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American Morning

Jill Carroll Reunited with Family; Iran Flexes Military Muscle; Cargo Plane Crashes in Dover, Delaware

Aired April 03, 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 O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Miles O'Brien.

Clean up this morning after tornadoes and high winds cut a path of destruction through parts of the Midwest overnight. Now those strong winds are sweeping through the Southeast as we speak. We have your severe weather forecast with Chad Myers just ahead.

S. O'BRIEN: A tearful reunion for Jill Carroll. She's back home this morning. Now we're waiting to hear more about her ordeal.

M. O'BRIEN: And there's a new sheriff in the West Wing. And now two more administration heavy hitters could soon be shown the White House door.

S. O'BRIEN: Plus, Iran flexes some military muscle with a new high-speed missile. Is it going to serve as a warning to the Western world? We'll take a look.

M. O'BRIEN: And a new book from one of the authors fighting over "The Da Vinci Code," the author of a book called "The Jesus Papers." We'll talk with him on how he says the Crucifixion was staged.

That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

Massive damage and deaths caused by severe storms across the central U.S. Several states hit by tornadoes, including Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois and Tennessee. Northwestern Tennessee probably the hardest hit. At least 15 dead there. And the search for more is about to begin this morning.

Storms are blamed for two deaths in Missouri. These new overnight pictures are from heavily damaged Caruthersville, which is now under a state of emergency. There are reports of (AUDIO GAP) people injured in Arkansas, as well, as the northeastern part of the state saw as many as half a dozen tornadoes. And, in some places, they had hail the size of a fist.

Besides tornadoes, strong winds at speeds approaching 100 miles an hour caused heavy damage in Illinois. They are being blamed for one death at a collapsed clothing store there. We'll get a closer look now at some of that damage in Illinois.

Jonathan Freed is in Taylorville -- good morning, Jonathan.

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

Since the last time we spoke, the sun has come up here, clearly. And we have a clearer picture, as a result, of some of the biggest damage that struck here in this town.

If you take a look behind me in the immediate foreground, you can see the concrete slabs that are the foundations for what were storage buildings that were just completely shredded by the storm that came through here yesterday. And now if we look beyond it, we can see that there is actually a tree that has fallen onto a home over there and we can see one man who is coming out here, really, one of the first people that we're seeing here this morning now that the sun is up taking a look at the damage that the tree has done to his home.

Now, Miles, the severe weather front stretched from the north to the south of Illinois yesterday, with the most powerful cell moving east along Interstate 72, which is about 25 miles north of where we are.

Now, in Fairview Heights, Illinois, which is just east of St. Louis, a 54-year-old man was killed when a clothing store that he was in collapsed. Now, he was killed. There were some other people in that store that survived. And let's listen to what a couple of them have to say now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard this rumbling and I looked up and I saw the whole ceiling coming down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It just came up so fast we looked -- all we did is I looked out the window and things were flying across the parking lot. And I go oh my god.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREED: Now, Miles, the governor of Illinois has activated the emergency operations center here in the state, assessing damage and trying to determine who needs help the most -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Jonathan Freed in Taylorville, Illinois.

Thank you very much.

Let's get the latest on all this now from our severe weather expert, Chad Myers -- good morning, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Miles.

We have some rain moving back through Atlanta, now Gainesville. The weather has calmed down. There still are some watch boxes out there, which means there's a potential for severe weather, but there are no tornado warnings at this hour.

The rain has moved through Johnson City, through Bristol and Charlotte.

I'm going to back you up, though, to last night, when the storms were developing.

Here's Dyersburg, Newburn, right under there. You're going to hear about that town a lot today. Two cells moved right over northern Dyer County. And that's where most of the fatalities actually occurred.

Strong weather in Nashville.

See how these storms were not a big line, a big squall line, until later here. We have one storm there, one storm -- we call those super cells. When we get super cells, they begin to rotate if the conditions are right. If you get a big line of weather, they don't rotate as much. You can get smaller tornadoes.

But it clearly appears from what are the -- some of the radar that we're looking at, some of the old radars from last night, this could have been a very large tornado across parts of northern Tennessee -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Chad Myers, stay there for just a moment.

We have word coming in that in Dover, Delaware, at the Dover Air Force Base there, of a crash of a C-5A like this. This is not the particular aircraft involved. That's just a picture we've got.

Can you just -- can you pull up the radar there quickly, Chad, and just see what kind of weather conditions would have been there at Dover, Delaware?

