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American Morning

Investigations Ongoing Into Military Atrocities in Iraq; Albuquerque Rescuers Save Teenager From Flash Floods

Aired July 10, 2006 - 08:30   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Five soldiers now charged in the Pentagon investigation into the rape and murder allegations in Mahmudiya, Iraq. A sixth former soldier faces civilian charges. It's just one of a string of allegations of atrocities by U.S. soldiers and marines in Iraq over the recent months.
Retired U.S. Army Colonel Jeffrey McCausland, a CBS radio analyst, is on loan to us this morning. We appreciate that. He's a 30-year Army veteran who has taught core values, military values to soldiers, over the years.

Let's run through the list here just briefly, to get people up- to-date. Because I think people are losing track, there's so many incidents. Starting with Haditha, the one we've talked an awful lot about. November, 2005, two dozen civilians killed. The allegation there is that marines fired at civilians in retaliation for a roadside bomb killing a U.S. marine there.

Ramadi, February of 2006. One man is killed. There are two who have been charged with voluntary manslaughter and obstructing justice. Supposedly, two soldiers killed the man and then placed a rifle near his body to make it look like an insurgent attack.

Hamdania in April of 2006, this spring. One man killed, eight are charged with premeditated murder, conspiracy and kidnapping. Apparently they -- the allegation is they shot the man, placed a shovel and a rifle next to him to make him look like an insurgent.

A chemical complex in Muthanna, May of this year. Three detainees killed, four have been charged. In this case, soldiers supposedly released detainees so they could kill them as they fled.

And then Mahmudiya, which we just told you about. But this March, four were killed, including a woman who was raped, the burning of their house. Now six charged in all, five with military charges, one with civilian charges. The accusations are that they raped this girl -- may have been as young as 14, killed her and her family.

That is a very, very sad list. And Americans listening to this need to be reminded of one thing. First of all, this is a slim minority of the military. But the slim minority can really do a terrible, terrible thing for the overall cause there.

Tell us -- tell us, what do you tell soldiers in these cases?

COL. JEFFREY MCCAUSLAND, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Sometimes you tell soldiers in these cases -- first of all, as you said, this is a small minority. We've had over a million soldiers and marines deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan at any one time. We now we have a handful, very sadly, involved in these atrocities.

I think the second thing we tell them, of course, is these incidents have reverberation far beyond the incident itself. And that is, we really are involved in a counterinsurgency. The hearts and minds of the population is critical. And obviously, these events make the job of every soldier, every marine in these areas, a little bit more difficult.

O'BRIEN: All right. It's not an excuse, but in many cases, what you're seeing here are people on two or even three tours of duty. And in many cases, guards troops, reserve troops. The military is being taxed and asked to do an awful lot. Are we asking too much of these human beings, and are they snapping under the pressure of these multiple tours of duty?

MCCAUSLAND: I don't really think so. I mean, these instances are quite different. For example, Haditha, there clearly combat involved. An IED had gone off. There had been small arms fire. What transpired we're still not sure of. No one's been charged.

Sadly, in the case we have now in Mahmudiya, this is premeditated. These guys were on a checkpoint. Obviously, they observed, sadly, this young lady and conspired to commit these heinous acts that they've now been charged with.

O'BRIEN: So you would not connect the dots?

MCCAUSLAND: Not necessarily. I think they are quite different. Each one's got to be handled very separately. And I'm in many ways glad to see that, certainly, the senior military leaders in Iraq are pursuing this very, very vigorously, and I'm confident they'll continue to do so.

O'BRIEN: But when you see a rash of cases like this, you have to look at some underlying issues. What's going on?

MCCAUSLAND: I think what's going on here is two things. One is, this is a counterinsurgency warfare, largely in an urban environment. Quite different than Vietnam. As a consequence, American soldiers, on a daily basis, are directly involved with the Iraqi population. That makes it much more complicated. Second of all, obviously, a lot of uncertainty. A lot of fear going on. You don't know where the attacks are coming from. And thirdly, obviously, there's a lot more media scrutiny about this particular conflict than perhaps any you have had previously.

