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American Morning

'Core Values'; 'The Last Stand'; Life After Work

Aired June 02, 2006 - 08:30   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm Miles O'Brien.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Soledad O'Brien.

Lots to get to this morning. We begin with Carol Costello. She's in the newsroom.

Hey, -- Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Really impressive spelling.

S. O'BRIEN: OK, no mocking, no mocking.

COSTELLO: I'm sorry, that was wrong.

S. O'BRIEN: No mocking.

COSTELLO: In the headlines this morning, the numbers are in and weaker than expected. The new job report released just minutes ago. U.S. employers added only 75,000 new workers to their payrolls last month. That means May job growth is weaker than expected. So what does that mean for your wallet? What does it mean? Well Carrie Lee will tell you. She's up in 20 minutes.

The CBS journalist wounded in a Baghdad car bombing is expected to be transferred to the U.S. on Sunday. Kimberly Dozier is in critical but stable condition at a U.S. military hospital in Germany. Doctors say she's been talking. Her very first question, what happened to the crew? And as you know, they died. In the meantime, a U.S. soldier who met Dozier in Iraq two years ago has given her his Purple Heart. The medal reportedly is right at her bedside.

Exxon might have to pay another $92 million to clean up the 1989 Valdez oil spill. Remember that? The company has already paid $900 million in damages. But the agreement left the door open if unforeseeable damages occurred later. Officials say the lingering oil still interferes with wildlife in the area.

And the World Cup begins in Germany next week, so Britain's Prince Harry showing his support by paying a surprise visit to the English squad on Thursday. Look at him. The prince is the honorary president of the English Football Association. That's soccer to you and me. The first games are next Friday, Germany faces Costa Rica, Poland meets Ecuador. And now you know.

Back to you, -- Miles. M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Carol Costello.

A lot of talk this morning, serious talk, about U.S. Marines and soldiers in Iraq crossing the line and taking aim at innocence. All of it is still in the realm of accusations, but the investigations into U.S. killings in Haditha, Ishaqi and now Hamandiyah prompting the Pentagon to order lectures on core values for all U.S. troops in Iraq.

For more on the charges and that U.S. response, we turn to retired U.S. Army Col. Jeffrey McCausland who is a CBS contributor. He joins us this morning.

Colonel, good to have you with us.

COL. JEFFREY MCCAUSLAND, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Miles, great to be with you.

M. O'BRIEN: It's kind of extraordinary. As a matter of fact, as best I can tell, unprecedented to have these core values lectures in the midst of a conflict in theater, so to speak.

MCCAUSLAND: It is pretty unprecedented. I can't recall, and I've talked to colleagues of mine who serve in combat as well elsewhere, any time where we've done this type of training and education in a combat operational theater.

M. O'BRIEN: What is the message if you can boil it down? I know it's a fairly complicated thing and it's intricate, but what are you -- what are the leadership trying to impart to the troops in the field?

MCCAUSLAND: Well the first thing that is important to stress is this is reinforcement. The education and training a soldier gets on professional values begins when they enter basic training. So this is nothing new to these particular soldiers. But what I think it will encapsulize is four areas.

First of all, they're going to want to talk to them again about those professional values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor and personal courage.

Then they're going to talk about individual and command responsibilities. Each soldier, sailor, airmen, marines has responsibility for their actions, but commanders have responsibility for the actions of their units, proper reporting, proper training, et cetera.

Thirdly, I think they're going to spend time again reemphasizing Iraqi cultural values. And here units may have some particular nuance, depending on their area of operation, Shi'a area, Sunni area, Kurdish, et cetera.

And finally, this won't be so much lectures as discussions. They'll want to use operational vignettes. If you use talking about scenarios that are specific to the area they're at to get the soldiers to think and talk about particular things they may well encounter. M. O'BRIEN: Do you suspect that these talks, discussions, lectures, whatever you want to call them, that they will be really embraced by the troops or will they be not taken so seriously given all the pressure, stresses? I mean, after all, every day they face the possibility of being under attack, of being killed.

