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Swine Flu Vaccine For Gitmo Detainees?; Should General McChrystal Be Fired?
Aired November 03, 2009 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Coming at you right now:
SCOTT RITTER, FORMER CHIEF U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR IN IRAQ: General McChrystal should be fired. I have been -- I'm very clear about that.
SANCHEZ (on camera): General McChrystal, you say, should be fired for insubordination?
(voice-over): The man who got Iraq right is now saying the commander...
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Whoa.
(LAUGHTER)
SANCHEZ: Hello again, everybody. I'm Rick Sanchez. We will finish that at some point later on, I suppose. We like to call this the next generation of news. This is a conversation. It is not a speech. And it is your turn to get involved.
Americans in several cities are casting votes today on president -- the first election since President Obama. A new CNN/Opinion -- since President Obama was elected -- there is a new poll out that shows 54 percent of Americans approve of President Obama's performance, while 45 percent disapprove.
Republicans are trying to elect governors, we understand, in Virginia and New Jersey, and a Conservative Party candidate is hoping to win a House seat in New York State. I mean, that's the situation as it stands right now, Republicans and conservatives both are trying to hit Obama with just about everything they have.
All right, now let's talk about the targets. The most recent target from conservatives, the U.S. Census, something which has been a mainstay in this country since 1790. And they're also attacking the White House over reported plans to offer swine flu shots to detainees at Gitmo, not to mention the people who are at Gitmo, like soldiers.
Are these examples of blind partisanship bickering or truly important issues that Americans should be concerned with?
Let's begin with Gitmo. And stay with us, because there's a twist to this story at the very end.
Here's Brian Todd.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A pandemic that's spread across the country now spreads a political virus in Washington, the Obama team taking bipartisan fire for the fact that the swine flu vaccine could be offered to detainees at Guantanamo while American families deal with delays in production in the vaccine.
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (I), CONNECTICUT: They should get way, way, way back at the end of the line and only get the vaccine when 150 million Americans who are thought to be in vulnerable categories get that vaccine.
TODD: Senator Joe Lieberman says he's appealing to the president and the Pentagon to reverse course. A Democratic congressman calls it unacceptable and a Republican counterpart says, "The administration tells us no longer women and children first," for the vaccine.
We contacted officials at the Pentagon, the White House and a spokesman at Guantanamo who said this.
LT. CMDR. BROOK DEWALT, DIR. OR PUBLIC AFFAIRS, JOINT TASK FORCE GUANTANAMO: People who are in institutional settings or environments such as nursing homes, detention facilities, prisons, college dorms as well as patients in hospital and people with diseases are all considered to be at a higher risk.
And detainees at Guantanamo would then fall into that general area of higher-risk individuals.
TODD: But the Centers for Disease Control does not specifically put detainees on the target list of people recommended to receive the vaccine when it becomes available. And a White House official says the administration is trying to determine if detainees should ever have any access to the vaccine.
Officials at Guantanamo and the Pentagon tell us there are no cases of H1N1 at Guantanamo yet. The vaccine has not arrived and don't know when they'll get it. They say the base commander will make sure military personnel get the vaccine first and that it will be voluntary for detainees.
One bioethicist says this is typical of the political challenge epidemics pose to presidents.
ART CAPLAN, UNIVERSITY OF NEW POLICY. DIR. OF BIOETHICS: It's a really tough line to walk. And I'm afraid, given all the other forces out there -- vaccine critics, economic issues, even a certain skepticism toward government -- it makes it even harder to get the right balance between wanting the public to take this seriously but not panicking people.
TODD (on camera): A senior Pentagon official says this is a force protection issue. He says the detainees in Guantanamo may have to get access to the vaccine in order to protect the military personnel who are guarding them.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: You're not going to believe this. After all that, after that story that we did, after all the manifestations and all the complaints about Barack Obama sending this stuff to detainees and denying the American people while sending it to detainees, et cetera, et cetera, we have got an update.
You may want to call it damage control or simply setting the record straight. The White House has just said, there never has been and there is no swine flu shots for detainees in Gitmo, never has been, still isn't.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There is no vaccine in Guantanamo and there is no vaccine on the way to Guantanamo.
TODD: So, the Pentagon was wrong when they confirmed that on Friday?
GIBBS: I -- I don't know what the Pentagon said. I -- I know, in asking yesterday, whether or not there was any vaccine there or whether there was any vaccine that was on its way, the answer to both those questions was -- was no.
QUESTION: Is that because of the White House stopped it or...
