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U.S. Soldiers Charged With Murder of Iraqi Man; Senate Debates Iraq Timetable

Aired June 22, 2006 - 08:00   ET

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

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Barbara Starr.
Military charges now in one of the investigations in Iraq.

I'll have details coming up.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dana Bash on Capitol Hill, where Democrats are united in calling the Bush Iraq policy failed, but divided on a key question of how to fix it.

How will it play in November's elections?

Stay tuned for more on that.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: An al Qaeda call to action in Afghanistan. The terror group's number two talks directly to the Taliban.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: A deadly shooting at a federal women's prison over an alleged sex for drugs ring that was led by prison guards.

S. O'BRIEN: And strong winds could again start pushing an Arizona wildfire closer to hundreds of homes. Firefighters aren't giving up.

Those stories all ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Good morning.

Welcome everybody.

I'm Soledad O'Brien.

ROBERTS: And I'm John Roberts in this week for Miles O'Brien.

One more day to go and then it's Friday and then the weekend.

S. O'BRIEN: Wow!

You sound like a guy who's working a lot of double shifts.

Let's begin with our top story this morning.

For the second time this week, charges being filed against U.S. servicemen for actions in Iraq. In the latest case, seven Marines and one Navy corpsman could face even the death penalty for an alleged murder in Hamandiyah.

CNN's Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon this morning -- Barbara, good morning.

STARR: good morning to you, Soledad.

A late afternoon press conference yesterday at the Marine base at Camp Pendleton in California laid it all out. Seven Marines and a Navy corpsman now facing murder charges in relation to the death of an Iraqi man. This is a case that is proving to be very disturbing, by all accounts. The charges besides murder against all eight include larceny, assault and kidnapping.

The next step in this matter will be the commander will have to decide whether to proceed to an Article 32 hearing, the equivalent of a grand jury proceeding, and then the possibility of a full court- martials or trial.

By all accounts, what is involved here is the charges are that the men took an Iraqi man out of his house, shot him and then planted a shovel and an AK-47 next to his body to make it appear that he was planting an IED.

Of course, all of this still to be proven in a military legal proceeding. Lawyers and family members have said that they believe the men are innocent of all of the charges.

But, Soledad, this comes on the same day, yesterday, in another case, the military filed charges against a fourth soldier in another case charged with premeditated murder of three Iraqi detainees. That case now also proceeding through the military justice system -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Barbara, we know that General Casey is in town.

Are you expecting to hear that there will be recommendations for troop withdrawals any time soon?

STARR: Well, it will be interesting to see if the news media hears because -- or if it's just others in town. At this hour, Secretary Rumsfeld and General Casey have just arrived on Capitol Hill. They are having a breakfast meeting with members of Congress and it is troop withdrawals, of course, that they are absolutely going to be asked about.

General Casey, certainly, we know, has options, always, for troop withdrawals. But whether he is ready to make that critical recommendation that was expected some time around now, whether he is going to make that recommendation this week remains to be seen -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon for us this morning.

Barbara, thanks -- John.

ROBERTS: The Senate is expected to vote this morning on two Democratic proposals to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq.

Congressional correspondent Dana Bash is live on Capitol Hill this morning.

The debate between Democrats is the real story, though, isn't it?

BASH: It really is, John. And it's interesting because you remember last week it was the House Republicans that forced a vote on Iraq. And in the Senate, it's actually the Democrats who are pushing these votes because, they say, they really are united on the question about the Bush Iraq policy. They say that it has failed and they do believe that people in America, voters, the electorate, want to hear somebody in Washington actually challenging them.

But the problem is that they are very much divided on the most controversial political issue, and that is whether or not there should be a hard and fast deadline for when troops should come home from Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: There's no abandonment of Iraq. It sets a date by which, over the course of the next year, the Iraqis themselves have said they have the ability to be able to take over their own story.

