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American Morning

President Bush Back in Washington After Surprise Visit to Iraq; Baghdad Crackdown; Katrina Fraud

Aired June 14, 2006 - 08:59   ET

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

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Elaine Quijano, live at the White House. President Bush is back from his surprise trip to Baghdad, and in just a few minutes we will be hearing from him about it. I'll have that story coming up.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm John Vause in Baghdad, where a major security crackdown started today. Is it working? I'll tell you coming up.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I'm Jeanne Meserve in Washington. Football tickets, strippers, a few of the things FEMA paid for. I'll tell you all about that in just a moment.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Now that Alberto is out of the way, just a tropical depression. The next storm we look for is Beryl. It rhymes with Cheryl, but with a "B." No sign of it yet -- coming up.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And from MySpace to possible jail space. Take a look at these pictures. Two teenagers now are facing some serious charges after they posted this videotape of an attack on the Internet.

Those stories and much more ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.

And good morning. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien.

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

From the Green Zone to the West Wing, President Bush now back at his home office on Pennsylvania Avenue. He arrived at Andrews Air Force Base about four and a half hours ago.

Washington still buzzing this morning about his surprise trip to Baghdad. We should hear from him in the Rose Garden for a news conference in about 45 minutes.

CNN's Elaine Quijano live now from the White House with more.

Good morning, Elaine.

QUIJANO: Good morning to you, Miles.

And we can expect President Bush to try to keep the spotlight focused on positive developments that have happened in Iraq recently, the formation of a unity government, the death of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. At the same time, though, Miles, what we're expecting to hear is a cautious tone.

We have heard this from the president and from senior administration officials here over the last few days. The president trying to very carefully walk that fine line between congratulating American forces -- we heard this last week -- and at the same time cautioning the American people that difficult days still lie ahead.

So that news conference set to take place in the Rose Garden about 45 minutes from now. The president, we understand, or we anticipate will be giving brief remarks before taking questions from reporters in the Rose Garden -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Elaine Quijano at the White House.

And, of course, we'll have live coverage of the president's news conference coming up, 9:45 Eastern Time, right here on CNN.

The president's trip to Iraq a total surprise to all but a few. CNN's John King, one of the few.

He got the call to ride on Air Force One with the president. The trip shrouded in secrecy. He could only told a few people about it. Now he's here to tell you all and all of us about what happened.

What a wild ride, huh?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Miles, it was quite a wild ride. Let me make a quick point about the news conference.

On the way back, the president spoke to us on Air Force One for about 35 minutes. He was quite upbeat, said he found the new Iraqi prime minister to be a quiet fellow, the president said, but a man of confidence.

And you sense from the president a sense of optimistic after so much frustration, so many fits and starts, so much uncertainty, setbacks, and disappointment in Iraq. You sense from the president that from this trip he has a bit of confidence that this new Iraqi government will, in fact, not only be able to improve security and improve delivery of services, but will get legitimacy with the Iraqi people. That is the defining challenge, as the president put it.

As for the secrecy, you see the president there coming down the steps of Air Force One. That was about 3:05 this morning, when we arrived back from this trip. He was on the ground for about five hours in Iraq. We weren't allowed to tell anybody until we got on the ground in Iraq that we were actually there. But the White House said that was necessary for security, Miles.

And there were no incidents during the trip, although at one point there was a report over the radio as we were leaving to head back to Air Force One of some random gunfire in the area.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Tell us a little bit about the security. It's very interesting. You taxied, as I understand it, after kind of a deep descent to a remote part of the airport, and then whisked into helicopters.

Walk us through that whole scenario.

KING: You're arriving your about 11-hour flight, and you start to come in. And remember, Air Force One is a 747. And the president insisted on taking it.

It has old glory on the tail, the red, white and blue. It says "United States of America" emblazoned on the side.

It came in, started -- banked a few times, and then all of a sudden, just very quickly down. A 747 usually coasts in slowly. We came very steep descent, then they told us to rush to the helicopters.

We jumped on the helicopters. Once everybody's onboard -- we had five helicopters, plus some other helicopters for security. Then you're flying in very low over the rooftops in Baghdad.

We have some pictures, I think, some pictures I took while I was on the plane. This is a picture I took on the plane.

