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American Morning
Hurricane Felix; President Bush Due In Sydney; Cyber Warfare; Market Check; President Bush Visit To Iraq
Aired September 04, 2007 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Landfall. Hurricane Felix bears down on Central America. A last minute effort to airlift people to safety.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because of the strength of the hurricane, they want us to leave the country.
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CHETRY: I-Reports and live reports as this powerhouse roars ashore on this AMERICAN MORNING.
And welcome. It's Tuesday, September 4th. We're tracking Hurricane Felix. I'm Kiran Chetry.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts. Thanks very much for joining us.
We're tracking two storms right now, as a matter of fact. Henriette is now a hurricane in the Pacific Ocean and Hurricane Felix bearing down on the coast of Central America. This storm is verging on a category five as it searches towards the Nicaragua/Honduras border. The maximum sustained winds now at 155. One more mile an hour it goes to category five.
Thousands of tourists are being airlifted from resorts along the Honduran coast and the islands off lying it. Residents are asked to get it safety. Forecasters are predicting flash floods and mudslides and a possible storm surge of 18 feet.
You might remember that Hurricane Mitch killed 10,000 people in the same area nine years ago. Most of that was because of the rains that fell for days on Honduras. Very mountainous country with steep valleys as well. CNN's Harris Whitbeck is in La Ceiba, along the Caribbean coast of Honduras, and joins us now live.
How are the conditions where you are, Harris, and what's expected to happen when this hurricane comes ashore?
HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: By the coast, but things could get very messy very quickly. The Honduran government has taken the town of La Ceiba, which is where we're located, as its main staging area for its first response after Hurricane Felix passes through the area. Further east of here, on Honduras' Mosquito Coast, which it shares with Nicaragua, tens of thousands of Mosquito Indians have been evacuated. But according to local officials, some 14,000 of them will have to ride out the storm because they were not able to get out in time. Access to that part of the country and to that part of northwestern Nicaragua is very, very difficult. Mostly only by boat or by airplane.
Meanwhile, thousands of tourists, many of them Americans who were on the islands of Roatan, which is off the Atlantic here, were evacuated yesterday. Some U.S. citizens were evacuated by a U.S. military helicopter. The U.S. military has an imported base here in Honduras, which it uses for drug interdiction.
The fears here are that Hurricane Felix might cause damage similar to that caused by Hurricane Mitch nearly 10 years ago. At that time, 10,000 people were killed in Central America. The difference between now and back then is that back then Hurricane Mitch stalled over the Central American region dumping lots and lots of rain, causing mudslides and flash floods.
The concern her in Honduras at this point is that there could be more mudslides and flash floods. But they do feel that this hurricane is moving rather quickly. Still, a lot of people are concerned about what might happen here over the next several hours.
John.
ROBERTS: All right. Harris Whitbeck for us in La Ceiba in Honduras.
Rob Marciano, at the CNN Center in Atlanta, is tracking Felix.
And, Rob, their not major population centers, but there are a few villages along that Nicaraguan coast that could get hit hard today.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And not only that, John, the big concern when these things come ashore, different from the Yucatan, which is relatively flat, you get into this area and we're talking about extreme terrain. Once you get -- almost as soon as you get off the coast, you're into mountains. And there have been a number of hurricanes, small hurricanes, big hurricanes that have killed hundreds and thousands of people in these areas because not only the wind that come in here, but once they hit those mountains, that moisture gets all squeezed out of the storm.
So this is a deadly storm, no doubt about it. It is, well, about 60 miles from the shoreline now. It definitely is going to hit the northern coastline, northeast coastline of Nicaragua. Winds 155 and heading to the west just under 20 miles an hour. And it could still strengthen, according to the latest out of the National Hurricane Center. It only takes one more mile an hour to get to a category five.
So this is -- and damage, by the way, increases exponentially with each storm. So a category four or five is so, so much worse than a category one or two. So this is going to be a devastating blow, no doubt about ti.
CHETRY: So we have Felix in the Atlantic and then Henriette, the hurricane forming in the Pacific. What's the deal with that, Rob?
MARCIANO: I don't have that loaded in my computer, but it is getting close to Baja of California, and that is going to probably affect a lot more populated areas. It is not quite as strong a storm. But we'll be dealing with people -- more people to deal with as this things heads to the north towards Baja. We'll have that for you in just a few minutes.
CHETRY: All right. Rob Marciano tracking these storms for us from the CNN Weather Center. Thanks.
A day after President Bush made an eight-hour visit to Iraq, the war will be the focus down under. The president is expected to arrive in Sydney, Australia, in just about two hours, for the Asia Pacific Economic Conference, called APEC. He'll be greeted by one of his closest allies, Prime Minister John Howard of the U.K. and by anti-war protesters as well, who got a head start on his visit. White House correspondent Elaine Quijano is in Sydney.
Hi, Elaine.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Kiran.
Well, that's right, President Bush will be here in just a couple of hours. He'll be here ahead of that economic summit that you mentioned. That gathering of Asian and Pacific leaders. But Iraq certainly hangs heavily over his visit.