GIBBS: No, that was because there wasn't any there, and there wasn't any on the way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Meanwhile, the story about the White House sending vaccines to the Gitmo detainees still circulates out there. Just on your way home today or on your way tomorrow, just turn on your talk radio. I guarantee you will hear it.
This video will make you feel like you're there. Does it also reveal why the strategy there may not be working?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUDY MARTIN, DIRECTOR, SURVIVORS/VICTIMS OF TRAGEDY: Six families are going to get horrible news. But if we had a missing- persons department and we had an active ongoing investigation in all these cases as much as possible, maybe none of this would have happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SANCHEZ: She is talking about a bloody crime that she says police ignored because it happened in a poor area. Is that a fair accusation about police departments, that they would not investigate a story just because it's in a poor area?
I want you to tell me what you think about this. What's your take is on that, as our national conversation continues?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Coming at you right now:
SCOTT RITTER, FORMER CHIEF U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR IN IRAQ: General McChrystal should be fired. I have been -- I'm very clear about that.
SANCHEZ (on camera): General McChrystal, you say, should be fired for insubordination?
(voice-over): The man who got Iraq right is now saying the commander in Afghanistan should be fired. You will hear him out.
Video from Afghanistan you will see here exclusively detailing why U.S. strategy may not be working.
And it's Election Day in several U.S. cities and states. And the right is hitting the president hard on the flu virus and the census. We will break down the arguments for your national conversation for Tuesday, November 3, 2009.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Boy, we got a lot of comments on that Gitmo story I reported to you just a little while ago. But I want to bring you up to date on this now.
How can somebody be found in the bushes standing over a naked bloodied woman and never be questioned about that by police? Doesn't that seem obviously that it would warrant an investigation? That's what a neighbor of Anthony Sowell reported that he witnessed just weeks before police investigated Sowell in the deaths of seven women found dead at his house.
And, yes, I said seven. The seventh victim was just announced a couple of weeks ago. In fact, we were told about this just before we went on the air. It makes you wonder, if they had investigated that beating thoroughly, they might have found the dead women sooner, maybe even saved one of them.
In fact, one local activist wants to know if Cleveland police are really interested in solving crimes when they involve minorities or low-income neighborhoods.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARTIN: Six families are going to get horrible news. But if we had a missing-persons department and we had an active ongoing investigation in all these cases as much as possible, maybe none of this would have happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: All right, let's set the record straight, because there's a lot of this going around on there and a lot of comments are being made about this.
Put me back on camera, if you would. All right. Let's be fair. Is it possible that a police department or even a precinct dropped the ball, I mean really screwed this one up? Of course it is. And in fact it's starting to look that way. Some would easily be able to say that.
But trust me -- and this is important -- I spent a large part of my career as a police beat reporter, on the streets. I mean, I spent time on some of the nastiest, some of the meanest, some of the poorest streets in South Florida with cops every day, got to know them, got to know their families.
And I can tell you uncategorically that police investigate all serious crimes thoroughly, no matter where they occur. I have seen it for myself day in and day out. Do some communities get more attention, more resources than other communities? Of course they do.
But, once a crime is committed, police officers, who are for the most part competent professionals, will investigate, no matter the name, nationality or skin color of said victim or said suspect.
Just thought I would share that with you. I welcome your response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RITTER: General McChrystal should be fired. I have been -- I'm very clear about that.
SANCHEZ: General McChrystal, you say, should be fired for insubordination?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: All right, this former Marine/U.N. weapons inspector says President Obama's top military commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, should be fired. You just heard him say it.
All right, what is his argument for it? That's where I press him. And you're going to hear what he has to say.
Also, this woman, this young attractive Iraqi living in the United States, is now dead, in part, police say, because she was living in the United States. I will explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez.
Harry Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur. Military types call that relieving someone of their command. It's what happens when a general does a flank maneuver around his commander in chief and plays to the media, in other words, what he should say to his boss in private.
There's no question MacArthur did that, but how about General Stanley McChrystal? Has the commander in charge of Afghanistan been insubordinate? Scott Ritter, who was one of the few guys who got Iraq right, says, yes. He says, yes, he was insubordinate. He goes on to say that McChrystal should now be fired. And that's why that is today's breakthrough.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RITTER: I think General McChrystal should be punished. And the ultimate punishment is of course relief of command. He's unfit for command at this point in time, because he has chosen to politicize his professional opinion.
