Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Bush Asks Congress to Support Anti-Terror Plan; Accident Victim Sports Experimental Arm

Aired September 14, 2006 - 13:00   ET

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

CAROL LIN, HOST: Hello, I'm Carol Lin at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. Kyra Phillips is off today.
A self-proclaimed angel of death, posing with guns, disappointed with life. We're learning more about the gunman in the Canadian campus shooting.

And dire in Darfur. The Sudan crisis at the center of the world stage. George Clooney shares his experiences in a speech to the United Nations. We're live from the NEWSROOM.

And mind over body. I'm going to speak with this bionic woman about life with an artificial limb.

His online identity was Fatality666. He said his favorite video game was Super Columbine Massacre. Just a few of the details emerging about Kimveer Gill. He is the 25-year-old suspect killed by Canadian police yesterday after a shooting spree at a Montreal college.

CNN's Allan Chernoff live with the very latest.

Allan, do they know any more about motive?

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, that is the real question mark here for the police. As you say, the police have identified Kimveer Gill as the assailant here, as the gunman, 25 years old from the northern suburbs of Montreal.

But they say he seems to have had no connection whatsoever to Dawson College, the scene of the shooting. In fact, they're speculating that this could have actually happened just about anywhere, that perhaps he selected this site randomly.

What did happen yesterday is that he was outside of the college, just walking around very calmly. Witnesses say all of a sudden he began shooting. They say it didn't even appear that he was aiming at anyone in particular. Then he went inside, continued shooting. The police pursued him.

A gun battle ensued in the cafeteria, and there were students actually in the cafeteria, trying to slide away from the gunman. And when the police urged them to move further away, witnesses say that's when he began firing on them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's when I think the guy clicked. It's like five seconds later that's when he starting spraying, like, so many rounds at us. And like, my friend was literally at my feet, got shot twice, once in the arm and once in the leg. And I tried to help him. I dragged her all from the cafeteria. I didn't care anymore, like, what was happening. I just both dragged her with my friend. We just both dragged her to the back, and I started taking care of her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHERNOFF: The woman was brought here to Montreal General Hospital, along with 10 other wounded individuals. Six of them had surgery last night. They remain in intensive care. One person was shot and killed at the scene, in addition, of course, to the gunman dying at the scene -- Carol.

LIN: All right. Allan Chernoff, working this developing story. Appreciate it.

In the meantime on Capitol Hill, it was a day of political diplomacy for President Bush. This morning he went to Capitol Hill and tried to breathe some life into his antiterror proposals.

Our Kathleen Koch standing by at the White House, and Andrea Koppel is on duty at the Capitol.

Kathleen, let's begin with you. Why did the president travel all of the way to Capitol Hill?

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, first of all, he was invited -- invited by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, but the president also really is pushing hard these very important planks in his anti-terror program. And he was trying to push, first of all, to legalize his domestic surveillance program, pushing Congress to also pass legislation to create these military commissions to begin trying the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And then also legislation that would continue the once secret CIA prison program.

President Bush's legislation is opposed by some top members of his own party, who maintain in particular that last measure on the prison program that what the president is proposing is a dangerous reinterpretation of the Geneva Conventions that could make U.S. service members vulnerable if they were ever taken prisoner.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell made that argument himself in a letter that he sent to Senator John McCain today. But President Bush just a few minutes ago insisted that his proposal does not seek to redefine but to clarify current rules on the treatment of prisoners.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So the question I ask about any piece of legislation is, will the program provide legal clarity, so that our professionals will feel comfortable about going forward with the program? That's what I'm going to ask. And I will resist any bill that does not enable this program to go forward legal clarity.

And there's all kinds of letters coming out and today, by the way, active duty personnel in the Pentagon, the JAG, supported the concept that I have just outlined to you. This is an important program for the security of this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: Top critics on the Senate Armed Services Committee, specifically the chairman, Senator John Warner, and then senators John McCain and Senator Lindsay Graham. They also have very deep concerns about the president's plan to set up these military commissions.

They're concerned because, first of all, it would not allow the defendants to see secret classified evidence that was being used against them. It would also allow the admission of testimony that had been obtained through coercion or what critics say is tantamount to torture.