During that unannounced visit yesterday to the al Anbar province, President Bush seemed to hint at a possible troop draw down, saying that if General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker continue to see the success on the ground, that, in fact, it might be possible to maintain the current level of security in Iraq with fewer American troops. But then later during his visit, the president seemed to take a little bit more cautious tone, saying that no decisions had been made yet.
But while here in Australia, as you noted, the president, Kiran, will have a chance to strengthen ties with Australia's prime minister, John Howard, who has really been one of President Bush's staunchest allies when it comes to the war on terror.
Kiran.
CHETRY: And we also mention the anti-war protesters had been arriving ahead of the president's visit. What is the security like there, Elaine?
QUIJANO: Security, in fact, is very tight. And one of my colleagues who's been on the ground here, John Vause, talking about the lengths to which the people here in Australia have sort of been inconvenienced. It's a very sore point here in the city because there is such a strict security procedure that has to take place, not only because of President Bush's arrival, but other leaders coming as well.
So certainly we well keep a close eye on the security situation. As you noted, demonstrators are arriving. But police have made very clear that if, in fact, things should get out of hand, they will take decisive action to deal with it.
Kiran.
CHETRY: On a lighter note, I was doing some reading. Usually at the APEC conference it's sort of tradition to dress in the traditional garb of whatever country it is. And they were saying Australia was having a bit of a problem with that because there is no traditional garb.
QUIJANO: Yes. And you know what's interesting, I haven't had a chance to kind of nail that down yet. But, you're right, that has been one of the funnier moments that always comes out of the APEC summit is when all of the leaders get together and they do dress in that traditional garb. There are people, obviously, who are more comfortable with that than others. But at the same time, we'll have to wait and see how that actually emerges.
We should note that because of the fact that -- because of the fact that the president wants to be back in Washington ahead of the General Petraeus testimony on Iraq, he's actually going to be leaving the conference a day early, Kiran. So that is something certainly that's been a departure from the past.
And as you hear, even as I speak, security very tight here. I'm seeing some sort of processional motorcade. Not quite sure what that is. But security, as we were talking about earlier, very, very tight.
Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. We'll try to see if we can get a picture of some of the outfits from last year's APEC conference for you next time.
Elaine Quijano reporting from Sydney, Australia. Thank you.
ROBERTS: Two bombs went off in Pakistan today. The police say they were suicide attacks aimed at the military. At least 21 people are dead as a result. The first bomb tore apart a bus traveling near army headquarters in Rawalpindi, just south of Islamabad. The second went off as the ambulances took victims to the hospital.
In New York City, police say it looks like a pipe bomb went off outside of an apartment building. Nobody was hurt. It did damage to a van parked outside. The actor Michael Imperioli lives in that building. You'll remember he played Christopher on the "The Sopranos."
And a dramatic rescue caught on tape in Massachusetts. Four kayakers clinging to a stone bridge for almost an hour after a strong current pulled them under with no way out. The water rising every minute. They only had about an inch of air to breathe. A firefighter jumped in to try to help, but he wasn't wearing a life jacket. He got sucked under the boat. Rescuers did finally manage to pull everyone out and they were all treated for minor injuries and all are expected to be OK. Lost something there.
CHETRY: Yes, the poor guy lost his pant. We were kind enough, of course, to fuzz it out. I'm sure that was the least of his worries at that moment, though.
Also new this morning, thousands in southern California are without power in the middle of a sweltering week-long heat wave. In fact, two deaths have been reported related to this heat wave. Also, the extra fans and the air conditioners that have been humming along blew out part of the power grid. More than 20,000 people in Los Angeles and surrounding counties were dealing with that. Also, San Diego Gas and Electric declared a power emergency, saying that there could be potential rolling blackouts because of the taxing of the system. Forecasters say that cooler temperatures are expected, though, for the next few days.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama upping the ante in their war of words. Over the holiday they unveiled new verbal attacks in the battle of experience versus change.
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SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: From my time in the White House and in the Senate, I've learned that you bring change by working the system established by our Constitution, not by pretending the system doesn't exist.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Too many, too many in Washington see politics as a game. And that's why I believe this election cannot be about who can play this game better. It has to be about who can put an end to the game playing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Senator Barack Obama's going to be staying on the campaign trail in New Hampshire today. Senator Hillary Clinton is returning to Washington.
Well, Mitt Romney is also talking change and promising voters that he's not as nice as he looks. The Republican presidential candidate spent Labor Day campaigning in New Hampshire. He talked about a bigger U.S. military and more money to keep it well equipped. Mostly, though, he talked about that one word on the lips of almost all of the candidates.
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MITT ROMNEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now you're going to hear everybody running for president saying they're going to be the candidate of change, because we do want change in this country. And I'm actually convinced that there will be change in America.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CHETRY: All right. Romney's also taking shots at incoming Republican contender Fred Thompson, saying that his candidacy will be great for Leno's ratings, but that's about it. Thompson is scheduled it appear on the "Tonight Show" with Jay Leno on Wednesday.
