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American Morning
Rumsfeld Under Fire; Shocking School
Aired April 13, 2006 - 09:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: With the war going badly in Iraq, there is now a growing chorus of discontent in the highest ranks of the U.S. military. Four recently retired generals with direct involvement in the Iraq campaign are now on record saying the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should resign.
Our next guest begs to differ. He is retired Marine Lieutenant General Mike Delong.
General Delong, good to be with us this morning.
LT. GEN. MIKE DELONG, U.S. MARINE CORPS (RET.): Good to be with you, Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Yesterday we had the former commander of the First Infantry, the Big Red One, on with us, General Batiste, a man who I'm sure you know, and I just want to play a little excerpt of what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAJ. GEN. JOHN BATISTE, U.S. ARMY (RET.): When decisions are made without taking into account sound, military recommendations, sound military decision making, sound planning, then we're bound to make mistakes. When we violate the principles of war with masks and unity of command and unity of effort, we do that at our own peril.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
M. O'BRIEN: And then he went on to say he thinks Secretary Rumsfeld should step down. What do you say to that?
DELONG: Well, when he was in command over there, Tommy Franks and I had retired. When he was working for then -- Assistant Secretary Wolfowitz, the people who had access to -- who needed access to the secretary were the combatant commanders. That was Tommy Franks. And when we ran our plan through, our plan was run through the joint staff, every single one of the administration's secretaries played at an input in that operations plan, and I just don't see that. Dealing with Secretary Rumsfeld is like dealing with a CEO. When you walk in to him, you've got to be prepared. You've got to what you're talking about. If you don't, you're summarily dismissed, but that's the way it is, and he's effective.
M. O'BRIEN: Let's press on here a little bit. One of the other generals who has been -- or retired generals who's been critical is Major General Paul Eaton. I want to read from an excerpt from a piece that appeared in "The New York Times" last month. He said this, "In the five years Mr. Rumsfeld has presided over the Pentagon, I've seen a climate of groupthink become dominant, and a growing reluctance by experienced military men and civilians to challenge the notions of senior leadership."
The atmosphere you just described of a CEO that if you don't have your act together, you're summarily dismissed sort of jibes with what I just read there. I guess it's a matter of interpretation, but is it possible that that climate, that way of managing the Pentagon, has created this so-called groupthink, which is counterproductive, ultimately?
DELONG: Well, I don't think so. It's -- if you're dealing with somebody that's senior to you, you learn how to work with them. And Secretary Rumsfeld is very effective. I learned how to deal with him. I got in some interesting discussions with him, and -- but I always got my point across, and I was always there the next day to talk to him. So I think he's effective. He is tough to deal with, as was Tommy Franks, but both of them were very, very effective.
M. O'BRIEN: Give me a sense, without betraying any security or confidentiality, give us a sense of those kinds of discussions. How do they go with them?
DELONG: Well, let's be honest, Tommy Franks was running the war. He was combatant commander. He was calling the shots. And every day or twice a day we'd have discussions with the secretary. Here's what we're going do, here's why. The secretary would challenge tommy franks, come back and say here's why we're doing this, and he said OK, it makes sense to me. I mean, we have civilian control of the military. It's a good thing. And Secretary Rumsfeld takes it literally, and that's a good thing. That's his style.
M. O'BRIEN: Let's check in now with somebody who was on just a couple of hours ago, speaking to Soledad, General Tony Zinni, former head of Central Command there in Tampa. Let's listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI, U.S. ARMY (RET.): The biggest mistake was throwing away 10 years worth of planning, plans that had taken into account what we would face in an occupation of Iraq, and it had to be an occupation. We couldn't do it on the cheap with too few troops, trust in exiles who weren't credible, bring in ad hoc teams for the reconstruction that were way over their head. These were tremendously serious mistakes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
M. O'BRIEN: So now General Zinni is getting down to brass tacks in how groupthink, or the atmosphere, the way the Pentagon was run, how that related to the plan which hasn't worked out so well. What do you say to that?
DELONG: well, the plan -- first of all, the plan was changed as a result of the time we had to go in. So we did come up with the different plan. That's true. But the way it was done, it was run through everybody. It was done the right way. I mean, I don't know what else to say.
