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American Morning
Foley Investigation Continues; North Korea Sanctions; Strategy In Iraq; Early Snow in New York; Nobel Peace Prize Awarded
Aired October 13, 2006 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Meet the now mighty mouse. Scientists call it a living fossil. A mouse with a head, ears and eyes larger than your normal variety. It is the first new species found in Europe in years. It was found on the island of Cypress.
And at Zoo Atlanta, the new panda cub born there last month has opened her eyes for the first time. The 36-day-old panda has grown to 8.3 pounds. She'll be named in the next couple of months.
And for more on these or any story, log on to our website, cnn.com. The next hour of AMERICAN MORNING begins right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Friday, October 13th. I'm Miles O'Brien.
NGUYEN: It is Friday the 13, folks. Good morning. I'm Betty Nguyen in for Soledad O'Brien today.
O'BRIEN: Lots happening this morning. Let's get right to the news wall.
The congressional page scandal. The chairman of the congressional page program to testify today before the House Ethics Panel. He says he confronted former Congressman Foley about his inappropriate e-mails a year ago.
NGUYEN: Also happening on this AMERICAN MORNING, what to do about North Korea. The U.N. nearing an agreement on sanctions against Pyongyang. But Japan not waiting for action, approving wide-ranging sanctions on its own.
O'BRIEN: The U.S. reviewing its strategy in Iraq. That's according to the nation's top general. October on pace to be one of the deadliest months in Iraq.
NGUYEN: Well, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded this morning to a Bangladeshi economist, Muhammad Yunus. And the bank that he founded for their grassroots effort to end world poverty through micro credit loans.
O'BRIEN: Before the falling leaves, the falling snow in Buffalo and elsewhere this morning.
NGUYEN: And lots of it. O'BRIEN: Good morning, Chad.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: In Washington today, more on the Mark Foley scandal. The House Ethics Committee hearing from another key witness today. The panel looking into a possible coverup of Foley's misconduct. Questioned a former Foley aide for hours yesterday. CNN's Andrea Koppel live from Capitol Hill with more.
Andrea.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.
Well, as one of Congressman Foley's closest aides and as someone who knew him for years, Kirk Fordham's sworn testimony should help provide House investigators the evidence they need to decide if Republican or any Republican lawmakers are lying or if they are telling the truth.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KOPPEL, (voice over): Kirk Fordham emerged after four and a half hours of questioning by members of the House Ethics Committee. His attorney said Fordham had been forthcoming.
TIMOTHY HEAPHY, KIRK FORDHAM'S ATTORNEY: He's been truthful and cooperative and will continue to be throughout this and other investigations.
KOPPEL: Hours earlier, reporters cornered Fordham at his Washington home and peppered him with questions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you nervous about testifying under oath?
KIRK FORDHAM, FORMER CONGRESSMAN FOLEY AIDE: Not really. Slept very well last night. Had a good night's sleep. Talked to my family. And, you know, I'm going to tell the truth.
KOPPEL: But while Fordham may be sleeping well, it's a safe bet some House Republican aides are not. That's because a source familiar with Fordham's account of events tells CNN, he planned to testify he warned a top aide to Speaker Dennis Hastert about Foley's behavior several years ago. That directly contradicts the speaker's version, that his office first learned about Foley's inappropriate e-mails to House pages last fall.
FORDHAM: I'm going to tell the truth and that will become apparent once the report is issued.
KOPPEL: But in a written statement, Speaker Hastert's chief of staff has disputed Fordham's allegation, saying, simply, "what Kirk Fordham said did not happen." The other Republican who testified Thursday was West Virginia Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, one of three House members responsible for overseeing the page program.
REP SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, (R) PAGE BOARD MEMBER: I'm a member of the page board who was not informed of the e-mail messages that were sent. And I want to see this investigation go forth quickly and reach a conclusion.
KOPPEL: But while Capito was in the dark about Foley until two weeks ago, Illinois Republican John Shimkus, the board's chairman, was not.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOPPEL: And Congressman Shimkus is next up in the House Ethics Committee hot seat. He plans to testify that he was among those first notified about Foley's inappropriate e-mails to House pages last fall. And, Miles, he was among the first lawmakers to actually meet with Foley to tell him to knock it off.
Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Andrea Koppel on Capitol Hill. Thank you.
Betty.
NGUYEN: To the North Korean nuclear threat now. This morning, North Korea's neighbors are reacting to Pyongyang's nuclear test. Japan, in particular, deciding not to wait for the rest of the world and voting to slap tough sanctions against North Korea right now. We have complete coverage. Atika Shubert is in Japan and Richard Roth is at the United Nations. And we begin with Atika. She is live in Hiroshima, a city that Atika knows all too well, the devastation of a nuclear threat.