MYERS: How about that?

Here's New York, here's New Jersey, here's Delaware here. No rain coming down at this point, but I did check the observation. Five miles visibility with some ground fog. A temperature of 45, dew point 43, which means the relative humidity around 93 percent. That's enough to probably cause some ground fog, but none being report at the time yet. But obviously the pilots may have seen it because sometimes fog can roll in rather quickly there -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, Dover, Delaware, of course, is a coastal location, as you look at the Google map there to give you a sense of what we're talking about there. But reports, though, of a C-5 cargo plane. There were 17 people aboard. It happened 6:45 local time. I'm just kind of reading off of Soledad's computer here. No word of fatalities, however. But we're watching that very closely. The C-5A and B Galaxy a huge cargo aircraft in the U.S. inventory, the largest cargo aircraft in the inventory and in Dover, Delaware.

So, we will be watching that for you closely -- Soledad. S. O'BRIEN: All right, that report saying that the plane broke into three pieces. And all of that coming from the Associated Press, we should note.

Let's turn and talk about American reporter Jill Carroll.

She's back with her family this morning after a long-awaited reunion on Sunday in Boston. And now that she's out of harm's way, Carroll is taking a little time to heal. But before long, she is expected to start writing about her nearly three month ordeal, held captive by Iraqi insurgents.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

S. O'BRIEN (voice-over): On January 7th, in one of Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods, Jill Carroll is on assignment for the "Christian Science Monitor." On her way to interview a Sunni Arab politician, Carroll and her translator are ambushed, the translator shot and killed, and Jill Carroll is kidnapped.

Ten days later, Al Jazeera airs a silent 20-second videotape of Carroll. There's also a message to the United States -- free the female prisoners in Iraq by January 20th or Jill Carroll will be killed.

Just hours before the deadline, Jill's mother, Mary Beth Carroll, appears on AMERICAN MORNING, making an international appeal for her daughter's release.

MARY BETH CARROLL, JILL CARROLL'S MOTHER: To her captors, I say that Jill's welfare depends upon you. And so we call upon you to ensure that Jill is returned safely home to her family, who needs her and loves her.

S. O'BRIEN: The January 20th deadline passes and no word on Jill. Days later, the U.S. releases five female Iraqi detainees, but denies that has anything to do with the captors' demands.

January 30th, another videotape on Al Jazeera -- Jill Carroll weeping. The audio is not clear, but according to the Arab network, she's pleading with U.S. and Iraqi officials to meet her captors' demands.

On February 9th, another videotape, this one dated days earlier and airing on a Kuwaiti television channel. Speaking in a strong voice, Jill says: "Give them whatever they want as quickly as possible. There's a very short time."

Then, for nearly two months, no word. Last Wednesday, Jill's twin sister Katie makes an appeal on Al Arabiya Television.

KATIE CARROLL, JILL'S SISTER: I am deeply worried about how she's being treated.

S. O'BRIEN: The next day, on Thursday, after 82 days in captivity, Jill Carroll is finally freed. Immediately after her release, Jill says she was treated well by her captors. These comments followed by the airing of this videotape of Jill.

JILL CARROLL, FORMER HOSTAGE: There are a lot of lies that come out of the American government, calling the Mujahedeen terrorists and other things. And I think it's important that the American people hear from me. The Mujahedeen are only trying to defend their country.

S. O'BRIEN: But as she makes her way back to the U.S. Jill issues a statement explaining why she made the propaganda videotape. It's read by her editor at the "Christian Science Monitor."

RICHARD BERGENHEIM, EDITOR, "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": They told me I would be released if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and I wanted to go home alive. So I agreed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: We're going to hopefully get more information on Jill Carroll since her return home. That's coming this morning.

A look at some of the other stories making headlines.

Carol has got that -- hey, Carol, good morning again.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.

Good morning to all of you.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling on Iraqi lawmakers to stop arguing and form a new government. Secretary Rice arrived in Baghdad earlier today. You're actually looking at British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. He's right behind her.

Rice is calling on Iraqi lawmakers to reign in sectarian violence and get that government going. This as insurgents set off two car bombs in Baghdad. At least one person killed earlier this morning.

Shake up at the White House -- who will be the next to go? White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card quit last week and now sources are telling us that Press Secretary Scott McClellan and Treasury Secretary John Snow are next on the chopping block. Of course, we will keep you posted.

