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U.S. Military Finds Hopeful Clues Of Missing Soldiers' In Remote Farming Village; Mexican Troops Wage Bloody Battles Drug Cartels Along U.S. Border, Violence Has Spread Into Texas.

Aired May 19, 2007 - 14:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR, CNN NEWSROOM: Hopeful news out of Iraq this hour. There are signs at least two of the three missing soldiers may still be alive. We've got the details straight ahead.
Also, it's the war next door. Mexican troops take on the drug cartels in a bloody battle, and it's happening just miles from the U.S. border.

Plus protecting our food supplies. Are terrorists targeting what American 's eat?

Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield and you are in the NEWSROOM.

One week after a deadly ambush in Iraq, new clues in the hunt for three U.S. soldiers missing since that attack. Military officials think at least two of them may still be alive. U.S. troops searching for the missing soldiers had detained some suspects who may have been involved in the ambush. CNN's Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre tells us what he's learned.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The U.S. military commanders believe at least two, and perhaps all three, of the missing soldiers are still alive and being held by an Al Qaeda affiliate group in Iraq, according to officials talking to CNN.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of this matter, said that the conclusion that at least two of the soldiers may be alive was based on evidence and clues that have been gathered in the week-long search that has been going on south of Baghdad.

That official also said in was some reason to believe that one of the missing soldiers may have died after capture, but stressed that there was no way to confirm that.

Another senior official said at least two of the suspects detained over the past week, part of the big roundup that's been going on, were believed to be directly responsible for the attack last Saturday and could provide, again, additional intelligence as interrogations continue.

The U.S. military confirmed on Friday that various military items had been recovered during the search that could provide clues to what happened to the soldiers. Including one official said, parts of a U.S. military uniform. But the military is urging a lot of caution here, saying that any potential evidence they found in the field is being tested for connection to the missing soldiers. And when they determined it to be definitely connected, then they say they'll be able to talk about it.

But while the search is going on, a lot of this information is extremely sensitive. But, again, U.S. military commanders believe that all the evidence points to the fact that at least two, and perhaps all threes, of the soldiers may still be alive, as the search enters its second week.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre there.

As military investigators sift through the evidence, the hunt for the three missing American s continues in Iraq. CNN's Arwa Damon has the latest from there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN INTL. CORRESPONDENT (on camera): It's day eight for the search for the missing soldiers. We're southwest of a Yusafia (ph) in these fields and farmlands with Charlie Company of the 123 Stryker Battalion.

They've finished up their mission and are now heading back. The mission was to clear that small farming village over there based on intelligence that there could be enemy activity, perhaps clues that would lead them to the kidnapped soldiers.

Now, there are forced to move through thee field and farmlands because the roads around here are in-lain with roadside bombs. It is incredibly hot. The men are very tired. In fact, within a few minutes of leaving the base, everyone was sweating through their uniforms, sweating through their boots.

Now, the Stryker Battalion was brought down here from Baghdad to help out the soldiers of the 2nd Brigade 10th Mountain Division, all of this part of the Army's effort to recover, no matter what, its missing men. Arwa Damon, CNN, near Yusafia (ph), Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: The three U.S. soldiers aren't the only American s missing in Iraq. The U.S. military says more than 20 U.S. servicemen and civilians are officially listed as missing. CNN's Hugh Riminton reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HUGH RIMINTON, CNN INTL. CORRESPONDENT (voice over): When news broke of the three U.S. soldiers seized south of Baghdad, it stabbed at the heart of Entifadh Quanbar (ph).

ENTIFADH QANBAR, UNCLE OF MISSING U.S. SOLDIER: I sat there for an hour, alone, memorizing like a flashback of what happened to us.

RIMINTON: Entifadh's nephew was the last U.S. soldier kidnapped in Iraq. Sergeant Achmed al Tai (ph) was seized last October. There has been just one ten-second glimpse of him since on an insurgent Web site.

For the family of Scott Speicher, there has been even less. The longest standing American on the missing list in Iraq he was a navy pilot shot down in the '91 Gulf War. Clues and rumors kept hope alive. When Saddam Hussein was toppled, CNN found MSS Speicher's initials carved into the wall of a prison where others spoke of an American captive. But there, the trail ran out.

Sergeant Matt Maupin was seized by insurgents early in this war.

KEITH MAUPIN, FATHER OF MISSING SOLDIER: We've never given up hope that Matt's alive and that they will find him. We keep pushing issues that they're not going to leave him in Iraq like they did those guys in Vietnam.

