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American Morning

Obama Addresses America; The New Normal: How Americans are Making Do With Less; Hard Hat Hits Glass Ceiling; Pakistan's Second Wave of Disease

Aired September 01, 2010 - 6:59   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 Wednesday. It's September 1st. I'm Kiran Chetry.

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Ali Velshi. Very pleased to be with you my old friend.

CHETRY: Glad you're with us this morning.

VELSHI: John Roberts is off. I have been trying to get him to take a day off for a while, so I can join in here. Let me bring you today (ph) with some of the top stories.

Here comes Earl, the hurricane, just downgraded to a category 3, still posing a threat to the East Coast of the United States. Evacuations are under way along North Carolina's outer banks. FEMA is warning people from the Carolinas on up to prepare for the worst. Rob Marciano is on the beach tracking Earl's path for us.

President Obama makes it official. The war in Iraq is over. The Pentagon launching "Operation New Dawn" which would mean keeping 50,000 troops there to assist Iraq's military, an advise Iraq's military. The vice president, Joe Biden, as well as Defense Chief Robert Gates are in Iraq right now. They're going to be overseeing the military changing hands. And we're going to take you live to Baghdad and break it down with a panel of experts this morning.

VELSHI: And it's the new normal, the worst recession since the great depression has forced Americans to change their ways right to the core. Today, find out how American families short on cash are making it work.

CHETRY: We begin, though, with a developing story on what could be called one of the biggest political upsets of the year. Overnight, two-term Alaska Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski conceded the Republican primary election to a little-known candidate, tea party- back, Joe Miller. Murkowski has been down by 1,600 votes after counting the ballots since last week's primary.

VELSHI: Now, she did not endorse Miller during her concession speech last night. Miller is a lawyer. He's an Afghanistan veteran, and he's another political newcomer who had backing from the tea party, and he had Sarah Palin's support.

CHETRY: His victory is a big win for the tea party. He is now the fifth candidate that's had the backing of this movement to win this year. He joins Sharron Angle of Nevada, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah, and Ken Buck of Colorado.

These are victories that proved the tea party is a major player in Republican politics, often spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads for the candidates. We'll hear from Joe Miller tonight. He'll be a guest on "JOHN KING USA," 7:00 p.m. eastern right here on CNN.

VELSHI: Change of command in Iraq this morning. We're an hour away from a ceremony. Vice President Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates will pass the baton to Iraq's military at a special ceremony about an hour from now. We'll bring it to you live when it happens.

CHETRY: Meantime, Defense Chief Robert Gates met with U.S. and Iraqi forces at camp Ramadi just a short time ago. Secretary Gates told American soldiers that they're still going to work with Iraqis on counterterrorism and training as well as advising.

VELSHI: And last night, President Obama paid tribute to the Americans who served in the war, nearly one and a half million troops. He did not give credit, though, to President Bush's surge strategy that some say may have helped the result that we've got today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Because of our troops and civilians and because of the resilience of the Iraqi people, Iraq has the opportunity to embrace a new destiny even though many challenges remain.

So tonight I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is over and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: So what does that mean for U.S. soldiers that are still on the ground? Our Pentagon correspondent Chris Lawrence is tracking this in Iraq. He's at Camp Victory in Baghdad talking with U.S. forces about what the end of the war really means for them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Now it's official -- American troops who once led missions now assist Iraqi forces.

LAWRENCE (on camera): What does September 1st mean to you?

STAFF SERGEANT BRADLEY BEAZER, 4-10 CAVALRY: To me it means we've done well and we've worked ourselves out of the job which is what we came here to do in the first place.

LAWRENCE (voice-over): September 1st means more work for some American flight crews, especially those flying Blackhawks. SPC. NICOLE JONES, BLACKHAWK FLIGHT CREW: We're the only support aircraft here. We had Chinooks that were just here but they recently left. So it's picked up quite a bit for us.

LAWRENCE: The first full day of "New Dawn" is especially poignant for soldiers who went through years of fighting "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

STAFF SERGEANT ADAM STEFFENS: I've been here four hours, and the change I've seen is remarkable.

LAWRENCE: Staff Sergeant Adam Steffens was part of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, then deployed twice during the most brutal fighting.

STEFFENS: It was really, really crazy for a couple years there. But now I look back at that and it is a breathtaking difference.

LT. COL. JOHN DIGIABATTISTA, U.S. ARMY: It is a significant thing for a soldier to see Iraqis he might have trained two years ago and they didn't have that much initiative, they weren't that well trained, they weren't that aggressive. Now we're watching them, we're following them. He's getting paid back for the time he's spent here.

LAWRENCE: More than 4,400 American died fighting Operation Iraqi Freedom, another 34,000 were wounded.

LAWRENCE (on camera): When you look back at your experience in '05, '06, '07, was it worth it?