His job when he put on the uniform is to uphold and defend the Constitution, and that means that he has to respect civilian leadership of the military. And he has not been respectful of this. And there's no way the president can go forward with a general who -- who chooses to play political games with his commander in chief.
This wouldn't work at the low level. This shouldn't work at the high level. General McChrystal should be fired. I have been -- I'm very clear about that.
SANCHEZ: General McChrystal, you say, should be fired for insubordination by disclosing information that he should have said only in private to the president of the United States?
RITTER: Not just disclosing it, but he -- he chided, he mocked his chain of command.
Vice President Biden put forward a -- you know, a concept of, you know, de-emphasizing confronting the Taliban and emphasizing going after al Qaeda. And General McChrystal in London and elsewhere pretty much mocked this.
That's mockery of your chain of command. And, again, everybody's entitled to their private opinion, but when it comes to the president of the United States, General McChrystal doesn't have a private opinion. He must be subordinate. He must listen. He can provide advice, but that advice must be confidential in nature.
He went outside the framework of confidence when he spoke in London, when he speaks to the media, either directly or indirectly. So, the bottom line is, he has -- he made a choice that he's no longer going to be an implementer of policy. He wants to be a formulator of policy. And that's just not his role. (END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: All right, here is what is interesting. Ritter also says that we have screwed up Afghanistan from top to bottom going all the way back to right after 9/11.
Again, it's important to point out that Ritter is not a pacifist, by any means. In fact, he was a former Marine and a former U.N. weapons inspector chased out of Iraq by Saddam Hussein.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RITTER: Our presence in Afghanistan only legitimatizes one of the most illegitimate movements in history.
After 9/11, I think the Islamic world was virtually unanimous in its condemnation. Yes, there's some examples of Islamic fundamentalists and some radicals cheering what occurred. But, by and large, the Islamic community rejected this and condemned this.
And that was a perfect opportunity for the United States to reach out to Islam, isolate and nullify al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. We chose not to. And now we're engaged in the very actions Osama bin Laden said we would be engaged in. We're killing innocents by the thousands.
Anybody who supports the continued use of Predator, you know, unmanned vehicles over Pakistan does not understand how that equates to reinforcing al Qaeda, not diminishing al Qaeda. When we kill 100- plus innocent civilians for every bad guy we get, that's math we can't win, because even though we got one bad guy, we're going to get 10 to 20 more people per innocent civilian killed joining or being sympathetic to al Qaeda.
So, we're losing this mathematical equation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: I got to tell you, this is a guy is not afraid to cut loose. This is a guy who is not afraid to cut against the grain either. Like it or not, I mean, you got to respect that about him, whether you agree with him or disagree with him.
Listen to how he responds to the fundamental tenet of the Bush administration, that if we don't fight the bad guys over there, then they're going to come and fight us over here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RITTER: It's not an -- first of all, it's not a hypothetical. They already came here. So, it's not as though we're hypothesizing about the potential. We know the reality. And the reality already happened.
But let's be frank, if we're going after the people that planned and perpetrated the horrific events of September 11, 2001, we would be better off focusing on Hamburg, Germany, where this cell lived, planned, received their money, or Singapore or Malaysia or San Diego, or Florida, where they learned how to fly.
Afghanistan? No, there's a distinct difference between al Qaeda and the Taliban. The big mistake we make strategically is to blend them as a singular entity. The Taliban is the legitimate outgrowth of frustration of the Afghan people over the corruption, the rape, the pillage, of the warlord that thrived in Afghanistan once the Soviets left.
They rule Afghanistan in a manner which I wouldn't want to live under. I'm not singing their praises as a social entity. But the reality is, the Taliban are closer to the Afghan people than, in many cases, Hamid Karzai, America's anointed president of Afghanistan, is.
We need to make sure that if we want to solve the al Qaeda problem, we don't complicate it by folding in the Taliban, who are completely different. The Taliban will not leave Afghanistan and attack us. They never have. They never will. They're a regional element. They're local. They want to live in the emirate of Afghanistan.
And as far as I'm concerned, let them live there. We need to focus on al Qaeda. And the best way to isolate al Qaeda is to stop this fight with the Taliban.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Well, the always colorful Scott Ritter.
I should tell you, by the way, that throughout our conversations with Ritter, we have also spent the last week-and-a-half, at least, reaching out to the White House, in expectation of their response of what he would be saying.
Up to now, they have pretty much ignored our requests.
If you want to hear my entire conversation with Ritter, you can go my blog. It's at CNN.com/ricksanchez.
