Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Abolish FEMA?; Gas Gauge; Big Blast Test

Aired April 27, 2006 - 08:59   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A plan to abolish FEMA. After plenty of post-Katrina criticism, the agency could be in for a major overhaul. But is it a good idea with hurricane season fast approaching?
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Oil and the economy. An expected grilling for the new Fed chairman on the impact of rising gas prices.

And a bunker buster times 20. The military sets up for a big blast in the desert as they look for a way to attack seemingly secure sites deep underground.

M. O'BRIEN: And the mumps just keep rolling on in the heartland. It's the worst outbreak we've see in decades. And now another call for shots.

S. O'BRIEN: And also, it's a dog-gone shame. Rapper Snoop Dogg in hot water in London this morning after his posse goes, allegedly, a little wild. We'll tell you that story just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

M. O'BRIEN: Good morning. We're glad you're with us this morning. I'm Miles O'Brien.

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien.

M. O'BRIEN: Just about an hour from now, we're going to hear details of a plan to put an end to FEMA and start over. The call is coming many months after Hurricane Katrina and after months of testimony and questions about FEMA's response to that storm in particular, and some other storms as well.

Homeland Security Correspondent Jeanne Meserve live now for us in Washington to tell us about this call coming five weeks before hurricane season officially begins -- Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Miles, FEMA is in shambles beyond repair and should be abolished. That's the conclusion of senators Susan Collins and Joseph Lieberman after 22 hearings into the Katrina response. They believe a totally new organization should be created within the Department of Homeland Security which would handle both preparedness and response to natural, as well as man-made catastrophes.

Unlike FEMA, the new National Preparedness and Response Authority would be a distinct entity within DHS, like the Coast Guard or the Secret Service. The director in a disaster would have a direct line of communication to the White House, comparable to the relationship between the president and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

And in response to a hail of criticism over the qualifications of former FEMA director Michael Brown, the senators say it should be required that the top staff and the new agency have significant experience in crisis management. The Department of Homeland Security is saying, let's stop playing with the organizational chart and get ready for storm season.

Back to you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. As long as we're talking about organizational charts here, one of the big issues that came up was not so much FEMA itself, but the way that the head of FEMA reported. Should that person report to the Department of Homeland Security secretary under the umbrella that FEMA exists, or should it go back to the days when FEMA was a standalone, cabinet-level agency straight to the president?

How is that going to be sorted out here?

MESERVE: Well, you're right. You know, you heard Michael Brown saying, I wouldn't go to Michael Chertoff. I would go directly to the president. You've heard James Lee Witt say it should go back to the good old days when it was an independent agency.

The senators rejected the Witt approach. They said that could create more problems, new problems, that it could be duplicative.

Want they want to see is this agency remain within DHS, but with that workaround to the president when it's needed. But they want it to have a lot more money and a lot more muscle, both within the department and a across government -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much.

Jeanne Meserve in Washington.

Coming up in just a few moments, we're going to talk about this plan with a former regional director of FEMA. He helped in the responses to hurricanes Irene, Floyd and Dennis.

And as we have said, that announcement from senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, head of that committee, coming in less than an hour. CNN will have live coverage for you of that.

So stay with us -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Gauging gas prices now across the country. AAA's daily fuel report has an average gallon of regular gas at $2.92. That's up 42 cents from last month's average and up 70 cents from just a year ago.

Members of Congress, of course, are watching these figures very, very, very closely. Of course, it's an election year.

Congressional Correspondent Andrea Koppel joins us live this morning.

Hey, Andrea. Good morning.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Soledad.

That's right, they're watching it very closely. Democrats, especially, in the House. They believe that they're just 15 seats away and have had the best chance they've had since 1994 to reclaim that majority. For that reason, they have been hammering away every single day this week relentlessly against the Republicans, saying that they are to blame for those high gas prices.

Today will be no different. Look for them to release a top 10 list on what they claim are the 10 worst votes the Republicans have had on gas prices since they had the majority of Congress.

On the other side, Republicans have been trying to minimize the political fallout. The speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, will be out at a gas station here in town today, along with some of his colleagues. In addition, over in the Senate, look for them to introduce an amendment that would offer consumers a $100 rebate to try to minimize that -- that gas -- the high gas prices, but they're also going to include a provision to open up the Arctic wilderness to oil drilling, Soledad, and that really is controversial.

