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On the Story

Correspondents Discuss Stories Behind the Stories

Aired June 04, 2006 - 13:00   ET

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

(NEWS BREAK)
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN and we are on the story. From the campus of the George Washington University in the heart of the nation's capital, our correspondents bring you the stories behind the stories they're covering. Jamie McIntyre is on the story of the investigations into the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha. Arwa Damon talks about what it was like in that dangerous town when she was working alongside those U.S. Marines.

Elizabeth Cohen talks about her new "CNN Presents" documentary, "Body Parts" and how organ donors might be unaware of the deadly risks. Elaine Quijano is on the story of changes at the White House and Sean Callebs in New Orleans has the view from there at the start of the hurricane season.

Welcome. I'm Ali Velshi and I'll be going on the story online to see reaction on the Internet to news of the coverage of Haditha story. With me here Elaine Quijano and Jamie McIntyre is at his Pentagon desk. Our correspondents will be taking questions from our studio audience which is drawn from visitors, people across Washington and college students. Major focus this week was on an alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in Haditha, Iraq. Our senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre is on that story. Have a look at Jamie's reporter's notebook.

JAMIE McINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This had been a really difficult story to cover, because nobody wants to talk about an investigation before it's over. No sooner did military investigators begin to look into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of civilians in Haditha, than did the official story begin to fall apart.

It's difficult to get information and then to be able to confirm it through official military sources. Normally when you have a story like this, you get a lot of cautioning behind the scenes. There may be a perfectly good explanation for what happened here. And it's been interesting in this case, we're not getting that kind of guidance. They see where the evidence is pointing and it doesn't look good. The idea that the U.S. military didn't take the allegations seriously initially has made us go back and take a look at some other cases where Iraqi civilians have been killed. It's prompting a complete reexamination of how the military operates and also it's making us go back and take a look at some of the stories we've heard in the past to see if there might be a little bit more to them.

VELSHI: Jamie McIntyre joins us from the Pentagon. Jamie, welcome back again to ON THE STORY, right to the audience for a question. Sir, your name and where you're from.

QUESTION: I'm Mike Menois (ph). I'm from Scottsboro (ph), Alabama and my question is, I'm in the United States Army and sometimes it's unavoidable or necessary to kill civilians that are a threat to forces. Why is this story any different than the others?

McINTYRE: I think that's the case. And one of reasons that this story didn't catch on right away was that when the local Iraqis complained that there had been something improper done here, they weren't believed because the attitude of the U.S. military is that's not what we do and that sometimes civilians get killed in the crossfire or unintentionally, but that's not something that the U.S. military does. It wasn't until months later when "Time" magazine really began to press the case, that people started looking at it, saying wait a minute. Something's not right here. So you're right, a lot of times there are unintended civilian casualties, but civilians are not to be killed when they don't pose a threat and that is where the evidence is pointing here.

VELSHI: Jamie, another question from the audience. Sir, your name, where you're from.

QUESTION: My name is Ramii (ph) (INAUDIBLE) I'm from Alexandria, Virginia. And my question is, if the Haditha story is true, would Secretary Rumsfeld redesign over it?

McINTYRE: No. People have asked him whether he's going to resign and he's pretty much dug in his heels. His attitude is that there's 1.4 million members of the armed services, even more if you add in the reserves and that the secretary of Defense is not responsible for what is done at every level. That's his position. He also says serves at the pleasure of the president and President Bush has made it pretty clear that he wants Rumsfeld to stay. So at this point, Rumsfeld is not considering any resignation.

VELSHI: Jamie, what's the mood at the Pentagon? You've gone through all of these changes over the months and over the years. How does it feel this week because it seems different by watching your coverage of it.

McINTYRE: It definitely feels different. You know one of the ways you know this is a big story is when you come in every day and you know exactly what story you're working on every day. Usually you come in and say, I'm not sure. Are we going to focus on Afghanistan, Iraq? What's going on here? What's up with Rumsfeld? What's the briefing about today? But every day we know we come, we're coming in now, we're focused on this story and the Pentagon is focused on it as well. The mood at the Pentagon is, I think, people are broken up about this. They're kind of really disappointed that they're having to deal with this kind of story that reflects so badly on the U.S. military when as they keep saying, 99.9 percent of the military hold themselves to the highest standard.