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Our amendment does not establish a fixed ending date for redeployment. It doesn't set out fixed milestones once the phased redeployment has begun. So while it does not establish a timetable, it does establish a fixed but not precipitous time for the beginning of a phased redeployment by the end of this year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, we will see two votes later this morning. Senator John Kerry and Russ Feingold, their proposal, of course, says that troops should come home in about 12 months, by July 1st, 2007. But most Democrats will likely vote for the alternative, and that you just saw being presented by Senator Carl Levin, which just simply says that there should be a phased troop withdrawal beginning this year and that the president should offer some ideas, a plan, on what to do for the future -- John.

ROBERTS: Dana, it's not just the fact that Democrats are split on this, about, you know, what the timetable should look like, but, also, everyone -- it seems almost to a person every time they get up on the floor to talk about this, they're playing defense, saying, well, our resolution, our measure doesn't do this.

BASH: Yes.

ROBERTS: The Republicans have just got to be loving this.

BASH: They're downright giddy, John. And, you know, it's interesting to watch. You remember during the last campaign we heard the rhetoric from Republicans, from the president, that Democrats are simply weak on defense. It is like back to the future. That is essentially what we're hearing over and over again from Republicans in this very partisan debate on the Senate floor.

Why? Because they know it worked for them the last time and the time before that, in terms of the election, and they're playing it again.

Now, Democrats, many of them, when they look to November, are worried that they are playing right into Republicans' hands. But, you know, there are some Democrats who are saying this actually is not such bad politics, that there's been a shift in terms of the mood of the country, that Americans are simply exasperated with what's going on in Iraq.

And Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat, presented a poll inside the Democratic Caucus this week, pointing to a poll that says 54 percent of Americans say troops should come home in the next 12 months.

ROBERTS: Yes, they would seem to have public opinion on their side, but an interesting debate going on there.

BASH: Absolutely.

ROBERTS: Dana Bash, thanks very much.

BASH: Thank you.

ROBERTS: As the Senate opened debate on U.S. troops in Iraq, two Republican lawmakers claim that weapons of mass destruction still pose a threat. They said troops have found aging stockpiles of chemical shells.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICK SANTORUM (R-PA), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: It is important for the American public to understand that these weapons did, in fact, exist, were present in the country and were, in fact -- and continue to be a threat to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: That claim is being refuted, by the way, by the man who surveyed Iraq's weapons program for the CIA in 2004. Charles Duelfur says the chemical shells are no longer effective.

A new videotape from the number two man in al Qaeda prompted a blunt response this morning from Afghanistan's president. Hamid Karzai calls Ayman el-Zawahiri "an enemy of the Afghan people who must be brought to justice."

In the video that surfaced on Wednesday, Zawahiri calls on Muslims to rise up against coalition forces in Afghanistan. He says Americans have committed crimes against the Afghan people. S. O'BRIEN: Deadly floods are sweeping across Indonesia. Take a look at these pictures that we're getting this morning. Major landslides, rising floodwaters have killed 200 people so far. Rescue crews are searching for another 130 people who are still missing in the flooding.

In this country, Port Charlotte, Florida is cleaning up today from a tornado that touched down last night. Eyewitnesses say that everything, even mobile homes, were tossed around almost like toys. The area lost power, but there were no deaths or injures reported.

Hundreds of firefighters are desperately trying to stop a wildfire from consuming homes in Arizona. The giant blaze has been burning since Sunday. It's only 7 percent contained at this point. Helicopters and airplanes are dropping fire retardants in an attempt to douse the flames. Nearly 2,600 acres have burned so far.

The fire is threatening 500 homes in the Oak Creek Canyon area. Those homes have been evacuated. Arizona's governor has declared a state of emergency for the region.

Time for a check on the forecast.

Chad Myers at the CNN Center -- Chad, good morning.

(WEATHER REPORT)

ROBERTS: Coming up, more on those seven Marines and a sailor who are charged with murdering an Iraqi civilian. We'll hear from the father of one of the Marines involved and get his take on the charges this morning.

