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American Morning
Post Office Sweeping Cuts; Peanut Allergy Feedback: Viewers Reactj; Peanut Allergy Protests; Giffords Improving Everyday; Breakdown for America's Population; Breakdown of America's Population; Muslim in America
Aired March 25, 2011 - 06:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Breaking news. Fears of a core breach at a nuclear power plant. Engineers in Japan now trying to trace a mysterious leak that led to the hospitalization of three workers. Deep inside of a reactor before any more dangerous radiation can escape on this AMERICAN MORNING.
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ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning to you. Good Friday morning. It is March 25th. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A lot to get you up speed on right now, including a big story happening at Reagan National Airport. A control tower there manned by one person, a big scare when two planes landed, and no one answered the phone. How many other control towers are being manned only by one person? The number may surprise you.
CHETRY (on-camera): Also ahead, NATO may be taking over the no- fly zone in Libya, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the role of the United States -- or actually doing in the air and on the ground is going away. We're going to tell you what America will still be responsible for in this conflict.
VELSHI: And is this the beginning of the end for the nation's post offices? Word this morning of massive job layoffs. Branches being closed. We're "Minding Your Business" in about 20 minutes.
CHETRY: First, this morning's breaking news. The struggle to contain a nuclear disaster takes another precarious turn at Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi Plant. Our Martin Savidge is live in Tokyo right now, and let's get to the latest with this possible breach of a core at reactor three. What does that mean?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran. It's a frightening prospect. And here's the way the Japanese government outlined it today to us. What they're talking about is you'll remember those three workers yesterday that were exposed to levels of radiation. They were trying to lay an electric cable in the very critical reactor number three.
While they were working, water splashed on them. Today it was revealed by the government that that water had radiation 10,000 times the normal level of radiation that should be there. And that seems to indicate that the government that there may possibly be a breach in the reactor core of number three.
The reason that is so problematic is because of all six nuclear reactors that are out there at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility. Number three is the only one that has mixed fuel. And it's a fuel of uranium and plutonium. And that is highly dangerous. So to hear there may be a possible leak, it's of grave concern for those officials right now, Kiran.
CHETRY: Absolutely. And if that is indeed the case, when will they be able to verify this, if at all, and what about further evacuations around the plant?
SAVIDGE: That's the hard part of all of this. It is so dangerous to go into those reactors. They can't lay eyes on it. This is why they're only making a supposition there might be a leak.
They've also quietly expanded the evacuation zone around that nuclear facility. It was originally 12 miles where they told people, hey, you should leave. Now they're saying up to 19 miles that all the people should leave. It's voluntary, they're not forcing anybody out, but they are telling them, look, it's not possible to support those who stay behind with food and water. So you either stay indoors and live on your own or your leave. And they're suggesting leave.
CHETRY: We also understand that more help is coming in --
SAVIDGE: The other thing --
CHETRY: Go ahead.
SAVIDGE: Right, that's what I was going to get to, thanks, Kiran. The U.S. Navy now is coming with assistance. And it's rather unique. What they're bringing in is two very large barges with a total of over 500,000 gallons of specifically distilled water. This will be taken to the Fukushima site and partially use it to cool down the reactors and the fuel pools and clear out the pumps, because up until now they've been using salt water. They want fresh water back in the system so the salt water doesn't damage the cooling pumps they need.
CHETRY: Martin Savidge with all of this breaking news. The information continues to change. And we're glad we have you on it. Thanks so much.
ROMANS: Back here to the U.S., a veteran air traffic controller admits he was sleeping when two passenger jets were trying to get clearance to land early Wednesday morning at Reagan National airport. The pilots landed anyway. The controller has been suspended. While he was asleep on the job, this is what it sounded like on the pilots' headsets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: American 1900, so you're aware, the tower is apparently not manned. We've made a few phone calls, nobody's answering.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has ordered the FAA to immediately place a second controller in the tower during the overnight shift at Reagan international. He's definitely suspended, he's been drug tested, and was working his fourth consecutive overnight shift raising concerns about human fatigue in airport control towers across the country. FAA administrative Randy Babbitt says there's no excuses.
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RANDY BABBITT, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION: In my 25 years I've never seen anything happen like this. I'm outraged by this. We're going to have an investigation and get to the bottom of it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: After the incident at Reagan national, air traffic control staffing is under the microscope at airports across the country. Sandra Endo live this morning. As it sounds, there's nothing new about control towers being manned by just one staffer.
