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American Morning
Obama Getting Preliminary Report on the Failed Christmas Day Attack; Deadly Crackdown in Iran; Abdulmutallab Spent Some Time in U.S. Soil
Aired December 31, 2009 - 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: And welcome to AMERICAN MORNING today, a very special day, of course, because it is the last day of the decade, and the year.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: You know, there are people who argue that the next decade doesn't begin until next year, December 31 --
CHETRY: I'm going with this year.
ROBERTS: -- 2010.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: I mean, everybody else is going to be partying to end the decade tonight so you might as well.
CHETRY: There you go.
ROBERTS: Good morning, to you, I'm John Roberts. Thanks for being with us. Here are the stories that we'll be telling you about, breaking down for you in the next 15 minutes here on the Most News in the Morning.
In just hours, President Obama will get a report on the Christmas Day bomb plot and how a Nigerian man with terror ties was allegedly able to slip past security at two airports with a dangerous explosive.
Plus, we're learning just how much the government knew before the worst almost happened in the skies over Detroit. The latest from the President's vacation spot in Honolulu, just ahead.
CHETRY: And before he allegedly tried to blow up a plane from the sky before al Qaeda trained him to kill, Umar Abdulmutallab spent time on American soil. What was he doing in Texas? David Mattingly is in Houston on the trail of the terror suspect.
ROBERTS: A very grim end to what has been the worst year for the U.S. in Afghanistan. The Taliban taking credit for an attack on a U.S. military outpost that killed eight CIA officers. How did a suicide bomber slip inside? Was it an inside job? CNN drawing on our global resources to bring you the very latest. Our Atia Abawi is live in Kabul for us this morning. CHETRY: First, though, there are new details this morning showing just how much the government knew before the Flight 253 terror plot. A government official telling CNN that Washington agencies knew extremists in Yemen were plotting and mentioned someone called, quote, "the Nigerian". They even had a partial name. Umar Farouk, as in Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Another source now also confirms that Abdulmutallab bought both a one-way ticket to get from Ghana to Nigeria, and a roundtrip ticket from Nigeria to Detroit. He was scheduled to fly back to Nigeria January 8, now the day his case is actually heading to federal court.
And federal transportation officials also taking major heat from one pilot's union for not telling crews, in the air, on Christmas Day about the failed attack.
ROBERTS: And in just hours, a deadline. The president is demanding answers from his intelligence team on the attempted bombing. Back in D.C., White House staffers are already holding closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill. Our Ed Henry is breaking it all down for us this morning. He's in Honolulu where the president is vacationing.
ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John and Kiran, today is the deadline the president set for his national security team to come up with preliminary findings for what went wrong leading to the attempted terror incident in Detroit. The president had called it systemic and human failings.
In the meantime Obama administration has started conducting private briefings for congressional staff. They're doing it in a secure room of the capitol to give you an idea of the sensitive class identified nature of the information being exchanged. Officials familiar with the briefings tell CNN that basically Democrats and Republicans left these briefings feeling like there were a lot of unanswered questions, both about what could have been done differently before the incident, but also what can be done differently now by the intelligence community to prevent future attacks.
Officials familiar with the briefings also say that Obama aides in the briefings are basically saying there was not enough negative information prior to the incident to put the future suspect on the no- fly list. Another indicator that perhaps a lot of changes need to be made to that whole system.
I also sat down here with Hawaii's senior Senator Daniel Inouye, who is one of many top Democrats firing back at former Vice President Dick Cheney for alleging the president's response has been too slow and too weak.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. DANIEL INOUYE, (D) HAWAII: I think the former vice president lost all of his credibility in the way he's been conducting himself. I would expect a person who had the potential of leading this country to be a bit more responsible.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HENRY: Inouye chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, which means he holds sway over all Defense and Homeland Security funding. And he indicated to me that the U.S. is doing a lot right now in terms of trying to battle Al Qaeda in Yemen. He said he could not go into detail because it's of a classified nature, but he did say the U.S. is fully aware of what Al Qaeda is doing and is going to act accordingly - John, Kiran.
ROBERTS: Ed Henry for us in Honolulu this morning. Thanks. Stay with us because coming up later on this morning we'll speak with the country's second secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, to get his opinion on why there was a failure to connect the dots in this case. Does he think the Obama administration is at fault here?
CHETRY: Another story developing out of eastern Afghanistan, the Taliban taking responsibility for a suicide bomb attack that left eight Americans, including CIA members, dead. The bomber infiltrating a heavily-guarded U.S. military outpost. Atia Abawi is live with the latest in Kabul, Afghanistan,
Atia.
ATIA ABAWI, CNN INT'L. CORRESPONDENT: Kiran, what I can tell you is eight civilians have been killed, many of them expected to be CIA employees. Six people also injured. We're getting claims from the Taliban that they did have their men infiltrate the base. They say it was an Afghan national army soldier they convinced to join their ranks, to join their side and actually go against the U.S. forces.
