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Missing Soldiers in Iraq; U.S. Troops Dead in Iraq; Rebuilding Iraq; Vice President Address to West Point; Hero Mile; Warrior One; High Gas Prices; Texas Floodwaters; Dry Florida Everglades; Humpback Whales in Sacramento River; Buffalo, New York Skyline
Aired May 26, 2007 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Straight ahead this hour -- rebuilding Iraq. We'll take you to the battle-scarred streets of Ramadi, the former center of Iraq's insurgency and show how U.S. forces are turning rubble into construction -- reconstruction.
And coming up in 30 minutes, Warrior One for All: the story behind the overhaul and auction of CNN's Hummer.
This Memorial Day weekend we're focusing on pride, sacrifice, and service, honoring those who gave their all for this nation.
It is Saturday May 26th, I'm Fredricka Whitfield and you're in the NEWSROOM.
The search for two missing U.S. soldiers in Iraq enters week three this weekend. Thousands of American troops are hunting for the missing soldier south of Baghdad. In a so-called triangle of death, they detained nearly two dozen people yesterday for questioning. Specialist Alex Jimenez and Byron Fouty were believed to have been capture in an ambush. Four others U.S. soldiers were found dead at the scene. The body of a third missing soldier was discovered later.
Meanwhile three more U.S. troops are dead in Iraq. The military says a soldier was killed by an improvised bomb south of Baghdad. Another solar died from small arms fire during an operation in Baghdad province. And a marine was killed in a noncombat related incident in Anbar province.
A big part of the battle is to rebuild Iraq. That's the challenge now for U.S. Forces in Ramadi. CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson takes us on a tour with troops in the battle-scarred city.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAPT IAN BROOKS, U.S. MARINE CORPS: You can see where they're starting to clear out right now. This is actually the sewer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)
BROOKS: Yes sir.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Raw sewage, putrefies in the road, Ramadi's battle-scarred streets have become a graveyard for the city's services.
BROOKS: This was all sewage but we also swept and got as much of this up as possible.
ROBERTSON: Marine Captain Ian Brook says these few blocks are typical.
BROOKS: When have you neglect for four year, this is what happens.
ROBERTSON: Sewage, electricity, water, all took a pounding as troops and insurgents slugged it out for control of the city. When the fighting stopped several weeks ago, more than 90 percent of Ramadi was without water and electricity.
(on camera): This is what's left of the high power electricity cable feeding Ramadi it connected to the national grid. And if you look up there, you can see where the power lines were broken down by the insurgents. The effort is now on to get the lines connected again. Contractors have already been in to assess what's needed.
(voice-over): U.S. forces have already earmarked more than $10 million to fix the city. No project is too small.
CWO ERIC STRAUSE, U.S. MARINE CORPS: Right now, (INAUDIBLE) electricity is all the neighbors around do have generators that we go around and put fuel in and they run off that.
ROBERTSON: Officers across Ramadi are spending fast.
LT JOHN HOOD, U.S. ARMY: This clinic that you're looking at right here, painted blue, didn't even exist two months ago. So, the locals have clinic of their own they can go to now.
ROBERTSON: Hood also pays local laborers $10 a day to clear trash. Across the city, trucks paid for by the U.S. haul away rubble. Sewage contractors turned in these photographs to prove their job well done. Speed is key, get the city back to normal, keep al Qaeda from returning.
HOOD: The reason it fits right in with the counterinsurgency mindset, win the heart and minds of the people and they will follow you.
ROBERTSON: But the task is huge. Bigger projects take week, if not longer to get approved. Some sectors of the city, like others, have had no clean-up, no electricity repairs. In his neighborhood, Marine Captain Brooks is flushed with success, even though he was shot his first day, he still says he's achieved more in his first month than he expected during his entire deployment.
BROOKS: In the long run, I'm looking at getting 189 marines back home alive and safe and hopefully with all of this going this way we can do that.
ROBERTSON: Spend now, short on the war, save later. It's a lesson hard learned after the failures in the early days of the war.