We did make some mistakes. In retrospect, we probably should have left a portion of the Baath Party, to let them run the government. We probably should have left a portion of the military -- maybe we could have gotten the military together faster. We probably relied too much on Chalabi and friends on what they said was going happen, didn't happen.
M. O'BRIEN: General, to sum it up. If I had to sum up the criticism it seems to me what people are saying is there's an arrogance and almost a cavalier nature of the way this war has -- was thought out initially. And as a result what that really did was, more than anything else, put not enough troops on the ground. Would you go along with that?
DELONG: No, I disagree. If we could have gotten more troops on the ground, we would have, but we couldn't come through turkey. We had one small hole to get through. That was up through Kuwait. And we got as many troops on the ground as fast as we could.
If you remember, our tactics in this war was to get to Baghdad as soon as possible, to keep the Republican Party from getting buried inside the built-up area of the buildings. So getting there quickly with the right force was the right thing to do.
Would it have been helpful to have more forces later in retrospect, 20/20? Probably. Would it have been better to have more military police because of the looting, which we didn't expect to happen? We didn't expect the police force there to quit the day before we came in. We didn't expect Saddam to...
M. O'BRIEN: Final thought, is Secretary Rumsfeld arrogant?
DELONG: I don't know if I'd use the word "arrogant." He's very sure of himself. And if you're not sure of himself, I guess you may consider him arrogant. But if you walk and know what you're talking about, you can have a very pleasant, professional conversation with the man.
M. O'BRIEN: We appreciate your time, sir, retired Lieutenant General Mike Delong from Tampa -- Soledad.
DELONG: Thank you, sir.
S. O'BRIEN: Two teenagers who attend a school for behavioral disorders in Massachusetts are missing. School itself say they think the girls ran away. The school itself is somewhat controversial. It's the only school to use mild electric shock to control behavior.
CNN's Randi Kaye reports on the schools controversy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Antwone Nicholson's school looks more like Disneyland than a place for kids with special needs. There are pinball machines and cartoon characters, wax figures and artwork punctuate with cornflower blues and vivid pinks. Each student has a computer, healthy food, plush quarters, heavy supervision, and constant attention.
Why then would Antwone's mother, Evelyn Nicholson, be fighting like mad to get him out of this place?
EVELYN NICHOLSON, ANTWONE'S MOTHER: He would call me up crying and say, "You've got to get me out of here. I can't take this."
KAYE: Because along with the perks at this center for troubled children come the punishments. The Judge Rotenberg Center claims to be the only one in the country using electric shock aversion therapy. They call it the Graduated Electronic Decelerator, the GED. And half their students go to school each day tethered to electrodes housed in a fanny pack.
(on camera): Really bad pain on a scale of one to 10, what would you say? Ten is really bad.
KAREEM ANDERSON, ROTENBERG CENTER STUDENT: Like seven.
KAYE (voice over): It's a therapy almost as old as electricity itself, banned as barbaric at a far higher voltage, illegal in some states. To Evelyn Nicholson, it is "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" for kids.
Child psychiatrist David Fassler.
DAVID FASSLER, M.D., CHILD PSYCHIATRIST, UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT: This is clearly an intervention which is out of the mainstream. Personally, I worry about the ramifications and the implications long term for the kids.
KAYE: Yet, Evelyn signed a legal consent form that allowed them to strap electrodes on Antwone that deliver 65 volts of electricity by remote control. He got them one at a time each time he cussed, hit, threatened, or frightened someone.
(on camera): You still signed it?
NICHOLSON: Yes.
KAYE: How come?
NICHOLSON: Because that was the only -- that was the only place they had for Antwone.
KAYE (voice over): Now she's suing her New York school district for sending Antwone out of state so they could, in her words, torture and abuse him for engaging in aggressive, unfocused behavior.
Dr. Matthew Israel has been under fire from parents and doctors and psychiatrists since he invented the electric shock device 16 years ago. Dr. Israel calls it behavioral skin shock, a bee sting, a prick, an electric spanking, nothing like the convulsive shock treatments demonized in films.
DR. MATTHEW ISRAEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, JUDGE ROTENBERG CENTER: Children who otherwise might blind themselves have been able to stop that behavior and become a much more normal life.