DIGIABATTISTA: Absolutely. There are a lot of individuals that made the ultimate sacrifice here in Iraq. Soldiers' faces and people I worked with, and if their sacrifice can be worth where we're going I think we're doing the right thing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE: We spoke to several soldiers who are now on their fourth deployment here in Iraq. Over the past seven years they have spent the majority of their lives here in this country in that war. So to them, a lot of them are telling us they feel so invested in what happens here, even after they go back home, and they know there are no more deployments coming to Iraq, a lot of them told us they are going to keep following what happening there on the news because although they may have a little bit of hope now, if Iraq slides back into chaos, it is really going to deflate them after everything seen and all the friends that they've lost here.

CHETRY: And we'll see how it all plays out today, we're less than an hour away from the official handover. Chris Lawrence for us at Camp Victory in Baghdad, thanks.

Also, CNN's senior political analyst David Gergen said he found president Obama's Oval Office address a little bit perplexing. He'll be here five months from now to explain for why.

And then at 7:50 we'll talk more about the military handover with our panel of experts, former native supreme allied commander, retired, George Joulwan, as well as "TIME" magazine deputy international editor Bobby Ghosh who spent years in the country, and also from Kenneth Pollack from the Brookings Institution.

VELSHI: Now to the powerful hurricane bearing down on the nation's east coast. Earl has been downgraded to a category three hurricane, but it is packing plenty of punch with top winds of 125 miles an hour. The storm is passing east of the Caicos Islands this morning, could reach the carolina coast by tomorrow morning.

CHETRY: Rob is tracking it all for us, and we'll check in with him.

Meantime, authorities in North Carolina have ordered tourists and residents to leave the Barrier Islands which is accessible only by ferry, also Cape Lookout national seashore. A hurricane watch is up along the outer banks already.

VELSHI: FEMA is urging people to stock up on supplies and have an evacuation plan. President Obama will get an update this morning on earl's progress and emergency preparations. He'll take part in a conference call with FEMA Director Craig Gugate.

CHETRY: We'll go live to Rob Marciano in Virginia beach, Virginia, where normally all we'd be talking about is it is the end of summer, labor day weekend, tons of tourists will pack that popular destination spot. But now as Earl is looming and getting closer, there are a lot of concerns this morning.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Certainly a lot of concern. There is a lot of people down here. Even as sun comes up early in the morning this place is jamming. Good waves for surfers behind me and a cool, relatively cool water at the end of a very, very hot summer.

So beaches up and down the east coast are lined with tourists and locals alike just trying to cool off and take in the last bits of summer. The problem is we've got a hurricane brewing. Not just one but we had two. Hurricane Danielle rolled in some waves and rip currents, and now Earl, which is much bigger, much stronger, and is going to be coming much closer, that's the big issue here. And it's forecast to come a little bit farther west than they woo hoping.

So hurricane watches have been posted last night for right here across the coastline of Virginia, all the way down the North Carolina coastline, almost to the South Carolina border for hurricane conditions that are expected, or at least possible here, within the next 48 hours. My guess is they'll update those to warnings before the day is done.

Category three storm with 125-mile-an-hour winds. There is the satellite signature, it is a beast -- 200 miles due to tropical storm- force go out and 70 miles an hour hurricane-force winds go out. So it is strong and it is aimed right for the Carolina coastline.

That's the scary thing about this. We know it will make a right turn. It is just a matter of when. Right now it looks like it is not going to really make that right turn until it passes the North Carolina-Virginia border. So that means it is a distinct possibility that at least the outer banks sees a direct hit from this.

Also a distinct possibility that Cape Cod and the islands of Massachusetts see a direct hit from this as a category two storm. So there's the forecast track. It will be is accelerating as it goes north and east.

The coast guard is also ramping up their preparations for this. Lifeguards will be out in full force today and right through the weekend. Even after this storm passes, Ali and Kiran, rip currents are going to be an issue right through this holiday weekend.

CHETRY: Absolutely. You got to watch out if you're in the water. If you can make those preparations, make sure any tree limbs, shoring things up around your home and outside your home. All of this is something that some people have not had to deal with in a long time. Rob Marciano for us, thanks so much.

VELSHI: A new twist into the accusation of rape against WikiLeaks website founder Julian Assange. The Swedish prosecutor's office confirming the investigation will be reopened. Officials say there is reason to believe a crime has been committed.

We're also learning the investigation involving alleged molestation has been extended, although Atika Shubert did tell us, molestation under Swedish law means something more akin to harassment than the sexual molestation we may equate it with.

It was less than two weeks ago an arrest warrant was issued for Assange, but then just hours later the charges were revoked. Assange told the network Al Jazeera last week the allegations were, quote, "Clearly a smear campaign."

CHETRY: American families are having to adapt to what we've been calling a new normal in this financial crisis -- making less money, trying to save more, and people living under one roof, so the extended family coming back. We're going to break it all down about what it means and what it means for our future.

VELSHI: And President Obama makes it official -- the war in Iraq is over. What does that mean for our military as they turn the focus to the front lines in Afghanistan? We're live from the home of the army's screaming eagles, Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. It is ten minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.