(on camera): Not just soldiers but journalists, aid workers, contractors, even a tourist have been taken hostage in Iraq. Iraqis have been kidnapped themselves in their thousands, usually for quick ransom.

(Voice over): But American s are the highest prize, according to the man who set up the U.S. embassy's Hostage Working Group.

DAN O'SHEA, FMR. U.S. HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR: The danger level for and American, without question is the highest.

RIMINTON: Dan O'Shea has worked on hundreds of cases in Iraq. The toughest are always with Al Qaeda or its associates.

O'SHEA: I mean, these people, they don't negotiate. That's what we have to understand. The option for these soldiers is what, you know, is the option generally for Americans that we're going to rescue you.

RIMINTON: Entifadh Qanbar still believes his nephew's American uniform is his strongest asset.

QANBAR: In a strange way, maybe it is positive, because he became valuable, and becoming valuable, you will keep your life, but you never know.

RIMINTON: Hugh Riminton, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Then there's this story: She fell in love with the wrong boy. For that she died a horrible death. Now human rights groups are demanding justice, a story you won't forget, 10 minutes away in the NEWSROOM.

Next, armed gangs attacking towns. Officials assassinated in broad daylight. This isn't Iraq. This is Mexico. What's going on and will it spill over in to the U.S. border?

And coming up, at 2:30 Eastern, gunfire and explosions aren't the only potential tools for terrorists. We'll look at the threat to the food supply. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: The border town of Naco, Arizona on high alert this weekend. Rumors are flying that drug cartel violence could spill over the border from Mexico. The fear, after dozens of gunmen raided a police station near the border.

A number of Mexican officers killed and kidnapped, and during the week, Naco puts its only school on lockdown. For a while, Mexican authorities banned cars from entering Mexico. People on the U.S. side had to abandon their vehicles and walk across. The drug cartel battles this week centered in the Mexican town of Cananea as well. Here is CNN's Casey Wian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Just 20 miles south of the Arizona border, the deadliest battle, so far, in Mexico's war against the drug cartels that control much of the country. Twenty-two people in this Sanoran (ph) town Cananea are dead after a federal troops stormed a ranch Wednesday; 15 drug cartel members, five policemen and two civilians.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We find ourselves terrorized.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Very, very bad, it's a very peaceful town. We have never seen this here.

WIAN: But it's happening is throughout Mexico. In the capital Monday, gunmen assassinated Jose Lugo (ph), a top anti-narcotics official in the attorney general's office.

RICARDO NAJERA, MEXICAN ATTY. GENERAL'S OFFICE (through translator): We're working very hard to find out what's caused this violence and we hope to have a quick response to the situation.

WIAN: The Mexican government's response has been to deploy 24,000 federal troops to battle drug traffickers nationwide. Still, violence is escalating. Kidnapping occur regularly, including this week's abduction of a Mexican television news crew.

So far this year more tan 1,000 people have been killed by drug cartels, according to Mexican media reports. And the violence is spreading to U.S. border communities. The governors of Arizona and New Mexico wrote President Bush this week demanding more Border Patrol agents.

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D) NEW MEXICO: When there's an open border, with illegal flow of workers, it bleeds other bad people, like drug lords to take advantage of a porous border. And they're violent and they want to get their drug product in.

WIAN: The drug violence is even becoming entrenched in Mexican popular culture. Videos like these on YouTube set Nacro Caredo (ph) music to images of drugs, weapons and dead bodies. A celebration of the drug trafficking culture and the drug lord now battling for control of a third of Mexico state. Casey Wian, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Pretty frightening stuff.

Sean Holstege with me now from Phoenix to talk more about this drug-related violence in Mexico, spilling across into the Arizona border, potentially. He's a reporter for "The Arizona Republic."

So things have been bubbling up for a while just across the border in many Mexican towns just over the Texas and Arizona border.

So, why now, Sean, is there this fear that it's about to bubble right over the border and in to a nearby U.S. town?

SEAN HOLSTEGE, "ARIZONA REPUBLIC": Well, Fredricka, the officials on both sides of the borders have been talking about this escalating rivalry between the two main cartels that traffic drugs out of Mexico and into the United States. And those smuggling routes are becoming profitable and they're vying for those routes.

Officials will tell you that the Mexican government's crackdown with the troops you referred to in your setup piece, is having an affect on this side of the border. Our agents are saying their extra personnel, extra equipment is also putting a crimp on their style and that's why we're seeing this violence.

