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American Morning

Fighting Between Israel and Hezbollah Continues

Aired July 27, 2006 - 08:30   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Good morning, everybody. You're watching a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Soledad O'Brien in New York. Hey, Miles.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, Soledad. Miles O'Brien reporting live from Metula, Israel, can't go any farther north in Israel than this place. We'll talk to one Lebanese man who's trapped on the wrong side of the border in just a moment. Soledad?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: All right, thanks, Miles. Our continuing coverage of the Middle East crisis, we'll get back to you in just a moment. First though, a look at some of the other stories making headlines, Carol's got that. Good morning.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad. Good morning to all of you. We have to talk about Iraq. A deadly series of attacks in central Baghdad today, at least 27 killed, dozens more injured during a mortar barrage and a car bomb explosion. After getting hit, one apartment building collapsed into flames. You see it there.

And Saddam Hussein's crimes against humanity trial has adjourned until October16th. The verdict is expected at that time. Whether it will come, well, we'll keep you posted.

This just in to CNN, part of a central London in the dark today, officials blaming in part the heat for the power outage. It's affecting part of the city's financial district. Less than 1,000 customers said to be affected by this power outage.

This also just in, in Massachusetts, the turnpike authority chairman has just resigned. Matthew Amorello has been under fire since part of the Big Dig tunnel collapsed and crushed a motorist to death. The Big Dig has been plagued by leaks and falling debris. Amorello's resignation will be effective August 15th.

Andrea Yates will be committed to a Texas mental facility today and she could spend the rest of her life there. A jury has found Yates not guilty of drowning her children in 2001 by reason of insanity. An earlier conviction was overturned. Yates will be held at the hospital until she is no longer considered a threat.

And the scorching California heat wave is easing up slightly, but the death toll keeps climbing. At least 81 deaths are now being blamed on the triple-digit temperatures that began almost two weeks ago now. In the meantime, lower temperatures and calmer winds are helping firefighters outside of San Diego. The 16,000-acre horse fire is now 25 percent contained.

(WEATHER REPORT)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Let's get right back to Miles, he's in Metula this morning. Hey Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: Hello, Soledad. Metula is at the top of the Galilee panhandle. We're about 35, 40 miles north of the Sea of Galilee, where the Bible says Jesus walked on water. Might need some walking on water to solve this crisis. It continues to escalate, as you hear the big guns blaring right over our head. They're sending shells straight over to the north into Lebanon as we speak. And we've met a man by the name of George, whose story we want to tell you. He works at Sam's Grocery here. He got trapped inside Israel after the Israelis pulled out of Lebanon in 2000. He was alive with the Israelis fighting on behalf of Lebanon against Hezbollah and now can't go back. Hezbollah is your enemy, and you can't see your mother or your father?

GEORGE: I cannot see my family now. I wish to be, to finish all this trouble, what is going on, all this war. What I mean, we need peace in Lebanon. It's not land for fighting over here. I wish to be peace to see my family, to see my friends over there, to live in my house and my home.

MILES O'BRIEN: You can't go back?

GEORGE: I cannot now. I cannot.

MILES O'BRIEN: What is it going to take to eradicate Hezbollah?

GEORGE: I don't know. Israel will do her job and I don't know what -- I don't know about it.

MILES O'BRIEN: They're fierce fighters, though, aren't they?

GEORGE: Yeah.

MILES O'BRIEN: Why?

GEORGE: I don't know. They are building from Iran and Syrian government, so they like to make trouble I think, they are terrorism people I think.

MILES O'BRIEN: If you were to go back, what would they do to you?

GEORGE: Um, maybe go to the jail. I must pay a lot of money, I think, like what everybody do when they go back.

MILES O'BRIEN: Now you haven't, every now and then you're able to talk to your parents. Is it dangerous to call them? Is it dangerous if Hezbollah finds out?

GEORGE: It's dangerous to call them. Not all the time we talk with them. It's one in maybe one month, one time in month, two times. MILES O'BRIEN: What is it like being Lebanese, anti-Hezbollah, and being in Israel watching all of this happen?

GEORGE: What, you mean the people in Lebanon?