You want to see video that hasn't been seen before, behind-the- scenes, up-close video of U.S. forces in a firefight in Afghanistan? You want to see what is really going on there? Is this the reason that we should either pull out, as some would argue, or add more troops, as others would argue? We're going to share it with you.
And this is Virginia Foxx. She's unleashed another one. This time, it has to do with terrorism and health care. You know what? You just got to hear this one for yourself.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Whoa, boy, a lot of comments on that conversation we had a little while ago about the war. There's all kinds of comments coming in from both sides. Let's just go to it. Freakyfran, of course, she watches our show every day. You got to love her. "We went to war so Cheney's cronies could bilk the United States out of billions of dollars and to get their grubby hands on oil."
"Always respected Scott Ritter. The man speaks the truth."
Well, there you go, a couple of good ones for Scott Ritter. As we look, if we find some more, we will continue to share them with you, no matter what they say.
A father who police say chose to kill his own daughter, how did he do it? He ran her over with his jeep, allegedly on purpose. Why did he do it? The family says he was angry that she was becoming too American. He's got a lot more to worry about these days. His daughter died last night.
This is a photo of her just before the incident. She was in a coma for nearly two weeks. She was just 20 years old. What did she do to get her life cut short so tragically, so brutally? Well, her father felt that she was abandoning her traditional Iraqi conservative upbringing to live a more carefree American lifestyle, which included befriending a man, a man here, while she was still married to another man in Iraq.
This is the father, Faleh Hassan Almaleki, born in Iraq, now living in a jail. He was in court yesterday in Arizona. But he didn't get there easily. Police say, after running over his daughter, he left Maricopa County. You know, that's the place where Sheriff Joe Arpaio is busy arresting cleaning ladies.
Anyway, he fled from those authorities and ended up in Mexico, from where he then took a plane and ended up in England, to where he almost made it all the way to Iraq again. He was brought back from England just last weekend and charged with two counts of aggravated assault. Expect those charges to change now that his daughter died last night.
Cameras put you right in the middle of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Does this prove the U.S. should rethink its strategy?
Also, there's a follow to the story that we showed you yesterday about a basketball player who caught a bat. You're not -- I -- you're -- I'm telling you, you're not going to believe this update. You're not. Stay there, because you need to hear it, though. It's ahead in "Fotos."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: By the way, tons of you are reacting to the interview I did with Scott Ritter a little while ago. So, I just want to let you know, once again -- it's a programming note/reminder -- that my conversation with Scott Ritter is now on my blog at CNN.com/ricksanchez.
You will either think he's nuts, or you are going to think this guy is right on. He's not one of those gray area guys. And, again, he was right about Iraq before we went to war there. And now he's saying that we should not send another 40,000 troops to Afghanistan. In fact, we -- you know what he's saying. He's saying we should just get out. That's what he's saying.
Our correspondent in Afghanistan, Chris Lawrence, says many of the troops there do need help, though. And sources that I have talked to recently also tell me that we're getting beaten because of, in many ways, the topography in Afghanistan, which allows our enemies to almost shoot down into some of those military outposts, which becomes a problem as well.
I have got a piece of video here that I want to show you. It shows exactly what this military debate looks like and what this military debate sounds like.
This is a remote U.S. Army outpost that you're about to see. OK? And in this video, a small unit is fully under fire, fully engaged with Taliban fighters in the mountains near the Pakistan border. It's a handful of soldiers against God knows how many enemy, in the enemy's home terrain.
Let's watch it together.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(GUNFIRE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. Keep scanning. Keep scanning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watch out! Move your head! Move your head!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go! Go!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty seconds to impact. There they go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Wow, that's some impact, too.
This firefight happened in 2008. It's typical of how small deployed units are fighting and surviving in Afghanistan right now. Small deployed units.
Now, here's the dividing line. Do we get these guys out of these small remote bases where they're ambushed and sometimes sitting ducks? Or do we boost them up with even more troops? Or do we let Afghans that we're now training handle this situation?
I want you to listen to what our Pentagon correspondent -- you know, he's over there. Chris Lawrence is over there. He's in Afghanistan. I want you to listen to what he says that the troops are telling him right now, there in Afghanistan.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No runoff election? It still means no rest for the soldiers in the small outpost well outside Kandahar. Now they're wondering, when will President Obama decide whether to send more troops?
CPL. JIMMY PARKER, 1ST BATTALION, 17TH INFANTRY: We need the help down here. Even though we're handling it on our own, we need more forces down here. This area is too big for just one company to be here.