John.
ROBERTS: A couple of subway stops away from Ground Zero, New York City's first all Arabic school is opening today in the burrow of Brooklyn. The Department of Education says that Khalil Gibran International Academy will welcome 57 students for its first sixth grade class. That's three short of capacity. This despite months of controversy that divided parents in the community. The city says the school's mandate is to teach Arabic and non-religious Arab culture. But a group called Stop the Madrassa and other critics say it could become a safe funded (ph) breeding ground for extremists. In the next hour of AMERICAN MORNING, we'll speak with a member of the New York City Department of Education about the controversy.
A 10-year-old girl has now been upgraded to serious condition after a mine shaft accident that killed her older sister. Police in Arizona say they were out for a ride on Saturday when their ATC plunge into the abandoned 125-foot deep hole. Their grandfather says it's a miracle that they both weren't killed.
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LEEMAN DAKIN, GRANDFATHER: They say she was one of the luckiest children they ever seen fall 125 feet. She was lucky to be alive. Because the ATV was on one of her legs.
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ROBERTS: But her sister was killed on impact.
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DAKIN: She always smart. She always wanted to help her dad. She'd always be out here helping her dad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: A spokeswoman for the Mohave County Sheriff's office says the shaft is next to a dirt road concealed by brush without a single sign or barrier to keep anyone away. There may be as many as 100,000 like it in the state. And later on here on AMERICAN MORNING, we'll talk to one person who's trying to get that changed.
Obese toddlers are nearly three times more likely to have an iron deficiency than children of normal weight. That's from this months issue of "Pediatrics." Low iron can slow children's mental and behavioral develop. Experts recommend feeding kids iron rich foods.
Another record Labor Day for the Jerry Lewis annual muscular dystrophy telethon. The 21.5 hour long show raised nearly $64 million. About $3 million more than last year. This was Lewis' 42nd telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
CHETRY: And he's still going strong.
Well, it's time now to check in with our AMERICAN MORNING team of correspondents for some of the other stories new this morning that we're following.
China launches an attack on the U.S. Well in cyber warfare, the "Financial Times" is reporting that the People's Liberation Army successfully hacked the Pentagon's website. Monita Rajpal is following this from London for us.
Good morning, Monita.
MONITA RAJPAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran.
Yes, American officials calling it the most successful cyber attack on the U.S. Defense Department. According to the FT newspaper in London, China's military hacked into the Pentagon's computer network, forcing the department to shut down part of Robert Gates, the defense secretary, computer system.
Now the intrusion reportedly took place in June. There's no word yet on what exactly was downloaded. But those that are close to the internal investigation are saying that the information was probably, probably unclassified. Now the Pentagon senior Asia official is calling the cyber attack a wake-up call, "stirring them to levels of more aggressive vigilance. There's been no comment from Beijing.
But this isn't the first time that China's military has been accused of hacking into government computer systems. Just about a week ago, Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, complained to China's premier, Wen Jiabao, saying that there has been reports of, again, hacking -- China's hacking into Germany's government systems. Wen Jiabao said in response, "acts undermining computer systems, including hacking, are criminal and are forbidden."
Kiran.
CHETRY: Monita Rajpal for us in London. Thank you.
Well, stocks could open lower today as Wall Street returns from an extended holiday weekend. Ali Velshi also on an extended holiday weekend.
Good it have you back. Good morning.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good it see you, Kiran.
In fact, just as you were talking, the Dow futures have just turned into positive territory by one point. But either way, it doesn't look like a crazy open on the stock market today. Friday we had a pretty -- actually a good day on the Dow. About 120 points higher at the end because President Bush came out and said that he's going to get involved in doing something about this mortgage crisis. Ben Bernanke said he is going to get involved in doing something about the mortgage crisis. The Fed stands ready to help. But the Fed doesn't move interest rate, if it does move them at all, for another two weeks. That's their regular meeting.
In the meantime, these storms that are around are starting to affect the price of oil. In fact, oil topped $74 on its settle. We're now looking at a little bit of a pullback in the price of oil. But it wasn't long ago that we were talking about oil below $74 altogether.
So all of these things put together are creating a bit of a, you know, a bit of a storm for markets themselves. Today traders get back. The post-Labor Day session starts this morning at 9:30 Eastern. Right now we're looking at a slow open. Dow futures just above the positive mark, but we'll be looking for a lot of information this week to make some sense of where markets are going in the next few months.
Kiran.
CHETRY: All right, Ali Velshi, we'll check in with you a bit later. Thanks so much.
John.
ROBERTS: Fifteen minutes after the hour now.
It's one thing if your neighbor's dog got loose, but what if a pet with jaws of steel came up to your porch? Hear from a woman who answered the door to an alligator.
And it would have been unthinkable just a year ago, but President Bush put feet on the ground in Iraq's once extremely violence Anbar province. Is it a sign of real progress or just politics? That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
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CHETRY: And welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. We're showing you some of the best shots of the morning in your "Quick Hits" now.