And at this very hour, those senators are busy marking up, writing up their own version, an alternative bill that would strike those restrictions.

Back to you, Carol.

LIN: Kathleen, thank you.

All right. So we're talking about the Geneva Conventions and whether parts of it could be rewritten, specifically Article 3. So what exactly does that part of the Geneva Conventions say?

Well, Article 3 prohibits, quote, "violence to life and person," in particular, murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture. It also outlaws the taking of hostages, as well as -- and I'm quoting here -- "outrages upon personal dignity," in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.

The final line of Article 3 prohibits the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

So let's turn to Capitol Hill, where the president made that rare appearance to lobby for his anti-terror proposals. Now he's running into some turbulence from members of his own party, as you saw in Kathleen's report. And in particular, one former member of his cabinet.

More now from our congressional correspondent, Andrea Koppel -- Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, Carol.

Well, I'm sure viewers won't be surprised to hear that Colin Powell is at odds with his president again, much as he was when he was secretary of state. But remember, Colin Powell is also a retired four-star general, highly, highly regarded among the military, was the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

Now he wrote a letter to John McCain, who was one of three really highly regarded Republican senators who are in direct opposition to the president's legislation.

In the letter, Colin Powell wrote, "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. To redefine Common Article 3 would add to these doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk."

At issue, Carol, is whether the president should be allowed to redefine what constitutes Common Article 3, what constitutes a war crime. He's arguing it's too vague. And therefore, intelligence officers, members of the military who would interrogate terror suspects might be subjected to war crimes themselves. So he wants to narrow the definition.

On the other side, you have John McCain, John Warner and Lindsay Graham, who are saying to do so would open American troops to possible prosecution in other countries who decided to rewrite Common Article 3 on their own.

Now, they are facing off right now. The House -- the Senate Armed Services Committee is going to be meeting again in an hour. They may pass out legislation which directly contradicts what President Bush wants, but over in the House earlier today, where President Bush met with House Republicans, they were explaining why the House Armed Services just recently passed legislation which tracks exactly with President Bush's.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: If you interrogate a Muslim, with a female U.S. interrogator, wearing the uniform of the United States, you're going to have arguments by counsel that, in their culture, you have degraded them.

If people are found to have violated Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, they can be guilty of war crimes. So my question to you is, would you hold a female colonel interrogator in uniform, would you -- would you countenance her being prosecuted for a war crime for interrogating a Muslim male detainee?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: So not only do you have House Republicans who are at odds with Senate Republicans, but you also have Senate Republicans at odds with the White House. This is exactly the kind of issue that the White House wants to showcase.

Part of national security, part of what the Republican Party has managed to -- to communicate so successfully in the last two election cycles, Carol. They are less than two months away from November midterms. The White House wants to resolve this as quickly as possible -- Carol. LIN: Andrea, thank you very much for explaining a very complicated issue. I'm going to tap into your State Department experience, OK? Because you covered the State Department for us.

Let's say the United States goes forward, redefining elements of Article 3. But, if the Geneva Conventions is the international standard by which warfare would be conducted and prisoners cared for, so if the United States unilaterally moved forward, I mean, what would be the international response?

KOPPEL: Well, that's just it. We don't know. And what Lindsay Graham and John McCain and John Warner are all arguing, is that it opens the door to the possibility that, even though the United States is a signatory to the Geneva Convention, so are many other countries.

There could be a war, not with al Qaeda, necessarily, but with another country whose troops are in uniform, and they might decide, unilaterally, to rewrite their interpretation of the Geneva Conventions and Common Article 3, which might open up U.S. troops to being prosecuted.

So that is why, they say, we have to stick to the letter of the law and you cannot try to narrow the focus in the United States of what this international treaty says.

LIN: Andrea Koppel, live on Capitol Hill, thank you.

We've got a terrific story coming up in this several hours of NEWSROOM. Steve Austin, meet Claudia Mitchell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLAUDIA MITCHELL, AMPUTEE: I just think I want my hand opened, and there it goes. I want my elbow to go down, and it just goes down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: She lost her arm in a car accident, but science fiction now becoming a matter of fact. The woman with the $4 million artificial arm. She's going to join us live in the NEWSROOM in just a few.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Well, the way poet Robert Browning put it, a man's reach should exceed his grasp. Well, for Claudia Mitchell, that's about the only limitation that seems to apply to her new bionic arm.

