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American Morning

U.S. Presence in Afghanistan; Cyber Monday Shopping Up

Aired December 01, 2009 - 08:00   ET

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

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning and welcome to AMERICAN MORNING on this Tuesday, December 1st. I'm Kiran Chetry.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm John Roberts. Thanks for being with us.

Here are the big stories that we'll be telling you about coming up in the next 15 minutes.

Just 12 hours now until President Obama's long-awaited public announcement on Afghanistan. The Pentagon is already putting his plan into effect. But now, the president must sell it to the American public. We're live at the White House this morning.

CHETRY: New developments in the alleged crashing of last week's White House state dinner. The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee is now calling on the head of the Secret Service and the White House social secretary to testify about what happened. He'd also like to hear from the Salahis. They're breaking their silence today and we'll bring you some of their interviews ahead.

ROBERTS: They surfed, they clicked, they bought -- a big surge in online shopping on Cyber Monday this year. We have the early returns for you and a look at how it stacks up against Black Friday sales. Our Stephanie Elam is "Minding Your Business" this morning.

We begin, though, with President Obama's new strategy for fighting the war in Afghanistan. Right now, it's already in the works. Marching orders for 30,000 additional troops went out Sunday to military commanders. However, the commitment will not be open- ended.

And earlier, I asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Is there a specific timetable for getting our troops out of Afghanistan? The president has said in the past, he doesn't want to the leave this to his successor.

ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: And the president is very serious about that. And you'll hear him, John, tonight, talk specifically about when he thinks we can begin to transition our forces out of Afghanistan, put the Afghans in the lead of providing their own security. That's the only real way forward in Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROBERTS: We're covering this story from every angle this morning. Our Suzanne Malveaux is live at the White House and our Frederik Pleitgen is embedded with U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He's live in Kandahar for us this morning.

Let's start with Suzanne, though.

And, Suzanne, the president is hoping to get some of his critics on board tonight, but he is facing a tougher sell on Afghanistan than President Bush certainly did in the aftermath of 9/11, when everybody understood exactly what the mission was supposed to be then.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, you're absolutely right. And senior administration officials will tell you, they understand that this is going to be a much tougher sell than what President Bush had. Afghanistan, quite frankly, at the center of the debate here at the White House, is a very different place than it used to be eight years ago.

President Bush, covering him for eight years, made the case that that was a central headquarters for al Qaeda. We saw that video that really became kind of iconic, but at first was quite alarming to the American people to see al Qaeda terrorists on this, what looks like a jungle gym, but certainly was a training base for them to regroup, if you will.

That is no longer the case. They are dispersed throughout the world. They're regrouping in Pakistan. There is no clear-cut enemy here. And so, that's one thing that the president is going to have to explain.

The other thing is -- and, John, you mentioned this, is that September 11th, President Bush talked about September 11th, almost on a daily basis, particularly when he went forward to U.S. troops and to speak before them. He was constantly reminding the American people about that tragic day. It is a distant memory for many people. Whether or not President Obama brings it up, we'll have to wait and see. Very likely, he's going to go ahead and talk about that.

And the final thing is, is that the president, as well as this administration, realizes that the tone and the language that President Bush used to use really created a lot of fear among Americans and they accused the president of being a fearmonger. That is something that they do not want to be portrayed us. And they want to make it very clear that yes, there is a terrorist threat, it is a danger in Afghanistan, but they don't want people to take on that same kind of anxiety they had, if you will, when President Bush laid all of this out -- John.

ROBERTS: I was a bit surprised, Suzanne, to hear Robert Gibbs say this morning that the president would go some distance to articulating a timetable for withdrawal. That's something that the previous administration, at least when it came to Iraq, really tried to avoid.

MALVEAUX: Absolutely. And the whole thing about benchmarks, when you talk about Afghanistan and benchmarks, whether or not the leadership, Hamid Karzai, can really deliver on those benchmarks, big questions. It's one of the reasons why they're not going to send all those troops, those forces out all at once, but they're going to look at it in increments.

They're going to take a look and see what does the Afghan government do? Do they actually meet some of those benchmarks? And then they'll put additional U.S. soldiers out. That is one of the things that they're really using as leverage. They're hoping that that will actually create some momentum within the Afghan government.

ROBERTS: Suzanne Malveaux, live for us at the White House this morning. Suzanne, as always, thanks.