You see the machine gunner in the back of the helicopter. And it's a bit hazy because I'm not such a good photographer, but you see the houses just below us there.

The machine gunner was swinging back and forth every time he saw motion on the ground. It's about a six-minute helicopter ride from Baghdad International Airport into the Green Zone, where the U.S. Embassy compound is right now, the temporary embassy compound, and coalition and U.S. military headquarters.

It's tense, you're flying very low, the helicopters rocking back and forth. But again, there were no incidents reported while we were there.

But you see from the pictures there, everyone is packed into this helicopter. There was very little room on the helicopter. And our camera crew was told at some points not to shoot. They did not want pictures of certain situations that they thought could undermine the security preparations.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, you know, it's interesting. The president, as you point out, could have come in on an unmarked military transport. Wanted to make a statement here. Once he's on the ground, the word was out. In a sense, the ride back was probably even more of a scary thing for the security personnel.

KING: And the schedule was designed that way on purpose. We went in, in the daylight, which you would think was risky. We could see cars as Air Force One is landing.

We were saying, well, if they think this is a secret, it's not a secret anymore, when this big giant bird lands in, in broad daylight. But they said going out would be more dangerous because they would have announced the president's trip by then. It has been announced for a good four hours by the time we left the embassy to go back, which is why we left in the dark.

They wanted to go in the dark. We were in a motorcade in the dark, no lights, completely dark. Quick ride back to the helicopters.

They had some of those glow sticks, you know, you might take camping or see on the Fourth of July to light our way on to the helicopters. Then they buried those under bags so there would be no lights on board. Night vision goggles for the machine gunners in the helicopter as we went.

And on Air Force One, all of the window shades turned down. We were told don't turn on anything that either puts out light, like a computer, or puts out a signal, like a cell phone or a BlackBerry. And very quick.

They had taken Air Force One off the ground. It had a minimum level of fuel in it so they could gun the engines, have it as light as weight as possible, and take it straight up.

Again, a 747 tends to go up sort of slumbering on a slope like that. We gunned the engines. It went -- at about 10 minutes into the flight, they turned the lights back on and we had to stop in Europe for a refueling because they had such -- so little fuel on the plane so they could have that quick takeoff.

M. O'BRIEN: I'm sure the Air Force general at the controls was loving every minute of this, getting an opportunity to fly that way.

And just briefly, quick, on the cloak and dagger, you weren't able to tell many people about this, right?

KING: I was not. I told my boss here in the Washington bureau because I had to get a camera crew and because he had to know where I was going. And it's a very difficult situation, but you're sworn to secrecy by the White House. We tend to think they overdue that sometimes, but that their job is to protect the president of the United States.

They tell you, you can't have this trip unless you keep these secrets. So we cut that deal, then we fight about it after.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. John King, thanks for the details. Appreciate it.

Chief National Correspondent John King, part of the best political team on television. And you just heard why -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: In Baghdad today, thousands of people demonstrating, protesting the president's visit. Followers of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr shouting anti-American slogans and trying to burn the American flag. They want a timetable for multinational forces to withdraw from Iraq.

Also in Baghdad, the first day of a massive Iraqi-run security crackdown.

CNN's John Vause is live for us in Baghdad this morning.

John, good morning.

How big is this crackdown? What percentage is Iraqi? Any indication it's actually working?

VAUSE: Well, Soledad, what we've been told by Iraqi officials, initially they told us at least 70,000 Iraqi forces, mostly Iraqi forces, not giving any breakdown, would be on the streets of Baghdad. Today, when we tried to nail down a few more solid figures, they're backing away, citing security concerns. Nothing as the precise numbers.

But yesterday they were adamant that there would be more than 70,000 mostly Iraqi forces on the streets of Baghdad. They're calling this Operation Advancing Forward Together. They are moving forward, though it seems a lot slower than everybody had anticipated.

What we have seen today, hundreds of checkpoints on roads in and out of the Iraqi capital. Cars being searched. Very visible presence of Iraqi soldiers and police in neighborhoods around Baghdad.

They've been searching cars. We've been told by police they've seized a number of Katyusha rockets, as well as roadside bombs, and a large number of weapons, in their words. But despite this security sweep, there has been a number of attacks today.

A car bomb exploding in the northern part of Baghdad, killing at least two civilians. Police say it was exploded by a remote control.