O'BRIEN: Do you have the sense that thus far -- and obviously, these are investigations that are in work in many respects -- but do you have the sense that thus far the lower level, the people on the ground, the enlisted-type people, are taking the brunt of this when, in fact, it is a failure of leadership? We do have -- in the case of Haditha, there's talk of this investigation going up the chain of command. But absent that, there hasn't been a lot of talk of holding the leaders accountable.

MCCAUSLAND: Yes, and I think that what we're going to see more and more of, even now, particularly with Haditha. I mean, the acts were actually committed by junior enlisted in all these pictured cases. But in the case of Haditha, General Corelli (ph), a very good friend of mine, a great officer, is apparently going to hold senior marines responsible for their inability or their failure to adequately investigate the reports about this, which were very inconsistent and perhaps even some effort to actually cover up what had occurred there.

O'BRIEN: Do you think that the leadership, though, the real chain of command, will be held properly accountable for what's going on?

MCCAUSLAND: I'm absolutely certain of it. I know George Case (ph), I know Pete Corelli (ph). Two of the finest officers I've served with in my 30-year career. And I know they will vigorously pursue this, and hold those accountable either for dereliction in duty in their command responsibilities to investigate, or obviously, those who are directly involved in the case.

O'BRIEN: In the case of Mahmudiya, the Iraqis would like an independent investigation. And thus far, the U.S. is resisting that notion, saying there's no jurisdiction on the part of the Iraqis. You talk about winning hearts and minds. Wouldn't an Iraqi investigation be a good idea on that front?

MCCAUSLAND: Certainly to a large degree, it might be, or at least to conduct this investigation with an awful lot of transparency. One of the problems we have here is under the Coalition Provisional Authority, we set up procedures whereby American service personnel are exempt for any act they commit in Iraq. This is our status of forces agreement, if you will, with the Iraqis.

Now we have about a month-old new Iraqi government, a very sovereign government. And they're insisting upon being involved in the investigation and also bringing up the issue of should, perhaps, American soldiers for these kinds of crimes be brought in front of an Iraqi court.

O'BRIEN: And the concern would be a lot of people would listen to that and say, wait a minute, U.S. soldiers being hauled before an Iraqi tribunal? That would cause a lot of concern, wouldn't it?

MCCAUSLAND: Awful lot of concern here back in the United States. Very different criminal court procedures, very different procedures in terms of evidence. And I think it would be very difficult for the U.S. administration to consider that.

O'BRIEN: All right. Retired U.S. Army Colonel Jeffrey McCausland, normal with CBS. Thanks for stopping by here this morning.

MCCAUSLAND: Pleasure to be with you.

O'BRIEN: All right -- Melissa. LONG: Some troubled teens at a juvenile detention facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are being prepared for life beyond the razor wire, and counselors are using troubled dogs to give the teens a second chance.

CNN's Keith Oppenheim has our story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): This is just a single, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

OPPENHEIM (voice-over): Seventeen-year-old Jessica has been locked up for six months at this facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She got in trouble for using methamphetamine, running away from home, and stealing.

JESSICA, JUVENILE DETAINEE: I took stuff from my stepmom, and they pressed charges against me for that.

OPPENHEIM: Jessica is now in a transitional program, where Tamara Ward is preparing her and others for life on the outside.

TAMARA WARD, SOCIAL SERVICE COORDINATOR: I just felt like bringing dogs in and working with dogs would really be beneficial for the kids.

OPPENHEIM: You heard it: dogs. Dogs from an animal shelter that face an uncertain future. If they're not adopted, they'll be destroyed. But by matching troubled dogs with troubled teens...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good boy.

OPPENHEIM: Ward figured the odds of survival for a dog could go up, and the odds for a teen might be better, too.

It's called Project Second Chance, where boy and girls in detention get a dog for three weeks. Their job? Train the dog so it's more likely to be adopted.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I want this dog.

OPPENHEIM: Jessica gets Buckwheat, a 4-year-old male black lab who clearly doesn't know the basics.

Another girl, Felicia, gets Rudy. He's got a long way to go, too.

If all this seems adorable, it's meant to be much more. Research indicates juveniles in detention often lack empathy.

WARD: If we can put that caring with the kids here and try to get them to where they connect with a being and have that transfer on to connect with a human being, then our hope is that everything, all the crime and the behavior, will have a reduction in it.

OPPENHEIM: Three weeks later, we came back to see how the teens and dogs did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Beautiful.