They say, in their claim on their website, that they will continue to do this, taking more and more ANA soldiers, as well as Afghan security forces with the ANP, and bringing them along on their side to prove that the U.S. and the ISAF forces don't belong in Afghanistan. People who used to fight alongside of them, they say now don't believe in the coalition forces, Kiran.
CHETRY: Now if this was indeed an Afghan soldier wearing this explosive vest, it's obviously a big deal. What does it mean and is there the possibility of expecting similar attacks in the future?
ABAWI: It absolutely is a big deal, if this in fact was an ANA soldier. When you go through the bases throughout Afghanistan, you will see the ISAF forces working alongside with the Afghan soldiers. And I actually went out with the recruiters of the ANA, the Afghan National Army, and we saw the recruiting process. I'll tell you right now, Kiran, that it's more about quantity than it is quality. So it will be quite easy for insurgent groups, including the Taliban, to infiltrate the ranks. And the fear is that we might be seeing more and more attacks similar to this. That being said, the U.S. military and the ISAF forces, right now, not stating if this was an Afghan soldier, stating that it could possibly be an insurgent dressed in a soldier's uniform, Kiran.
CHETRY: Wow. Atia Abawi for us with new details from Afghanistan. Thank you. Other stories new this morning, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh being treated at a hospital in Hawaii. A spokesman for Limbaugh says he is resting comfortably after suffering chest pains while on vacation in Honolulu. A hospital source telling CNN Limbaugh was admitted yesterday afternoon, in quote, "serious condition" and spent the night there.
ROBERTS: Haven't we seen this movie before? Russia is considering a mission to knock a giant asteroid off course. The head of the country's space agency says it could hit Earth in about 22 years. NASA scientists are at odds with that, saying it's nothing to worry about. Still Russia has invited scientists from Europe, the United States, and China to join the project. No word on whether or not they've signed up Bruce Willis.
(LAUGHTER)
CHETRY: There you go.
All day on CNN we are celebrating New Year's around the world. They are ringing the New Year on the other side of the world this morning. In fact, let's check out some pictures right now from Auckland, New Zealand. It is the first major city to welcome in the 2010. The party carries on right now with music and entertainment for thousands of people in attendance there. So for all you New Zealanders, happy New Year.
ROBERTS: And coming up on seven minutes after the hour. Let's get a quick check on this morning's weather headlines. Reynolds Wolf is in the extreme weather center for us this morning.
Reynolds, if you look at the radar there is a pretty big blob heading towards New York city. Is it going to affect the revelry tonight?
(WEATHER REPORT)
CHETRY: For a lot of people today is Friday morning, if you will, because of the holiday. And meanwhile, Allan Chernoff is reporting on people who will be working quite hard actually, tonight, the NYPD. They need to keep everybody safe in Times Square. How do they do it each and every year? We are going to take a look. It's eight minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: There you go, Black-Eyed Peas. I've got a feeling tonight's going to be a good night. New York, now it is 31, by midnight, it will be about 35 degrees. There is a chance of rain as you were talking about, bring an umbrella if you're going to go wait in those lines at Times Square.
ROBERTS: That Black-Eyed Peas song is, I think, going to be the song for 2009, as we cross over into the new years. It's being used in a new movie coming out that has that as the theme song as well.
CHETRY: It is a nice catchy tune.
ROBERTS: It was the year of the Black-Eyed Peas.
CHETRY: Yes.
ROBERTS: We're 11 minutes after the hour, that means it's time for an "AM Original," something you'll see only on AMERICAN MORNING. But first a quick check of what's new this morning.
CHETRY: President Obama is using his veto power for the first time. Rejecting a stop-gap spending bill that turned out to be unnecessary; lawmakers passing the temporary bill in case a snowstorm prevented them from approving a final measure, and that didn't happen. The White House says the veto is just a housekeeping move taken out of abundance of caution. President Bush did not use his first veto until a year and a half into his second term.
ROBERTS: New Year's will be Tavern on the Green's culinary swan song. The famed New York City restaurant is closing after 75 years, another victim of the recession. The Central Park landmark will put hundreds of restaurant items up for bid next month, to help pay off an $8 million debt. But it doesn't mean it's going away because they're just going to renovate and reopen under new ownership.
CHETRY: There you go. Hopefully.
Tonight, more than half a million people, some say maybe as many as a million are going to be squeezing into Times Square to ring in the New Year. Of course it's a huge party and that means a massive security challenge.
ROBERTS: It's a big job for the New York Police Department, even without an attempted airline bombing so fresh in everyone's mind. Allan Chernoff is about a dozen blocks south of us. He is in Times Square this morning.