QUIJANO: Jamie, I know over at the White House, when you ask officials about this, they say look, we really can't say anything because obviously this is an ongoing investigation. How tough has it been to try and get information?

McINTYRE: It's been really tough. I was explaining to one of my bosses today about trying to confirm a particularly difficult piece of information. I said, look, we have - basically we call them a leaking source and a confirming source. A leaking source is somebody who's going to come to you, tell you something you didn't know. A confirming source is someone who might not tell you anything but if you already know it, they might give you the nod and tell you that OK, you're right on that but not on that. And we've had more of that sort of thing. Once things start to dribble out from Capitol Hill or from other places in Iraq, then people at the Pentagon have been willing to confirm little, tiny details for us, but very few people have been to just volunteer any information about what's going on with an ongoing investigation.

VELSHI: Back to the audience Jamie. Sir, your name and where are you from.

QUESTION: Colbert Schultz (ph) from Payden (ph), Colorado. And I'm just wondering if this investigation on the Marines in Haditha is the result of poor leadership on behalf of Marine officers or was it just enlisted men taking the matter into their own hands?

McINTYRE: Again, it's a little early to judge, because we don't have the results of this investigation. But what it looks like right now is that the Marines who were involved in the killings, whether they're justified or not, they developed a story that basically put what happened in the best possible light. And that story just stood because commanders accepted it. And again, part of that is because they're predisposed to believe the best about their troops. And so the questions that we're looking at is how was the original event misrepresented? What were the inaccuracies told and what was the responsibility of higher ups to question them? Should they have known? Did they deliberately not find out what was going on? And that's the focus of a second investigation. And again, that investigation seems to have found some shortcoming as well, but we're waiting for the final report on that.

VELSHI: Jamie, like our viewers, the audience here has a cross section of views on this and I want to remind everybody, we're going to stick on this story tonight. We're going to do a lot more on it. But I want to ask you, by watching coverage this week, this past week, you would get the impression that all of a sudden, these things have popped up. You are saying that one has led to another in terms of investigating these incidents.

McINTYRE: Well, exactly. What's happened now and this is part of the damage of the Haditha incident for the U.S. military is where maybe a year ago, people would not be predisposed to believe that U.S. troops could have committed a massacre. But now, in the event, because we see the seriousness that this is being taken, with the travel of the Marine Corps commandant over to Iraq, that the president having to talk about his concern about it. Now people are taking a look at other incidents and saying well, wait a minute. If this could happen in Haditha, why couldn't it happen someplace else? VELSHI: Jamie, good to see you. Thank you so much for your great work in the last week. Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon. Well, CNN has been reporting in Haditha in the past including our correspondent Arwa Damon, who's imbedded there, who was imbedded there with U.S. Marines. She is back on the story after this.

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What I personally did notice was an amazing amount of self-control. Essentially, these troops have a fraction of a second to decide whether or not to pull that trigger.

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VELSHI: CNN is on the story here at the George Washington University. More now on the story that U.S. Marines allegedly killed Iraqi civilians in Haditha last year. One person familiar with those deadly streets and with this particular group of Marines patrolling them is CNN correspondent Arwa Damon who was imbedded with that very unit. Here's Arwa's reporter's notebook.

DAMON: What I remember most are the IEDs, the roadside bombs. On the way to the operation, the Humvee that I was in was hit by an IED. If it had hit another two inches back, we would have all been dead. A split second decision to fire or not. The wrong decision could mean a dead Marine or a dead innocent civilian. How they didn't pull the trigger at the first movement they saw sometimes, I don't know. But I did not see that happen. I was not in Haditha for the killings now under investigation. But given the restraint I saw on so many operations, I found myself asking, could it really be true? Could there have been intentional killing of civilians? I don't know.

VELSHI: Arwa Damon joins us now from Beirut. Arwa, good to see you again. We're glad you're safe. I got to ask you though, when you're in the hands of those U.S. soldiers, U.S. Marines, how do you not look at these allegations and remember as you say the restraint? How you can fairly judge whether you think these men did the right thing or not?