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Betty.
In fact, Japan is the only country to have experienced a nuclear attack. The atomic bomb was dropped here on August 6, 1945, the first nuclear attack, just a short ways away from here, almost nearly on top of that building behind me. Eighty thousand people were killed instantly. Tens of thousands more died from radiation poisoning.
And what's even scarier, Betty, is that today's nuclear weapons are a thousand times more powerful. And it's precisely because of that experience here that Japan has said it is not going to pursue a nuclear deterrent despite these tests from North Korea. Instead, it is slapping economic sanctions.
In fact, today it has prohibited the entry of North Korean ships into Japanese ports. Also prohibiting the export and import of North Korean goods. It is also preventing any North Korean officials from entering Japan for the next six months. So it has decided to go ahead, impose those harsh members, not waiting for the U.N., clearly intending to be the first to punish North Korea.
NGUYEN: Atika, thank you for that. And the Bush administration, well, it wants a vote today on this U.N. Security Council, dealing with sanctions against North Korea. So what are the administration's chance of exactly getting that? CNN senior United Nations correspondent, Richard Roth, joins us live.
Richard, so what are the odds here?
RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the vote is not going to happen today. And that happens many times with resolution battles here as the United States pushes for a strict sanctions resolution against North Korea. But do sanctions really work?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH, (voice over): North Korean diplomats don't say much. But ask about sanctions, and their diplomats can be blunt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sanctions will not solve the problems at all.
ROTH: But the U.N. Security Council is banking on sanctions to pressure North Korea to change its behavior. Sanctions remain a popular option in the diplomatic tool kit. But do they work?
KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: Sanctions can be a blunt instrument. So you have to be very careful as to how you apply the sanctions and what kind of sanctions can be used. And there are times when sanctions can be effective.
ROTH: Effective in cases like South Africa where economic sanctions get partial credit for ending apartheid. Its leaders deciding apartheid wasn't worth the rising financial pain from sanctions.
KIM ELLIOTT, INSTITUTION FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIST: It's still a balancing act in terms of what sanctions are imposed, what countries are involved and whether or not you're actually able to hit key notes in a target economy or not.
ROTH: In Libya, Momar Kadafi may have seen the U.S. invasion of Iraq and realized his weapons were more a liability than a benefit. But some say he decided over time his weapons weren't worth the cost to his oil industry.
JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: I think there have been a number of successful sanctions regimes, not the least was which the sanctions regime that helped persuade Libya after a sustained period to give up its own pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
ROTH: What about Iran? Current U.S. sanctions don't appear to be curbing Iran's nuclear desires. Iran's oil holds too much appeal for other nations to buy in to widening sanctions so far.
There are cases of where the world does impose sanctions. The United Nations put travel and financial sanctions on al Qaeda and the Taliban. Bans that have loopholes. Currently, U.N. sanctions now target several African nations. Mostly arms embargos to cut off weapons to warning factions. But weapons bans are notoriously weak and hard to enforce without strict monitoring. A current Security Council member knows a dilemma.
NANA EFFAH-APENTENG, GHANAIAN AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: You need the cooperation of the intelligence community as a whole. And it's not always that -- is effective, but we cannot do without sanctions.
ROTH: Broad sanctions were in place on Saddam Hussein's Iraq for more than a decade, containing a dictator but causing massive suffering.
JAN EGELAND, U.N. HUMANITARIAN AID UNDERSECRETARY: These sanctions must not hurt the ordinary people. A ruler will always eat. It's the women and the children, the villagers, that will often suffer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH: The latest sanctions resolution, this one, North Korea, going to be discussed more this morning here at the United Nations. The earliest to vote, Saturday morning.
Back to you.
NGUYEN: All right. Have to wait a little while. Richard Roth, thank you for that.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could be headed to Asia next week. U.S. officials tell the Associated Press, Rice is expected to travel to South Korea, China and Japan. The topic, of course, North Korea's suspected nuclear test.
O'BRIEN: Britain's top general in Iraq dropping a bombshell and offering a grim assessment of the situation there. General Richard Dannatt told a British newspaper that he believes troops are making matters worse in Iraq, while making Brits at home less secure. He called for the 7,500-strong British troop contingent to withdraw soon. This morning he is backpedaling a little bit, saying he supports a staggered withdrawal over the next two to three years.
October is on pace to be one of the deadliest months for American troops in Iraq, and it shows no signs of abating. CNN's Barbara Starr live at the Pentagon with more.
Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, it's now all out in the open. There is, here at the Pentagon, an overall review of Iraq War strategy. It could not be more urgent around here at this point. The top military general here in the Pentagon, General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says it's somewhat routine, but it is not, of course, because General Pace now is looking at the basic underpinnings of the war strategy, implicitly acknowledging yesterday that they are looking at whether Iraqi troops really can take over.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. PETER PACE, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: Are those assumptions still valid? If they are, OK, then how we doing in getting to what was supposed to be done? If we're getting there and how do we re- enforce that? If we're not, what should we change?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STARR: General Pace acknowledging he is now talking to commanders when they come back from Iraq, bringing them into the office, finding out what they really think about what's going on.
Miles, all of this coming, of course, as there is another review going on. Something called the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former Treasury Secretary James Baker. They are looking at the urging of Congress, trying to come up with some recommendations.
We talked to some of those group members and they are said to be in disarray, arguing amongst themselves even at this point about how the U.S. got into this war. So while there's a lot of reviews going on, nobody's got the magic solution at this point about what to do about it all.
O'BRIEN: Well, if they're doing that kind of Monday morning quarterbacking behind closed doors, you can only imagine the kinds of conversations they're having. And the fact that we know this much about it publicly says something as well about the disagreement within the administration. What are they saying about the attempts to get this government together in Baghdad? It's certainly been fits and starts, to say the least.
STARR: Fits and starts and it's going to get more complicated possibly because the Iraqi parliament has now passed a law that apparently would set up the possibility for semi-autonomous regions in Iraq. A region for the Kurds, the Shia and the Sunni. There is very little understanding here in Washington about what that law means.
But it is very concerning to top officials here because it could, could, potentially lead, of course, to this sectarian partition of Iraq. And that would be taking -- if you want to talk about underpinnings, that would be cutting out the basic underpinning of the entire reason the U.S. went into Iraq, trying to establish a central democratic government in that country. If you have partition, experts say, really it's all over at that point.
O'BRIEN: I guess we're a long way from Jeffersonian democracy at this point.
All right. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Thank you.
STARR: Sure.
O'BRIEN: Betty.
NGUYEN: Well, the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize announced in Oslo, Norway, just a couple hours of ago. Bangladeshi Muhammad Yunus, and the bank that he founded, Grameen Bank, will share the $1.3 million prize. They were cited for their efforts to uplift people's lives through what they call micro economy. The 66-year old Yunus, who has been called the banker to the poor, founded this bank when he realized that granting even small loans can make a big difference in people's lives. In 25 years, the bank has loaned, get this, more than $3 billion to 2 million borrowers.
And coming up, the investigation into that E. Coli outbreak linked to spinach. Well, authorities may be a step closer to finding the source of the sickness.
Plus, winter is still more than two months away, but look at that, it's already arrived. Try telling the folks in Buffalo they've got to wait two months because they're digging out today. We'll take you there. That's ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Talk about freaky Friday. Look at this. An early snowstorm hits Buffalo this Friday the 13th, dumping more than two feet of snow in the area. Affiliate station WKBW's Julie Fine is in Buffalo.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JULIE FINE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This scene here, with the trees down, pretty much the seen right now throughout western New York. You can see about a foot of snow on the ground here. Some power lines down. We just saw some lightning.
Again, we have been pelted with rain, snow and hail here in western New York. The National Weather Service now reporting a new statistic for western New Yorkers, the snowiest October on record yesterday with more than eight inches of snow. That breaks a record from 1917.
Power crews are on the road we have been told by Mayor Byron Brown of the city of Buffalo. More than 200,000 customers in the area are without power today. Officials here, of course, telling people to be patient in this weather and to be very careful, again, because of all the downed power lines on the road. There are driving bans for most of the area. People, again, being encouraged to stay home unless they have to go out for this October surprise on Friday the 13th.
Reporting for CNN, Julie Fine in Buffalo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: And what a Friday the 13th it's been. It's only 7:17 Eastern. So if you are headed out the door, if you're really going to brave it out there on this day, let's get a check of the weather with Chad Myers at the CNN Weather Center.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: In America this morning. In California, a cattle ranch now linked to that deadly E. Coli outbreak. Federal investigators say they found the same strain of E. Coli about a mile from the place where the tainted spinach was grown.
In Louisiana, the Coast Guard searching for three people still missing after a natural gas pipeline explosion. Three workers killed yesterday and at least one other critically burned when two barges hit the pipeline triggering that explosion and fire.
And from Texas, check out this, a school bus veering slightly off the road then flipped on its side near Azle. The driver and 14 students had to escape through emergency exits and roof vents. Four students taken to local hospitals.