And, Allan, what are police doing to keep the party safe?
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SR. CORRESPONDENT: John, they are going to be working very hard. You could think of the NYPD as bouncers for the world's biggest New Year's Eve party, but the fact is they do far more than that to try to ensure that Times Square is the most secure public place on the planet for tonight's celebration.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHERNOFF (voice over): From the perspective of the New York Police Department, every reveler tonight in Times Square is a potential terror threat. That's why the NYPD will essentially lock down the Square.
RAY KELLY, NYPD COMMISSIONER: We want people to have a happy experience, but we're also concerned about a terrorist event. We have to do that after 9/11.
CHERNOFF: Security sweeps begin well in advance of New Year's Eve. Detectives gain intelligence from local hotel and restaurant personnel, on the lookout for suspicious activity. Police search garages and subway tunnels for bombs, remove trash cans, seal mailboxes and manhole covers.
A search on Wednesday of a suspicious van led to a partial evacuation of Times Square, though the van turned out to pose no threat. Beginning at 3:00 on New Year's Eve, traffic is banned, and all streets leading into Times Square are blocked off. Police sample the air for biological agents. They wear radiation detectors, and dogs sniff for bombs.
As the crowd gathers, thousands of police, uniformed and under cover, converge on Times Square. From the ground and air, the NYPD watches Times Square like a chess board.
(On camera): Times Square is essentially, now, the safest place in the world on New Years Eve?
KELLY: Yes, that's right. Absolutely. It's a very, very safe place.
CHERNOFF (voice over): It wasn't always this way. Twenty years ago, before terrorism was such a concern, this center of the world on New Year's Eve was a dangerous place.
(On camera): Times Square used to be a mad house.
KELLY: True. True. It was somewhat rowdy, disorderly. You would see a lot of drinking that started early on. So by the time midnight rolled around, a lot of people were feeling no pain.
CHERNOFF: People were rolling around.
KELLY: People were rolling around. Right. And doing some strange things.
CHERNOFF (voice over): The NYPD began placing the crowd into pens, fenced in by interlocking barriers in the late '90s, which brought order to what had been the world's biggest mosh pit. Today alcohol and backpacks are banned. And the crowd is generally orderly and well behaved. Still Commissioner Kelly is ready to toast the New Year only after the party is over.
KELLY: When the ball drops, it's a certain feeling of relief, and we've made it through another year.
CHERNOFF (On camera): A sigh of relief?
KELLY: Right, right.
CHERNOFF: It's a lot of stress on the police department.
KELLY: There is some stress, no question about it. But that's, you know -- that's all part of the business.
(END VIDEOTAPE) CHERNOFF: In spite of the threat of terrorism, Times Square is much safer, much, much more secure than it used to be. The party itself, it's really gone from a tremendously rowdy event to a family celebration -- John, Kiran.
ROBERTS: It's - it's really quite remarkable, this van, because it sat there for two days. It didn't have a ticket on it. I mean, we park illegally, and, for 10 minutes, we get a ticket.
Also, it - it had a lot of clothing, some Pashmina scarves, apparently, inside it. Nobody broke into the van to steal all of those. It - it - I mean, it's so unlike New York. Has anybody explained from the police department how that vehicle sat there for two days, particularly at this time?
CHERNOFF: That's actually a very good question. I think it's just a matter of the security sweep getting around to inspecting all of the vehicles that are around here. It probably was seen a day earlier and people thought, OK, not a big deal.
But then, yesterday, at that point when the security sweep was intense, that's when they got very serious about it, shut off part of Times Square.
ROBERTS: A real anomaly in New York City, no question.
Allan Chernoff for us in Times Square. Allan, thanks so much.
CHETRY: Still ahead, Stephanie Elam joins us. She's "Minding Your Business" and she's talking about yet another multibillion-dollar bailout. What do we get for it as taxpayers? She'll tell us, coming up.
Sixteen minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Brings back some memories. Meantime (ph)...
ROBERTS: Mostly bad.
CHETRY: You know, well, we had some contest in school. You send the most postcards to your local radio station to try to get Wang Chung to give your school a concert.
ROBERTS: Wow! Why would you want to do that?
CHETRY: We thought it was the coolest thing ever back then.
ROBERTS: Aerosmith, maybe. Wang Chung? Forget about it.
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: They'd be happy to do it now.
CHETRY: Yes, exactly. You don't even need to send any postcards. They'd just come on over. ROBERTS: You did some weird things - weird things in high school, didn't you?
CHETRY: Yes, well, you know, that's just one of them.
Twenty minutes past the hour right now. We're "Minding Your Business" this morning, and we have with us Stephanie Elam talking about yet another bailout.
ELAM: Another bailout.