CHETRY: Well, America's exit strategy for the Afghan war is directly linked to how quickly we can train their army and police to handle the conflict on their own.

Frederik Pleitgen is embedded with U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He's live for us in Kandahar this morning.

And, Frederik, the training is well underway. It looks like we do have a lot of work to do, though. From an on-the-ground perspective, what are the biggest challenges and what's going well?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes, a huge amount of work still lies ahead of the American soldiers on the ground here in southern Afghanistan. You know, Kiran, I just came back from Zabul province, and what the American Army is trying to do there is they're trying to mentor the Afghan forces to try to bring them up to speed as fast as possible.

Here's what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN (voice-over): Afghan soldiers search caves in a Gaza Calle (ph) village in southern Afghanistan, looking for Taliban weapon stashes. The man in charge of this operation, First Lieutenant Mohammad Nabi (ph), of the Afghan national army, who admits his men still have a long way to go.

"It's like when a child is born," he says, "you have to teach that child, and it could learn a lot."

It doesn't look like much, but what you see here is supposed to be a fundamental part of America's exit strategy from Afghanistan. The U.S. soldiers are stepping back, acting only as so-called combat advisers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's their operation. They plan all these missions out and we just go to help them out.

PLEITGEN (on camera): The U.S. says the key to making this project succeed is simple, the Afghans have to take more and more of the responsibility so that in the end, they can operate without the Americans.

(voice-over): But the challenges are immense. Afghanistan's armed forces have almost no heavy weapons or armored vehicles and the army and police are rife with corruption, drug abuse, and defections. Still, brazen words from the local army commander.

"I'm sure we can provide security for the people here and conduct operations on our own," he says.

Lieutenant Tribel (ph) is not so sure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If it's like, just not safe or just completely wrong, we'll try to fix it.

PLEITGEN: On this operation, some villages complain, saying the U.S. is no different than the Taliban, claiming the soldiers enter villages, ask questions, and then simply leave.

And remember the searches in the caves? Instead of Taliban weapons, the Afghan soldiers found some frightened donkeys.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a lot of good information.

PLEITGEN: Still, at the end of the mission, a positive assessment by the American lieutenant and the recognition that while there is still a long way to go, this partnership program could someday be America's ticket out of Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: Kiran, this is a really tough job for the U.S. army there and -- so, Kiran, this is a really tough job for the U.S. army out there. I can tell you they live together with the Afghan national army on the same base.

One of the things, however, that the soldiers have told me, off the record, they say they are really frustrated with the pace at which the Afghan security forces are catching up. They say they're sick of what they believe is endemic corruption within the Afghan security forces.

And one thing they say is they say they don't feel that most of the Afghan soldiers have the sense of urgency they believe is necessary to really defeat the Taliban insurgency. And certainly, that is something that's causing a lot of frustrations for a lot of American troops on the ground there, trying to teach those Afghan forces to fend for themselves -- Kiran.

CHETRY: So, when you talk about that, the concerns about corruption, the concerns about being up to speed and having a sense of urgency, can that be taught?

PLEITGEN: Well, I think it's very difficult. I mean, one of the things that's going on there right now is the Americans are trying to work closer and closer with those Afghan security forces. They're trying to embrace them. I mean, they're living on the same base. They're telling them, let's conduct this operation, let's do this, let's do that.

But, certainly, it appears as though, right now, it's the Americans telling the Afghan, let's go out and do an operation right now. It doesn't seem like there's much of an initiative coming from the Afghan forces themselves. That certainly is something that I saw on the ground there where I was.

Now, one thing I want to tell you is we were in a couple of Afghan villages around the base, Camp Wolverine in Zabul province, and one thing one village elder said, he said that if the Taliban come to his village, he would not notify the U.S. Army and he would not notify the Afghan security forces because he feels they can't provide for a security.

So, certainly, there's still a long, long way to go before the villagers and the Afghan people trust their own security forces and, of course, obviously, before the U.S. Army could really give security to those security forces for them to fend for themselves -- Kiran.

CHETRY: Wow. That's amazing. Frederik Pleitgen for us this morning, thank you.

ROBERTS: We're going to get more on the upcoming Afghanistan deployment. We'll going to be speaking with a professor at the Marine College just ahead. He's actually heading to Afghanistan in the next couple of weeks to talk to American forces there about how to train up those Afghan forces. Very important information coming your way in just a couple of moments.

It's 11 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Almost 14 minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.

