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American Morning

Two Missing Soldiers Possibly Found Dead; Millions of Refugees Remembered on World Refugee Day; National Guard, State Police to Support Security in New Orleans

Aired June 20, 2006 - 09:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: There's some conflicting information on the fate of those two missing U.S. soldiers in Iraq. We're going to get the latest just ahead.
JOHN ROBERTS, CO-HOST: A red-eye flight ends with some white knuckles. Landing gear problems forced this plane to make an emergency landing this morning.

O'BRIEN: Parts of Houston under water. Major flooding there and other parts of Texas and Louisiana, too, to tell you about.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And more rain coming into Houston right now. The heaviest band is still to the east of town, but it is pushing through the bay and back into the city. A very soggy city this morning.

ROBERTS: And we're taking a closer look this morning at the world's refugee problem. Millions of people with no place to call home. Their dramatic stories are ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.

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

ROBERTS: And I'm John Roberts, in this week for Miles O'Brien. Good Tuesday morning to you.

O'BRIEN: Thank you for that. It's been nice to have you helping us out.

ROBERTS: No thanks necessary. They're paying me. So that's all the thanks I need.

O'BRIEN: Let's get right to our top story this morning. U.S. military is confirming that two bodies have been found in Iraq. Not confirming, though, that those bodies are those of Army privates Thomas Tucker or Kristian Menchaca. The Army is saying its first obligation is to the families of its troops.

CNN's Arwa Damon, live for us in Baghdad this morning.

Arwa, good morning.

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

That's right. Major General William Caldwell, the spokesperson for multinational forces here in Iraq, just moments ago at a press conference addressing the number of issues, questions, reports that have surrounded the two missing soldiers, and this is what he had to say about all the reporting that's been going on today so far.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL, SPOKESMAN, COALITION FORCES IN IRAQ: There has been press reports that have gone on this afternoon stating we have, in fact, found the remains of our two missing soldiers. What I would just say at this point is, we as an armed force of the United States, have an obligation first and foremost to those families who have either lost or have someone missing, and to them we owe our first responsibility of any reporting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DAMON: He also asked that the families get the respect that they deserve, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Arwa Damon reporting for us in Baghdad this morning. Arwa, thank you.

Let's get right to Ed Lavandera. He's in Houston. He's been talking to members of the Menchaca family.

Ed, good morning.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Well, just a short moment ago I spoke with an aunt of Kristian Menchaca, who lives here in the Houston neighborhood where he grew up, and she told me just a short while ago that the family had received official word from the U.S. military that, indeed, Menchaca's body was found in Iraq.

We have presumed that those calls continue to be made out to the families. They passed the word along to each other. Menchaca's family here in Texas is quite spread out. His mother lives in Brownsville. His wife that he had married just a few weeks before he shipped off to Iraq late last year lives in west Texas. And cousins and brothers that live in the Houston area.

So it is a family that is learning this morning as we're waking up the news that they had been dreading to find out and they had hoped wouldn't come true yesterday when we first met them. So that is the word that we understand is trickling out to them here this morning -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: So, that's such brutal news. Our hearts go out to that family and all the families that are suffering such big, big losses. Ed Lavandera in Houston for us this morning. Ed, thank you for the update -- John.

ROBERTS: Other news from Iraq, three American soldiers could face the death penalty. They are now charged with murder with the shooting deaths of three Iraqi prisoners. That happened in early May. The soldiers, from the Army's 101st Airborne Division, originally said the Iraqis were trying to escape. The prisoners were killed north of Baghdad near Samarra. The men are also accused of threatening to kill a fellow soldier who witnessed the shootings.

And there is no end to the indiscriminate daily violence in Iraq. Bombs exploded in two busy outdoor markets in Baghdad as Iraqis went about their shopping today. At least nine people were killed and dozens more wounded.

And in Basra, in southern Iraq, a suicide bomber exploded his weapon inside a home for senior citizens. At least two elderly Iraqi women were killed. Others were wounded.

O'BRIEN: President Bush is on his way to Vienna to attend a one- day summit with leaders of the European Union. CNN's European political editor, Robin Oakley, joins us this morning. One of the subjects, of course, one would imagine, is the nuclear issue with Iran.

Following the summit, the president is going to fly to Budapest to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Hungarian revolt against the Soviet Union. Later this morning, we get an update from Robin Oakley on what's happening there -- John.

ROBERTS: Wild fires are raging in the southwest this morning, as they were yesterday. Colorado, New Mexico and California have all been affected by the fire. And in Arizona, 400 homes and businesses have been evacuated.

With temperatures again expected to reach triple digits and no rain in the forecast or in the foreseeable future, 500 more homes could be in danger there.