Well, other banks are giving back money, and this one was (ph) like, we need more, and more and more, because this is actually the third round of bailout money that GMAC Financial Services is receiving. This time, they are getting $3.8 billion. They've already received a combined $13.5 billion - $7.5 billion in May and $6 billion in December of '08.
Now, in return, the United States Treasury is going to up their stake in the company. They already hold a stake of 36 percent. Now, it's going to go to a controlling 56 percent stake there. They also already have two board members on the - on the board of directors. Now they can get an additional two added to that.
So this latest infusion is less than the originally announced $5.6 billion here, and the main reason for that is, well, the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler actually were not as bad as expected. They rebounded from those better, and so their needs are actually less at this point.
So why the third infusion? Well, GMAC, they want to get it back to profitability in the first quarter of 2010. Also, they want to keep from having to put their - their home lending unit into bankruptcy, and so if they do this, this will keep that unit out of going to bankruptcy at this point too, so it gives it a bit of a buffer.
But just to give you an idea of just what GMAC does and let you know how important this company is, take a look at this. They have $178 billion in assets. They have 15 million customers worldwide. They're an auto and mortgage lender. They're a consumer bank as well, and they really were hurt in the first nine months of 2009. They lost $5.3 billion. It's because you've got soft demand out there, and then you have people who did have loans and they were defaulting on those loans. And so all of that combined together made for a very difficult situation.
But it also shows you that the US Treasury thinks this company is important enough to actually help it get back on its feet at a time when all the other banks are trying to give their money back and go back and do things the way they want to.
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: Certainly important enough, given all the work that it does and the number of people that rely on it. ELAM: And I don't think people realize how big of a company it is in that way, but it is an important part of the business. So that's why they're getting this infusion.
ROBERTS: Stephanie, thanks. Stephanie Elam "Minding Your Business" this morning.
And coming up, at what point did the alleged Christmas bomber go from a child of a privileged family to a radical? Our Nic Robertson is tracing his evolution, coming right up.
It's 22 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
It's 25 minutes after the hour, which means it's time for an "AM Original," something that you'll see only here on AMERICAN MORNING.
CHETRY: Yes. A lot of people are asking at what point did the alleged Christmas bomber go from a child of privilege to a radical? Well, our Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson speaks with the suspect's former classmates to find out.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John and Kiran, good morning.
Well, at a high school, some of Abdulmutallab's teachers thought he was perhaps a little bit too religious, but his friends there said that he was a straight talker, their moral compass, that he was a young man who was very conflicted and troubled on the inside.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON (voice-over): In this high school photograph, there is a look of innocence. But, behind the impassive gaze, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab appears to have been deeply troubled and lonely.
He was devout, loved his faith. His friends even called him "The Pope." One of his internet postings reads, "How can I really enjoy being with people to whom I cannot express my feelings? They know I'm Muslim, but I see how they don't understand."
But he hid his troubles well. Kwesi Brako was on the school basketball team with him.
KWESI BRAKO, HIGH SCHOOL FRIEND: To say I'm surprised is - is a given at this point. I - I didn't - I wouldn't have figured him to be a lonely person.
ROBERTSON: In his blogs, Abdulmutallab was longing to get to university mixed with Muslims. In the fall of 2005 he got his wish, admitted to University College London. But this conflicted teenager was about to enter a highly-charged Islamic scene. USAMA HASSAN, FORMER RADICAL: It was a bastion of idea (ph), if you like, going on - on the campuses.
ROBERTSON: Hassan knows. Now reformed, he was once a campus radicalizer and influenced the man who orchestrated the killing of the "Wall Street Journal's" reporter, Daniel Pearl.
HASSAN: On British university campuses, he would have had exposure to a variety of Muslim voices, all claiming to speak for true Islam, and many of these voices would likely (ph) be very extreme fundamentalist voices who openly advocate no compromise with the West, as they say it.
ROBERTSON: Abdulmutallab joined the university's Islamic Society and by his second year became its president. Brako was at a different college in London, but his old friend had turned his back on him. Abdulmutallab was changing.
BRAKO: You know, he had begun to wear, you know, Islamic clothing. I think he was wearing a kaftan and the matching trousers and sandals.
ROBERTSON: In 2007, under Abdulmutallab's leadership, the Islamic Society organized a week of debate about the war in Iraq titled "War on Terror" - a war that appears to have weighed heavily on him.
ROBERTSON (on camera): This is the campus at University College London where the "War on Terror" week was held. A year later, an independent British think tank issued a report on Islamic societies at universities like this. They concluded that while most students were tolerant, a significant minority supported violence in the name of Islam.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): The few friends Abdulmutallab did have at university are hard to track down. Eventually, we get a lead.
ROBERTSON (on camera): We've been trying three days to find one person at the university who knew him well enough who's willing to talk to us, and we think we found him. This could be the breakthrough.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): His name is Qasim Rafiq. He was the Islamic Society president just before Abdulmutallab.
