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American Morning

Israel's Offensive Gains Ground; Life-Threatening Heatwave Isn't Over

Aired August 02, 2006 - 08:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Israel's offensive gains ground, going deeper into Lebanon. Israel now saying they've captured Hezbollah fighters in a hospital hideout.
Fidel Castro supposedly says he's in good spirits, doing OK. But Cuban exiles are still hoping for a more dire prognosis.

And the life-threatening heatwave isn't over. In fact, it might be getting worse here in the East. Heat warnings just ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Welcome back, everybody.

I'm Soledad O'Brien -- good morning, Rick.

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Rick Sanchez.

Good morning to you, Soledad.

I'm filling in for Miles O'Brien.

We're going to be reporting from Little Havana on this day, to bring you the very latest on what the reaction has been here to Fidel Castro's condition. And it's been somewhat mysterious, different messages coming out of the Cuban government vis-a-vis the Cuban media. They had a show yesterday at 6:30. It's called "The Roundtable" or "La Mesa Rendonda," where different journalists talked about the Cuban president's condition and said that he was in stable condition, said to have read a message from here, said that he is in good spirits.

But still, Fidel Castro hasn't been seen. Raoul Castro hasn't been seen. What leads, as you might imagine, to a lot of speculation here that his situation is much more critical than the Cuban president or the Cuban government is actually letting on.

Let's try and get a better sense of that.

And to do that, let's take you down to our Havana bureau in Cuba. CNN the only television network with a bureau in Havana. And that's where we find Morgan Neill, who is standing by now to try and bring us up to date on what he's learned over the last 24 hours -- bring us up to date, if you would, Morgan.

MORGAN NEILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Rick, that statement read Tuesday afternoon seemed designed to give the impression of a very calm, tranquil process. It said not only that the president is in stable condition, but that it will take several days to get a further prognosis.

Meanwhile, people here certainly were shocked by the announcement Monday that President Fidel Castro was going to temporarily hand over power to his 75-year-old brother Raoul.

Nevertheless, they say, they still have to go to work. So while it is certainly stunning to hear this news, unlike anything they've heard in decades, they say there's no real sense of panic here.

Meantime today, in the state-run-newspapers, "Granma" and "Juventud Rebelde," we're seeing messages of support that have come in from various world leaders, as well as these neighborhood committees organizing on their own, they say in the state run-media, grassroots shows of support for the president in this time when he's in such bad health -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: It's a state controlled media, so in essence the message that we're getting from the media is really the message that the government wants to put out.

Is that, in part, why the people in Cuba so far have shown, in fact, little reaction to this, Morgan?

NEILL: Well, it's always difficult to separate out motives in a case like this, Rick.

As you say, this is a state run-media, both television and print, and all we can go by is what the people are, indeed, saying. I can tell you that even in their unguarded moments, though, what you often hear are that people just don't want to be involved in politics. So that more than anything, they're looking out after how to best take care of their families, how to ensure a future, how to earn a living, etc.

So that while you're right, and certainly people, when they talk to the media, are keeping in mind that what they say could come out and be seen by the government, on the other hand, we are seeing a lot of people that are simply apolitical -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: it's hard for us to come to grips with that, because we live in a country in the United States where we have polls on a daily basis breaking down exactly what people feel on one side or another.

It's really impossible to tell what the breakdown is or how many people in Cuba are thinking one way, perhaps pro or con, correct?

NEILL: That's right, Rick.

It's, as you put it, it's simply impossible to tell because you know that people are under constraints when you speak with them. Nevertheless, you can only take them at their word. And what we are hearing now is that people are, indeed, calm. We're seeing people coming to their jobs, as I said earlier. Absolutely no sense of panic.

You have the impression, looking out on the streets of Havana today, of a normal day -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Morgan Neill following that story for us from our bureau in Havana.

So, what is Fidel Castro's condition after going through surgery? Is he out of surgery? Will there be more surgery? Is he incapacitated? what is the process?

These are all good questions that we're going to pose now to our medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who is joining me now from Washington -- let's begin, Sanjay, if we may, with the Cuban official's statement saying it was a complicated surgery for an internal intestinal crisis.

what does that mean?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's purposely vague, is my impression, actually, when I first heard that. To try and medically decipher that, when you talk about an intestinal crisis due to stress, a couple of things spring to my mind.