WHITFIELD: How on this side, the U.S. side, are Border Patrol of those various jurisdictions able to handle, if not the threat, but some of the occurrence of violence that is happening?

HOLSTEGE: Well, for now, most of the violence along the Arizona border has been restricted to the Mexican side of the border. In Texas, that's not been the case. It's gotten very violent around Laredo. The fear is that will spill over here.

For now, the extra Border Patrol, National Guard, are stemming that line, holding that line, and diverting a lot of the smuggling out into the desert.

WHITFIELD: I remember, not long ago, maybe within the last two years talking to a family members -- whose had a family member -- who was missing from Laredo, Texas. This kind of kidnapping, murders, this has been taking place for a while, as you say, on the Texas border.

Give me an idea who you understand many of the victims, too, have been in recent occurrences? Whether it is just inside the Mexican border or not.

HOLSTEGE: Sure. The escalation, as I said, sort of the beginning of this year and the end of last year. Essentially, we're talking about law enforcement officers like the ones kidnapped and killed in Cananea. There have police chiefs killed along the border. It think it's 12 chiefs in the last three years. And there are new reports, daily, coming out of Mexico.

Also journalists, Mexico is now reached the horrible distinction of being the second most violent country for journalists after Iraq. Three times as many killings as in Colombia last year, according to Reporters Without Borders. So the cartels are seeking to silence the people who get in the way of the trade.

WHITFIELD: So, what about you? Are you at all fearful? You're reporting right there along the border on thee very stories, even though you're on the Arizona side. How much do you fear about your life?

HOLSTEGE: When I'm in Arizona I no fears at all. It's still pretty safe. Of course, the potential for anything to happen is always out there. I was on a tracking mission the other day, and we found a big bundle of -- of a cache of marijuana. Fortunately, nobody with a gun attached to it, but there's no guarantee of that.

In Mexico, you know, if you're a reporter in Mexico you really need to watch your back, and threats are coming in frequently.

WHITFIELD: Looking at just some of the videotape, to the right, whether it's a shots of the wall, or border patrol, et cetera, we also saw some video tape, very gruesome details about some of the crime scenes. And we learned (ph) a lot of this violence is very gruesome. It's not just your ordinary shootings. Not that that's not gruesome enough, in and of itself.

HOLSTEGE: Well, that's exactly right. That's why some Mexican, high Mexican officials this week, began to used word Colombia, likened the situation to Colombia. Many of these law enforcement officers have been beheaded, many of them have had gang insignia carved to their bodies, when they're dumped. These are signs that were prevalent in the drug wars in Colombia.

And I think you're going to see more and more discussion about reaching out from Mexico to the United States for extra help and assistance in dealing with it.

WHITFIELD: Sean Holstege of the "Arizona Republic" thanks so much for sharing the story and doing some very courageous reporting.

HOLSTEGE: Thank you. You're welcome.

WHITFIELD: Thanks so much.

Well, a young woman killed as an approving crowd simply looks on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That people could stand by and see such an atrocious act committed, and take no action. I mean, that's complicity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: So, who is responsible? And what can be done? Horrific story when the NEWSROOM continues.

And later, he is one of the most famous music producers ever, but Phil Spector is facing publicity of a far more damning kind. Our legal experts look at his murder trial coming up 30 minutes from now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: In Iraq, a young girl falls in love, and pays for it with her life. Four people arrested now for her brutal death, a killing captured by cell phone cameras. We warn you, the images are disturbing. Here's CNN's Phil Black.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): We don't know much about Duhal Khalil (ph), this 17-year-old girl from Iraq's Kurdish region. But we're told that she ignored local custom and fell in love with a boy from a different religion. This was her punishment.

As security forces look on, she is dragged from her home. Reports from the region say many men participated in stoning her. And many others stood by and watched. No one appears to help, but many are seen capturing the moment on their cell phone cameras.

HOUZAN MAHMOUD, ORG. OF WOMEN'S FREEDOM IN IRAQ: How a young girl is going through so much pain, and so many men are actually enjoying her being killed in public in such brutal way?

BLACK: Duhal was a member of the Azeti (ph) religious sect, which generally does not approve with mixing with people outside the faith. Her crime was falling in love with a Sunni Muslim boy. This story of young love that had horrific violence, inspired a vigil in London's Trafalgar Square.

A was a so-called honor killing, they're considered common through Iraqi and parts of the Middle East, especially the Kurdish region. But an Iraqi female rights activist says this one was different. It was a very public murder.