The stuff of crackpot '70s Sci Fi is now a brilliant marriage of technology and brain power. Claudia Mitchell joins me from Washington to talk about becoming the world's first truly bionic woman.

And since we're talking brain power, we also want to include our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta, joining us on set.

Hey, Claudia, good to have you. You lost your arm in a car accident. And I can't imagine what went through your mind. This opportunity came up for this, what, a $4 million procedure, this arm that you have now?

MITCHELL: Well, actually, I lost my arm in a motorcycle accident. And -- but yes, this -- it was a great opportunity to be able to be involved in the research with RIC.

LIN: Because this is something you can actually control with your mind, the same way that we control our own limbs. Can you show us how it works? Can you lift your arm, can you move your digits?

MITCHELL: Well, sure. I can -- I can move my elbow up and down, and I can open and close my hand simply just by thinking that that's what I want to do.

LIN: Just as we might naturally do. Sanjay, how does this work? How is that possible?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's amazing to watch her. I mean, it's just so fast. This is pretty revolutionary stuff.

I have an animation I think might actually illustrate this a little bit better. Basically, what they're doing is, when a traumatic amputation occurs, as she mentioned, with the motorcycle accident, they keep those nerves in tact, as you can see there. And instead of actually cutting them with the arm, they save them and replant them in the chest wall. And that chest wall is sort of a new home for them.

So now when Claudia, for example, thinks, as she just was, about moving her arm, a slight muscle contracts in her chest wall, and that sends a signal to her arm to go ahead and do exactly what she just thought it should do.

And so it's a pretty seamless system, but the key, as you pointed out, Carol, is that it's just thinking about it, as opposed to some of the older prosthesis, where there would actually be a motor or something that would sort of turn the elbow or turn the wrist or hand or something like that.

LIN: Are you dying to ask Claudia anything?

GUPTA: It's unbelievable. First of all, Claudia, when you first were thinking about this procedure, what were you told in terms of the likelihood of success?

MITCHELL: Well, I don't know that I was really, you know, promised any kind of success. They were -- you know, my doctors made sure to let me know that it was something that was in the works and made sure that I understood what the possibilities were.

But I just -- I took it, and I said, you know, it's -- I don't think there's that much that could go any more wrong than is. So I was pretty -- pretty excited and ready to go forward with it.

LIN: Is it heavy, Claudia?

MITCHELL: Well, it is pretty heavy. And you know, the more motors you add on, the more heavy -- you know, the heavier it gets. However, having the weight is worth what range of motion I get with it.

LIN: What are you able to do?

MITCHELL: As far as task things, I can do all sorts of things. I can hold a banana. I cut a steak for the first time since my amputation, last night. And I can fold clothes a lot more easily. I can carry a laundry basket. Just really anything in the kitchen, cutting vegetables. And even washing dishes has become much easier.

LIN: Look at that.

GUPTA: Remarkable. And it's not truly a bionic arm. I think that's worth pointing out. You're not stronger than anybody else. But is it possible, do you get tired using this arm like you would with your other arm?

MITCHELL: Not so much. No. Of course, you know, there are muscles. And muscles will tire, no matter which ones they are, wherever they work. But there's very -- there's rare occasion that I would be working one muscle long enough to tire it out.

LIN: Claudia, I've heard that if your doctor touches, say, your chest, that you actually feel it in your hand, I mean, if we can call it a hand, because the brain has that memory. That is remarkable. Is that true?

MITCHELL: That is true. I have an area right on my chest that has been surgically enhanced, or they did something to it, to make it to where I feel my finger, my index finger, or, for instance, I feel my pinky finger, depending on what area is being pushed on.

LIN: Sanjay is a neurosurgeon. Sanjay, isn't that remarkable?

GUPTA: It is. They focus so much on motor -- motor strength, obviously, which is important but to actually give someone that sense of touch. Now she doesn't feel it, obviously, in the prosthesis. But you know, just touching there and actually feeling that her hand is a pretty remarkable thing.

Also there's a chance that it may cut down on something known as phantom pain, which is something where someone who's had an amputation actually has significant pain.