One is are we talking about ulcer surgery? For a long time, people believed that ulcers were caused by stress. We know that they're, for the most part, caused by a bacteria. But that might have been the terminology they were using.

Could this, in fact, have been ulcer surgery, what is pretty significant surgery?

To give you an idea of what happens there, basically you have a small hole sometimes that actually developed either in the stomach or in the first part of the intestine. This can be very painful, for one thing. It can be caused by painkillers or this bacteria that I was talking about.

It can cause significant bleeding, as well. And that could have been part of the problem, what made it somewhat urgent, if not emergent. And then basically the operation to fix that is either to over sew it, as you see there, actually fix the hole, or to actually remove part of the intestine and connect it back together.

Regardless of what operation it was, if it was one of those two operations -- again, this is all somewhat vague and somewhat speculative -- it's a pretty serious operation on anybody, especially someone who's 79 or 80 years old.

SANCHEZ: In fact, about to turn 80 years old.

I'm sorry, I lost you, Sanjay, but I trust that you can hear me.

Let me share with you what I've been hearing from some of the doctors here in South Florida who have connections or have worked in the Cuban medical system.

They're saying that often in those conditions, a person would have to be intubated or possibly ventilated. What does that mean and what does it mean for the prognosis of recovery?

GUPTA: No, it's a good point and a couple of things to keep in mind there. Once -- you do these operations under general anesthesia. And that's an important point because in some of these operations, the anesthesia may be as problematic or as potentially much a complicating factor as the actual operation itself, especially in someone who is of that age.

I mean you worry about the heart. You worry about the lungs in terms of recovery, in terms of actually being under the anesthesia itself.

What does it mean now? So he's had this operation, supposedly. Again, I'm hearing the same things you are. There's a good chance, after the operation, that you don't remove the breathing tube right away. That's a breathing tube basically to provide breaths so that if someone is under lots of painkillers, for example, and is and unable to breathe for themselves, you can actually provide artificial ventilation. How long that breathing machine stays on is very individualized, depending on the patient, when they're actually ready to come off of that.

But that's a significant factor. The anesthesia, in this case, is a big potential complicating factor. Potential persistent bleeding after the operation is a concern. And then things, Rick, like pneumonia, infection. Those are all potential problems, as well.

SANCHEZ: And we're down to the last 30 seconds, but let me just ask you point blank, because it's what most people want to know, is Fidel Castro likely to be incapacitated at this point in time?

GUPTA: If you said to me, take all comers, you know, 79 to 80 years old -- and I don't know much about his past medical history, no more than anybody else -- I'd say there's a good chance he'd probably survive the operation. I mean, we've, you know, medical technology is pretty good at getting people through operations like this.

The biggest risk, really, for him, is probably going to be over the next few weeks in terms of any potential complicating factors. Again, pneumonia is a significant problem in someone who is 80 years old and you're much more likely to develop it after an operation like this.

So to answer your question, I think he would get through the operation, but keep my fingers crossed over the next few weeks and see how he'd do.

SANCHEZ: Sanjay Gupta joining us with his medical expertise, to share with us a condition that really has been described by most people who have been watching it here as a mystery at this point, but one we will continue to watch.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, we thank you -- Soledad O'Brien, we throw it back to you. O'BRIEN: All right, thank you, Rick.

Let's go to the crisis in the Middle East now and a developing story.

Israeli Special Forces are striking deep into Lebanon, hitting a suspected Hezbollah base in the city of Baalbek, what is in the Bekaa Valley. It comes as Hezbollah fires more rockets into northern Israel.

Let's get right to CNN's Matthew Chance.

He's following the story for us from northern Israel.

Anthony Mills is in Beirut.

Let's begin with Anthony this morning -- Anthony, good morning.

ANTHONY MILLS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

The violence continues here in Lebanon. There's been fresh shelling in the vicinity of the city of Tyre in South Lebanon, also reports in a statement from the Lebanese Army that one of its Army positions was targeted in the south of the country, about 15 kilometers southeast of the city of Sidon. That's on the coast between the capital and the Lebanese-Israeli border.

That killed, according to the Army, one Soledad. Two others were pulled, wounded but alive, from beneath the rubble.