LAWRENCE: The company is Bravo. The area is the Arghandab River Valley, part desert, part irrigated orchards, and heavily saturated with Taliban fighters.
SPC. BRIAN SCHOENBECK, 1ST BATTALION, 17TH INFANTRY: Get another battalion or brigade out here to help us out.
LAWRENCE: Specialist Brian Schoenbeck says there's too many Afghans spread over too much ground to know them personally, which is crucial for gathering intelligence.
SCHOENBECK: Well, if we have a smaller area as a result of having more troops here, it does allow us to get to know the people better.
LAWRENCE (on camera): One of the reasons for adding more troops is to add more trainers who can then beef up the number of Afghan national police in villages like this.
(voice-over): U.S. commanders say they can push the Taliban from town to town here, but that's all.
MAJOR SCOTT BRANNAN, TASK FORCE FURY: Right now, it's hard to saturate and have boots on the ground because the battle space is so large. You know, Afghanistan is much larger than Iraq.
LAWRENCE: But some say there's nowhere near enough infrastructure for 20,000 to 40,000 more soldiers and Marines.
SPC. LUKE ADLER, 82ND AIRBORNE: Logistically, Afghanistan is not ready for all the troops.
LAWRENCE: Specialist Luke Adler says supplies still don't flow into Afghanistan as fast as they do in Iraq. It's better now than on his first tour here, but that's not saying much.
ADLER: We had nothing. Last winter, we had no saws in our trucks.
LAWRENCE: Adler has come to believe the Taliban can't be wiped out, not in their own country, even with more troops.
ADLER: All politicians and civilians, they just think we'll send them over there. It doesn't matter how many troops you throw, but you just can't throw massive people here. It's not going to work. It's not a war, you know. It's an insurgency.
LAWRENCE (on camera): We did see somewhat of a split. Soldiers who were training Afghan security forces were somewhat ambivalent about a troop increase, while those in front line combat missions want to see more troops added to the fight.
Chris Lawrence, CNN, Kandahar Province.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: And while we make those decisions over there, there are a lot of people here who have been twittering me today after listening to Scott Ritter who tend to agree that maybe General McChrystal may have overstepped his bounds.
Let's listen to some of these tweets that are continuing to come in. And this is pretty much what they're saying.
"General McChrystal should lead by example. What would he do if he faces someone in his command break the chain of command?"
That's an interesting point of view.
And then there's this one: "I do think the case that he makes" -- referring to Scott Ritter -- "against McChrystal is accurate, but I think the president chose to privately tell him to shut up."
You're right, there are indications that he did just that.
We'll stay on it.
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, let's look at her. There she is. She says that we should fear Congress and health care more than we should fear terrorists.
It makes you wonder, though, what have we been doing all these years against terrorists? A waste of time?
I'll explain in just a little bit.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: And I welcome you back. I'm Rick Sanchez.
Think of the money that we have spent on the so-called war on terror, the thousands of lives that have been lost, the soul-sapping drain on America's national psyche.
Now, according to a congresswoman, Virginia Foxx, we did that for nothing, because that's not the real threat. She seems to be saying this is what you need to know as Americans -- al Qaeda, what's the big deal? This Republican from North Carolina says there's an even bigger threat than al Qaeda.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. VIRGINIA FOXX (R), NORTH CAROLINA: I believe that the greatest fear that we all should have to our freedom comes from this room, this very room, and what may happen later this week in terms of a tax increase bill masquerading as a health care bill. I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: If you discerned a morsel of logic there, then you're way ahead of me. I think that what she's trying to say is that health care reform is a greater threat than the terrorists because it's, in her words, a tax increase in disguise.
How could another 9/11 be any worse than that? She thinks so.
In Virginia Foxx's world, this threat that we face, well, it appears to be all about money, right? All right. So let's do something here. Let's look at the numbers for the record.
The Congressional Budget Office looked at the Baucus bill. That's the best known health care reform plan out there right now. And we found that it would cost about $830 billion. That's over 10 years, by the way -- $830 billion over 10 years. But it would cut the federal deficit by making health care more affordable.
In Virginia Foxx's world, that must be terrifying. Of course, Foxx was a big supporter of invading Iraq, so let's do the comparison.
She says that doesn't seem to be a threat, yet she spent all this money -- you're looking at it -- on Iraq, where it cost our nation, according to the National Priorities Project, nearing $700 billion. But it wasn't as big a threat?