DAMON: That's kind of the whole dilemma is that you really can't unless you're actually there in those given circumstances and all that I personally have to go by is my own experience with them. And of course, there have been a number of instances like we heard earlier where civilians have been killed, have been caught in the crossfire. This Haditha incident is of course unique for a number of reasons. It is hard to tell exactly what happened, what went wrong there, should something have gone wrong that didn't go wrong in other cases. I guess that's what the result of the investigation is going to show. But it's really, really hard to tell and having spent so much time with the Marines, not just in Haditha, but throughout al Anbar (ph) province, knowing the way that they're trained, being close with their commanders, it's hard to picture something like this happening just because you have seen them operate in different ways so many times. Of course, there's the reality that we are with them and our cameras are rolling when they're with them and who knows what happens when they're not.

QUIJANO: Arwa, just to follow up on that, what is it like when you do have to cover a story that could be perceived as negative when you have to be embedded with these troops in order to cover these stories, how does that affect your reporting?

DAMON: That's actually very difficult and it's very sensitive. And I'll actually cite an example from a different imbed also in al Anbar province, that was up in (INAUDIBLE) near the Syrian border, where it was very intense fighting for five days and there were a number of air strikes. And after the fighting ended, I got taken by the Iraqi army to see some of the civilians that had been killed. In one house there were seven bodies, women and men and in the second there were 17 bodies being pulled out of the rubble in front of our camera to include children and of course, we had to report on that. And the Marines we were imbedded with were asking us, why do you have to report on this? Why do you have to report on this bad news that's happening? And the thing is, there is no -- we can't avoid reporting on that. And it wouldn't be right for us to. It is part of the entire story of what's going on there. But it is difficult in terms of your relationship with the units that you're embedded with and you do have to report on these more negative stories.

VELSHI: Arwa, from the audience, a question. Sir, your name and where you're from.

QUESTION: Marty Lund (ph), Havstra (ph), New York. Besides the negative stories surrounding some of the Marines in Haditha, is there a positive story surrounding the work they have done in that area before or since the alleged incident?

DAMON: There's been a lot of progress in the area of Haditha and I have been going back there pretty much for a year and a half. My last trip was a month before this incident. And Haditha, at the beginning of 2005, was very violent. U.S. troops would not even enter the city. And little by little, after a series of operations and then finally, the last operation was before the operation in Haditha, a certain amount of stability was brought to the area. Of course, that is stability on the Iraq barometer of stability. But it's all relative and they had brought the city under control to a certain degree and they had set up fixed bases, both Iraqi and U.S. army fixed bases to try to build up this relationship with the civilians. They had started the process of trying to clean the city of these roadside bombs that were just about everywhere and trying to do these sweeping operations to clear out the city of insurgents and bring a certain amount of stability to it.

VELSHI: Another question from the audience Arwa. Your name and where you're from sir.

QUESTION: My name is Josh Lasky (ph) and I'm from Cranford (ph), New Jersey. My question is what is the most pressing need for civilians right now in Iraq?

DAMON: That is a very difficult question to answer. And it starts from basic services to that need that we all have but that's been fulfilled, that when we step out of our homes to go about our daily lives, we know that we're going to -- essentially unless something goes horribly wrong -- get home at night and that sense of security, having that comfort zone when you're in your home, when you're in your own city and town, knowing that you're going to be safe there and of course in trying to provide that come all of the elements of Iraqi security forces be trained up and ready and Iraqi government that the Iraqi people can believe in. And hopefully should that come into place, then they will have the electricity and other basic services that are so crucial.

VELSHI: Arwa, I'm sure you know this, even though you're on the other side of the world. But this is a hot topic and a lot of questions on it. We're going to continue to cover it, so you stay where you are please and we'll come back to you. More on Haditha at the end of this hour. When we go on the story online for how bloggers are reacting to our coverage of what happened. Now from war, we are going to move to medicine. Elizabeth Cohen is back on the story of people who want to donate organs while they're still alive. Many of those might be left in the dark about how dangerous it can actually be.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: One day you would be interviewing someone whose husband died donating an organ and the next day, you're talking to someone who was just a week away from giving an organ, who was about to give an organ. And so you always wondered if these two people were in a room together what the conversation would be like.

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VELSHI: CNN is on the story. Elizabeth Cohen's new "CNN Presents" documentary, "Body Parts" rolls out this weekend. It tells of people determined to save a relative or even help a stranger by giving part of their liver or a kidney while they are still alive. But there are risks, sometimes deadly ones that some live organ donors may never hear about. Take a look Elizabeth's reporter's notebook.

