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Winter Storm Warnings In Effect Today From Texas To Illinois; U.S. Commanders Plan To Bring 1,600 More Troops Into Baghdad; Cops Learn When To Shoot At Training Facility; Defining Civil War; Today Is National Meth Awareness Day; F-18 Crashes at California Marine Corps Air Station

Aired November 30, 2006 - 15:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Virtual training for a situation every cop dreads.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Flights cancelled, schools closed, thousands hunker down as a blizzard condition blasts the heartland. A forecast you don't want to miss straight ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.

PHILLIPS: Winter storm warnings in effect today from Texas to Illinois, up to a foot of snow is expected on top of a layer of ice. Keeping track of the storm for us, CNN's Jonathan Freed live in Kansas City. Hey, John.

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kyra. I can tell you that after waiting for it for several hours, the snow has finally begun here in Kansas City. Yesterday, at this time, we were seeing rain and freezing rain and it was a very icy deal here. But take a look at what we're seeing now.

In the last hour or so, the snow has really picked up and they're promising as much as six inches perhaps, four to six inches total accumulation once this storm works its way through here. People here have been preparing for this since yesterday, Kyra. We've watched this roadway in front of us go from just completely covered over with ice this morning to dry pavement and now we're wondering how long it's going to take to be covered up with snow.

At least in this part of the city any way, the salt trucks seem to have done their job and it looks like there won't be ice underneath the snow, which is the kind of thing that can really make driving quite treacherous at this time of year -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So right now you get a sense that everything is normal? It's not really closing down business or life in the area?

FREED: Well, it's sort of that usual winter storm abnormal. Normal/abnormal.

PHILLIPS: If that makes sense!

FREED: That's right, if that makes sense! Which any of us that have to deal with winter, sort of know it, you know what that means.

PHILLIPS: It's normal for you, it's abnormal for my family in San Diego. Totally makes sense.

FREED: That's about it. That's exactly what that is. And we, you know, with what people were suggesting we were going to see yesterday, I think a lot of people were really planning on hunkering down and staying indoors today. As it's taken a little while for the snow to finally reach us, we've been seeing more activity out on the streets than I think many people anticipated.

Last night for example we were talking to some people working in restaurants, the place that we were eating at and the waiter was telling us with a shrug, look, it took me an hour to get to work today because of the icy roads. Where it would normally have taken him about 10 minutes.

But then he, at the same time, just kind of shrugged and said, you know what though, this is just the first of many more storms like this to come here in Kansas City in this part of the country this winter. So you just have to kind of wrestle your mindset back into that winter one and ride it out.

PHILLIPS: All right, Jonathan Freed, thanks.

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Let's go straight to the newsroom, Carol Lin working details on a developing story -- Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right Kyra. We're back to that train derailment outside of Toledo, Ohio. We think we have a much better picture of what happened. It really was a situation of chance. Wrong place at the wrong time. Cars were lined up at a rail crossing when a CSX freight train came along the tracks and one of those cars derailed, landing on top of at least one car.

Three people have been injured. One is reported with serious head trauma. This train was heading from Willard, Ohio to Chicago. It was carrying coal. So there weren't passengers on the train per se but two of those cars were considered hazardous materials cars. Those cars were empty but they were concerned for a time about the residue.

So the weather got -- interfered with some of the rescue operation there. You can see some of the cars that actually derailed and landed on top of at least one car. They tried to send a helicopter, a life flight helicopter earlier to ferry some of the injured to hospitals but, unfortunately, it was raining so they had to cancel that flight but they did manage to get those people to the hospital.

But an unfortunate situation, Kyra, where you're in your car, at the rail crossing waiting for the train to pass and one of those freight cars, for some unknown reason right now, jumped the tracks and landed on top of some of those cars.

PHILLIPS: A lot of mixed messages at the beginning there. Thanks for clearing it up. Thanks, Carol. LEMON: He's got a public vote of confidence from the U.S. president; if only his own government felt the same. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is back in Baghdad after meeting with President Bush today in Jordan. He returns to a disseminated cabinet and parliament and members loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada Al Sadr having walked out to protest the Bush meeting. At a news conference al-Maliki pleaded with the Sadr block to come back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NURI AL-MALIKI, IRAQI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): The political partnership means commitment and there is a mechanism to make a decision or express it through the parliament or the government which the Sadr block and other blocks participate in. I hope they reconsider their decision because it doesn't constitute a positive development in the political process. We are looking forward to receiving the whole security portfolio, along with a total sovereignty on our security forces.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: al-Maliki says he thinks Iraqi forces will be able to take full control of Iraqi security by June of next year.