S. O'BRIEN: We do have a report from Exxon this morning. The first quarter earnings, $8.4 billion. I think they were expecting it to be more like $9.2 billion. What's the reaction from senators this morning?

KOPPEL: Well, you can imagine that that's not going go over real well. The chairman and the ranking member, the two most powerful members of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus and Charles Grassley, have sent a letter to the IRS saying, turn over those tax returns from the last five years of the 15 major oil and gas companies. Charles Grassley saying that he wants to make sure that the American taxpayers aren't subsidizing those record-high profits -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Andrea Koppel for us this morning. We'll hear what they have to say.

Thanks a lot, Andrea.

President Bush's political adviser Karl Rove back on the stand in the CIA leak investigation. At issue, of course, is who leaked the identity of the CIA operative Valerie Plame. Rove testified Wednesday before a federal grand jury. It's the fifth time he's been on the stand.

No word yet on what exactly was said. His lawyer, though, says that Karl Rove is not a target of the investigation -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: The Army is testing a huge non-nuclear weapon, using a former nuclear test site to work on ways, ironically, to reach deep into the earth. They're testing it underground. It's like some of the bunkers and the facilities and nuclear facilities that might be found in Iran.

CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr with our story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In a matter of weeks, the U.S. government plans to carry out one of the largest non-nuclear tests ever. It will take place 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas at the Nevada test site.

This giant hole will be filled with 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, essentially a fertilizer and gasoline bomb. It will take six days to fill the crater, just seconds to blow it up.

The Pentagon has brought CNN and other news organizations here to see the crater and the tunnel directly underneath it. The idea is to simulate an enemy underground weapons facility being hit by U.S. bombs.

(on camera): We're about to enter this 1,100-foot tunnel and descend 130 feet underground.

(voice over): Doug Bruder works on advanced weapons technologies for the Pentagon.

DOUG BRUDER, PENTAGON WEAPONS EXPERT: There are some very hard targets out there, and right now it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to defeat with current conventional weapons. Therefore, there are some that would probably require nuclear weapons.

STARR: That is what the critics are worried about. The Pentagon insists the test is not going to lead to a new nuclear weapon. But what if weapons facilities are buried even deeper in the years ahead?

STEPHEN YOUNG, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS: If we end up deploying new nuclear weapon that can attack underground bunkers, you build a deeper bunker, you can't hit it anymore.

STARR (on camera): We are standing directly under where the blast will occur during the test. If this were a weapons facility in North Korea or Iran, the hope is that much of what would be here would be destroyed.

(voice over): Critics of the test say the explosion itself is risky. It will send up a dust cloud 10,000 feet into the air. Dust from a site used for decades to test nuclear weapons. The Bush administration insists no radioactive soil will be disturbed.

The explosion is scheduled for early June, but anything from bad weather to lawsuits already filed over environmental concerns, could cause it to fizzle.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Nevada test site.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: The last nuclear test at the Nevada test site was performed back in '92. A judge is expected to hear at least two challenges next month from groups hoping to stop this upcoming non- nuclear test set for June 2nd -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: It is 9:08 a.m. here in New York. Time for the forecast. And Reynolds Wolf is in for Chad today.

Hey, Reynolds. Good morning.

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Reynolds, thanks.

WOLF: You bet.

S. O'BRIEN: In Los Angeles County, a bank robbery foiled. Here's what's happened.

A guy with a gun stops a bank employee as she's going in to open up the bank for the day. The quick-thinking employee says to the robber -- or the would-be robber, really -- "We need another employee to open the vault." And she says, "I'm going to meet the employee outside. You go ahead in."

So she looks out and locks the guy inside that there bank. You can see the cops kind of on the outside. The police arrived, obviously, waited about four hours.

Finally, the robber, the would-be robber, realizes he's been had and he surrenders. And then this: the cops have him strip to his underwear because they want to make sure he doesn't have any weapons hidden on him.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: And so, the ultimate indignity. Not only are you tricked by the bank employee in a pretty easy ruse, you also have to come out half naked.

M. O'BRIEN: I guess you can call it a brief robbery.

S. O'BRIEN: That one wasn't so bad.

M. O'BRIEN: E-mails -- e-mails -- thank you. E-mails -- do you have a question for me?

You have so many.

S. O'BRIEN: So, so many.

M. O'BRIEN: But you're disqualified. You're DQ'd.

S. O'BRIEN: No. No. I've got good -- I've got good questions.

M. O'BRIEN: AM@CNN.com. Send us some questions. Just -- we've got some good ones on, you know, what our day is like, what time we get up, how we do the show, all that kind of stuff.

