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American Morning

Worst Single Day in Texas Wildfire History; Potential Breakthrough in Treatment of Heart Disease

Aired March 14, 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.

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

The worst single day in Texas wildfire history. Scorched land now covers an area the size of Rhode Island.

M. O'BRIEN: Tales of narrow escape in Springfield, Illinois. A thousand homes damaged there by tornadoes.

S. O'BRIEN: There's news of a potential breakthrough in the treatment of heart disease. We'll tell you that this morning on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Welcome back, everybody.

Kind of a tense situation for many residents of the Texas Panhandle this morning, as deadly wildfires have raced and continue to race across the bone dry land. They're burning almost 700,000 acres. That is nearly -- an area nearly the size of Rhode Island.

At least 11 deaths are now blamed on the fires. The farmers, the ranchers, they are concerned, of course, everyone's concerned, is how you stop these fires.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is near the town of Groom in north Texas -- hey, Ed, good morning.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they like to say that this part of Texas is as flat as a skillet. Well, now it's a fried skillet. You can see the contrast here of the charred land. You can kind of see it butting up against to some of the land that hasn't been burned here.

Almost 700,000 acres have burned here since Sunday. Firefighters say that most of these wildfires, about 50 percent, contained.

Now, it's not like you drive around and you just see flames shooting up off the ground here. These are very quick moving fires, fires that kind of feed off of the low lying brush here. So this is quick. A lot of smoke is really what you tend to see as you drive around the Panhandle here. But this has been a deadly situation over the last couple of days. The death toll now stands at 11 people. Late last night near the town of Miami, Texas, four people were found near a car. Authorities suspect that they died trying to escape from the flames there. I can't tell you and emphasize enough just how quick moving these fires have been. We were near that town of Miami yesterday and we saw some firefighters working a scene there where just in a matter of seconds you could hear the crackling and popping sound of flames shooting up from the ground as some of these hot spots kind of fired back up again.

So authorities are continuing to work the scene. They fan out over a huge mack -- it's a massive area. Anywhere -- everywhere we drove yesterday, you just saw for miles and miles and miles charred landscape here and much of this terrain is very difficult to reach. So firefighters essentially have to let it kind of burn. And they're hoping that it'll just burn itself out and extinguish itself out in many places.

And really what they're trying to do is trying to protect many of the small towns that kind of dot the Texas Panhandle here. Many of those towns were evacuated, but many of those people were allowed to come back home this morning -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Ed, let me ask you a quick question.

What do authorities think sparked the first in the first place?

LAVANDERA: Well, there is no official cause yet. But some local authorities were suspecting yesterday that perhaps some power lines that power some of the oil fields here in the Texas Panhandle might be responsible for that. But that is just some local authorities kind of talking based on what they've seen out in the field at this point. No official cause yet.

S. O'BRIEN: Ed Lavandera for us this morning in Groom, Texas.

Ed, thank you very much.

Be sake, OK?

Let's get right to Chad to see how the picture looks for the day and the days ahead there -- hey, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And good morning.

Temperatures right now are cold. Low temperatures really a nice thing for the firefighters. They can get out there and work the fire. Also, when the temperatures get low, the wind speeds come down, as well. In the overnight hours, only four miles per hour, three miles per hour just west of Dallas.

Now, where are your temperatures. From Amarillo, 27; Abilene, 37. Later on today, though, they're going to reach the 70s and 80s.

But tomorrow is the real problem. Today high pressure is right there, lots of sunshine, not a lot of wind. Tomorrow, we get a lee side trough, a low pressure system that develops right in that area. Then they do not need this funneling effect, making critical fire danger all the way from West Texas right on up into places like Oklahoma.

Wind speeds across the Northeast slowing things down. Airport delays right now. Philadelphia at about 20 to 30 minutes. We'll call it 30, if you will. Those are departure delays out of Philadelphia. The only delay, though, across the entire country.