For the first time since Katrina hit seven months ago, people in the New Orleans area will get their mail. The U.S. Post Office firing up the New Orleans processing and distribution center today. The first letters should be delivered tomorrow.

Capitol Hill police say they will seek an arrest warrant for Representative Cynthia McKinney some time this week. The Georgia lawmaker accused of hitting an officer who stopped her at the entrance to a House office building. She didn't want to use the metal detector. He wanted her to use it.

In the meantime, McKinney is taking the case to the voters. She's going to hold a news conference in her home district later this morning, which should be very interesting.

And, finally, those who put on the Miss. America pageant have realized no one is watching. So a new tactic -- Miss. America will now need you to get the crown. Pageant organizers say audience members will help to choose the finalist for next year. It'll be in a series of reality TV like episodes. So, yes, you get to vote and somebody gets to be really, really mean to a woman who's just trying to show you she's the most beautiful of all.

S. O'BRIEN: They're going to have somebody mean to her?

COSTELLO: Well, I'm sure they'll have critics on the show because there will be 15...

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, I hope not.

COSTELLO: No, there will be 15 contestants in each reality show and they will be vying to make it to the next round. So you can bet they'll have a (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

S. O'BRIEN: I know. But I hope there's no like Simon version.

M. O'BRIEN: There's going to -- there'll be a Simon. You know there will.

S. O'BRIEN: No, there shouldn't be.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: That's, you know, like -- that's mean.

M. O'BRIEN: Let them talk about world peace...

COSTELLO: We live in a mean society.

M. O'BRIEN: ... in peace, you know?

S. O'BRIEN: No gratuitous meanness.

I thought the woman we showed in that cute bikini was cute.

COSTELLO: She was, indeed, cute.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Carol, thanks.

M. O'BRIEN: Have they moved out of the Catalina suit? Remember, it was always the one piece suit for much of that? Remember that?

S. O'BRIEN: I don't know.

Pete's nodding yes, they have.

M. O'BRIEN: They've moved on. Years ago, they moved out of the Catalina...

S. O'BRIEN: I never watched it that closely, Miles. But apparently...

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. It was a big issue among some of us.

S. O'BRIEN: Uh-huh.

Anyway, moving on, if we can...

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Iran is flexing its military muscle. It happened over the weekend. The country testing an underwater missile. Ahead this morning, we'll take a look at this question -- is Iran headed for a military showdown with the U.S.?

M. O'BRIEN: We'll also talk with the author who sued the best- selling author, Dan Brown, over "The Da Vinci Code." He's out with a book called "The Jesus Papers." It's a real shocker. Among other things, he says the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ was staged and that Jesus moved to Egypt and lived several more years.

We'll ask him what his evidence is on that.

S. O'BRIEN: Huh.

Also, time is running out if you want to use your frequent flier miles for summer travel. We'll get some tips on how to get the best use out of your miles, just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Some military bravado from Iran to talk about this morning.

They've test fired an underwater missile. They say it is the fastest in the world. It can be seen as a kind of warning for U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf, as tensions rise over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Join us this morning from Washington, D.C. is the former chief weapons inspector for the U.S. David Kay.

Hey, David, nice to see you, as always.

Thanks for talking with us.

DAVID KAY, FORMER CHIEF WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Good to be with you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much.

Such a public test. I mean if you missed it, they rolled videotape on it and then they talked about it a lot.

Do you think that there is a political message here, a military message here or a little bit of both? KAY: Well, there was a bit of both. But I think the largest message was political, political to the U.S. political to our allies in the Gulf and to the Chinese and the Russians and the Indians.

Look, Security Council action, if it escalates, has the potential of escalating into a military conflict. And don't expect Iran to be like Iraq.

S. O'BRIEN: I was going to say, do you -- do you feel a similarity between what Saddam Hussein was doing in the run-up to the start of the war?

KAY: Well, you know, as they say, history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes. There are some things that are similar, but there are some significant differences on both sides.

On our side, we've lived with, as Condoleezza Rice described over the weekend, the thousands of mistakes that were made in the Iraq operation. I think there's less of a passion and hunger, certainly in the military, for another military action immediately in the Gulf while we're still dealing with the aftermath of the previous one of three years ago.

But there -- the similarity is we've got the Security Council involved in something which it's not clear what the ending is going to be.

S. O'BRIEN: The United Nations Security Council has now given this 30-day warning, essentially, 30 days to comply.

What happens -- first, let's listen to what the -- Iran's representative to the IAEA had to say.