VOICE OF QASIM RAFIQ, COLLEGE CLASSMATE: Hello?
ROBERTSON (on camera): Hello. Is this Qasim?
RAFIQ: Yes, speaking.
ROBERTSON: Qasim, hi! This is...
ROBERTSON (voice-over): I ask about Abdulmutallab.
RAFIQ: It - it's difficult for me to reconcile, you know, the man that I - the person I knew, and - and what - I've just been reading and seeing in the media, of course, over the last three or four days, is (INAUDIBLE) explained (ph). Again, it goes back to the issue of where exactly did, you know, this supposed (ph) radicalization take place.
ROBERTSON: Investigators are still trying to figure out where and how Abdulmutallab was radicalized. What worries Usama Hassan is that Abdulmutallab may have radicalized others.
HASSAN: There is of course the worry that - that he may - may have a small band of - of comrades, of friends who - who think along similar lines.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON: And those same worries are troubling Britain's Intelligence Services as well. They're doing their best to track down anyone who might have been in his inner circle and might have had those same sort of beliefs - John, Kiran.
CHETRY: Nic Robertson for us this morning. Thanks.
ROBERTSON: Yes. You know, if - if you read some of the postings that had been reported on, and he - he seemed to be a lonely individual, was seeking some sort of meaning somewhere else, and then he also apparently told investigators that there were more people just like him ready to do the same thing. So it's extraordinarily worrying.
CHETRY: Yes, and it's something that was sort of backed up by Yemen's foreign minister, saying that there could be 200 to 300 more radicalized individuals seeking to do harm to the US. So it's something certainly of concern to our agencies here, and we're going to continue to follow that.
Meanwhile, it's half past the hour right now. Time to look at our other top stories.
And today, President Obama is getting a preliminary report from his intelligence team on this bomb plot against Northwest Flight 253. We now know that U.S. Intelligence did have information that extremists in Yemen were plotting with someone they called The Nigerian. The officials had a partial name as well, Umar Farouk.
ROBERTS: The pilot's union and American airlines says they were not told about the flight 253 bomb plot calling it, quote, a large scale communications breakdown. Federal officials admit that they only notified the crews of U.S.-bound flights from Europe right away because they were considered to be in the most danger. But the pilots union says every crew should be warned in the future because you don't know where the threat might be coming from.
CHETRY: And the Taliban taking credit for a suicide bomb attack. It happened in eastern Afghanistan. Eight Americans, including members of the CIA, were killed. Six others wounded. A senior U.S. official telling CNN the bomber walked into a gymnasium on a U.S. military outpost in the Khost Province and detonated his vest. Taliban spokesman said that that attacker was actually an officer in the Afghan army. U.S. officials are not confirming that.
ROBERTS: Well, today is the deadline that President Obama has given Iran to accept a deal on its nuclear program. Officials in Washington are now considering targeted sanctions aimed at crippling parts of Tehran's government, the parts that their cracking down on opposition supporters.
On Sunday, there were deadly anti-government rallies in the capital, followed by an enormous pro-government rally yesterday.
Is Iran on the brink?
For the A.M. breakdown, let's bring in Mazjar Bahari. He covers Iran for "Newsweek", and spent five months in prison there this summer, charged with spying. He joins us via Skype.
Mazjar, great to see you.
The uprising, Ray Takeyh of the council on foreign relations in a piece today said that it may not spell the end of the regime, but does indicate potentially a prolonged period of unrest.
What do you think?
MAZJAR BAHARI, "NEWSWEEK" CORRESPONDENT: I think what happened in the last few days marked the changing of the regime from a clerical state into a military state. The Revolutionary Guards have actually taken over all the strategic positions in Iran, and they are in charge of almost all the important positions, including the nuclear program. And from now on, I think we can talk about military government in Iran rather than a clerical government.
ROBERTS: The pro-government protests yesterday, Ahmadinejad again blaming the West for inflaming the passions, the anti-government protesters.
Is Iran seriously fracturing along political lines?
BAHARI: It is. I think the government has realized that it's lost all its popular legitimacy, all its religious legitimacy and it's resorting to violence in order to survive. And right now, there are some rational conservatives in the Iranian government, but I think soon those rational people will be sidelined, marginalized, and those people, they will join the opposition. And the power will be in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards who will try to establish a military dictatorship in Iran.
I think it's an attempt that will fail eventually, but in the process of creating that military state, there will be a lot of violence and a lot of bloodshed.
ROBERTS: And Mazjar, the other day when President Obama came out to talk about the Christmas morning bomber, he also spoke out forcefully against the crackdown in Iran. This comes after criticism that he had a very tepid response to the earlier pro-democracy, anti-government protests.
Do you think we're seeing a shift in U.S. posture toward Iran on this issue?