(END VIDEO CLIP) VELSHI: That was the crux of it. It went on for about 20 minutes. That was President Obama addressing the nation last night. Within the hour, within this hour, Vice President Biden will preside over an historic change of command ceremony in Baghdad.

CHETRY: Yes. And still, the president doesn't seem to have much to celebrate. The economy, of course as we know, is still in the tank. He's escalating a very unpopular war in Afghanistan. And there are new polls suggesting that Democrats could be in for a real beating in November.

VELSHI: So how did the president's Oval Office address play? CNN's senior political analyst and former presidential advisor David Gergen breaks it down for us this morning. David, excellent to see you again, in person.

David, the Oval Office is reserved for the most important of addresses by the president. Usually it is something highly specific like the end of combat operations in Iraq. But the president broadened that out last night. He talked about Afghanistan, which makes sense. Then he started talking about thanking the soldiers. Then he talked about how Americans have to do what the soldiers have done, and then he started talking about the economy.

It started to feel like a little bit of a mini-State of the Union address to the end of it. Give us some sense for those who didn't watch the whole thing what you took out of that address last night.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I took some confusion out of it. I thought the president spoke well, as he always does. And I think most Americans will be very relieved that the combat mission is over and I think they will salute him for keeping a promise.

At the same time I thought the speech covered too many things. And I think most Americans would prefer the president say how we're getting out of this economic mess, not how we're getting out of Iraq or Afghanistan. So I think in that sense it was -- you know, a lot of people are going, what's this all about? Why isn't he talking to me about my job, about my mortgage as opposed to this?

I just want to say on the foreign policy side, I was troubled by the speech in one sense, and that is, yes, we just cannot be open-ended. But normally, what we hear from a commander-in-chief is, we are going to do the following three things, and then we are going to leave. What we heard last night was we are going to leave and we're turning it over to them.

Now, what does that mean? No one knows whether Iraq's going to be able to stand on its own two feet when this is over. No one knows whether Afghanistan. The emphasis was not upon success and stability, it's about leaving. We're out of here.

CHETRY: However, according to the polling -- and I know that, you know, people don't do things just based on polls. People want him to say the exact same thing. People want him to do the exact same thing with Afghanistan. I mean, at the same time that he was talking about Iraq ending, or at least the U.S. combat mission there ending, Afghanistan is still going strong and there's not necessarily a clear indication for most people of what our definition of success is in that country as well.

So where does that leave him in terms of these wildly unpopular wars?

GERGEN: Well, I think Iraq is one down willy-nilly. And we don't know what we're leaving behind there. Hopefully the government will come together and the violence will subside. But on Afghanistan, I must say I think -- the president deserves credit for saying we're going to do -- this is not going to be a massive departure come summer of next year. We may do it gradually depending on conditions on the ground. But again, I think he left it ambiguous about what we're seeking in Afghanistan. Why are we going to ask people to die here, American soldiers to die? I don't think it was very clear.

VELSHI: David, the -- on the economy, the -- there's been a lot of talk in the last few weeks. You've been asked this question about a double-dipped recession.

GERGEN: That's right.

VELSHI: (INAUDIBLE) to this recession. We have heard precious little from the administration. And then on Monday, after the weekly economic briefing, the president came out to say a few words and it was reminiscent of when you and I used to cover what was going on in the recession when President Bush would come out and say a few words. And he'd leave and you think, again, what was that?

GERGEN: Right. I thought there was that quality. You know, basically, I think they're out of ammunition. The Fed has done what it can do. It may come back in and do something on mortgages, but it can't lower interest rates anymore. And the Fed, you know, Bernanke said over the weekend in the Grand Tetons, you know, basically monetary policy can't do it all, we got to look to fiscal policy. And yet, when President Obama came out on Monday, it was like my hands are tied, I can just maybe do some small things, let's do some small things. But there was not -- the cupboard was bare in terms of big, bold exciting ideas. And I think that's what Americans are looking for, something creative. It doesn't spend the bank.

CHETRY: Does the Tea Party have those ideas? Because we saw the incumbent unseated in the primary in Alaska.

GERGEN: That was a very important election. A very important election. We've now got at least five, and some would say six candidates in the Republican Party who --

CHETRY: If you count Marco Rubio.

GERGEN: If you count Marco Rubio, and then you've got Alaska now with a tea party candidate. You've got Utah. You've got Colorado. You've got Nevada. You've got Kentucky. That's a lot. And what that means is, of course, there is this alienation that fueled the Tea Party movement, fueled the big rally in Washington this past week. But it also means -- we're also going to be talking about how is President Obama going to govern. Can he get along with Congress?

He's going to have at least three, four, five new Jim DeMints in the Senate. And those -- Jim DeMint has been notably a strong conservative who'll resist a lot of what the president stands for who is not interested in compromising on some of these fundamentals. I don't know where we go on the deficit, for example, if we get a lot of people in there who are not willing to compromise. They're willing to cut spending.

VELSHI: Right.