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: To Iraq now. A developing story, apparent sectarian violence taking a dramatic turn. It's on the rise significantly, apparently. Thirty-one bodies discovered today, 19 on Monday. And if you start counting since Sunday, 120 bodies found around the capital city.

Just about 10 minutes from now, we'll see how events in Iraq are affecting the president's approval ratings.

CNN's senior political analyst, Bill Schneider, will have some new poll numbers for us. We'll ask him about them.

The government's star witness in the Enron criminal trial has wrapped up his testimony. The question, though, how much damage did he do?

Chris Huntington live now from Houston with more on Andy Fastow's testimony -- Chris?

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, good morning.

Well, Andrew Fastow's testimony was compelling, it was riveting. It was very dramatic even -- he cried on the witness stand at one point. There was laughter in the courtroom. Ultimately, he was very, very revealing about the crimes that he personally committed at Enron.

In the end, though, I'd have to say that he gave both sides something to work with.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

HUNTINGTON (voice-over): Andrew Fastow left federal court Monday the same way he'd gone in each of the four days he was on the witness stand -- stone-faced, surrounded by federal marshals and silent to the barrage of questions.

QUESTION: Do you owe anything -- any public explanation at this point, sir?

HUNTINGTON: Fastow's final day of testimony pitted him primarily against Ken Lay's attorney, Mike Ramsey. In a plain-spoken Texas drawl, Ramsey pushed Fastow to admit he'd falsely pledged loyalty to Ken Lay while stealing millions of dollars from Enron through this off the book deals.

"You were good at lying, weren't you?," said Ramsey. "You had Lay, Skilling and the board of directors convinced. You were getting away with this."

"Yes, sir," said Fastow. "I had them fooled.

But Fastow insisted he was telling the truth to the jury, that he was ashamed to the core, had agreed to a terrible penalty of 10 years in prison and had asked for forgiveness.

Ramsey said he didn't buy a word of that.

MIKE RAMSEY, KEN LAY'S ATTORNEY: There is, in my profession, people who -- a class and category of people who find the Lord when they come to the jailhouse. Andrew Fastow is a prime example of that sort of human. They never are godly people until they hear the slammer slam.

HUNTINGTON: Ramsey and Jeff Skilling's attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, repeatedly tried to corner Fastow into saying he was only testifying against Skilling and Lay because the government was threatening more jail time. Fastow held firm. Even Judge Simian Lake stopped Ramsey on that theme, saying, "We've covered this."

Fastow is certainly the government's best known witness in the trial so far. But legal observers point out the case against Skilling and Lay does not rest solely on his testimony.

TOM AJAMIE, SECURITIES ATTORNEY: They've had a lot of people come in and explain in really easy to understand terms about the wrongdoing at this company. The government needs to now continue for the next couple of weeks with witnesses like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTINGTON: Now, today we will hear from one of Andrew Fastow's employees, one of his direct reports, as they like to say. This is a guy that worked on those off the book deals.

Later in the week, possibly as soon as tomorrow afternoon, we'll hear from Sherron Watkins. She's the famous whistleblower, the person who went to Ken Lay in August of 2001 and warned presciently of an accounting scandal that could cause Enron to implode.

Now, the thing about Watkins, of course, is that she's been very, very public about her concerns about Enron in the years and she's not been charged with a crime. So that'll cut off some of the defense's arguments against her -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: So, Chris, is Andrew Fastow the star witness? Or do you think it'll be Sherron Watkins, ultimately, who is pivotal in all of this?

HUNTINGTON: You know, the folks who have been watching every single minute of this trial, and we certainly have been as much as we -- as they can -- really are pointing out the fact that some of the early witnesses -- these were guys who ran divisions at Enron, were on the stand, for instance, a lot longer than Fastow and may have delivered some of the clearest, most compelling testimony. It's ultimately, of course, you know, what the jury hears. And if, indeed, this is a jury pool that hasn't been too broadly exposed to the story, they may not see Fastow as the star witness that we in the media do. Fastow's testimony, of course, was laced with contradictions. He stole personally from the company so then his testimony about the wrongdoings or alleged wrongdoings of Skilling and Lay comes with a big, big grain of salt.

