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American Morning

Israelis Turn Up Pressure on Palestinians in Gaza; Water Woes

Aired June 29, 2006 - 08:32   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Israelis are taking prisoners, prominent ones, as they turn up the pressure on Palestinians in Gaza. Israel rounding up and arresting dozens of Palestinian government officials and lawmakers. Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza after Palestinians killed two soldiers and kidnapped another. So far, no sign of that soldier. A short time ago, we heard word of an Israeli airstrike that hit a car in Gaza City, just to bring you up to date.
Joining us now from Jerusalem is Marg Regev, who is a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Mr. Greg, good to have you with us.

MARK REGEV, ISRAELI FOREIGN MIN. SPOKESMAN: Good morning.

M. O'BRIEN: The secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, just a moment ago crossed on the wires, is urging Israel to use restraint. How do you respond to that?

REGEV: Well, I would argue, we are acting with great restraint. Our serviceman was kidnapped on Sunday morning. We waited a full three days, from Sunday morning until Wednesday morning, before we acted. And when we acted, we acted, I would argue in a very moderate and a limited way.

Ultimately, this crisis can still substantially be solved if responsible Palestinian leadership set free the hostage, set free our serviceman, and let him come home to his family. We have a responsibility as a government of Israel to all our young people doing national service, those young men and women, that if they're ever taken hostage, we as a government will do everything we can to bring about their release.

And I urge Palestinian leaders, release him now, and we can avert this crisis.

M. O'BRIEN: Give us a word here on the tactics. What is the goal in detaining eight members of the Hamas Palestinian cabinet, 20 lawmakers as well. Are they -- is this sort of a bargaining chip that Israel is after here?

REGEV: It's not a bargaining chip. From a legal point of view, it's not a problem. Under Israeli law, Hamas is a terrorist organization. These people are senior members in a terrorist organization, so we can arrest them. You should also know, under American law, under Canadian law and European law, Hamas is equally considered a terrorist organization. If these people arrived on the street in Atlanta, you would equally arrest them...

M. O'BRIEN: They were also voted into office. They're democratically elected, aren't they?

REGEV: Democratically elected terrorists, yes, 100 percent correct.

No one that I know in the national community has changed the classification of Hamas because some of them got elected. But let's be clear here, we have started to be more proactive in dealing with Hamas. because they have escalated the situation. Over the last weeks we've seen Hamas responsible for rocket launching, terrorizing Israeli civilian communities with their rockets. We have seen them responsible for kidnapping and for that terrible attack on Sunday.

M. O'BRIEN: Where are the Palestinian government officials being held? What is being done with them? Are they being questioned?

REGEV: Yes, this is totally transparent. Today they'll be brought before a judge. We pride ourselves in Israel on having a very strong and independent judiciary. The judge will decide if it was in fact -- the security services acted appropriately in arresting them. I believe he will, and then there will be investigations.

M. O'BRIEN: But what charges...

REGEV: There'll be questions.

M. O'BRIEN: What charges would they face before a judge?

REGEV: It's not a problem. The membership, leadership in a terrorist organization.

Now, if, after investigation, these people weren't involved in violence, we'll set them free.

M. O'BRIEN: Also yesterday, Israeli warplanes buzzed the summer residence of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Why?

REGEV: The orders for some of the most deadly terrorist attacks committed by Hamas, some of the biggest atrocities, come from Hamas leadership in Damascus. That's primarily Khalid Meshaal. Now Syria isn't a democracy. Syria, I thin, the nicest thing we could say about the regime there, it's a police state. And Khalid Meshaal would not be giving orders to carry out terrorism without the collaboration, with the cooperation of the Syrian regime.

And I think Syria has to understand that if it's giving shelter to terrorists who are guilty of these atrocities that we've seen recently, that they are going to be held responsible.

M. O'BRIEN: But doesn't this not just escalate the violence, it potentially broadens it. Is Israel concerned about that?

REGEV: On the contrary. I hope that reasonable voices in Syria will be heard, and understand that Syria has to get out of the terrorist business.

M. O'BRIEN: Will Israel negotiate for the release of Corporal Shalit?

REGEV: The position of the United States government, the position of the Europeans, the position of Israel is identical. We say Corporal Shalit has to be released unequivocally and unconditionally. He's taken hostage. Hostage-taking is totally unacceptable to the international community, and he must be released immediately. If he's not, we will be forced to act to bring about his release.