GERGEN: But are they going to be willing to do taxes. I think those are the questions.

VELSHI: All right. David, it's always a pleasure to see you.

GERGEN: It's great. You guys, listen, this is a -- one of the most interesting times we're going through as a country is the transition.

VELSHI: Yes.

GERGEN: The challenges are wonderful.

VELSHI: On many levels.

CHETRY: A lot of people are saying --

GERGEN: But they're really important. They're really important.

CHETRY: Great. David Gergen, great to see you as always.

GERGEN: OK. Thank you.

CHETRY: Well, we're talking about a new normal. What is it exactly, from your home to your place of employment. If you are lucky enough to have a job right now, find out how the recession is changing the lives and perhaps the perspective and the goals of average Americans.

Twenty minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. We are "Minding Your Business." And while we wait for the dust to settle from the current economic crisis, Americans are finding new ways to make do with less. Some people are calling it the new normal. Last year, we were calling the new frugality.

Joining me to talk about it is Amanda Gengler. She's a writer with "Money Magazine." I guess this has gone way beyond the new frugality. The new frugality was just about sort of curtailing some of your purchases and doing things like that. We've moved into a whole another area. One of the places we see this is that the extended families, people moving in with their parents, people moving in with their kids. AMANDA GENGLER, WRITER, "MONEY MAGAZINE": Of course. There are fewer people forming new households today because of the recession. Instead of going out and buying your own home or your own apartment, we're seeing people double up with family and friends. Recent college grads are heading back to mom and dad's house. People who've lost their homes to foreclosure, maybe they've lost their jobs are moving back with family and friends. And even the divorce rate is down.

VELSHI: That's right.

GENGLER: Fewer people are splitting up.

VELSHI: It's too expensive to do so.

GENGLER: Exactly.

VELSHI: And it's not just that these things are happening, it's that the stigma is disappearing from it. So kids going back to their parents after college or the first job, parents taking their parents back in, it's now becoming sort of culturally acceptable. That's I guess is the part that's the new normal.

GENGLER: Of course, there are some social changes that are going on as well.

VELSHI: Yes.

GENGLER: I mean, the marriage rate is older. So, whereas someone may not have wanted to move in with mom and dad when they have a spouse --

VELSHI: Right.

GENGLER: -- well, if they're 25 or 28 and single, it's a little bit more acceptable.

VELSHI: Right. All right, let's talk about another theme. Sometime last fall things changed. There's a monumental shift in America. There were more women in the workforce than men. This recession has really been hard on men and women have been getting into the workforce at a higher rate, anyway.

GENGLER: Absolutely a third of women today are actually earning more than their husbands. And this is a trend that has been gradually growing for a while but the recession has definitely exacerbated it because men have been harder hit than women. Going into the recession, unemployment rates for both genders were about equal. And today for men the rate is approaching 10 percent. For women it's approaching eight percent. So there's just a lot of dynamics that are changing as that power changes --

VELSHI: Right.

GENGLER: -- on an emotional level and also, of course, just on a financial level.

VELSHI: And we haven't seen that dynamic since World War II where there are actually more women in the workforce than men. But women are in jobs that are growing and men are largely occupying jobs that are disappearing -- manufacturing and construction.

GENGLER: Exactly. And women tend to be in things like health care and education, and just industries that haven't been hit as hard.

VELSHI: Amanda, great to see you. Thanks very much to talk about the new normal. Amanda Gengler, a writer with "Money Magazine." "Making It in a Man's World," we were just talking about that. See how one woman is breaking through in the male-dominated construction industry. Breaking through that glass ceiling to help America rebuild at Ground Zero.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. We were just talking about -- welcome back, by the way, to the Most News in the Morning. It is 26 minutes after the hour. Our top stories are only minutes away.

I was just, you know, yammering on, as I often am, about how women are, you know, doing better in this recession than men are.

CHETRY: Yes. You were telling me in the morning, I mean, it was largely a manufacturing and a male-dominated recession.

VELSHI: On construction -- those are jobs that have disappeared. So we're going to have a great story with Deb Feyerick in just a moment about the construction industry being dominated by men by a woman who is sort of breaking through the glass ceiling there.

CHETRY: Yes. I guess --

VELSHI: In fact, why don't we talk about that now?

CHETRY: We sure will. We're bringing in our Deborah now. And --

VELSHI: This was a well-oiled machine until I got here, wasn't it?

CHETRY: That was amazing.

VELSHI: Yes. I just messed up everybody's morning.

Well, welcome. Nice to see you.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, thank you.

VELSHI: And nice to see you too. I'm Ali Velshi. Hi, guys.

CHETRY: A lot of times when we talk about women in construction, we think of -- OK, they're in the administrative roles. They're not necessarily out there building.

FEYERICK: Absolutely. And that's what's, you know, so interesting is that women really are looking at jobs that they haven't held traditionally. And construction is a great job but it is physically demanding. It requires a lot of heavy lifting, a lot of sweating and long, long hours. And yet more and more women are saying they want in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK (voice-over): Meet 38-year-old Alex Coveleski, an apprentice dock builder, laying floors and putting up walls at Ground Zero. She's also a modern dancer. Skills she's finding hopeful with her new profession.