MAHMOUD: It's new in nature in Kurdistan or in Iraq, generally speaking, but in reality, this tells us a lot, that the climate, the political and social climate, is such that people can do that in daylight, and that authorities do not intervene.

BLACK (on camera): The Kurdish regional government changed laws that were sympathetic to honor killings in 2002. But here in London Amnesty International's world headquarters says this incident confirms something they've long known. There remains a powerful cultural sympathy, and that means women are still dying, and little is done to prosecute those responsible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people could stand by and see such an atrocious act, and take no action. I mean, that's complicity.

BLACK (voice over): Complicity in the murder of a teenaged girl, who dared to choose who she loved. Phil Black, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: That is that is hard to watch.

Yanar Mohammed is director of the Organization of Women's Freedoms in Iraq. She joins me now from Toronto.

Good to see you. We said leading into the piece that four people have been arrested, but how hopeful are you that they would actually be prosecuted?

YANAR MOHAMMED, ORG. OF WOMEN'S FREEDOM IN IRAQ: Well, this is only to answer to the international campaign that we, and other women, have launched.

Otherwise, we have witnessed in Iraq in the last few years hundreds of honor killings where the killer goes to the court of law and the judge almost salutes him, or almost says thank you to him for cleansing the society from these evils women that were not chaste.

WHITFIELD: We have seen more of these cases in recent years than in previous years, and what's the timetable you're talking about?

MOHAMMED: After the war on Iraq, the number of honor killings rose to, I would say, 20 times as much as it was before. But in this last year, it is hard to keep count anymore, because Islamist militia are doing them and sometimes as part of sectarian reprisal. All they need to do is to write on the door of a house, that this is a whore house and next day all females of that house are killed, just for the mere reason they are from another sect.

So, honor killing is not a matter of one family or one tribe now. It is a statement who are committing it, who are managing it, and they are cleansing the society from women who they assume are -- have been dishonorable.

WHITFIELD: So, you certainly --

MOHAMMED: It's partly the war on --

WHITFIELD: Yes, you see this as an extension of the sectarian violence?

MOHAMMED: But then again, that's not the only one. In the last few years I would say from 2004 on, we have received hundreds of reports of women who have been chopped to pieces, who have been sawn apart, their bodies have been cut apart by their killers who are either their brothers or their fathers.

And, you know, the article in law that protects them is still there. We've been speaking out for four years after this occupation. That's many of the articles have been changed, of de-Baathification, of other political issues, but where are the human rights? Nobody listens to us. It seems that they were given priority to the tribals, to the Islamists but never to women.

So they have pushed us ...

WHITFIELD: So, you and your organization, organizations like yours, are feeling very powerless. What is the state of affairs? It's not just Iraq. We have heard of honor killings, and we know of honor killings taking place in a lot of other countries, which are embraced by various communities, which are sometimes embraced by the family, because of, as you outlined -- you know, religious doctrines. So how do you police? How do you get rid of? How do you get to the root of solving, eradicating this problem?

MOHAMMED: Yeah, but it we want to look at things in context in Iraq, in the -- one or two decades ago, there was absolutely no stoning. Honor killing was almost diminishing. Women had their economic independence. Nobody could speak to them, but before all the political turbulence that was forced on Iraq, because of the new democracy that was imposed in Iraq, where the upper hand was given to Islamists and to tribals, this is why we are witnessing honor killings.

But what we can do about them? We should start with the legislation. We should cancel the article that allows it, and the whole government is an Islamist and tribal one, ethnic one. How can they protect women's rights? It's very hard at this moment. We will keep on campaigning. We will keep on imposing a human rights agenda on this government. And we -- we hope that we will be getting somewhere.

WHITFIELD: So sad, and so depressing, too. Yanar Mohammed, thanks so much. President of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq.

IEDs and dirty bombs are the weapons that spring to mind when talking about terrorism. But what about carrots? How about apples? A look at the threat of food terrorism, next in the NEWSROOM.

He says he's a simple religious student. The U.S. government says he aided terrorists. Our legal experts dive into the case against Jose Padilla. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Happening right now, new details in the search for three American soldiers missing in Iraq. The top U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, tells the "Army Times" he believes, he knows who kidnapped the men, an insurgent leader with too ties to al Qaeda and that at least two of the soldiers are still alive.

Right now an all-out search for the soldiers goes on. They disappeared a week ago when their team was ambushed.