M. O'BRIEN: Mark Regev is the Israeli foreign ministry spokesman joining us from Jerusalem. Thank you for your time -- Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: With al Qaeda, Iraq, Iran and North Korea, there are plenty of challenges to U.S. national security these days. The latest U.S. eye in the sky was launched this week.

CNN national security correspondent David Ensor is live for us in Washington D.C. He's got an exclusive look at some of these satellites.

Hey, David, good morning.

DAVID ENSOR, NATL. SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

That's right. You know, the American way of war and the American way of gathering intelligence relies very, very heavily on spy satellites. And as other nations are seeking to get into the spy satellite business, the goal of the National Reconnaissance Office is both to make sure that American satellites are secure and to try to make sure that America keeps its massive technological edge in space.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): U.S. satellites, including the ones used for spying, have sometimes been deployed by the space shuttle. But most of them go up the old-fashioned way, by rocket. This surveillance relay satellite under construction in California will go up that way soon.

(on camera): You've got to take 8,000 pounds and get it 22,000 miles up?

REAR ADM. VICTOR SEE, NRO: Yep.

ENSOR (voice-over): And get it to a precise place where you need it to be and hold it there for ten years?

SEE: Yes.

ENSOR: Spy satellites are essential to the national security of the United States, and other countries know it. (on camera): Are American spy satellites vulnerable to attack?

DONALD KERR, DIR., NRO: It's certainly possible to do a direct dissent kinetic attack on a space system, but it's very hard to do, and it would likely be observable for a variety of reasons, particularly if it involved a missile launch.

ENSOR (voice-over): National Reconnaissance Officer Director Donald Kerr says adversaries know there would be retaliation. One day the U.S. will know it's at war, say analysts, when its eyes and ears in the sky get hit.

JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: These spy satellites are basically our glass jar. They're easy to track, and for a country with rocket capabilities like China, not that difficult to shoot down.

ENSOR: To make that less likely, the NRO, sources say, is working on a new generation of stealthy satellites.

PIKE: I could make it blend into the space debris, the space junk in low-Earth orbit. That way, an enemy wouldn't know when it was overhead, they wouldn't be able to track it, and they wouldn't be able to shoot it down.

ENSOR: America's spy satellites were crucial in the Cold War, but their role in tracking al Qaeda is less clear.

(on camera): Some senior officials have said that in the post 9/11-world, what's really needed now is a lot more and better human intelligence, and that satellites are less useful. What do you think about that?

KERR: One of the important things that people need to remember is that in some cases, the best HUMINT is in fact that which is supported by a technical collection, because human sources are notoriously unreliable.

ENSOR (voice-over): Satellites not only take pictures and eavesdrop from hundreds of miles above the Earth, they can also detect heat in an underground, hidden nuclear plant, using infrared sensors. U.S. scientists are also working on hyper-spectral sensors, that can track a hidden-weapons plant by finding trace amounts of chemicals in the air.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: How far along are they on that? Don't ask, Soledad. It's top secret.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, how did I know you were going to say that? David Ensor for us this morning. David, thanks -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: He'd have to kill you, you know.

S. O'BRIEN: Exactly.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Well, next year is the one-year anniversary of Live 8, one year since the world's industrialized nations promised billions of dollars in aid to Africa. U2's Bono has been a tireless spokesman for the cause. He founded DATA, which stands for Debt AIDS Trade Africa. Today DATA is releasing a progress report on all those promises, and in an exclusive interview, I asked Bono if he'd give them a good or bad grade.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BONO, SINGER/ACTIVIST: Well, there's good news and bad news, the DATA report shows. There's a couple of high grades to be given. Maybe we should start with those. I mean, just in the United States, you should be very proud that you have a truly historic AIDS initiative. It was an unfathomable, even a few years ago, to imagine that you could get, I think it's probably 600,000 people on anti- retroviral drugs in an 18-month period. On motorcycles and on bicycles, those drugs got out there, and I think you should be very proud about that.