MCCAUSLAND: Well, it is hard to say for, obviously, each individual soldier, marine. But I think they're going to take it quite seriously, because one of the things they also want to talk about is the second and third order of effects. You know casual things you might do that will offend an Iraqi may reverberate across and affect an operation or one of your fellow service members. And you know a lot of our soldiers now are embedded with Iraqi units for their training and to assist them in military operations. And obviously they're in a particularly difficult situation in this environment.

M. O'BRIEN: It seems as if this could be interpreted, and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this, especially now that we're looking this morning at at least three incidents of allegations of this kind of thing, of a failure of leadership. Would you agree with that? And if so, who would you point the finger at?

MCCAUSLAND: Well there's two investigations going on since we knew about Haditha. And all of these, I'm sure, will be the same, and that is what exactly happened and then what did the command do about it?

And in Haditha, there's the possibility, and I stress possibility, that some people in the chain of command may have attempted to cover it up. And if that's the case, then very serious court-martial action, I expect, will be taken against them as well, because that's where the command responsibility comes in, and as you rightfully point out, potential failures in leadership.

M. O'BRIEN: But is there a command responsibility to impart a message that part of the mission in Iraq, matter of fact may be the lion's share of the mission at this point, is to win the hearts and minds of the people? And that, at times, in real-time situations, split-second decisions is at odds with preserving their own lives for that matter?

MCCAUSLAND: Well, you know, Miles, that is imparted to them all the time.

I was in Iraq twice last year, and let me tell you a story. I was with a lance corporal walking through the streets of Falluja about a month after the battle. And this young lance corporal turned to me and he said, you know what, sir, we could kill more of these people, we've shown our ability to do that. What's more important right now is for us to make more friends in this particular area and that's what we need to work on.

So I think every soldier, sailor, airman and marine understands that to a large degree that this is all about winning the heats and minds of the Iraqi people. And we've got to work with the new Iraqi government to accomplish that.

M. O'BRIEN: Give us a sense, no matter how these investigations play out, how much damage has been done so far?

MCCAUSLAND: Well, I think terrific damage has been done so far, not only to the morale and the spirit of the soldiers. You know we have got to keep in mind that we have now had over a million soldiers and marines and sailors serve in this theater. We have some cases, maybe of a handful, it shouldn't besmirch those particular soldiers that have served so well.

Obviously it will reverberate in the press internationally. The Arab world will see these photographs eventually, if they have not already, on their own newspapers, magazines. It will have a terrific affect adversely there.

And finally, how the American people will react to allegations, if proven, of these type of atrocities has a -- it will have a terrific affect back here at home.

M. O'BRIEN: Lots to consider there.

Ret. Col. Jeffrey McCausland, thanks for your time this morning.

MCCAUSLAND: Pleasure to be with you.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: A check of the forecast now with Chad at the CNN Center.

Hey, Chad, what are you looking at?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Looking at Muirfield up in Dublin, Ohio, the memorial. I mean every year they try to get this thing in. And no matter what week they put it on, trying to get it earlier than later, it's going to rain.

(WEATHER REPORT)

Soledad.

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

MYERS: You bet.

S. O'BRIEN: Got a new name to add to the celebrity baby boom. Anna Nicole Smith, the former Playboy bunny, confirms, yes, she is pregnant. It's going to be baby number two for her. She's got a son who's 20. That's kind of a long time in between pregnancies, isn't it? Anna Nicole says I'm very, very happy. And she's going to update on her fans as she grows, she says, on her Web site.

M. O'BRIEN: Oh boy!

S. O'BRIEN: Oh boy! M. O'BRIEN: We're so glad.

S. O'BRIEN: Monaco's Prince Albert has admitted that he has fathered yet another child out of wedlock. Fourteen-year-old Jazmin Grace Rotolo is the daughter of a waitress in California. If you'll recall, it was last July when the prince first acknowledged he fathered a child with a former flight attendant. This disclosure, the latest one, was made through the prince's lawyer in a French newspaper.