And Claudia, did you ever have any of that, any phantom pain?

MITCHELL: I did have phantom pain immediately following my amputation. And it was -- you know, that comes in all kinds of degrees. And mine was a sense of cold. I was extremely, extremely cold and could not warm my hand.

LIN: Claudia, does it ever do anything you don't want it to? Are there any kinks in it, the system?

MITCHELL: Well, this is an -- this is -- the arm I'm wearing today is an experimental arm. And there are always kinks that will happen in something that you're working on and that is, you know, in process of being built and made better.

LIN: Anything you can talk about?

MITCHELL: Well, I poked myself in the eye one time, you know. So there -- it just kind of depends -- but that's all stuff that we're working on getting much better.

LIN: And watching this video of you maneuvering around your place, you're carrying an ice cube tray here. We also noticed that you had a French manicure on your prosthetic. Is that possible?

MITCHELL: That is possible. Actually, when we got the glove that goes over it, I asked them if I could put nails on it, and they said yes. So I headed straight to the nail salon.

LIN: I wonder what their reaction was.

MITCHELL: Well, she was pretty terrified. She was afraid she was going to mess something up. But I told her it was -- I assured her it was OK.

LIN: Claudia, you are one special woman. Thanks so much for doing this. So many people are going to benefit from this research and your experience. Claudia Mitchell.

MITCHELL: Thank you so much.

LIN: Remarkable young woman.

GUPTA: Yes, really remarkable.

LIN: Well, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. An actor and a Holocaust survivor take those famous words to heart and to the United Nations. Straight ahead in the NEWSROOM, details on the Darfur crisis and impassioned calls to help.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Got a developing story from the breaking news desk. Fredricka Whitfield with some news on Marion Jones. What happened?

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. Well, track and field's world cup in Athens will take place without the triple Olympic champion Marion Jones. That's because she said that the recent positive tests for performing enhancing drugs, followed by a test that ruled in her favor, a negative test of performing enhancing drug, allowing her to continue to compete, was a complete interruption of her training and competition.

And she said in a statement, quote, "I was in top condition when my season was interrupted more than three weeks ago by the leak of the positive A sample. I was ready but missed top August competitions in Zurich, Monaco and Brussels, and it has been more than six weeks since I raced." She says that -- in her statement that August and September are peak track season competitions. Those races keep you sharp and keep you in the running. She says as a result of missing those competitions, she just doesn't feel that she'll be able to give it her best.

As she was scheduled to run in a 100 meters in Athens, in this competition. Of course she won't. In fact she'll be sitting out the rest of the entire 2006 season. We're still not sure how many competitions that would mean.

But bottom line, she says she's going to sit it out, even though she was able to feel victorious in getting the results that allowed her to continue competing as a track and field athlete. So perhaps we'll see her run again next year.

LIN: Maybe. But this is voluntary, as far as we know.

WHITFIELD: It is voluntary. That's the impression you get from her statement, that this is -- this is Marion Jones declaring that she feels that she's not fit enough to run.

LIN: All right. Thanks very much, Fred.

Well, for those of us who get around with wheels, this next business story could be the next business thing in auto safety since the seatbelt. Let's get more details from Susan Lisovicz, who joins us from the New York Stock Exchange.

Morning -- afternoon, Susan.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Carol.

It is big. It is called electronic stability control. It will be required on all 2012 model year vehicles. It's anti-rollover protection, which is important, because so many cars these days are big. They have a high center of gravity, and they're very vulnerable to rolling over.

This technology senses when a driver may lose control and automatically applies brakes to individual wheels to help the vehicle avoid rolling over.

Auto makers, suppliers, industry officials all hailing the technology as a way to reduce traffic deaths from rollovers. About 40 percent of vehicles already have it. And we'll be seeing a lot more of it in the next few years -- Carol.

LIN: Susan, does it really work? Because you know, in some cases you pay extra for this kind of feature.

LISOVICZ: That's right, and it's well worth it. I mean, you know, it's interesting, because rollovers account for only about three percent of all crashes. But when they do roll over, it is grim. They lead to more than 10,000 deaths a year, nearly a quarter of all the people killed on roads in a given year. Because of that, government and industry officials are saying that electronic stability control is in a unique club, along with safety belts and air bags, in terms of life-saving potential.