PHILLIPS: Mr. Bush says U.S. troops aren't leaving until the job in Iraq is finished. And he says al-Maliki's government is vital to getting that job done.

CNN's White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux was in Amman for the summit.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Despite the serious doubts the White House has about Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki's abilities to curb the violence in his country, President Bush today gave him a vote of confidence.

BUSH: He's the right guy for Iraq. And we're going to help him.

MALVEAUX: Mr. Bush is facing an increasingly unpopular war with the new Congress actively seeking exit strategies. So the president is trying to push more responsibility on the Iraqi leader to govern and protect his people. Mr. Bush acknowledged the U.S. could do more to help.

BUSH: Part of the prime minister's frustration is that he doesn't have the tools necessary to take care of those who break the law.

MALVEAUX: The president promised more resources to speed up the training of Iraqi security forces, but he flatly refused to commit pulling out U.S. troops, even gradually as recommended by a bipartisan commission the Iraq Study Group.

BUSH: I know there's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq. We're going to stay in Iraq to get the job done so longs as the government wants us there.

MALVEAUX: Even if that means U.S. troops would have to fight in what some consider a civil war.

BUSH: Killers taking innocent life is in some cases sectarian. I happen to view it as criminal.

MALVEAUX: Maliki also issued a thinly veiled warning to his neighbors Iran and Syria for any role they may have in supporting the insurgents.

MALIKI: Everybody who is trying to make Iraq their own influence peer on the account of the Iraqi people needs to recalculate.

MALVEAUX (on camera): As billed, there were no major bold new initiatives coming out of this summit but rather a recommitment from both leaders to keep plotting ahead. Suzanne Malveaux, CNN, Amman, Jordan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: However many troops it might take to put down violence in Baghdad we clearly aren't at that number yet. So U.S. commanders plan to bring in 1,600 more troops from other parts of the country but not from Anbar Province.

CNN's Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The failure of Iraqi forces to step up has forced U.S. troops to step in. Short 3000 troops in Baghdad, U.S. commanders could no longer wait for Iraqi battalions to show up.

So, instead, General George Casey has ordered three U.S. battalions to move into the Iraqi capital, roughly 1600 troops. Even with more than 300,000 Iraqi forces in uniform, many are unwilling to leave their home areas and take on dangerous duty trying to restore order in Baghdad. Other troops, the Pentagon says, just might make things worse.

GEN. PETER PACE, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: There are some units around Iraq that, if moved into Baghdad, would not be helpful. If a Sunni unit somewhere else in Iraq moved into a Shia neighborhood or a Shia unit someplace else in Iraq moved into a Sunni neighborhood is not going to help the problem.

MCINTYRE: The additional forces are a last-ditch effort to bring stability to Iraq's capital which is the linchpin of the U.S. strategy of securing Baghdad first and then moving to the rest of the country. But many experts argue it's only a temporary fix, at best.

ANTHONY CORDESMAN, CTR. FOR STRATEGIC & INTL STUDIES: If what you want to do is lock down Baghdad and you really put enough resources into it, you can probably lock down Baghdad. The problem is so what? It doesn't really stop anything. The violence, the tension is still there. All you've done is create enough roadblocks and separation to deal with it.

MCINTYRE: Meanwhile the chairman of the joint chiefs dismissed a report from ABC News suggesting he was considering turning the insurgent stronghold of Al Anbar Province over to Iraqi security forces and moving the marines there to Baghdad. Is that something that you're giving serious consideration to?

PACE: No.

MCINTYRE: Would you like to elaborate on that at all?

PACE: You gave me a very straight question. I gave you a very straight answer. No. Why would we want to forfeit any part of Iraq to the enemy? We don't.