SANDRA ENDO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, pretty disturbing news, Christine. And at some smaller airports, Christine, some of those control towers are unmanned indefinitely for certain periods of time. But here in the nation's capital at Reagan national airport, well, officials are shaking their heads as to why more precautions weren't in place.
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ENDO: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was blunt about the lapse at Reagan National airport. In his words, "It is not acceptable to have just one controller in the tower managing air traffic in this critical air space."
But according to the FAA, there are 31 airports in this country that regularly have just one person on duty in the tower on the overnight shift. The national air traffic controllers association says they include San Diego and Sacramento international in California, Tucson international in Arizona, Reno and Tahoe in Nevada. And consider this, according to the "Washington Post," air traffic control errors are up 51 percent in the last year alone.
PETER GOELZ, FORMER NTSB MANAGING DIRECTOR: You would think that in the nation's capital, less than a minute from the White House that the staffing and the security level at the tower would be such that this kind of thing wouldn't happen.
ENDO: The national air traffic controllers association says at Washington's other major airport, Dulles, two front line controllers are on duty during all overnight shifts, and in Chicago, O'Hare has three controllers as well as a supervisor in the tower. And at midway, there are two controllers.
In the New York area, Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark Liberty are staffed with two controllers at all times.
BABBITT: I'm very upset. This should not have happened. We should not have had this gap in communications. We had to rely on a backup system, which should not have happened.
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ENDO: And the House Transportation Committee is also launching a formal review into the incident. And Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is calling for a study on staffing levels at all airports nationwide. Christine?
ROMANS: All right, Sandra Endo, thanks.
VELSHI: Let's take you to Libya now. New explosions and anti- aircraft fire in Tripoli this morning. As the coalition continues to cripple Moammar Gadhafi's war machine, Libyan TV showed the base last night saying it was the result of a coalition airstrike.
Command and control is shifting in Libya. NATO has announced it'll begin enforcing the no-fly zone, taking over from the coalition. That is expected to happen on Sunday. But as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, that's only one part of the tremendous military mission there.
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HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: NATO is well suited to coordinating this international effort and ensuring that all participating nations are working effectively together toward our shared goals. This coalition includes countries beyond NATO, including Arab partners. And we expect all of them to be providing important political guidance going forward.
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VELSHI: Now, this still leaves U.S. forces with the bulk of the Libyan mission. It has already dropped most of the bombs and flown most of the missions at this point. The U.S. will continue to launch attacks on Gadhafi's ground forces and other targets. And U.S. commanders would also be responsible for ensuring that NATO flights do not conflict with planned combat operations.
Just to get a sense of how you're feeling about this, a new CNN opinion research poll shows that most of America is against going any further than that, 70 percent against sending ground troops into Libya. Only 28 percent -- actually strikes me as fairly large proportion, 28 percent actually in favor of a ground war. You'd think there'd be complete ground war fatigue in America at this point. Coming up, insight from a former top aide to the NATO secretary general. What is NATO's involvement with Libya going to look like? And the question everybody's asking, what is the end game in Libya?
CHETRY: Also, the situation around the Middle East is still popping up with tension. Syria dealing with violence after thousands of people turned out for funerals for people who were killed in anti- government protests. Here's one of the demonstrations where protesters are seen holding banners that say "We will continue this revolution." And the other one, "the traitor has killed innocents." It's said to show, at least, an attack by government forces on unarmed civilians in Syria.
Let's turn to Yemen now where we're looking at new video as thousands take to the streets in support of President Saleh. It comes just a day after the president accepted opposition demands to hold parliamentary elections by the end of the year. Anti-government protests have been taking place in Yemen since January.
ROMANS: Also this morning, new developments in the dramatic truck crash on a highway near Ft. Worth, Texas, that left a tractor- trailer dangling off an overpass. Firefighters rescued the truck driver and rescued two people from a car pinned underneath the wreckage. Police say that driver of the car caused the wreck. He was arrested at a local hospital charged with DWI and illegal possession of a weapon.
Also in Texas, a controversial voter I.D. measure has cleared a major legislative hurdle. House Republicans approved the bill last night requiring people to present a state-issued photo I.D. like a driver's license when they show up to vote. State Republicans claim it will make elections more secure, and Democrats argue say it will keep minorities who tend to lean left in Texas from going to the polls.