COHEN: One of challenges we faced is that sometimes donors, even when they have something bad happen, don't want to talk about it. They don't want to seem as if the experience were bad. They don't want to seem as if they are angry at the person to whom they donated the organ. And I have to say, one of the most fascinating parts about doing this documentary was meeting people who wanted to give up a kidney to someone they didn't know, who just said, I've got two. Take one of them, give it to whoever needs it the most. That's really quite an act of generosity. I think one of the things that this taught me really didn't have to do with transplantation at all. It had to do with medicine in America in general. And that is, when you go for a surgery, chances are it's going to be fine but you know what, sometimes things go wrong and you can't control that. There's nothing you can do about it. It's horrible whenever it happens and it's especially horrible when it happens to someone who went in to help someone else.

VELSHI: Elizabeth Cohen joins us now. Elizabeth, so good to have you here. So much of what we do on TV seems kind the same and repetitive. This really is something different. I know Elaine's got something she wants to ask you. Elaine.

QUIJANO: How tough is it to get doctors to open up about this? It's such a difficult subject. How willing were they to discuss it?

COHEN: It actually wasn't that difficult Elaine to get doctors to talk about it, because most of the time, living organ donation goes just fine and so they want to talk about the success. A lot of people don't know that almost half of all organs these days don't come from cadavers. They come from living people and most of the time it goes fine. But we found that they were sometimes reluctant to talk about when things went wrong. They just say, that hasn't happened to me. I haven't had that happen. I haven't had living donors die. I haven't had anything horrible happen to living donors. And we did have to look them in the eye and say, well, maybe you haven't but some of your colleagues have, so let's talk about this. Let's talk about what can be done to prevent it from happening again in the future.

VELSHI: Elizabeth, a question from the audience. Sir, your name and where you're from.

QUESTION: My name is Joseph Ward (ph) and I'm Fort Worth, Texas. My question is, what is the Federal government prepared to do if mass quantities of organ donations are needed after any other type of natural disasters like hurricane Katrina? I mean can families depend on the Federal government for immediate support?

COHEN: I don't think revamping or having a special organ donation system in case of some kind of a disaster, I don't think that's a big part of disaster planning. I think it would work as it's planned now, pretty much along the lines, that it works right now, which is that, if you are waiting for a cadaver organ, there's a very long waiting list and most people die waiting. If you are going for a living donor, really that is up to you. You have to bring in the family member or you have to bring in someone who loves you enough to give you one of their organs or if you're really persuasive, you have to go on the Internet and find someone who has never met you before to give you an organ which some people actually are successful at.

VELSHI: Sir, your name and where you're from.

QUESTION: Hi, my name is (INAUDIBLE) My question is, with the increased risk of organ donations, do you believe that the medical field will rely on artificial engineered organs?

COHEN: I know that one of hopes of some of the surgeons that I talked to, they said, I would love not to have to take organs from living people. That would be a goal of ours and I talked to one doctor who is working on taking organs from animals actually, from non-human animals and seeing if that would work, but that's years and years and years away. But yes, that is the hope that at some point, they would not have to use living people sort of for their spare parts as some people who are kind of cynical look at it.

VELSHI: Elizabeth, you do talk about the system of having to research and figure out where you might get a donor from. Is there some suggestion that that system at least could be streamlined, made easier?

COHEN: Well, right now, there really isn't a system. As far as if you're looking for an organ from a living person, if you found that that cadaver waiting list is just too long, it is really up to you. You have to come in with your own living organ donor. Unless you get really lucky and what's called the good Samaritan donor (INAUDIBLE) a good Samaritan donor shows up at the hospital and says, take my organ and give it to whoever needs it. But that's really pretty unusual. As far as fixing that list for cadaver organs so that it can go more quickly, if you just don't have enough organs, you don't have enough people signing cards, that long wait's always going to be there.

QUIJANO: Elizabeth, tell us about the link between religious groups and organ donation.

COHEN: There's an interesting link here in that the two good Samaritans who we followed, those are people who just showed up at Johns Hopkins Hospital and said, please take my kidney, give it to whoever needs it. They both had religious motivation. Right here you see a young man by the name of Barry Mendez (ph) and he belongs to a group called the Jesus Christians. It's a very small group. It's based out of Australia. And most of the members of this group have given a kidney. And the leader has given a kidney and they say they're not coerced but that since most everyone else has done it, it's just sort of an ethic of the group and this gentleman, Barry Mendez followed suit. So we had that kind of religious identity.