MCINTYRE (on camera): General Pace says he and the rest of the joint chiefs are meeting regularly with captains and colonels just back from Iraq to get the best ideas for a possible change in strategy. And while he says almost everything is being considered, abandoning Al Anbar Province is, in his words, not on the table. Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Mending fences at a mosque. Pope Benedict XVI today visited one of Turkey's most famous landmarks, the Blue Mosque of Istanbul. It's only the second time a pope has ever set foot in a Muslim house of worship. The pope is trying to make peace especially after his inflammatory lecture in September. He's also been reaching out to Orthodox Christians and Turks in general endorsing Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

LEMON: It is a life and death decision that sometimes has to be made in a split second. When should police open fire on a suspect? We'll show you how some officers are training for a situation they hope they never have to face. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: This just in. We want to get straight to the White House and our White House correspondent Ed Henry with some details on the Iraq Study Group.

What are they recommending, Ed?

ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, three sources close to the commission now confirming to CNN that, in fact, they will not call for a specific timetable to withdraw U.S. troops, but some advisors through this group are also confirming that this group will call for President Bush early next year to communicate very directly to the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to start setting some benchmarks to improve the situation on the ground and also send the signal to Prime Minister Maliki that U.S. troops won't stay in Iraq forever that there needs to be a gradual drawdown of forces.

But again, no specific timetable for withdrawing troops, an option the president has repeatedly rejected, including today, when he was at that summit in Jordan with Nuri al-Maliki.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: The Maliki government expects us and wants us to provide that vital part of security, so we'll be in Iraq until the job is complete.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: Now, one advisor to the Iraq Study Group is saying privately that there were basically about five options on the table spanning from a more conservative sort of stay the course plan all the way to a more liberal withdraw the U.S. troops quickly plan.

Basically it seems that the panel has settled on what advisors were jokingly calling the 2.5 option in that it was a hybrid, taking a bit of all the different options on the table and trying to find something they could get consensus on. Advisors to the study group are now saying privately as well they know some critics will say this is a copout, that they fell short and really don't have any teeth to this plan by not calling for a timetable to withdraw U.S. troops.

But these advisors are saying privately, look, the bottom line is they just couldn't find consensus on an actual timetable. And they're also saying they feel like the media has set sort of unrealistically high expectations that somehow James Baker the co-chair of this group would arrive to the rescue and come up with some magic bullet. All of the advisors I've talked to say look, there are no easy solutions to figuring out this crisis. Don?

LEMON: And we know Ed these are recommendations and just recommendations but if the president does decide to go along with them, how soon could he decide to go with these recommendations?

HENRY: Well it's interesting you ask that. White House aides here are basically saying that the president is not going to be in any rush to embrace these proposals. They note that the White House is conducting its own review now of Iraq policy, that's being coordinated by the National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

Now Mr. Hadley aboard Air Force One on his way back from Jordan with the president, has told reporters that the president will be acting within weeks, not months so it will be something on a shorter time frame. Weeks from now that we'll see some sort of a reaction from the president in general in terms of whether or not there will be a shift in policy, based on the recommendations from the Iraq Study Group but also the recommendation from his own national security council.

So obviously that will be coming soon but not immediately. The report of course from the Iraq Study Group is coming out next week, but don't expect a massive shift in policy as quickly as next week. Don?

LEMON: All right Ed Henry at the White House. Thank you sir.

HENRY: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: He may be an underdog and a long shot but the governor of Iowa is not a follower. The first Democrat jumps into the official '08 presidential pool. We'll have the details straight ahead from the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: It's the toughest call any cop ever makes, whether or not to pull the trigger and when. Get it wrong and innocent people or maybe you and your comrades can die. In the aftermath of a shooting of an unarmed bridegroom by undercover cops in New York, CNN's Drew Griffin tried to find out how police make that life and death decision.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sheriff's deputy Kevin Casal has only a few seconds to decide, crouched behind a barrel, his gun aimed at a man with a knife at a hostage's throat. All three of their lives will be forever changed if Deputy Casal squeezes that trigger or not.

Fortunately for him, this is just training in an air-conditioned studio. But the nervous sweat shows just how real it can feel.

Captain Carl Sims has brought five members of the Gwinnett County, Georgia SWAT team to FATS, a virtual training facility where police officers practice making split second life and death decisions. Here they learn not only when to shoot or not shoot, but if they actually could shoot and kill another human being.