Ford announcing yesterday it will make the technology standard on all of its vehicles by the end of 2009. GM will follow suit by the end of the decade. The government says it will cost the automakers about $111 to add the system to each vehicle that already has anti- lock brakes.

It's not often that you see Detroit on board, given its fiscal shape, that it's embracing this. And that's the kind of lifesaving potential it has, Carol.

LIN: Now that stability control. It wasn't that big bar across those demo things -- demo cars, was it?

LISOVICZ: No. I mean, this is something that, you know -- that the driver really doesn't have to do anything. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's so popular, that, you know, basically, it will right the car. If you're going too fast for instance, something like that will automatically start to apply the brakes.

And a lot of injuries. I mean, up to about 250,000 injuries a year.

LIN: Right. So what's happening on Wall Street today?

(STOCK REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: It is unlikely, life in Darfur was ever easy, but in three short years, it has become Hell on Earth. Well, today a renewed push for international action at the United Nations.

CNN's Anderson Cooper has more on why Darfur so desperately needs help.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Though there's been fighting in Sudan for many years, the battle in Darfur is relatively young. It started in 2003. A fight between black Africans and an Arab militia group, known as the Janja Weed recruited, many believe, by the Arab-Sudanese government, although the government denies it. It is, in part, a fight for resources, access to land and water, control of the region's rich oil reserves, but it's already being called the world's worst humanitarian crisis by the United Nations and labeled a genocide by the U.S. government.

If the conflict is new, it's also been incredibly deadly. Depending on the source, between 180,000 and 300,000 people have died, many from starvation and disease; the rest from horrific and relentlessly violent attacks. The main weapons of the Janja Weed, slaughter and rape. This woman told CNN that like many in her camp, she's been repeatedly raped simply because she's black.

She says, sometimes if you go to collect grass or firewood, you'll be beaten or chased away or sometimes they'll just take turns raping you, leaving you for dead.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF, "NEW YORK TIMES" REPORTER: When you ask these people in these refugee camps, why do the women go out when they know that they're vulnerable to being raped?

COOPER: Right.

KRISTOF: And they say, look, when the women go out, they're raped and beaten up. But when the men go out, they're killed.

COOPER: "New York Times" Reporter Nicholas Kristof has made several visits to the region and talked to many who have witnessed the horror firsthand.

KRISTOF: One of the stories that just I think affected me the most, was talking to this woman called Fatina (ph), who was in a village that I visited. And early one morning, the Janja Weed came. She heard the gunfire, she ran out of her hut with her youngest child, a 2-year-old daughter on her back. The Janja Weed grabbed the baby from her back, threw it to the ground, and beat it to death in front of her.

COOPER: Darfur is a region in western Sudan. It's more than half the size of Texas. But the people caught up in the conflict say the Sudanese government's support for the Janja Weed leaves them helpless to fight back. And so they're forced to flee.

Anderson Cooper, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Now, George Clooney, the actor, he actually went to Darfur to see the conditions last April. He and Ellie Weisle, who started a foundation to end worldwide genocide and expected to address the United Nations Security Council at 3:00 Eastern. We are going to bring that to you live when it happens.

Afghanistan's booming drug trade, financing the Taliban and fueling the nation's economy.

CNN's Nic Robertson has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Every year when the opium harvest comes in, there is a moment of truth in Afghanistan, as more or less of the narcotic poppy that makes heroin (INAUDIBLE) during the previous near. Is the country simply turning into a narco state? More than 90 percent of the world's heroin comes from here. And most years in the past 10, I've been here to report on it. This year I'm learning from the counter-narcotics minister the outlook is bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unfortunately, this year, there has been 165,000 hectares of poppy grown in Afghanistan. It's shocking for the Afghan government, for the Afghan people, that there is about 60 percent increase in the poppy.

ROBERTSON: On a map he shows me where the growth has gone up most, in the south, where the Taliban is strongest. Poppies are worth a staggering three billion to this impoverished country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More than 50 percent of the GDP of Afghanistan...

ROBERTSON (on camera): It's just from opium poppies?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's just opium poppies. It's 50 percent of the GDP of Afghanistan.