S. O'BRIEN: Long, early.

M. O'BRIEN: It's, yes, all that kind of stuff. Yes, in a nutshell, that's it.

But CNN.com/pipeline at 10:30 Eastern Time, I'll be sitting right in that seat on the Miles Cam in my office. I'll try to tidy things up a little for you. And you can drop in and listen in.

So, go to CNN.com/pipeline. Make sure you subscribe to that, if you're not already there. We hope you are.

S. O'BRIEN: You have a TV on in your office.

You guys, show it again. It's not our show. What are you watching?

M. O'BRIEN: Let me see it. Put it on. Go back to that shot. What is that show?

Oh, you know what that is? That's another show.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: That's "Regis and Kelly."

S. O'BRIEN: What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?

M. O'BRIEN: It's a long story. I'm not in there to watch. OK? If I was in there, I'd be watching us.

Coming up, more of that proposal to abolish FEMA. At least one disaster expert says the plan is full of holes. We'll ask him why.

S. O'BRIEN: Also, health officials are launching an all-out assault on that mumps outbreak in the Midwest. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is going to join us and tell us what we can do to help stop the spread of the disease.

M. O'BRIEN: And later, crooks so high tech that they can steal your ATM number and your money. We'll tell you how to protect yourself when you go to get some cash at the ATM. That's ahead.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: There's a Senate panel that is about to come out with a report, 45 minute from now. You'll see it right here on CNN. And they're going suggest, with five weeks to go before hurricane season, that FEMA be deep-sixed, it should be replaced by a new, more powerful agency.

The report coming out, you'll see it here. In the meantime, it says there's poor leadership, inadequate funding, a series of problems that really at this point have become familiar to us all. The question is, is getting rid of FEMA the solution at this point?

John Copenhaver is a former regional director of FEMA. He now heads the Disaster Recovery Institute.

John, good to have you back on the program.

JOHN COPENHAVER, FMR. FEMA REGIONAL DIRECTOR: Thank you, Miles. Good to be here.

M. O'BRIEN: Susan Collins is the Republican on this committee, and she'll be there side by side with Joe Lieberman making this announcement. And part of her statement which came out yesterday is this: "FEMA is in a shambles and beyond repair and it should be abolished."

Do you agree with that statement?

COPENHAVER: I agree that FEMA has had tremendous problems. I agree that it, to some extent, needs serious revamping. But I don't think that it should be abolished. I think that that's the wrong thing to do, and abolishing it and recreating another agency is simply reinventing the wheel, and potentially with the same kind of problems that have happened to FEMA over the past five years.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. There are so many deep-seated concerns about FEMA, and we've gone over these before.

COPENHAVER: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: Certainly people are familiar with what we saw in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The question that -- I think we've asked you this before. Was it a question of the organization of FEMA or was it the leadership at FEMA and also the Department of Homeland Security?

COPENHAVER: The problems really lie in both areas, in structure and in leadership. The way that FEMA was structured when it was put under the Department of Homeland Security was, in my opinion, a mistake.

I think that FEMA should have been left as an independent cabinet-level agency. And also, the leadership question is clearly one that caused problems for FEMA.

I think that if you look back to Hurricane Andrew, after Hurricane Andrew, the same kinds of calls for the abolishment of FEMA were heard. But FEMA was not abolished. It was given good, solid leadership, and it was given independent cabinet-level agency status, and it worked.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, let's -- yes, let's go back to that for just a moment, because the proposal that's out there, what I have seen of it, is, create a new agency, but still put it under the Department of Homeland Security umbrella. You're suggesting that maybe isn't the place for it?

COPENHAVER: My suggestion is that we take a look at the model of an agency that did work. Back in the late '90s, back around the year 2000, FEMA was an agency that actually got the job done.

It was an independent cabinet-level agency with good leadership that got the job done. And why we're not looking at that model I don't understand. It's something that did work.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, you know, it's interesting, though. I'm sure you've thought about it. If that FEMA, that FEMA in that brief period of time that you say was set up properly and worked, if it had been in existence around Katrina, would it have been a dramatically different response?

COPENHAVER: I believe that it would have been. It's hard to say, because there will be people with different opinions that say that's Monday morning quarterbacking. And that's really sour grapes coming from somebody that used to be a part of the organization and is no longer.