S. O'BRIEN: Also, authorities investigating that deadly shootout at a Florida prison after federal agents tried to arrest guards accused in a sex for drugs ring. We'll take a look at what went wrong.

ROBERTS: And in our series for people in their 30s, 40s and 50s, the signs of depression as you get older. One woman tells us about her battle ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Twelve minutes after the hour now.

This morning, seven Marines and a Navy sailor are being held in the brig at California's Camp Pendleton, charged with premeditated murder in the shooting death of an Iraqi civilian in April near the town of Hamandiyah.

Lance Corporal Robert Pennington is one of the Marines charged.

His father, Terry Pennington, joins us now from Seattle.

Good morning, Mr. Pennington.

Let me ask you right off the bat here, was it a shock to you when your son was charged with murder?

TERRY PENNINGTON, MARINE SON CHARGED WITH MURDER: We were prepared for that. We've known that they were being held now for several weeks. We were praying and hoping that charges would not be filed because the allegations really are ridiculous. But they have been filed. We're prepared for that. We had already retained a very top flight attorney to help defend our son. So we were prepared.

ROBERTS: I just want to play a little bit of sound from Lieutenant Colonel Daren Margolin yesterday announcing the charges against the seven Marines, including your son and that Navy corpsman.

Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIEUTENANT COLONEL DAREN MARGOLIN, USMC: The overriding goal here is to see that justice is done and that these Marines and corpsman receive a fair trial. So we really can't comment on shots that were fired. But it is sufficient to say that there's sufficient evidence, at this point, to charge all of them with premeditated murder.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Mr. Pennington, Mr. Pennington, a couple of things in there I'd like you to address.

First of all, this idea of premeditated murder.

Does that sound like your son?

PENNINGTON: Absolutely not. It doesn't sound like any Marine I've ever met, and I've met hundreds.

ROBERTS: The other thing I wanted to ask you about was this idea of getting a fair trial. You have been pretty critical of the military, particularly the military leadership, including General Hagee.

PENNINGTON: Right.

ROBERTS: Do you believe that there is a lot of political pressure on the prosecutors here to come up with a conviction? Can your son receive a fair trial?

PENNINGTON: I don't know that there's a lot of political pressure to come up with a conviction. I do know that to get to this point, there has been a tremendous amount of political pressure from the anti-war forces in Congress and elsewhere to -- for the Marine Corps to overreact in this way to these kinds of allegations tells -- speaks volumes about the kind of pressure that's being put on them by the politicians.

ROBERTS: What has your son told you about the incident? PENNINGTON: He cannot speak to us about the facts in the case per advice of all the attorneys. He's told me that he is very upbeat. He feels great. He knows that he did nothing wrong. He knows the others did nothing wrong. So he's 100 percent confident that this will go away when they're -- if it does go to trial, they will be found not guilty. He's...

ROBERTS: Right.

Hasn't he told you in the past that everything went according to the rules of engagement?

PENNINGTON: Yes. There has -- the rules of engagement has certainly come up in conversations, but nothing specific about what exactly they did or did not do.

ROBERTS: Right.

Congressman John Murtha said this of the Hamandiyah case. He said: "Some Marines pulled somebody out of a house, put them next to an IED thing, fired some A.K.s so they'd have cartridges there and then tried to cover that up."

Have these Marines, including your son, already been convicted long before this goes to trial?

PENNINGTON: Certainly in his opinion, they have, and he knows nothing of the case. He knows none of the details. He's reading from the Iraqi allegations, the allegations, in my opinion, of the enemy, and regurgitating that as though it's fact. And it's unconscionable on his part.

ROBERTS: You said that you've been able to talk to your son, Robert.

Have you been able to see him? How is his state of mind?

PENNINGTON: They do have visiting hours for the public, between noon and 2:00 on weekends. We have not been able to get down there to this point to see him. We didn't think charges would be filed. We figured we'd be flying him home this weekend for a little -- a little holiday, and that's not the case. So...

ROBERTS: Right.

One last quick question.