In North Florida now in this country, firefighters are still battling a big wildfire in this country. They are reporting some progress. Right now the blaze is about 70 percent contained. It has scorched more than 120,000 acres. Let's check in with Jacqui Jeras, where the focus all week, dry, dry, dry, dry weather, it has not helped. It is also windy, too, for all the firefighter efforts?

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah. Bad today.

WHITFIELD: Some good news on the horizon, maybe?

JERAS: Not today. Certainly not today.

And today the winds are the biggest problem along with that dry air. The dry air is going to stick around a couple days but the wind is going to lighten up. But unfortunately even though the wind is getting lighter, the temperatures are getting hotter.

So we have all of these elements playing in to the mix here and overall it spells not good for the fire. Still ongoing here in parts of Florida and on in to Georgia. The storm prediction center issues this critical fire danger area today which does include that Bugaboo fire which means that the relative humidity is extremely low.

In fact, I checked the conditions in Lake City just a few moments ago and the winds coming out of the northeast gusting up to 21 miles per hour. So that's really not good. And those winds could gust a little stronger, the next couple of hours will be really critical here and extreme fire growth is going to be possible today. So hopefully they can get good progress going on there.

High pressure, that's the big dominating feature here in driving in those winds. And the air mass with the high pressure is extremely dry for this time of year. Doesn't happen all that often.

Now the northeastern corridor, the exact opposite is going on. We've got a lot of wet weather to talk about here. The showers are pushing on in. Just a few sprinkles around the Boston area, we'll take into you New York City. The rain is relatively light but it's overcast. It's really keeping your temperatures down a lot here across the northeastern corridor.

Flight delays really very minimal at this hour but possible throughout the afternoon, and look at your temperatures here in the 50s. We should be looking at upper 60s to low 70s for this time of the year.

Tomorrow fire conditions do improve a little across the southeastern corner. And we have an approaching frontal system coming in out of the Rockies and across the Great Basin here. This will be the critical fire area for tomorrow across parts of Nevada into Utah and Northern Arizona. Still have that fire going on in the Payson area. Could see some isolated thunderstorm there's tomorrow afternoon.

Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much, Jacqui. Jacqui, perhaps you were among many who thought the pet food recall thing was behind us, done. Well, now it's expanded and it includes several more products made by Shanango Valley Pet Foods. Expert say the expanding recall list may be the latest sign of how vulnerable the nation's food supply really is.

CNN's Josh Levs is here with a reality check. So it's not just dogs and cats anymore but some of our other house pets, too.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's growing. Don't you start to feel like you can't possibly follow all this you? Like you need some just constantly updated list right in front of your refrigerator before you eat?

WHITFIELD: I know. It's frightening.

LEVS: I know. It's a lot. It's a lot. And you know what happened is amid all these reports, I started thinking about something we have reported on in the past. That's agro-terrorism. The idea, the fear some have that terrorist groups out there could purposefully infect the U.S. food supply potentially killing huge numbers of people.

So I started to look at what the government has done. And it turns out there's a report by the Department of Homeland Security that finds whatever was done, it's not enough.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEVS (voice-over): A stark warning came more than two years ago.

TOMMY THOMPSON, FORMER HHS SECRETARY: I for the life of me cannot understand (ph) why the terrorists have not you know, attacked our food supply. Because it is so easy to do.

LEVS: That triggered a flurry of concern about imports and foods grown here. Skip ahead to 2007. The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general finds that most experts called the U.S. food sector "highly vulnerable" to attack and the audit says security for food is "less intensive" than for other critical infrastructures.

So what's happened since Tommy Thompson's warning? The Government Accountability Office has cited progress. For example, agencies that oversee different kinds of food have coordinated with the Department of Homeland Security to increase protections and prepare a response plan.

The Food and Drug administration which oversees 80 percent the food supply, points to new government initiatives including this.

ANNOUNCER: The endless opportunities to intentionally contaminate our nation's food supply.

LEVS: ALERT, a food defense program training people at every point between the farm and your table. The FDA says some of the most likely terrorist targets are foods that require little processing, like milk and fresh produce and that precautions are helping make foods safe, but most imports and produce are uninspected.

And since 2003, the FDA has lost inspection staff.

Food safety experts like Jeff Nelken worry a terrorist could unleash a deadly illness could spread quickly through U.S. crops or cattle.

JEFF NELKEN, FOOD SAFETY ANALYST: Pretty much you can walk in and grab a hold of anything you'd like to grab a hold of.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEVS (on camera): And other serious questions about the FDA and also the USDA which oversees meat and poultry. A lot of people are question whether those federal agencies have enough resources a really authority for them to actually pull off all the types of security that people want to see them pull off?

