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CNN LIVE SUNDAY

Syria's President Issues Warning on Security Council Resolution; Missiles Fall into Heart of Haifa; Targeting Children in Insurgent Attacks

Aired August 6, 2006 - 19:30   ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. And here is what's happening right now in the news. To the Middle East now. Hezbollah rockets rain down on the Israeli port city of Haifa late today. And at least three civilians were killed. Israel says it destroyed the launcher that fired the rockets.
And Syria's president issues a warning on a draft U.N. Security Council resolution. Bashar al-Assad says that the U.S./French brokered resolution could lead to more instability in the region if it passes without the approval of all political forces in Lebanon.

The U.S. makes it clear it won't invade Cuba. Today Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called it far-fetched to think the U.S. would invade Cuba just because Fidel Castro is sick.

And Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum takes his re-election campaign on the road. Today the third-ranking Senate Republican announced a cross-state bus tour. The latest poll shows Democratic challenger state treasurer Bob Casey with a slight lead in the race.

From the CNN headquarter in Atlanta, I'm Carol Lin and you're watching special coverage of the unfolding crisis in the Middle East.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, I'm John Vause in Jerusalem where the Israeli government is dealing with the fallout from the deadliest Hezbollah attack so far.

LIN: John, it's 7:30 on the U.S. East Coast, 2:30 a.m. in Lebanon and this is this hour's "War Bulletin," where we catch everybody up. Israel suffers through its deadliest day of the conflict so far, including a dozen reservists killed in Kfar Giladi. And more Hezbollah targets Haifa. At least three people were killed when rockets flattened the building.

And Syria joins Lebanon in questioning the draft U.N. cease-fire plan. Both worry it could widen the conflict. CNN's John Vause on the screen in Jerusalem. John?

VAUSE: Carol, earlier this evening the Israeli port city of Haifa was hit by a barrage of rockets, killing at least three civilians, wounding more than 100 others. We'll have more on the attack in Haifa in just a moment.

All out today, Israel says more than 180 rockets have fallen in the northern part of this country. And one single rocket was more deadly than any others. Twelve reservist soldiers, civilians called up for national service were killed. They were called for duty. Many were returning from weekend leave, standing outside a makeshift base in the small farming community of Kfar Giladi. It was a sustained attack. Witnesses say it lasted for 15 minutes, possibly more.

Also today Israel says it captured one Hezbollah militant responsible for the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers on July 12th, the incident, which sparked this conflict. Israeli officials say he confessed and is now providing valuable information about the whereabouts and condition of the two missing soldiers.

Israeli air strikes continue to pound southern Lebanon, especially around the port city of Tyre, killing at least 14 civilians. And also today, the Lebanese capital of Beirut came under daylight attack. Lebanese sources say two air strikes hit not far from Hezbollah headquarters in the southern part of the city.

Now, back to Haifa, the city which has been almost under constant attack since this conflict began. But today, the missiles fell in the heart of the city. CNN's Paula Hancocks has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just before 8:00 Sunday evening, six Hezbollah rockets shattered the uneasy calm in Haifa in one of the heaviest barrages on the city so far. Part of this building in an Arab neighborhood collapsed. One woman was killed instantly. Others had to be pulled from the rubble.

This paramedic tried to perform CPR on one badly-injured man. He estimates at least 50 people were taken to hospitals. Anxious residents try to get to the scene of the most deadly rocket attack. Police stop them, trying to disperse the crowd by shouting more rockets could be on the way.

And despite the fact that an Arab rocket hit an Arab neighborhood, the anger on the streets was not directed at Hezbollah. This former Arab member of parliament says they're victims of Israel serving American policies in the region.

(on camera): This particular rocket attack has taken many residents of Haifa by surprise. There hasn't been a rocket attack that injured anybody in at least a week here in Haifa. And many had been lulled into a false sense of security.

(voice-over): This resident directs his fury at the Israeli government saying there are no bomb shelters in the Arab areas, we need bomb shelters. These attacks in Haifa and a particularly bloody day for Israel. The Israeli government, though, still insists it is winning this war.