Nic Robertson, CNN, Ramadi, Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Money for Iraq will continue to flow. President Bush signed a $120 billion war funding bill last night. No strings attached. All but about $25 billion is earmarked for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rest for domestic spending. Democrats dropped their insistence on withdrawal timetables for troops to avoid another presidential veto.
Iraq war a major scene in Vice President Dick Cheney's address today to West Point graduates, many of whom will likely serve in Iraq. Cheney assured the crowd the U.S. Army will have all the equipment, training and support essential for victory.
Nine-hundred seventy-eight cadets graduated from the U.S. military academy in New York. They are now second lieutenants in the U.S. Army. Hats off to them.
Like many Americans, this Memorial Day weekend, Bonnie Schneider is away from home, she's helping us raise money for wounded veterans at the Blossom Time Festival in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, where CNN's Warrior One is also on display, right there, proudly behind her.
Bonnie, so how is the weather and what's the turnout like?
BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, the turnout's incredible, Fredericka, lots of people. You know, we got here this morning, we didn't know what to expect and boy the people are just coming in and enjoying the festival. It goes straight through the weekend. It's put on by the Chagrin Valley Jaycees. They're doing a wonderful job.
Behind me, of course, is our CNN Hummer. We've been showing you war we are one throughout the morning. And I tell you, it's one thing to see it on TV, but it's another to see it up close and personal and think about where this vehicle has been and how badly it was damaged in 2003 when it was actually shuttling around the CNN crews in Iraq. Overhauled and a great work done there, so some really great work done there by the overhauling crew at TLC.
(WEATHER REPORT)
Well, we are here in beautiful Chagrin Falls and now I'm joined by a group of kids.
OK, come on. We practice that. OK, now kids, I know you've been really impressed by the Hummer. So Amy, what do you think of it?
AMY: I think it's really creative that they put all the people in there. And I really think it's really good.
SCHNEIDER: Great, we're so glad that you had a chance to take look at it. Now, Mitch I understand that you're concerned about the gas mileage.
MITCH: Well, yeah because gas mileage has gone up, the prices, and really needs to lower because a lot of people are going to smaller vehicles and so not a lot of Hummers on the road lately.
SCHNEIDER: What grade are you in?
MITCH: Seventh.
SCHNEIDER: So are you smarter than a seventh grader?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And fourth.
SCHNEIDER: And fourth. OK, McKenzie what do you think about it?
MCKENZIE: Well, I think they're really good at when they made this, all the bullet holes are gone and they put TVs in it.
SCHNEIDER: Yeah they did. There's four LCD-TVs in there playing the same loop of the overhaul, and showing everything that the Hummer has been through. So, even the kids like it. And we're so glad you're out here today not getting wet and enjoying the beautiful festival here Chagrin Falls, Ohio -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right, clever kids enjoying Warrior One as it makes its way across the country showing off its goods. All right, Bonnie Schneider, thanks so much.
SCHNEIDER: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: Well, this Memorial Day weekend, turn your frequent flyer miles into Hero Miles. Fisher House will use those miles to transport service men and women wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families to treatment centers around the country.
It's so simple, you just go fisherhouse.org, donate your frequent flyer miles this weekend and participating airlines will match your contribution.
Are you complaining about high gas prices? Straight ahead for the first time in two weeks, some good news about how much it's costing you to fill up at the pump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At this time of year, normally, what I would find would be at least half a foot of water over this area and we would be surrounded by wading birds.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: But there are no birds and no water. A look at the dangerous drought conditions in south Florida. Plus -- those two lost whales are still wandering aimlessly near San Francisco. How marine scientists are trying to lure them back to sea now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: So, this is what Memorial Day weekend looks like in Ocean City, Maryland. This is an official place of the unofficial or should we say official summer kickoff season. Lots of folks there at the beach, Ocean City, Maryland, probably enjoying the boardwalk as well. Maybe a little Ferris wheel at the end, and of course the traditional flavor and smell of the peanut oil French fries. I've spent a lot of my summers there in Ocean City, Maryland, growing up.
Well, gas prices at record levels. And that's not stopping Americans from putting the pedal to the metal this Memorial Day weekend, no. AAA says 38 million people in the U.S. will travel 50 miles or more over the holiday weekend and most of them will drive. That's almost a 2 percent increase from Memorial Day last year.