ALEX COVELESKI, CONSTRUCTION WORKER: You have to be able to duck the rebar and watch your step and get out of someone's way and still be working. So it always feels like a dance to me.

FEYERICK (on camera): When you tell people that you work in construction and that you are building here at the World Trade Center site, do they believe you?

COVELESKI: I have met some people who are really surprised.

FEYERICK (voice-over): Women make up just 2.3 percent of construction laborers. On any given day, Coveleski is one of only 10 women working alongside 1,500 men. Some of them second and third generation tradesmen trained by their fathers and grandfathers.

(on camera): So why do the women do it? Well, for the same reason as men. The pay is good. There's a really strong union and once you prove yourself, there are guys who'll watch your back.

COVELESKI: These walls here are going to be shot with concrete.

FEYERICK (voice-over): A year ago, Coveleski knew little about construction, much less dock building. That changed after a three six-week course run by the group Non-traditional Employment for Women or NEW for short, turning women into skilled painters, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters to name a few.

AMY PETERSON, PRESIDENT, NEW: We place about 75 percent of our graduates, but it's been a little tougher over the last year or so because of the economy.

FEYERICK: Five hundred women will graduate from the program this year, a lot stronger says Emelie Sherrod than when they started.

EMELIE SHERROD, CONSTRUCTION TRAINEE: When we started, for example, the mud bucket at, say, 40 pounds. And now, it's 65 pounds. So, we're getting there.

FEYERICK (on camera): By bringing the woman on, how does it change the dynamics?

PETERSON: Having women on the job site really brings a balance and women have a lot of skills. We hear constantly about women's organizational skills, women's ability to work very hard, and be eager to do any work.

COVELESKI: There's such diversity in the work itself that if you're smart and you pay attention, you can, I think there's a place for everyone here.

FEYERICK (voice-over): Supervisor Al Gallagher has trained lots of male apprentices. But (INAUDIBLE), he says, is no different.

AL GALLAGHER, SUPERVISOR: I wouldn't say that she brings anything different. Maybe longer hair. That's about it.

FEYERICK: Do any of the guys feel that the women are taking jobs away from them?

GALLAGHER: No, not at all. Not at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not here to steal anybody's job. And I want to do the work if I can do it. I don't want to just like - I'm not trying to coast along on union wages and just be like the token minority or anything.

I have spent many years trying to find a place in this world. And this is the closest I've come.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: Now I was surprised at just how many women I saw working down at Ground Zero. In part, companies that are hired to rebuild the site are actually required to have a certain number of females. The women have settled in. (INAUDIBLE) loves working with the (INAUDIBLE) acetylene torch. She's very excited when she talks about it. They have a small club which is about the size of a shipping container, where they can basically take their hardhats off, let their hair down. But the women clearly watch out for each other because even though they are a larger force, they are still very much in the minority.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: That's really interesting. And this is encore run of your series. You said there's also remarkable progress to be noted down at Ground Zero.

FEYERICK: This is what's so amazing. For so many years for those of us who have lived and been there every year, it's been just this empty hole. But when we first did that story there were a lot of sort of empty spaces. Going back there just a couple of months - we're going to have a couple of pieces for you coming up in the next few months, to honor the anniversary.

There has been so much progress. New flooring. It is just going up and it is going up really, really quickly. It's remarkable. It is a privilege to actually be down at that site.

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: So much stuff going on around it. In fact, I heard something about a mosque or something being built.

CHETRY: Did you hear that story?

FEYERICK: I'm not going there.

CHETRY: Deb Feyerick, thanks so much.

VELSHI: All right.

FEYERICK: Of course.

CHETRY: Well, now, it's 32 minutes past the hour. We check our top stories. Hurricane Earl is tracking for a direct hit, according to Rob Marciano, on North Carolina, Virginia border. Right now, it has weakened slightly to a category 3 storm but it is still strong enough to cause a lot of damage. Winds topping 125 miles an hour. There are mandatory evacuations ordered for two of North Carolina's barrier islands as Earl moves steady toward the nation's East Coast. It could reach the Carolinas by tomorrow.

VELSHI: An upset in Alaska. Senator Lisa Murkowski conceding that her Republican primary race is over. She conceded to tea party favorite Joe Miller. Miller was a virtual unknown until he got the backing of Sarah Palin. Miller's now considered the favorite in the heavily Republican state's November election.

CHETRY: And President Obama makes it official. The combat operations in Iraq over. That came at a prime time Oval Office address to the nation last night. The president paid tribute to those in uniform who have served in the war, including those who were wounded or those who paid the ultimate price. But the president did not give his predecessor credit for the surge strategy. That is something that Republicans did want to hear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As we do, I'm mindful that the Iraq war has been a contentious issue at home. Here, too, it's time to turn the page. This afternoon I spoke to former President George W. Bush. It's well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset. Yet no one can doubt President Bush's support for our troops or his love of country and commitment to our security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: So throughout the seven and a half year conflict, a lot of soldiers came from Ft. Campbell.