As I tell people, I lost my job in a hostile takeover. But the truth of the matter is that my belief is that FEMA would have worked and would have worked more effectively because it would have been able to access the president more quickly and it would have been able to bring in the military more effectively. And I believe that the outcome would have been different.

M. O'BRIEN: But let me ask you this, though. The whole notion of Department of Homeland Security, the idea, at least, is to put a lot of these overlapping and agencies that need to work together in times of crises under one roof, so to speak. FEMA needs to draw upon all those agencies in order to do its job. So, shouldn't it remain under Department of Homeland Security?

COPENHAVER: No. I believe it should not.

FEMA was able to draw upon those very same agencies and departments using the federal response plan back six years ago. And at that point in time, FEMA was able to coordinate through the mechanism of the federal response plan the offering of assistance from all of those different federal agencies and departments, and do it effectively. So, I don't think that we gained anything by putting FEMA under the Department of Homeland Security.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Quick final word, John. We're just about out of time. Do you think it's likely there's going to be a disbanding of FEMA at this juncture?

COPENHAVER: I hope not. I hope that cooler heads prevail and that people take a look at what FEMA still is capable of doing.

There are a lot of really good, dedicated, capable and experienced people that are still there, that still want to do the job. And I don't think that we ought to be throwing that particular capability out with the bath water.

M. O'BRIEN: John Copenhaver, former southeast regional director for FEMA.

Always appreciate your insights.

He's now with the Disaster Recovery Institute.

Always a pleasure having you drop by.

COPENHAVER: Thank you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Just about 40 minutes away from that 10:00 a.m. announcement. Senators Lieberman and Collins to unveil their suggestions for FEMA's future. We'll bring it to you live right here on CNN -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: A huge vaccine program has been launched to stop that Midwest mumps outbreak. Coming up this morning, Dr. Sanjay Gupta tells us what you can do to protect yourself.

And also, here's something to think about next time you hit the ATM. Crooks have found a new high-tech way to steal your money. They don't even have to be there to take it. We'll explain just ahead.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Before we get to our next story, a quick apology. That graphic we showed supposedly showing Senator Susan Collins of Maine had another picture on it. I want to show you what it should have looked like, Senator Susan Collins with that quote we just mentioned.

We apologize to her. It was just a quick little snafu in the graphics department. That's the real Susan Collins, and that's what she had to say about what to do with FEMA.

Onward.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. We move on to medical news now.

In the nation's heartland, the heart of a mumps outbreak. It's the worst in the U.S. in two decades. And health officials in Iowa now are urging people most at risk to get vaccinated.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more for us this morning in "House Call".

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The CDC has rushed 25,000 doses of the mumps vaccine into the Midwest to try to control the largest mumps outbreak in the U.S. in more than 20 years.

DR. JULIE GERBERDING, CDC DIRECTOR: We have more than a thousand cases reported from eight states, and we also have additional cases undergoing investigation in seven more states.

GUPTA: Mumps used to be as common in kids as chicken pox is today, but thanks to a vaccine developed in the '60s, the disease really has gone the way of black and white TV. Now there are only a few hundred cases in the U.S. each year, and the last major outbreak in the U.S. was in the late 1950s.

But a recent outbreak in Great Britain just last year left about 60,000 people infected. That same strain of the disease has been found in mumps patients in Iowa.

The vaccine is about 80 percent effective with just one dose. The recommended second dose increases a person's immunity to 90 percent. But many college students never got that second dose, and officials say they believe that's exactly where the outbreak began, in a college dorm.

DR. PATRICIA QUINLISK, IOWA STATE EPIDEMIOLOGIST: We certain know college campuses, because of the close living quarters, the fact that they spend a lot of hours a day in the cafeteria or in classes together, and also their social behavior -- obviously there can be sharing of saliva with beer glasses and things like that -- they have a high risk of transmitting a disease like mumps.

GUPTA: The symptoms of mumps are usually flu-like. And because most doctors haven't seen a case of the disease in many years, it can be easy to misdiagnose at first.

QUINLISK: Initially, you might just have fever, headache, not feel very well, but most people will go on to developing the parotid gland swelling or the swelling of the salivary glands under the jaw. And they sort of get that classic chipmunk look.

GUPTA: The disease is also spread much like the flu.