And if you are hitting the road, here's what you'll find at the pump, an average price of $3.22 for a gallon of self-serve regular. That's just a slight dip from yesterday, but 36 cents higher than a month ago.
Severe weather taking a deadly toll on parts of the country this holiday weekend, at least five deaths are reported in central Texas where floodwaters are rising there, two of the victim, children. Search crews are still looking for a missing man who was swept away by the high water. The threat of more flooding is in the forecast for much of Texas throughout the Memorial Day weekend.
And then there's this, some incredible scenes from this week's severe weather in the nation's midsection. This I-Report video of a major hail storm was shot by one of our viewers in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.
In much of the southeast, a complete flip-side, a desperate need for rain, one area that is feeling the impact of the dry weather, the Florida Everglades, the River of Grass. Here's CNN's John Zarrella.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In some spots, the water was more than a foot deep. Seven inches of rain fell on parts of Miami this past weekend, but rain needed to fall over Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, primary sources of water for five million people. None did.
(on camera): This is bad, about as bad as you've seen it?
FRED SKLAR, SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT DIST.: Just about, yes.
ZARRELLA (voice over): We flew over the Everglades water conservation areas with Fred Sklar, a chief scientist for the area.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks great, doesn't it?
ZARRELLA: In places, the River of Grass is barely a trickle. The brown and white patches below are completely dried up.
SKLAR: At this time of year, normally what I would find would be at least half a foot of water over this area, and we would be surrounded by wading birds.
ZARRELLA: There are no birds, no water. During most dry seasons, 600 million gallons of water a day would be pumped from this area eastward to coastal well fields. There, it would help keep fresh water flowing. This year, with no water to pump, the fields are being shut down to prevent saltwater intrusion.
An even bigger concern out here is fire.
SKLAR: This could go up at any minute.
ZARRELLA: The ground is not dirt, but organic material, 100 years of decomposed vegetation. A fire out here in this peat could last weeks. There are already fires burning along the fringes of the glades. You could see them as you drive along Alligator Alley, where forestry crews are setting backfires to keep the flames from reaching the road.
John Zarrella, CNN in the Florida Everglades.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Meantime residents in a south Florida neighborhood are saying "later gators" after two big gators are pulled from a neighborhood lake.
And two whales strand in a California river, why rescue efforts to save the whales could include spraying them with fire hoses.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: In California, a couple of wayward whales is getting a breather this weekend. Marine scientists trying to coax the mother and calf back into the Pacific Ocean will wait now until Tuesday to resume their work. Spraying the whales with fire hoses yesterday didn't exactly do the trick. The animals did swim away, but only far enough in order to go around the hose and the boat. The solution -- more boats, a fleet will be rolled out on Tuesday. The humpback whales are injured probably from a boat's propeller. They apparently took a wrong turn when they entered the San Francisco Bay, traveling 90 miles inland up the Sacramento River instead. Now trying to get back them back on course.
See ya later alligators. Some Florida residents are trying to use their lakes again now that a pair of alligators is no longer on the loose. A famed trapper caught the eight foot female and 10 foot male gator. The pair had taken up residence in a neighborhood canal in Miami Lake, Florida. Hopefully they have a new home now.
The skyline of Buffalo, New York, a bit different this morning. A vacant medical tower, well, much more vacant now and no longer towering. It's crashing down there in the cloud of dust. The 14- story tower was imploded to make way for a new medical complex. It was the scene of a big anti-abortion protest 15 years ago, as well.
The desperate search to find two missing soldiers in Iraq, the latest on the intense search efforts to find these two men who disappeared two weeks ago today.