Then we have Afghanistan. Foxx was all for that war as well, $230 billion and still going out. So, combined between Iraq and Afghanistan, that's $927 billion so far.
Estimated cost of health care, $830 billion. And for that, we're actually going to be getting something back.
Health care. Tell us again, Congresswoman, which one is more scary?
Why are Americans afraid of the census all of a sudden? Seriously. Could it have something to do with someone trying to take a swipe at the president on this one?
It might. We'll see.
Stay there. We're coming right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Welcome back. You're not going to believe this. There seems to be a development now in a breaking news story that we have just gotten more -- all right, look, I'll just be real frank with you. This story is as sick as they come.
We told you yesterday about a man who apparently was living inside his home with as many as six decaying bodies. I told you earlier today, too, that just before I went on the air -- that's the house -- I think you'll recall that I told you that Mr. Sowell's house, police had gone in and they found another body. So that's a total of seven.
Now we're starting to get information -- in fact, we got it while we were in that commercial. While you were watching that commercial, my producers were telling me that we have just gotten some new information that seems to indicate there now they be three more bodies found in that house, or under that house, or around that house. So that makes it now a total of 10. We assume women's bodies since those were the first six.
This man has been accused of rape. We assume he will be charged with the disappearance and discoveries of these women's bodies.
The stench that was emanating from the house is indescribable. People say everywhere he went, people couldn't stand his stench, and they were never able to put it together until now.
And earlier today, we reported to you that just a few months ago, someone in this neighborhood had found him standing over a naked woman's body. They called police, but police failed to respond or act or investigate thoroughly.
So with that new information, I want to bring in somebody now who's following this story for us, because obviously it's growing in proportion.
Mel Watson is a senior producer for WEWS. She's joining us now by phone to let us know what she is learning.
Mel, are you there?
MEL WATSON, SR. PRODUCER, WEWS: Good afternoon, Rick. I am here.
SANCHEZ: Tell me what you're learning now, what police are telling you. What's going on at the scene?
WATSON: We have confirmation of one additional body, with up to three more additional bodies that could be buried in the house, buried in the back yard. The Cleveland police department have erected a heated tent in the backyard of Anthony Sowell's home, police are there and they are plan on digging through the night, so by morning, we could have even more bodies, who knows?
SANCHEZ: Give me the timing, when was the first body discovered? I know one of them was right there in the living room when they opened the door, right?
WATSON: Right.
SANCHEZ: That was when?
WATSON: That was Thursday evening, in the living room, just to give you some perspective, it's not a typical living room, you walk in the front porch and there's the front door, and you walk in there's the living room. This was a second floor living room, so police were searching the house, they had executed a search warrant, going through the home, found the body in the second floor living room on Thursday.
SANCHEZ: And now these bodies that they appear to be finding now are not actually in the home, but looks like buried in the backyard, right? Or that at least is what we would be led to believe given that they have put this heated canvass back there?
WATSON: That is what we are led to believe, yes. They brought -- when our crews were on the scene this morning for our early morning shows, we had free rein up and down the street, Imperial Avenue here in Cleveland. By noon they had closed the street off. By 1:00 p.m. this afternoon, they had erected the tent, put a canvass around the house and our police sources told us that there was at least one body, possibly three and since 1:00 this afternoon, we have confirmed the one body with the potential of three more.
SANCHEZ: This guy's looking like, I mean, a potential Jeffrey Dahmer kind of person.
WATSON: Everybody remembers that case.
SANCHEZ: Yes, I mean, this is unbelievable. Have any of these women that have been found so far, and I'm assuming they're women because so far most of them have been reported to be women. Have any of them been identified? Has anybody know where they came from or what they may have come from? Is anybody come forward and given any information about these victims?
WATSON: We have at least three families in the neighborhood who, of course, suspect that they're missing women family members are the bodies that were found in this home. We do not have police confirmation that those are indeed the bodies of the women in this neighborhood. However an unconfirmed police source did tell us today through the identification process, and again this is unconfirmed that these could be bodies of those women in that neighborhood.
SANCHEZ: That's amazing. So this brings us to the potential of ten women who may have been found in that house at this time. One more thing before you go, Mel, tell our viewers, since you have been on top of this story and we have been kind of playing a guessing game as to who this guy is and what would lead a human being to do something like this, tell us what you know about him?
WATSON: He spent upwards to 20 years in the Ohio correctional system for assault and rape. During this time with released on parole. I can't call him a model citizen here in Cleveland, but there are no reports on file really of him having return to this criminal behavior. However about six weeks ago, and you had already reported this prior to taking my phone call that there were reports that he had assaulted a woman in his home, she had jumped out the window, he was standing over her body in the backyard, she managed to flee. But she did not agree to fully go through the system, prosecute this case.