ROBERTSON: That's incredible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Certainly. That's not easy to remove almost 50 percent of the economy of this country. This country will collapse in any case.

ROBERTSON: After talking to the minister, I'm realizing the magnitude of the scale of the problem here. It's massive. And despite all of their efforts so far, they still haven't caught any major drug baron's behind the production.

(voice-over): Over the past 10 years, the only effective poppy ban I've seen was implemented by the Taliban. A year before 9/11, they took me to their heartland so I could witness them torching a morphine lab as part of their crackdown. On pain of death, they made farmers plant rice instead.

But in Afghan drug markets, traders showed me the meager amounts of opium they had for sale, and complained to me the Taliban was cynically banning poppy to drive up the price.

(on camera): And how much is this now?

(voice-over): Across the border in Pakistan, drug traders showed me they still had plenty of opium for sale. At the time, I was meeting the Taliban foreign American minister on a regular basis. He admitted to me, they got their cut of the poppy profits, in a religious tax.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The drug production really exposes the hypocrisy of our enemies. You know when the Taliban was in charge here, they outlawed drug production. Now that they are on the outs and they're trying to regain a foothold in Afghanistan, they suddenly welcome drug production and encourage drug production, as a means to undermine the stability of the government.

ROBERTSON: In 1997, I even watched a farmer teach his son how to grow the poppy. The problem then, is as it is now, grinding poverty.

(on camera): No one knows for sure just how much money the Taliban are making from opium poppies. One informed source, who lose his job if he appeared on camera, told me it could be as much as a billion dollars. What is for sure is that the money they are making is making them stronger.

(voice-over): At the top end of the problem today, high-level government corruption, and an intimidated and disillusioned eradication agency. Cracking the corruption problem is the biggest battle Minister Kadre (ph) says he faces right now, and he's not sure that's a battle he can win.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If it becomes a failed narco state, it will affect everybody in this country.

ROBERTSON: And not just Afghanistan, the cost of failure would be global -- the country would return to being a narco-terror state.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Kabul, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: You can see more of Nic Robertson's reports on "ANDERSON COOPER 360." Watch "AC 360" weeknights at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

Well, coming up next, the Afghan drug problem right here in America. China white. Kids think it's cool.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The high school kids and even college kids are using it as a designer drug. It's just a recreational drug to a lot of kids, until they start dying. And they're dying. It's killing them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: The war on drugs and its connection to the war on terror. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Well, it's a long way from Afghanistan's poppy fields to America's heartland, but that's not stopping the flow of heroin made from Afghan poppies; nor, despite their best efforts, are police.

CNN's Randi Kaye has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This undercover narcotics team from St. Louis County is chasing a suspected heroin dealer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a black male in the vehicle in UC (ph). He's got a white striped shirt on and blue jeans.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The guy didn't have any on him, but he's going to take him to a location where we can get what we want.

KAYE: We tailed the officer and the suspect. They're riding in the undercover officer's car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any time you put somebody in your car, it is not good.

KAYE: Officers hope the suspected dealer will lead them to what they call china white, heroin so pure, so potent, so powerful it killed 55 people in St. Louis in just the first six months of this year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Left on Turner from Sacramento.

KAYE: The suspect makes a buy on the street and gets back in the car. When he and the undercover cop move on, the other officers pounce on the guy who sold him the drugs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cuff him. Cuff him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't -- don't swallow anything. You understand?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Yes, sir.

KAYE: It turns out this time it wasn't heroin. This guy was charged with selling crack cocaine. And the suspect in the car got away at the next stop while pretending to make another buy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Release that.

KAYE: But officers say they do catch someone selling heroin virtually every night of the week. One recent bust netted $20 million worth of china white.

(on camera) Who's selling it here in St. Louis?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're seeing it sold by street corner dealers, in some of the worst neighborhoods. And by well off teenage girls in some of the more expensive neighborhoods.

KAYE (voice-over): Sellers likely have no idea the Taliban in Afghanistan is supplying the heroin they deal in the U.S.

The DEA says the Taliban is to blame for Afghanistan's explosion in opium poppy, the raw ingredient used to make heroin.