They don't need any more rain in Houston. More than 10 inches fell on Monday morning, flooding homes, snarling traffic and canceling flights out of both airports there. With rain in the forecast for the rest of this week, more flooding is feared.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has deployed the Texas National Guard and will survey the damage later on today.

Time for a look at the forecast now to find out if there is any relief anywhere in sight for folks in those parched states and if there's any relief in sight for people who are finding themselves letting a smile be the umbrella and finding themselves with a mouthful of water. Here is Chad in the weather center this morning.

Good morning, how are you?

(WEATHER REPORT)

ROBERTS: Chad, thanks very much for the update.

Pilots of an American Airlines flight are being hailed this morning. They successfully landed their loaded plane in Chicago that was missing the front landing gear. There you can see it, sliding down the runway on its nose. There were no injuries among the flight's 136 passengers and crew.

They came in from Los Angeles after a red eye overnight this morning. The pilots noticed that they had a problem as they prepared to make their scheduled landing at O'Hare International Airport. Looks like the landing was on schedule, just not as planned but everything worked out all right -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Well, as Miles always says, good ending, happy ending if you can walk away.

Today is World Refugee Day, and CNN has special coverage all day with reports at points around the world where millions of people are struggling to literally survive.

According to the U.N., 15 million people are without a home; 8.4 million are refugees who fled their own country. The other 6.6 million are internally displaced people. Altogether, nearly 21 million people who are of concern to the U.N.'s High Commission for Refugees. That includes refugee and internally displaced people, as I just mentioned. Plus those who are classified as stateless and returnees and asylum seekers.

The United Nations declared World Refugee Day six years ago as a step to help bring attention to the anguish of these men and women and children who are forced to flee from their homes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): A refugee is defined as someone who flees for safety, and whatever the cause -- war, famine or natural disaster -- the results are still the same.

More than 15 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced. According to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, five nations, Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan, account for nearly half the total population of people uprooted from their homes.

Nowhere is the face of the refugee problem more dire than in Darfur in the Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of villagers have abandoned their homes to escape what many humanitarian agencies have described as ethnic cleansing.

U.N. officials say children make up half the world's refuge population. Innocent victims like these youngsters in Niger, forced to leave their homes in search of food, or these refugee in Southeast Asia, forced to seek shelter after the tsunami in 2004.

By focusing on the plight of refugees, the U.N. wants to send a simple message of hope, the hope that millions can be assisted, protected and, most importantly, go home.

(END VIDEOTAPE) O'BRIEN: We continue with our coverage of World Refugee Day in just a moment. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is going to join us, taking a look at why, for many refugees, the greatest threat to their survival is, in fact, disease.

ROBERTS: Also ahead, why does it seem to take so long for the world to respond to a crisis? We'll take a closer look at relief efforts around the globe from somebody who's on the front lines.

O'BRIEN: And we'll talk to a refugee turned super model, Alek Wek. She's going to tell us about her efforts to help refugees in her native Sudan.

ROBERTS: And don't forget to catch Anderson Cooper's exclusive interview with actress and activist Angelina Jolie. That's tonight, a special edition of "ANDERSON COOPER 360", starting at 10 p.m. Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: After a bloody weekend that saw six people killed in New Orleans, including five teenagers, Louisiana's governor is sending state police and the National Guard into the city to keep crime from escalating. Mayor Ray Nagin requested the reinforcements.

Police Superintendent Warren Riley joins us from New Orleans this morning.

It's nice to see you, Chief Riley. Thanks for talking with us.

SUPERINTENDENT WARREN RILEY, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: Sure. Nice seeing you.

O'BRIEN: Thank you very much.

The killing of the five teenagers and one other older gentlemen, is that the reason for the mayor's request?

RILEY: No, actually this is a request that I actually requested back in March preparing for this summer because we expect an increase. The mayor and I talked about this about a week and a half ago, at which time I sent another letter to the National Guard and the superintendent of the state police, requesting assistance for beginning on July 1.

O'BRIEN: OK.

RILEY: So the shooting of those -- the shooting of those five teenagers really probably expedited the process. But it was not the reason for the request.

O'BRIEN: What kind of help are you going to get? How many people?

RILEY: We're expecting 300 National Guard troops, which will focus their patrols on desolate and isolated areas in New Orleans that were overwhelmed by the storm, where we have some looting problems. The state police will focus on the central business district, the French Quarter and an area called the Marinie (ph) and focus on that, which will allow us to pull some of our officers out and focus on some of the areas of concern.

O'BRIEN: They're going to start July 1 and then go through September, is that right?

RILEY: Well, actually the state police are coming in today, as well as some of the National Guard troops. So it will actually start today. But it will be up to full -- the amount that we requested to full strength by July 1. And they will go through the middle of September.