Though, that said, Congress in the last months have tried to block the president's request for his AIDS money for next year, and that, that's bewildering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Much more of my exclusive interview with Bono, coming up in the next hour, at 9:40 a.m. Eastern Time.

Still to come this morning, sort of ironic in New Orleans, if you think about. Katrina, of course, deluged that city with water. Now there may not be enough water in the city. We'll explain, just ahead.

M. O'BRIEN: And later, you'll meet the youngest person ever to fly solo in a plane and a helicopter on the same day. Got a lot accomplished in one day. He's a wunderkid of the air, making aviation history. We'll talk to him in a little bit.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Severe weather is what we're talking about this morning. Take a look at these live pictures from Plains, Pennsylvania. That's a suburb of Wilkes-Barre, and you can see it is quite a mess today. Looks, though, as if the picture is improving. We're going to check in with Chad for an update, just ahead this morning.

We all recall, of course, those pictures of flooded streets in New Orleans. The water also gone there, but now the city's facing another flooding disaster, underneath those same city streets.

CNN Gulf coast correspondent Susan Roesgen live for us In New Orleans. Hey, Susan, good morning.

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN GULF COAST CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

The city is losing 85 million gallons of water a day. That's enough to fill 129 Olympic-sized swimming pools every day. And all that water is just wasted under the city streets.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN (voice-over): When the levees broke after Katrina, millions of gallons of water flooded the streets. Today the streets are dry, but millions of gallons of water are still flooding the city, underground.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can actually reach in this as far, or further than my arm will go.

ROESGEN: The pool under the sidewalk in front of Greg App's house is filled with just some of the 85 million gallons of drinking water New Orleans says it's losing every day.

The hurricane tore apart the city's ancient pipes, and work crews have plugged 17,00 leaks so far.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No water to flush toilets, no water to make drinks, no water to wash dishes.

ROESGEN: Thousands of people lose water and water pressure every day here now, a headache for many, a danger for others.

New Orleans' firefighters don't have enough of the one thing they need to put out the flames.

For weeks they've struggled with fires like this one, at a huge warehouse, where there simply wasn't enough water pressure to put the fire out quickly.

NICK FELTON, PRES., FIREFIGHTERS UNION: And when somebody's hamstrung like that and they don't have the water that they need, it's absolutely frustrating, because they want to do a good job.

ROESGEN: With hydrants unreliable, the firefighters used two helicopters to drop 800 gallons of water, but the helicopters are on loan from FEMA, and the contract expires at the end of this week. The city has asked for an extension, but time's running out.

Because an underground leak can't be seen, the city is installing sensors that can pick up vibrations from water spilling out of the leaks to try to find them. Greg App doesn't need one of those devices. He can hear the water from his own broken pipe running right under the floor in his living room.

GREG APP, HOMEOWNER: I mean, if you're quiet, you can actually hear the water flowing underneath here. ROESGEN (on camera): Oh yes. I hear it.

APP: Yes.

ROESGEN (voice-over): Reporter: The strange thing is, even with all the wasted water underground, meteorologists say New Orleans is in the worst drought in more than 100 years. The city that had too much water in the hurricane is now way too dry.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN: I talked to a fire department spokesman just yesterday afternoon, and apparently, there is now an oral agreement between the fire department and FEMA to try to keep those two helicopters, but nothing specific, nothing in writing. No one knows how much longer they might be able to stay here -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Gosh, you know, it just never ends for that city. Wow! Susan Roesgen for us this morning. Thanks, Susan.

Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Andy Serwer, minding our business this morning. Hello, Andy.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" COLUMNIST: Good morning, Miles.

Some business news coming up. Can you copyright yoga? And can you register the Internet address lassie.com? These pressing questions ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BUSINESS HEADLINES)

M. O'BRIEN: Back with a look at the top stories in just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: The worst may finally be over. Floodwaters beginning to recede in Trenton, New Jersey, leaving behind plenty of damage.

S. O'BRIEN: Those pictures coming to us from New Hope, Pennsylvania, where hope is high that life is going to soon return to normal along the banks of the Delaware River.

M. O'BRIEN: And in Rockville, Maryland, center part of your screen there, you see those white things. Those are sand bags. Many fearing a dam there would give way. They're trying to shore it up. Lots of people downstream evacuated. We'll bring you up to date on all of this ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

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