We're following breaking news out of Seattle this morning, where police are now confirming that an officer shot dead Maurice Clemmons in a Seattle neighborhood at about 2:00 local time this morning.

Now, Clemmons has been the focus of an intense manhunt after four officers were gunned down in a coffee shop on Sunday. Police say that Clemmons shot them, two of them execution style while they were sitting there, one of them after an altercation, after trying to struggle with the suspect. Well, he was then shot after he challenged officers as they approached him. And again, he's been on the run since Sunday evening. Concerns that perhaps members of his family were helping him get away.

But, again, the confirmation this morning from Seattle police that the suspect has now been killed, shot and killed, by police -- John.

ROBERTS: President Obama will unveil his new plan for Afghanistan in an address to the nation tonight. We finally have a number, now we need the mission, and eventually, a way out. Here to talk strategy is Mark Moyar. He's a professor of national security affairs at the Marine Corps University. He's also the author of the book, "A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq." It's a book that's actually being used to help train Afghanistan security forces.

Mark, thanks for being with us this morning. It's good to see you.

We know the number of troops that the president is going to order deployed to Afghanistan. It's about 30,000. But what else do you want to hear from the president in his address tonight?

MARK MOYAR, PROFESSOR OF NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS AT THE MARINE CORPS UNIVERSITY: Well, I'd also like to hear what we have planned for developing the Afghan security forces, because we need to remember that there are actually almost three times as many Afghan forces as there are coalition forces. And they potentially can do a lot more than we can do, given their familiarity with the culture, with the language. And so there's also a huge issue of quality on their side. It's not just the numbers, but we need to really focus on what can we do to increase the quality of those forces.

ROBERTS: You know, our Chris Lawrence just recently returned from Afghanistan. We had him on earlier this morning and we asked him that question. He said, you know, he was impressed that to some degree the Afghan military seemed to be in better shape than he thought it was, but the Afghan police force was close to disastrous. He said he saw at some checkpoints that some members of the Afghan police force had taken the breast plates, the so called sappy plates, out of their body armor and were using it to grill meat on.

MOYAR: Yes, that's the trend across the country. The Afghan military has been developing since 2004 and it's not really since last year that we saw significant progress on the police side, because you had a new Afghan interior minister, who we're now trying to figure out a way to keep him in his job. But for the police, certainly, you're looking at, I think, a ten-year effort to really develop their leadership fully. But at the same time, we have to come up with some short-term measures to try to help them.

And one of the big ones, which I know you've talked about this morning, is partnering them with U.S. forces. Because if you have, you know, 60 Afghan police by themselves, there's a good chance they're going to be demanding bribes at these checkpoints, sitting around, smoking marijuana, not doing much to the insurgents. If you put 15 Americans with them, they are going to stop doing those things. They are going to have to start going after the insurgents. And so, you know, by adding one American, you're essentially empowering four Afghans. And I think that's what General McChrystal certainly is looking at doing.

ROBERTS: You know, in an article that you wrote recently about the way forward in Afghanistan, you said that security and stability is key. And when you were talking about the Afghan police force, you said that in many places, Afghan national police have developed a reputation for thievery and sexually abusing girls and boys.

How do you develop trust when your officers are behaving in such a fashion?

MOYAR: Right, well, that's, you know, that's really been fueling the insurgency in a lot of places. So we have to, you know, go with a two-pronged approach of one, sort of long-term development of the police leadership.

And a mistake we've made in the past is we've tried to mass produce these police chiefs, you know, in six months. And, unfortunately, time and again, we send them out. You know, they're engaging in these practices, sometimes they're defecting to the enemy. So we've got a new commander over there in charge of the training mission, General Caldwell, who is looking at ways of improving that police training.

And at the same time, short-term measures like putting U.S. forces in there. We're also trying to work with the Karzai government, especially at the upper levels, to try to influence who are assigned to those police jobs so that we can get rid of some of the bad people we've had in those positions.

ROBERTS: In addition to strong security forces with good leadership, you said in your article that the country also needs strong leaders in government. There needs to be good governance. Is the Karzai regime the government that can lead Afghanistan into the future? I mean, when you go out there to the provinces, who do people trust? Do they trust Karzai or do they trust the Taliban?

MOYAR: Right. Well, yes, certainly Karzai has significant flaws and part of it is he has allowed others around him to do things that have been detrimental to our cause. One thing that is very much in question right now is who's going to be in his new cabinet? There have been talks of these various war lords who have bad human rights records.

