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American Morning

Hayward on the Hot Seat; Moms Demand Iran Free Jailed Hikers; Oil Bird Rehab; Calling All Billionaires; Moratorium on Drilling Affecting Gulf Coast Business

Aired June 17, 2010 - 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: Good morning to you. Glad you are with us on this AMERICAN MORNING. It's Thursday, June 17th. I'm Kiran Chetry.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: I'm Drew Griffin. John Roberts has the day off.

Busy day ahead, lots to talk about. Let's get right to it.

BP's CEO, Tony Hayward, summoned to Capitol Hill today. He's going to face questioning about the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The head of the committee is going to grill him, he says. Says he expects Hayward to be "sliced and diced."

CHETRY: Well, three mothers whose children have been jailed in Iran for nearly a year are demanding their release, saying that Tehran is using the children as pawns and in a political chess match with America. Now, it's the first time that they publicly criticized the Iranians. One of those mothers will be joining us live in just a moment.

GRIFFIN: Hey, if you're a billionaire, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett had a request, a $600 billion request. They'd like each and every one of you to give away half your wealth. Call it the billionaire challenge. Big dollar details -- ahead.

CHETRY: Also, the amFIX blog is up and running. Join the live conversation by heading to CNN.com/amFIX.

GRIFFIN: Well, the BP executive who said he wanted his life back, remember back, won't get his wish any time soon. Two hours from now, on day 59 of this disaster in the Gulf, CEO Tony Hayward, the face of this national nightmare, will be on the hot seat on Capitol Hill.

CHETRY: He's going to tell a House subcommittee that he's deeply sorry for the spill that's poisoning the Gulf. But the chairman of the committee that will be grilling Hayward says that that's not going to be good enough. He tells our Dana Bash the CEO is about to be, quote, "sliced and diced."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BART STUPAK (D), MICHIGAN: He's just going to say, "I'm sorry, it won't happen again." That's not good enough.

DANA BASH, CNN SR. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It almost feels like he's going to be facing a firing squad, not necessarily a congressional hearing.

STUPAK: Well --

BASH: Is it going to be tough?

STUPAK: Oh, yes. Yes. The members are angry. The members are frustrated. Members are -- they're going to take his hide off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN: When this morning's hearing begins at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, it's likely to get ugly from the get-go. Tony Hayward has been the lightning rod, the poster child, really, for the disaster.

CHETRY: Yes. Dana Bash is live in Capitol Hill this morning.

Just two hours from now, the hearing room is going to be more like a lion's den.

BASH: It sure will, Kiran and Drew. Look, I'm outside the hearing room right now. And you can probably see or maybe hear it is definitely bustling. This feels like a place where something very dramatic is going to happen in a couple of hours.

And you said that Tony Hayward is going to come here and say that he is sorry, but as you mentioned, I did speak with the chairman of this committee who says that sorry is not enough. They have done investigating. They have found, he said, areas where BP cut corners and he wants to know what Tony Hayward knew about it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: You know, Tony Hayward has, in many ways, become the poster child of this, and in many ways the villain of this. Do you see him as the villain of this BP explosion?

STUPAK: Look, he's a corporate guy at the end of the day, and he's going put his best foot forward. It's not going to ring true with me or the American public. And we got a mess on our hands, a disaster, a catastrophic disaster, for the environment and those people who lost their lives. He's just going to say, "I'm sorry and it won't happen again." That's not good enough. That's not good enough.

BASH: It almost feels like he's going to be facing a firing squad, not necessarily a congressional hearing.

STUPAK: Well --

BASH: Is it going to be tough?

STUPAK: Oh, yes. Yes. The members are angry. The members are frustrated. Members are -- they're going to take his hide off.

BASH: What about you?

STUPAK: As they should. I will be there but firm (ph).

BASH: I saw somewhere that you were quoted as saying that he'll be sliced and diced.

STUPAK: Fairly sliced and diced.

BASH: Right. So, these are documents that you have uncovered.

STUPAK: Correct.

BASH: One in -- one employee calling the Deepwater Horizon "crazy well"; another a "nightmare well."

STUPAK: Correct. Correct. And these are the top engineers. So, when you say things like this, in this corporate, this culture, what does that mean? Oh, wow, so got crazy well, you got a runaway well, it's a nightmare. Keep moving forward. Cut corners and get it done. Get the nightmare over with, create a bigger nightmare for the American people.

BASH: But you think that Tony Hayward -- look, he bears the ultimate responsibility.

STUPAK: Yes. He's head of -- he's the head of the corporation. It goes down with the ship, as they say.

BASH: So, this is an interview that he did with Sky News, Tony Hayward.

STUPAK: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY HAYWARD, BP CEO: I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest. I think it will be seen as a textbook example of how to do an emergency response. And it's unprecedented.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STUPAK: Well, this is not modest. And even if there's (INAUDIBLE), it was not modest. First of all, they couldn't tell us how much oil was coming out. But textbook example of how to do a cleanup? They can't handle 5,000 gallons or 5,000 barrels, let alone 60,000 barrels, we think it is now.