VELSHI: Many of them were there, this is the home to the 101st Airborne Division. Better known to some people as the Screaming Eagles. It's the only air assault division in the world.

CHETRY: That's right. And those soldiers are currently doing a lot of the heavy lifting that's going on in Afghanistan right now.

For more we bring in our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. She's at the home of the Screaming Eagles this morning. Hey, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to both of you. We are here at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, the base stirring to life this morning. PT exercises going on behind me. People coming to work. But you know, the Screaming Eagles did three very heavy combat tours in Iraq. They lost almost 200 troops in the Iraq war over the years. And now already, of course, as you mentioned, they are in the lead in eastern Afghanistan. Again back in heavy combat.

When we came here yesterday we saw some of the physical training going on. The obstacle courses, the rappelling and the troops still going through all of this training because there are some units here that are headed back to Iraq one more time to be part of that support effort of the 50,000 troops over the next several months.

We asked a soldier here who had been in Iraq, who had been in combat whether he ever could have imagined the day of the Iraqi forces taking over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. BRIAN DEPPNER, U.S. ARMY: I had confidence in my Iraq counterparts. I had a good feeling that they were going to come through positively in the end. We sat beside them and trained with them for over 15 months so, sure. I mean, right, yes, of course. I saw an end. There's always an end.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: We also talked to a number of women, wives, mothers, of some of the deployed troops, asking them how they felt about all of this. Is it all really over? What we heard universally is no, of course, it is not over, not for the military families who have had those serve. Those who have paid the ultimate price, either in possibly having their soldiers killed in action or being seriously wounded.

This now, the Iraq war, is part of the imprint here at Ft. Campbell. This is now part of the history of the 101st Airborne, part of their history forever. Ali. Kiran.

VELSHI: Thank you, Barbara. We'll check in with you again later on.

CHETRY: And the official ceremony marking this transfer is set to take place in just 20 minutes. Both vice president Biden, as well as Defense chief Robert Gates are in Iraq and they will be there for that handover ceremony. We'll, of course, bring it to you live.

VELSHI: All right. One of the stories that we are continuing to cover here on CNN is what's going on in Pakistan. Floodwaters are starting to recede from making that situation seem less urgent but it is not. In fact, the threat of dehydration and disease, particularly with children is a major, major issue. They don't have access to clean water. What do flood survivors do now? Well, our man, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is live from Pakistan, coming up next.

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CHETRY: Welcome back to the most news in the morning.

You know, in Pakistan, we've been talking about the devastation there in the wake of the flooding. Well, now there is the threat of the water borne diseases that are quickly taking over many areas. People that are living in tent cities or in some cases far worse.

VELSHI: Yes, this is terrible. Because there's already some sense that maybe this didn't have the urgency to the world that Haiti and other things did. But this is people after the flooding who are in danger of dying. More than 17 million people have been affected by the flooding in total because this thing went the entire length of Pakistan.

Sanjay Gupta is live in Bin Qasim, Pakistan. Sanjay, good morning. What are you learning there?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's exactly as you guys are thinking. You have a refugee camp sort of like the one that I'm at now, very, very crowded, very tough to get basic supplies. If anything, and then somebody gets sick. What do you do?

We wanted to follow along one family confronted with that exact situation and see what happened to them. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): (INAUDIBLE) is now getting something millions across Pakistan cannot - medical care. It is amazing, because up until a couple of days ago, his life looked like this. Then he got sick. Very sick.

A parent's love for their son took over. Knowing he would die, they took a gamble, left everything they had behind and just started moving, somewhere. Anywhere.

(voice-over): You've probably never seen a line like this had before but this is a line for people waiting to get into the hospital. See garbage all around the place. They stay here all day long. Waiting. A lot of people have infectious diseases that are associated with drinking contaminated water. It's what we've been talking about.

(on camera): This is a diarrheal treatment center, specifically for children. Let's go take a look.

(voice-over): (INAUDIBLE) finally made it inside.

(on camera): Your town is completely covered in water. He's been sick for some time. He's saying he was sick even before the flood and just became much worse during the flooding.

(voice-over): Three years old. Weighs just 10 pounds. He's so small. For comparison I have a three-year-old daughter. She weighs closer to 30 pounds. And Fayez (ph) is so fragile. Young children have weaker immune systems, becoming easily dehydrated. Like millions of people around the country, he didn't have a choice when he got thirsty. Killer water. Or none at all.

Imagine drinking that. I've covered so many natural disasters. There's always fear of a second wave of disease. But access to clean water helped control that risk after the Haiti quake. In Pakistan though, the second wave, it's already here.

(on camera): It is so hard to see these little kids so sick on these dusty, dirty tables. IVs hanging. This baby is so small, all you see is her little foot hanging out with an IV again. Another child here. These children are sick. This is a diarrheal treatment center to take care of them. Some of these children have come from a flood. Some of them are just citizens of Pakistan, dealing with these issues on a pretty regular basis.