On this Memorial Day weekend, a special look at Warrior One, the former CNN Hummer used in Iraq and how the proceeds from its sale went to the Fisher House, a place that helps injured men and women returning from war. That's straight ahead in our next half hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Now going on three weeks and still no sign of those two American soldiers missing in Iraq. Thousands of American forces are searching for the two men south of Baghdad in the so-called Triangle of Death. Specialist Alex Jimenez and Private Byron Fouty were believed to be captured in an ambush. CNN's Arwa Damon is with some of the troops searching for the men.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARWA DAMON, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: These soldiers of the 123 Stryker Battalion are just back from a mission that lasted 11 hours. Two companies air assaulted into an area about 11 miles south of Yusufiyah. This was an intelligence based operation, they were searching fish farms. What they found was about 3,000 pounds worth of explosives and ammunition. Much of that buried in 5 gallon drums.
In a separate operation, elements from the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment along with Iraqi army soldiers searched the banks of the Euphrates River about two miles south of where the May 12 attack took place. In that operation, they detained 22 individuals.
The U.S. military is saying they are systemically putting together the pieces of the puzzle to try to figure out exactly what happened and where the two remain kidnapped soldiers might be.
Arwa Damon, CNN, Yusufiyah, Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Meanwhile, three more U.S. troops are dead in Iraq. The military says a soldier was killed by an improvised bomb south of Baghdad. Another solider died from small arms fire during an operation in Baghdad Province. And a marine was killed in non-combat related incident in Anbar Province.
On this Memorial Day weekend, CNN meteorologist Bonnie Schneider is helping us raise money for wounded veterans at the Blossom Time Festival in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, where CNN's Warrior One in on display. She's a huge attraction there so is Warrior One.
How are you doing, Bonnie?
SCHNEIDER: Me? No. The Hummer, yeah, Fredricka you're right.
Check out crowd. We've been getting a lot of people here taking a look at the Hummer and they are really wowed by it, that's for sure. Because it's amazing the story it has to tell after being embedded with the CNN crew with the U.S. Marines, and coming under heavy fire in April of 2003 and now being refurbished and looking as great as it does.
Yes, those are bagpipes coming through right now, so let's take a look at the bagpipes. Swing the camera around so you can see what I'm talking about.
(MUSIC)
That's how you know we're really at a festival.
(MUSIC)
(NEWSBREAK)
SCHNEIDER: Well, we are joined now, and I'm so glad that you're here.
Thank you.
OK, Ms. Dale, tell me a little bit about remax and what the Sentinels of Freedom Foundation is doing with that?
SHARER DALE, REMAX: First of all, we're delighted you are here and all of your support. Remax Traditions is proud to sponsor the Tour for the Troops here in Chagrin Falls Blossom Time and part of that is the Sentinels of Freedom Scholarship Foundation which Warrior One supports greatly.
SCHNEIDER: Thank you so much. And you know that scholarship that raises money for not just the wounded, but also their families to help them rehabilitate back, you know, to their regular lives. So, it's a wonderful cause, we're so glad we're here today and we're having a good time -- Fredricka
WHITFIELD: Yeah, sounds so good. And those bagpipes right on cue. Love that.
SCHNEIDER: Here they come.
WHITFIELD: Here they come again. All right, thanks a lot, Bonnie.
All right, well coming up next, we've got a special program about the difference one vehicle, that vehicle, can make. Get the story behind the CNN's Warrior One Hummer. The vehicle was used by our journalists in Iraq, shipped home, overhauled and then auctioned off earlier this year. All the proceeds went to the Fisher House. And that whole story is coming up right now. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS MCGINNIS, EXPEDIA.COM: The flights flying so full these days, the best seats are going fast. And the best seats include exit row seats or seats that in what are known as the bulkhead, the first row of seats. An exit row typically has anywhere from five to eight more inches of knee space than the average coach seat.
Typically they're reserved for elite level members of frequent flyer programs. People who are not members of these programs, if you, at the last minute, walk up to the counter and ask for an exit row seat, you can get an exit row seat. If you're a parent traveling with children, you may want to sit very close to the rest rooms on the plane. But you're a business traveler and you want to get some work done. You want to sit as far away from the rest rooms as possible.
There's a helpful site I found called seatguru.com that actually shows the layouts of all the different planes and ranks seats, with color codes, as to which are the best seats. And to always take that extra step, look at the layout of the plane, choose your seat yourself, don't let the computer choose your seat for you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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