So without, you know, without her testimony, the police didn't really have any where to go. When they went in on Thursday, they were just doing a standard check on previous criminals, probation types who were in the system. They had no original cause to enter that home when they first did the check. But obviously smelled stench, obviously the area reeked of decomposition and obviously they realized they needed to do further investigation. And I will leave you with this, the Cleveland police department is scheduled to hold a press conference tonight at 6:00 and we suspect we will find out much more information during that press conference.
SANCHEZ: And we will likely carry that press conference on CNN live from Cleveland. Mel Watson, Senior Producer for WEWS, good stuff, good report, well truly thought out and well prepared information. We thank you for sharing that with our viewers. When we come back, we're going to stay with that story now that it's reached these kinds of dimensions which we feared it might. Pat Brown FBI Criminal Profiler. She joins me next. Let's sneak a break in. Stay there though because come back as more information develops on the story, I'm going to be sharing it with you.
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SANCHEZ: Welcome back. The story that's - it is unbelievable story that the details are coming out of Cleveland, Ohio, right now. We had told you, and in case you're joining us late, the information about a man who had been found with six bodies inside of his home, according to police. There's the home. There are the pictures that are coming in now. We've just been told the police will have a news conference tonight at 6:00. Before we went on the air they found another body, a seventh, we stayed and reported that.
Now we're being told that yet another body has been confirmed and possibly two more are going to be confirmed shortly. That would raise the total, if that is indeed confirmed, to ten bodies found under this man's home. As we mentioned moments ago, this is almost starting to reach Jeffrey Dahmer type proportions. What was this man doing? Who are these women? Where did they come from? How did they lure them into his home? A lot of questions here. We want to get to Pat Brown now, she is standing by for us. Pat is an FBI Criminal Profiler. Pat, are you there?
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER (voice-over): Hi Rick, I'm not an FBI profiler but a criminal profiler, yes.
SANCHEZ: A criminal profiler nonetheless. What do you make of this?
BROWN: I can tell you what he was doing. He was getting away with this. I mean, this is absolutely outrageous. It's hard enough when you have women go missing, and have you no idea who the suspect could possibly be, but here you've got a convicted rapist who is right under our noses, sitting in a house at the same location year after year, a smelling house that everybody is complaining about it, and there's women going mission and apparently the police are not putting out any information in the area that there was a serial killer at loose because unless these women aren't from the area at all, there's got to be a whole lot of missing women in that area.
SANCHEZ: What I was saying to my viewers earlier, I mean, if the police officers know that there has been a crime committed, in other words, there's evidence of a crime in any particular area, I've worked with enough cops and I'm sure you have, too. They go full gusto into an investigation, it doesn't matter where it is, but if it's something where women are disappearing in a certain area, they might be a little hesitant in a community like this one to spend as much time on that story as they would maybe in another part of town, is that fair?
BROWN: Well, it is a problem. I think anytime you have a poor area of town, first of all, the crime rate is much, much higher so the police are overwork and overburdened and they can barely keep up with the cases they have got. So, when people coming and say hey, so and so missing are missing there like, OK whatever, especially if the person had any issues in the past with prostitution or drugs, there's a tendency if that body doesn't show up, they just sort of shrug it off, because it's just, what are you going to do? We're going to race all over town looking for her?
SANCHEZ: Let's suppose a guy like this is inviting women to his house, right? I mean, ten women it looks like this, it might be before the end of the night. Don't you think at some point -- explain to me a scenario where if I invited you to my house, Pat, as a guest, wouldn't you tell somebody I'm going over to Rick Sanchez's house tonight, he and his wife have invited me to come over and have a cup of coffee and talk about police work. You would tell somebody, right? How do you do that with ten people without anybody being able to -- to follow the leads?
BROWN: Well, my guess is that he actually brought these women over there through the internet where he was advertising himself and looking for women to dominate. He had that ad out there so someone may have come through that. He may have, first of all, given a phony name. These women may be on the fringes of society and they are not, you know, as, shall we say, they don't think as clearly as all that to say, hey, I'm going to be at so and so's house and here's the address in case I don't come back.
SANCHEZ: So, he got to know his victims. In other words, if you're dealing with a certain type of person, you know they are going to be somewhat reclusive. In other words, they are not going to be the kind of people who have that many associations and are constantly telling their mom or brother or dad where they are at all times during the day.