Pennsylvania now. A tee-ball coach sentenced for offering an eight-year-old boy money to throw a ball at an autistic teammate. Mark Downs (ph) offered to pay one of his players $25 to hit a mildly autistic boy with a ball because he didn't play as well as his teammates.
Ouch.
NGUYEN: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Downs will serve one to six years in prison. It's a game, folks. It's a game.
In Kentucky, the city of Louisville has banned smoking in all public places. A couple of exceptions, though. Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, you can still smoke them if you've got them there. And tobacco manufacturing facilities. Kentucky is one of the nation's top tobacco producing states. The ban, with its exceptions, goes into effect in July.
In Mississippi, two balloonists thanking their lucky stars this morning after 40 hours in the air. Phillip McKnight (ph) and Brian Kratelli (ph) decided to ditch their hot air balloon in some trees rather than drift out over the Gulf of Mexico. They're a part of the America's Challenge Balloon Race, which started in Albuquerque, New Mexico, more than 1,000 miles from where they landed. A little more than they bargained for.
NGUYEN: Oh, yes.
O'BRIEN: Neither man was hurt, fortunately.
In Utah, Lorna Phillips (ph) found a way to rise above all the hubbub surrounding her 100th birthday. She took a balloon ride, hopefully a lot shorter, with her daughter at her side. Phillips soared almost 2,500 feet above Salt Lake City. Mrs. Phillips wanted to hang glide to celebrate the century mark, but the family said, no, no, let's just stick to the hot air balloon.
NGUYEN: Oh, come on, she's 100 years old. She's lived till now.
O'BRIEN: She looks spry enough to hang glide. Why not let her hang glide if she wants.
NGUYEN: Yes, why not.
Well, coming up, Andy is "Minding Your Business" on this Friday. He'll tell us why an economist and his bank for the poor won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: So starting a bank, not a novel idea, but it did earn one man a Nobel Peace Prize. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business."
This is really a great story, though. It's a good idea, the way that he decided to do this bank.
ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really is, Betty.
And, you know, it's the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, this is the big one. This is the biggie. And the Nobel Peace Prize this morning goes to Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and a bank he founded called the Grameen Bank.
And what this is all about, Betty, is micro loans, micro credit. Mohammad and his bank make loans, small, small loans, to the poor in his nation, $50 to $100. This is something that a bank wouldn't have - an ordinary bank wouldn't even think of doing. It's too small. Plus, these poor people, of course, have no collateral. There's no way to guarantee the loans. So banks just aren't in the business of doing this. But here's the amazing fact. Apparently the rate of default is only 2 percent.
NGUYEN: Really?
SERWER: So 98 percent of these people, these poor people with these tiny loans, pay that back. And you can ask any banker, that's a very, very good rate. So it's a successful, commercial enterprise, plus it's doing a world of good. And this guy wants to alleviate poverty in his country and around the world. This is a great way to do it.
NGUYEN: He's on the road to it with this bank.
SERWER: That's right.
NGUYEN: Speaking of money, Macy's in Rwanda, what's that about?
SERWER: Yes, this is another example of, you know, it's not just charity, it's a business. It's an opportunity for both people who are poor and underprivileged and a business and it's a win/win situation. Macy's is importing baskets from Rwandan widows from the horrible genocide that country went through and selling them in the stores in the United States and online. They did 650 of these baskets last year. Thirty-one thousand baskets this year. These widows get paid $24 cash for these baskets, which works out to -- it doesn't sound like a lot of money, but, of course, it is there.
NGUYEN: It's a lot over there, yes.
SERWER: $4 a day is what it works out to be, as opposed to 50 cents a day, which is the average income in Rwanda. The $24 is enough to feed a family for a month there. So, you know, doing good but also making it a real business and that's always a lot more sustainable than just handing money out.
NGUYEN: Yes, it is. I just love hearing these stories. This makes you feel good.
SERWER: Yes. And you can go out and buy it for the holiday season, too, one of these baskets.
NGUYEN: There you go. Support the cause.
OK, Andy, thank you.
SERWER: Thanks, Betty.
NGUYEN: Miles.
O'BRIEN: Coming up on the program, how's the Mark Foley scandal playing in places like Minnesota? We'll have an answer for you.
And why is it so hard for the FBI to recruit Muslim agents? We'll look at a big challenge in the war on terror ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Welcome back to the program. I'm Miles O'Brien.
NGUYEN: And I'm Betty Nguyen in for Soledad O'Brien today.
Taking a look now at our news wall. Here are some of the stories that we are following for you this morning.
O'BRIEN: Sanctions against North Korea on the table at the United Nations today, but Japan isn't waiting, it's already approved wide-ranging sanctions against Pyongyang on its own.