Watkins has a very clear story to tell. She's told it often, that she thought that there was accounting problems, huge accounting problems. She was right about that. But she probably didn't know the extent of the criminal activity going on at Enron -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Chris Huntington in Houston.

Thank you very much.

Carol Costello is in the newsroom -- good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

Good morning to all of you.

Oh, be careful about what you send out in e-mails. A hearing will be held today on how to proceed in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. This after a judge suspended the penalty phase of the trial on Monday. She is angry. A lawyer apparently e-mailed testimony to witnesses to try and coach them before they appeared in court. That's a big no-no.

No jury will be present today and the judge could decide to drop the death penalty option against Moussaoui.

Students in Paris protesting this morning. They're demanding a fair shake after tough new -- after a tough new jobs plan was introduced. It was give employers more leniency in firing workers 26 years old and under. More peaceful protests are planned for later.

No one seems to be hopping on Senator Russ Feingold's bandwagon. He's proposing a resolution to censure President Bush over the domestic wiretapping program. That's going to be debated before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Critics have said Senator Feingold, who is a possible presidential contender, is pursuing this for political gain.

And Isaac Hayes is fed up. He is quitting "South Park." Hayes has been the voice of Chef on the raunchy animated series for 10 years, a decade. Hayes is a scientologist and complaining that the show finally crossed the line on religion. He released this statement. Allow me to read it for you. He says: "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs and others begins."

Matt Stone, who is the co-creator of "South Park," says Isaac Hayes has never had a problem with the show satirizing other religions until they made fun of Scientology.

S. O'BRIEN: Huh.

COSTELLO: So there you have it.

S. O'BRIEN: Strange timing then.

M. O'BRIEN: I guess he feels they gave him the shaft, so to speak, wouldn't you say? No?

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, thank you for doodling on (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

COSTELLO: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on the program, President Bush's approval ratings at their lowest point ever. A look at what he needs to do to turn it around.

S. O'BRIEN: Then, a potential breakthrough in the treatment of heart disease. We've got some details on the drug that seems to be making a huge difference.

M. O'BRIEN: And back to Pass Christian. We were there just a little while ago, the day after the Mardi Gras, as a matter of fact. We promised to keep them honest when we heard that FEMA was going to be pulling up tents. We have the denouement to that story for you, after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Some grim numbers no matter where you look when it comes to Iraq. No less than 70 bodies found in and around Baghdad in the past 30 hours, an apparent rise in sectarian violence there. And now some new low poll numbers for an embattled president trying to deal with the war.

Yesterday, he began a series of speeches trying to turn the tide of popular opinion on Iraq.

We have some poll numbers which were -- the poll was taken before the speech, but, nevertheless, is worth taking a look at.

CNN's senior political analyst, Bill Schneider, in Washington to break down the numbers for us -- good to see you, Bill.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about this first set of numbers, how Mr. Bush is handling his job as president. That's kind of the headline poll. Approval rating at 36, disapproval at 60 percent. And, as we say, this was before the speech, so if there was any up tick as a result of that, we don't know yet.

What do these numbers tell you?

SCHNEIDER: That they are the lowest numbers of Bush's presidency. He's never been as low as 36 percent. And those numbers are important. I think of them as the Dow Jones Industrial index of Washington. They're a measure of clout. They tell you whether the president really has power.

When a president is at 36 percent, he'll discover, as President Bush already has, that even members of his own party will walk away from him as if he were political poison because he's unpopular.

M. O'BRIEN: It doesn't seem like it was that long ago the president was saying I've got some political capital and I aim to spend it.

SCHNEIDER: And he did. He did.

M. O'BRIEN: He did and I guess, well, we'll see what is shown for it.

Let's talk about the next question. This is interesting, how things are going in Iraq. On the left side are the more current figures. Right is in January. So as you can see, 46 percent of us felt, in January, things were going OK. Now, 38 percent. Fifty-three percent in January felt it was poorly, 60 percent.