His name is Ali Asghar Soltanieh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALI ASGHAR SOLTANIEH, IRAN'S CHIEF REPRESENTATIVE TO IAEA: The best action of the United Nations Security Council is no action, really just to take note of the documents which have been sent to the United Nations Security Council and let the IAEA to do its own job, because the IAEA is the only pertinent technical international organization to do its responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Iran has refused to comply with this 30-day deadline.

What happens now?

KAY: Well, that's the problem with deadlines. And one reason I'm not a great fan of them, if you create a deadline, you've got to know what you're going to do at the deadline if the other side doesn't comply, as is very likely in this case. I think at the end of 30 days, they'll go back to the Security Council with a report from the IAEA that negotiations are continuing, but that Iran still is enriching uranium and that hasn't stopped. And then it will be up to the Council to decide what.

You've got laying on the table both the Chinese and the Russian refusal to go along with any economic sanctions and certainly authorizing military action. And so you'll have to see what you can do.

And, in fact, we've got time for diplomacy and I think we ought to emphasize not deadlines, but, in fact, condemning Iran for its action, but really painting a future of Iran that is not very pleasant if it continues and indicating what an outwire (ph) this current government is in Iran and how difficult it's going to make it for the Iranian people.

S. O'BRIEN: But this government has been an outliner (ph) on lots of fronts pretty much since they've come into power. So, I mean, if the deadline eventually does lead to some kind of showdown with military action, it is realistic, I think in many people's minds, to say what Iran would do would basically be to unleash terror, you know, Hezbollah running amok against the U.S.

Do you see that as a potential end game?

KAY: Well, I think potentially that's a lot more likely than that they will confront the U.S. military head-on. They're crazy, but they're not nuts, as you say.

The Iranians have a well developed network both of its own intelligence agencies and Hezbollah. They're all over the Gulf. They're certainly all over Western Europe. It's far more likely they will start with an escalation of terrorism. And certainly we ought to look at Iraq.

If Iran decides to make our life worse in Iraq, it has the capability and it's relatively costless. Muqtada al-Sadr is essentially an Iranian influenced agent. His army, Sadr's army is heavily -- Madr's (ph) army is heavily influenced by the Iranians. So they can make our life there unbearable.

S. O'BRIEN: David Kay, as always, with this new information about this underwater missile.

Thanks for talking with us.

KAY: Good to see you.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you.

Likewise.

He is the former chief U.S. weapons inspector -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: We have some pictures just coming in. Dover, Delaware is our dateline. And there is that C-5 transport aircraft that crashed, we believe, on approach toward Dover, Delaware this morning, a little before 7:00 local time.

The C-5 is a huge cargo aircraft loaded up with fuel and everything else. It can weigh upwards of 850,000 pounds. A crew of 17 aboard. We have no reports at this point of any fatalities, although there are some injuries reported, nonetheless.

There you can see it broke into at least a couple of pieces. The tail section missing and the forward section obviously disconnected from the main part of the fuselage. It's a four engine jet aircraft with tremendous range capabilities. And it appears, if you look in the upper kind of mid-right section there, that some sort of inflatable slide or something was deployed there, indicating that there were some people who probably made their way out.

So this is Dover, Delaware, which, of course, is where that big mortuary facility is located. Many of the fatalities from the Iraq War and Afghanistan make their way through Dover, this along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

This morning, we checked in with Chad Myers and got a sense of the weather there. He said that the visibility was about five miles. But there is always problem with early morning fog, or frequently a problem with early morning fog there when the dew point gets close to the temperature, and that's what we had, a situation there that was ripe for conditions for fog.

So there could have been some visibility issues there. But, of course, very early on in the game here.

Jamie McIntyre is on the line with us now, our senior Pentagon correspondent -- Jamie, what is the military telling you?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, the Air Force is also just getting very sketchy initial information. But here's what they -- what they think they know at this point.

The plane, the C-5 Galaxy, was flown by a Guard unit and it radioed to the base and declared an in-flight emergency, and then attempted to -- it was either -- it either had taken off from Dover and was returning or was coming there from somewhere else. But it was attempting to land.

And we're told by Air Force officials that it hit short of the runway and then I believe you have pictures there that you can see that part of the plane apparently broke up in what was a very hard landing.