The next step here is an Article 32 hearing to see if this is going to go to trial.

PENNINGTON: Right.

ROBERTS: Any doubt in your mind that it will?

PENNINGTON: Oh, I think there's a good chance that it will go to trial based on the way things have gone to this point, although I don't know what the evidence is or what the story is, really. So I can't speak to that. But I -- I imagine it will go to trial, yes.

ROBERTS: Terry Pennington, father of Lance Corporal Robert Pennington.

Thanks for being with us.

I know it's very early there in Seattle.

We appreciate your time this morning.

PENNINGTON: Yes, it is.

Thank you.

ROBERTS: Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, we continue our series for folks in their 30s and their 40s and their 50s. We've got some tips this morning on spotting signs of depression. We'll meet a woman who found some relief after fighting the illness for decades.

Also, a look at what you can do to make sure that your teenager is safe when he or she is behind the wheel. We'll hear from AAA, ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Nineteen minutes after the hour.

Millions of American couples struggle with infertility.

In today's edition of Welcome To The Future, new ideas to help women improve their chances of conceiving a child.

Here's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

BEVERLY: I've always dreamed of having a houseful of kids. But right now we're just happy for one baby.

We started trying to have children about a year after we got married. We just weren't getting pregnant. And we have been doing fertility treatments for a little bit of four years now. We are just wondering why am I having all these miscarriages. We found out that we have a chromosome abnormality.

We've also led very healthy lifestyles and I just figured we would have no problem having children.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Beverly is not alone. Infertility haunts more than six million U.S. couples. But doctors are hoping to reduce that number by learning more about how an embryo develops, by screening them for problems before they're even implanted in the mother.

But with that knowledge comes dilemmas -- where do we draw the line?

(voice-over): Dr. Mark Perloe is with a fertility clinic called Georgia Reproductive Specialists. Here they use prenatal genetic diagnosis, or PGD, to help couples conceive healthy babies. The procedure tests embryos fertilized in the lab for certain kinds of abnormalities. Only the healthy embryos are transferred back to the mother.

DR. MARK PERLOE, GEORGIA REPRODUCTIVE SPECIALISTS: PGD can screen for just about any disease where we know the sequence of the genetic abnormality -- cystic fibrosis, sickle cell, other hemoglobin disorders.

M. O'BRIEN: Perloe says PGD could one day screen embryos for things like heart disease, breast cancer or diabetes. And that raises a lot of questions.

PERLOE: Which conditions are worthy of testing and how should we decide which embryos would be transferred?

M. O'BRIEN: And it could be even more complex in the future, as many believe PGD could also give doctors the ability to correct abnormalities by actually changing the embryo's DNA.

PERLOE: Society has to play an important role in overseeing this and setting boundaries and limits.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody.

This morning, our ongoing health series for people in their 30s and their 40s and their 50s.

We're talking about depression today. More than nine million Americans experience it and age can play a role.

Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us from the CNN Center with more -- hey, Elizabeth, good morning.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Soledad, everyone gets the blues now and then. But when those sad feelings go on for a very long time, it could be clinical depression. What causes clinical depression changes with age.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

COHEN (voice-over): To look at her cha-cha, you'd never know that just a few years ago, Jaye Lombard couldn't get out of bed.

JAYE LOMBARD, DEPRESSION SUFFERER: It's just a walking death. There's nothing, there is nothing in life that excites u. It's just -- it's just breathing. COHEN: Lombard has suffered from clinical depression since childhood, but it took her 40 years to fully understand her condition.

LOMBARD: And I thought what -- what is wrong with me? And everyone around me kept saying can't you just be happy?

COHEN: According to mental health experts, anyone can suffer from depression at any age. Most adults develop it in their late 20s or early 30s, but often don't know they have it until they get older. Women may have bouts of depression during their child-bearing years. Actress Brooke Shields suffered from post-partum depression in her mid-30s after the birth of her first child and sought medication and counseling to help her through it.