QUINLISK: By somebody coughing and sneezing on another person. So you have to be relatively close for that. Or through saliva, kissing, sharing a glass, something of that sort.

GUPTA: And although mumps is really fatal, it can cause miscarriages in early pregnancy and other lasting effects such as deafness or sterility. So experts recommend taking precautions like you would with the flu.

Don't share food or drinks, and wash your hands regularly. Also, make sure you've had both doses of the vaccine. If you've already had the mumps, experts say it's unlikely you'll get it again.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE) S. O'BRIEN: Mumps has certainly hit very hard at the University of Iowa. There are 55 confirmed cases there, the largest outbreak at that school in more than 50 years -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: "People" magazine names the most beautiful woman in the world. We'll tell you who it is. I'm dying to know right now.

Yes, it could be you, Soledad. You're in the running, at least.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: I'd vote for you.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, finally you get to that. Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: After Sandy.

Rapper Snoop Dogg in the doghouse, if you will. Find out why police in London reportedly busted him at the airport.

Stay with us

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, the CIA's former top man in Europe says that when it came to Iraq, the White House simply ignored the intelligence it didn't like. We'll talk about some specifics just ahead and find out why he's speaking out now.

Those stories ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

(BUSINESS HEADLINES)

M. O'BRIEN: Hard to imagine what we did before the invention of the Automatic Teller Machine. Remember that? I think we -- dial the way-back machine, I think we actually waited in line or we drove through. And we actually spoke to a human being.

S. O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I remember that day.

M. O'BRIEN: You asked for money. They gave you the money.

And of course, kids, as you well know, we did that barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways.

Well, the convenience of the electronic piggybank on every corner comes with it some opportunities for bad people to part you from your hard-earned money.

Here's AMERICAN MORNING's Dan Lothian. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a convenient way to get cash; and for criminals, it's a convenient way to steal it.

LARRY JOHNSON, U.S. SECRET SERVICE: I think initially we saw big cities that were hit the hardest, but now it can be Anywhere USA.

LOTHIAN: With up to $15 billion in ATM transactions each year, it's a tempting target for criminals like Amil Cardocho (ph).

(on camera): He secretly targeted ATM users in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and was recently convicted on multiple count of aggravated identity theft and bank fraud.

LOTHIAN: Caught on surveillance tape, Cardocho was part of a debit card skimming ring that investigators say withdrew about $400,000 over two years, a sophisticated scheme that police say worked like this: A fake swiping box is mounted on the door of a bank's ATM machine area, to record credit card numbers. A small hidden camera near the keypad, linked to a criminal's laptop computer just around the corner, captures passwords, and finally blank credit cards are imprinted with customer information, everything needed to get quick cash.

Professor Stuart Madnick, an information technology expert at MIT's Sloan School of Management, says whether it's ATM or Internet scams, people need to always be on alert.

STUART MADNICK, MIT-SLOAN SCHOOL: It's a constant case where new technology comes up. Many times it helps protect us, and then innovative people find ways to use that technology against us.

LOTHIAN: Experts say ATM users should always shield pin numbers as they're entered, look for unusual signs or devices, and check statements frequently.

Even then, criminals are always reinventing their tactics, creating more challenges for law enforcement.

JOHNSON: We try to stay one step ahead of technology.

LOTHIAN: As for Cardocho, he faces more than 30 years in prison and stiff fines. He'll be sentenced next month.

Dan Lothian, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: A little footnote for you: Banks always refund stolen money. If you're using a non-bank ATM, however, you know, one of those things that you see at the convenience store that cost you about $3 per transaction, you might be out of luck. But now lawmakers are pushing for more oversight to protect all consumers using ATMs. We'll see about that -- Soledad. S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, the CIA's former top spy in Europe blasts the White House. He says that in the ramp-up to the war in Iraq, the White House simply ignored intelligence that didn't support its intentions. We're going to ask him why he's speaking out now, just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: This just in to CNN. This was to be the fourth day of deliberations in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial, but the jury will not be deliberating today. One juror is sick.

CNN's Kelli Arena at the courthouse in Alexandria has been following this all along.

Kelli, what's going on?

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, the jury has been sent home, the judge telling us that there was one male member of the jury who could not be make it in today. She said that he's had this condition before, didn't elaborate, said that he'll see a doctor, that by 9:00 tonight we should know how she is. She said she doesn't want anybody here who's not 100 percent. It's a very complicated case. If he is not well by tomorrow, they won't meet tomorrow either, and then we'll resume on Monday. Of course, if this is more serious, Miles, then they'll have to consider putting in an alternate which, of course, would really complicate matters, because they'd have to start from square one, because that alternate would have to go through all of the counts from the very beginning.

