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Town of Mahmoudiya Investigating Alleged Crimes Against Civilians; Iraqi Outraged Concerning Rape, Murder Allegations; Discovery Prepares to Launch; Warren Buffett's Family Reacts

Aired July 04, 2006 - 13:30   ET

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

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: We're keeping a close eye on Florida this afternoon. Look that countdown clock there at the right-hand, bottom corner of your screen. We are an hour and seven minutes away from launch today. Everything is a go as of now, including the weather. It looks like there is going to be an 80 percent chance of good weather for this launch. So when it happens, we'll take it to you live.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Back in Iraq, the town of Mahmoudiya is investigating alleged crimes against civilians there. And two female Iraqi lawmakers are demanding severe punishment for any U.S. troops found to be involved.

Joining us from Baghdad now, U.S. Major General William Caldwell, spokesman for the Multinational Forces. General, good to see you. Thanks for taking the time. We appreciate it.

MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL, MULTINATIONAL FORCES IRAQ: Thank you, Tony.

HARRIS: General, let's start with the Green case, and spend a little time with this. The alleged behavior in the charging documents, drinking, dressing as some kind of -- in black, proceeding like some kind of terror squad -- if proven, this kind of behavior this can't be explained away by stress or fatigue, can it?

CALDWELL: You know, I don't think so, Tony. You know, the American troops serving over here, in fact, are very well-disciplined, very well-regulated. If, in fact, these allegations as they've been laid out, in fact, are true, it's going to be -- pertain to an extremely small number of men that are involved in that, and not at all indicative of the forces that are serving here.

HARRIS: OK, I'm going to get to the rogue soldier's theory in just a second, but Green is no longer in the military. Will he be tried in the civilian system?

CALDWELL: There is an American law that allows for somebody who had served over here to be tried in American courts for any offenses that occurred over here in Iraq.

HARRIS: OK. The allegations ...

CALDWELL: And I think if he ...

HARRIS: No, go ahead. I'm sorry, General.

CALDWELL: Well, no, I think if you talk to the U.S. Attorney's Office back in the United States, they, in fact, will lay that all out for you. But they've explained to us that they have, in fact, as you know, have arrested him and are proceeding forth to charge him on those offenses as if he was still here in Iraq.

HARRIS: You're a soldier, you're also a human being. The allegations in the charging documents, if proven, do they constitute war crimes in your opinion?

CALDWELL: The charges as laid out in the charge sheet, those allegations that have been made are absolutely unacceptable. How you would define them, I would tell you that they are unacceptable behavior by anybody from any different organization, whether in the military or not in the military. It's not something that anybody in our civilization would condone, those kinds of allegations.

HARRIS: How about war crimes?

CALDWELL: I'm not sure how you'd want to define war crimes. I'll just tell you that those actions are absolutely unacceptable. And we are very transparent. We are very open, we are very thorough in investigating each and every one of these allegations.

We're looking at this one very closely, and if, in fact, we find the allegations have some substance behind them, they'll be taken to court and if found guilty will be appropriately charged.

HARRIS: We know that Green is going through a process here stateside. Does the coalition operating in Iraq operate with full and total immunity?

CALDWELL: No, not at all. We hold every one of our service members accountable for their personal actions, each and every man and woman serving over here in uniform, and those who are serving with us side by side who are civilian counterparts, too. There is nobody exempt from the law.

HARRIS: That gets to the question of whether or not -- as you know, lawmakers in Iraq are calling for an investigation, an Iraqi investigation. Could the day come when Green could be turned over to the Iraqi justice system?

CALDWELL: Well, I think I'd be making a real supposition there as to what might occur, but what I can tell you is that we are working very closely already with the government of Iraq. They're a sovereign nation. We're here as their guest. I've been in frequent contact with the minister for human rights. We've continued to have a dialogue about these different activities.

She recently came and presented me some of their information dealing with the Haditha investigation, and we've turned those over to our legal authorities to make sure that everybody involved in that case has access to the information they've collected. So we're staying in fairly close contact with the government of Iraq. HARRIS: One final question, General. I think we all believe that 99.9 of the soldiers operating in country in Iraq are doing a fantastic job, by the books. I'm wondering if you believe your commanders have control of their soldiers, or if what we're seeing here -- five investigations underway right now because of incidents -- represents the tip of the iceberg of something more serious?

CALDWELL: No, I don't think at all it represents the tip of the iceberg. I think what it represents is an organization that holds its people accountable for their actions, and that every time an allegation is brought forward, we thoroughly investigate it. We do it in a very open manner, we're very straightforward about the results we're finding, and then hold our people accountable for their actions.

HARRIS: And yes, the incident in Hamdaniya, the incident in Haditha all under investigation, at least part of the claim is that there was faulty reporting, deceptive reporting in those cases.