MILES O'BRIEN: Do you wish -- how do you feel about your people? And do you wish you were with your people in a sense?

GEORGE: I think so, but it's very bad for me. I care about my Lebanon, and I care about Israel, because I have a lot of friends here already. I'm six years here. And there is a lot of Lebanese people living here in Israel. We care about -- it's very hard for me. It's very hard for us, the people.

MILES O'BRIEN: Are you scared being here?

GEORGE: No, I'm not scared.

MILES O'BRIEN: Why not?

GEORGE: Because for me, it's something regular. I get regular on it. We saw a lot of like this.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right, George. Thank you very much. Good luck to you. We're not giving his last name out for reasons, which should be obvious to you. That's George. He'd like to be on the other side of the border, but not under these circumstances, not with Hezbollah controlling the southern part of that country. Let's move north in Lebanon now to Beirut, where there is talk today that Hezbollah might have some company.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: You could see right there, obviously we're having some audio problems with Miles mics, we're going to try to fix that, get back to him in just a little bit. Miles was talking about Hezbollah. We want to get to Beirut right now. Anthony Mills is covering that area for us. Anthony, good morning.

ANTHONY MILLS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Beirut has been fairly quiet since the evening before last, when there were a series of loud explosions in the southern suburbs, which of course has been pounded since the beginning of this conflict, into Hezbollah stronghold. But elsewhere in the country, the strikes have continued. Of course, a ten-story building flattened in Tyre, in the south of the country. We're told by internal security forces that that killed at least nine people. Also struck a telecommunications tower north of Beirut. A bit of a dispute as to what exactly was being targeted there.

The Israeli Defense Forces saying that they were targeting an army radar position, but the Lebanese army, although confirming that the tower was close to an army barracks, said the army wasn't using it. And I was told by a senior security source here that the tower was used to transmit Lebanese state television, Teleliba, as well as radio signals. So, a bit of a dispute on that front. Also, a strike, we're told, in the Beckar Valley on the Damascus to Beirut highway. That's a dangerous highway, of course, been bombed several times in the course of this conflict. Three trucks, I'm told by security sources, were struck, one or two dead. And we understand, according to the security sources, that those trucks were carrying vegetables. But a dangerous highway there.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: It certainly is. Anthony Mills for us this morning in Beirut. Anthony, thanks.

Still to come this morning, going to meet the parents of an American soldier who is fighting in the Israeli military. They'll tell us why his service is part of a long family tradition. That story's ahead on this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING.

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SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: There's word from Jerusalem today that Israel has decided not to expand its war against Hezbollah. Still, there is a major buildup of Israeli Defense Forces in northern Israel. CNN's Wolf Blitzer has just been on an aerial tour with the IDF. He is in Haifa this morning. Hey Wolf, good morning.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad. There's a lot of excitement today here in Haifa. In fact, it's, I guess it's not all that exciting for people who are remaining here, because they've been going through it, but for those of us who have just come in, there have already been four sirens that have gone off. And once that does go off, everyone is basically on alert. They should go into a shelter and make sure that they're not vulnerable to these kinds of Katyusha rockets that have been landing not only here in Haifa, but throughout the northern part of the country. I guess some 27 Katyushas have already landed in northern Israel today. One of them, there was a direct hit on a house in Kyriat Shmona(PH) earlier today, somebody was injured in that.

But it's, for those of us who have been to Haifa before and know what a robust, lively city this is, especially this time of the year, in the summer when there's a lot of tourists here and a lot of people coming from all over the country, indeed all over the world. It's pretty much of a ghost town. Almost all of the stores are shuttered. They're closed. And you drive up Mount Carmel to any of the locations where normally traffic would be very intense and there's almost no one here. So it's pretty depressing to see what's happened to a city that normally would be bustling with about 300,000 people.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: And what's the mood like? I mean, obviously as you say, lots of people are off the street, but those who you're talking to, Wolf, what are they telling you?