VELSHI: Elizabeth, great story and great special. Thank you for joining us on the story.

COHEN: Thanks Ali.

VELSHI: Elizabeth Cohen, "CNN Presents "Body Parts" 8:00 p.m. Eastern Saturday and Sunday. For medicine, we're back on the White House beat. Elaine Quijano is on that story right after this.

We are "on the story" from the Pentagon, the middle east and Atlanta this week, also elsewhere. Take a look.

HUGH RIMINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The village of Bahrain remains the human epicenter of this disaster, 1,000 people died here. 28- year-old (INAUDIBLE) survived only because he had already left for work that day. He first found his three-year-old daughter's tricycle and then her body nearby. It took two days to find his young wife, their 10-month old son, dead, still clutched in her arms.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A traffic accident turned into a day of rioting across Afghanistan's capital city. It began when hundreds of Afghans stoned a U.S. military convoy after an army truck crashed into a dozen civilian vehicles. At Camp Eggers (ph), the military headquarters, troops had paused on Memorial Day to remember their fallen comrades. Within minutes, they took up defensive firing positions as gunfire was heard and protestors marched through the city.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWS BREAK) VELSHI: CNN is on the story from the George Washington University. As congress wrangles over immigration reform, President Bush took his cause to a group of business leaders. Let's have a look at one of Elaine Quijano's reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Chamber of Commerce is one of the president's biggest supporters on immigration. The group stands firmly behind his proposal for a temporary guest worker program, a source of inexpensive labor. Yet against the backdrop of upcoming congressional elections, White House officials and republican strategists acknowledge the issue is a heavy lift for the president. The president is facing heated opposition from members of his own party, conservatives adamantly opposed to anything they see as amnesty.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The American people expect us to meet our responsibility and deliver immigration reform that fixes the problems in the current system.

QUIJANO: House republicans want border security dealt with first. But administration officials insist Washington should tackle all aspects of immigration reform at once.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: And Elaine's with us now, let's go straight to the audience and see what they have to say. Sir your name and where you're from?

CHRIS SELYER, AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi Elaine, my name is Chris Selyer from Port Clinton, Ohio. And my question is, how does the president combat the negative reaction to his immigration proposal by conservatives who believe it amounts to amnesty?

QUIJANO: Well he thinks the way to do it is to just keep talking about it. And that's why we saw him. It's interesting though the audience for this as I mention in the piece, was a group that really has been on the president's side. So in effect he was saying really to conservatives who are not necessarily in that immediate audience, look, you want me to be tough, I will be tough and I will tell these business owners you cannot hire undocumented workers because that is against the law and we will not tolerate it.

Now whether or not that will be enough to overcome a lot of conservatives are concerned about this amnesty issue, they see it as amnesty. You know it remains to be seen, it's 50-50 right now according to some, less than that according to others. It will play out in an interesting way but the president certainly is taking a lot of political capital on this.

VELSHI: You and I haven't had a chance to talk for a few weeks. There was a string of time there were nothing could go right for this White House. They were getting it from all sides. From their own party, from other people. The president is hitting conservatives head to head on this one. He's being firm about it. Does it seem convincing? Do they feel like they're winning on this?

QUIJANO: Well you know it's tough because whether or not there is any movement yet, you know certainly we have seen none at this point. The house and senate bills are so vastly different on this. The conservatives are really just wanting this border security issue dealt with first. You know it's interesting, you brought up the idea that this administration has been hit with so many things and really can't get any positive news out there. On the issue of Iraq that we were talking about earlier. The idea that this is an administration that has been wanting to tout some political success. They've got now a permanent government in place, that's going to be governing for the next four years. And yet now you have these stories about investigations. So you know this is a president who has been trying to communicate what positive news might be out there. But it's a tough road and immigration certainly is a difficult issue.

VELSHI: We have another question out here. Your name and where you're from?

SYLVIA MARCUS: Sylvia Marcus from Austin, Texas. The two previous secretaries of treasury, O'Neal and Snow were forced to resign because they did not agree with the Bush policies, what makes you think the new secretary will fair any better?