OPPENHEIM: Buckwheat was better behaved. Rudy was a show-off.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sit. Down. Stay.

Jessica is hoping to leave this facility soon and get a job. She feels she owes a piece of her success to this black lab.

JESSICA: If you can take care of something else, then you know, you should be able to take care of yourself, too.

OPPENHEIM: When the three weeks are up, the teens can't keep the dogs. They have to say good-bye.

JESSICA: It'll be OK.

OPPENHEIM: They don't know if the dogs will live, and they wonder if they, themselves, will make it outside detention.

Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LONG: And out of Pueblo, Colorado, an 8-mile stretch of Interstate 25 is back open this morning for the morning commute after severe flooding forced it to be shut down yesterday. The Pueblo area got about three to four inches of rain. A tornado was also reported.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: A couple of space walkers have stopped into the void a couple hundred miles above us at the International Space Station/Discovery complex. The spacewalk now, spacewalk number two for this mission now under way, been under way for about 15 or 20 minutes now.

Astronauts Peter Sellers and Mike Fossum will be giving their space walk to fix something. There you see some live pictures from NASA. Why don't we just go to the tape, because that's kind of boring, but that shows you where they are in the world. You can see that. They're right over there, headed down toward Australia. As we say, moving -- oh, and there's Mike Fossum again. Why don't we roll some tape? check out this shot for this morning. Where are they, Mars? That was sunrise over somewhere on the planet. And I just wanted to share that with you, because it was just cool. That's -- it's a red planet, so to speak.

Now, let's talk about what they're going to be doing once they get outside. Their goal is to fix a -- this is the preread as they get ready. You know how you can tell one space walker from another, Melissa? LONG: How?

O'BRIEN: It's all in the stripes. The red stripe is for Piers Sellers. The one without stripes is Mike Fossum. That's how they do it. Very straightforward. I guess they could put numbers them. Can't tell the players without the program kind of stuff.

But in any case, they did their pre-brief, went out the quest airlock on the Space Station, and now some animation to tell you what they're going to do. There is a kind of a rail car-type device, which spans the length of the International Space Station, right along here. And it goes back and forth. It's designed to carry heavy equipment. It has two cables attached to it, and it has cable cutters on them, in case there's a foul-up.

One of the cables was cut for reasons no one knows. It wasn't fouled up. And now what they're basically trying to do fix the cable cutters, replace the two cables and get these carts back in business so they can continue the construction of the Space Station. Without those carts, they can't get any big pieces where they need them to be, and there you see all the parts they're going to be going after. It's going to take them a while to do all this. It's some serious, intricate work.

Before he left, Piers Sellers laid it out for us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PIERS SELLERS, DISCOVERY ASTRONAUT: Years ago, they put in a requirement that if it ever got stuck during a critical move, there had to be a method of cutting one of the two cables of supply power; if it got tangled or something, that there'd be a guillotine that would chop the cable, so that it could keep going on its remaining cable. Well, guess what? You know, one of the guillotines went off for reasons unknown, and it basically shot itself in the foot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Ouch.

Live pictures now from space. They have helmet cams. Let's see, each of them has helmet cams, so literally mission controllers and us can peek over their shoulder as they do their work. So we'll watch it, and as we say, it's going to go on for about six-and-a-half hours. We'll keep you posted as they continue their work outside in the void.

LONG: And they will have three astronauts staying in the International Space Station.

O'BRIEN: Yes, eventually, once they leave, there'll be three left. Right now, there's a total of seven people up there between the combined crews. No, take that back, nine people. Seven are inside right now, two outside. When this shuttle leaves, there will be three and six. Does that make any sense?

LONG: Perfect. O'BRIEN: Yes, OK.

Still to come on the program, we'll talk to the heroes who saved a 15-year-old boy's life. He was swept five miles down a flooded arroyo before they finally got to him.

And later, maybe you've heard of a little arthouse flick called "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." It's very obscure. Anyway, it's the blockbuster sequel to the swashbuckling hit, and it's taking the box office by storm, mateys! We want to know what the appeal is. What's this pirate thing all about? We will ask an expert. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LONG: And now a dramatic rescue story. We've been showing you pictures this morning. We want to do that again now. A teenager carried away by flash floods in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There are the rescuers, jumping in to pull him out before it is too late.