BAHARI: I think Iranian people welcome what President Obama said, but I think the opposition leaders, they are getting worried about the violence much more than the president is. I think the president should be also forceful in condemning the violence against the Iranian government. I think it's very right for the president to support the Iranian people's rights to have a peaceful demonstration, but I think that the worry is right now for the opposition, for the green movement, is that the demonstrations are moving towards violence. And the western countries, especially the United States, should condemn the violence against the Iranian government as much as it condemns the violence by the Iranian government.
ROBERTS: On the nuclear issue, today is the deadline for Iran to accept the U.N.-brokered deal to trade-off enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. There's no indication that Iran is anywhere even close to accepting that deal. So what's next?
BAHARI: I think the Iranian government will pretend that it's ignoring the deadline. And it will most certainly ignore the deadline at least publicly, maybe unofficially they will try to reach a deal with the American government in a package, in a grand bargain that will guarantee the survival of the regime. But historically, whenever there is a domestic turbulence in Iran, whenever there are domestic problems in Iran, the government of Iran is becoming more defiant internationally.
So I think for the next few months, we will not see any kind of reaction from the Iranian government. But I think that the international community should really move towards the smarter sanctions and not the sanctions that hurt Iranian people.
ROBERTS: Right. So when it comes to these so-called, as you said, smarter sanctions, what really are the options here?
BAHARI: The options are the banking transactions of the Revolutionary Guards in many countries around the world, including Malaysia, China, Russia, UAE, United Arab Emirates, and even in some European countries, including Italy.
There are some purchase of nuclear technology, but I think what the president can do, which can be very interesting, is to surprise the Iranian government and lift some of the sanctions that are hurting the Iranian people, including the spare parts for airplanes.
I think the worst thing that the -- I mean, the best thing that the president can do, and for the Iranian government, the worst thing is that if the president comes out and say that I am going to lift the sanctions for the spare parts or some other sanctions that are hurting the Iranian people, because we have to be united with the Iranian people. But impose these sanctions that are very targeted towards the Iranian government, and especially the Revolutionary Guards.
ROBERTS: Right. Mazjar Bahari, it's great to catch up with you this morning from London. Thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.
BAHARI: Thank you very much. Nice to be here.
CHETRY: All right. In just a little while, we're going to be getting another look at some of the best of Jeanne Moos.
You see people on TV all the time, the talking heads. But what happens when there's an exhibit featuring them not talking? What happens behind the scenes before the cameras are actually rolling?
Thirty-seven minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
Forty minutes after the hour. Time for a story you'll see only on AMERICAN MORNING, right after a quick check of the headlines.
After 2-1/2 years in captivity, a British computer expert is a free man this morning. Peter Moore was captured by Shiite Muslim insurgence in Iraq back in 2007. Three of his bodyguards were killed. A fourth is also believed to be dead. The BBC reporting Iran's Revolutionary Guard was actually behind the kidnapping, and that he was taken to a camp inside Iran within a day.
ROBERTS: A magnitude 5.8 earthquake rocking the U.S.-Mexico border region. The quake lasted for about 15 to 20 seconds, was followed by dozens of aftershocks yesterday, shaking buildings more than 100 miles to the west in San Diego and southwestern Arizona. It forced five hospitals to evacuate on the Mexican side, but thankfully no injuries or major property damage were reported.
Well, they could be counting down to an eruption in the Philippines today. Experts warned that the Mayon Volcano quiet after two weeks of spewing lava and ash could blow at any time. 50,000 villagers are stuck in evacuation centers and could be there for the first few months of 2010.
Now to a developing story this morning. Terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the man who allegedly tried to blow up a U.S.- bound plane is apparently no stranger to America. In fact, he actually spent a good amount of time on U.S. soil.
Our David Mattingly is live in Houston where he's following Abdulmutallab's trail.
And, David, what are we finding out?
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, when Nigerian Muslims gather to worship in Houston, many of them come through these gates to this mosque. But when Abdulmutallab came to Houston looking for knowledge about Islam, he didn't come here. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY (voice-over): Within weeks of acquiring a visa to travel to the United States in 2008, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attended a seminar on Islamic studies in Houston, Texas. Classes similar to this one photographed in Toronto were scheduled in early August by the Al Maghrib Institute, a school that claims to be the largest Islamic studies student body in North America.
The institute's Web site promises seminars that are fun, engaging, and information-packed. One instructor tells CNN Abdulmutallab was very quiet and expressed no radical views during the conference. He was 21 at the time and residing in London. According to the flight schedule he provided the institute, Abdulmutallab was in Houston 17 days.
(on camera): Have you ever seen this man here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALES: No.
MATTINGLY: How can you be so sure?