MARK REGEV, FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN: We have no doubt that if we look at number of launches we've taken out, if we have hit their infrastructure, we've hit their command and control, we are sure, we are confident that we are winning this. HANCOCKS: But the view from Jerusalem seems to be shared by few of those who find themselves directly in the line of rocket fire. Paula Hancocks, CNN, Haifa, Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: And the Israelis say like so many other Katyusha rockets and other missiles which have fallen on towns in the northern part of this country, the rockets which hit Haifa tonight were made in Syria. Carol, back to you at the CNN Center.

LIN: John, Paula Hancocks raises an interesting point about whether the Israeli defense forces, in fact, are gaining ground. That's why we asked our CNN military analyst to be with us tonight, brigadier general David Grange here to talk with us about this. David, you heard Mark Regev, the spokesperson for the IDF insisting that they have badly damaged Hezbollah's command and control. What evidence, if any, exists to support that?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I think that's correct, that they have damaged the command in control but they have alternate means of commanding and controlling their forces.

What's important here is not how many launchers have been destroyed, how many rockets one side can fire each day, how many casualties, the number, so many killed, so many wounded.

How you win something like this is that they have to break the will of the Hezbollah, if you're an Israeli, and if you're on Hezbollah's side, you have to induce so much terror that the Israeli government backs off from the pursuit north in a buffer zone or in a southern part, I should say, of Lebanon. It's not about numbers. It's about will.

LIN: And the will is there. I mean, nearly 200 rockets fired into northern Israel. We saw the attack on Haifa. Look at this, David, they fired at sundown. All right? It's as if Hezbollah was sitting there saying, yes, we know you can follow our phosphorous trace in the sky and find us, but we don't care because we've got another rocket launcher in the the neighborhood next door. Hezbollah appears to be getting more bold and every day that goes by that Israel doesn't make more in roles reaching its goals, Hezbollah become a rock star.

GRANGE: They become a rock star in this part of the world. There's no doubt about it. And the Israeli government, I believe, either needs to make a decision to go full out up to the Litani River and isolate the city of Tyre and other places, going to be very difficult to clear the entire city, because they're piecemealing the pieces.

I'm not saying they're not working hard. They're working very hard but this is a very tough mission, a tall order. They have to put more resources into it if they want to accomplish their goal of destroying the capabilities of the Hezbollah. I think it would be very hard to break the will. LIN: What's it going to take? What are they not doing? How much manpower on the front lines, how much material on the ground?

GRANGE: Well first of all, there's still things coming in from Syria. Even though they interdict supplies from Syria coming into the Hezbollah, a lot still gets through. So on that part of the border, I think increase emphasis needs to be put there.

LIN: General -- go ahead, please.

GRANGE: No, well I'm just say that the other is you need to have enough troops in order to -- right now they have -- they're hitting designated pockets of resistance. But it doesn't mean that Hezbollah aren't in other places. They haven't been bypassed. They have these things hidden all over the place. They can sustain themselves for a very long period of time.

LIN: So what is it going take then? What do you think is going to happen? You've got Syria supplying weapons, Iran supplying weapons. Syria now threatening that it will attack Israel and it is mobilizing its army if any Israeli missiles happen to land on Syrian territory, which could happen. It's right there.

GRANGE: Well actually, if something did start with Syria, it would eliminate part of the problem because Syria's definitely behind this. It's sort of like the Vietnam-Laos thing, where you have a sanctuary of support coming out of Laos into Vietnam, but you can't strike there.

In actuality, it may make it a little bit easier to win if they were involved. But though it would put the whole region into chaos, but militarily speaking it would make it easier to win if they, in fact, had to take out -- which they would -- part of the Syrian air force and army.

LIN: Well, not an option right now. But David Grange, things changing rapidly on the ground. Appreciate the time.

GRANGE: Thank you.