We continue to track Hurricane Felix. Now a monster of a category four storm. There's a picture right now as you see it. It's just shy of a category five. Could actually increase in strength as it is expected to make landfall near the Nicaragua/Honduras border within the next couple of hours. And we are live there.
Meanwhile, off of Mexico's Pacific Coast, Hurricane Henriette. A hurricane now packing wind of 75 miles per hour. So not as strong as it could get. But we are tracking it. Henriette could gain strength as it continues to move along the Pacific.
Meanwhile, in the line of fire. These two firefighters face-to- face with a wall of flames as they try to protect a mobile home in Action (ph), California. The big red streaks, a fire retardant that they usually drop from the air.
And a waterspout spotted off of the coast of Trinidad. The funnel was shooting off from one of Hurricane Felix's feeder bands, outer bands of wind and rain. A woman says that she snapped the photo on Sunday as the storm passed over Trinidad's northwest coast.
ROBERTS: President Bush arrives in Sydney, Australia, this morning for the Asia Pacific summit. But today the talk is all about his Labor Day surprise trip to Anbar province in Iraq. No doubt it was a morale booster for U.S. troops stationed there, but there was also a heaping helping of politics with it, as well. Can President Bush shape the coming Iraq debate in Congress? Joining us now from Washington is Jim Vandehei. He's the co-founder and executive editor of politco.com.
Jim, the president held out a carrot to Republicans yesterday, saying that we may be able to draw down U.S. troops if progress continues on the security front there. Are Republicans likely to bite?
JIM VANDEHEI, CO-FOUNDER, POLITICO.COM: Well, John, as you know, there's a lot of people in Congress who want to see the troops withdrawn this year, or at least a beginning of the withdraw this year. What you have it look for with bush is, when and which troops will be pulled back. I mean we already have a schedule of all those troops that are dedicated to the surge should be pulled back in the spring, and I think that's largely what he's talking about. I think there's a lot of folks in the White House would like to see at least a symbolic, slight withdrawal this year to at least lower the temperature in Congress and give Bush a little more latitude to continue pursuing this strategy that he's pursued for the last several months.
ROBERTS: He seemed to be back in fighting form, sending a very strong signal to Democrats in Congress in his address to the troops. Take a quick listen to a little bit of what he said and I'll ask you about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We begin to draw down troops from Iraq, it will be from a position of strength and success, not from a position of fear and failure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: So the president there, Jim, saying that it's going to be the commanders on the ground that make the decisions about troop withdrawals, troop draw downs, not people in Congress. Can he emasculate Democrats and their attempts to bring an end to this war with talk like that?
VANDEHEI: He certainly can win the showdown, because Congress is a number's game. And the truth is, President Bush has enough Republicans on his side that they'll be able to keep his strategy in place because you would need, essentially, two-thirds of the Senate or two-thirds of the House to override a presidential veto. He knows that. What he would like to do is get as many Democrats and Republicans on board as possible. A lot of people in Washington thought August might change things. That members would go home and there would be a lot of pressure on them. The truth is, they returned pretty much in the same mood as they were before. A little bit confused, but not necessarily ready to force President Bush's hand.
ROBERTS: It also looked like he was sending a strong signal to Nuri al-Maliki, dragging him out there to Anbar province, where he rarely goes, sitting him down with the Sunni leaders. Was he essentially saying, Jim, Maliki, get with the program here?
VANDEHEI: Absolutely. There's so much frustration right now with the central government in Baghdad and there's a lot of folks, both on The Hill and I think increasingly in the White House, who would like to see some sort of soft partition. And that's why you see him going to the Anbar providence where there has been some success on the ground and they're starting to try to use this as a model for what they could do in other regions in and around Baghdad.
But there's a lot of reasons it be skeptical of that. I mean there's things that are very particular to Anbar that made it a lot more hospitable, to being able to find a compromise. The question is, can you then apply that model to Baghdad and other regions that have been -- had sort of this intractable violence.
ROBERTS: Congress back today. We'll see where this debate goes. Jim Vandehei from the Politico. Thanks. Good to see you.
VANDEHEI: Have a good day.
CHETRY: Well, still ahead, they cause hundreds of deaths every year. A quarter of the victims are children. We're talking about all-terrain vehicles. Some states have no age limit to drive them. Is it time for changes? We're going to take a look at ATV safety.
Also, it's an alligator. Maybe the alligator needed directions. They really, literally, knocked on someone's door. Boy, what a surprise when you open it up. It's not the Avon lady. Scaly skin, though. Maybe they do need some lotion. We're going to have much more on what happened with that alligator when AMERICAN MORNING comes back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Twenty-six minutes after the hour. Welcome back to the most news in the morning.
A flood of fake 911 calls tops your "Quick Hits." Police in San Francisco are looking for a man who has used his cell phone to make almost 2,000 fake calls in the past six months, often forcing them to dispatch crews. The phone apparently was donated to the homeless. It has no carrier. So it's untraceable.