BROWN: Exactly. Exactly. So, we have women who, let's say may be involved in sexual activities that are a little -- a little -- if you're going on the internet and looking to be dominated by somebody, want to be somebody's slave you've got a few little sexual kirks there anyway, or if you're a woman who just wants to get some alcohol or drugs, it's amazing what women will do under those conditions. They are already under some kind of condition like drinking or drugs they may not, again, think as clearly so I think that's what we're dealing with and that's why probably these women weren't noted to be missing as well. But in the area when you get that many people gone missing and there is a convicted, you know, rapist around which is to me just the same as a serial rapist or serial killer because when you've got a rapist he's always going to be a serial rapist and a serial rapist can be a serial killer as well. So we should be paying real good attention to one thing and when women go missing that guy might be involved in it.
SANCHEZ: Well, and you know what else it is, too, I think, in our society we've become pretty open and pretty trusting. But you know, there's still -- I mean, there's a threat out there for both sexes, for men and for women, but I think this maybe underscores the fact that sometimes some women need to be particularly careful, right?
BROWN: Women need to be a lot more careful than they are being, and I think that's one of the things I keep harping on. Sometimes people will say, gee, you're blaming that victim. You think you shouldn't have done this well? No, the victim is not responsible for having a murder do her in, but, unfortunately, she's putting herself in situations where she's running into these guys. So, we actually as a society have to be a lot more careful than we're being, especially women because it has gotten extremely unsafe out there. I mean, I remember as a child I walked a mile to school and a mile home and I didn't think about it and after teenager, I probably had a lot more freedom than I would have but I did get my teenager because I knew that the world has changed, and it's not that safe.
SANCHEZ: Let me bring the viewers up to date real quick, Pat. Stay with us here real quick. For those of you joining us now, we've been told that within the next couple of hours police will announce or call a news conference where they will going to make some announcements. We expect that they may likely confirm as we've heard from some of our own sources there from WEWS that there may be as many as not just another one but as many as four new bodies found today potentially bringing the total of bodies found in this man's house now to ten in Cleveland, Ohio.
Pat, I can't help but think that this -- what this man did, it's not something you do without notice. I mean, it's got to be loud. It's got to draw attention, and the fact that he's kept those bodies and he's lived with them for this long period of time, well, you know, I know, I've been a cop beat reporter for many years, I've come to these scenes, the smell that's put out by a situation like this is like nothing else that you could describe, and you usually know that it's not someone's garbage that hasn't been thrown out, right?
BROWN: Well, I think that people notice the smell. That's one thing people did complain about over and over again that that place really, really smelled and he wreaked but they thought it was the sausage factory running behind him or the fact he is some semi- homeless bum who doesn't take a shower very often so they discounted it. I think, as far as the screaming goes, I think by the time he got most of these women they didn't even know what was happening to them, grabbed them quickly and started strangling them and it was just simply a blitz attack on them so they may not have actually screamed out but except for the one who apparently falling out the window. So, that's kind of brought little out of the tense.
SANCHEZ: Does this -- this guy had already been convicted of rape.
BROWN: Right.
SANCHEZ: And now it appears he may have raped and killed ten women, all right, I mean, let's call it what it is. Does this say something about certain crimes that maybe you can't fix, that maybe people need to be spending a lot more time in jail, and I'm not talking about a couple of kids who maybe get a little carried away. I'm talking about the alley, the street back alley rapist like this guy appears to be.
BROWN: Right. I'm with you, Rick. There's a big difference, you know, when you have a situation like date rape, for example, I'm not going to get into an argument over whether it's rape or not rape, the point is it's a he said, she said a lot of time. Since people are drinking and gee, and so you thing, he, I don't know, maybe the guy is not such a bad character. He's just not realizing what he was doing. You can get into an argument about that, but when you have a guy who jumps out of a bushes and grabs a complete stranger off the street, tosses her to the ground, rapes her and tries to strangle her, you don't have any questionable ground there.
You have some guy who committing an ultraviolent crime against a stranger. That should be life in prison or death penalty, end of story. There's no question there in our minds that maybe we're not seeing it correctly. We are seeing it absolutely correctly so this guy should have gotten life or the death penalty.
SANCHEZ: Yes, I agree and I think a lot of people will going to agree now. Pat, thanks so much for your help on this story. Unbelievable details coming into to us now. I'm going to continue in the after show with Tisha Murphy and in the time. Here's Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM."