Tony Hayward and BP will be held accountable. When it's all said and done, I want him to go back to Sky News and say, oh, this is a textbook example of what should be done? It's a textbook example of how things should not be done.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BASH: And the Democrats who lead this committee sent Tony Hayward a 14-page letter, detailing some of their investigation as far as Bart Stupak told me, basically giving him the answers to their test about incidents, they say, for example, BP trying to save $7 million to $10 million by choosing a cheaper oil -- a well design and, for example, doing that because, Kiran and Drew, the investigators feel that they were really pressed for time.

The rig was 43 days overdue going to its next stop, millions of dollars over-budget, and they are going to press Tony Hayward on the idea that the company cut costs, they were worried about costs, and that obviously was a very detrimental and devastating decision, several of them.

CHETRY: It will be interesting to see exactly how fired up they get today at that hearing. We'll be watching.

Dana Bash, thanks so much.

By the way, it starts at 10:00 Eastern. There's two -- under two hours from now. You can watch it all unfold live here on CNN. Head to CNN.com/live or you can see it on your CNN iPhone app.

GRIFFIN: New coming in to us this morning: The mothers of three U.S. hikers who remain jailed in Iran are now demanding their children be released or at least tried. This is the first time the families have criticized the Iranians since their children were arrested at the Iraq-Iran border last year. They were charged with espionage, just out hiking, tourists.

Well, joining us now from the phone is - from Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, Laura Fattal, the mother of imprison American hiker, Josh Fattal.

Laura, thanks for joining us. You guys have been diplomatic. You've been respectful. You've been trying to deal with this Iranian government. This sounds like a change though.

LAURA FATTAL, MOTHER OF JAILED HIKER (via telephone): Yes. Good morning, Drew. Thank you for having us.

It is a change only in that we understand that there has been no investigation of Josh, Shane and Sarah for very -- many, many months, and that there has been talk of the trial coming soon or release coming soon. And that we are -- the word "soon" lost meaning because we are now waiting 11 months.

And we know that the kids are innocent. We know if they crossed the border and that is the only charge that we're even thinking about. We have no other charges against the kids; that they should be released. This is wild.

GRIFFIN: You know, so many people are in prison in Iran awaiting trials and just being held for no apparent reason. Do you feel like your children, these three, young adults, are just part of that, quote-unquote, "justice system"? Or are they being used as political pawns here?

FATTAL: Well, our kids have nothing to do with the internal strife within Iran -- absolutely nothing. It is totally different cases. Our kids are humanitarian case.

And at this point, we cannot help but think that our kids are being used with the tension, adding to tension between Iran and the United States. And that should not be the case.

I want to add that when -- Cindy and Nora and I, the mothers of the other hikers detained in Iran, when we were in Tehran, mothers, Iranian mothers, came to us and said, how are the kids? I know Sarah is in isolation. How is Josh and Shane? They were concerned, worried.

Mothers all over the world have taken our case and really felt our desperate need to get them home.

GRIFFIN: All right. Laura Fattal joining us. Thank you so much. Good luck with that effort. We certainly hope that pays off and you'll be reunited soon.

FATTAL: Me, too. Thank you. Thank you.

CHETRY: It's has been a long, long road for them.

GRIFFIN: Yes.

CHETRY: Well, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman is pushing a bill to give the president absolute power over the Internet in the event of a national security emergency. Under the legislation, the president would have a figurative kill switch to seize control of the Internet and shut it down. Senator Lieberman has long supported government regulation of the Internet. But this new bill goes even further in the handling of emergency powers, handing them over to the feds.

GRIFFIN: It's been a night of violent storms in South Dakota -- at least two tornadoes touching down on the extreme weather threat not over yet. This was from yesterday. Storm trackers are tracing this one. And Reynolds Wolf says we might be chasing some more later today. He joins from us the weather center.

REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, certainly. It looks like a possibility. What we're going to see, though, is that chance of severe weather shift a little bit more to the east, closer to parts of, say, the Great Lakes and moving into the upper Midwest.

Let's go right to the maps. You can see it plain as day, a big bull's eye that's painted right there on the map. You see the areas shaded in red. But it's not just one. There are actually two of them.

As we look at the weather maps, you're going to see these two spots where we could see that rough weather. Now, it looks like most of the rough weather for parts of the southeast will occur later this afternoon and into the early evening hours. However, farther back to the upper Midwest, we're seeing some of that unfold this morning.

High temperatures today for the day will be just excruciating along parts of the Gulf Coast, New Orleans going to 90; Houston, 91; even places like Tampa is going up to 90s. But high humidity is going to make it feel much warmer than anywhere from 105 to about 110 degrees.

So, if that job isn't tough enough cleaning up the oil, the heat makes things even more difficult.

Let's send it back to you guys.

CHETRY: Yes, it's really complicating efforts. They have to take breaks much more often because of the devastating heat down there.

Thanks a lot, Reynolds.