So, as you can see, the tide has turned there somewhat significantly.

What do we make of those numbers, Bill?

SCHNEIDER: What we make of them is that Americans are very discouraged by the news that Iraq is on the brink of a civil war. The American ambassador characterized it that way. The president said it's a test for Iraq's new democracy. But when Americans hear news of a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq, they say whoa, wait a minute. That kind of a war, between religious sects, that's really none of our business. We don't want to get involved in a civil war. An insurgency by Islamic radicals who also threaten the United States, that's one thing. But a civil war between religious factions, that's nothing Americans want to get involved in. And that just communicates to Americans it's time for us to think about getting out of there fast.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's go to the next question. This is a really interesting one because for Republicans, the war on terror has been, you know, the bread and butter issue since 9/11. And take a look at these numbers. The question was which party would do a better job dealing with terrorism?

Forty-five percent Republican, 41 percent Democrat.

I'm curious, do you think that the Dubai Port deal played into this one? Or is this a direct result of concerns over Iraq? Or both?

SCHNEIDER: Probably both. But the Dubai Ports deal clearly had a role, even though Republicans kind of cut their losses and rebelled against the president's position on that deal and helped to stop it. Nevertheless, Republicans' image as a party that would deal better with terrorism, which won the 2002 midterm election for them, it won the 2004 presidential and Congressional elections, may not work again in 2006.

That's an insignificant lead for Republicans. As recently as October, they had a 11-point lead. In the months after 9/11, Republicans were some 35 percent over Democrats in handling the issue of terrorism.

Terrorism is the basic issue that defines the Republicans' advantage, and has, since 9/11. And what that poll indicates is they're losing it.

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, yes. We are in an election year, aren't we?

SCHNEIDER: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's take a look a our final poll here, poll -- a set of poll numbers. We're going to show it to you this morning.

Registered voters' choice for Congress. And, as you can see, far right is February, to the left is now. Democrats have gone from 50 to 55, Republicans 43 to 39. What's interesting to me is this belies the numbers in Congress quite a bit.

Do you really -- I mean, because truly what normally happens is incumbents do, in fact, get reelected. So, when people say they're going to vote Democrat, do they really mean it?

SCHNEIDER: They mean that they're unhappy. There are a lot of barriers to the idea that Democrats are suddenly going to take over Congress because of the way the congressional district lines are drawn. Incumbents are very, very well protected. And it will take something of an earthquake to overturn the Republican majority in Congress. And I don't know many people in Washington who are betting that that will happen.

These numbers are just an indicator that the mood of the country is very sour right now. It's as much anti-incumbent as it is anti- Republican, but that still is meaningful, because most incumbents are Republicans.

What it signifies is that the majority in Congress is in trouble. It could be a year of a political earthquake. We don't know. And they're very worrisome number -- numbers for the president's party.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, it's interesting, people always say they're a bunch of bums in Congress, but they like their congressman or congresswoman, don't they?

SCHNEIDER: That's right, they do. And that's what usually protects incumbents. But there are some years -- 1994 was the last one -- when people got so angry and fed up that they said I don't care whether I like my congressman or not, we've just got to change things. We've got to overthrow the whole system.

The could be the mood building right now in the country and the primary reason appears to be the war in Iraq.

M. O'BRIEN: Very interesting.

All right, thank you, Bill Schneider.

Always a pleasure.

SCHNEIDER: My pleasure.

M. O'BRIEN: Our senior political analyst, Bill Schneider -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, a case of Mad Cow Disease is found here in the United States. We've got an update on that right after our short break.

Plus, a drug designed to lower cholesterol might do that and much more -- reverse heart disease.

We're going on the talk to the author of an important new study as we continue right here.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: News of a potential breakthrough in the treatment of heart disease, the nation's number one killer, of course. A new study by the makers of Crestor shows that high doses of the cholesterol drug reduced the amount of artery clogging plaque.

Dr. Steven Nissen is joining us.