CAPT. CARL SIMS, GWINNETT COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: And that's what I love about this scenario, because you can sit there and when you go home tonight you think about it and you sit down and you have a talk with yourself, your God, whoever your inner soul is, and decide what you are made of and what you can do. Is this really what I want to do for a living?

GRIFFIN: I'm about to learn some of that myself.

SIMS: When you can use deadly force and when you cannot use deadly force as a police officer.

GRIFFIN: The rules sound simple.

SIMS: Not a slap on the wrist, OK? Not a punch in the nose.

GRIFFIN: If someone is threatening me or someone else with a serious threat that could lead to death, then shooting is justified. In practice, it becomes much more complicated.

(CROSSTALK)

GRIFFIN: It is a domestic abuse call. A frantic family says someone in a back bedroom is being attacked. My partner opens the door. A man choking a woman. No weapons visible.

(on camera): Step away, sir. Step away from her, sir.

(voice-over): I hesitate because the man has no weapon. Captain Sims says the weapon is his hands on the girl's throat. He would shoot.

SIMS: If that is your child on that bed, are you going to wait?

GRIFFIN (on camera): No.

SIMS: OK, that is someone else's child and you have got to make that choice, yes or not. It is a hard decision; it's not an easy decision.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): A second later, my decision becomes easy. The man attacks my partner, grabs her gun, I open fire.

Back to Deputy Casal, focused on the man with a knife. Like me, he hesitates. It's a mistake. The criminal kills his hostage before Kevin can kill him.

GRIFFIN (on camera): What happened?

DEPUTY SHERIFF KEVIN CASAL, GWINNETT COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: He stabbed her.

GRIFFIN: She is dead.

CASAL: It's a hard decision to make. Especially, like how Captain Sims said. It's a hard decision to make in here but it's even harder out on the street and you have got to live with it.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Casal hopes he never has to make the decision.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officers have responded...

GRIFFIN: But it is always there for any police officer -- shoot or don't shoot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Wow. I mean, what a reality check. This is a trained S.W.A.T. team that goes on the streets every single day and you still see the sweat when they're in this kind of training.

GRIFFIN: Yes, that's what was so interesting. We, as outsiders, every time you hear of a police shooting, second-guess the police. They second-guess themselves when it's happening all the time, it's going through their mind, shoot, don't shoot, shoot, don't shoot and all the pressure that goes along with it and the finality.

PHILLIPS: The more training they do, obviously, some of its gut instinct, right? But it's also training, it's sort of those two things combined.

GRIFFIN: It's a mixture. What are you going to do based on your training in that split second that you're going to fall back on. Athletes do it, the military does it, police do it. They have to revert to that instant training and hope at the end after that second is over, they've made the right decision.

PHILLIPS: It's like when we do interviews. Ok, do we trust them or not, are they telling the truth, are they not telling the truth. How many bullets are too much?

GRIFFIN: You know that's an interesting question. In New York, was it excessive, was it not excessive? Here is what they train for in Gwinnett. You keep firing until the threat is eliminated so if somebody is moving you keep firing until they stop moving.

After the first bullet they say you've already committed to killing the person. The 30th bullet isn't going to care. They did one S.W.A.T. episode where in the blink of an eye, it was maybe 6, 12 seconds, they had shot 55 bullets in training and the officer in charge said that's ok guys, it's not excessive, as long as the threat continues to move.

PHILLIPS: It's interesting, it reminds me, remember when we were living in L.A. and the north Hollywood shootout? And the cops were outgunned by the bad guys because as many shots as they fired, they still couldn't take the guys down because they had more powerful weapons, they had all kinds of gear on their body. So it's interesting, case-by-case, there isn't a set rule to, ok, if there is more than three shots fired that means you're out of line?

GRIFFIN: Right. And the North Hollywood shooting is a perfect example. Because fire three shots and pause is what we've been hearing from some of the critics in New York. Fire three shots and pause against those guys who are wearing body armor with automatic weapons, you pause, they shoot.

PHILLIPS: You're dead.