WOLF: You bet.

CHETRY: And speaking of that, we're talking about the oily birds. Before and after, a demo of how they're cleaned, saved and then returned to the wild.

It's 11 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Fourteen minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the Most News of the Morning.

They are among the most helpless and innocent victims of the disaster. They don't rely on fossil fuels to get around, just their wings.

GRIFFIN: Yes. And now, the spill in the Gulf has taken that away from hundreds of birds. But the lucky ones are getting, at least, a shot at survival.

Anderson Cooper got an up-close look at how to rehabilitate these animals.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When birds are first brought in, though, they're not immediately cleaned?

DUANE TITUS, INTL. BIRD RESCUE RESEARCH CENTER: No, no. They couldn't withstand the stress.

COOPER: The stress of being cleaned would -- might kill them?

TITUS: Correct. Yes. We stabilize them for about three days. You know, prior to wash.

COOPER: What's so difficult about the wash? TITUS: You know, it's just a really difficult process for the bird. They are being held still. They are being bathed with warm water and they view us as predators. They don't really realize that the humans that are working with them are necessarily trying to help them. So, as far as they are concerned, they are being attacked.

COOPER: So, for them, it's incredibly stressful?

TITUS: Incredibly stressful, yes.

COOPER: And that can actually kill them?

TITUS: Sure, yes. Stress is definitely known to kill just about, you know, any kind of wildlife and human beings. So, it's a very stressful process.

COOPER: And if there are -- what are they cleaning right there?

TITUS: It's the pouch -- basically the pouch of the pelican. We try to clean inside and outside. That pouch is very elastic. So we try to stretch it out to get both inside and outside very clean.

COOPER: Wow.

TITUS: So --

COOPER: What are they -- what are they doing right here? At first they -- I mean, what's the process for cleaning?

TITUS: So, right now, he's just beginning to process the bird. They'll get a good look at it -- basically get the wings held together to keep it safe. And then -- this is actually a pre-treating process.

COOPER: What does that do?

TITUS: It loosens the oil. It makes it much softer. The oil has been weathered and fairly dried. And that basically breaks down the oil and makes it much easier to wash this bird.

COOPER: They put that all over the bird?

TITUS: Correct. They put that all over the bird. Then typically what they will do is put that in a special enclosure with birds that have been pretreated and at about a half hour to an hour time they will pull the same bird out and begin the wash process.

COOPER: And they literally have to wash inside the bird's mouth.

TITUS: Inside the bird's mouth, yes. We try and wash -- these birds preen, try to clean their feathers. They really excessively preen.

COOPER: What you mean preen?

TITUS: Right correct, they are trying to comb their feathers, straighten, and reline their feathers to get waterproof and get the oil off. So they have ingested some. We want to clean as much as oil from inside the bill and the mouth and that pouch. So it is -- much inside as it is outside.

COOPER: Do you ever get used to seeing this?

TITUS: Not really. No. It is -- this is moving. Heartbreaking thing to think that these beautiful animals with soiled. Basically making our lives, you know, convenient and simple. We all have a hand in this. So, I think that we all have a hand in cleaning it up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: It's just amazing to see -- you know, it has been long time actually we have been trying to get pictures and to allow you into the facility. They don't like to do that because they talk about the stress on the birds and how it can actually kill them as well. We learned a lot of things from prior spills. About the best way to treat them. So they actually have a better shot than any other time. So you got to see the before. Now let's show you the after. This was last night. Dozens of those same pelicans who had been cleaned off --

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey.

CHETRY: Roaming around the pen. And they are waiting to be released into the wild. There's still no guarantee they will survive but they do have a better shot now. You know a lot of people ask are they going to fly back to where the oil is.

GRIFFIN: Yes, I was going ask that.

CHETRY: Yes well in some cases what they do is actually relocate them to places. I think one of them was along the East Coast of Florida where they hope that they will make a colony so if they -- transfer a large amount together, they won't be as likely to go. But I mean, of course, no guarantees. People are doing their best and learning from the past.

GRIFFIN: Well good luck. I bet they are tagging them and we will probably find out what happen.

CHETRY: Yes they do tag them.

GRIFFIN: Very good. Listen, a knock on the door. Bill Gates. You are a billionaire. He wants half your money. Stick around and we will tell you about that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRIFFIN: This is a crazy story. And I bet you are not included. We are about to find out if billionaires buckle under peer pressure. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are counting on it. For the past year these guys have been secretly trying to convince America's billionaires to share the health by donating half their personal net worth to charity. Well the secret is out. "Fortune" magazine's Carol Loomis broke the story yesterday, Carol senior editor at large "Fortune" joining us this morning. This is a bizarre story. Bill Gates and Buffett send out a letter saying, you know, this hall of billionaires is going to meet. We are going to have lunch and then we are going to talk you out of half of your money. Right?

CAROL LOOMIS, FORTUNE STAFFER FOR 55 YEARS: Well I guess it is. You could think about it that way. Didn't strike me has totally bizarre.