KAYE: Dr. Israel says he has treated 226 students on the GED. The 24/7 program costs taxpayers $213,000 per child each year.
(on camera): If you hadn't come here, what where would you be today?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would be dead or in a hospital doped up on Thorazine.
KAYE (voice over): The key to his credibility, he says, are students and parents. Inside his own colorful headquarters, Dr. Israel refused to speak to CNN without them, and his lawyers, staff, cameras, and recording devices.
(on camera): When you hear people or critics of this therapy say, this is like child abuse, this is inhumane, this is torture, does it make you all very angry?
(voice over): These parents say their kids are the worst of the worst, head-bangers and biters, obsessive compulsives, out of control. A danger to themselves and others. That the GED, which is only administered with court and parental approval, saved their children's lives.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My daughter was punching herself constantly like that in her eyes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thank god for the GED.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She wouldn't be alive today.
KAYE: According to his medical records, Antwone could also be one scary kid. He stole things, hit people, tried to sexually assault a girl.
NICHOLSON: He's 17, but he's really in between the age of a four and a five year old child. And he can't -- he really can't function, he can't think. And he's really constantly repeating himself.
KAYE: When Antwone first arrived at the center, Dr. Israel says he acted out constantly. Mouthing off got him a reprimand, physical aggression was punished with a zap. Dr. Israel says after many zaps that number dropped to near zero.
(on camera): Your mom told us that you told her it was very painful. Is that true?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. It was painful. KAYE (voice over): Dr. Israel says his treatment is also about rewards. Kids who behave well get treats and games. Bad behavior brings a single two-second skin shock.
(on camera): A student can wear up to five electrodes strapped to their arms and their legs. I strapped one here to my arm just to see how powerful the shock is. It's delivered with a remote control.
Oh! Oh, man! That hurts. That hurts.
(voice-over): What long-term harm or good prolonged treatment would have on a mentally handicapped teenager like Antwone is anyone's guess. His mother has ordered the treatment stopped. Randi Kaye, CNN, Canton, Massachusetts.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: Randi's report first aired on "ANDERSON COOPER 360," which you can catch weeknights at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.
(WEATHER REPORT)
M. O'BRIEN: It's ask Miles day. About 45 minutes from now, 10:30 a.m., live from my office on the old Miles cam there. We'll be taking...
S. O'BRIEN: What kinds of questions do people ask you?
M. O'BRIEN: They are very...
S. O'BRIEN: Are they mostly space and science questions?
SERWER: Or are they intentionally personal?
M. O'BRIEN: Mostly the latter.
SERWER: Intensely personal.
S. O'BRIEN: Really? What do they want to know?
M. O'BRIEN: Somebody wanted to know what was in my pockets here just a moment ago. But that's -- anyway, it's more of that, as opposed to, you know, questions about the news.
S. O'BRIEN: Oh.
M. O'BRIEN: It's stuff -- there's a lot of people out there who believe that the moon landing was faked, and you get that kind of unusual stuff.
SERWER: Really?
M. O'BRIEN: Which I try to debunk.
S. O'BRIEN: Anyway, so send your questions to AM@CNN.com and we'll see you later on pipeline, AM@CNN.com.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MARKET REPORT)
S. O'BRIEN: CNN LIVE TODAY is coming up next. Hey, Daryn, good morning.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.
It turns out we have a few stories concerning kids, as well. It's child's play, but it almost turned deadly serious.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, well I'm going to take -- I've got to do something. I've got get in the car and go. Just said a little prayer, please help me find him, and let him be OK. I thought it was crazy, but I could hear him crying.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAGAN: A boy plays hide and seek under his mother's minivan and she drives away.
Also, a 911 dispatcher is a Michigan girl's hero this morning. I'll talk to them when LIVE TODAY gets started at the top of the hour. It's a case of the kid calling 911 and the system works, Soledad. We like to share those stories, as well.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, absolutely. Great. Looking forward to that, Daryn, thanks.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, coming up, we're going to ask and answer a few questions, like are Soledad and I related, married, brother/sister? All that stuff. Among the many questions on your mind today. You sent them to am@CNN.com. We're going to read more of them on pipeline at 10:30 Eastern, but we'll give you a little preview in just a moment. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: OK. We've been soliciting e-mails all day for the Pipeline segment coming up.