And that, of course, comes on the back of this raid, commando raid on Baalbek. That's east of Beirut in the Bekaa Valley, in which, we understand, five people were snatched by Israeli forces.

Now, there has been some dispute about the actual details of what occurred there. The Israeli forces saying they snatched five terrorists and Hezbollah denying that the people that Israel snatched were, in fact, Hezbollah militants.

And a number of people, we understand, as well, were killed during the violence that surrounded that strike, or at least that operation.

A further point of dispute, as well, the hospital from what these people were apparently or supposedly taken. Hezbollah saying that the hospital was, in fact, empty, hadn't -- was not being used at the time of the operation.

So much still to be determined we respect to that operation, but the bombardments continue -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Anthony Mills for us this morning in Beirut.

Anthony, thanks.

Let's get to the other side of the border now. Hezbollah firing dozens of missiles into northern Israel.

Matthew Chance is there this morning -- Matthew, good morning.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, as well, Soledad.

That's right, it's been a particularly ferocious barrage of missile strikes from Hezbollah positions in Southern Lebanon into Israel over the course of this day. Well over 100 rockets fired into Israeli territory, in the towns and cities across the north that have really had to withstand that battering for the past several weeks now.

Also, reports of a missile landing really far south, in the West Bank, around villages there. And so that would be the furthest south that any Hezbollah rocket has actually struck at this point, although we're still waiting for confirmation from the police as to the exact nature of that rocket and we'll bring those details to you.

In the meantime, fierce fighting underway in South Lebanon. Thousands of Israeli troops deployed in the south of that country, really pushing hard to establish a strong foothold in Southern Lebanon and to expand their area of control along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

What the Israeli prime minister says is that that territory, once it's captured, will be kept until the multinational force arrives.

Listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EHUD OLMERT, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Israel will stop fighting when the international force will be present in the south part of Lebanon. We can't stop before it, because if there will not be a presence of a very effective, robust military international force, Hezbollah will be there. And we will have achieved nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE: Israeli -- sorry. The Israeli military saying they have inflicted some significant damage on Hezbollah's ability to fight, but they are still able to fight. But, then again, so is Israel, as they say.

O'BRIEN: Matthew Chance for us this morning in northern Israel.

Matthew, thanks.

The other top story we're following is the blistering heat in the East. If you thought yesterday was bad, well, today is going to be worse.

CNN's Allan Chernoff is in New York's Times Square this morning -- good morning, Allan.

Is it getting a lot warmer since last we talked? ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Certainly with every hour it gets hotter here, Soledad, no question about it. And, of course, right now is the rush hour. Commuters rushing to work. Today they have an extra incentive to get to the office because they want to get to the air conditioning inside. But for some people, well, they have to work outside.

And one of those persons is Agbegnegan Kodjo.

He is a ticket agent.

Agbegnegan, you have to be right here in Times Square all day long?

AGBEGNEGAN KODJO, TICKET AGENT: Yes. That's pretty much it, because we have to get people on the bus and we have to be outside to talk to people so they can get on the tour bus.

CHERNOFF: what was it like yesterday out here?

KODJO: Yesterday it was very ridiculous. It was very hot, humid and we have to deal with it, because our job is to stand outside all day long.

CHERNOFF: Now, Agbegnegan, I know that you're from Africa.

KODJO: Yes, sir.

CHERNOFF: Surely you must be used to temperatures like this? Or not? Where is it worse?

KODJO: In my country, sir, even though it's tropical, the countryside is not -- it's not that humid. It's not that dry. Here it's totally different. And I think I have to deal with it.

CHERNOFF: You're from Togo.

KODJO: I'm from Togo, yes.

CHERNOFF: So you're telling me that it's actually worse here in New York City?

KODJO: Yes, that's correct.

CHERNOFF: Than in Africa?

KODJO: Yes, sir. It's better there.

CHERNOFF: Good luck today.

O'BRIEN: Thank you.

Thank you.

CHERNOFF: Soledad, I wouldn't have believed it myself unless I had heard it from an immigrant right here -- back to you. O'BRIEN: I guess that's a way of saying it's really hot.

All right, Allan, thanks.

How hot is it, you might ask?

Chad Myers at the CNN Center -- hey, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Soledad.