GRIFFIN: Because you travel in more circles than I do.

LOOMIS: Well I guess so. I do know both of those guys, so I guess so, and Melinda, so I guess that is true.

GRIFFIN: So what's the idea here?

LOOMIS: The idea is to -- that Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, both of whom have promised practically all of their net worth to charity -

GRIFFIN: Right.

LOOMIS: Think that it would be a good idea to encourage other billionaires to do the same thing. It is just that simple. They like to get people -- they would like to change American behavior because right now all of the evidence in the indicates that billionaires do not give that much to charity. So that's the -- that's the point.

GRIFFIN: And so specifically they say either now or when you croak, you give half your money to charity.

LOOMIS: That's right.

GRIFFIN: Do they care which charity?

LOOMIS: No. They care not at all. As a matter of fact, Bill says that part of the charm of giving in America is in diversity. And actually Americans are really very generous as a whole in giving money to charity. Better than any other country.

GRIFFIN: Now the secret is out.

LOOMIS: Yes.

GRIFFIN: Was it a secret? Were they trying to keep this a secret?

LOOMIS: They were. They have been at it a year a half. And at first they didn't know what they were going to do. They didn't know what their strategy was going to be as far as encouraging billionaires to give more. But then they came up with this idea of the pledge. And all along, it has been quite secret because one dinner they had was leaked and all sorts of conspiracy theorists emerged.

GRIFFIN: Right, what's going on here? Secret government.

LOOMIS: Absolutely. Absolutely. So they sort of kept it under wraps because they realized it would be better to really try to announce it and give a full disclosure of what they are trying to do which we did in "Fortune."

GRIFFIN: So the secret society stand up at the end of the dinner when Oprah was there?

LOOMIS: Right.

GRIFFIN: Who else was there? Dan Rockefeller was the --

LOOMIS: Dan Rockefeller was a host. Ted Turner --

GRIFFIN: All these people that are already giving away tons of money.

LOOMIS: Well the first dinner, all of the three dinners they had, the intention was to get billionaires who had demonstrated that they were good at giving their money away and wanted to give it away.

GRIFFIN: And now they are going after the tightwads.

LOOMIS: That's right. The idea was thoughts about how do we go after these people.

GRIFFIN: And do they have thoughts on how they do it? And will they guilt them into it basically?

LOOMIS: Well there is a lot of peer pressure here, there is no question about that. And I think that has proven by other fund- raising things. The -- I think that many of the billionaires out there will immediately sign up for this pledge that they like to have. And there will be others who will come along more slowly and more reluctantly. I think all of the Principals, Gates and Warren, think it will take a while.

GRIFFIN: Well Kiran and I are going to pledge now to give half the money in our wallet.

LOOMIS: All right, me too, I'll go with that.

GRIFFIN: So that's about seven bucks.

LOOMIS: OK. That's something. Right?

GRIFFIN: It is something. Pleasure to have you join us.

LOOMIS: Thank you, Drew. Thank you.

GRIFFIN: OK, take care, Kiran.

CHETRY: I'm counting. It is a little more than seven but not much.

GRIFFIN: I'm talking about my pocket.

CHETRY: Yes, I know, no. I was thinking about if you make us billionaires I will be happy to give half.

GRIFFIN: All right.

CHETRY: Well up close, look right now at the controlled burns of the spilled oil, Ali Velshi rides with the fire crews next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRIFFIN: "Top Stories" is just minutes way. But we got a feel- good story for you, an "A.M. Original," something you only see right here on AMERICAN MORNING. The pentagon giving CNN's Jason Carroll - hot access Jason Carroll -

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right baby.

GRIFFIN: Heading into military. This guy has been following these guys, heading into military service.

CHETRY: Yes from the day that they signed up and enlisted --

CARROLL: Even before.

GRIFFIN: Yes, it's a full series.

CHETRY: As they were -- as they were going back and forth trying to make that tough decision following them tall way through basic training and we check back in with Will McLain, how's he doing?

CARROLL: He's doing well. You know, you have been there from the beginning. You have seen this interesting arc in his development, in his growth. You know when we last saw Will, he had just completed his basic training at Ft. Lynnwood Missouri. But in order to become a combat engineer, he's now had to move on to more advanced training at Ft. Stewart, Georgia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Company set hut, ready, begin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't give up. Don't quit.

CARROLL (voice-over): With basic training behind them, Will McLain and other soldiers in his company are now starting advanced training to become combat engineers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop talking and listen. I'd rather get this stuff so you can do your job.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go!

CARROLL: It's a job that entails months of training at Ft. Stewart, Georgia.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Begin.

CARROLL: Will is in week eight. WILL MCLAIN: It's not like the whole time they are trying to get you into shape. You are pretty much expected to know it now. So now it is like - so now it is more of a job part.

CARROLL (on camera): We would like to show you more of what Will is doing now. But the army tells us this is a sensitive part of the training. This is where the soldiers are learning how to prepare and place explosives. And so we want to keep our cameras back just a little bit so they can handle this part of the training.