CALDWELL: In those cases, we do have what we call administrative investigations going on, or we call them 15-6 investigation to, in fact, determine that very point. And if that, in fact, is found, then there is other administrative action, disciplinary action that can be taken against those who could have been deceptive in their reporting. And we'll find out if that was, in fact, the case.

HARRIS: OK, Major General William Caldwell, we appreciate the time. Happy Fourth to you. Thank you, sir.

CALDWELL: Happy Fourth to you all, too. Thank you.

NGUYEN: Well, what are ordinary Iraqis saying about these accusations? CNN's Arwa Damon joins us live from Baghdad. And, Arwa, what is the word on the street?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Betty, for those Iraqis who have heard about this case, they're outraged. Dignity and honor are the main pillars in this society, in Muslim society, in Iraq. And just the notion that a young Iraqi woman may have been -- may have had her honor violated by a U.S. soldier is not information that anyone who has heard here is going to let go easily.

It is something that's causing extreme outrage amongst the Iraqi people, be it, you know, no matter what actually happened. There is a reality that exists here in Iraq that the rumor is already out, the story is already out.

And this comes on a heels of a number of other investigations. Iraqis that we have spoken to are saying that an incident like this, be it true or not, is only going to add fuel to the insurgency, fuel to terrorists who can then take a case like this, turn around and say, look, are these the people that brought you democracy?

For example, that was one example that was cited to us by an Iraqi that we spoke to. He also said that this is not something that the Iraqi people could accept, that the Iraqi government needed to stand up right now and prove that it was launching its own investigation into this incident.

But there are a few interesting things to point out. State television and Iraqi newspapers are not leading their news reports of the day with this story. State television had a short clip on it, following the elections in Mexico as part of their foreign news rundown.

The Iraqi papers, most of them do not have it on their front page. So those are -- that highlights the sensitive and the awareness of the sensitivity of this kind of an incident, be it true or not at these times, here Betty.

NGUYEN: Well, let me shift gears for just a minute too, because insurgents ambushed another Iraqi government official today. That makes two now kidnapped. Tell me about this latest one.

DAMON: Yes, that's right. That happened earlier this morning. It was the deputy minister of electricity who was ambushed and kidnapped along with 19 of his guards. This is the information that we got from the Iraqi police. Apparently, those who attacked his four-car convoy were traveling in five vehicles and they were dressed in Iraqi army uniforms.

Now, this does follow another kidnapping that happened on Saturday and yet, two more attacks against Iraqi parliamentarians that happened on Sunday. And then yesterday morning, one of the homes of the deputy interior minister of Iraq was also attacked. And this incident also highlights a number of challenges facing the Iraqi government.

First off, security, their ability to provide security for their own people which is causing a lot of Iraqi civilians to say well, if they can't secure one of their own, how are they going to secure us? And it also highlights the problem that there are a number of insurgent groups who are dressing as Iraqi security forces, posing as Iraqi security forces and carrying out these types of attacks.

So as an Iraqi civilian, civilians are not sure at this point if an individual comes up to them as a police officer or a member of the Iraqi army, if they can actually trust them or not, Betty.

NGUYEN: CNN's Arwa Damon in Baghdad for us. Thank you, Arwa.

HARRIS: All eyes on Discovery. The seven astronauts are suited up, ready to go. CNN space correspondent Miles O'Brien is at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Miles, what is your sense of this? I guess you could lose a lot of money guessing on this kind of thing, but, you know?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Oh, boy.

We were talking about, you know, there's an awful lot of launch superstitions. It's a high-tech endeavor, and yet there is a little bit of a baseball player in all of us who want these launches like, you know, if you wear the same socks, the socks again, a lot of astronauts if they've had a scrub, they won't park in the same parking spot the next day. There's all kinds of little things like that.

And if we start talking too much about what is going on in the mission, will that hex the launch itself? Well, that's what we're about to do, believe or not.

HARRIS: OK.

O'BRIEN: First, let me bring you up to date with how things are going right here. Take a look at the picture there. Looks spectacular, doesn't it? Not nary a fly in the ointment. There's one little problem we're watching. Don't want to get people too excited. Take a look at this picture, wide shot with the flag and the clock.

Oh by the way, if you lose the banner there, I'll tell you that the clock is not matching reality. We're about an hour away from the expected launch, the desired time to meet he space station. If you can lose that thing -- there you go. There you see it says 11:20. It will go down to nine minutes and hold for 40 minutes. And then from that nine minute point on, it actually will reflect reality.

But check out the flags there. Slowly but surely, that wind is whipping up, and it's hard to tell from here, but that's a smack dab, dead-on, right angle crosswind to the shuttle landing facility, 15,000 foot runway.