And police in Bogato, Columbia, turned away as they tried to evict some people from their home. The people inside apparently have not paid their mortgage in five years. They pelted the police with bricks. The two sides even got into a water fight. Get the police away with a hose there.
Cleanup in aisle five. This incredible accident happened just outside of San Francisco. Police think the driver of the car, a 56- year-old woman, fell asleep at the wheel, plowed right into a grocery store. Thankfully, though, no one was badly hurt.
CHETRY: Oh, what a mess.
Well, imagine hearing something at your front door. You know, you hear some scratching or knocking. You open it up and you see this. An alligator tail. Imagine now that you live in Ohio at the time. Not the norm. Not Florida, right? Well, one woman says that she screamed. She called police when this six foot alligator came knocking.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was scratching that door like, you know, trying to get it to come open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Wow. Well, police showed up. They found out that a neighbor owned it and that it was actually a pet, Penelope. He also had another alligator that apparently tore through the fence while he was away. There is a city ordinance that bans alligators as pets. So the police took them to the Columbus Zoo. The woman saying she's thankful that her 10-year-old son didn't answer the door. (INAUDIBLE).
Well, there is a major smear campaign going on against a sand castle. You remember we showed you this video yesterday. The man who built this 32-foot mansion on a beach in Maine says that another builder cheated to build one 43-feet high down in Myrtle Beach. See, it's the war of who has the biggest and highest sand castle. He claims that they broke the rules by building it on a base and using heavy equipment to shovel in the sand. A spokesperson for the South Carolina castle says that Guinness gave them special permission to stray from certain guidelines.
ROBERTS: I had no idea that the art of sand castles was that competitive.
CHETRY: We talked about that yesterday because he has a wooden platform as well. So is that against the rules?
ROBERTS: It's some sort of a foundation. I don't know. It's all too difficult to keep track of.
Here's a story coming up in our next half hour that you just can't miss. An eight-year-old hero. A fellow who's got cerebral palsy, can't walk, managed to save his family.
CHETRY: That's right. Let's listen to what he says.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GREGORY BRIDWELL, EIGHT YEARS OLD: There was like this big old smoke and I ran outside to get my grandpa and then . . .
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do me a favor, please (ph).
BRIDWELL: I saved my dad's life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: He really did. We're going to tell you how he did it. How this quick-thinking little boy saved his entire family when AMERICAN MORNING comes right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: And there's the sunrise over the Hudson River in New York looking northbound across the G.W. Bridge. It's shaping up to be a beautiful day today. It's 71 right now, going up to 85 degrees and sunny and hopefully, Kiran, for you, won't be too humid today.
CHETRY: I was going it say that you were enjoying yourself yesterday along the Hudson going for a little motor bike ride.
ROBERTS: Bicycle ride.
CHETRY: You call it a bicycle but you're not pedaling. You're holding onto your Harley.
ROBERTS: No, this was my bicycle.
CHETRY: You really did go for a bicycle ride yesterday? He told me he was going for 50 miles. I'm thinking, how hard is that? You have gasoline and huge tank -- your Harley?
ROBERTS: This is the gasoline, down here.
CHETRY: So you were actually pedaling?
ROBERTS: Yeah. Welcome back, Tuesday, September the 4th. I'm John Roberts.
CHETRY: I'm Kiran Chetry. New this morning, police in Afghanistan said the man behind the kidnapping of the South Korean aids workers was killed overnight. The Taliban leader was one of 16 suspected militants killed in a fire fight that took place in a firefight between coalition forces and Afghan soldiers. That battle happened in eastern Afghanistan in the Ghazni Province. The South Koreans were held for weeks. Two of them were killed. The other 21 were released last week.
And North Korea is still a state sponsor of terror, at least as far as the U.S. is concerned. North Korea claimed that it was off the list of state sponsors and that Washington decided to lift sanctions. The U.S. State Department says that is not true. The claim came on the same day that North Korea promised to shut down its nuclear program, giving a timeframe for that for the first time saying they would do it by the end of this year.
We have this just in from Iraq. A judge there says that three former members of Saddam Hussein's regime would be executed within 30 days. Final appeals are now exhausted for Hussein's first cousin known as "Chemical" Ali as well as two military commanders. They're sentenced to death for the killing of 100,000 people in the Kurdish region of Iraq in the 1980s.
ROBERTS: Now to our terror watch. During his surprise trip to Iraq yesterday, President Bush took time to address the troops saying the United States must defeat al Qaeda in Iraq to protect Americans here at home.
Kelli Arena is in our Washington Bureau with more on the president's argument.
And we hear this very often from the president, Kelli?
KELLI ARENA, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: John, you're right. It's just the latest illustration of the president's argument of if we don't defeat them there, they'll follow us here. He told military personnel at al Assad Air Base that defeating al Qaeda in Iraq will protect the United States from future attacks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because of your hard work and bravery and sacrifice, you're denying al Qaeda a safe haven from which to plot and plan and carry out attacks against the United States of America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARENA: Now, most everybody agrees that al Qaeda was not in Iraq before the war. It is now. And intelligence experts say it does have connection to al Qaeda's core leadership. Al Qaeda in Iraq has always publicly said they like to attack on U.S. soil but, so far, there are no indications that it will move on that front any time soon, John.