There was also another roadside bomb in that same area. The police patrol was a target there. No one was hurt.

There was also a shootout between Iraqi police and insurgents in a Sunni neighborhood. That gunfight lasted about 30 minutes. Once again, no injuries to report there -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: John Vause in Baghdad for us this morning.

John, thanks -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: More post-Katrina outrage with the way the government spent your money. As much as a billion dollars meant for storm victims paid for things like football tickets, strippers, and tropical vacations. Full details to be spelled out on Capitol Hill this morning.

Our homeland security correspondent, Jeanne Meserve, has a preview.

Good morning, Jeanne.

MESERVE: Good morning, Miles. An all-inclusive one-week resort vacation in the Dominican Republic. Divorce lawyer fees, erotic adult products. Five New Orleans Saints season tickets. Those were some of the things your taxpayer dollars bought for purported victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

A devastating report from the Government Accountability Office says 16 percent of the payments made by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to victims of storms, about $1 billion worth, were improper and potentially fraudulent.

Among the findings, millions were paid to prison inmates who registered as displaced persons. Over $20,000 went to one inmate who listed a post office box as damaged property. Other people registered cemeteries and non-existent addresses as damaged.

People also provided rental assistance to people who were already in hotel rooms for which FEMA was already footing the bill. In one instance, an individual received more than $2,300 in rental assistance and simultaneously was paid $8,000 to stay in a $100 a night Hawaiian hotel.

Horrifying? Well, consider this... the report didn't even look at insurance fraud and bogus damage claims, which could boost the estimated fraud figure significantly -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: So, wait, there's more potentially here. Let's get a sense of what FEMA is saying about this.

MESERVE: FEMA is saying that they have changed procedures, that they are ready for this hurricane season with check-in procedures that will verify identity and ownership and occupancy and present -- and prevent double-dipping. They also say they are trying to get back some of that money. So far, they've identified about $16.8 million that they're going to try to recover, but that's far short of the $1 billion that the GAO found.

M. O'BRIEN: Jeanne Meserve in Washington.

Thank you -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Also happening "In America" today, two teenagers in Tacoma, Washington, arrested after an alleged assault on another teen. Police say they taped the assault -- there you can see the video right there -- posted it on MySpace.com.

The videotape shows a student punching a classmate, apparently in retaliation for another videotaped attack. One of the suspects at some point shows off a shotgun. Police say he later took that gun to school.

Comedian Jerry Lewis recovering this morning from a mild heart attack. The 80-year-old Lewis has postponed several live shows in Las Vegas in July. He's expected, though, to make a full recovery.

In New York, a house reduced to rubble when it exploded. It happened on Long Island this morning. Police say they're not exactly sure what happened. No reports of any injuries. An investigation into what exactly triggered the explosion is now under way.

And crews in Arizona are working to contain a wildfire that's burning dangerously close to several neighborhoods outside of Phoenix. So far, about 5,000, acres have been scorched. Flames are now threatening more than two dozen homes. Lightning sparked the fire about a week ago.

It brings us right to the forecast and Chad Myers at the CNN Center for us.

Hey, Chad. Good morning again.

MYERS: Hi, Soledad.

(WEATHER REPORT)

MYERS: Back to you.

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

Coming up this morning, a businessman accused of trying to buy forgiveness for his family after his brother murdered a woman. We're going to explain that story just coming up.

M. O'BRIEN: Also, some dramatic new pictures from those Mars rovers. Yes, they're still up there, still working, nearly three years after they landed on the Red Planet. We'll tell you about the discovery that caught the scientists by surprise.

S. O'BRIEN: And we're waiting to hear from President Bush. He's holding a news conference from the White House Rose Garden this morning. It's expected to begin at 9:45 a.m. Eastern Time. We're going to have it for you live when it happens.

Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Arizona National Guard troops are starting to arrive along the U.S.-Mexico border. By tomorrow, more than a thousand troops are expected to be in place. It's part of the president's plan to help free up federal agents to focus on border security.

Meanwhile, a new CNN poll finds that a majority if Americans, 56 percent of those polled, support the plan. Forty percent said they oppose the idea.

Not far from Arizona, the National Guard's already making an impact on New Mexico's border.

AMERICAN MORNING'S Bob Franken embedded with National Guard troops there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Consider this a preview of things to come.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look straight north. These guys come up northwest.