The Air Force has no reports at this point of any fatalities or injuries, but, again, they don't have a complete picture of what's happened here at the Pentagon. People a little bit closer to the scene may. But, again, it appears that it was an extremely hard landing. It might be -- certainly qualify as a crash. But it was something happened to the plane when it was in the air and they called and declared an in-flight emergency. And, again, this was flown, I'm told, by a National Guard -- Air National Guard unit. But the location of that unit we're not clear of, either.

So, again, very initial sketchy information from the Air Force. But a little bit there to add, as we're trying top piece together what's happened.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, and it's -- so, apparently, Jamie, crashing short of the runway. We don't know, as you say, whether they took off and came back right away or whether this had been the tail end of a very long mission.

It doesn't appear that there was any fire in -- subsequent to the crash. That could be a bit of a clue, potentially, down the road.

But you don't know the nature of that emergency? They haven't elaborated on that?

MCINTYRE: No, I mean, again, that's the -- the report that Air Force officials had at the Pentagon. It was essentially that the plane declared an in-flight emergency. That would indicate, you know, that it probably wasn't some sort of a weather issue or some other issue, but that perhaps it was some sort of problem with the plane itself.

But, again, we'll be continuing to gather some information. As soon as we get a little more detail, we'll pass it along.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, so once again, the location is Dover, Delaware. The craft involved is a C-5 Galaxy. This is the largest cargo aircraft in the U.S. fleet. It dates backward -- back about 40 years now it's been in the fleet. And there's only really a handful of them left. They've been largely replaced by the C-17s, which are now more frequently used.

Nevertheless, the C-5 is a workhorse and has the capability of a tremendous amount of payload capability, including it can carry an M1- A1 tank and that kind of thing. So it has a tremendous payload capacity.

We are watching it closely. As we get more information on what happened there and the possibility of injuries and what might have happened to that C-5, we'll get it to you.

Stay with us for more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: It is possible that the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ was staged and that Pontius Pilate was somehow complicit in all of that, and that Jesus ended up moving on to Egypt and living for several more years? These are provocative conclusions. It's all in a book called "The Jesus Papers." And the author is Michael Baigent. He's been up against a man who is a more widely known author, at least so far, Dan Brown, who wrote a book called "The Da Vinci Code," which was, as Mr. Brown admits, largely based on a previous book you had written about the possibility that Jesus had married and that his blood line still exists. All provocative stuff.

Michael Baigent, good to have you with us.

"The Jesus Papers" is out now.

MICHAEL BAIGENT, AUTHOR, "THE JESUS PAPERS": Thank you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: First of all, you're -- you say your evidence is -- is incontrovertible. It -- when I read it, I see some fairly flimsy evidence.

Why don't you tell me, first of all, what your allegations are and how you support it?

BAIGENT: My book is a journey through -- an attempt to find the historical Jesus. And the background to this journey is the clandestine art market. And there's a whole lot of documents out there -- it's a treasure trove out there. And, of course, we have to take them seriously, because without this clandestine market, we would never have had the Dead Sea Scrolls, we would never have had the Nagamati Scrolls (ph).

Out there are documents which I've either had described to me or I've seen. I've been in a bank room with two great chests stuffed with papyrus documents. What's happened to them, I haven't a clue. They're out there. They need to be gotten into the hands of scholars.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, one of the documents you claim -- you didn't see, but someone who has since passed away saw, it indicated, you say, that Jesus lived to 45 A.D. some 15 years after his death, supposedly, according to you, by crucifixion.

How do you -- how do you know that document ever existed?

BAIGENT: A very good theologian in England was called across to France to the Seminary of Saint Sulpice, late 1890 -- sorry, early 1890s -- to help translate a document which he laughed about afterward, saying that it provided incontrovertible proof that Jesus survived the Crucifixion.

Now, one of his students, who was very close to him, told me this whole story. He didn't know what else to do with it. But it's perfectly explicable and this document supposedly has ended up with the Vatican.

But I've seen documents myself...

M. O'BRIEN: So it's buried in the Vatican.

BAIGENT: It's buried in the Vatican...

M. O'BRIEN: And -- but you have not seen it, so?

BAIGENT: I haven't seen this particular one. I've seen other documents which I've held in my hand; one in particular, which comes from a fellow calling himself the Messiah of the Children of Israel. And he's reacting to an accusation that he might be claiming that he's god. And he's saying no, no, no, I'm filled with the spirit of god.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, let's look at one other thing which you say is proof. This is in a church in France.