(on camera): How does the heroin get from Afghanistan to St. Louis? Captain Jackson says it first goes to Nigeria, then to street gangs in Chicago. From there, it makes its way here. (voice-over): China white isn't an inner city, back alley, shoot it up type of drug. This heroin is so pure it can be smoked or snorted, which reduces the stigma and the fear of dirty needles. This has only increased the drug's appeal among the affluent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The high school kids and even the college kids are using it as a designer drug. It's just a recreational drug to a lot of kids until they start dying, and they're dying. It's killing them.

KAYE: Inexperienced users, especially the young ones, easily overdose.

JACK RILEY, ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT, DEA, ST. LOUIS: We've gone down to the early levels of high school and some indication that it's actually available in the 7th and 8th grade. Students. And that's quite alarming.

KAYE: DEA Special Agent Jack Riley says besides the drugs, his agents have seized millions of dollars in cash.

(on camera): All of the money that's being made from this heroin could help the Taliban resurgence.

RILEY: That's what keeps me up all night.

KAYE (voice-over): But in St. Louis, the gateway to the west, stopping the flow of heroin is a daunting task, and the drug dealers know it.

Randi Kaye, CNN, St. Louis.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Straight to the newsroom now. Fredricka Whitfield, working the breaking news desk. A ship run aground, Fred?

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, right off the Florida coast. A 500-foot cargo ship has run aground there, and Coast Guard is on the way. A sea tow is on the scene. This ship is carrying a chemical called bauxite, which is used to make aluminum. We don't know exactly why it ran aground, but you can see it right there, very close to the shoreline there of -- just north of Port Everglades, just there in Broward County area.

It's unclear whether anyone is in danger in any sort. But all we know right now is the Coast Guard is on the way, a sea tow is there, trying to finvestigate and see how they can somehow dislodge or help free this cargo ship so that it can go on about its business in -- well, it's hard to see from that shot whether it's making its way to the coastline or whether it's heading further out to sea, but you can see it wasn't very far off, just maybe less than a mile or so off the coastline -- Carol.

LIN: Basically got stuck.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

LIN: All right, see if they can get it unstuck. Thanks, Fred.

Well, can you make your child smarter? Coming up in our genius series, Dr. Sanjay Gupta shows us one school that's trying to do just that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: We've got a breaking story in Iraq. We're going to go straight to Baghdad and CNN's bureau director there, Cal Perry. Cal, news of what, dozens of American casualties?

CAL PERRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we understand at this point, Carol, is that a suicide truck bomb attacked a fixed position in Baghdad. Two U.S. soldiers have been killed, 29 others wounded. Now, what you're seeing on your screen is video shot exclusively by CNN.

Video journalist Peter Morris and I were at the cache today doing, ironically, a story about how the U.S. military has crossed the 20,000 casualty mark. That is to say with less than 3,000 dead, they've also taken some 17,000 wounded.

After being there for about an hour, we heard a mass casualty call. That's one of the worst things you hear at these support hospitals. Sure enough, within minutes, dozens of soldiers came in wounded. Some of them lightly wounded, others very seriously wounded.

Many of these soldiers have now been taken into surgery, many are being flown to Balad. But, again, at this point what we understand, two U.S. soldiers killed, 29 others wounded when a suicide truck bomb hit a fixed position in western Baghdad -- Carol.

LIN: All right, thanks very much. Cal Perry working that story in Baghdad, and we're blurring the faces to make sure that families are notified of the wounded before their faces are broadcast. They don't want to learn it on CNN.

All right, we've got much more straight ahead, including a terrific story about whether your kid is a genius, and what you're supposed to do about it after you find out. Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: So do you think your kid is a genius? Well, you might want to check out a school devoted to kids with extremely high I.Q.s.

CNN's senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins me with part three of his series on the quest for extreme brain power, which is our daily mission here at CNN.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Of course, yes.

LIN: You found some special people. GUPTA: We did and, you know, it's interesting, because I was curious about this, both personally and professionally. All of those early childhood educational tools, the "Baby Einsteins," you almost feel like it's child abuse if you're not buying these things for your kid nowadays.