FRANKEN: One hundred eighty-eight members of New Mexico's National Guard have taken up positions in the intensely hot desert to help out an often overwhelmed U.S. Border Patrol, even with all its high-tech equipment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's an area where that sky watch can't -- can't look down. So we're going to go ahead and look at that little area, too, as well.

FRANKEN (on camera): The job for the National Guard is pretty simple. It's to fill in these wide, desolate gaps where the Border Patrol coverage is incomplete. And the rules of engagement are also simple. Except for medical emergencies, look, but don't touch.

(voice over): So this is a lot different for the many veterans of Iraq.

SGT. WILLIAM DUFFER, NEW MEXICO NATIONAL GUARD: Radar Talk (ph) this is Radar One.

FRANKEN: Staff Sergeant William Duffer is one of several here who were called up not only for a year in Iraq, but then Hurricane Katrina duty just a few months after they returned to their families. And now this.

DUFFER: I feel a little guilty being away from them because you know it's hard on them as well as it is on you.

FRANKEN: This time it's only two weeks away and just 50 miles way from home in Las Cruces. Still, Sergeant's Duffer's wife and their 10-year-old daughter say they've had enough.

DAWN DUFFER, WIFE: You don't get time to settle in, to address -- it's always, you know -- it's always something. And it's hard.

JORDAN DUFFER, DAUGHTER: I don't like it when he's away. It kind of sucks, and I miss him a lot. And having him be gone for that long, when he comes back, it feels great. And it feels great to see him and have him back.

FRANKEN: About 6,000 more National Guard troops will soon be sent to the border. A guard leader here says this is the jump-start of Operation Jump-Start.

Bob Franken, CNN, at the New Mexico-Mexico border.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: It practically looks like Mars there. As a matter of fact, almost three years after landing on Mars, the Mars rovers are still sending back incredible pictures. Defying the odds that they're still going. We'll show you some of the pictures and we'll tell you about one discovery that really took the scientists by surprise.

And speaking of surprises, President Bush stunning us all with that visit to Baghdad yesterday. Even the prime minister of Iraq had about five minutes warning on that one.

So what's the political impact, though, of all of this? We'll take a closer look ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: It's hard to believe, but it's been almost 900 days now since those two Martian rovers launched by NASA landed on the Red Planet, sending back science which has literally rewritten the textbooks on how Mars came to be and whether life once existed there. For the scientists, it's been a busy time. They've been working on their science, and for the principal investigator, Steve Squyres, there's been a few opportunities to find himself in some odd places, like the other night when he appeared on "The Colbert Report."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, "THE COLBERT REPORT": I personally see these as threats, because you guys made a grave mistake. They're semiautonomous, they're highly intelligent, they may become sentient and self-aware. And you sent two of them.

STEVE SQUYRES, CORNELL UNIVERSITY: That's right.

COLBERT: So they could find each other and breed an army and come back to enslave us!

SQUYRES: No. No. No.

COLBERT: No, you have to say it's possible!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: And how's that for a twist on "War of the Worlds"?

Let's talk about how they're doing. Way beyond what you expected, way beyond the warranty and what was guaranteed in advance.

Let's talk about Spirit first.

SQUYRES: Sure.

M. O'BRIEN: The first one to land there. And we'll take a look at what it's doing for the winter.

SQUYRES: Yes. M. O'BRIEN: And winter's kind of a key time, less solar power, obviously, so that you sort of slow down. But you're taking advantage of that time to do something kind of special. Tell us about that.

SQUYRES: Yes. Yes. We are parked on a hill for the winter. We've got our solar rays tilted towards the sun, so we've got lots of power. And what we're doing is taking what should be just a spectacular 360-degree panorama.

M. O'BRIEN: You know, what you see in this one spot is such a wide divergence. Look at all the different colors of rocks.

SQUYRES: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Light and dark, and all that.

SQUYRES: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: What are they telling you? If you know how to read the rocks you can learn a lot about -- a lot about this spot, can't you?

SQUYRES: Well, the thing that's good about this spot, is that there's so much diversity all in one place. You know, some parts of Mars, you've got the same kinds of rocks everywhere. Here, we've got this potpourri of different stuff around us, so we can learn lots of science in one location.