NGUYEN: The chairman of the Congressional Page Program testifying today before the House Ethics Committee. He says he confronted Foley about his inappropriate e-mails a full year ago.
O'BRIEN: It's October in Buffalo. You know what that means, snowstorm. Well, not quite. It is unusual. Chad Myers is here to tell us more about it. It really is quite a mess.
(WEATHER REPORT)
On Capitol Hill today, more key testimony in the Mark Foley page sandal. The man in charge of the page program, Illinois Republican John Shimkus, says he confronted Mark Foley last fall about his inappropriate e-mails to a page. Shimkus says the boy's parents did not want him to tell the other House members overseeing the program. The Foley factor, being felt far from Capitol Hill. This time in Minnesota' 6th Congressional District, where it appears the Foley scandal has made a close House race, even closer. CNN's Keith Oppenheim joining us now from Stillwater, Minnesota -- Keith.
KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT, AMERICAN MORNING: Hi, Miles.
In the 6th Congressional District, just outside the Twin Cities, tends to lean Republican and was pretty much doing that before the Foley story broke. Now it's anyone's guess who could win this race, in large part because the Democratic candidate jumped on the issue.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OPPENHEIM (voice over): In Minnesota, Patty Wetterling is well known. Seventeen years ago her 11-year-old son Jacob was kidnapped and never found. She later became a national advocate for child safety. Now Wetterling, a Democrat, is running for an open seat in Minnesota's 6th Congressional District.
PATTY WETTERLING, (D) MINN. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: I want to go to Washington to be a loud voice for middle-class families.
OPPENHEIM: In September Wetterling's race against Republican opponent Michele Bachmann, was losing steam. Bachmann, a conservative state senator, was ahead in the polls by 9 points.
MICHELE BACHMANN, (R) MINN. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: I want to get rid of the death tax for people in this country and do some major changes on capital gains.
OPPENHEIM: Political scientist Steven Smith says Bachmann appeared confident and Wetterling unsure, often relying on her notes.
STEVEN SMITH, POLITICAL SCIENTIST: Until she starts talking about child safety issues, then her intensity ratchets up a few notches. You cans see her energy level rise, she becomes very, very effective.
OPPENHEIM: In a strange twist, Wetterling knew Mark Foley. She had worked on child safety legislation with him. So, when the scandal broke, Wetterling believed she had the credibility to take a big swing and ran this ad.
ANNOUNCER: Congressional leaders have admitted covering up the predatory behavior of a congressman who used the Internet to molest children.
OPPENHEIM: The Bachmann camp cried foul, saying Republicans never admitted to a cover up.
BACHAMANN: My opponent took this issue, and rather than being interested in making sure children were protected, she was busy lopping off the head of Republicans.
OPPENHEIM: Still analysts say Wetterling gained and in the latest polls she is just three points behind Michelle Bachman.
BACHMANN: Thank you for your vote.
SMITH: This is a dead heat. This was a race that Michele Bachmann was likely to win, and now you would have to say it's a tossup.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OPPENHEIM: This is a sharp contrast between a conservative Republican and a moderate to left Democrat. But a similarity, Miles, is both of these women are mothers with large families. Patty Wetterling has four children, including her lost son, Jacob. She's also a grandmother. And Michele Bachmann is the mother of five kids, and she and her husband have helped raise 23 children in foster care, interesting. Back to you.
O'BRIEN: Interesting race. All right, Keith Oppenheim in Stillwater, Minnesota, thanks. Betty.
NGUYEN: Let's get you to the North Korean nuclear threat, now. Japan not waiting for the U.N. Security Council. The Japanese cabinet today approved wide-ranging sanctions against its Asian neighbor. It's shutting the door on North Korea, no imports, no exports, also it is refusing to allow any North Korean government officials to travel to Japan for six months.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration is trying to get action today at the U.N. Security Council on sanctions it wants against Pyongyang.
Well, the road from law enforcement to intelligence, it's been a bumpy one for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and critics often point to the FBI's inability to recruit Muslim or Arabic-speaking agents. CNN Justice Correspondent Kelli Arena is here to tell us more about this problem.
It's been ongoing for quite some time.
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT, AMERICAN MORNING: It has been. And there have been several critical reports about the FBI's transformation. Its continuing effort to change itself.
It's true the Bureau seems to have hit a stone wall when it comes to recruitment, but it's a lot more complicated than you might think.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARENA (voice over): Out of more than 12,000 FBI agents, only about a dozen are Muslims.
ROBERT MUELLER, DIRECTOR, FBI: I would say we have recruited hard for Arabic-American, Muslim-American persons to become FBI agents, and we have fallen short. We continue to strive to do that.
