversy that came up after his death was very typical of what I witnessed all throughout dealing with him and dealing with his proxies during the war. Basically, when everything was going badly, the Milosevics or the (INAUDIBLE) would blame something else to obfuscate and divert, was the reality, which was genocide, ethnic cleansing and, you know, nearly a decade of bloodshed in the Balkans.

And here, again, he dies. We know that he's been ill. He died after, by the way, putting so much pressure on himself by insisting on defending himself.

He had a heart condition. He continued to insist on defending himself, taking all of that pressure of witnessing, reading documents, interviewing witnesses, cross-examining, trying to defend himself, and taking on this huge burden for man who had blood pressure and a history of heart problems.

And now that he is gone, his family, obviously in grief and not wanting to focus on the serious crimes, such as genocide, with which he is accused, wants to talk about some nefarious plot to kill him. Not many people took that seriously.

M. O'BRIEN: Did Milosevic see himself on a path toward martyrdom? Is that what he was after? And is there much support lingering for him in that part of the world?

AMANPOUR: Well, look, certainly a nationalism has a long history of revealing losers, I'm sorry to say. Some of their greatest heroes have been those who have lost battles, whether it be modern day or yesteryear, a hundred or so years ago.

Milosevic ignited four wars in the Balkans during his time as president of Yugoslavia and of Serbia. He lost all of those wars.

And yes, he had a certain sympathy among a certain group of people in Serbia. But that sympathy has been waning over the years since his ouster.

Don't forget, he was voted out of office in the year 2000 after losing the war in Kosovo. And he has a certain sympathy amongst certain diehards. But Serbia is trying to come to terms with what crimes were committed in the name of Serbia nationalism and the Serbian people and trying to come to terms with a post-Milosevic era.

The government now, democratically elected, is trying their best to join up with a community of nations and enter the normal world, if you like, after so many years of war, bloodshed and isolation.

M. O'BRIEN: Christiane Amanpour, who is on assignment in Afghanistan on other matters.

And we just had it confirmed by CNN that Slobodan Milosevic will, in fact, be buried in Belgrade, Serbia. That will be something we will keep you posted on, obviously.

Verizon would like to get its wireless business back. Andy Serwer is here with that.

Good morning, Andy.

SERWER: Good morning, you guys.

This is a real "we try harder" moment for Verizon, now the number two teleco (ph) company in the United States after AT&T is going to be buying BellSouth and the giant deal there. Here's what's going on.

Verizon has reportedly offered $40 billion to buy 45 percent of Verizon Wireless, its wireless subsidiary, back from British phone behemoth Vodafone. So, in other words, Verizon owns 55 percent of Verizon Wireless. Now it's going to buy back 45 percent it doesn't own. That's because it's number two to Cingular, which is controlled by AT&T.

We try harder.

Also, the Razr phone which is made by Motorola...

S. O'BRIEN: What's wrong with it?

SERWER: ... apparently there's a little bit of a glitch. It's dropping calls. And so Cingular and T-Mobile have stopped selling it for the time being.

My question is, how would you know? Everyone's cell phone drops calls, right? I mean, this is...

S. O'BRIEN: It must really be dropping calls...

SERWER: It must really be dropping calls.

Anyway, this is...

S. O'BRIEN: ... if it's notable, because my cell phone drops calls all the time. And I don't have a Razr.

SERWER: That's right. Motorola makes the Razr, and apparently they're going to be looking to fix this very quickly. So it should be back on the shelves soon.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Andy. Thank you very much.

SERWER: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: A short break's ahead. We're going to also have the latest forecast for you after the wild weather that struck this weekend.

AMERICAN MORNING continues in a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com