(voice-over): The local Nigerian Muslim association says it's not aware of its members having any direct or indirect link with the suspect. Worshipers at Houston's largest Nigerian mosque tell me Abdulmutallab never attended prayers here during his visit.
(on camera): What could this young man have been doing here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALES: No one knows.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTINGLY (voice-over): They tell me they're used to defending their reputation as Muslims after acts of terrorism. But a Nigerian suspect was completely unexpected.
RASHEED IBRAHEEM, NIGERIAN MUSLIM: I said, for God's sake, this can't be a Nigerian. I was shocked. In fact, I said perhaps somebody was just trying to bring a big shame on our country.
MATTINGLY: Numbering between 100,000 and 150,000, Houston Nigerians, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, fear a backlash of profiling. Community leaders denounce extremism and have pledged cooperation with the investigation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY: It's possible Abdulmutallab did not find the knowledge that he was looking for when he came here to Houston after he left that seminar back in august. He never had any contact with that school again -- John?
ROBERTS: David Mattingly for us this morning with the latest on the investigation.
David, thanks so much.
CHETRY: Forty-four minutes past the hour right now.
Reynolds is going to be joining us in a moment with your travel forecast on this New Year's Eve. We're expecting some snow in some parts.
ROBERTS: Yes. And that could kind of put a hitch in travel this morning if you're in the northeast.
In ten minutes, talking heads not talking. We're going to take another look at another gem from Jeanne Moos. It's called The Back Call. And sometimes the things that you see in it are pretty comical. Stay with us.
Forty-four minutes after the hour.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Forty- seven minutes past the hour. That means it's time for an AM House Call. Stories about your health this morning. Swine flu may not be super contagious. There is new research saying it's less contagious than past viruses that have caused big outbreaks, so if someone in your home has swine flu, your odds of catching it are about one in eight; although, they say children are twice as susceptible.
A small but potentially significant step toward early detection of ovarian cancer. The disease is often diagnosed too late for effective treatment. The scientists say they found three proteins that show up in the blood test before symptoms appear. Doctors say that it could lead to a screening program for ovarian cancer, similar to the one used to detect prostate cancer in men.
Also, a study suggests that restaurants that include those calorie counts, the information on their menus actually do encourage people to make healthier food choices. Yale University researchers found that people ate 14 percent fewer calories when menus were labeled with calorie content as well as daily recommendations. Last year, you may remember New York became the first city to require fast food and coffee chains to put calorie info on their menu board, so does it change your choices if your -- you said one time at the airport you decided to --
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: Absolutely does. Yes, I went to the Burger King at La Guardia, and I was looking at -- having a double whopper with cheese, and it had more calories than anyone should eat in a single sitting, so I didn't order it.
The ovarian cancer story is great too.
CHETRY: Yes.
ROBERTS: Because it's so difficult to detect that early. You know, I have a friend of mine had ovarian cancer, was only discovered when she had an ultrasound for fibroids, and they caught it in its earliest form, and thank God she's cured now, but that's an important development if there's some sort of blood marker there.
CHETRY: Yes, absolutely.
Meanwhile, we're going to get to check of other stories this morning including our weather headlines today. Everyone wants to know what it's going to be like. It's New Year's eve, we're going to say.
ROBERTS: And there would be people penned up, millions of them, while at least hundreds of thousands of them in New York's Times Square and Reynolds Wolf in at the Weather Center in Atlanta looking into what they're in for tonight. Hey, Reynolds.
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I mean, if you're going to be penned up, you might as well be in Times Square during the New Year's festivities, and I'll tell you the way it looks right now, one to three inches of snowfall possible for New York City. It's going to make for pretty nice backdrop out there.
It means it's not going to be as going to cause major wrinkles when you travel planes for the evening, but still, definitely a dose of winter weather, and that's going to extend downward to the nation's capital, but then when you get to the Carolinas and to Virginia, it switches over to some rain but still in the highest elevations we're looking at rain mixed in with a touch of sleet that may continue through a good part of the day, especially on parts of 75, but out towards the west, we're talking about another winter storm ramping up.
It's going to bring some scattered showers along the coast with the high elevations of the Sierras as well as the coastal rage and into even the bitterroots of Montana, look for some snowfall. The highest peak is possibly run to foot or so of snowfall. In terms of your temperatures, 11 degrees in Minneapolis, 37 in Denver, 69 degrees in Houston, 52 in Atlanta, mainly 70s; it's getting very close to 80 degrees in Miami, and 37 New York, 40 in Boston.
What about tonight? What can you expect weather wise for this evening? If you're going to celebrate the ringing of the New Year in Denver, 23 degrees will be the low temperature, Dallas, 37 degrees, 20 in Chicago, 40 in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and New York mainly into the 30s, 66 in Tampa and Miami. You lucky devil, 73 degrees will be your nighttime low. Pretty nice in Key West too. After looking at your forecast, we're going to send back to you, guys, in New York, but again 34 degrees, some place of downtown, maybe as low as 31, but all this considered not bad, not bad at all for early January.