So we are waiting to hear any more from this judge, and of course Moussaoui was in the courtroom when the judge was making that announcement, and didn't miss an opportunity to have something to say, and he on his way out said Moussaoui biological warfare as if he had something to do with the juror getting sick. Doesn't miss an opportunity, Miles.

But that's where we stand, so nothing happening today. Day four, a no-go.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, Kelli, help me out with one point. The alternates do not sit in the jury room? They sit outside and would have to start deliberations over.

ARENA: Right, they don't deliberate. That's right. That's right. So they would have to start from square one, yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Kelli Arena in Alexandria. The jury may not be deliberating, but the construction continues there.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Well, the CIA former top man in Europe is making strong some pretty strong accusations against the Bush administration. He says the administration went to war in Iraq, despite good intelligence that Iraq had no active WMD program. Tyler Drumheller retired last year, shortly after President Bush's re-election. He joins us from Washington this morning.

Nice to see you, sir. Thanks for talking with us.

TYLER DRUMHELLER, FMR. CIA OFFICIAL: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: You have said this is not a failure of intelligence, this is a failure of policy. What do you mean?

DRUMHELLER: The policy for the war was set from the time the administration came in. It had picked up after 9/11, but the -- they were looking for intelligence to fit in to justify or to give reason for going to war, and at the time there wasn't. The intelligence wasn't perfect. We didn't have enough sources, and there wasn't unanimity in the intelligence community. There was a lot of debate, but by the time the fall of 2002 came around, we had acquired a source -- a high-level source inside the Iraqi government that told us that Saddam's -- although he certainly would like to get weapons of mass destruction and -- or nuclear weapons was years away from any of that, and at the same time some of the sources that they had used for the justification after that point that were in the National Intelligence Estimate were found to either be inaccurate or based on reporting from highly-questionable sources.

S. O'BRIEN: Why can't the read be, listen, was there a lot of different intelligence coming from a lot of different people, and, in fact, it was just you go with who you believe, not necessarily who you believe is furthering your own agenda?

DRUMHELLER: Well, because it was the intelligence that -- as I said in the fall of 2002, the intelligence that they believed was actually had been proven or was -- had been called into serious question. So the information from the case that -- people seeing a lot of curveballs, talking about the biological weapons, and the Niger yellow cake report. Both of those were either discredited or were in the process of being discrediting.

At the same time, as I said, we had developed for the first time in a long time a very high-level source inside the Iraqi government. And it's just a matter of taking the value of the sources. You have to weigh the value of the sources.

And if we made any other mistakes, it was not pointing out the difference between these very questionable sources and the source that we had developed through our traditional tried and true means.

S. O'BRIEN: Do you think 9/11 was a catalyst to this policy, or are you saying that the administration -- it sounds to me like you're saying the administration came into office with the intention of going war with Iraq.

DRUMHELLER: When the administration came into office -- at the end of Clinton administration, a lot of resource had been shifted from Iraq to terrorism and Iran, both of which were looked on as bigger threats. When the Bush administration came in, as early as February 2001, there was a change of emphasis on Iraq. They weren't talking about going to war yet, but there was a definite re-emphasis on Iraq. And 9/11 actually gave that impetus then, and seemed to push it forward. And by January or February of 2002, it was clear to me, and I think to others, that we were definitely heading for war in Iraq.

S. O'BRIEN: OK, but so it's clear to you. You're the CIA's top guy in Europe. You say you saw this firsthand, so why are you only talking about it now? I mean, you retired a year ago.

DRUMHELLER: Well, it's been -- this is not an easy thing to do. It's -- this goes against 26 years of training. And as I looked at it over the past year, it just began to wear on me that the simplistic answer, that we were given by the intelligence, put the blame on the agency, but at the same time, because if the situation in Iraq just isn't -- didn't get better, it's getting worse.

And even with the new government and all that, we're still -- we're in a situation, I think, until the administration comes to grips with the fact -- that the real reasons why they went into this and the truth at the beginning of the war, we're going to be stuck there, because everything that goes on is predicated around justifying the original reasons for the war, and so we're sort of stuck, and we can't go and we can't stay. .