S. O'BRIEN: Right.
M. O'BRIEN: But just to give you a little flavor of what the kinds of questions, the kinds of answers -- and this is an opportunity to include Soledad, who is normally not there for Miles cam. We're going to have to get you a Soledad cam. We're working on that one.
S. O'BRIEN: No, no, that's OK.
M. O'BRIEN: That's OK!
S. O'BRIEN: No Soledad cam.
M. O'BRIEN: OK, let's start off with this one. This is the one I get every week in some fashion, shape or form. Kim in Huntsville, Missouri. "Just want to know if Miles and Soledad are husband and wife or brother and sister or even related. Keep up the great work. (INAUDIBLE) no problem. We'll work on that.
S. O'BRIEN: We are brother and sister. It's true. We grew up on Long Island. No, I'm kidding.
M. O'BRIEN: No, don't start the rumor. We are both...
S. O'BRIEN: Separated at birth.
M. O'BRIEN: We are married, but not to each other.
S. O'BRIEN: You confuse the issue because you say that. No, we are not married to each other.
M. O'BRIEN: We are not married to each other. I do confuse the issue. We're not married to each other, we're not brother and sister. And as far as we know, although we haven't checked the lineage all of way back, I suppose, we are all...
S. O'BRIEN: All O'Briens are related.
M. O'BRIEN: Related to Brian Bereaux (ph) at some point.
S. O'BRIEN: So Kim, good point.
M. O'BRIEN: So we're cousins. There you go. Distant.
S. O'BRIEN: Hey, cuz. Keep going, cuz.
M. O'BRIEN: Bucky in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, says this: "Have you ever been late for a show? Maybe the alarm clock didn't work?" Yes, I have. Yes, I have. I know you have, too.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes. And it's amazing how quickly the adrenaline will get you to do the work you need to do in the time allotted, right?
S. O'BRIEN: Yes. The stress. The stress.
M. O'BRIEN: But that's when you kind of lean on the other. You know, just say look, I'm in trouble this morning and, you know, that's...
S. O'BRIEN: And I say, yes, Miles, you're on your own, babe.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Good luck!
M. O'BRIEN: You die alone in this business. That is one thing you need to know.
Susan in Whitehall, Pennsylvania, has this: "Just checking. Haven't seen Kelly Wallace in a while and wondered if she had her baby. If so, how about some details?" Well, we did announce it, but you obviously missed it that morning. That's OK, we know you watch most mornings.
S. O'BRIEN: Hattie Jane.
M. O'BRIEN: Hattie -- let me give you the details. Hattie Jane Saul (ph), weighing in at eight pounds, 13 ounces.
S. O'BRIEN: That's a big old baby. Eight pounds -- Kelly's a tiny person.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes. And everybody's doing well. It was April 5th, 7:44 p.m. And she's 21 inches. But all that, of course, she's been growing since then.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, she's more than 21 inches now.
M. O'BRIEN: Everybody is doing fine. And we miss Kelly, but we're not rushing her back.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, take your time.
M. O'BRIEN: We want her to enjoy this time. Kelly, you enjoy this time.
S. O'BRIEN: I always found work more relaxing than being home with the baby.
M. O'BRIEN: Especially a newborn!
S. O'BRIEN: But maybe that's just me.
M. O'BRIEN: Is it me or are those first six weeks pretty rough?
S. O'BRIEN: First six years, but...
S. O'BRIEN: We've got to actually -- before we let you go for the morning, we're going to get you right to a story that apparently is breaking at the Supreme Court. And we're just getting the information in. And it looks as if there is -- do we have pictures of this to show anybody?
The Supreme Court, smoke has been reported in the building, and we're being told that people are being evacuated from the Supreme Court building at this hour. No indication at this early time exactly what the situation is there. The court is not in session, which is obviously a good thing, considering this potential situation. We're going to obviously update the story and keep you filled in on what we know at this time. That is all we have. There's smoke in the Supreme Court building. They're evacuating people. Not much more is known, other than that, but we'll follow it.
Short break. We're back in just a moment. Stay with us, everybody.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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