WHITFIELD: So does that mean they are also in agreement, these federal agencies that our food really may be vulnerable?

LEVS: Not so much. It's interesting the way they're expressing it. I spoke with the FDA about this. They said that, well, what does highly vulnerable really mean? It's a subjective term. They said there are vulnerabilities. They insist that we have the safest food of any country in the entire world, but that yes they agree. There are some points along the system where the food is vulnerable.

But on the flip side, if you listen to the food safety activists, and if you also listen to some lawmakers out there, they're saying that, you know, it's much worse than a lot these government agencies are willing to let on. That tremendous work needs to be done. And what they say is look at the accidental poisonings, like we were talking about, pet food and other incidents. They say look what's happened by mistake. Given that, imagine what terrorists could pull off if they did this on purpose.

WHITFIELD: I'm still hung up on the what does vulnerable mean? What does vulnerable food mean? Hello. Do we get sick? Not good.

LEVS: Not good.

WHITFIELD: There's some vulnerability.

LEVS: They're arguing that that's always going to ...

WHITFIELD: What's to argue over that?

All right. Josh Levs, thanks so much.

LEVS: Yeah. Thanks.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, CNN's SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT presents "Danger: Poison Food." Dr. Sanjay Gupta uncovers the truth about how tainted the food entering the U.S. food supply really is. That's tonight and tomorrow night at 8:00 Eastern.

Now, he was a -- OK. Well, we got some new news that we want to bring to you about the missing soldiers in Iraq. Our Arwa Damon is embedded there with the Mountain Division and she joins us on the phone right now from Yusifiyah.

Oh, they're actually videophone. What do you have for us Arwa?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, I'm actually joined by the battalion commander here, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Infante, he the commander of the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment. That is the battalion that the victims of Saturday's ambush are from. Colonel, you believe that your soldiers are still alive. Why?

LT. COL. MICHAEL INFANTE, U.S. ARMY: Ma'am I believe they're alive. I haven't seen anything that would tell me they're not. I haven't seen anything that really would tell me they are, but our experiences over here are when the bad guys come up with something, they put it out right away. They have not. It's been going on seven, or a little over seven days now. So I'm going with the fact that they're still alive.

DAMON: And based on all this information you've been gathering from informants, detainees, you've been able to piece together pretty much what happened, who was involved behind Saturday's ambush. What details can you give us on that?

INFANTE: Our experience in dealing with these al Qaeda guys and the Islamic State guys is they'll get locals, they'll pay them to be the action guys on the objective. They won't risk themselves. They'll be behind them. Sometimes up to a kilometer back.

They probably brought some of them in, got them in position, turned around and once the execution of the attack took place, they're usually the first ones to run. They don't know how it's going to turn out. They don't want to risk themselves. They'll risk the locals for maybe a couple hundred dollars or something like that. So they were probably behind the attack, yes. I do agree with that, as far as executing it or pulling the triggers, no. They don't have enough guts to do that.

DAMON: Now, you found pieces of uniforms, bits of equipment, in various different sites. What can you tell us that?

INFANTE: What we found was, you know, was the soldiers' equipment from the attack. Some of it was torn. We recovered it all. We policed up the site. Recovered all the remains. Sterilized the site, and that's all been sent back for testing back in the States. So I haven't seen any results on all of that stuff yet. But we didn't leave anything out there.

DAMON: Now on Sunday, the Islamic State of Iraq, the umbrella group that is largely led and formed by al Qaeda, put out a statement say that you should call off the search for your missing soldiers. What is your reaction to that?

INFANTE: Number one, no. I mean, we don't leave anybody behind. They -- personally, they made a mistake. Because we're not stopping. I can tell you right now these guys ain't going to sleep. When they go to bed at night before they go to sleep they better look under their bed and check sure there ain't no Polar Bears under there. Because we're coming after them. I'll tell you that right now.

DAMON: Well, Fredricka, there you have it. That is the update. The search still ongoing in all of its intensity. The men of the 10th Mountain Division backed up by a number of other units coming down here from Baghdad. Everyone here, as you just heard, vowing that they go will find these three kidnapped soldiers no matter what.

WHITFIELD: And Arwa, once again, what's the response in response to General Petraues who is saying they go do know who may be responsible for this abduction?

DAMON: Well, Fredricka, there's a number of theories, in fact I was speaking earlier Colonel Infante who told me that there are two main al Qaeda leaders that operate in this area pretty much vying for control.