There are some good officials. And I think one of the key questions in the coming weeks is who is going to be in that cabinet. I think the current interior minister and defense minister are actually both very good, but Karzai to gain support for himself during the election promised various people that they were going to get positions. So we need to try to get the right people at those upper levels and they can appoint people at provincial level and district level who can do the sorts of cleaning up that's required.

ROBERTS: You mentioned a moment ago, Mark, ten years to really kind of develop a good, solid police force. President Obama has said that he doesn't want to leave Afghanistan to the next president, which would give him a maximum of seven years to get the problem fixed there. How long do you think we're going to have to be committed to Afghanistan?

MOYAR: Well, certainly, we're going to have to have, I think, some kind of military presence there for probably at least a decade. Now, it doesn't have to be the size that we're at now. Hopefully it will taper off. But, you know, I think the American public will be willing to accept a prolonged presence provided that the casualty numbers go down dramatically. You know, we've seen in Iraq, we still have a large presence there, but once the violence subsided, American opposition to that commitment has gone away as well. So I think if we can reduce the violence sharply, you know, I think we'll be fine. We will have a smaller -- some sort of residual force there seven years from now.

ROBERTS: All right. Well, we'll be watching closely what the president has to say tonight. Mark Moyer, who is a professor of national security at the Marine Corps University, good to talk to you this morning. Thanks so much.

MOYER: Great. Thanks for having me.

ROBERTS: And of course, tonight, CNN is the place to be for complete live coverage and analysis of the president's speech. Join the best political team on television. Tonight, starting at 7:00 o'clock Eastern. 21 minutes now after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONAN O' BRIEN, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": Christmas season is upon us, officially, yes, this Friday. Yea.

This Friday, the official Christmas tree was delivered to the White House. Yes. Unfortunately, the Secret Service had already let in three other trees that claimed they were on the list.

Now, of course, the couple, you've been hearing about them, the couple who crashed the White House state dinner, they were supposed to be on "Larry King Live" tonight, but they canceled their appearance. Yes, probably they didn't feel right showing up to a place where they were actually invited.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: And the list goes on and on.

ROBERTS: Well, you know, the husband, Tareq Salahi said this morning on "The Today Show", hey, we didn't crash the party, but Robert Gibbs said, yes, they did.

CHETRY: They said they're going to be working with the Secret Service and providing e-mails and documentation, so we'll see where this thing ends up. Meanwhile, Stephanie Elam is here minding your business. She joins us now. How's it going?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Going well. I think the retailers were hoping people would crash their stores over the weekend and that's exactly what happened. Monday, they were crashing -- well, no, not crashing because that changes the tone of things -- retail websites, they were going to those retail websites yesterday. Sales were up on Cyber Monday by 14 percent, that's compared to a year ago. 30 percent more items were sold per order as well, and spending per order, up 38 percent from 2008 to $180.

And the lead here really was apparel retailers. People were really looking to buy some clothes. Jewelry also did really well during this too. The peak hours, noon to 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time, that's when people were really hitting it, also, the whole country was awake. So, at this point, everyone could get logged-on, get to work, get their coffee, and go ahead and do some shopping.

Apparently, so the difference between this year and last year, though, people were still shopping throughout the day, whereas last year we saw a quick drop-off in that momentum. So, this was a good sign, to show that people were out there. The one thing we can say, though, while you're seeing more jumps in people visiting, new visitors to websites, the numbers were not necessarily as strong on how much money they spent.

But overall, it does look like it was better. Department stores saw a 33 percent jump in new customers coming to their website. So, they like to see that. At least they're getting them to come to the site and then they may circle back and get there. But free shipping was a big deal yesterday. And so, a lot of people trying to get their Christmas shopping done and their holiday shopping done and not pay for that.

ROBERTS: And some of us who waited until the end of the day to do some online shopping were denied.

CHETRY: Really?

ROBERTS: Well, you were saying?

CHETRY: Oh, I thought you meant for the free shipping. No, I mean, a couple of the websites, I don't know what the problem was, but on one particular Cole Haan website, when I went on there to get some shoes for my dad, it said they are closed for routine maintenance. What? Routine maintenance?

ELAM: What? I still say that the reason why it's because they knew Kiran was coming and they were afraid you were going to clean them out.

(CROSSTALK)

ELAM: That's the thing too. That's what Cyber Monday retailers are hoping for. People doing the high-low remix. Right, they're shopping at high end and they're also shopping at the lower end and mixing it up and taking care of everyone in between.