M. O'BRIEN: Doesn't quite make her a princess, though, does it?

S. O'BRIEN: I don't know the rules about that kind of stuff.

M. O'BRIEN: What are the rules on that? I don't know.

S. O'BRIEN: She got the name Princess Jazmin. That would work.

M. O'BRIEN: Not bad.

Coming up, a change of pace for the man formerly known as Frasier Crane. Actor Kelsey Grammer will join us. He'll talk about what it's like to do the suit. What's with the suit, the blue thing? He's Beast in "X-Men."

S. O'BRIEN: And then another movie to tell you about, "The Breakup." I want to see this one. Hits the big screen today. Vince Vaughn.

M. O'BRIEN: A lot of buzz on this one, huh?

S. O'BRIEN: Jen Aniston. They play a couple. They have a really nasty split. And all the antics that follow is of course the point of the movie.

M. O'BRIEN: Are you like pals with her, you can call her Jen?

S. O'BRIEN: Jen.

M. O'BRIEN: Jen.

S. O'BRIEN: I call her Jen.

M. O'BRIEN: Jen.

S. O'BRIEN: She doesn't call me Sole back, but I call her Jen. We'll talk about their real life relationship, too, ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUGH JACKMAN, "X-MEN: THE LAST STAND": Who's the furball?

KELSEY GRAMMER, "X-MEN: THE LAST STAND": Hank McCoy, Secretary of Mutant Affairs.

JACKMAN: Right, right, the secretary. Nice suit.

PATRICK STEWART, "X-MEN: THE LAST STAND: Henry, this is Logan. He is.

GRAMMER: Wolverine. I hear you're quite an animal.

JACKMAN: Look who's talking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: Great dialogue.

"AM Pop" this morning. I guess you could call it Frasier fur, if you know what I mean. From TV shrink "Frasier" to hefty blue mutant on the big screen. Talk about a star turn. Kelsey Grammer is a new blue addition to movie "X-Men: The Last Stand." It's quite a spectacle. Kelsey Grammer who plays Hank McCoy, also known as Beast,...

GRAMMER: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: ... joining us now. That's Mr. Beast to me, I'm sure. You looked like you had some fun doing this one.

GRAMMER: I had a great time. Great time. It's wonderful to go through that transformation into a different presence, completely different presence. And you know we all strive for what is a successful mask, basically.

M. O'BRIEN: Right.

GRAMMER: And that one's pretty profound.

M. O'BRIEN: How did you end up with this role? This just -- I...

GRAMMER: Well, it actually...

M. O'BRIEN: And I assume you're going to say out of the blue, but...

GRAMMER: Well, no, no, no, no.

M. O'BRIEN: No, you wouldn't say that. You wouldn't do that, no.

GRAMMER: There is an out of a blue element to it, but I won't discuss that.

M. O'BRIEN: OK.

GRAMMER: A fellow named Matthew Vaughn was originally slated to direct this film. And it was his passion that I play in the part. I don't know where that came from. Sometimes I'll meet people that say, you know, I always had a feeling you were kind of an athletic guy, well even though you play that, you know, that heady shrink fellow. And so maybe he was one of those. I don't know. They just assumed that behind the intellect was a raging animal. And here I am.

M. O'BRIEN: And here you came out of your shell.

GRAMMER: Yes, absolutely.

M. O'BRIEN: And when you do a role like Frasier for so long, actors always are concerned about getting to the next role.

GRAMMER: Death of a career, yes.

M. O'BRIEN: And people think of you -- well, that, too. I mean your success can be a killer. And was that part of the strategy here or is it just it looked like fun?

GRAMMER: Well you know once "Frasier" ended, I just decided that if something nice presented itself, I would play it. I mean I have taken a kind of zen approach to it. I have nothing to cabal of, nothing to regret about having such success as "Frasier." It changed my life. It brought me enormous wealth, it brought me enormous attention, it gave me a great lifestyle and it gave me a sense of having accomplished something. So I mean I'm not going to sit here and complain about that.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

GRAMMER: As an actor starting out, you hope to play memorable characters. So I've played one. There's a few more I'd like to get under my belt, that's all.

M. O'BRIEN: So what is next then, I mean do you...

GRAMMER: Well next is summer. Summer with the family.