(voice-over): Killer water. Just consider the impact. Already a million people with crippling diarrhea and respiratory infections, malaria, 65,000 cases. The World Health Organization projecting hundreds of thousands of patients with cholera, dysentery and typhoid.

Pakistan could literally be held hostage by killer water. And all of this disproportionately affecting Pakistan's next generation, like the little three-year-old Fayez (ph).

(on camera): You can check little things to see how dehydrated they are. Push on the tips of their fingers and blood doesn't really come back very quickly. So dehydrated. A very weak pulse as well. His poor little mouth is so dry. But he's in the right place. He's one of the lucky ones.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: Such a cute little boy there. You know, I'll tell you, a lot of people are throwing numbers around, Ali and Kiran. 1,600 or around that. People talked about the death toll. The reality is those numbers are pretty meaningless right now because of what's happening here. There are millions of people who are drinking that contaminated water.

As I pointed out and as a result they are going to see diseases. They're starting to take care of some. As you saw there. But it is going to be challenging and it is going to last a long time, into the future, to be able to control this.

CHETRY: Sanjay, you can't help but be touched. I mean, everybody here is just shaking their heads for that little boy. Is he going to be OK? Is he going to get treatment, an IV? I mean, is he going to be able to survive this?

GUPTA: He is. He's going to be a success story, Fayez (ph). I felt the same way that you did, Kiran. I will tell you that the treatment can be pretty basic. IV fluids, as you mentioned. Supportive care. Getting him some nutrition so he can boost his immune system. In some cases antibiotics.

But I tell you if you look at camps like the one over here behind me, bringing some of those medical resources to the camps as opposed to having the patients get on those crowded buses and go to the hospitals, that's going to be necessary in the weeks and months to come because obviously hundreds of thousands of people here and just a few hospitals in the areas like this so it is going to be hard to meet the demand. VELSHI: Sanjay, we'll continue to follow this. This is a remarkable story. We're glad you're there because this has really been a story that's been hard to get the world's attention on.

Once those floodwaters start receding, it almost seems like the interest dips. So, this is the important part. You always point this out, that it's after these things where the water supply becomes an issue and hygiene becomes an issue that more people can die now than before.

CHETRY: That's right.

GUPTA: Thanks. You're absolutely right. I feel like I can't say it enough. But you talk about the medical impact of this and the second wave. I haven't seen it quite to the extent that we're seeing it here in Pakistan so I'm glad you pointed that out.

VELSHI: All right, Sanjay, thanks very much.

Sanjay Gupta in Pakistan.

If you want to find out how to help, head to the special section of our web site, impact your world. The address is CNN.com/impact.

CHETRY: We had a relief worker on last week and she said in some cases she said it was as simple as getting water purification tablets. They cost pennies. And it's just a matter of the getting resources out to the people. And that's still proving to be a huge logistical problem for Pakistan.

VELSHI: It's a hard land to go through. That river, the Indus River, that flooded from the top to the bottom. It's like taking the Mississippi from the Canadian border all the way to New Orleans. That's the length and then out 10 miles. That is remarkable flooding in a hard-terrain country.

CHETRY: All right. Good job, Sanjay, bringing this to everybody's attention.

Meantime, we're tracking hurricane Earl here at home, expected to sideswipe the East Coast bringing dangerous waters and winds as it passes. Rob Marciano is tracking all of this for us. We're going to check in with him when we come back from a quick break.

It's 47 minutes after the hour.

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CHETRY: That's a pretty picture this morning. Very unique.

VELSHI: It's a beautiful city. I love Charleston.

CHETRY: I want to go.

VELSHI: It's a unique spot in America.

CHETRY: What'd you do? Take the Express Bus there? Or you went by yourself?

VELSHI: I actually went to Savannah on the CNN Express. Charleston was my own trip. I've been trying to get the bus there.

72 degrees in Charleston. Mostly sunny going up to 89 degrees. It's going to be nice.

CHETRY: It sure is.

VELSHI: But they are also in the region where hurricane Earl can have some impact on it.

Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Hurricane Earl bearing on down on the nation's East Coast. North Carolina is bracing for that to be affected by hurricane Earl. We're not quite sure exactly what it's going to do around there. People are being warned to be prepared to stay in their home with enough food, water, and supplies to get by for a few days.

CHETRY: Right now Earl is a powerful category 3, 125-mile-an- hour winds, bringing dangerous rip currents that's keeping swimmers out of the water. It's of course throwing Labor Day vacation plans up in the air.

Rob Marciano is live in Virginia Beach this morning.

Just update us on the track, as well. Is this a sideswipe, a direct hit? What are we looking at potentially? I know, of course, the models are still showing us different things.

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We're certainly hoping for a complete turn away but that may very well not happen, Kyra. And if anything, the track has been shifting a little further to the west as we go through the past couple of days. So it's a little bit more daunting, a little bit more ominous now than it has since the whole ordeal started.