ROBERTS: I bought a CD and paid shipping. How stupid is that?

CHETRY: You paid shipping?

ELAM: You paid shipping on a CD? You bought an actual CD?

CHETRY: What are the CDs again? Are they those small circles or the bigger ones? ELAM: Do you put a needle on the record and then the drum beat goes like this. Shipping, shipping fees.

CHETRY: Anyway, no, we're teasing you. I bought a CD too, I think.

ROBERTS: Another luddite, fabulous.

CHETRY: Stephanie, thank you. Well, still ahead, we are going to be talking more about White House party crashers. We are going to be speaking with the former secret service director, Ralph Bashem, is going to be joining us to talk more about how this may have happened and how you go about proving yes we were on a list, or no you're not. There's a lot of conflicting stories this morning, as the couple also break their silence. 26 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.

Human trafficking, it's a fast-growing illegal industry that is so far underground, it is hard for police to even track it. The majority of victims are women and children, many of them used for sex.

CHETRY: And they're young Americans, often drug addicted and runaways picked up right off the city streets. Some are lucky and make it out, but not everyone. Our Sean Callebs joins us live with one woman's story in an A.M. original, "Slaves in the USA."

Good morning, Sean.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran and John.

We've all seen the movie where the mysterious organization grabs the young girl and forces her into the international sex trade industry. It may be good drama, but the FBI says that's not the way it works. They say for the most part human traffickers gets their hands on young girls who are runaways trying to escape a horrible life, but what they find is something far more tragic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CALLEBS (voice-over): She asked not to be identified. Her first name is Melissa.

"MELISSA" FORMER SEX TRAFFICKING VICTIM: I thought I would be dead. I never thought I'd live to be 22 or 24 years old.

CALLEBS: Her story begins when she was 17, living with another runaway. She says a pimp promised them a better life.

"MELISSA": He started to pay our rent, pay our bills, make sure that, you know, we had food in our house.

CALLEBS: In exchange, he says, he held her against her will and forced her into the sex trade. "MELISSA": Within a day, my whole life changed. I had to sleep with people. He would tell me where I had to be, when I had to be there.

CALLEBS (on camera): Human rights advocates tell us that right now there are about 25,000 young women in the United States who have been forced into sex trafficking. Along with the horror stories we hear about women brought here from Latin America, Asia, and Europe, advocates tell us that a large percentage of those forced into sex trafficking are actually runaways from right here in the United States.

CALLEBS (voice-over): Melissa's story fits the profile. Trying to escape a broken home, she says she was sexually abused at a young age. Pimps prey on women like her.

LUIS CDEBACA, U.S. AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE, HUMAN TRAFFICKING: Our girls are at risk.

CALLEBS: Luis CdeBaca is the U.S. ambassador at large fighting human trafficking. He says it's time for the U.S. to step up it's crackdown on sex trafficking with more aggressive investigations and prosecutions.

CDEBACA: It's a problem that's happening right here, and it's happening to people's daughters, it's happening to people's nieces, nephews, grandchildren. And it's plaguing every community in the United States.

CALLEBS: For Melissa, she says she was held captive by intimidation, fear, and physical abuse.

"MELISSA": I was too scared to do anything, to leave or to go anywhere. I had no money, I had nothing, so, I mean, they were all that I had.

SUSAN COPPEDGE, ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY: It's the same story over and over. The pimps almost have a handbook, the traffickers, on how to "catch a girl," is the term. And they'll try this on 10 or 20 girls and only maybe get one that will fall for it, but it's that one that becomes the victim of sex trafficking.

CALLEBS: Melissa says it was an arrest for a traffic violation that changed her life. The FBI convinced her to testify against her pimp and then to rehab for therapy and drug addiction.

She's now married and hopes to start a family, something she once could not have imagined.

"MELISSA": All it does is take one person to actually really care and have pure motives and give you everything that they were taught.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLEBS: Melissa tells us she is still consumed with fear, panic attacks, and something she fears that simply will not go away.

And authorities tell us if they have a chance to go in and save someone like Melissa, if they're able to get her off the streets, they'll do so, John and Kiran, if there's any chance of prosecuting the human traffickers.

ROBERTS: You have to look after the victims. All right, Sean Callebs for us this morning. Sean, thanks so much.