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STATE REP. LARRY GONZALEZ, (D) HOUSE DISTRICT 52: What we have here is a sloppily put together bill that is going to have the effect of disenfranchising Texans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our point is this, OK -- we are trying to protect the integrity of our voting system.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The voter I.D. bill failed to pass during the two previous House sessions. The Texas state Senate has already passed it.
VELSHI: You are really going to love this story. A man in Illinois finds a winning $9 million lottery ticket just in the nick of time. The 61-year-old bought the lotto ticket last year and apparently slipped into a folder he was using to prepare his taxes.
ROMANS: It slipped into the folder and walked into his tax prep folder.
He grabbed the folder, double-checked the numbers, finds out he's a millionaire. It was set to expire yesterday, Thursday, he claimed it last Tuesday.
ROMANS: Just in time to pay taxes on it.
CHETRY: That's the other part I was thinking.
VELSHI: That's wishful thinking, right? You get a lottery ticket, you put it into the tax folder --
ROMANS: Or a lot of people shove everything into a box --
CHETRY: He's lucky he checked when he did. That's the amazing part.
VELSHI: Can you imagine finding that out after the fact?
CHETRY: Yes. And that's why we are going to be highlighting our numbers and making sure we don't miss because mega-millions jackpot is now $312 million. I only do this when it's really high.
VELSHI: Everybody here has been telling me, give me $5.
CHETRY: You know why they're saying this because the jackpot has rolled 14 times now without a winner. So this is its own March Madness.
VELSHI: And half of the country's playing, which the odds against me winning are super astronomical.
ROMANS: And since we're all in it together, everyone knows if we go to black in a couple of days, all the viewers know what happened.
Coming up on this "American Morning," when you think of tornado alley, you don't think of Pittsburgh. But the proof is in the pictures.
VELSHI: And rain, sleet, and snow can't stop the mail, but what about massive debt? Details on the post office sweeping cuts.
CHETRY: We've also gotten an overwhelming response on our story of parents picketing outside a school because they don't like being inconvenienced for one student with a severe peanut allergy. We have your feedback and interesting points of view coming up. It's 12 minutes after the hour.
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VELSHI: Well, firefighters are starting to get the upper hand on a wildfire that has burned dangerously close to Colorado homes. The fire dubbed "burning tree" is now half contained. It consumed some 1,600 acres, between Denver and Colorado Springs. About 9,500 residents had to be evacuated. No injuries or damage to homes so far. Some homeowners in California, however, not so lucky this morning. Fierce storms slammed the Monterey area yesterday. High winds knocked down trees, damaged houses. Power lines were torn down. Some residents were later evacuated because of flooding.
And widespread damage across western Pennsylvania after a violent spring storm. The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touched down in Pittsburgh. The storm destroyed about 30 homes in the Greensburg area. Roofs ripped off, trees uprooted. The storm also dumping tennis ball-sized hailstones.
ROMANS: Hey, you don't think of that part of the country as tornado alley.
VELSHI: No. Yes.
ROMANS: Where I grew up in Iowa or even in other parts, we've seen a lot of that kind of damage.
VELSHI: Kansas, yes.
CHETRY: That's why it's even scarier because, I mean, you guys at some point get sort of old hat at tornadoes.
VELSHI: Always prepared for it, yes.
ROMANS: I saw a tornado in 1981, by the way, believe it or not. Just barely made it.
VELSHI: I didn't know this about you.
ROMANS: And it does -- and it does really sound like a freight train and it is really scary. You know?
Let's check in with Rob Marciano. It's 16 minutes past the hour. We're not expecting any kind of that activity today. That was a freak spring storm, right?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, not in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania on Wednesday not only had that tornado. They had 60- mile-an-hour winds associated with another storm. They had hail, and they had a foot of snow in some parts. I mean, it's a big state, granite, but it was a crazy day, certainly.
A little quieter today east of the Mississippi. You go west of the Mississippi, we do have a little system that's rolling through places like St. Louis and through Kansas City, a mixture of rain and snow there. It will move pretty quickly, but there may be some accumulation of snow, an inch or two in some of the grassy surfaces.
And another big storm rolling its way into the west coast. Flooding issues there continue, especially across northern California. Heavy snows in the mountain, and there'll be some high winds also, and that will continue on and off through the weekend.