ROBERTS: Would it even be capable of doing so, Kelli?
ARENA: Intelligence experts say they believe it is. The group is financing and has a recruiting mechanism set up. And you have to remember, John, that we're not talking about the Iraqis here. What we're talking about mostly are the foreign fighters, well-traveled, well-trained and they specifically went to Iraq to hit U.S. targets.
ROBERTS: Now, would they be launching those attacks from Iraq or would it be through Pakistan? Because we have seen some people who have been involved in terror attacks coming out of Iraq going to Pakistan and then going on to a target.
ARENA: That is the general wisdom is that they would return, regroup and along that Pakistan-Afghan border where they would plot and then be sent out from there. So -- you never know. Nobody can predict that for sure, but that is the conventional wisdom that they would go there first, get their act together and then move on.
ROBERTS: Kelli arena from Washington for us. Kelli, thanks.
ARENA: You're welcome, John.
CHETRY: Now to extreme weather and we're tracking two storms now. Henriette is now a hurricane in the Pacific and Hurricane Felix a monster of a storm bearing down on the coast of Central America. The storm now verging on a Category 5. It's gone back and forth, as it surges towards the Nicaragua-Honduras border.
Thousands of tourists are now being air-lifted from the resorts on the Honduran coast to get to safety. Forecasters are predicting flash floods, mudslides, as well as a possible storm surge of 18 feet.
Our Rob Marciano is in the CNN Weather Center tracking the latest on Felix's track.
Hi, Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Kiran. This storm is looking nasty. Let's check out the satellite picture, once again. We'll show you the track, also. It is hitting some of the little Archipelago Islands that are just off the Mosquito Coast. And you can see this well-defined eye and exactly where it is going. It's been wobbling overnight and has maintained, actually increased in intensity. You see a better defined structure with the cloud tops, but there is that eye. The eye is going over this little dot on the screen there and that is called -- that is called, Cayos Mosquitoes. It's just a little island. I'm not sure anybody lives there, but people go out there to check it out and do some snorkeling and that kind of thing.
Right now 50 miles from it making landfall and, as it does so, it will be a strong Category 4, possibly a Category 5 storm. We only need it to go one more mile an hour above that 155 threshold. We're talking about winds that are --tornado-like damage as far as winds are concerned in a swathe of at least 20 maybe 30 or 40 miles. So, not extremely populated but there are small villages and people that live there. And then as this thing goes to traverse into this mountainous area -- historically, mudslides have done the most damage. And this is going to have a tremendous amount of rain once it hits the mountains of southern Honduras over the next several hours, as well. It's going to be a one-two punch with this, Kiran, the storm surge and then the rainfall and the potential mudslide that we'll see over the next, over the coming hours -- Kiran?
CHETRY: We'll continue to track that.
Plus, the latest on Henriette, this one in the Pacific.
MARCIANO: Henriette is now a Category 1 storm. We'll show you that satellite imagery. Clearly, not as defined as Felix, but, nonetheless, it's headed towards a fairly populated area of Cabo san Lucas. Here's where it is expected. And it's expected to go into the Baja of California as well, likely not strengthening that much. Notice if any of these two storms will affect the U.S., it will be -- it will be Henriette and that will be in the form of moisture eventually getting into the desert southwest and possibly New Mexico and Texas. We're watching that, as well. Obviously, a heavily visited area there in Cabo san Lucas on the southern Baja of California.
CHETRY: You're right. A popular tourist destination. Rob Marciano tracking both for us, thank you.
MARCIANO: You bet.
CHETRY: John?
ROBERTS: An 8-year-old boy near Cincinnati saved his family from fire but the least likely family member you would expect to raise the alert. His story coming up just ahead.
And dangers for drivers of all ages when you go off road. Why you or your kids could be risking their lives on an ATC, ahead on "AMERICAN MORNING."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Some of the best shots of our morning right now taking place. There's a look right now, firefighters south of San Jose, California battling a fast-moving brush fire in Henry Coe State Park. So far 1,200 acres have been wiped out. Park rangers forcing dozens of campers to bail out.
A huge explosion at an industrial plant about 40 miles southeast of Cleveland, Ohio. Firefighters say the plant storage warehouse was leveled and the blast shook the ground for more than a mile. The plant had 117 employees. Nobody was hurt. Everybody was off for Labor Day.
ROBERTS: An update now on the little girl that was badly injured when their all-terrain cycle plunged into an abandoned mine shaft. Ten-year-old Casie Hicks has been upgraded to serious condition. Her older sister, 13-year-old Rikki Howard was killed in the accident. They plunged into one of an estimated 100,000 abandoned mines in Arizona. Untraceable traps, considering some prospectors left them behind in the 19th century.
Now there's also safety concerns about what they were driving. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says 30 people have died in ATV accidents in 20 states all in the past month.
CNN's Chris Lawrence is in Grover Beach, California. He joins us now with more.