BAIGENT: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: Put the graphic up. It's a -- and what's critical about this, this is one of the depictions for the Stations of the Cross, Station 14. And this would supposedly show the body of Jesus being put into the tomb. But what you find critical here is the fact that it's dark and there's a moon out. And that -- that proves something.

Tell us what that proves to you.

BAIGENT: What it proves is that the priest who painted these Stations of the Cross -- remember, he bought them commercially and he painted them himself. He was revealing that he knew that Jesus had survived the Crucifixion. Now, if we look at Station 13...

M. O'BRIEN: That doesn't seem like a lot of proof to me. I mean it just, you know, maybe he was out of paint that was the right color, you know?

BAIGENT: Well, I don't think so. A priest is not going to do this kind of thing. What it's evidence of is an incredible dilemma that this priest was involved in. It's a major thing for a priest to do something like this.

Station 13 is the Crucifixion, a beautiful sunset behind. Station 14, traditionally being taken into the tomb. The moon has risen. The Passover has begun. It couldn't be clearer.

Now, where did this priest learn this?

Well, it seems, as far as my research is concerned, is that he saw these documents that were in Paris at the time. But there's a treasure trove of documents out there...

M. O'BRIEN: All right, so you basically say Jesus lived, that Pontius Pilate staged the Crucifixion for a long story here.

BAIGENT: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: It's heresy, isn't it?

BAIGENT: It's complete heresy, by the standards of heresy. But what we have got to understand is that Christianity was put together, really, late second century. It was solidified in the fourth century.

In the second century, when there was all these documents, all these Jesus memories being written, there was no such thing as heresy. There was no such thing as orthodoxy.

And the Jesus of history is actually a person who's compatible with Judaism, Islam, Christianity, whereas the Jesus of theology is someone who's more restrictive and divides people. I'm interested in the Jesus of history.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, it's fascinating and it's provocative.

Michael Baigent, I wish we had a little more time to talk with you about it, because there's a lot to it.

We're going to be back.

We'll have an update on that crash in Dover, Delaware, that C-5 transport plane.

Michael Baigent, thanks for being with us.

BAIGENT: Thank you.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: These are live pictures from Dover, Delaware. High above it, as you see, in that field, which is not far from the runway at the Dover Air Force Base, a C-5 transport, a Galaxy, as it is called, landed hard, crashed. Certainly a crash landing there, breaking the aircraft into three pieces. The tail section not evident here, and of course, the nose section breaking away from the fuselage, and more severe damage on the left side.

Seventeen were aboard. We're told there are injuries. No reports of any fatalities. We're told that the pilot declared an emergency in flight and came in towards Dover. We're not sure where the flight began, however, at this point. So we're watching this one very closely for you. We'll get some more details for you and bring them to you.

S. O'BRIEN: Apparently some people have been taken to the hospital with injuries. At this time, they don't have a number of people who have been transported or even the details on the extent of their injuries at this point. Obviously, we're following this story and watching these dramatic pictures as the crews are on the scene, trying to work anybody out if there are people inside still. We're going to get back to that in just a little bit.

(WEATHER REPORT)

(NEWSBREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist wants an immigration bill passed this week. Senators, though, miles apart, divided over a guest worker program and allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens. They're even tossing around the word filibuster.

Karen Tumulty has a major piece on this in this week's "Time" magazine, and she joins us this morning.

Nice to see you, Karen. Thanks for being with us.

KAREN TUMULTY, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Thank you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: First tell me what kind of a role you think the demonstrations have played in what we're seeing now in all these elected officials. Sometimes they almost seem like they're blind- sided by the emotion behind this debate.

TUMULTY: Oh, absolutely. And Senator John McCain, who has been one of two authors, along with Teddy Kennedy, of the bill in the Senate that would expand immigration dramatically and give these 11 million estimated illegal immigrants in this country a path so citizenship, told us that he was -- had all but given up on this bill's chances of even getting to the Senate floor this year, until a couple of weeks ago, when suddenly these demonstrations started pouring out onto the streets, protesting a bill in the House that had gone the opposite direction. And suddenly, Senator McCain says, his colleagues, who he thought were just unalterably opposed this, were coming to him privately saying isn't there something that we can agree on here?

But of course on the other side of the capitol, we hear from House member Tom Tancredo, who's the leader of the anti-immigration forces, that he was gotten more than 1,000 angry phone calls from people out in the country who are irate at all of these demonstrators, particularly the ones who were carrying flags of their home country.