M. O'BRIEN: Summer.

GRAMMER: My wife, my kids, just relaxing for a couple of months. And then we have got some shows. I'm still producing some stuff in L.A. I'm going to direct a couple of episodes of this new show called "The Game" that's coming up that my company does. And then we'll see.

M. O'BRIEN: A couple of kids, fabulous wife, Playboy.

GRAMMER: All fabulous, fabulous, fabulous.

M. O'BRIEN: Fun, you know, all that good stuff. You've turned it around. You had some rough road...

GRAMMER: Sure did, yes.

M. O'BRIEN: ... with alcohol and drug addiction and all that. How are you feeling?

GRAMMER: I feel great. M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

GRAMMER: I feel great. My life has been -- I mean even in the worst of times, my life has been a presumptive joy to live. I have never embraced self-pity. I mean, I took some big hits and I got through them, and I made some mistakes, took some wrong turns. I've had enough blessing, I guess, and the good graces of the Lord above, whatever, to take me back and say, here's another shot. And it's been a wonderful life.

M. O'BRIEN: I think I just had a session with Frasier, armchair psychology.

Kelsey Grammer, we wish you well and good luck with this movie and all your future endeavors.

GRAMMER: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: And I do invite our viewers to watch all the way to the end of the credits.

GRAMMER: Yes, past the credits.

M. O'BRIEN: There's a scene past the credits, so don't miss this.

GRAMMER: Yes. Got to see it.

M. O'BRIEN: Kelsey Grammer now playing Beast, Dr. Hank McCoy, or as I like to think of it, Frasier fur, in "X-Men: The Last Stand." Thanks for being here.

GRAMMER: Thanks, -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, bye-bye.

GRAMMER: You bet.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, "The Breakup," another movie. This one with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn is going to hit theaters today. Any truth to all of those rumors of an off-screen romance between the two stars? We're going to take a look at that.

Then coming up in "Minding Your Business," the fight to make the penny a thing of the past. Carrie has got that ahead.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: AMERICAN MORNING is going to hit the road next week for our "PAYING THE PRICE IN THE HEARTLAND" series. Dan Lothian is going to report on high fuel prices and how they're affecting all of our lives. He'll be in Iowa on Monday. And all next week he'll continue this series.

Well we all know the penny is not worth a dime, why not just get rid of it?

Carrie Lee is "Minding Your Business."

CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Why not? What do you think of that idea, get rid of the penny, round everything up or down?

M. O'BRIEN: You know I say get rid of them.

LEE: Get rid of it. I do, too.

M. O'BRIEN: You know...

S. O'BRIEN: No, you know why, because they'll round everything up. And then every time it's rounded up three cents or two cents or whatever over 10 years, that's like $10,000.

LEE: Adding to...

S. O'BRIEN: So you know I'm willing to hold back a couple of pennies so I don't get ripped off in the long haul, -- Carrie.

LEE: All right. Well assuming...

M. O'BRIEN: Well did it cost more than a penny to make a penny?

LEE: Exactly, that's the point.

S. O'BRIEN: Well there's that.

LEE: Pennies are made -- they're made from copper.

M. O'BRIEN: This is hurting the deficit.

LEE: Yes. They're made from copper and zinc. And zinc prices, believe it or not, have doubled over the past couple of years. So it costs now 1.4 cents to make a penny. Used to be .97 cents a few years ago. So basically the U.S. Mint losing money on this.

Representative Jim Kolbe, Arizona Republican, wants to reintroduce legislation to eliminate the penny so you could round up or down, closest to the five cents.

S. O'BRIEN: No one is going to round down. No one will ever round down.

LEE: Well, see now this could be a great marketing idea for maybe companies like Wal-Mart or others.

M. O'BRIEN: We round down.

LEE: They could say we're going to round down no matter what...

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes.

LEE: ... and get people in. Just an idea. Who knows if this is going to happen? He tried to do it in 2001. It didn't. But... S. O'BRIEN: Aren't there other bigger issues for who is that, congressman who?

LEE: Jim Kolbe, Arizona. So, anyway, that's what's happening.

M. O'BRIEN: There are big issues in this country that seem to be overlooked by Congress and maybe this is more further proof, huh? Surprise.