Perhaps it could be that one of them is behind this attack. Again, this is still an ongoing operation. A lot of intelligence has yet to come together. But one thing that is known is that this area is an al Qaeda stronghold. The group does operate here, it does have a fair amount of support amongst the local population.

It is greatly, strongly, the belief that they are behind this attack. In terms of specific individuals, there are a number of leads that are being followed at this point.

WHITFIELD: Arwa Damon, thanks so much. From Yusifiyah and that update.

Well, he says he is a simple religious student, but the U.S. government, well, they say he aided terrorists. Our legal experts dive in to the case against Jose Padilla.

And up a creek without a paddle, scientists trying to help a pair of whales. Can they get back to the ocean? The whales that is. We'll check with the rescue effort.

You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: He was originally accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb in the U.S. and was held as an enemy combatant. Now Jose Padilla is on trial charged with supporting Islamist extremists.

Prosecutors say Padilla attended an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. He says he's just a Muslim who wanted to study his religion overseas. So does the government have a good case against Padilla and his two co-defendants?

Avery Friedman is a civil rights attorney and law professor, good to see you Avery. And Richard Herman is a New York criminal defense attorney and law professor. Good to see you as well, Richard. RICHARD HERMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Hi, Fred.

WHITFIELD: So Richard, let me begin with you. So is this a pretty solid case against Padilla? Because it certainly has evolved over time.

HERMAN: Well, Fred, just because the prosecutor in the opening mentions al Qaeda 5,000 times doesn't mean ...

WHITFIELD: Ninety-one to be exact, I hear.

HERMAN: It doesn't mean there is a connection with this guy to al Qaeda. They found an application that apparently had his fingerprints on the top and bottom page, that was first analyzed in 2006, and based upon this document, with different ink on it, by the way, also. So this is the link. This is the main document that they're going to link him with al Qaeda.

Look, if he's involved with al Qaeda, he should burn bad. They've got have more evidence than. Because this is life sentence for this guy if convicted.

WHITFIELD: Proving it is indeed the challenge, Avery. And we're talking about a case with legs. I mean it's been years since capturing him and then trying to now bring him to trial and here we are no now, but do you feel anymore solid about the government's case against him?

AVERY FRIEDMAN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Wow. I think this has ban great week for the prosecution, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Yeah?

FRIEDMAN: That application? Absolutely. The interesting thing about if want to get in there and practice jihad, holy war, be one of the warriors, you have to get to Pakistan, climb the mountains and just like you're going to the license bureau, you've got to fill out an application. That's exactly what this defendant did. It's a five- pager, and ...

WHITFIELD: But there's no crime against that. There is no crime against traveling to Pakistan ...

FRIEDMAN: No. Not at all. Not at all.

WHITFIELD: ... or climbing the mountains in Afghanistan.

FRIEDMAN: That's exactly right.

WHITFIELD: How do you make the correlation? How do they do that?

FRIEDMAN: Because it is his application. The evidence is going to show that it's his application and, in fact, this week they had another witness named Yaya Goba (ph). That name may not sound familiar, but he was one of the Lackawanna six and explained after he was convicted about how the application process works. Now remember, we're still at the beginning of the trial. So we've got a while to go, but the government is doing it exactly right by building the base to connect that application to show that in indeed this individual, Jose Padilla, was intending to practice jihad, holy war against people like Americans.

WHITFIELD: Here's the worry, I guess, Richard. That these cases involving alleged terrorism don't necessarily have a great track record. I mean, we talk about the Lackawanna Six and there are other cases, too, where the government wasn't able to get the kind of success they pursued in the first place. What's the problem?

HERMAN: Fred, you're absolutely right. In the trial of these cases the government has a very low winning percentage. All of the convictions are coming from plea agreements that are being taken. And this guy that Avery refers to, that Lackawanna Six guy, he pled guilty, is facing 10 years and is coming in to tell the jury in this particular case, the judge, that listen, I filled out the same kind of application. That must mean that this guy committed a conspiracy to wreak overseas and kill and maim and torture people ...

FRIEDMAN: That isn't what he's doing.

HERMAN: It is ridiculous, Fred. They've got to have more evidence of this. It's early in the case, but they better have more than this because otherwise ...

WHITFIELD: Avery. Go ahead, finish your sentence.

HERMAN: I'm sorry.

WHITFIELD: OK. So Avery, it sounds like Richard is saying, at the very least, at least that witness has a credibility problem?