Good morning, Chris?
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. Barely a fraction of those abandoned mines in Arizona have been secured, but big picture, about 100 kids a year are killed in ATV accidents and most of them are never going to come anywhere near a mine shaft. That accident is focusing attention on the larger question of when kids should be allowed to take the wheel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE (voice-over): A little boy cuts through the sand, no other hand on the wheel but his own. A toddler driving his own ATV until his sister rear-ends him. No one seriously hurt this time.
DR. LARRY FOREMAN: We see horrendous injuries.
LAWRENCE: Dr Larry Foreman's hospital in central California treats more than 1,000 ATV injuries a year, for example, a 4-year-old with both wrists broken. And there are others.
FOREMAN: Just this year we had two little kids, in fact, that had amputations of their feet.
LAWRENCE: According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, in 2005 alone, ATV accidents killed more than 120 children under the age of 16. That's motivated some parents to demand the government ban ATVs for anyone under 16.
(on camera): Do you think riding ATVs is safe?
EMILY SEAMAN (ph), OWNER, B.J.'s RENTALS: Yes, I do. I think if people pay attention to what they're doing it's as safe as any other sport.
LAWRENCE: Emily Seaman (ph) runs B.J.'s Rentals and says companies like hers police themselves. For example, Seaman won't rent to kids under the age of 9. She says the real problem is people who buy their own ATVs and allow their kids to drive vehicles built for adults.
SEAMAN (ph): They haul them down to the beach and allow them to ride. They're the ones that have the worst accidents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Check it once, make sure it is safe.
LAWRENCE: An instructor set me up for an ATV for my size and experience and explained how to avoid those dangerous roll-overs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you rollover side ways and the bike started tipping, if you turn the direction you're tipping, you could save it, kind of like a car skidding, the back end fishes out, you steer that direction to save it.
LAWRENCE: Within minutes, I was safely riding the ATV.
But all around me, kids too young on ATVs too big, and riders breaking the speed limit.
Dr. Foreman wants the federal government to step in, force riders to attend a safety course and mandate escalating engine limits for 6 year olds, 12 year olds and then older teens and adults.
FOREMAN: You protect kids and if it means a law, then that's what it takes. Got to protect our kids.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE: Right now, depending on what state you live in, the laws are all over the place. Some states do have that minimum age of 16 and others have no minimum age at all -- John?
ROBERTS: It's different than motorcycles, too, isn't it? Because it's difficult for a child to ride a motorcycle that is too big, but the construction of an all-terrain cycle allows children it get on a vehicle that is far too big for them.
LAWRENCE: Exactly. And this other aspect of a lot of times you're riding these in very remote areas. So, if you do get into an accident, especially for a child, you may not be near medical attention very quickly.
ROBERTS: Chris Lawrence for us this morning from Grover Beach, California. Chris, thanks very much.
CHETRY: We have some new developments right now. We've been tracking Hurricane Felix, now gaining enough strength to be considered a Category 5 storm with winds of 160 miles per hour. The strongest hurricane there is.
Right now it is continuing to head toward the Nicaragua-Honduras border quite to make landfall quite soon. Some of the outer bands already lashing the area between Honduras and Nicaragua. They're not just worried about the wind, which we said, 160 miles per hour maximum sustained gusts but they're also concerned about the threat of mudslides. That's usually what takes so many lives in the mountainous areas around Honduras. Also the risk of flash flooding and the risk of a storm surge that could go as high as 18 feet.
We'll continue it track Hurricane Felix, but, now, again, gaining enough strength -- and the meteorologist said this was likely to happen as it got closer to land. Now a Category 5 hurricane with sustained maximum winds of 160 miles per hour. Our Rob Marciano tracking the latest and also taking a look at a Category 1 hurricane in the Pacific that could threaten the United States as it makes its way up Cabo san Lucas and towards Texas and California. We'll continue tracking all those storms right here on "AMERICAN MORNING" throughout the morning.
Also still ahead, it's a good thing the people in our next story took some serious safety precautions. We have an I-reporter. Check this one out.
This is a rock climbing competition in Ontario. Watch as the vehicle --- we're not even sure, is this a truck, a car, some sort of souped-up dune buggy? I don't know. But it was all at the 17th Extreme Rock Crawling event. There is an event for everything, isn't there? We'll see it again as it tries to make its way up that really steep rock formation. There it goes. Give it a little bit more gas. Up, up, not quite and then completely 180. I guess it was built for that since it landed right back on all fours. That was submitted by Dave Petrick (ph). Thanks for the video.
Remarkable heroics from an 8-year-old boy near Cincinnati. Gregory Bridwell has cerebral palsy. He can't walk. But he said he was sitting in front of the television and it just exploded, his house caught fire. And he knew what to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREGORY BRIDWELL, 8-YEAR-OLD HERO: It was like this big old smoke and then I ran outside to get my grandpa and I saved my dad's life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Gregory's grandpa woke up Gregory's father who was sleeping on the couch. The father has a small burn on his hand. Their living room is mostly destroyed, but other than that, everyone got out alive.