QUIJANO: Well I think administration officials would kind of take issue with that. They would argue at least on the face of it that treasury secretary Snow did get a good job. But obviously it was interesting that put to rest that long held rumor that the treasury secretary was going to resign when the president brought in Hank Paulson and nominated him. It will be a good thing to watch this unfold because there's been so much positive kind of news initially about this. I mean you know this better than anybody. I mean --

VELSHI: The economy is not doing so badly. But this administration can't seem to get traction on that issue.

QUIJANO: That would be it. And the thing is, by pulling from the ranks of Wall Street, you know you've got the CEO of Goldman Sachs, they're hoping that look, we can probably maybe at least make a dent in some of these people's minds who think you know, just because there's high gas prices and all that, the administration believes there is some good news and this is a way to go. And they think Hank Paulson is the person who can get that economic (INAUDIBLE).

VELSHI: I think you can be the secretary of the treasury and not agree with the administration because you get to sign all the dollar bills. One of the things that also came up this week is that the president decided to take a different approach on Iran. How has that fared for them?

QUIJANO: Huge. Huge. It's really interesting, I mean there are a number of reasons for this, I won't get into all of them now. But one of the things they say is, look, Iran has to basically put its money where its mouth is. This is a moment of truth. We heard Secretary Rice say. Iran for a long time is saying, you know, we'll go ahead and we'll talk or no we won't or yes we will. And now this is an opportunity because they've got other nations on board. We saw Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice standing interesting off to the side, not the one delivering the message, because the idea here is to send the message we are all united on this Iran. You must stop your nuclear activities and we will come to the table but only if you do that first.

VELSHI: There's never a dull moment on your beat. Elaine Quijano, thank you. From Washington to New Orleans, where the battered city is gearing up for another hurricane season. Sean Callebs is back on that story next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: We are "On the Story." Sean Callebs is keeping watch in New Orleans where Mayor Ray Nagin was sworn in for his second term this week and that whole region is on edge about the start of hurricane season, trying to learn from past mistakes and to avoid news ones. Take a look at Sean's reporter's notebook.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The people in this area have spoken. They want to stay the course. They think that Nagin, what we heard from so many voters is they believe Nagin has learned a lot on the job over the last eight months.

MAYOR RAY NAGIN, (D) NEW ORLEANS: It's time for this community to start the healing process.

CALLEBS: Right now the spotlight is going to be on the mayor. Because he has made a pledge in the first 100 days of his new administration to really ramp up, to get rid of all the debris on the streets and get people moving back into the city. While the whole country is looking ahead toward what is expected to be a very active hurricane season. This significant report coming out from some three dozen of the best scientists, researchers from around the country, detailing exactly what went wrong.

The conclusion of this report, Tony, 80 percent, four fifths of the flooding that New Orleans endured, didn't have to happen. That's not going to sit well with the residents. The water from a canal like here at the 17th Street Canal didn't overtop the flood walls of the levees, it basically eroded the bottom, caused the levees to give way and then water from the lake just poured in. So many people in this area, they believe if the city floods again, that's it. They said they can't take it financially and they can't take it emotionally.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Sean Callebs in New Orleans as he's been for so long covering the recovery. What an interesting time Sean we're switching from the recovery into planning again to see what happens this year. Let's go straight to the audience. Sir your name and where you're from?

MARK STIGLER: Mark Stigler Waukesha, Wisconsin. Since all emergency management begins at the local level, what has Mayor Nagin done since last year to prepare and ensure a local response this year?

CALLEBS: A good question. That's one that residents here have been asking. Well the mayor came out a few weeks ago and he said he had a much better evacuation plan. That there were going to be no more shelters in the city. You remember what happened at the superdome and the convention center, those were supposed to be areas of last refuge, well not this time. They say they're working ahead of time with Amtrak, with buses and with airlines to get people out of here as quickly as possible, especially the elderly and the sick. However, that said, we did a story and talked with the rail stations and the airlines and mayors in nearby cities where these evacuees would be taken, and they say they have not had any discussions with Mayor Nagin, that things have not been hammered out yet.

VELSHI: Another audience question for you Sean. Sir your name and where you're from?

JOSHUA: My name is Joshua (INAUDIBLE) and I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana. In regards to preparedness, how is the reconstruction going on the new levees and also how ensured can the residents of Lakeview be that their homes are safe?