GRIFFIN: So the question of shoot, don't shoot, once you've committed to shooting, once you've made the decision that you need to take down whatever the threat you think as a trained officer is, you can't stop until the threat is eliminated. That is what the training is going on there.

PHILLIPS: Wow, great stuff. Thanks Drew.

LEMON: A deadly drug has its day as meth madness mushrooms. The feds launch a coast to coast effort to stop the spread of an addictive killer. More on national meth awareness day coming up in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Just a few minutes ago, President Bush arriving at Air Force -- or Andrews Air Force Base, headed back to the White House via Marine One. As you know, he's coming back from Amman, Jordan after a highly publicized trip, a meeting with the Iraqi prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

President Bush said he wants to help the Iraqi prime minister take the reins in war-torn Iraq and get the job done. He kept saying, we're going to stay there and get the job done, instead of setting a strict timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.

Earlier in the day, both leaders had discussed the importance of accelerating that transfer of security responsibility from the U.S. to Iraq. Al Maliki said at least they agreed on that. How they're going to do it, that's still the big question. We're going to hear from the Iraq Study Group chaired by former Democratic Representative Lee Hamilton and also U.S. -- former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker. We're set to hear the details of that next week.

LEMON: Tom Vilsack? Governor Tom Vilsack, President Tom Vilsack? Well, if none of that registers, and it probably doesn't, you can understand why the Democratic governor of Iowa is jumping way ahead of the pack to announce his run for the White House. Vilsack's platform is centered on energy independence, but he also has something to say on Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TOM VILSACK, (D-IA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And, specifically, in Iraq, we must act and we must act now. We must take our troops out of harm's way and say to the Iraqis, it is your responsibility to protect your families and your communities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And other big issues, Vilsack supports abortion rights and civil unions for same sex couples. But he also supports an Iowa law that bans same sex marriages. He opposes efforts to privatize Social Security.

And if you didn't know his name a minute ago, don't feel bad. In a recent CNN poll, he was favored by only 1 percent of registered Democrats who have a preference about the 2008 campaign.

PHILLIPS: Nowadays you can divide politicians into two camps. And I don't mean Democrat and Republican. Lawmakers, policy makers, ex-presidents and secretaries of state either think Iraq is in civil war or they don't.

Bill Clinton stakes out his position on CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There are more and more people who think that they can get what they want by shooting or throwing up these roadside bombs rather than engaging in politics. And when that happens, others take up arms in defense and it just gets worse and worse and worse. And that's a normal definition of a civil war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Normal or not, defining civil war would seem to depend less on historical precedence than politics.

Here's CNN national correspondent Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): With so many dying every week in the Iraq conflict, the question to many Americans may not be what to call it but what does the name matter?

MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: They don't care that much about what terms we use because, frankly, they know it's a mess.

FRANKEN: But many experts say that designating this a civil war will undermine U.S. support even more, which might explain why so many Democrats are jumping on the bandwagon.

SEN. JACK REED (R), RHODE ISLAND: I think for months now there's been a low-level civil war going on in Iraq.

FRANKEN: Don't try to ask the president.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's all kinds of speculation about what may be or not happening.

FRANKEN: The definition of a civil war depends on who's defining it. Merriam Webster says it's "a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country." But another reference specifies that each must "have a functioning government, have identifiable regular armed forces," which is reason enough for the top U.S. general to say it's not.

GEN. PETER PACE, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHAIRMAN: The Iraq government does not call it a civil war. Two, the Iraq government is functioning. Three, the Iraq security forces are responsive to the Iraqi government.

FRANKEN: But no less a gray eminence than Henry Kissinger thinks it is a civil war, with bleak hopes for the United States.

HENRY KISSINGER, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: If you mean by clear military victory and Iraqi government that can be established across the whole country, that gets civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that it's possible.

FRANKEN (on camera): As serious as this is, there is a chattering class debate over whether this is a civil war. There used to be an argument over what it was a quagmire, a swamp from which the United States would have trouble removing itself. There's no argument about that anymore.

Bob Franken, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Well, forget about fingerprints or even DNA. CSI London is on the trail of subatomic particles, traces of the incredibly deadly radioactive element that apparently killed a former Russian spy. So far, a dozen sites around London have tested positive to polonium 210, and police are testing aircraft as well as commercial planes that flew between London and Moscow in the weeks surrounding Alexander Litvinenko's illnesses.