O'BRIEN: What happens after September? You're still 400 police officers short of where you were, and half the population is back now. And you're having a lot of trouble. I've read reports that you don't have body armor, that you've run out of -- ammunition, excuse me, that you're looking for corporate sponsorship of the police department. What do you do when everybody moves in in the summer or moves back in at the end of the summer?

RILEY: Well, I mean, that was the request for the National Guard and the state troopers. As it relates to we're not out of ammunition. That is absolutely not true. We have -- do have some corporations that are sponsoring providing funds for us to buy bulletproof vests for the last two academy classes, as well as some officers who lost their vests during the storm.

What happens after September, we'll see. Hopefully, the National Guard's, state police and our efforts will enable us to get some of these folks off the street who are causing problems. At that time, hopefully our criminal justice system as a whole will be functioning and focused in a direction that will allow us to make New Orleans a safe place.

O'BRIEN: How will you go back restoring, really, the professionalism to your department? I've read the figure that some 80 percent of your officers have also lost their homes, so they're dealing with what a lot of other people in the city are dealing with at the same time they're in very stressful jobs.

RILEY: Well, you know, it's -- we've had a tremendous amount of training from the federal government, Drug Enforcement Authority, the FBI, the Labor Management Institute, Virginia. We have a Dr. Jimmy Reese that's coming in, actually, this week. We sent a lot of our people through some extensive training to get them refocused. That's a big portion of it.

But how do you really overcome some of the things that -- where our first responders, our police officers, are also victims? We still have over 300 officers living in hotel rooms, another 400 living in small travel trailers in their driveways.

So certainly, we have an overwhelming task. But we'll get through it. But it is a major challenge. O'BRIEN: There were some reports that would say that, for some of the people who were the criminal element, let's say, in Houston that the word was on the street that it was so tough to be caught involved in crime in Houston that it would just be better to come back to New Orleans. How are you going to confront -- if that's true, how are you going to confront that kind of situation?

RILEY: Well, that's where our criminal justice system. There will be a crime summit within the next 14 days. Myself and a district attorney and hopefully some judges will be meeting next week to focus on those things.

I talked to Chief Harold Hurt from Houston several months ago. And he said they would correct the problem in Houston, because those criminals from New Orleans would not get out of jail in a few weeks. And he's proven to be correct with that. And that's something that our criminal justice system has to adopt that same philosophy and that same focus to keep our hard core criminals in jail.

O'BRIEN: New Orleans police superintendent Warren Riley. Nice to see you, Chief. Thanks for talking with us this morning.

RILEY: Thank you. Thank you.

O'BRIEN: John.

ROBERTS: Coming up we'll go back to our special coverage of World Refugee Day. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us with a look at the health crisis that's facing millions of refugees.

Plus the fight to save the world's tiniest refugees in Sudan. One doctor's efforts next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The most defenseless -- defenseless victims of the refugee crisis in Darfur and the Sudan are the ones who can least care for themselves. They are the children who suffer from malnutrition and disease.

CNN's chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, reports on the desperate efforts to keep them alive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dr. Jonathan Spector is at war with Darfur's biggest killer now, malnutrition.

DR. JONATHAN SPECTOR, PHYSICIAN: Today, he's very ill.

AMANPOUR: Dr. Spector is midway through a stint for the aid group Medicins Sans Frontieres in al-Geneina, the capital of western Darfur. He's a long way from his pediatric practice back in Boston.

SPECTOR: In a developed country this child would be in intensive care unit setting. He would be on a monitor. He would be maybe even getting -- for sure getting oxygen and maybe on a ventilator.

AMANPOUR: Here, he doesn't have simple diagnostics like blood tests, and every day he has to make a tough choice about who to treat.

SPECTOR: He's malnourished. Doesn't actually meet criteria for admission to our camp, because he's not severely malnourished. He's moderately malnourished.

AMANPOUR: But these children are severe cases, and every effort counts. Mothers are told to force formula into their skin and bones infants every three hours.

With malnutrition comes another killer: disease. Diarrhea, skin infections, septicemia. And all these patients, like the Yaya (ph) family, have already been brutalized by the wave of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by government-backed militias over the past 18 months.

"They chased us from our homes seven months ago and stole all our cattle. They killed three people in our family," says Halimalay, as she watches over her starving daughter, Zahra.

In another tent, Doctor Spector relishes a success.

SPECTOR: She's good. She's so much better. She looks marvelous.

AMANPOUR: But it's only a small success in a desperate bid to save about two million people in urgent need of food and medical relief. There's not nearly enough humanitarian aid or enough aid workers reaching the region. Eighteen months after this catastrophe began, the world has coughed up less than half the funds the U.N. requested to save this part of Sudan.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN, al-Geneina, western Darfur.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: And at 22 minutes after the hour in this morning's "House Call", with millions of people displaced by war, famine and other desperate circumstances, there is a global health crisis. Our senior medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, joins us now.