ARENA: Foria Younis says it's important to understand the Muslim culture to understand the problem. Younis is a Muslim of Pakistani descent. She was an FBI special agent for 10 years before leaving in February to start up her own consulting business.
For starters, she says, Muslim parents typically do not encourage their kids to go into law enforcement.
FORIA YOUNIS, FORMER FBI AGENT: You get in college to be a doctor. You get into college to be an engineer, a lawyer. Those are the type of white collar professions that Muslim parents really want their kids to go into.
ARENA: What's more in many of their home countries police are often corrupt.
YOUNIS: Therefore, most people don't look upon being a police officer as a good thing.
ARENA: Younis says her experience with the FBI was a positive one. But after 9/11, she says fear and mistrust caused a wall to go up between the FBI and the Muslim community. Even some members of her own family disapproved of her working for the government.
YOUNIS: The FBI was arresting a lot of people and deporting them, because they were illegal, out of status immigrants. The Muslim community, I talked to some people, and they felt Muslims were being kidnapped and disappearing. Because they were just being picked up off the street. They were disappearing but they were being deported back to their home country.
ARENA: To make matters worse, many agents have had zero exposure to the Muslim culture. And only 34 speak Arabic. It's often hard for Muslims to pass background security checks, especially if they come from countries considered friendly to terrorists.
YOUNIS: When you come from a country like that, it's more likely that there's going to be some factor that comes up in your background check.
ARENA: And as Younis now knows firsthand, the pay for Arabic and other Middle Eastern language speakers is much more lucrative in the private sector.
YOUNIS: The salary is different -- it is difficult for the government to compete.
ARENA: Younis fears the situation is only getting worse. Certain pockets of the Muslim community are growing more isolated, hostile toward not only the FBI but the rest of American society.
YOUNIS: Some communities, what I'm seeing is, especially in larger cities, the Muslim communities stay within themselves, and I just don't think that's healthy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ARENA: Younis says that when communities become isolated, that's what's leads to extremism. She's afraid that we may see what happened in London, for example, here in the United States. That is, people who have grown up here, who really don't feel like they belong, carrying out terrorist attacks.
NGUYEN: Also, are there any programs? I'm just really astonished by the number of the 12,000 FBI agents, only about a dozen have Muslim backgrounds, speak Arabic.
ARENA: Uh-huh.
NGUYEN: I guess, what, 36 or something like that, speak the language. When we're talking about agents, the numbers are small.
ARENA: Right, the number of agents is small. They have done better on linguists and analysts and so on. They have a lot that they're doing well there. You can't go out and put a gun to somebody's head and say let's apply for the FBI.
NGUYEN: Sure, right.
ARENA: They have participated in job fairs, Foria Younis, who we spoke to, said, look, I've been out there trying to help recruit. She, herself, was aggressively recruited. They're trying.
NGUYEN: It's hard when the private sector is going to pay you so much more, to not go out there and risk your life.
ARENA: That's right. Those language skills are rare and in high demand.
NGUYEN: All right, Kelli Arena, thank you so much. Very good piece, thank you.
ARENA: Thank you.
NGUYEN: And be sure to stay with CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.
Coming up on this program, a forgotten graveyard buried deep beneath the Vatican City. We'll take a look at this incredible discovery.
Plus, the cost of wheat is rising. We'll look at what it means for you at the grocery store. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: It's 7:41 Eastern. And if you are headed out the door, you may need a snow shovel in some parts of the nation. Chad Myers is at the CNN Weather Center.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: That loaf of Wonder Bread on your shopping list may soon be costing you more. It's no "wonder" when you look at what is happening to wheat prices. They are at a 10-year high right now. All this is grist for the Ali Velshi mill. He joins us now, with more.
Ali, how much is -- ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT, AMERICAN MORNING: With some Wonder Bread
O'BRIEN: There you have it.
VELSHI: Wonder Wheat Bread. So much stuff is all made from wheat. Some if it will surprise you, some of it won't. You know obviously, your mini wheats, your Wonder Bread. What I didn't know -- you can't see it very well here. But this is cat litter.
O'BRIEN: Cat litter made from wheat? Don't eat it, though.
VELSHI: Milk Bone, licorice.
O'BRIEN: No, no.
VELSHI: Now, here's the problem. Licorice, believe it or not. The problem is wheat prices are going way up. The story starts in 1870. How much time do I have?
(LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: Not that much time, I'll tell you that.
VELSHI: From 1870, for 100 years, wheat consumption in America went down every single year, as people sort of moved off the farm into jobs where they didn't have to work all the time. Didn't have to have that caloric intake, 'til about the 1970s. Then we started eating out. And we started increasing our wheat intake.