Now reporter Lawrence McGinty of a British network, ITN, picks up the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE MCGINTY, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Heathrow this morning was the focus of what has become a spy thriller to outdo James Bond, John MacCarray (ph) and the rest. Two British Airways planes, found to be contaminated with radioactivity. Another grounded in Moscow, yet to be tested.

A Russian plane which landed this morning checked and then cleared. Another Russian plane may be of interest. Five in all.

(on camera): This is the equipment scientists are using to test those planes for contamination. It's called a scintillation counter, and it's been specially adapted for this search. Radiation from polonium only travels a short distance, so the detector has to be held within two inches of the surface being tested. But it can detect very small amounts of radiation, as low as one unit of measurement, one becquerel. That's thousands of times lower than hazardous levels.

(voice-over): According to the home secretary, two planes have been found to have traces of radioactivity on board. ITV News has learned that one of those aircraft, British Airways GPNWX, flew from Athens to London yesterday.

During that flight, seven seats were cordoned off in club class A and B on Row Four, J and K on Row Six, and in Economy D, E and F on Row 23.

Were those seats marked out for testing? Had the police given B.A. the passengers' names?

We've also learned the contamination was found on at least one seat and in the overhead lockers. Experts tell us this probably came from someone carrying the poison.

JOHN REID, BRITISH HOME SECRETARY: Two British Airways aircraft are being monitored by experts at London Heathrow. I can confirm that early results show low levels of radioactive substance on board both aircraft. MCGINTY: This brings the number of contaminated places to around 12. The two planes at Heathrow, Mr. Litvinenko's home, the two hospitals he attended, and a group of restaurants, hotels and offices in central London.

We understand in these locations, the amounts of radiation are very low, thousands of times smaller than would pose a risk.

DEREK HILL, RADIATION EXPERT: Polonium has to be ingested or inhaled to do any harm. If it gets on your clothing, then the alpha particles from aren't going to through the dead outer layers of your skin to the sensitive bits of your skin and body inside. So it's not going to do you any damage. And then when you wash your clothes and wash yourself, the polonium will wash away and dilute till it's harmless.

MCGINTY: What the police and scientists are uncovering here is not a series of public health hazards, but the radioactive fingerprints which will help explain how Alexander Litvinenko died.

Lawrence McGinty, ITV News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, a mother fights back against meth. Her story is next on this National Meth Awareness Day.

The news keeps coming. We'll keep bringing it to you.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: More than ten million people have tried it and the consequences for them, their families, their communities have been severe. It's methamphetamine. And today is National Meth Awareness Day. The illegal drug comes in several forms including powder and tablets and usually cooked up in homemade labs and often made from store bought chemicals, including cold medicines.

Now, a program reminder for you, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will talk about the fight against meth later today with Wolf Blitzer on "THE SITUATION ROOM." That's at 4:00 Eastern.

The meth epidemic has devastated areas that had been relatively clean of so called street drugs -- rural Tennessee, for example, but there are success stories and the addiction can be defeated. Our Kelli Arena has one woman's story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Charlotte Sanders never thought she would be walking back into this jail voluntarily. The memories of her mandatory stays are quite painful but she's here with a message of hope.

CHARLOTTE SANDERS, RECOVERING METH ADDICT: I'm a recovering meth addict. I was on meth for 10 and a half years everyday.

ARENA: Sanders lives in rural Tennessee where authorities say meth use has reached epidemic proportions. She was hooked and hooked bad -- she weighed only 100 pounds, her eyes bruised from malnutrition.

SANDERS: For me, it was like a super high, I was a super mom, but this drug just smoking the pot that night and snorting a little bit, I was high for four days. Four days not straight.

ARENA: Super mom she wasn't. Her daughters who were 8 and 10 at the time were put through a living hell.

ASHLEY GREENLEE: CHARLOTTE SANDERS' DAUGHTER: It was like 3:00 in the morning and she was looking out the window thinking somebody was out there and she was really scaring us because she really thought somebody was out there and nobody was out there.

ARENA: And it wasn't only paranoia. There was violence.