(voice-over): Already Will's received his first promotion to private, second class.

MCLAIN: I'm no long other the bottom of the totem pole.

CARROLL (on camera): So you can boss somebody else I around a little bit.

MCLAIN: Not really. Not until the higher ranks.

CARROLL: OK.

MCLAIN: But it's funner for some people to try and boss me right now because I can be like, well we are the same rank, but I'll listen, so.

(LAUGHTER)

CARROLL (voice-over): Will says this is the stage where there's more bonding in the unit but it is an old friend Will was hoping to see. The army assigns each new recruit a battle buddy during basic training. Will was assigned to Demitrius Daniel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Separate.

CARROLL: They train side by side and plan to graduate together. But a week before Daniel's was disciplined for sneaking off base to play pool. A serious enough violation to put his career at risk.

DEMETRIUS DANIELS, U.S. ARMY: This is a very immature decision. Definitely if I could turn back the hands of time I wouldn't have done it.

CARROLL: But following an official review, --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go.

CARROLL: He got the OK to graduate to Ft. Stewart.

(on camera): What would you say was the lesson learned from that experience?

DANIELS: Of course, you know, do the right thing, make the right decisions. And you know, just because you do make the wrong decision, doesn't make it necessarily mean that it is the end of the world. You can definitely bounce back and become stronger from it and learn from your mistakes.

CARROLL: Now back with his battle buddy, their commander says their focus turns to deployment.

DANIELS: The majority of us have all deployed at least once. And we use the lessons we learned during the past deployments to help prepare these soldiers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a dog face soldier, a rifle on my shoulder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm really looking forward to it actually, being able to go over and serve. It is essentially why a lot of us enlist, to serve your country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: And combat engineers like Will and Demetrius do everything from setting roadside bombs to disarming them. Their role in the service overseas is key in Afghanistan and places like Iraq. They will have several months of advanced training before they move on.

CHETRY: Great to follow them. It really is.

GRIFFIN: Just turn into men before your eyes.

CARROLL: They start out at such a young age. We forget when we first met will, he was 18 years owed. There are a lot of young men and women just like him.

CHETRY: We wish him the best. Thanks, Jason.

CARROLL: You bet.

CHETRY: The time now is 31 minutes past the hour. A look at the top stories this morning.

The mothers of three U.S. hikers still jailed in Iran nearly a year are demanding their children be released or put on trial. They are accusing the Iranians of using Josh Fattal, Sarah Shourd, and Shane Bower as pawns in their dispute with America.

It is the first time the parents have criticized Tehran since their children were arrested near the Iran-Iraq border last year and charged with espionage.

GRIFFIN: A big day and probably not a good day for BP's CEO. Tony Hayward is 90 minutes away from testifying on Capitol Hill to apologize for the Gulf oil spill. He will tell Congress he can't guarantee a good outcome as BP tries to kill its gushing well. What will the congressman say? One is saying we are going slice and dice him.

CHETRY: Also another unfortunate misstep for a BP executive. Chairman of BP offering up an apology right after meeting with the president yesterday. Carl-Henric Svanberg stopped to speak to the media and referred to the "small people" which had some people very upset. He says he's sorry for that statement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARL-HENRIC SVANBERG, BP CHAIRMAN: I hear sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care. But that is not the case at BP. We care about the small people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: In his apology he admits "small people" was a clumsy way to put it. You know, if you are being generous, which a lot of people aren't feeling too generous towards BP and their executives, perhaps it was lost in translation.

GRIFFIN: I thought it was a translation issue, but damned if you do, damned if you don't. He ran from the cameras on the way in and came out and faced the cameras on the way out.

It looks like a volcano on the water, columns of smoke. Incredible pictures up close are of a controlled burn in the Gulf of Mexico.

CHETRY: Ali Velshi was embedded with the coast guard as it tries to make a small smoldering department in the oil spill. Ali is back onshore and joining us live from New Orleans with more of what it was like to be out there to experience that firsthand. Hey, Ali.

ALI VELSHI, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Kiran and Drew, I have seen a lot of fires in my life and covered a lot of oil spills, never seen anything like this. This was like a movie. On two fronts, one, the pictures that you see of that oil, they have gathered in booms and are burning off, according to some of these guys, they could burn 30,000-plus barrels a day of oil if done efficiently if the weather is right.

The other part of the story was the people involved. In this case, I'm going to invoke small people in a good way. These are regular people. These are the shrimpers from southern Louisiana who have been out work. They can't shrimp anymore, so now they're working for BP to try to collect this oil.

They are Coast Guard reservists come together. It was like a movie watching this, the military precision of these guys and women coming together to burn this oil off the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. Let me show you what I saw.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: What we're going to be witnessing is a controlled burn. We know they've been able to burn some of the oil off a little bit earlier today. We'll evaluate what the situation is when we get there. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is actually oil that you're seeing on the surface of the water, our fishing vessels come along, we collect it. When we get an appropriate amount of oil in the boom we will bring a boat over and ignite it.