DR. KATHLEEN MERIKANGAS, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH: When people start to move into their 30s, they're getting more of a sense of who they are in the world and people are really stressed about whether they're going to perform well and what they're going to do for the rest of their lives.

COHEN: As we get into our 40s and 50s, age can trigger depression. For women, menopause can cause serious mood swings and sadness. For men, the decline of physical and sexual activities can cause depression.

Many 50 year olds get depressed because they're watching their children leave, their parents grow old and they have less time in life to do the things they want to do.

MERIKANGAS: You start to really question have you accomplished what you need to accomplish and where are you going to be going from here?

COHEN: Doctors say the most important thing to do for depression is recognize it and seek help. In most cases, medication and therapy can make a difference. Exercise and keeping active also helps for some people.

Jaye Lombard, now in her 50s, takes medicine to curb her moods. She wishes that she had acted sooner.

LOMBARD: To think if someone could have realized that, I could have saved all those years.

(SINGING: I love the way you move.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: Let me ask you a question, Elizabeth.

I think for many people it's hard to figure out the difference between being sort of blue or bummed out and actually being in depression.

What's the difference? How do we know the signs?

COHEN: The difference, Soledad, has a lot to do with time.

If, for example, you break up with your boyfriend and you're feeling blue for a period of time but you get over it, that might not be depression. That might be just sort of an emotional turmoil you're going through because of a singular event.

So let's go over some of the signs of what would be considered true depression.

First of all, just as we were talking about, constant sadness that just doesn't go away and isn't necessarily related to a specific event. Also, lack of motivation. Things that excited you, things that made you happy before just don't anymore. Also, fatigue. Depressed people sometimes talk about that they just sleep and sleep and sleep.

But also, on the other hand, trouble sleeping, trying to sleep and not being able to.

All of those are signs of depression and things that you should talk to your doctor about, because there really are treatments that can help you.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Elizabeth, I want to turn and ask you a question about what you're working on for "PAULA ZAHN NOW" tonight.

You've got kind of a really odd medical mystery.

COHEN: Odd is a good word, Soledad. Baffling, controversial -- those are also words that have been applied to something called Morgellans Disease.

Now, some people say it's not actually a disease. The symptoms sound like something out of a Hollywood script.

Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kind of bluish.

UNIDENTIFIED PHYSICIAN: It's kind of a semi-circle and the top is kind of reddish.

COHEN (voice-over): It sounds like something from "The X-Files."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The very first one was kind of a creamy white.

COHEN: People claim they have strings -- not hairs, but strings -- growing out of their skin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's all a system. They're all connected together.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're just these awful little black things that intertwine and you'll see where they erupt through the skin.

UNIDENTIFIED PHYSICIAN: There is this black spot back here.

COHEN: Doctors and nurses can't believe what they're seeing.

UNIDENTIFIED PHYSICIAN: They're blue, they're red. They sometimes move, which is really bizarre.

UNIDENTIFIED PHYSICIAN: This didn't seem like anything I had ever seen that was coming out of the human body.

UNIDENTIFIED PHYSICIAN: This is a mystery. That's -- it really is.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

COHEN: They have strings coming out of their arms. They call it Morgellans Disease. The medical establishment says that these people are delusional.

Well, that's what we'll be talking about tonight on "PAULA ZAHN NOW."

That's at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

We'll be showing our investigation and you can watch that on "PAULA ZAHN" tonight.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, wow!

Strings that move that grow out of your body.

COHEN: Very odd, as you said.

S. O'BRIEN: Ugh. That sounds weird. But I want to watch it.

All right, thanks, Elizabeth.

COHEN: Thanks.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, we're going to take a closer look at safe driving for teenagers. We're going to check in with AAA and see what you can do to make sure that your kid is safe on the road in your car.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sex, drugs, bribes and a shootout at a federal prison in Tallahassee.

I'm Susan Candiotti and I'll tell you what happened at this prison right over my shoulder, when AMERICAN MORNING comes right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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