Thursday, the U.S. State Department says the shrimp industry of Southeast Asia is just like modern-day slavery. That's right, the shrimp industry. So what does it like to take shrimp from the ocean to your table? Find out on Thursday, right here on the Most News in the Morning.

CHETRY: We check our top stories now.

A developing story out of Seattle where the manhunt is now over for the person suspected of gunning down four police officers on Sunday. Seattle police now confirming that an officer shot and killed Maurice Clemmons at about 2:45 a.m. local time this morning. They confirmed that in a news conference just moments ago.

We learned a police officer recognized an unoccupied vehicle that he believed was stolen. The officer got out of the car, Clemmons then started to approach him. When Clemmons failed to shop or show his hands, the officer fired.

Police also arrested three other people for allegedly helping Clemmons elude authorities during a two-day manhunt.

ROBERTS: Tonight, President Obama lays out his new strategy for fighting if war in Afghanistan, including sending more than 30,000 new troops to the war zone.

The president will also make clear that this is not an open-ended commitment. That's something I asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about earlier this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Will the president actually articulate some sort of timetable for withdrawal here, or will that just be a statement of where we would like to be, given the best outcome?

GIBBS: John, the president will discuss tonight the timeframe in which he believes we can transition our forces out of Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: You can see the president's speech live right here. CNN's special coverage begins at 7:00 Eastern.

CHETRY: The couple that allegedly crashed last week's White House state dinner is now breaking their silence. This morning Tareq and Michaele Salahi appearing this morning on NBC's "Today" show. They say that they won't be able to go into a lot of detail about that night they rubbed elbows with the President in the White House, but they are insisting they had every right to be here and will present proof of that once Secret Service investigators are done with them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELE SALAHI, ALLEGED WHITE HOUSE DINNER CRASHER: We were invited, not crashers. And there isn't anyone that would have the audacity or the poor behavior to do that.

TAREQ SALAHI, ALLEGED WHITE HOUSE DINNER CRASHER: We're working closely with the Secret Service and their internal investigation...

M. SALAHI: We respect everything they do.

T. SALAHI: We're respecting their timeline and we're working on their timeline. And we want to get through that process. We've been very candid with them. We've turned over documentation to them. And we'll continue to work with the U.S. Secret Service completely all the way through this process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: The Salahis were also accused of crashing a Congressional Black Caucus dinner attended by the president in September. Reports say they were escorted out. The Salahis are denying that, claiming that they were invited and that they were never asked to leave.

The Salahis certainly struck a nerve when they somehow worked their way into last week's state dinner. Putting it bluntly, they embarrassed the White House and the Secret Service.

How did they do it, and what can be done to make sure it doesn't happen again? Joining me now is a man who is familiar with the workings of the Secret Service and the White House. Ralph Basham directed the Secret Service from 2003 to 2006 and is now the principle of command consulting group and he joins us from Washington this morning.

Thanks for being with us, Ralph.

RALPH BASHAM, FORMER DIRECTOR, U.S. SECRET SERVICE: Thank you for having me this morning.

CHETRY: So, first of all, we heard that somewhat elusive explanation from the Salahis, saying that when they're done working with the Secret Service they will be able to then provide the proper documentation. Is it that hard to prove or disprove whether you were in fact invited to a state dinner?

BASHAM: No. There's a very formal process that one goes through when you're invited to a function such as that. As you are aware, they would have received an invitation. Along with an invitation, they would have been requested to provide identification, Social Security number, date of birth, name. That would have been provided to the Secret Service. The Secret Service would have run it through their database. And then when they came to the White House and presented themselves, their name would have been on the guest list.

And in this case, all indications are in talking to the director of the Secret Service, Mark Sullivan, they were not on the list.

And hey, look, the point here has to be made. They should have been denied entry to the White House that evening because they were not cleared. And whether they claim to have been invited or not invited, in terms of the Secret Service, that's really not relevant. Mark Sullivan has asked for a full investigation on this, as to why they were allowed to get into the White House. And quite frankly, in my opinion, this is a case of human error. All the processes, all the procedures are in place for an individual to get in the White House and they just were not followed.

CHETRY: All right, so, your reaction to this when you first heard it, you say regardless of whether or not they were on a list or not, when they were physically there, they should have not gotten through the gates. What do you think went wrong?

BASHAM: Well, I just think, again, the officer who they approached did not follow proper procedure. In that case, they should have contacted someone on the White House staff. That is not uncommon. There are mistakes made. They could have gotten on the road, contacted someone to come out and deal with that problem versus moving those individuals on to the next post.