But what if your child is extremely gifted, maybe even a genius? What sort of resources are available for your child then? We got a unique look inside a very special school that is teaching child prodigies.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): That's the Reno Philharmonic Youth Symphony Orchestra and its concertmaster 11-year-old Misha Raffi (ph). Not only a first-class violinist, she's not bad at the piano. And with an I.Q. north of 160, she's quickly outpaced her classmates at one of Reno's best private schools. The message from her teachers? Slow down.

MISHA RAFFI, CHILD PRODIGY: I was told that I shouldn't ask as many questions. I felt that my learning was being held back.

GUPTA: But then, last month the Davidson Academy opened its doors for 36 students from around the United States and as far away as Australia. Everyone here has an I.Q. higher than 160, or the equivalent on another achievement test. Only about one person in 10,000 has an I.Q. that high.

The academy is the brainchild of Jan and Bob Davidson, entrepreneurs who made a fortune selling educational software, like "Math Blaster."

BOB DAVIDSON, CO-FOUNDER, DAVIDSON INSTITUTE: I think there has been a kind of a hang up on what we call age-based education, that if you're six you learn this, if you're seven you learn that, if you're eight, et cetera. That's probably what needs to be rethought.

GUPTA: At Davidson, each student has their own curriculum. For some 12-year-olds, calculus. For Misha, three languages. Older students are also taking courses at the University of Nevada, Reno.

ELLEN WINNER, BOSTON COLLEGE: They learn in different ways. They're not just faster, they're different.

GUPTA: Ellen Winner is a Boston psychologist who studies gifted children.

WINNER: They think in unusual ways, they solve problems in unusual ways. And one of the ways in which they're unusual is that they learn things almost completely on their own. They soak it up on their own, the way a typical child soaks up language on his own, when he's learning his first language.

GUPTA: Nationwide, for every $100 spent on special education for struggling students, Winner says just three cents goes to classes for the so-called gifted. That's a shame, say the Davidsons, and not just for the academic elite.

JAN DAVIDSON, CO-FOUNDER, DAVIDSON INSTITUTE: I think the opportunity to learn at your own pace, and your own motivation level, would allow anyone to achieve more than they would otherwise. It's not just the profoundly gifted.

GUPTA: For Misha, so far the academy is hitting all the right notes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: I'm always stunned by that number, $100 for every special needs child versus three cents for gifted children. Of course, most of us aren't raising prodigies. But how these kids might learn -- how they do learn might someday influence how every child is taught in America. You know, it might change the curriculum as well if there's something to be learned there.

LIN: So when can you first know if your young child is a genius? How old? At what age do they exhibit it?

GUPTA: It's a good question, and people will give you varying answers on that, but I think it's when they start to have independent thoughts and if those thoughts are truly novel thoughts.

The true mark of genius, according to a lot of the experts I spoke to, was not so much memorizing lots of different content but actually being able to pair content together in a way that no one had really thought about. And kids can do this very well, sometimes even better than adults, because they don't have some of the, you know, sort of memorized facts in their head.

LIN: So you're raising young kids. What are you taking away from this series. What are you going to do as a parent?

GUPTA: I spent a lot of time thinking about that question. First of all, like I mentioned in the beginning, the "Baby Einsteins" and all the other products ...

LIN: Those video products, right.

GUPTA: The video products -- I'm not picking on any particular one, but they're really -- it seems like they're more of a marketing gimmick than anything else. It's hard to say if they actually have any impact on overall intelligence.

On the other hand, things that we know have an impact for sure is spending time with your kid, having an older person -- a caregiver or a parent -- spend time with the child. Children learn naturally. So if you interfere with that natural learning, sometimes that can be a detriment.

So even when they're playing sometimes, to foster that, to nurture that. It doesn't really matter how many books are in the house and how much television they watch, but spending that quality time with a kid really does make a difference in the long run. LIN: One on one eye contact, not just being in the same room.

GUPTA: Exactly. Exactly.

LIN: Interesting. Sanjay, thank you.

GUPTA: I learned a lot. Thank you.

LIN: Well, and for every watching who may think that he or she may be a genius, well, you can actually test your I.Q. online. Just go to CNN.com/genius.

All right, Castro's Cuba playing host to leaders from Iran, Venezuela and other countries Americans are concerned about. We're lined from Havana. The next hour on CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com