M. O'BRIEN: The interesting thing, too, is you found some things which didn't necessarily come from Mars.

SQUYRES: This caught us by surprise. This was just a couple of days ago.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's take a look.

SQUYRES: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: This is from Spirit, and this is -- actually, what we're going to see here is a meteorite on Mars.

SQUYRES: That's right.

M. O'BRIEN: And curious -- first of all, highlight it for folks so they know what we're talking about.

SQUYRES: Right there.

M. O'BRIEN: This particular right here. There was another one over here we don't -- we can't see in this particular frame.

What was it? Did you look at that right away and say, "Ah, that's a meteorite"?

SQUYRES: Not right away. We looked at it with our cameras, and it looked kind of funny. It had the appearance that you might expect a meteorite to have. But just this past weekend we looked at it with our infrared spectrometer, and that told us that it's probably made of metal.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow.

SQUYRES: So that kind of nails it.

M. O'BRIEN: Now, let's talk about what Opportunity has done. These rovers have well exceeded their distance time. You name it, whatever parameter you want. And let's take a look, big picture here, of the full length of the traverse. I want to help people out.

Right up here at the top, that's the landing zone.

SQUYRES: That's right.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. And right here at the bottom is where we are now.

SQUYRES: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: In the meantime, the distance covered there is about how long?

SQUYRES: It's just about five miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Five miles total. This spot right here is the crater that was kind of -- where the mother load of science came from.

SQUYRES: That was the best place that we've been so far.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

SQUYRES: And that's the one that we call Endurance Crater.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. So it's down here. Where are you headed? What's the destination? Are you going to keep going this way?

SQUYRES: What we're headed for, if you go about another half- mile south of where we are right now, there's a spectacular crater. We named it Victoria Crater. And that's our goal.

That's the reason we're struggling through this very difficult terrain we're in right now is to try to get to that. It's bigger, it's deeper, it's more spectacular, it's more geology (ph).

M. O'BRIEN: And so you're just going to keep going.

SQUYRES: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: But when you say "struggling." I want to show some people...

SQUYRES: Yes. M. O'BRIEN: ... a little bit of footage here of what you've encountered along the way here. These -- these rovers are amazing. They have six wheels, and they're designed with rockers and so forth to go through. But you've hit some sand here which caused some problems.

SQUYRES: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Tell us about getting stuck.

SQUYRES: Last week was a rough week. You know, there's different ways to drive these vehicles. You can be very aggressive, you can be very timid.

(CROSSTALK)

M. O'BRIEN: We can relate to that...

SQUYRES: Yes. Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: ... if you drove in a muddy field or in the snow.

Go ahead.

SQUYRES: So we want to be sort of in-between. You know, we want to drive them pretty aggressively. And sometimes when you do that, bad stuff happens.

This is the second time this has happened to us. We got stuck in a sand dune. But we know how to get out of these things. And after about a week, we popped out.

And what you see on the video there is the wheels churning through the soil as we dug our way out. We're back on solid ground now and heading south again.

M. O'BRIEN: Steve Squyres, you've been a part of a lot of Mars missions. Quite frankly, most of them tanked. It's a difficult place to go.

SQUYRES: It is a tough place to do this.

M. O'BRIEN: And here you are talking about going into yet another season.

SQUYRES: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Could you have ever imagined this?

SQUYRES: No. No. This caught us totally by surprise.

We -- you know, we designed them to last for 90 days. I thought they might go twice that. It's almost 900 now. We're astonished. We're also very tired.

M. O'BRIEN: But on you go. SQUYRES: On we go.

M. O'BRIEN: And so do the robots.

SQUYRES: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Steve Squyres, thanks for dropping by.

SQUYRES: Yes. Good to see you again, Miles.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, the political impact of the president's surprise visit to Iraq. Has the U.S. turned a corner in the war? We'll take a look this morning.

Don't forget, President Bush is holding a news conference from the White House Rose Garden. We're expecting it in just about 20 minutes. We'll bring it to you live when it happens.

That's ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, the news out of Wall Street continues to be bad. We're expecting the opening bell in just a few seconds.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: We are about 10 minutes away from a presidential news conference, 9:45 Eastern. The president will speak from the White House Rose Garden, I'm pretty sure of that, today. He'll be asked about his trip to Iraq, you might think, yes, and what it will take to bring American troops home, of course.

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