CHETRY: I got you.

BASHAM: Clearly, it was a mistake.

CHETRY: Well, walk us through the standard protocol for when invited guests are coming to something like a state dinner, how many checkpoints do they have to go through? And what is the process? I'm sure that you're dealing with a lot of dignitaries, you're dealing with a lot of very important people, and you want to make sure that you're not insulting them, but at the same time, you want to make sure that, obviously, safety is the utmost importance. But what happens when there's a bit of a question as to whether or not a person does indeed have an invitation or is authorized to be there?

BASHAM: Well, in my experience, and at least in one of these functions, high-profile function like this, normally you have someone from the State Department's office of protocol, you have someone from the social secretary's office, from the White House, that is there with the agent or officer to deal with these types of problems.

As I said, there are mistakes made, and they're there to correct those mistakes. You don't want to embarrass someone who has a legitimate right to be in a function such as that. But in this case, they did not have someone there to hand these people off to to verify whether or not they were invited or not. And therefore, there's where the breakdown occurred. But let me just say, also, that the reason that the Secret Service has a layered approach to security is to deal with these very issues. There's an outer perimeter, there's a center perimeter, and there's an inner perimeter. And that's why you have agents and officers in the White House at these functions to make sure that whomever is in there, invited or uninvited, cannot do harm to the president or to the guests at the White House.

CHETRY: You know, there are some people just chatting around the water cooler and the office who say, you know, maybe things did work. Maybe they were profiled. They looked like people who didn't necessarily fit the bill for anybody that would be dangerous. They looked like people that were supposed to be there. How much does that factor in when the Secret Service is making assessments about who is and who is not a threat to the president?

BASHAM: That should not -- of course, the Secret Service, who are in the White House, are observing people for behavior that -- strange behavior or that look out of place. But in this case, you know, they obviously looked like they belonged.

But that is not acceptable. The officer had a list. They were not on that list, and that officer allowed those individuals to go into the White House. There's where the breakdown occurred. And that is unacceptable.

And I know Director Sullivan will be doing a thorough investigation. And once the investigation is complete, then the information will be out in terms of whether or not they had a right to be in there. I don't think they did.

CHETRY: Do you think Director Sullivan or anyone else should lose their job over this?

BASHAM: Well, I think the investigation will determine that. Certainly, I don't think the director should lose his job. I think the director's doing a magnificent job there.

And if you look over the past year at what the Secret Service has done, one of the most difficult campaigns in the Secret Service history that was performed in an outstanding fashion, managing millions of people and thousands of events without a hitch.

And this one incident should not reflect on all of the good work that the men and women of the Secret Service are doing every day. And that's really the sad part of this.

CHETRY: Very true. Thanks so much for being with us this morning. Ralph Basham, he's a former director of the Secret Service. Thanks for being with us this morning.

BASHAM: Thank you.

ROBERTS: Sure wouldn't want to be the agent who looked at that list and said, ah, go ahead.

CHETRY: They're still claiming, though, today that they can prove that they were, indeed, invited. So we'll see what happens.

ROBERTS: Everyone we've talked to from the Secret Service to the White House says they weren't. So I guess they can say -- I mean, one person's invitation -- it's like when you had a party in high school. Tell all your friends, party at Kiran's house.

CHETRY: Exactly, but we didn't have metal detectors or Secret Service.

ROBERTS: Did you invite them? No. But they were invited, in a sense, perhaps.

Jets safety Kerry Rhodes, he's called "Hollywood" by all of his friends. And there's a reason for that -- he's a fitness freak. What does it take to have his body? He's the subject of our "Fit Nation" report this morning. Sanjay Gupta takes a look coming right up.

It's 43 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Well, she's not one of them anymore. She's not a single lady. We're talking about Chelsea Clinton.

Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.

The former first daughter is now engaged. She and her boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky are planning to get married next summer. They have been friends since their teens, their families knew each other. The couple made the announcement in an e-mail to friends on Friday.

ROBERTS: Well, Tiger Woods says his injuries from last week's car crash outside his suburban Orlando home will prevent him from playing this week at the Chevron World Challenge. He is the host of the event with proceeds benefiting his charity foundation. The tournament officials say they will offer fans refunds if they want one.