VELSHI: That's what you want to see?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is. We call those our mega-burns or very successful burns.

VELSHI: If you look up, follow this thing up and see it up to there, it's like a weather system being created here. And if you see the bottom of that burn, the smoke is white. That's the steam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the steam from the adjacent water, yes.

VELSHI: You'll see as we come up there are shrimpers on either side of that fire. That's where the boom is connected.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have them pulling a U-configuration. They gather that oil into the boom and they just keep working real slow.

VELSHI: They corral the oil basically that is then set on fire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're averaging 2,000 to 5,000 barrels an hour with these kinds of burns.

VELSHI: So even though this is crude oil, it has been degraded a little bit from a mixture of water, you can't just throw a match on it and hope it will ignite.

What happens is they put one of these in with it. This is two half gallon jugs of diesel. At the bottom you see a flare. The flare then melts the plastic around the diesel and ignites the diesel and hopefully the diesel burns hot enough and long enough so that it ignites the oil.

We are right in the middle of where these -- this oil is, a few miles away. Right in the distance, maybe ten miles away, you can see the source of the spill. That's where the Deepwater Horizon went down.

Right here, fish. You can actually see them swimming around the water fairly clean. This is an area that has been burning going on. In a good day, they can burn 30,000 to 40,000 barrels of oil in the controlled fires.

The sun is getting ready to set here. Any fire that's already burning can remain burning at night, they don't set new one. They will be here first thing in the morning as the sun rises to start burning more of the oil. They will keep on doing it until there is no more oil left to burn.

(END VIDEOTAPE) VELSHI: Drew and Kiran, the issue here is that they see a day like yesterday as a remarkable success. You see that oil burning and, of course, some people look at this and say what is this? All this oil burning, these black clouds darkening the sky around us, this can't be good.

And judgments have been made to say that while it is never good to have that kind of pollutant in the air, they have deemed that it is better than the oil making its way to coast as some of it already has and doing the damage, Kiran, that you have seen onshore where animals, wetlands are destroyed, marshlands are destroyed, and people's livelihoods are destroyed.

GRIFFIN: The undercurrent in all of this is the oil is still coming up from the bottom. So I keep trying to think oh, they are getting a handle on it. They are not getting a handle on it. They are just trying to take care of what's out there and still coming out.

VELSHI: Yes. The good thing about the way these folks operate is that they have a mission. They have a challenge. They are not concerning themselves with either the politics or the flow rate. Their bottom line, every day, is the same -- how much oil can we corral and how much oil can we burn?

They find when they operate with that mission they don't get bogged down or frustrated by the fact this could go on for months. They are just going to get every last drop of oil that they can.

I must say, I was taken by their determination and their strong headedness about street whole thing. You are right, Drew. If on a good day they can get 30,000, 40,000 barrels and we can't confirm that, they might be doing better than the top hat that's actually being used at the source.

CHETRY: Amazing. Hopefully BP says they will hopefully be able to capture 90 percent of it soon. We hope that's happening as well. Meanwhile, the fight continues out there on the gulf. Ali Velshi for thus morning. Thanks.

And by the way, you can have all of CNN's coverage from the Gulf right at your fingertips. Get the latest updates and iReports by going to CNN.com/oildisaster.

GRIFFIN: The economic disaster is huge, especially if you are into offshore drilling and working on one of those rigs. The president says hey, no more. We had a drilling ban in effect. We will have that story next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: It's 40 minutes past the hour. It is day 59 of the oil disaster in the Gulf. The political hot potato of the crisis, the president's six-month moratorium on deep water drilling. There are a lot of environmentalists for it and they wanted to go further and ban deep water drilling completely. GRIFFIN: How do you feel about that if you were one of the business owners along the Gulf who depend on it? Politicians in Washington say the longer these rigs are shut down, the more families depending on the industry for paycheck are going to suffer.

Our Chris Lawrence joins us live from New Orleans now to break down the debate on this. Chris?

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Drew, some people are saying look just what one mistake did to the Gulf. There is no way we could afford another. And on other side have you business owners who say there's no way it should take six months to do this process.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE: There's one boat left is for this oil cleaning company, one last bit of oil and drilling mud to scrub.

VELMA MOCK, COASTAL ENVIRONMENTAL OPERATIONS: Once this job is finished, this boat will no longer have a job because of the moratorium.

LAWRENCE: That's how the dominos fall. The president shuts down deep water drilling which dry docks the boats that supply the rigs.

MOCK: We won't be able to clean this boat again because it won't have a job to go offshore to bring mud back.

LAWRENCE: Velma Mock says the president's six-month moratorium could kill her company on its 20th anniversary.

MOCK: July, August, if drilling is not back into effect the deepwater rigs aren't working, we are not working. Next week we won't be working

LAWRENCE: That's a hard thing to argue against.

AARON VILES, GULF RESTORATION NETWORK: It absolutely is.

LAWRENCE: But environmentalist Aaron Wiles is going to try.