S. O'BRIEN: I'm sorry. We're out of time. Tyler Drumheller is a form CIA official. Thanks for talking with us this morning.

DRUMHELLER: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: "CNN LIVE TODAY" is coming up next.

Hey, Daryn. Good morning.

What are you working on?

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Soledad, good morning to you. LIVE TODAY looks at school daze -- D-A-Z-E -- in Houston. Katrina evacuees -- are students from New Orleans dragging down Houston's test scores?

And go ahead and do it, order a venti. Harvard brains say that coffee doesn't hurt java junkies' hearts. In fact, it could even help. That would be great news for miles. Need another kind of brew? Then stick around for a guy who wants you to have a beer belly. He may even be drunk with success, and maybe a little bit richer as well. We'll explain his story just ahead. For now, back to you.

S. O'BRIEN: I'm not sure that's a real beer belly. That looked like a fake beer belly to me.

KAGAN: Like those old pregnancy bellies, remember that?

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, you know that?

Yes, we'll see. All right, Daryn, thanks.

KAGAN: OK.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, Miles answers your e-mail questions. Keep em' coming.

We're back in a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. Miles on the "Miles Cam" here. I'm in my office now and this is what we do every Thursday about 40 minutes from now on CNN.com/pipeline. We take your questions and we do our best to answer them if we can -- or I do anyhow. Soledad won't participate. I haven't ambushed her yet in her office, but we're working on that.

Here's a question. "When interviewing someone at a remote location, how do you get the people to appear that they're looking at the camera when I'm assuming that there's a monitor in front of them with the interviewer?" Actually, what we do is we tell them to look right into the lens of the camera.

There's usually a monitor off to the side. And sometimes that can throw people. You'll see occasionally them kind of looking shifty-eyed at the monitor which is beside them. And in some cases it's better to not even have a monitor for them, just tell them to look right into the camera. So it's kind of difficult for people who aren't used to being on TV to kind of just -- sort of engage yourself, have eye contact with an eye that never blinks, but that's what we ask people to do.

"How do you differentiate between your co-host, what she is saying, and what the people in your earpiece are saying?" Well, when the people in the earpiece -- of course, my co-host is right beside me, so it's quite obvious that she's right there. But when I'm trying to differentiate between what's on the program and what's in my ear from the producers, we have this thing called interruptible feedback. And when they push their button to talk to me, I lose everything, so I can't hear what's going on on television when they talk.

So it's really important for them -- as he just told me 90 seconds -- it's really important for them to pick the right moment to give us those cues. Because if we're trying to listen for something specifically from the interview, it gets completely blotted out. So good producers know at those perfect moments of when to get in your ear and talk to you.

"I would like to know what a typical day is like for you guys. What time do you have to be up? When did you go home? Who determines which one will narrate or talk about a story on the air? Also, what is the difference between a chief correspondent and a senior correspondent?"

Chief and senior, I don't know. Senior is, generally speaking, somebody who's had a lot of tenure here, as you might suspect. I suppose you could be senior and chief if you were the main correspondent for a particular beat. Senior correspondents don't necessarily have to have a beat associated with them, whereas a chief correspondent would have a beat. As for our day, we get up early. I get up at three in the morning. We come in, we try to cram ourselves full of facts as quickly as we can. The assignments for who does the interviews are done by the executive producers and producers. And we just take them as they come, so to speak. We've done a little bit of homework the night before, as well, because a lot of those assignments come out. And then, depending on the day, I'm here until 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 in the afternoon, working on the next day, next story, something that's in the pipeline, so to speak.

And on Thursdays, I do this, 10:30 Eastern. We invite you to join us for CNN.com/pipeline. There's still time to send us questions, am@CNN.com. Live from my office. Back to you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: It looks good, Miles. I think we have better lighting in the studio, though.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, I think so.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead at the top of the hour, record profits, big paychecks for executives. Well, a Texas man wants you to boycott a gas giant. We'll tell you that story.

Plus, bears are becoming city slickers. A mama and her little cubs have taken up residence in a homeowner's tree. We'll tell you what happens.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Coming up tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, actress Cheryl Hines will join us. You might know her, of course, from HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." She's going to talk about her new movie. It's called "R.V." She's co-starring with Robin Williams in that. That's coming up tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING. Don't forget, we start at 6:00 a.m. Eastern time. That's it for us this morning.

Let's get right to Daryn. She's at the CNN Center this morning.

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