And joining me now from Albuquerque, two of the rescuers, the heroes, Mike Martinez, Eddie Gutierrez.

Thank you so much. Good morning to both of you.

MIKE MARTINEZ, ALBUQUERQUE FIRE DEPT.: Good morning.

EDDIE GUTIERREZ, ALBUQUERQUE FIRE DEPT.: Good morning.

LONG: So let's tell everybody the story -- a boy, about 15 years old, was whisked down 5 miles of what is called an arroyo, or a drainage canal. Eddie, pick up the story from there. Mike, pick up the story from there.

Let's start with Eddie. Tell me what exactly you were thinking as you reached for the boy.

GUTIERREZ: Well, before that, upon arrival, we had already heard that the station above us had already missed him three times. So we knew that we had him coming down for sure. So when we were down in the arroyo, right as he came in front of Mike is when he dipped under water for about 20, 30 feet...

LONG: Ooh.

GUTIERREZ: I -- you know, he was underwater the whole time, so when he popped back up it was just past me, and that's when I reacted as fast as I could to throw him the bag.

LONG: Well, Mike, considering what Eddie just said, another team has missed this boy three times. You really had no chance. This was a dire situation. So what did you do?

MARTINEZ: Yes, ma'am. Like Eddie said, I was the first rescuer. When I made my throw at the rope, he got sucked under with the currents and he disappeared for approximately 20 to 30 feet, and he popped up right in front of Eddie, and Eddie made a great throw, and the kid had enough strength to get a hold of the rope, which helped us out a lot. If he didn't get ahold of the rope, we're sure if we'd have gotten him. And I know he didn't have much strength on him, so that's why I went in after him right away.

LONG: Well, the 14-year-old, we've received word that he has some cuts and bruises, has suffered hypothermia, but otherwise, he's expected to be okay, which is wonderful news. Have you had a chance to chat with him?

GUTIERREZ: No, we haven't yet.

MARTINEZ: No, ma'am. But last night one of the family members actually called our station and I talked to them last night, and they let us know that he is doing well.

LONG: Now despite years on the force, both of you have had years on the force, you just had some additional training. This, for both of you, is your first such rescue. So were you terrified, or did you feel that all the training up to this point had set you up to succeed in this type of dire circumstance?

MARTINEZ: Yes, ma'am. It's a total team effort. You know, there's two of us here, but there's 11 guys in our station that helped put everything together, starting from Lawrence Otero, doing all of our rigging together, for us to be safe going down, and there's a Gerald Bryant (ph), Oscar Vasquez (ph), some of our other firefighters that had us on our ropes keeping us safe. Our other officers, Gable Laya (ph) and Manny Aruna (ph), they were keeping the crowd back, and everybody had a very important role in this thing. If they didn't do their jobs, then there is -- you know, we couldn't do our job. So it was a total team effort from everybody.

I'm sensing some humility here. You are being called heroes. Do you understand that? And do you relish that new title?

GUTIERREZ: Yes, we understand that. As Mike said, you know, it just so happens to be that we were the ones down there in the arroyo. But, you know, that couldn't have happened without the rest of our team. You know., everybody played a part and everybody did exactly what they were supposed to do. So we commend our whole station.

LONG: Well, of course, the young boy's family, the young boy himself, very pleased that you were there to save the day. And thank you so much for sharing your story this morning. Again that was rescuers Mike Martinez and Eddie Gutierrez, joining us this morning. And thank you. And I know you've been working around the clock since that rescue on Saturday, so I hope your superiors give you some time off.

GUTIERREZ: Thank you very much.

MARTINEZ: Thank you.

LONG: Thank you -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: And breakfast is on us. Absolutely. Up next, Andy -- as a matter of fact, it's on Andy. Andy loves buying breakfast.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" COLUMNIST: On me. Yes.

O'BRIEN: How are you?

SERWER: I'm fine. Some business news coming up, Miles. Did you miss the "Napoleon Dynamite" festival this past weekend? If so, I feel sorry for you, but we'll tell you all about it.

And the Buckeyes. Ohio State gets its own hamburger, finally. We'll tell you whether it comes with scarlet and gray sauce. Coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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O'BRIEN: All that and the day's top stories are ahead after a break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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