VILES: How can you like at this ecological nightmare happening now and say let's keep going? We have got to get answers.

LAWRENCE: President Obama has ordered a commission to inspect the deepwater rigs and decide when it is safe to start drilling again.

VILES: There shouldn't be a gun to the head to the commission saying look, every week you take means 25,000 more jobs.

LAWRENCE: He says in addition to BP's new $20 billion cleanup fund, another $100 million has been set aside to pay oil rig workers sidelined by the moratorium.

VILES: That I think that removes the pressure on the commission to do the work quickly and instead do it well. LAWRENCE (on camera): Your gut feeling through the oil companies stick around and wait out the moratorium?

MOCK: Some will. Some will. The ones that can go overseas will go overseas. The rigs that go overseas, you are looking at two to five years those rigs will not be back here. This is not going the affect us for six months. This is going to affect us for a few years.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE: Yes, the thing is that $100 million fund BP set up, that's just for the folks on the rig. Businesses like Velma's, supporting businesses have to go through the claims process. And she feels if those oil companies move out of the Gulf, you know, a few payments out of that, 10 grand here, 20 grand here, is not going to be anywhere enough to sustain a business long term.

GRIFFIN: Chris, here is what I don't understand. They want to inspect the rigs, a six-month moratorium to make sure they are safe. Can't they go out and inspect rig number one and make sure it is safe? Open it up. Then go to rig number two, is it safe, open it up, and start putting the poem back to work?

LAWRENCE: The Obama administration will say there is flexibility on that six-month timeframe. They put it out there but it could be less. He did urge the commission to do their work quickly. And he also told them to do it very thoroughly and without any outside pressure.

A lot of people here feel that this can be done a lot faster and you can, as you mentioned, go out and inspect rigs and put basic safety procedures in place, because they will say that, you know, this was a once in a lifetime event. They said look at all of the rigs that have been drilled out this kind of event ever happening before.

GRIFFIN: OK.

CHETRY: Chris Lawrence for us. Thanks so much. It is the common sense question a lot of people have been asking. Getting people out there and inspect at least the 33 currently doing it and get it up and running in a month.

GRIFFIN: We had a plane crash. We don't shut down every plane that's in the air. I can understand their frustration.

CHETRY: Still ahead, we are talking about severe thunderstorms including possible tornadoes expected in the north and Midwest. Reynolds Wolf in the Extreme Weather Center will be breaking it down for us in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF: Welcome back to CNN AMERICAN MORNING, I'm meteorologist Reynolds Wolf. And let's get things started with a look at some video that we had from yesterday. This video just taken in parts of the Dakotas, you're going to see some video from storm chasers moving through parts of South Dakota, seeing not one but several tremendous tornadoes dropping out of the sky. Certainly a rough afternoon and some of these just amazing to see; they got fairly close. In fact, in some of these, they got within 100 yards at times. These tornadoes dropping and then just disappearing.

What we could see later on today is the reappearance of more severe weather. So we go back to the weather wall. What are we're going to be seeing is this batch of showers and storms drifting more to the east. And as we get to the afternoon, there's a chance you can see severe weather erupt in places like Grand Forks perhaps even Fargo and then drifting back into portions of Minnesota by late afternoon and into the early evening.

Not just in this area but also in parts of the southeast, the Tennessee Valley even as far north as Cape Gerardo (ph), Missouri may be dealing with some strong storms for the afternoon.

Very quickly though, high temperatures also a big deal, 90 degrees in New Orleans, it could feel much more with the high humidity, 86 in D.C. and 83 in Minneapolis.

That is the look at you're forecast. We've got more coming up with CNN's AMERICAN MORNING in just a few moments. See you then.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: That's where the wizard lives, right?

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, exactly. That's the control room.

GRIFFIN: Yes, it's time for your "AM House Call" stories about your health. Some common over the counter drugs have been recalled, pretty serious here. They include Benadryl Allergy Ultra Tab tablets, 100 count and Extra Strength Tylenol Rapid Release Gels 50 counts. The company forgot to include these in -- include these in the drug recall back in January. Consumers complaining there was a moldy odor coming from the drugs.

CHETRY: Yes, you can't get them on the shelves anywhere.

Meanwhile, the FDA says the so-called Viagra for women pill hit a potential snag. The drug did not boost women's desire any more than a placebo in two clinical trials and side effects like depression, fainting and dizziness were reported. Tomorrow, the FDA is bringing in a panel of experts to talk about the safetiness and effectiveness of this so-called female Viagra.

Hey, Ozzy could be a medical marvel. The guy once snorted a line of ants, the stories of drug and alcohol abuse are legendary. Well, now scientists reportedly studying Ozzy to find out why Ozzy Osbourne is alive. A company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, using a drop of his blood to map his entire genome; they want to find out how his body absorbs drugs.

It'll take three months. But Ozzy isn't going anywhere. The self-proclaimed medical miracle is 61 now, sober. Has a new album out next week. He's headlining Oz-fest this summer.