S. O'BRIEN: What do you think the middle ground looks like? Here's what Senator Frist had to say. Let's roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN), MAJORITY LEADER: Right now, to give them amnesty is not the answer. Right now to have them all go back home is literally impossible, impossible today. So it is incumbent upon us in the Senate to compromise in a way that is fair, that is equitable, that recognizes this 12 million is not one monolithic, uniform group.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Well, he sort of set up the problem well. But what does the middle ground look like?

TUMULTY: Well, it's pretty clear that any new bill is going to have tough, tough, new enforcement measures to sort of take care of what's happening on the border. It is more than likely going to have some kind of so-called guest worker program. This is something that President Bush wants to see. The House has voted against it, but suddenly you're hearing signs over there that there is some, you know, recognition on the part of business that they need to do this for business.

The real question here is going to be what will this bill do for the 11 million people who are in this country illegally now? And that is going to be the hardest part to find some kind of common ground on.

S. O'BRIEN: What do you think the role will be of President Bush? I mean, does he have the ability to push it through, support it? I mean, is it going to depend on sort of his political capital that we talk about?

TUMULTY: You know, I think so, and it's going to be very interesting to watch precisely when and how he weighs into this debate. He has been on record for a very long time as being in favor of a guest worker program. But, at some point, if the bill does emerge from the Senate and the House, to prevent it from dying in a conference committee, it could very well take the president himself getting in and twisting some arms.

S. O'BRIEN: Quick final question for you. This -- a lot of times we're talking about the nation's -- you know, we talk about national security. We're talking about terrorists and preventing a terror attack. And then sort of the debate has swung to the 12 million people, you know, coming into our country illegally. And sort of the focus, to me at least, seems to be off terror and on to health care system being overload and things like that.

TUMULTY: That's right. Immigration has always, you know, really taken in all sorts of conflicting and contradictory emotions on the part of people in this country. But the concerns about immigration, as you said, are on two levels, one on security and one on the incredible financial burden that these immigrants are putting on a lot of cities and states across the country.

S. O'BRIEN: Karen Tumulty of "Time" magazine. Karen, thank you very much.

TUMULTY: Thank you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: My pleasure.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Speaking of flying, the summer travel season is just a couple months away, and a lot of folks are finding out it's harder than ever to use those frequent flyer miles. I just got completely jacked over by a particular airline that begins starts with 'D' and based in Atlanta, and they basically doubled my mileage just to get a seat, you know, and so they have -- it's kind of a little bit of a racket. We're going to ask how you can navigate through this system, coming up.

S. O'BRIEN: Also there's a new report out, it appears that thousands of kids -- like this little guy right here, are too big for a car seat. He's three years old and weighs 47 pounds.

M. O'BRIEN: He looks like he's old enough to drive, doesn't he? He's a big kid.

S. O'BRIEN: No, no. He's big, but he's little.

M. O'BRIEN: What are his parents to do? Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes a look at this dilemma straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Not too long ago, just a week or so ago, took the family down to Costa Rica, cashed in some frequent flyer mileage. And boy was I in for a surprise. I thought it would be about 35,000 miles a pop to go in coach. It was double that because of all these blackouts and all this. And hey, I'm supposed to be one of these platinum guys, what's the deal?

Nilou Motamed is the senior editor at "Travel and Leisure" magazine. She's here to give us the dirty little secrets on these...

NILOU MOTAMED, "TRAVEL AND LEISURE": You're not alone.

M. O'BRIEN: ... frequent flyer programs. There's like one seat on the plane that you can get or something like that, right?

MOTAMED: They are limited. The seats are very limited. It's only 6 to 8 percent of seats that are allocated for award members.

M. O'BRIEN: Six to 8 percent, and you know, they want the high level people as it is. And then they'll say, oh, by the way, if you want a seat, you really have to, you know, give double the mileage. When did this all start happening?

MOTAMED: It started happening when the airlines started not doing well. And they're trying to make money wherever they can. And so if you're trying to redeem these miles, Miles...

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, so to speak.

MOTAMED: ... what you have to do is be flexible when you're going somewhere and act fast. And for summer especially, that's really important.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, flexibility and acting fast are not good in my household. You know, we've got the spring breaks and all that stuff. And in any case, so in order to try to beat them at their own game, there are a few things we can go through.