FRIEDMAN: Well, yeah. Because he obviously had to concede on cross-examination that he'd like to shave a little bit of that 10-year time off his sentence. But his testimony is critical. In terms of back on, this case is going in to August. We're just seeing the beginning. So the government is doing it exactly right. Actually, that opening statement was a great part of the government's case.

They did, in fact, talk about al Qaeda 91 times. There is a lot more evidence to go, but the way they've started the case off, Fredricka, has been absolutely brilliant.

HERMAN: But to prove - to get a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, you got to do an inordinate and inflame the jury with using al Qaeda. They've got to have some guts to it.

FRIEDMAN: Absolutely.

WHITFIELD: So like you said, Avery, it's just the beginning.

All right. Well, Avery and Richard, we want you to stick around. We're going to talk some more. Never mind. I'm told that's been quashed. So you guys ... FRIEDMAN: Phil Spector maybe next week.

WHITFIELD: Maybe next week. So I guess we'll let you go, soon, early.

HERMAN: Phil Spector will still be on next week.

WHITFIELD: It will be. We'll still have lots to talk about. All right Richard and Avery, have a great weekend.

HERMAN: Bye, Fred, thank you.

WHITFIELD: OK. Well, she told 23 kids that if they graduated high school, she would pay to send them to college. That's incredible all by itself, but the way that Oral Lee Brown fulfilled her pledge is what make herself indeed a hero. Her story next in the NEWSROOM.

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WHITFIELD: Get used to it. All year long, CNN is shining spotlights on some very special people. Each an example of how a single individual can turn their personal vision for a better world in to action. We call them "CNN Heroes." Today we want you to meet an extraordinary woman who is helping low-income families solve a problem all parents face. The increasing costs of college. Her name is Oral Lee Brown.

And the way she fulfilled a promise is what makes her today's "CNN Hero."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ORAL LEE BROWN, "CHAMPIONING CHILDREN": These are our kids. We should at least take them to a position in their life that they can lead their way. And they can't do it without an education.

An education can get you everything you want. You can go everywhere you want to go. It's the way out of the ghettos, bottom line.

CLASS: Good morning Mrs. (inaudible).

YOLANDA PEEK, FORMER SCHOOL PRINCIPAL: She says, give me your first graders who are really struggling and are most needy. I want to adopt the class, and I want to follow the class until they graduate from high school, and she says that she was going to pay their college tuition.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many are going to college?

BROWN: At the time I was making I think $45,000, $46,000 a year. So I committed $10,000 to the kids. I grew up in Mississippi. I lived off of two dollars a day. That's what we got. Two dollars a day for picking cotton. So I really feel I was blessed from God.

So I cannot pay him back, but these kids are his kids. These kids are, some of them are poor like I was.

LAQUITA WHITE, FORMER STUDENT: When you have that mentor like Ms. Brown, a very strong person, you can't go wrong, because she's on you constantly every day, what are you doing? How are you doing?

BROWN: The world doubted us. I was told that lady, you cannot do it. I would say you know what? These kids are just like any other kid. The only thing that they don't have the love and they don't have the support.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They called me yesterday told me I was accepted.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, good for you!

BROWN: You're looking at doctors, lawyers and one president of the United States.

When you give a kid an education, and they get it up here, nobody or nothing can take it away.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And that's just the beginning. There's a lot more to learn about Oral Lee Brown and her foundation on our Web site. You can also nominate your hero for special recognition later on in the year. Just go to cnn.com/heroes.

A pair of humpback whales not budging from their new watery home. We'll see where scientists' rescue efforts stand as they try to lure the creatures back to the ocean. That's next in the NEWSROOM.

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WHITFIELD: So what now for the wrong way whales? Well. It's on now to plan B. Try to annoy them. The mislocated mammals are 90 miles up the Sacramento River. Rescuers played whale sounds to true to lure them to sea. That didn't work. It's as if the whales covered their ears and went, la, la, la, la, la!

Well, next week marine experts will try banging and clanging metal and hopefully that will scare them out of the river. They hope to badger the whales so much until they hit the road, so to speak.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN Center. When THE NEWSROOM returns at 4:00 p.m., we look at a special program for soldiers returning from war. We head to the Bahamas to profile underwater soldiers. That's at 4:00 p.m. But coming up next, big questions about how the universe came to be and how we got here. Science says one thing, the Bible says another. Can the two coexist? We explore what is a Christian, that's next on the CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT.

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