CHETRY: There you go. Go Ozzy, maybe they'll find something out in there.

GRIFFIN: Good.

CHETRY: Maybe he'll kick in find out that it's not blood --

GRIFFIN: Maybe they won't find anything.

CHETRY: Maybe he's not human blood at all.

Well, what's the buzz about those vuvuzela World Cup horns? One person's noise is another's inspirational tune. And it looks like they are not going anywhere.

Fifty-three minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Welcome back to "The Most News of the Morning". We have been talking about what sounds like a giant angry swarm of hornets. But really it's the latest craze at the World Cup.

GRIFFIN: Yes, the Vuvuzela.

CHETRY: The Vuvuzela, the networks have gotten some complaints. And you know, it is too loud; the players say the -- causing us to make mistakes and we want them banned.

GRIFFIN: It's deafening. And if you watch it on TV, it's just completely annoying. But FIFA won't be putting a sock in them apparently. Resident soccer guy -- that doesn't sound right. Resident soccer guru Richard Roth is here, that sounds better.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It does sounds better.

GRIFFIN: Yes.

CHETRY: The Socrates of soccer.

ROTH: Oh, even better. A man brought a Vuvuzela to last night's Yankees/Phillies baseball game in the Bronx, he blew it often and then was asked to leave or else give up the horn he was told.

Some people just don't like this instrument.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROTH: It's all the buzz or buzz kill depending on your tolerance for the nonstop hum heard in the background at this year's World Cup.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I cannot stand them. It's just making me crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, they are so awful. I mean, all -- it's like a bug -- buzz the whole time.

ROTH: The vuvuzela. The plastic horn is a tradition in South African soccer matches. But this cultural icon has many fans in an uproar.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Come on. They are so loud.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you think? Is it distracting to you on CNN?

ROTH: Fans worldwide have been bellowing. But FIFA the world soccer organization, said buzz off to a ban. Forcing broadcasters to tinker with audio levels in an effort to diminish the hum. But one man's annoying buzz is another man's nirvana.

MARK HANNIGAN: Sometimes it sounds like the eternal ohm. It is like ohm. It's very meditative, it's beautiful.

ROTH: Maybe that's because Mark Hannigan is South African. The vuvuzelas are welcomed at his restaurant Mediva (ph) in Brooklyn, New York where his fellow countrymen have been gathering to watch the World Cup.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're going to have the World Cup in -- in African country you have to embrace what the culture is all about.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Conclusion?

ALAN FIERSTEIN (PH), ACOUSTIC CONSULTANT: Too loud, dangerous.

ROTH: Acoustic consultant Alan Fierstein is not embracing the vuvuzela. He's warning fans in the stadiums to wear earplugs. Can you equate the vuvuzela parade there to another loud sound?

FIERSTEIN: Well, if you were about 35 feet away from a 747 on takeoff, you would probably get in the neighborhood of 125 decibels.

ROTH: Do you watch the World Cup?

FIERSTEIN: No.

ROTH: Why?

FIERSTEIN: I'm more into baseball.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I keep getting e-mails from people that say shut that up. Shut it off.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't need nobody to tell us to stop our vuvuzelas. This is our tradition. We are proud South Africans.

ROTH: I wanted to blow my own horn.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is not easy to do this.

ROTH: How do I --

HANNIGAN: Like blowing a trumpet. It's got lot of pressure.

ROTH: Many people use that sound watching my reports. Apparently not as easy as it looks.

UF: Close your lips. Yes. Yes. That's the beginning. You are getting there. You are getting there.

ROTH: Finally --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROTH: I think Drew just questioned my manhood asking why I was so bad at that.

GRIFFIN: Not your manhood but, it's like, you couldn't follow his basic instructions?

ROTH: I'm not good with instruction or technology.

CHETRY: Think it over because he is doing a lot of talk.

ROTH: I even have trouble with the teleprompter. I would like to present this gift for the next three minutes to AMERICAN MORNING.

CHETRY: I did last hour. Drew is the trumpet player.

GRIFFIN: I'm a trumpet player so let's try --

(CROSSTALK)

ROTH: Don't aim it at me.

CHETRY: That's incredible.

ROTH: The soulful wail of AMERICAN MORNING.

GRIFFIN: That's an embarrassing moment that's going to come back to haunt me.

CHETRY: No. That's fantastic. If every soccer fan played it that well we wouldn't even do this story, right?

ROTH: The Americans are doing well. Argentina is leading South Korea now. I know you're interested in that. And the vuvuzelas are still going strong in South Africa.

CHETRY: There you go. Vuvu on, Richard.

GRIFFIN: Not at a Yankee game.

CHETRY: Well, that's going to do it for us today. We will be right back here tomorrow. So hope you will join us then.

And continue the conversations on today's stories by heading to our blog, CNN.com/amfix.

GRIFFIN: Yes. Can't wait to read them.

CHETRY: Gillespie -- very good.

GRIFFIN: Hey, Fredricka Whitfield starts in the "NEWSROOM" right now -- Fredricka.