Tiger still not talking about the accident and that is sparking plenty of debate about how he's handling the first PR crisis of his career.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN SUNSHINE, SUNSHINE, SACHS & ASSOC., PUBLIC RELATIONS: I would have put a statement out right away, or at least put something out to end or try to end the speculation.

The media doesn't go away in these situations, or when you're that famous, they're going to only have more interest if there's anything scandalous or potentially scandalous involved.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, SPORTS COLUMNIST, USA TODAY: From Friday morning until Sunday, there was this big vacuum where we didn't hear anything, really, from team Tiger Woods. And this is a smart group of people. Tiger's a smart guy and he's hired good people. I was a bit surprised that they let it go that long.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: People talk about innocence and wrongdoing. What is the alleged wrongdoing here? His car went into a tree and had a minor accident. That's not a crime.

COOPER: No obviously there's...

TOOBIN: There's no evidence of alcohol. There's no -- I mean, what does he have to explain himself for?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Nike and Gatorade, two of Tiger's biggest sponsors, have both released statements saying that they stand by Woods and his family and respect their right to privacy.

CHETRY: There you go.

All right. Well, we're going to check in with Rob Marciano in just a minute. It is December 1st. He says it's the official winter for meteorologists; that's when they start tracking all of this stuff and that includes some rain and possibly some snow in the southwest.

Rob will be joining us in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Good morning, Atlanta, where it's a little nicer today than it was yesterday. It's mostly cloudy, it is kind of chilly, though, 35 right now; later on today, partly cloudy with a high of 59.

And our Rob Marciano was checking some extreme weather across the country and we've got a little bit of it, Rob, in the southland, a little west of Atlanta, though.

(WEATHER REPORT)

CHETRY: Well, Sanjay Gupta is going to introduce us to Jet safety, Kerry Rhodes, he is apparently a fitness guru. The envy of all of them, his teammates call him Hollywood. He's going to show us how he does it.

It's 52 and a half minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.

His teammates call him Hollywood. That's New York Jets' safety Kerry Rhodes. He's been in movies, he's been on magazine covers, he's even in a Lady Gaga video. You know he's made it.

ROBERTS: He gets those good looks the hard way with diet and exercise and says that his fans can do it too. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta has his story in today's edition of "Fit Nation".

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There's no question, for NFL player Kerry Rhodes, fitness is a job. On the field...

KERRY RHODES, NEW YORK JETS: I'm big on the fruit...

GUPTA: Off the field. Even on Twitter.

RHODES: A lot of people have been asking me on Twitter to give them workout tips and what do I do, what do I eat? The Real P Nasty says I'm looking to lose at least 25 pounds in the next three months. That right there is just -- that's setting you up for failure because you try not to do too much.

GUPTA: Rhodes tip one, map out a fitness plan.

RHODES: I usually 3 sets at a time.

GUPTA: And start slow.

RHODES: Work your way up and take your time to get to that point where you can do more.

GUPTA: He says it's all about setting reasonable goals and keeping your routine interesting.

RHODES: Do creative things to not get tired and not get you just doing the same thing over and over.

GUPTA: During the off-season, a typical meal for Rhodes, an early morning snack, banana or granola bar, oatmeal and toast for breakfast; a high-protein lunch like a lean hamburger patty and for dinner, a chicken salad. Also he loads up on things like water, fruit, green tea or energy drinks to help stay full throughout the day.

RHODES: Get at least four meals in your system, whether that be a snack for one meal or an energy drink for one meal.

GUPTA: His advice for fans who tweet him and to kids who are obese, make fitness a priority.

RHODES: Put on paper what you want to do. Just overall, where you want to be at the end of the day. Just be active, that's the biggest thing.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: Doesn't seem like much for a fellow like him to be eating during the day.

CHETRY: I know.

ROBERTS: A little oatmeal, granola, banana...

CHETRY: Yes. And a chicken salad.

Although granola is high in fat, tricky.

ROBERTS: Of course, he said that's off season. During the on season he needs an entire cow every day.

CHETRY: Yes, I guess so.

But the interesting thing is, ok, he lays out a lot of common sense things. It's having the discipline to do it that's the hard part for most people.

ROBERTS: And isn't that always the rub?

We've got two and a half minutes to the top of the hour. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: That's going to do it for us. See you back here tomorrow. And meanwhile, you can continue the conversation on today's stories by going to our blog, cnn.com/amfix.

ROBERTS: Right now, the news continues on CNN with Heidi Collins in the "CNN NEWSROOM".