MOTAMED: Yes, indeed.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's go through your -- we'll go through your tips here. First of all, monitoring the rules. I was not paying a lot of attention. Who does, right? You get that big statement. Who reads it?

MOTAMED: Yes, I mean, that's not the way to go. The way to go is actually go on the Web. There are lots of great Web sites that monitor those rules for you, whether it's Web Flyer or frequentflyer.com, these are places that you can go and they actually keep track so you don't have to.

M. O'BRIEN: And, of course, the catalog deal, buy merchandise instead of flying, which is an option.

MOTAMED: There are...

M. O'BRIEN: I got a TV once with that. It was a pretty good deal.

MOTAMED: So the key for that, though, is figuring out whether it's worth it or not. So each of your miles is worth 1.4 cents. So if you do the math and you figure out is it worth it for me to buy this TV or is worth it for me to actually put it toward another flight?

M. O'BRIEN: Who came up with that figure, I wonder?

MOTAMED: I did, just now.

M. O'BRIEN: Oh you just -- 1.4 cents? You actually went through that? You did that in your head just now? That's really good.

MOTAMED: Very good with math.

M. O'BRIEN: Of course, you can do -- use it for upgrades.

MOTAMED: Upgrades. Well, upgrades are more limited now; again, because they're trying to make as much money as they can. But really what you need to focus on is what's your priority? Is your priority to get someplace or is your priority maybe even using it for hotels? That's another option.

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, that's a good thought, too. And then here's the thing, the one thing. And I've been guilty of this in the past. Hoarding.

MOTAMED: Don't hoard.

M. O'BRIEN: Don't do it, right?

MOTAMED: No, it's not worth it. Miles in the last decade have devalued by 33 percent. So do not hoard them, use them. Travel. Live a little!

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, it's not like you -- you're not earning interest on those things, are you?

MOTAMED: No, no, no.

M. O'BRIEN: You said book early. That's kind of one that you got to pay attention to.

MOTAMED: It's really worth it. M. O'BRIEN: Now what -- what about partner airlines? I didn't think you could do it. Can you actually -- like, if you have Delta miles, can you...

MOTAMED: Indeed.

M. O'BRIEN: ... book on Continental or whatever?

MOTAMED: What you'd have to think about is what the alliance is, whether it's Star Alliance or whether it's OneWorld. If you have trouble with Cathay, think about another airline that's in that group. If you have trouble with Qantas, think about American. It's really a good alternative.

M. O'BRIEN: I have this theory. I think that the frequent flyer mileage programs -- and we're talking, what, 25 years now? American started them.

MOTAMED: There are actually 10 trillion frequent flyer miles out there.

M. O'BRIEN: This has been a real problem for the airlines, ultimately. It's a tremendous amount of debt that they have to carry. It's created this kind of caste system in the air which I think infects the whole atmosphere. Am I going too far with this?

MOTAMED: You might be a little bit. I think what you have to think about is it's a loyalty program. The point is, you're being rewarded for being loyal to a brand. And I think if you think about that way, and the idea that you're actually getting something for the fact that you're going to get privilege out of it. And if you think about the alternatives that you have to use these miles, it's a little bit less -- more palatable.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, let me make my point more clearly. I think people who get, you know, platinum or whatever, they feel entitled to this stuff. And then when they don't get the payoff, they get mad.

MOTAMED: Like you did.

M. O'BRIEN: So it's a bit of -- there's a backfire that's underway here. And I know the airlines are on the ropes. What are they going to do, right?

MOTAMED: The airlines actually are going to be in an interesting spot right now, because the credit card companies that they've paired up with are going to be looking at them because they don't want to anger any of their loyal customers. So there's going to be a little bit of give and take here. It's going to be an interesting time.

M. O'BRIEN: Could we see the end of this someday, or is this going to be with us forever?

MOTAMED: No, I think people like the idea of getting something for -- maybe for nothing.

M. O'BRIEN: There's no such thing as a free lunch.

MOTAMED: Indeed.

M. O'BRIEN: There is no such thing. All right, Nilou Motamed, who is the senior editor of "Travel and Leisure," thanks for being with us.

MOTAMED: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: This morning, we'll take a look at the top stories, including Jill Carroll. She's back home in the U.S.

And rumors of more staff changes at the White House.

The defense begins its case in the Enron trial.

Mass transit coming to a screeching halt in Denver, Colorado.

And we're learning the full extent of the damage in the Midwest following this weekend's tornadoes and severe storms. We're live with the very latest on this AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

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