He's from the Cleveland Clinic.

He's also the study's lead author and president of the American College of Cardiology.

Nice to see you.

Thanks for talking with us this morning.

DR. STEVEN NISSEN, CLEVELAND CLINIC, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CARDIOLOGY: Good morning, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Now, didn't we already know this, that Crestor, which is a statin, would lower your cholesterol?

NISSEN: Oh, we knew it would lower your cholesterol. In fact, it's a statin drug and we've known statin drugs could lower cholesterol since 1987. But we didn't know is that if we could get the cholesterol low enough, we could actually remove plaque from the coronary arteries.

S. O'BRIEN: Really? So, it lowered the bad cholesterol, it raised the good cholesterol, all terrific things. But it also was able to sort of reverse the heart disease that was already on its way, is that right? NISSEN: That's right. And that's the first time we've been able to find that kind of reversal. We got the bad cholesterol, the LDL, down to 60. That's a very low level. And we were able to get the good cholesterol, the HDL, up by about 15 percent. And that combination of effect ended up removing somewhere between 7 and 9 percent of the plaque in the coronary arteries.

S. O'BRIEN: Didn't people in this study have to take a very high dose, a really, really high dose, of Crestor?

NISSEN: Well, it...

S. O'BRIEN: And isn't that a reason for concern?

NISSEN: Well, it is the maximum FDA approved dose. But we have to understand, we're treating a disease that's the leading cause of death in Western countries. These are people that already had heart disease. They already had blockages in their coronaries.

The safety of these drugs is excellent. The disease itself has such a high morbidity and mortality that the ability to remove plaque from the coronaries is well worth any safety concerns for most patients.

S. O'BRIEN: The study was done on Crestor. And we'll get to who paid for the study in a moment.

But can you assume that other statins given at the high doses would do similar things or no?

NISSEN: Well, this is the most potent of the statins yet developed. And we got a 53 percent reduction in the bad cholesterol. So we got an unprecedented amount of reduction and we think that played a very key role in getting this benefit.

Now, not everybody needs that much reduction and it's important to understand that these weren't just people with high cholesterol. These were people with high cholesterol and blockages in their coronaries.

So it's not for everybody.

S. O'BRIEN: Crestor sponsored the trials, right?

NISSEN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: So there are many people who are doubting Thomases, so to say, who say well, you know, of course they came up with a good result, Crestor funded this entire study.

NISSEN: This study was done by our coordinating center at the Cleveland Clinic. The studies we do are independent studies. They are funded by industry, but the data is housed at the Cleveland Clinic. My statisticians and I analyze and make all the measurements and we have the independent rights to publish the results.

We wish all studies were done that way. This study was done with complete independence.

S. O'BRIEN: A couple of quick things I want to get to that also came out of this group that you're -- that's meeting now. People thought that a blood thinner, Plavix and aspirin, would be helpful, as well, in treatments. And it turns out not to be the case. And, also, there was a theory that B6, B12 and folic acid working together could cut your risk of heart attacks. Also not the case, right?

NISSEN: Yes. Two disappointing studies. The Plavix study, it was hoped Plavix, which is kind of a super aspirin, would reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in patients that were at high risk. And it just didn't work. There was no statistically significant benefit. So that was a disappointment.

We've been getting information in recent years to suggest that this hypothesis that giving B Vitamins would also reduce heart attack and stroke, but it just wasn't going to work.

And this was the biggest study yet and it just didn't work at all.

S. O'BRIEN: So some bad news there, but very good news on the other front.

Dr. Steven Nissen is with the Cleveland Clinic.

He also is the president of the American College of Cardiology.

It's nice to see you, Dr. Nissen.

Thanks for talking with us.

NISSEN: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: A swirl of emotion in the wake of those killer tornadoes. We'll take you live to the Midwest, where folks this morning are trying to put their lives back together.

And we're keeping them honest in Mississippi. At our urging, FEMA promised to take care of some people in a Mississippi tent city. Did they deliver? A follow-up from Pass Christian.

Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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