Dangerous is the only word I can really use today, even warmer than yesterday, if you can believe it. It's probably going to feel three to five degrees warmer than yesterday, when LaGuardia got to 100. Today, it could be 102. And it's a little bit more muggy today. The temperatures never went down overnight -- 102 in New York. Temperatures even this morning are ridiculous -- 91 in New York City is the heat index. But here is the actual temperature. The current temperature in New York is 88.

Hotlanta is 74.

See, at least in some spots across the country, temperatures did go down.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, what would the end of the Castro regime mean for Cuban exiles who are living in Miami and elsewhere?

We talk this morning to the mayor of Miami about just how that could impact Little Havana.

And U.S. Border Patrol agents fail a major security test. We'll tell you what undercover investigators caught them doing wrong.

And some kids collect baseball cards. These kids collect Katyusha rockets. Anderson Cooper takes a look at kids who are just trying to be kids, I guess, in wartime.

That's ahead.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.

I'm Rick Sanchez filling in for Miles O'Brien this week.

And we're in Miami because of the reaction thus far to the health or the said to be health of Cuban President Fidel Castro.

What happens in Havana is certainly felt in this city. The Cuban-American community is the dominant cultural and political force in South Florida and this community in particular is considering now what will happen if Fidel Castro does, indeed, pass from power officially.

That is certainly something that the gentleman I'm about to talk to would be very much invade with.

Manny Diaz is the mayor of Miami.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for joining us.

MAYOR MANNY DIAZ, MIAMI: Good morning, Rick.

SANCHEZ: Interestingly -- and a lot of people around the country may not know this -- but you also represented the Elian Gonzalez family.

DIAZ: Yes.

SANCHEZ: So you know a little bit about crowd control.

DIAZ: Absolutely.

Yes.

SANCHEZ: And crowd control will be a key issue if, indeed, this were to happen.

What do you expect and what are you doing to prepare for it?

DIAZ: Well, we got out front right away, as soon as we heard the news a couple of nights ago and just really assured people in Miami that celebrations were going to be respected. They were going to be OK. But, obviously, we have to maintain control. And we were going to give them a lot of slack, but they needed to be good, law abiding citizens. And so far we've had no incidents, no arrests at all in the city over the last three days.

SANCHEZ: do you tell your police department to go into an alpha- bravo, something similar to what you do when you have disturbances, for example? And are you doing that yet? Or is the Miami-Dade Police Department?

DIAZ: Miami-Dade has ramped up a little bit. In our case, we have not. We've talked to the chief. The chief does not believe that we're in a situation where that is called for right now. We're obviously monitoring the situation, but we don't believe there's a need for that now.

SANCHEZ: Let's say we get the phone call this afternoon and that, indeed, Fidel Castro has either passed or relinquished power or is stepping down or is incapacitated. What we've seen so far would be just a prelude to what would actually happen in this city.

Would you choose to put them in one central location to air it out, so to speak, or would you just try and monitor where they go?

DIAZ: No, we have been in touch with a number of the organizations in Miami, with the Spanish media in Miami. And the idea would be to create a central location, such as the Orange Bowl, for example, to have a massive party where we would bring in all kinds of people to really enjoy it and consolidate everything into one spot.

SANCHEZ: It's certainly a difficult task, nonetheless.

Let's talk about what would happen out on the seas. I know the Coast Guard has been preparing, as have some of the folks over at Homeland Security, for trying to create some kind of blockade, so to speak -- if I'm using the correct term -- to keep a mass exodus from taking place.

Do you expect it? And what do you know about that?

DIAZ: I think it's premature. I don't expect it. Obviously, none of us want it. We don't want a number of ships either coming to our shores or going back at this moment.

We need to wait and see. We need to wait and see what happens in Cuba and just kind of monitor the situation as we go along.

SANCHEZ: Dux the United States, or if asked by the Bush administration, should they deal with Raoul Castro, should they deal perhaps with another leader, perhaps General Assembly leader Ricardo Alarcon?

Should the United States start making overtures to normalize relations with Cuba?

DIAZ: Well, I think this could be clearly an opportunity, as we see a change, a shift in Cuba, for this government, for the European Union and others who are anxious to see democracy and freedom restored in Cuba, to reach out to the Cuban people and say this is the best chance we've had in 47 years.