CALLEBS: You know that is the big question. We talked to a lot of people who have gutted their homes but they haven't started rebuilding yet. And they say they are not going to rebuild until they get through this hurricane season. It's kind of like someone going up to the pool and sticking his or her toe in. They're afraid to just leap in. They want to see how the city does because if this levee system, if the flood gates don't work, all this work, all the billions of dollars has been for naught.

So the levee system, talking to the Corps of Engineers, talking to the private contractors who have been working on it, they are confident that this is done. It's brought up to pre-Katrina levels, but the big difference this year, they have put flood gates up in the canals that lead from lake Pontchartrain, because that water from Lake Pontchartrain during the hurricane, which is north of the city, pushed down those canals and simply overwhelmed the canals. Well now with these flood gates, about $150 million worth of flood gates, that supposedly will stop the water from going down the canals and that is going to be a huge lifesaver.

QUIJANO: Sean I'm wondering when you talk to people there, what is their impression of how much media coverage they're getting? Do they think that the rest of America has forgotten about them or do they feel is though there is attention?

CALLEBS: They feel that they have been forgotten, abandoned. They're really frustrated because all the attention on June 1 to this upcoming hurricane season, which forecasters say is going to be just, perhaps as busy as last year, but certainly busy. They're very frustrated. They think that the country has moved on, that they've forgotten about this area. Or if you see pictures from Bourbon Street or the downtown business area, it looks okay.

But you know what, New Orleans is still a mess. The Mississippi gulf coast area is still a mess. They have to do a ton of reconstruction. They have to get people back to the city, New Orleans, to bring it back to life. They still have fewer than 200,000 people and the mayor has a very ambitious plan that he says will get people back to the city, 300,000 people in the city by the end of year. That is a tall order.

VELSHI: I want our audience to take a good look at Sean Callebs because you're not going to see him dry for a lot of this hurricane season. We send Sean to where those hurricanes go. You stay safe Sean, good to see you again. Sean Callebs in New Orleans. And this summer, stay with CNN, your hurricane headquarters. From hurricanes to stormy reaction online this week, to allegations about a possible massacre in Iraq at the hands of U.S. marines. I'm back ON THE STORY online, talking to a blogger who's angry about the news coverage of what may have happened and who may be to blame. Stay with us.

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VELSHI: You are on the story. Tell us what you want to see covered on this show. Email us at onthestory@cnn.com. Now this week was heavy news coverage of the claims that U.S. marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq. Let's look at what this audience thinks about the news coverage. I want to see a show of hands here of those of you who think the news coverage of this topic has been negative toward the military. Give me a big show of hands for those of you who think it's been negative toward the military. And that looks like the majority of you.

Let's see those who think it hasn't been negative toward the military. How many people think it hasn't been negative toward the military. Okay a very small minority of this audience thinks it hasn't been and it has drawn a sharp response online as well. For instance Uncle Jim Bow of Blackfive.net blasts what he calls antiwar media activists for using the Haditha story to in his words, "Snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

Uncle Jim Bow, Jim Hanson joins us now via webcam from Madison, Wisconsin. Jim thanks for being with us. Your sense of the sharp response that it's drawn is mirrored by this audience and I'm sure by people who are watching this show at their homes. Tell me what you think the problem is. What has the media done wrong? Why do you think it's been negative toward the military?

JIM HANSON, WWW.BLACKFIVE.NET: I'll be honest Ali, I think that generally there's an antimilitary bias in the media and in this situation, I don't think it's been any more egregious than usual. I think to the extent that it's been fair handed, it's been as fair handed in this instance as any. The problem I have seen and it represents a big threat to us worldwide is people like Represent John Murtha going on television and everywhere else claiming that these marines are actually guilty, that they did these things and that it's a statement of fact as opposed to an investigation that hasn't been finalized and results not in no charges let alone a trial. I think it was a disgrace for him to act that way. And as a U.S. congressman, people overseas actually respect that office whether or not we do and I think that's done tremendous harm. VELSHI: Jim I on one of your blogs, you link to arwadamoncnn.com post, about the time that you spent in Haditha. Here's what you say. "As the CNN reporter previously embedded with the accused Marines noted, our troops are overly cautious about hurting civilians, even to their own possible detriment. So how then could something like this happen?" We've kept Arwa with us, Arwa Damon is in Beirut right now. Arwa, I'm sure when writing this -- I don't know if you knew that someone would put this on a blog and link to it. Jim has used it to suggest that you don't believe it could have happened.