ROBERTS: Key West would be a lovely place to ring in the New Year.
WOLF: Yes.
CHETRY: No, it's cheating. It's supposed to be a little bit cold for New Year's. Come on.
WOLF: No, it's not.
ROBERTS: No, no.
WOLF: That's why they made champagne. Kind of even doubt the things away.
ROBERTS: Why does it have to be cold on New Year's?
CHETRY: I don't know it's just tradition, right? When you're --
ROBERTS: Why, because you grew up in the Northeast?
CHETRY: That's right.
ROBERTS: Yes.
CHETRY: When I was in California on New Year's eve, it was so strange to me.
ROBERTS: Really?
CHETRY: Yes, it was too warm. People are running around in shorts, you know. It's New Year's eve. It's supposed to be cold.
ROBERTS: What's wrong with that?
CHETRY: I guess nothing, actually. I'm just jealous.
This morning's top stories are just minutes away including the latest on the attempted bombing of flight 253. President is getting some answers and some accountability today. Was it a complete intelligence breakdown? Foreign affairs correspondent Jill Dougherty will join us live.
ROBERTS: And at 7:33 Eastern, keeping the skies safe. Is profiling the answer? We'll talk with our guests, Raffie Ron (ph) and Mike German (ph) about this controversial issue.
CHETRY: Also, we're following developments out of Afghanistan where a suicide bomber gets on to a U.S. military outpost killing eight Americans, including members of the CIA. The Taliban is now claiming responsibility and saying it was an inside job with the Afghan army. We're going to have more on that. Those stories and much more at the top of the hour.
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ROBERTS: It's video that you're not supposed to see. Politicians, pundits, even news anchors waiting to go live on television.
CHETRY: Yes, a lot goes on before you actually see what's going on.
ROBERTS: Yes, in what we call the back hall. CHETRY: That's right, the back hall. A museum art exhibit has captured some of these famous talking heads in the moments before they start talking. Jeanne moos has the off-air outtakes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They sit down and get miced up to get ready for their close-up, but something seems off.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's quiet.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've just never seen him in such repose. He looks almost meditative.
MOOS: Carville quiet, an oxymoron.
MOOS (on-camera): You know all those talking heads on TV, going blah, blah, blah, not here in what's called the silent echo chamber.
MOOS (voice-over): There is John McCain, military barring eyes boring into you, and Chris Matthews who seems to forget to blink.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He looks like a statue.
MOOS: A status would be Henry Kissinger-like portraits they hang on the walls of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somehow you feel that you're seeing into their soul.
MOOS: From Larry King grimacing, to Wolf Blitzer sinking his teeth into his crypt, to Joe Biden sinking his teeth into a pastry, washing it down and then coming back for more.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like an eclair.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It looks like an eclair, doesn't it?
MOOS: Who collects this stuff?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I call it a hobby or a sickness.
MOOS: Comedian and actor, Harry Shearer is mum on the how part.
MOOS (on-camera): I just assume he's stealing satellite signals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think -- he won't admit to any technique.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm like Dick Cheney, sources and methods.
MOOS (voice-over): Shearer got hooked more than three decades ago when he saw a footage of Richard Nixon right before his resignation speech when it's an even sap out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, you're better looking than I am, and then why don't you stay here. All secret service or any secret service in the room? Out. I'm just kidding you.
MOOS: It was Shearer who collected this famous John Edwards clip. Someone else put it to music. Other Harry Shearer found objects include annoyed hosts.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are you doing?
MOOS: Ann Coulter joking around about chewing Nicorette.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you can chop it up so I can snort it.
MOOS: Dan Rather debating how to wear the collar of his trench coat.
DAN RATHER, JOURNALIST: My concern about is the whole coat will distract the scene. We'll put it down.
MOOS: And Katie Couric mimicking Dan Rather.
KATIE COURIC, ANCHOR: What do you think, open?
MOOS: The Aldrich Museum exhibit doesn't show embarrassing moments but rather who the person is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In those moments before they put their TV personality on.
MOOS: For instance, Dr. Phil Knock (ph) giving advice.
Sean Hannity sanitizing or moisturizing.
Before our interview with Shearer, we knobbed him, making noises, and tucking his shirt into his pants.
At least when a talking head is silent, he doesn't have to eat his words.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
ROBERTS: I love that bit of catching Shearer off camera there.
CHETRY: Yes.
ROBERTS: What goes around comes around.
CHETRY: Exactly. You always forget, you know, you do. It's easy to forget when all the cameras around that they're always taping something.
Meanwhile, your top stories are coming up in just 90 seconds. It's 58 minutes past the hour.
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