Let's take a look at Google Earth and give you a sense of what we're talking about here. I can probably land my plane sideways on this runway, it's so big. And there you see it. The problem is the wind is a seabreeze, which is helping us stay dry, but it is doing just this, dead on here.

And because we're talking about a very fancy, $2 billion heavy glider, with only one opportunity for landing, the limitations on those crosswinds are 17 knots. If the pilot who is flying the airplane, the business jet, rigged up to fly like a shuttle, flies the approaches and says that's an A-OK thing to do, you can bet he'll probably do everything in his power to make that a possibility as the winds right now are pushing the 13, 14, 15 knot range which would put him into play.

OK, that's what's going on in the launch. We have the Mike Cabbage here, who is space editor for the "Orlando Sentinel," best in the business here. We're going to talk about something that may hex the launch today, which is the mission.

When they get to space -- big picture here -- this is about trying to get that space station completed. Every mission from here on out will be focused on the space station for two reason. That's the goal. Secondly, it does provide safe haven for the crew if something bad happens.

They may decide to fix the Hubble Space Telescope, but that's off to the side for now, so we're talking space station missions. In this case, 5,000 plus pounds of equipment, supplies, and so forth and a crew member on their way. And in the meantime, they're going to spend a lot of time looking to make sure they have a safe orbiter. Tell us about some of the inspections they have planned, many, many hours on orbit.

MIKE CABBAGE, AEROSPACE EDITOR, "ORLANDO SENTINEL": There are a lot of hours on orbit, Miles. And, in fact, assuming that they launch today, one of the first things they're going to do in orbit tomorrow is they're going to take out this long, 50-foot boom that has a camera and another laser device on the end of it.

And they're going to scan parts of the shuttle's heat shielding, the thermal protection system and protects it during reentry, and they're going to look at that over the next two days following launch to make sure that they didn't sustain any damage from the enemy that they're always worried about, the foam.

O'BRIEN: Right, and that is a very tedious, you know, watching paint dry, kind of process. But they're not going to skimp on time on that. It is not just visual pictures, it is also infrared and it's also -- you know, there's all kinds of sensors, put it that way, at the end of that boom that will give them that capability.

OK, so they make to it the space station, and as part of its approach to the space station, there will be a little somersault maneuver involved which we saw last go around, Eileen Collins at the controls, at which time they found a problem. Tell us what -- the crew members on the space station will be taking some pictures, and those will be very important.

CABBAGE: They will be very important, Miles, because that will be the best opportunity that mission managers have to get a look at what the underbelly of the shuttle looks like. That's where the heat shielding is most important as the shuttle flies through the earth's atmosphere, because that's where most of the heat comes on to the shuttle air frame.

And the thing that they're going to want to do, is they're going to want to look at these pictures to make sure that there's no damage from debris, there's no pockmarks, there's no missing tiles, and as you mentioned, during the last flight they saw these gap fillers that stick in between the heat tiles on the shuttle's belly, and a couple of those had come loose. And they're going to also want to make sure that that doesn't happen again this time.

O'BRIEN: Since then, they've replaced several thousand of these gap fillers. So, you know, we'd be a little surprised to see that being a problem, but nevertheless, that will be something they'll looking for.

CABBAGE: Yes, absolutely.

O'BRIEN: All right, now, once they get to the station, there's an important spacewalk where they're going to test an idea which could make it possible to go repair the Hubble Space Telescope, an extension to the robot arm which would allow a spacewalker to work at the very end, and perhaps even beneath a shuttle separate from the space station. Tell us about that.

CABBAGE: There's a platform that's been designed that's going to attach to the end of that arm. And one of the things that the astronauts are going to do is they're actually going to get on that platform and they're going to bounce around a little bit, and they're going to make sure that they've got enough stability to be able to go under the shuttle and to do some of these tests that you're talking about.

O'BRIEN: All right, now as for the space station, two crew members -- there were three there at the time of the loss of Columbia, but since that time, without the shuttle to support it, it has gone down to two crew members.

A third crew member is on board Discovery right now, Thomas Reiter, the first European astronaut, German, to have a long stint there. He'll go on board and a lot of -- pretty much some pretty needed supplies. Tell us the kinds of things that they're bringing up.

CABBAGE: They're bringing up a lot of the very the basics. I mean, we're talking about food, water, clothing, those sorts of things, but also there's lots of materials that they're going to need for some of the science investigations that they've been wanting to do on the space station for a long time, many of which have been deferred while, as you mentioned, the space station has been in sort of this caretaker mode over the last three years, since the Columbia accident. And they're going to hope to get some of that work back on track with this mission here.