LEE: How about security data. Here is the latest example of personal data being lost by a company.

Hotels.com, there was a laptop, Ernst & Young, Hotels.com's auditor, 243 names and credit card numbers of customers were stolen. "Wall Street Journal" reports that this actually happened in February, but Ernst & Young took until early May to figure out exactly what was in that laptop and didn't tell Hotels.com until early May. So, yes, they're giving people credit protection, but very well could be a little too late.

S. O'BRIEN: It took them three months...

M. O'BRIEN: How many customers?

LEE: Two hundred forty-three thousand.

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, 243,000.

LEE: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: And so they notified -- they have notified all those people, presumably, right?

LEE: They've notified them, but this happened in February.

S. O'BRIEN: It took them three months to figure out what was in the laptop.

LEE: To reconfigure the laptop. It was stolen from the locked trunk of a car. So not the first time this has happened with Ernst & Young either.

M. O'BRIEN: We should get that spelling bee girl back on here and have her spell encryption for all these people, because encryption would be a good thing.

S. O'BRIEN: It would solve a lot of problems there.

LEE: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: It really would.

LEE: It was encrypted but still...

M. O'BRIEN: How -- it was?

LEE: ... people are so smart,...

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

LEE: ... you can get behind these.

M. O'BRIEN: Really?

LEE: You can get behind it sometimes. Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: OK.

S. O'BRIEN: Right.

Carrie, thanks.

LEE: OK.

M. O'BRIEN: In a moment, the top stories, including another allegation of murder against U.S. forces in Iraq. New take this morning on the aftermath there. It is very grim.

Several Marines could soon face murder charges stemming from another incident outside Baghdad.

First Lady Laura Bush is just minutes away from an important United Nations address.

Getting proactive with organ donations. More and more people now becoming living donors.

And New York feeling the pinch from the Homeland Security Department. We'll have less money this year to fight terrorism. We'll talk like with police commissioner Ray Kelly ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: This morning we meet a woman who has spent the better part of her life as a role model. Now, she's striking a different pose in her golden years.

CNN's Jennifer Westhoven has more in this edition of "Life After Work."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Getting too low. Good. Right down, at her. That's nice.

JENNIFER WESTHOVEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Barbara Waskover may be turning 73, but she just landed her dream job, modeling.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's darling, that's darling, hang on.

BARBARA WASKOVER, MODEL: I had raised children, worked in a business that was basically for my husband and myself. It wasn't really 100 percent what I wanted. And I thought well now is the time for me to do what I wanted to do.

WESTHOVEN: She was discovered after appearing in a news segment on baby boomers. Suddenly agents were knocking.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was perfect.

WESTHOVEN: This shoot is for Getty Images. It wants stock photos of people posing as grandmothers and granddaughters. When not modeling, Barbara lifts more weights than women half her age.

WASKOVER: Well, I used to lift 130, but I've cut back.

WESTHOVEN: This grandmother is also a grand master of the one- armed pushup.

WASKOVER: I just love life. The best thing about modeling is the fun of it all and the people that I meet. And truthfully, when you've been a mother and you've focused on everybody else, the mere fact that everybody focuses on you, hey, that's really got to be the greatest thing. I've never had this. So I never really thought it could be this much fun.

WESTHOVEN: Jennifer Westhoven, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Allegations of murder in Iraq. Charges could soon some in another case involving U.S. Marines.

M. O'BRIEN: Should New York City feel slighted by...

Go.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Suzanne Malveaux at the White House. The nuclear standoff is at a standstill. The big question of course what will Iran do next? I'll have that in a few minutes.

M. O'BRIEN: Sorry, Suzanne.

Should New York City feel slighted by smaller anti-terrorism budget? We'll talk to the city's police commissioner about what less money really means.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger gives in. He'll fall in line with the president and send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

S. O'BRIEN: And a breakup actually starts a romance, a look at the new movie. It stars the couple that have a catchy nickname, like Brangelina, with Vince Vaughn and Jen Aniston.

Those stories and much more ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Morning, welcome, everybody.

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