ROBERTS: Quick thinking, kid.
Trying to shore up a fragile piece and end genocide, the U.N. secretary-general gets a first-hand look at what needs to be done in Sudan. That's coming up on "AMERICAN MORNING."
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CHETRY: Interesting question today. Could the lessons of Northern Ireland be a road map to peace in Iraq? Monita Rajpal is following this from London.
Hi, Monita.
MONITA RAJPAL, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Kiran. Yes, members of rival Shiite and Sunni groups were in Finland over the weekend to take part in talk to find a road to peace for Iraq. The venue and details were kept secret, but reportedly representatives of the radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr were there as well as the leader of the largest Sunni Arab political group. Now, they were there to hear from members of Northern Ireland's power-sharing government on their experiences in trying to find decade's long and their decade's long search for peace.
Now, the road map includes moving away from sectarian and ethnic disputes, terminating the presence of foreign troops at a reasonable timetable and dealing with militias by arming and training security forces to become an effective national force. The Iraqis attending this talk, they will be handing that road map and presenting that road map it their parties in Baghdad.
Concerned about the fragile state of Sudan. The U.N. secretary- general said he will see first-hand the challenges that peacekeeping troops will have to face while in Darfur. Ban Ki-moon is on his first visit to Sudan since taking office in January. Ban says he will seek the government's support for a speedy deployment of the new 26,000 member U.N. and African Union peacekeeping force. Darfur is the worse humanitarian crisis, having left 200,000 people dead and forcing 2.5 million people to flee from their homes.
Some sad news from Britain. A British woman who road a bike from San Francisco to New York to raise money for cancer charities has died. 43-year-old Jane Tomlinson raised over $3 million for charities despite having terminal cancer. Even though she was terminally ill, she took part in many sponsored endurance events, including that 4,200-mile bike ride across the United States. In 2003, Jane was honored by the queen for her fund-raising efforts. Kiran, back to you.
CHETRY: All right, Monita Rajpal, thank you.
ROBERTS: Coming up to 54 minutes after the hour. And there goes the neighborhood. Still ahead, a Houston family, more than a little ticked off about the noise coming from their new next door neighbor. We'll tell you why.
Taking back control of your kid's cell phone. Want to stop text message binging with just a couple clicks? Find out how, ahead on "AMERICAN MORNING."
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ROBERTS: Three minutes before the top of the hour, if you have to get to school. You think your neighbors are noisy? How about living next door in this? Families in suburban Houston are now living in the shadow of a wooden roller coaster. The 96-foot tall Boardwalk Bullet opened for business this weekend and, needless to say, the neighbors are not thrilled.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RENEE HARRISON, REALTOR: There's no way somebody could live right there with that roller coaster right above their house.
TIM ANDERSON, KEMAH BOARDWALK: I believe we're still the largest single taxpayer in the city of Kemah. And we have 3 million people that come down here and visit us. Property values have grown.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: In case you're wondering exactly how something like this happened, the Killian (ph) family that owned that home there, refused to sell to the company that runs the boardwalk. And the neighborhood has no zoning ordinance, so they went ahead and they built the roller coaster and the rest is history.
CHETRY: Can you imagine? They had the house since 1962 and now they can't go out on the front porch.
ROBERTS: And I don't even think they get free tickets the roller coaster.
CHETRY: I'm sure they don't want to be getting up close and personal with it 12 hours a day.
Two minutes before the top of the hour. Ali Velshi here "Minding Your Business."
Welcome back.
ALI VELSHI, CNN FINANCIAL ANALYST: Well, thank you very much. Good to be back. Back to school, parents are concerned about being in touch with their kids. And there are a lot of parents who think their kids should have cell phones. AT&T today is starting perhaps the broadest parental control system. It's called the Smart Limits Plan. It will cost you $5 in addition to your normal AT&T monthly plan.
Let me tell you what it will do. It will allow parent to block text messages from certain numbers to and from the cell phone, block cell phone calls to and from certain numbers and restrict the times during which your kid can get or make calls. And it can filter content on web-enabled phones. And you can also set if your child goes beyond the allotment, the spending allotment in a month it will cut the phone right off.
Seventy-two percent of children ages 13 to 17, according to one report, actually have cell phones. Can you believe that? Seventy-two percent. Now, AT&T -- this system is for teenagers having these phones. There are a lot of phones out there for even smaller kids, say about 5 to 8 years old. They tend to be those one-touch things.
CHETRY: 5 year olds?
VELSHI: Like the firefly. This is Cingular's version. And all the carriers have one. It's like one-button call mom, call dad. It's for an emergency if your kid is lost or something like that. Sprint, as you know, has a system that has a GPS so you can track your kids. Verizon has one of those, too. Lots of parental controls.
Don't get your kid a geeky phone, because they won't use it anyway.
I'll be back with more of this rough travel summer for you, but the next hour of "AMERICAN MORNING" begins right now.
CHETRY: Selling success.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Military successes are paving the way to improving security throughout Iraq.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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