Good morning, Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

ROBERTS: Good to finally meet you in person.

GUPTA: Yes.

ROBERTS: Big fan.

GUPTA: Thank you.

You know, it's so interesting covering these refugee stories. You know, one of the things that struck me is that there's absolutely no reserve in a lot of these countries. There's no homeowners insurance. There's nowhere to turn. There's nowhere you can call. So you take people who are already sort of on the fringe and move them into this catastrophic situation.

More than half of them are children. Most of the rest are women. And they're competing, sort of fighting almost, in these unlivable and unhealthy conditions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): I've seen it time and time again: refugees, internally displaced people, seeking shelter, safety and security, usually after some unimaginable atrocity. Tens of thousands converging, refugee camps.

They remind us what it means to lose everything: home, livelihood, family. They can't even count on the most basic human needs. Often, there's no food, no water, no shelter, and some say no hope.

Even if you survive the initial calamity, you still have an even greater chance of dying because of deadly disease.

This is a remote region of northern Pakistan. It was just months after last year's earthquake that killed 80,000 people in just minutes and left more than three million people homeless. It's in these cramped, squalid conditions that measles, cholera, pneumonia, meningitis, tuberculosis, polio, normally treatable diseases, spread quickly among the confines of this population. Treating things like pneumonia is made harder still by the fact there's no clean water here.

Refugees will break your heart. The reality is stark. Freezing temperatures, no shoes. Even as I offer up a jacket, I fear he will freeze to death, but he scampers away.

In the war-ravaged African nation of Rwanda, I saw that women and children were the hardest hit. Here, not by natural disaster, but by invisible virus, HIV. Twelve years after the genocide in Rwanda, these women are still dying. Brutally raped and sometimes left for dead, the truth is, they were in fact given a death sentence, AIDS. These same women, sometimes with their infected children, are also refugees, labeled as unwanted and no longer necessary.

In Sri Lanka, an island nation off the coast of India, in the aftermath of the tsunami we found monumental emotional toll, especially in children, like this young boy, Dinet Dijuala (ph), just 8 years old. Dinet (ph) wouldn't talk about what he had seen. He could only bear to draw it. Cars turned upside down in the water. And a figure underneath a bamboo tree, representing his dead father, killed by the waves.

Sometimes the aid comes pouring in as a venting of compassion occurs around the world. But like most things, the aid soon dries up as disasters disappear from the headlines and, along with it, refugee camps become a new way of life. (END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: So as you mentioned, some of the diseases that hit these people hardest in the aftermath of a crisis are the most preventable diseases: cholera, pneumonia, other diseases like that.

GUPTA: Yes.

ROBERTS: How do you break the cycle?

GUPTA: Well, you know, that's a good point, because you talk about a lot of the diarrheal diseases, which can occur within a couple of weeks sometimes after the initial calamity. So getting clean water in right away is an absolute must.

And you know, that was a lot better that I saw in the tsunami, for example, in Sri Lanka than in some of the previous regions that I visited. So that's better.

But also sort of keeping up the aid. Because six months from now if you have a sudden -- what seems to be a small outbreak of diarrheal diseases, and you don't treat it, they can quickly spread. There are a lot of these camps that are sort of there are sort of semi-permanent camps now. So you've got the clean water initially, but it's sort of really keeping up the effort. Those two things break the cycle.

ROBERTS: Keeping the world's attention focused. That's one of the most difficult things, isn't it?

GUPTA: Absolutely.

ROBERTS: We're such a fast food society. We move onto the next thing so quickly.

GUPTA: Absolutely.

ROBERTS: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, good to see you. Thanks.

GUPTA: Thank you.

ROBERTS: All right.

A reminder that actress and activist Angelina Jolie will be Anderson Cooper's special guest tonight. In an exclusive interview, Angelina talks about her passions for helping refugees around the world, her role as a U.N. special ambassador. But the one thing Anderson did not ask her about for some reason was the baby.

O'BRIEN: No.

ROBERTS: Just kidding. Be sure to catch the whole conversation with Angelina on a special edition of "ANDERSON COOPER 360", beginning at 10 p.m. Eastern.

O'BRIEN: That's a cute little baby, too.

ROBERTS: It's funny when -- you're looking at me like I was an idiot when I said he didn't ask her.

O'BRIEN: Much more of our coverage of World Refugee Day is coming -- coming up. Is the world listening to the plight of today's refugees? We're going to talk to somebody who's headed up relief operations in some of the worst situations around the globe.

Plus refugee turned supermodel Alek Wek, joining us live, trying to bring joy to refugees in her native land. That's ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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