Here are your forecast high temperatures for today. Notice the cool temps in Chicago, back through New York City. We want to make this point. We showed this last hour. This is what the snowfall map looked like across the U.S. in January, mid-January. Forty-eight -- 49 out of 50 states covered in snow.
And this is what it looks like now. Now we're into the first week of spring, and the northern tier states, much of them -- about 20 -- two dozen of them still have snow on them. Now granted we had a little snowstorm that came through yesterday. Dumped some snow across parts of Pennsylvania and New York and Connecticut, and that kind of freshened things up. But been a long winter. And, you know, so far, spring's not helping the cause too much. Might have to wait until summer.
Guys, back up to you.
CHETRY: I know. I know. And, you know, another sure sign of spring, Rob, that we all love to look at -- the cherry blossoms in D.C. Right? And it's so funny, they come so briefly and then they're gone. And then they're just on the ground around D.C. But this year, the trees are at what they call the puffy white stage. Here they are. Beautiful. A little bit early. That usually happens about four to six days before peak bloom.
The park service now says that peak bloom this year should hit next week from about Tuesday to Friday. There's a look. So if you're thinking about checking it out, go to the nationalcherryblossomfestival.org and you can also see all the festival -- festival like happenings besides the trees by checking on their number. I can't believe I'm giving this. But anyway, 877 --
VELSHI: I should say you're actually going to give out the cherry blossom number.
CHETRY: Call now -- 877-44-bloom to check out --
VELSHI: It's a good number, but --
CHETRY: And they're really pretty. So it's worth it.
VELSHI: They are pretty. I'm not so much for flowers. I get allergies, so that's the problem. This time of the year the later it comes --
CHETRY: Yes. I don't think you're allergic to cherry blossoms though. I don't know. I don't know if it's cherry blossoms that are causing it.
VELSHI: What was that number? 1-877-44-bloom.
CHETRY: That's right.
VELSHI: OK. Still to come this morning, walking and talking and trying to make it to Cape Canaveral in town. Gabrielle Giffords' husband, shuttle commander Mark Kelly, updates us on her remarkable recovery. ROMANS: And NATO now saying it will enforce the no-fly zone over Libya that the U.S. helped put in place. Will a split in command lead to confusion in the war room? What are the political and the military goals here? And what's the end game in Libya? We're going to ask a former top NATO official.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty-two minutes past the hour. How much do you use the post office, you guys? A lot? A little?
ROMANS: There's a good one right across the street, so it's very easy for me.
CHETRY: I love the post office. They automated everything. You just like click a package on.
VELSHI: Some of them have. Some of them have. Some of them are as old-fashioned -- and maybe there's charm in that.
ROMANS: And I avoid those like the plague.
VELSHI: Yes. But I like the ones --
ROMANS: I love it when the window closes, right, when you've been waiting for 45 minutes to send a package.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHETRY: Yes.
ROMANS: Sorry.
CHETRY: But the reason that we're talking about this is because when it comes to record losses, the post office is in some trouble. Carmen Wong Ulrich joins us. She's "Minding Your Business" this morning.
So the agency, and we've heard this before, but they're talking about more massive cuts.
CARMEN WONG ULRICH, PERSONAL FINANCE EXPERT: Listen, they were behind in $8.5 billion last year, they lost money. So they need to have some costs cut and they have been cutting for the past two years. What they're doing now is closing seven offices and eliminating 7,500 jobs.
Now, they're offering $20,000 buyouts to employees who have been with the company over 20 years so that they don't have to lay off people. So we'll see how many accepted. But they've laid off over 100,000 workers in the past two years. And that's just the start. They're looking to close 2,000 post offices this year alone. And keep in mind, the postal service employs around 500,000 workers. And if you think that the post office is not needed, well, let's have a comparison here.
U.S. Postal Service delivers 584 million pieces of mail a day.
VELSHI: That's right.
ULRICH: UPS, 16 million. FedEx, almost half that number.
VELSHI: I'm glad you pointed that out.
ULRICH: So they're really, really important.
VELSHI: They do a lot of work. And by the way, this is one of those things that we may all like to say they're inefficient and they should cut workers, but we're in a point in our economy we're cutting a whole lot of workers. It's just generally bad.
CHETRY: Right.
ULRICH: It's bad for business. If you go to usps.com, you can do everything from stamps to prepaid, you know, postage. So many things you can do online.
I think it saves you a lot of money from going --
ROMANS: A lot of those jobs cuts have been attrition, right? As people retire, they're not replacing them.