AMBER GREENLEE: CHARLOTTE SANDERS' DAUGHTER: My mom and dad, they were like fighting a lot and she stabbed my dad I think four or five times with a knife and they just like fought all the time, screaming, yelling, hitting, everything else.

ARENA: Eventually, the girls were taken away by Betsy Dunn of the Tennessee department of children services. It's a scenario that she's had to live through too many times.

BETSY DUNN, TENN. DEPT. OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES: I think it's because the parents choose the drug over their children and that's what makes it so very, very sad, because that's not supposed to happen.

ARENA: While in jail, Sanders' condition deteriorated and she suffered seizures. Finally, hitting bottom, she turned to religion and fought her addiction. She is drug-free, remarried, and she's got her kids back.

SANDERS: I get to shop and I get to, you know, take my kids to eat and, you know, life is wonderful just to smell the air to walk around. It's great.

ARENA: But this happy ending is an exception. Experts say the recovery rate for meth addicts is at an astonishing low of five percent. it's one of the reasons Sanders is part of this prison ministry and the reason her daughters decided to tell their story in a national ad campaign aimed at stopping the meth epidemic.

A. GREENLEE: I was 3 with when my parents started using meth. I smelled it when they were cooking it in the kitchen.

ARENA: Sanders says she is living proof that meth can be beat and hopes her story will give others the strength they need to get clean.

SANDERS: Amen. amen.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Cookville, Tennessee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS; All right. Let's get straight to the NEWSROOM. Carol Lin working a developing story out of Miramar, that's just outside San Diego, naval base there, word that an F-18 has crashed?

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. This is according to the City News Service and we are waiting on video from our affiliate KFMB. Pictures just coming into the CNN center. All we know is that a jet, apparently an F-18 jet has crashed at the Marine Corps air station Miramar.

This is according to the San Diego fire rescue department which spoke with the wire service. The pilot reportedly ejected and the aircraft and search crews are now responding.

This is all we know, but Kyra, I know you know that station well and in terms of how they respond, they're going to be quick, they are going to be thorough and they are going to find this pilot.

PHILLIPS: Well, the good news is this is what they train for and that's why they go through water survival and ejection seat training and more than likely, they knew something was going down, something was wrong with that aircraft and when they eject, it seems -- I mean, obviously, it's a heart-pounding situation, but the survival rate is incredible.

You hope that that aircraft doesn't go down into any type of residential area. And it looks like, if, indeed, it went down in this valley area, the pilot will try to do that, they will try to maneuver the aircraft into an area that's not close to a freeway or a busy street or to homes and take that plane down in a spot that won't cause harm to anybody else and, of course, eject and get out of there.

So more than likely, he or she is okay and this is something they get ready for. They might have a few broken bones or a few bruises but it's an amazing process.

LIN: This is one of the new planes, right you were actually the last journalist to ride in an F-16.

PHILLIPS: Well, in the F-14. The Tomcat has been retired. F-18 has been around for a while. The Super Hornet is pretty much the accelerated version of that aircraft. But are you getting any more words across the wire? Or ...

LIN: There literally just crossed and these pictures are just coming in so obviously we are very concerned for the pilot and want to know more details about the rescue operation and the area in which this pilot landed so we will be working on all of these details.

PHILLIPS: They will respond immediately. They've got a tracking system within the seat, within that pilot knows how to radio in and tell them where he or she is and they will be on it quickly. We should have information real soon, Carol.

LIN: All right. We will bring it to you.

PHILLIPS: All right. Reports out of Miramar there. An F-18 down in that area right there in Southern California. We'll have more on the developing story when the CNN NEWSROOM continues.

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PHILLIPS: Working that F-18 crash off the Miramar Base there in southern California just outside San Diego. Carol, what are you learning?

LIN: We just know that apparently this F-18 crashed at Marine Corps air station Miramar. This according to the San Diego fire rescue department spokesperson, who spoke with the local news services in southern California.

The pilot reportedly ejected the aircraft and now search crews are under way. Kyra, this appears to be the desert terrain east of San Diego proper. Can you give us an idea more of because you're from that area, what this terrain is like?