LIN: Coming up, children in combat. The terrifying new trend of children becoming targets of war. And life after battle. Iraq war veterans running for hope and possibility in New York City. Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: We share those pictures with you because we have noticed a disturbing trend, a phenomenon. You would think that even in a killing zone there must be something sacred. Not anymore. In fact, children are the preferred targets. You may be as shocked as we were when we first saw Harris Whitbeck's report out of Baghdad this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The mangled remains of bleachers, a bloodied soccer shoe, evidence of the unexpected carnage during an afternoon soccer game in a Shia neighborhood of Baghdad. The game suddenly interrupted when a bomb exploded, killing dozens of players and spectators, including three teenagers and wounding 16.

Ali Rashid, 16-years-old, survived the attack. His body is freshly scarred from flying shrapnel.

ALI RASHID, SURVIVED ATTACK (through translator): We were having fun and we were so excited during the game. And during halftime I was chatting with my friend Sala (ph), but suddenly a huge explosion threw me backwards. And I ran for more than a kilometer, I was so scared.

WHITBECK: A day after the bombing a funeral tent has been erected not far from the field. Teammates and relatives of a stricken spectator mourn his death.

"Sports should be respected and not targeted," says this man. "The victims did nothing to deserve what happened to them."

Outside the tent, two youths, not much older than some of those killed, stand guard against more attacks. It's not unusual for mourning relatives to become targets themselves.

The Iraqi government and the U.S. military hope a new plan to put more American troops onto the streets will go a long way towards curbing the growing sectarian violence.

(on camera): But this is Baghdad, where violence is so random, so endemic, that even going to a soccer game can become a matter of life and death, where even children at play can become the targets of violence they have nothing to do with.

(voice over): In the midst of constant tit-for-tat killings, ordinary Iraqis can only plead for a different life.

RASHID (through translator): We should all challenge these difficult circumstances. We should start rebuilding our country. I hope we can live together as we did before.

WHITBECK: A desire that shouldn't be farfetched, but one that seems increasingly difficult to reach.

Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: And we're finding it's not just children in Iraq. One in three victims in the Middle East violence are children. And both sides are accusing each other of indiscriminate targeting of civilians. And there is an ugly side effect, dead children have become political currency. Now you wouldn't have seen this mass burial in Tyre, Lebanon, if Hezbollah militants hadn't organized media tours. It was that and Israel's ambassador to the United Nations spoke to the general assembly and to the world and this is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN GILLERMAN, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: We today say we are truly sorry for the people of Lebanon and for the people who were killed. I have never heard the Hezbollah say they're sorry for a single Israeli that was killed, woman, child, elderly, civilian or innocent. Never.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Children, as political currency. United Nations special representative Radhika Coomaraswamy joins me now from New York. Radhika, children as that kind of currency in a war zone. I spoke with the executive director of Amnesty International in the last hour. He confirms that. He has seen this as a trend, a new battle strategy. What was your reaction to the soccer field bombing in Baghdad?

RADHIKA COOMARASWAMY, U.N. SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE: Well, with regard to the soccer field bombing as well as some of the events in the Middle East, we are seeing two fundamental principles of humanitarian law that we feel used to protect children especially as well as others that are now in the breach.

One is the separation of civilians from combatants. Now, in Lebanon, for example, 300 children have -- we have now counted have died. More than the combatants, far more than combatants. And at the same time, the use of proportional force was something that the world had agreed to.

That, too, whether in Iraq or whether in the Middle East no longer seems to be there. So this is deep concern for all of us involved in humanitarian and human rights work, that the rules of war that we took so many years to write, the Geneva Conventions as well as others, seem to be in the breach. And children, therefore, become the greatest victim.

LIN: Yes, Israel has the firepower. Yes, Hezbollah indiscriminate targeting of civilians inside of Israel, children on both sides suffering. What can or what should the international community do about this when the rules of engagement no longer apply?

COOMARASWAMY: What is very interesting is in the middle of all this, the security council, which usually seen as the hard-nosed place, last year passed a resolution. It's called Security Council Resolution 1612. And there they spell out what they call grave violations against children, which is child recruitment, killing and maiming of children during war, denying humanitarian access, attacks on schools and hospitals.