DAMON: Well I'd like to point out at this point saying not that I don't believe that it could have happened but I'm not going to pass judgment just yet. And perhaps that is because of my previous experience with the marines. When it comes to face-to-face combat, they have been incredibly careful and incredibly meticulous in how they clear these houses and the amount of self-control that they have going through a door not knowing what is on the other side.

Now that being said, there are a number of times when civilians are killed in air strikes, at check points across Iraq. And especially when it comes to the air strikes in these face to face combat scenarios, if a unit in my experience is pinned down in a given location for any amount of time and is unable to move forward, they do call in an air strike and there are many cases when the building that they are being fired from have insurgents inside them or when the air strikes simply hit the wrong building.

VELSHI: Jim, so, really, it's interesting because Arwa's making your point so I'm not quite sure where we think that the bias is. But just like you don't want Congressman Murtha talking about who might be guilty or not, clearly we don't know.

HANSON: Absolutely. And that's what was refreshing. I didn't think that Arwa was saying they couldn't have done it, I think she was giving them the benefit of the doubt. And I think that's what happened, happened in way too many of these cases there was a tremendous rush to judgment. In Congressman Murtha's case, he's advocating cutting and running from Iran and leaving it to a potential Al Qaeda victory. What I would like to see him do is at least wait for investigation, at least wait for a trial and if these men are guilty, if this was a massacre, myself, anyone else in the military and the rest of the marine corps would help him, knit a rope to hang them.

It's not a question of excusing a potential massacre, we just like the facts to come out. And there's another case, there was a Lieutenant Lario Pantano who was accused of killing two insurgents who were under detention. He was cleared, let go and the charges against him were dropped. He'd already been tried and convicted in the press and spent a considerable amount of time thinking he might spend his life in prison. I just think it's fair to go ahead and give the benefit of the doubt to these folks until we know better.

VELSHI: Alright. Let me see what the audience has to say. Your name and where you're from. SHAVONNE: Hi I'm Shavonne Barm(PH) from Los Angeles, California. And as we know civilian deaths are not a new element of war. And do you think that with insurgent type warfare civilian deaths will not only be a fact but will increase in quantity as we attempt to seek out terrorists in unconventional battle fields?

HANSON: I'd hope not. I guess I'd like to think we're learning as we go along. I mean this is a new, we had not fought an insurgent warfare like this and throughout history, it's not been a type of warfare that countries have been very successful in countering. So I think it's extremely difficult and I think the biggest problem we have is we can't afford to lose the trust of Iraqis who are happy we liberated them. If they believe, their Prime Minister Maliki made a statement today saying that it was commonplace that U.S. troops were running over civilians and basically disrespecting the value of Iraqi life. Now I believe a large part of that was Iraqi politics. But we can't afford to let that come across.

VELSHI: Arwa, are you still there? Arwa, you deal with this every day, do you take this into account when you're doing your reporting? Do you sit there and say, do you think people back home are going to think this is fair or how do you take what Jim says and work it into your reporting?

DAMON: I honestly believe that what we can do and pretty much the only thing that we can do in Iraq especially when we're down in these embedded on the ground boots on the ground scenarios, is we can take what we see in a 24-hour period of time, try to absorb that and all of the elements of intensity and the entire gamut of emotion that happens and try to regurgitate that into a three-minute story that the audience can see. But we can only report what we see, what we know and what we've experienced.

VELSHI: Arwa Damon in Beirut and Jim Hanson. Thanks for joining us. ON THE STORY took us from the deadly streets of Haditha to the pentagon and the White House and medical transplants. Well we're back in a moment with what we're looking for next week ON THE STORY.

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VELSHI: Let's take a quick look ahead at what we're looking at ON THE STORY next week, do you have any idea?

QUIJANO: Yes, I will be traveling to New Mexico with President Bush. He's going to be talking about immigration, he'll be touring a federal law enforcement center. And again the message here that the administration wants to send any way is that he is tough on border security.

VELSHI: We'll check in with you to see whether there's been good success. Good to see you again Elaine, thanks so much. And a reminder to catch Elizabeth Cohen and her "CNN Presents Body Parts." Thanks to my colleagues and our fantastic audience here at the George Washington University. And thank you for watching ON THE STORY. We're back each week Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.

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