SANCHEZ: Mr. Mayor, thanks so much for taking time to talk to us.

DIAZ: Thank you, Rick.

SANCHEZ: We'll certainly be talking to you again as this situation continues.

DIAZ: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: There you have it.

Manny Diaz, mayor of Miami.

We're going to be certainly monitoring the situation here and bringing us up to date on some of the news as it comes from, interestingly enough, from the Cuban TV network and media, thus far, as to what Fidel Castro's prognosis is -- Soledad, back over to you.

O'BRIEN: Rick, thanks.

Ahead this morning, a failing grade for our nation's Border Patrol agents. We'll have details of an undercover investigation reviewing startling gaps in border security.

Then later, tough times for Mel Gibson. He's apologized for the anti-Semitic comments but some say ah, it's a little too little a little too late. We'll talk about that when AMERICAN MORNING returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back.

More now on the crisis in the Middle East.

More than 100 Hezbollah rockets have been fired on Israel today. One hit Palestinian territory in the West Bank. More than 40 miles from Lebanon, it is Hezbollah's farthest shot yet.

It's also the heaviest barrage of rockets in 22 days of fighting, most of them falling in northern Israel, in places like Kiryat Shmona. The sound and the sights of Katyusha rockets is becoming just all too common.

Anderson Cooper has our report this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fifteen-year- old Israel Silverberg and his two sisters, 11-year-old Miriam and 17- year-old Elisheva, have a new hobby.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Oh my god.

COOPER: They collect the Katyusha rockets that now terrorize their town.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: These are the wings.

COOPER: So how does this piece rate for your collection?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Pretty good.

COOPER: Pretty good?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Yes. Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: This is...

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: This is now our best one.

ELISHEVA SILVERBERG, KIRYAT SHMONA RESIDENT: Because you can really see the Katyusha.

COOPER: The Silverbergs started picking up Katyusha shrapnel two weeks ago. They already have quite the collection.

E. SILVERBERG: It's kind of cool that you have all these remainings of the Katyushas. It's like evidence to what's happening.

COOPER: Their father, Barry, a teach, thinks his kids' collection is a way for them to cope with their fears.

BARRY SILVERBERG, KIRYAT SHMONA RESIDENT: In collecting the rocket fragments, it gives them a bit of a feeling of control over something that was trying to kill them.

COOPER: Control over something trying to kill them.

There is much to be afraid of in Kiryat Shmona. Here, the sound of rockets and shelling...

E. SILVERBERG: I came back from...

COOPER: ... has become routine.

E. SILVERBERG: First, if it's outgoing, you first hear this big bomb explosion. And then you can hear it. It sounds like zzzzz. You can hear it going over -- you can hear it going overhead.

COOPER: Uh-huh.

E. SILVERBERG: But -- and then when it's a Katyusha, sometimes you can hear it, the first three seconds, whistling before it falls down, sometimes. But then it like, it's just a big explosion without anything after it.

COOPER (voice-over): On Sunday, nearly 100 rockets and mortars fell in and around this border town. At one blast site, the Silverbergs are still finding pieces of shrapnel.

E. SILVERBERG: It hit the cars, the houses over there. The windows broke. You can find screwdrivers and...

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Things like this.

E. SILVERBERG: Yes.

COOPER (on camera): So this would be something that's inside?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Yes.

E. SILVERBERG: Yes.

COOPER (voice-over): It might seem a strange hobby to some, but these are strange times in Kiryat Shmona.

E. SILVERBERG: I think it's interesting and it's like there's not too much -- there's not much to do now, because I mean everything is closed. The town is not, because there's hardly people here and all of the stores and stuff, everything is closed.

So I think it's something to do.

COOPER: Something to do, some way to cope, a way for kids to play in this time of war.

Anderson Cooper, CNN, Kiryat Shmona.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

O'BRIEN: Anderson continues to report live from the Middle East tonight, 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

Still to come this morning, Cuban President Fidel Castro has been in power for nearly 50 years. Many Cubans, in fact, have never known another leader. This morning, we take a look back at Fidel Castro's reign.

Plus, take a look at these pictures coming to us from El Paso, Texas. The flooding is bad and it could get worse. We'll update you on the forecast just ahead.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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