All of these have been termed grave violations. And they are set in place a monitoring mechanism now from the ground upwards to monitor parties, not even states, actual individuals and parties that engage in such grave violations with the aim of some kind of targeted sanctions.

LIN: So That would apply to insurgents, would it apply to Hezbollah militants?

COOMARASWAMY: Yes.

LIN: You're talking about individuals, tracking those individuals?

COOMARASWAMY: Individuals and parties. It applies to non-state actors as well as state actors. As you know the case of the Sudan, for example, this was done but not regarding children.

But the Security Council is increasingly moving toward targeting and doing certain kinds of targeted measures against individual parties and states that engage in grave violations against children. And that's the good news, in the face of this trend.

LIN: Radhika Coomaraswamy, let us hope that they will be more than just words on paper. That resolution could safe lives -- appreciate it.

COOMARASWAMY: Thank you.

LIN: And we're going to continue our look at children caught in the crossfire tonight at 10:00 Eastern. I'm going to talk with a lieutenant colonel about the rules of war. He has actually interviewed members of al Qaeda. We want to find out if there is a code of ethics when it comes to children on the battlefield and what can be done to protect them. That's tonight at 10:00 Eastern.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He never gives up. Keeps on going. You know, that's the biggest thing right there. You know, you can't give up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: You know, these are some real heroes. They're veterans, they're not giving up. They have an inspirational race, next. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Look at that. They sacrificed parts of their bodies in the fight to bring freedom to Iraq and Afghanistan. And today dozens of wounded veterans race through Central Park. Many are amputees and joined other disables athletes for hope and the possibility race. Now in their own words, they tell us why they competed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JORGE DELEON, ACHILLES TRACK CLUB: My name is Jorge Deleon, I'm a United States army sergeant and here today what we're doing is the Hope and Possibility Run, it's a five-mile run with all the disabled people around New York City. And as the soldiers, we have a special group from injured soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks for coming out for the fourth annual Hope and Possibility.

TRISHA MEILI, CHAIRMAN, ACHILLES TRACK CLUB: It's sponsored by Achilles, which is an organization that encourages people with all kinds of disabilities to participate in mainstream athletics. It builds confidence and it changes your whole outlook on life.

DELEON: I was in Afghanistan in May of 2004 and I was driving my humvee and going back to my camp after patrol. I strike an anti-tank mine and my humvee blew up and I lost my right leg. My left leg got severely injured.

When I found out that I lost my left leg, I didn't care too much in the beginning. All I thinking was my wife and kids and thanking god for giving me another chance to live. And I didn't care about the leg. But now a few weeks later, when I started my treatment and the surgeries and going through all the pains, it was sad, it was bad, but my family was there with me since day one, so they were giving me support.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On your marks.

DAVID PATTERSON, ACHILLES TRACK CLUB: These are people who defended our country. These are people who gave up their bodies and some gave up their lives for this country and with the severe injuries that they've suffered, that they still come out here to try to demonstrate an ability to overcome all of this adversity shows that we can't forget their service.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He never gives up. He keeps on going. You know, that's the biggest thing right there. You know, you can't give up.

DELEON: Now we started the new shelter in San Antonio for Achilles Track Club where me and one of my friends, we're going to be running in San Antonio, recruiting all the disabled people, especially disabled veterans.

STAFF SGT. JOE BOWSER, ACHILLES TRACK CLUB: You don't have a disability doesn't mean that you just give up and quit living life, you know. I mean, it gives us -- it's like me. I used to play ice hockey. And I'm playing ice hockey now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Congratulations.

DELEON: I have to go forward. I can't stop here and get depressed. You can, we can prove to everybody that we can do everything they do the same and better.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: And they're doing just that. There's much more ahead on CNN tonight. Up next, "CNN PRESENTS: Inside Hezbollah." Anderson Cooper takes a look at the group's weapons, their warriors and the mission. And the hour's headlines next and then "CNN PRESENTS: Inside Hezbollah."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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