O'BRIEN: Bring on the wheat.
VELSHI: We got to the point that right toward the end of the '90s when we started to get carb conscious and we stopped eating as much wheat. Bottom line is farmers decided to replace their wheat with other things, corn, soybeans. They were more profitable. There has been more advancement in those things.
Now, what happened this year? Bad weather around the world. We had drought in Australia, one of the largest producers of wheat. We had a beetle of some sort, in the Ukraine, the bread basket. We have had the second-warmest summer in recorded history in the United States. So wheat production is down. We just don't have enough wheat and prices are soaring.
O'BRIEN: And how much are they soaring?
VELSHI: Early in the summer you saw Kellogg increase its prices for the first time in two years on cereal, as a percentage. We're seeing a bushel go from about three and change a year ago, $3.50 and change a year ago, to about $5 now. You get about 60 to 75 loaves of bread, for instance, from a bushel. So, you are only going to see about a three-cent increase on a loaf of bread. Not a big deal, except you buy a lot of bread.
O'BRIEN: Yes. VELSHI: Somebody was telling me the other day there's a pumpkin shortage. Big deal, you buy two pumpkins a year. You buy bread, you buy wheat, you buy kitty litter, dog food all the time.
O'BRIEN: Yeah, the pumpkin thing is kind of a ornamental thing. Yeah.
All right. So what about other companies? You talked about Kellogg's. Are others going to do the same thing?
VELSHI: A lot of big companies, General Mills, things like that, they hedge. They buy ahead. They know what's going on, so for awhile they're protected. But any small bakery, anybody else who has to buy wheat on a regular basis, who can't hedge, they're going to have to increase prices and pass that on. So, you are already seeing it.
O'BRIEN: So, really, this will only correct itself when there's a bumper crop of wheat next season, maybe.
VELSHI: Right. Hopefully there is enough rain around the world, there's enough wheat. But what people might start doing is, if they can, switch out of wheat into other things. Not likely, because we're not going to change all of our eating habits to non-wheat things. So, you're going to see an increase.
O'BRIEN: All right, Ali Velshi, thank you very much.
VELSHI: If you need anything here?
O'BRIEN: You've got 60 pounds of wheat there, in case we need it.
VELSHI: I got a big bag. By the way, these are the actual -- that's actual wheat. There's something to be said forgetting wheat in New York City. It's not easy to do.
NGUYEN: I know. I'll take the licorice, though, Ali. Pass that over.
(CROSS TALK)
O'BRIEN: I know you can't get anything in New York City, including 60 pounds of wheat.
All right, coming up on the program, feeding honey to the dead? A graveyard buried deep underneath Vatican City. We'll explain ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: The Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, there is no shortage of sites to see at the Vatican, but what lies beneath? That is a really interesting question. AMERICAN MORNING's Delia Gallagher joins us.
And this find, so ironic. This is a great story. DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN FAITH & VALUES CORRESPONDENT, AMERICAN MORNING: Yes, in fact, starting today the Vatican is opening up one of their exciting new discoveries to tourists. A discovery first made three years ago in the most unusual way.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GALLAGHER (voice over): All the Vatican wanted was a place to park more cars. Instead, they found a place where antiquity parked its dead.
FRANCESCO BURANELLI, DIR., VATICAN MUSEUMS (through translator): We have a section of Roman society, between the first and the fourth century, from poor people and the middle class to the very important families.
GALLAGHER: Deep beneath Vatican city behind St. Peter's Basilica is an ancient pagan burial ground, complete with a mosaic of Dynes (ph), the Greek god of wine. In all, there are some 40 mausoleums and 200 tombs, some of which have terra cotta tubes, which were used by families to feed honey to their dead.
There's also the grave of Alsamus (ph), a slave of the Emperor Nero, and according to his headstone, a chief set designer at Rome's infamous Theater of Pompeii, the place Julius Caesar was killed.
Amid all this paganism, there may even be some evidence of early Christianity.
GIANDOMENICO SPINOLA, ARCHAEOLOGIST, VATICAN MUSEUM (through translator): We have only one piece of evidence that could prove a Christian presence in the burial site. This element of the praying woman suggests the man buried inside was a Christian.
GALLAGHER: It's found on a stone coffin of a man who lived from 270 to 290 A.D. And all of it can now be viewed by the public, even though the restoration itself won't be complete for several years.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GALLAGHER: The Vatican says this burial site is second in importance to the one underneath St. Peter's Basilica, which is believed to contain relics of St. Peter, who was the first pope.