O'BRIEN: Yes, there has been a lot of science underway in the past three-and-a-half years, and this will change that, it is hoped, by NASA in the future. Mike Cabbage, the editor for space coverage for the "Orlando Sentinel," author of the book "Comm Check" along with Bill Harwood. Thank you very much.

We are now at T-minus nine minutes and holding. As we say, that's about a 40 minute hold. And when that clock starts ticking, our hearts start beating a little bit here, because that's when the rubber meets the road, or the rocket meets the mobile launch platform, whatever you want to say.

HARRIS: There you go.

O'BRIEN: Things get a little more tense here. We're watching it right now and looking for the weather, the wind, any technical problems. This is the place to stay. What a fireworks display this might be.

HARRIS: How about that on the Fourth of July? Good stuff, Miles. We appreciate it. Thank you.

NGUYEN: Way to do it. All right, thank you.

All right. Well, he's giving away billions of his own dollars to strangers. Warren Buffett's philanthropy is drawing admiration and awe, but how does his family feel about it? We'll talk to Buffet's granddaughter coming up on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Well, he is famous for saying a rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing. And Warren Buffett is true to his word.

Last week, the second richest man in the world announced he is giving much of his fortune to charity. The world was impressed, but how does his family feel? And what's it like growing up Buffett?

Well, joining me now is his granddaughter, Nicole Buffett. Hi, thanks for being with us.

NICOLE BUFFETT, WARREN BUFFETT'S GRANDDAUGHTER: Thank you for having me.

NGUYEN: Sure. Well, your grandfather gave much of his fortune, some $30 billion, to the Gates Foundation for charity. And I got to ask you, were you surprised by that at all? Were you surprised that he gave it all to charity and say, not to his children and grandchildren like yourself?

BUFFETT: We were all surprised, but it was very much a joyous surprise. Him giving it away was really an honoring of what our family's really all about.

NGUYEN: Well, tell me what is your family all about? Because I know that your grandmother had a lot to do with helping others around the world.

BUFFETT: She definitely did. She really was taught us all and showed us all the art of giving and the art of loving, and she loved to help others and I know that she was a huge inspiration to my grandfather. They loved each other very much, and I feel that this is definitely a continuation of her spirit of compassion.

NGUYEN: So do you think that's why he did it? He did it as a way to carry on her legacy?

BUFFETT: I definitely feel that that is right.

NGUYEN: But you were surprised nonetheless. I need you to take me back to that moment. This is a great picture of you with your grandfather. That moment when you heard about it last week, what went through your mind?

BUFFETT: I really was just really happy for him, and happy for the world. What went through my mind was that his heart is just so connected to grandma and what she would want. It was really fulfilling.

NGUYEN: Well, as far as your family goes, we can't say that he hasn't done anything for his children and grandchildren, because he did pay for your college, but I understand after that, that was it. You were on your own.

BUFFETT: Yes. We are. And it's really quite an empowering experience, to have an exquisite education, as I do. I have my Master's degree in painting and he has just urged us to literally in his own words, "take our wings and fly" and make the most of who we are. And I think that's a gift.

NGUYEN: Well, that's great.

BUFFETT: Yes.

NGUYEN: You call it empowering. I like that, but at the same time, you're human and you're part of one the richest families in world. At some point did you ever feel frustrated that you couldn't tap into this?

Did you ever feel, you know, let me call granddad up, because you had to work through college. You had to take a part-time job. Once you graduated from college you worked as a nanny to supplement your living. Did you ever say, you know what, granddad, can you just spot me a little bit?

BUFFETT: Well, no, I actually never did that.

NGUYEN: Oh, come on, why not?

BUFFETT: Well, it just was -- it's been a known way of being, that our family really upholds itself is that, you know, we rely upon ourselves. And that is a principle that is extremely important to my family.

NGUYEN: Well, your grandfather made a lot of that principle. And he's doing a lot for others because of that. So we appreciate a little bit of your time today, and the wonderful work that your family is doing to help others, and really the message that you're sending to the fact that you've just got to do it on your own. Thanks so much, Nicole.

BUFFETT: Thank you.

HARRIS: Launch conditions from Jacqui Jeras when we come back. The news keeps coming. We'll keep bringing it to you. More LIVE FROM right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Well, we're getting close.

NGUYEN: Forty minutes left.

HARRIS: There's the clock there, 41 minutes. We're getting close. OK, the skies, that's a concern right now, wind speeds and the like. Let's check in now with CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras with the latest from the Weather Center. Hi, Jacqui.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HARRIS: All right, what are we, T minus 40 to launch?

NGUYEN: And counting. It may just happen today. This may be the day.

HARRIS: Yes, fingers, elbows, knees, toes, they're crossed.

NGUYEN: Well, we did that over the weekend and that didn't work.

HARRIS: That didn't work out. All right. The second hour of LIVE FROM begins right after this.

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