The only difference is we are now at a category 3 versus a 4. That's like saying I would rather get hit with a Mac truck versus a freight train. It's all bad news.

As far as the forecast track is concerned and the timing of it, it's going to approach the coastline of the Carolinas late tomorrow night into early Friday and then maybe even New England coastline, too. Everybody from the North Carolina/South Carolina border, all the way up to Maine, is on watch now and needs to be taking some steps to prepare for the potential impacts of a major land-falling hurricane. There you see the forecast track.

Regardless of where this thing comes ashore or doesn't come ashore, it's already churning up the waters. So was hurricane Danielle, which was hundreds of miles away and a much, much weaker storm. Over the weekend, we had hundreds of water rescues for people who were swept out to sea through rip currents. Regardless of where Earl goes this weekend up and down the East Coast, lifeguards are going to have their full. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCIANO: Looks relatively safe out there. But you're pulling people out of the water.

TOM GILL, VIRGINIA BEACH LIFESAVING SERVICES: Gorgeous day today. We came out hoping that we wouldn't have to put the red flags up. But within the first five minutes on the stands we made one rescue already. The surf started to pick up, we started to see some intermittent, pretty large swells come in. So we put the red flags back up, went to waist-deep restriction for the day and we still had 15, 16 rescues with about 65 victims pulled in.

NEAL HOLSAPPLE, RIP CURRENT VICTIM: Got caught up with the waves and trying to ride them in they were actually taking us out further and further. My wife was like, we're not making any progress. Next thing we knew we saw the lifeguards coming up.

Wasn't actually scared until the lifeguards got up and we were trying to get us in and then there was two of them and two of us and we were still getting pulled out.

GILL: As we saw on Saturday, when we went from high tide into a low tide situation, the tide was going out. That water sucking out just pulled and pulled and pulled. That was Danielle on the other side of Bermuda. This is Earl stronger, stronger, than Danielle, and a whole heck of a lot closer. We're going to have to really be on our game this week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARCIANO: And they may have to be on their game with much more than just plucking people out of the water because this storm is forecast to get closer than we originally anticipated.

And talking to people that are down here, you know, lot of them on vacation, of course, who are enjoying the last bits of summer. Not one of them terribly concerned about this storm. Maybe they should be. A little bit of complacency here. It's been a while since this region has seen a direct hit from a big storm. So maybe a little bit of hurricane amnesia and that's never a good thing.

Here is the satellite of this thing again. And it has weakened just a little bit. I really don't even want to mention that because let's just pretend this is a category 3 major hurricane from the beginning and it was never a category 4. It is likely going to come either onshore or brush very near the coastline as a major hurricane and then maybe up towards the New England coastline, as well. So it will be churning up the waters, no doubt about that. There will be beach erosion at the very least. But there will be probably some damaging wind.

The only optimism I see with this, Kyra and Ali, is that it is unlikely that any of the U.S. coastline will be on the bad side of this storm or right side of the storm, meaning it won't come inland and have people that are on the eastern flank of this or the northeastern quadrant of the storm which historically typically can the strongest part.

That's the optimism that we're holding on to right now. I anticipate some hurricane warnings posted by the National Hurricane Center later on today. And probably some more evacuations, at least along the North Carolina coastline later on this afternoon and this evening.

VELSHI: Rob, we were just showing pictures of Charleston, South Carolina. They're out of the area of danger?

MARCIANO: They are as far as getting a direct impact or direct hit from this thing. But everybody from Charleston, all the way down to Miami, all the way up to Maine, they were affected by Danielle over the weekend as far as dangerous rip currents go. And that was a much smaller storm, much further away. So everybody up and down the East Coast is going to be affected in some way by Earl.

CHETRY: You also mentioned that the tropical storm forced winds extend, what, did you say 200 miles out?

MARCIANO: Yes. So this is a big storm. Tropical storm force winds extend 200 miles out. The hurricane force winds extend 70 miles out.

Now, that's mostly on the right side of the storm. But still if this thing comes within 30, 40 miles of the shore, you're going to see impacts of a major hurricane on shore. That is the big concern right now and certainly a scary proposition in my eyes.

VELSHI: Rob, thank you very much, sir. We will keep on checking in on this, obviously, as the day goes on and for the next couple of days.

Rob Marciano in Virginia beach.

We're getting ready for this transition. This is really a historic day, and a historic moment in the war in Iraq.

CHETRY: Official handover.

VELSHI: The official handover.

CHETRY: Of power, of the Military mission for the most part from the United States to Iraq and the Iraqi government. We're going to be talking more about it. You see live right there, this is Vice President Joe Biden. He's in Iraq, marking the transition of military power. And we're going to get live coverage from the ceremony coming up. This is actually former hunting lodge of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

VELSHI: A lot of symbolism to that. It'll be very interesting to see how this goes on. We will, of course, bring you live coverage of this right here on AMERICAN MORNING.

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