BLITZER: Well, they're saying that they're going to stick by it. They have no place else to go. This is their home. And so they're going to stay, although most of the people, I suspect in Haifa, are either living in shelters or they have gone to Tel Aviv, further south of Jerusalem. A lot of them have gone even further south, all the way to the southern most part of Israel in a lot. The hotels are packed over there. There's no vacancy whatsoever because people are just -- want to make sure their families are safe. I did have a chance earlier, Soledad, to go up with a top Israeli general, Brigadier General (INAUDIBLE), and we flew in a black hawk helicopter over all of northern Israel, along the border with Lebanon. We went up over Haifa and then we went across east towards Kiryat Shmona and Metula and along the Lebanese border, flew over Tiberius and, you know, great scenery and general (INAUDIBLE) said look, this is like a postcard, a beautiful thing to see, but there's no life.

There's virtually no cars on the roads in the northern part of Israel, no people strolling around, and you get to see that. We spent about an hour and a half in this black hawk helicopter flying over the northern part of the country, and it was pretty, pretty depressing to see the impact of these Katyushas, more than a thousand of so that have landed in northern Israel over these past 15 days. So it's just going to continue until they stop, and the Israeli military is just going to continue doing, I presume, what they're doing, even though the cabinet today decided, the inner security cabinet that they weren't going to escalate this operation, at least for the time being.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Wolf Blitzer in Haifa this morning. Thanks, Wolf.

"THE SITUATION ROOM" with Wolf Blitzer of course can be seen weekdays from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 and also 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. eastern time.

Katyusha rockets may be Hezbollah's main weapons. Joining us this morning to talk about the range of the rockets and the strategy to, of preventing them from being launched is CNN's military analyst, retired Major General Don Shepherd, who's in Washington, D.C. Nice to see you again General Shepherd thanks for talking with us. First, let's talk a little bit about the 151 missiles that were fired just yesterday alone and then this deadly fighting that's described in Bin Jbeil. Have you been surprised at how entrenched and tough Hezbollah seems, especially in the face of the IDF, which you hear the descriptions from Wolf, they're an incredibly organized, ruthless, tough military force.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPHERD, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, absolutely, Soledad. You hear a lot of rhetoric from people in the intelligence community saying oh, we knew they had missiles and they were tough, but I think everybody has been surprised by the robustness of the Hezbollah response. We had no idea that they had this many missiles. We heard 10,000 missiles. Everybody said yeah, yeah, 10,000 is probably rhetoric. Well, they've been firing 100 a day or more for the past 15 days and it doesn't look like they're short on ammunition. Also, their asymmetric strategy of shooting and then disappearing. They look like everybody else. They melt into the population. And then the tactics that the Israelis use to go after them destroys homes and buildings, creates more sympathy for them. So they're very robust, a tough force and they're not afraid to die. That makes them a difficult target.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Talk to me about this buffer zone that Israel would like to see, a 2-kilometer wide swathe, just over a mile wide then. I mean, what does that exactly buy Israel when we know that the rockets could actually -- I mean, the Katyushas that we know about can go far further than that. SHEPHERD: Yeah, let me show you a little bit on the map here. The blue shows the buffer line or the security zone, about 1.2 miles, 2 kilometers wide. And the idea of that buffer zone is to move a little bit into Lebanon, and it prevents the short-range mortars from being lobbed in. But when you superimpose the range of the Katyusha over this, the red showing the Katyusha 12 miles. You can see that even though you're north of that buffer zone, you're still able to hit a lot of the cities in northern Israel there. But that's not all of the problems, Soledad. We've heard a lot about the Litani River and pushing the Hezbollah north of the Litani. Well, that's fine, and it does do some things, but let me show you the ranges of the things that are being used. The red is the Katyusha rockets. So if you could push Hezbollah north of the Litani, you keep the Katyushas out of Israel.

On the other hand, the fajr-3, an Iranian missile goes 25 miles, so that still goes into Israel. The fajr-5 goes 45 miles, it still goes into Israel. It does not hit Haifa, but there's one more threat, Soledad, that we've heard that they have, the zelzal missile. It's got a range of 120 miles, so even if north of the Litani, if the Hezbollah can fire the zelzal rocket, you can hit well into Israel, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. This is a tough enemy with some tough weapons.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: So then explain to me why the one-mile swathe and -- I mean, Hezbollah's bragged about even more rockets than even those that we're sort of showing there.