PHILLIPS: Yes and I'm looking -- when they fly their missions, they purposely -- we're kind of losing our signal, too. We'll try and keep it up. It's coming to us through metro networks there in Miramar, California.

But they will purposely fly in areas that have this type of terrain in case something goes wrong. And for this pilot, obviously, he or she never wants to lose an aircraft. But the fact that it went down in an area and it looks like it's in an area not in a residential area, not near homes or a freeway or busy streets, which is exactly what they try to do if something looks like is wrong with the aircraft and they know they have to eject. So that is kudos to the pilot right there.

LIN: But it appears that there is smoke coming up from that ravine.

PHILLIPS: Right so more than likely that is where the aircraft is. That is where the aircraft crashed and went down. And that pilot is doing everything within those last couple of seconds with regard to altitude and speed and how to get that aircraft into a position where he or she can get out safely and not hurt anybody else.

But they train for this. They train intensely for this. A lot of these pilots have to eject. They come out of it fine, they just lose a very expensive aircraft. And Carol, Miramar as you know, used to be the Navy base. That's where "Top Gun" was based and that is where Tom Cruise made that F-14 famous and that base famous.

It's now, though, taken over by the marines so that's a marines and that's a marine F-18 that went down in that area right there. And as you reported, search and rescue immediately follows in a situation like this for a pilot. LIN: What are the chances of pilot's survival though because these planes go pretty fast and pretty furious?

PHILLIPS: Yes, they do. If -- and if you've ever seen the way they strap in and how they are hooked up to the ejection seat -- OK, we're seeing now, they're trying to put out the flames there from the aircraft.

They're in there so tight, Carol, they are locked in so tight so when they pull that ejection handle right in between their legs and they shoot out, at unbelievable speeds. I mean, the G-force is just incredible but with their helmet and the way they're strapped in and how they've learned to parachute once they release that seat, once they're airborne and they parachute down -- if you're going to eject, you're going to want to eject from a strike fighter.

LIN: Really?

PHILLIPS: Yes. It's pretty -- it's a very -- I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but it's a safe procedure to eject in many ways. There is always danger involved, but with the training and with the equipment, 90 plus percent of the time they come out without any issues.

LIN: Wow, look at the footprint though of that crash site and I don't see any plane debris. I just see smoke and fire and ash.

PHILLIPS: Yes. And you know, it's possible that when that aircraft went down, the debris spreads, it will be a pretty good size investigation. I mean, it will be a large area where they will try to piece together all of the parts. When it goes down fast and it goes down hard, you can just imagine the type of explosion and how that aircraft will spread pieces all over the place. And it's possible, too, that the pilot is quite a ways from that.

LIN: Right, I was going to ask you, yes, what the radius of the search area would be.

PHILLIPS: Yes, miles. Definitely, and, OK, we're being told, Carol, did you hear that?

LIN: No.

PHILLIPS: The radio -- all right. KFMB is reporting that crews got to the pilot and have him with them.

LIN: Great.

PHILLIPS: So that's the good news, which doesn't surprise me. That's usually what happens and it happens within minutes. They've got tracking devices.

LIN: I was going to say a signaling device on them.

PHILLIPS: Yes, they sure do, the pilot has a survival vest. He's got a radio in that survival vest, he has a number of ways to make contact. So more than likely, he ejected safely. He was able to radio in, tell of his location, tell everyone that he's OK and they went in for him.

I'm actually getting a little information right now, yes it says here -- this is from my source within the Navy saying the pilot ejected, apparently safely. It was a routine training mission there at the southern California range. And that is what is coming out from one of my sources there within the military.

LIN: Are you getting that fresh on your BlackBerry?

PHILLIPS: Yes, I am.

LIN: Excellent.

PHILLIPS: You got to love the BlackBerry.

LIN: Excellent. You know what? I got to love good sources.

PHILLIPS: All right, it looks like, here we go. I've got more for you. It looks like it's the sharp shooter's marine fleet replacement squadron. It was a single-seat aircraft. Unknown if it was an instructor or student flying that F-18, but it was VMFAT-101 marine fleet replacement squadron.

So we're working more information as we get it. Thanks to my sources there, keeping us informed. All right, Carol, live pictures coming from metro networks. We're going to take a quick break. Carol and I will stay on the story for you.

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