An amazing thing about this, Betty, is that it was discovered when somebody saw a Latin inscription on a piece of concrete in the back of a dump truck. So as they're hauling this away, somebody says, stop.
NGUYEN: (INAUDIBLE) of all places, right.
It's really amazing, too, because the pieces are so beautiful. I imagine, you know, a place like the Vatican, with such rich history, there's been construction going on. Every time they seem to dig, they find something new. GALLAGHER: This is one of the problems at the Vatican, of course. In 2000 they were digging another garage and they found another fresco on the side of the wall. And so they said, we've got to stop construction here. But they needed the garage to continue, so they literally took away that wall and put it into a museum, and then continued with the garage.
NGUYEN: You've got to do what you've got to do, right?
GALLAGHER: So, this is why things take forever at the Vatican.
NGUYEN: Exactly. We're going to move on. Something off topic, but still dealing with the Vatican. I understand Latin mass may be coming back? What's that all about?
GALLAGHER: Yes. The Catholic world is a buzz, because the word from the Vatican is that the pope is going to make an announcement bringing back the Tridentine (ph) Mass, which was the mass that was said before Vatican II, in Latin, when the priest had his back to the congregation.
No, of course, he faces the congregation. This has always been a sort of sticking point for some more conservative Catholics. It was never completely outlawed, but it was put out of use, as it were, because you have to ask permission of a bishop in order to use it. The early word is that he is going to make the announcement. We don't have a document yet. We don't have the announcement yet. But certainly the Catholic world is waiting to see if that is going to happen.
NGUYEN: Interesting stuff. Early word. We'll wait for the official word. Thank you, Delia. Appreciate that.
O'BRIEN: We're thinking about doing our newscast in Latin as well. That's coming up next week, maybe.
NGUYEN: You start.
(LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: Coming up, Andy is "Minding Your Business" in English. He'll tell you how you can help fight AIDS just by going shopping. Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: I guess Madison Avenue is taking cue from the Homeland Security Department. Everything is color coded now, you know, "orange alert" kind of thing.
SERWER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: There's that red campaign, I've been reading about.
SERWER: Product Red.
O'BRIEN: Now we've got this pink -- SERWER: Pink products for breast cancer awareness month. So, we're going to start talking about these, right now.
And let's start off with red. Red plus pink equals green, as they say. We're starting with the Product Red Campaign. It was rolled out yesterday in Chicago. Two people with one name, Oprah and Bono, yesterday, on the Magnificent Mile, out there shopping and promoting. They arrived in a red thunderbird.
Product Red basically a consortium --
O'BRIEN: Wait a minute, Bono is not wearing red, though.
SERWER: He doesn't have to. Who is he going to open the door for? Who do you think is coming out of there?
O'BRIEN: But the idea was to -- you know Oprah is wearing red. There you go.
SERWER: Oh, she knows you to do it.
O'BRIEN: Of course, yes.
SERWER: So, this is a group of different companies, including GAP, Apple, Motorola, Converse and Armani. When you buy their Red Product line a portion of the proceeds goes to the Global Fund. And that money is used to fight AIDS, TB, and malaria. For instance, there's a Red Nano, and $10 of that will go to this fund.
And they were out there, and shopping and buying a lot of stuff. Bono said, "Shop till it stops." So, you know that is kind of his little theme.
O'BRIEN: He was wearing his rose-colored glasses. So, that's close.
SERWER: He always does.
Speaking of pink, there is, of course, Pink products for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. We have a bunch of them here. There is all manner of them, tweezers, right here, you can see.
O'BRIEN: Little pink ribbon on there.
SERWER: Yes, $20 bucks.
O'BRIEN: Hard pick for the camera, there, but there's a pink ribbon there.
SERWER: Tic-Tac, you can see those are clearly pink.
O'BRIEN: Yeah.
SERWER: Pink, Pink. And then there is some blush here, Miles. This is blush, by the way, Miles. He's blushing.
O'BRIEN: I know a little something about blush.
SERWER: You do. There are other products as well. There is a Swiss Army knife that $1 of the 25 bucks goes for it. This is my favorite, a Falcons football.
O'BRIEN: Pink?
SERWER: There we go. I love football. There's your pink football, 10 percent of the 15 bucks go. Then the Misty Harbor parka, and 140 bucks and $20 of it goes there.
O'BRIEN: How much is really going to charity, here? Or is this a little bit of a gimmick? I mean, let's get real.
SERWER: Well, see, that's the thing. They don't have to say how much goes. You really have to sort of look at the tag to figure that out.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. Andy Serwer, thank you very much.
SERWER: In the pink.
O'BRIEN: We'll have you back, shortly. In the pink, yes, thank you -- Betty.
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