SHEPHERD: Yeah, the one-mile swathe is just a start that keeps the short-range mortars out. So it keeps one of the weapons from hitting them. It's important, but it's just a start. It remains to be seen whether or not Israel is really going to move much further into Lebanon than they're talking about right now.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: General Shepherd, let me ask you a question about this hit on the U.N. observers, four of them killed there. We're learning a little bit more about them. Four hours they called almost a dozen times to complain about the shelling, and their concerns. I mean, the details are, I think pretty shocking. If it was a mistake, how did it happen?

SHEPHERD: Well, let me show you where Khiam is. It's one of the 13 sites that were in this area of southern Lebanon. Khiam is on a hilltop, most U.N. observer posts are on a hilltop. This is Khiam itself, the U.N. observer post, you can see it's on a hill looking south into Israel. You can see well into Israel. You can see the surrounding areas. It's a very robust site. We even have a picture of it. Now basically, it's people by four observers. And what you will find as you go into these sites, is you will find sleeping quarters, air-conditioned quarters, you'll find communications towers and that type of thing. You'll find good communications tied in with the Israelis. As you say, they were supposedly called 10 times, saying you're coming too close, cease-fire. Something tragic happened. Lack of communication, or someone designated this as a target and had the wrong target, Soledad. It's being investigated, but there's lots to be found out. It was obviously a terribly tragic accident.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Yeah. 21 strikes went on for four hours, even after the rescuers had already arrived to try to rescue those four guys out of there. General Don Shepherd, nice to see you sir, thanks as always.

SHEPHERD: My pleasure.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Andy Serwer's "Minding your Business" coming up next. What you got?

ANDY SERWER: Soledad, is food giant Nestle sucking U.S. towns dry? Plus, word that Web site "Friendster" may be getting unfriendly- ster, soon. That's coming up next, after the break on AMERICAN MORNING.

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SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: U.S. water bottling market is bubbling over with controversy. Andy's got that as he "Minds your Business." Good morning, what's the controversy over?

SERWER: Well, its interesting Soledad. What do you think the most precious fluid in the world, is, oil, fine wine, how about water? That's a lesson that food giant Nestle seems to be learning here in the United States. The company's tried to set up bottling and well facilities in at least four locations here, and meeting some fierce opposition. Local residents don't want their local water sucked up by a foreign company. Now, they have, Nestle has brands like Arrow Wood and Ice Mountain brands here in the United States. They've tried to set up facilities in places like McLeod, California, they tried to do that three years ago, that's near Mount Shasta, local residents blocking that. Michigan, Florida and Maine, same situation. One leader in Maine that is against this operation by Nestle said he doesn't want Maine to become a water plantation for the company. Kind of inflammatory language there, wouldn't you say?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: You think so? Fanning those flames a little bit.

SERWER: Yeah, interesting stuff. Another story I want to tell you about this morning, Soledad, has to do with social networking Web site "Friendster." You may remember, "Friendster" was early in this game, before "Myspace" and "Facebook." But they sort of lost out to these two much bigger rivals. "Myspace" now has 45 million visitors per month. "Facebook" 8, "Friendster" less than 1 million, but "Friendster" has recently been granted some patents. This is a story in the "Wall Street Journal" this morning, and they say that the company may litigate against the bigger rivals. So in other words, they were there first, now they've got patents, then they can go against the newer guys who are more successful. And I think it's kind of ironic though Soledad, that a company named Friendster is considering litigation.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Is hauling everybody into court.

SERWER: Yeah, not too friendly.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Who's your friend now?

SERWER: That's right.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: All right Andy, thanks. That's ironic. Coming up in a moment, a look at our top stories, including that new message from Al Qaeda. Ayman al Zawahiri says the terror group will respond to Israeli attacks in the Middle East. And Israel decides to continue its current strategy in Lebanon. At least 27 Iraqi civilians killed after explosions in Baghdad this morning. We'll tell you about that. Then, promising news on the developments of a human vaccine for bird flu. And a story we've been following all morning, the judge lifting the order to force that teen into traditional cancer treatments. We're going to talk to the teenager and his dad, just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

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