VELSHI: Right. No replacement.
ROMANS: Or they're consolidating. The people are moving or they leave a job --
VELSHI: But at this point with --
ULRICH: This is active cuts.
VELSHI: Right.
CHETRY: But it's also administrative, it's not the guy that's walking down the street delivering your mail.
VELSHI: Yes.
ULRICH: Not that guy.
CHETRY: Right, one of the administrative jobs.
ULRICH: But the postmasters definitely are going to be laid off.
CHETRY: Right.
VELSHI: Right.
ULRICH: We'll keep an eye on that.
VELSHI: -- post offices are going to close. That's important.
ULRICH: They're going to close 2,000 this year. Now for your morning market check. Dow is up 84 points. Nasdaq up 38, S&P up 12, and futures looking rosy. They are also up, as well.
VELSHI: Thanks.
ROMANS: Thanks, Carmen.
ULRICH: Thank you.
CHETRY: Trying to make back some of that money we lost at the height of the recession.
Thanks, Carmen.
Well, next on AMERICAN MORNING, strong reaction to the story that we did about the Florida elementary school where they have some rules in place to protect a girl with a fatal peanut allergy.
VELSHI: There was strong reaction at this table.
CHETRY: Oh, yes, there was.
VELSHI: But from our viewers, remarkable reaction.
CHETRY: And we have a lot of feedback after parents picketed over having to have their children inconvenienced because of this little girl.
VELSHI: And we have a new census milestone. Why minorities will soon be the majority here in the United States.
It is 25 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. A story right now that's getting tremendous response on our a.m. blog. We told you about this yesterday.
A Florida elementary school taking steps to protect a first grade girl with a fatal peanut allergy. They required other students to wash their hands and rinse their mouths twice daily.
VELSHI: Now, parents have been protesting, suggesting that the first grader be removed from the classroom and homeschooled. Jason Carroll has been following the story here to tell us about what you've been saying about it.
I mean, Jason, I think we could have guessed yesterday there was going to be a reaction to this. There's been a really big reaction from our viewers.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And, you know, we were still talking about it this morning. And we were talking about it yesterday afternoon. So probably no surprise, right, that a lot of people wrote in about this.
Our inbox was actually filled with people weighing in on the story. We want to start out with what some people wrote in and said. Let's start with Kevin.
He says, "As a parent of two children with food allergies, I am obviously 100 percent behind the parents of the child with the peanut allergy. I think it is disgusting of the other parents to picket over this issue." Kevin goes on to say, "While I would never wish a disability upon another person, I think it would be very educational for one of the parents doing the protesting on the streets to have a child with a food allergy."
OK. Let's go to what a mom wrote in and told us. She says, "Ridiculous. Why should my child or your child be put out because of one student? Where are the rights of the staff? The bus drivers, other students? Yes, reasonable accommodations should be made, but this is way beyond the scope."
All right. Now we're going to go to Fenbeast. Interesting name. "What is wrong with these people? Is compassion completely dead in this country? How could anyone be so mean spirited as to target a child who through no fault of her own has a health condition that requires a little extra consideration on the part of those around her? Shame."
All right. That's just what some of the people wrote in and told us about this. You know, you saw that one of the viewers wrote in and said and talked about reasonable accommodations. Well, school officials in Edgewater Elementary say requiring students to wash their hands twice a day is in fact reasonable.
You know, we did some research and it's not just in Florida where you see things like this happening, Maryland, you know, also Massachusetts Department of Education, as well.
VELSHI: Let's be clear. Many school districts and many schools have managed this problem just fine. It hasn't turned into protests. They have managed to make the accommodations.
CHETRY: That's right.
That's the point the doctor made yesterday when we spoke to him, Dr. Scherer. My daughter has a peanut allergy, and we have to sign for everything. Another boy in her class does as well. But this is the one thing that I also thought was interesting about it is a lot of people wrote into me saying, "Well, what happens if something accidentally happens to this girl? Can the school district be sued?" I mean, a lot of people were asking that question. They were in a tough spot because legally they have to protect her under the American with Disabilities Act.
ROMANS: Clearly, (INAUDIBLE) the family make a choice of how they want their child to proceed. If the family makes that choice that they want their child to be included in a public school setting, then they have made that choice and they have taken that risk. But swap out the word peanut allergy for HIV or hemophilia or for autism. If other accommodations have to made for other children with other situations, are these parents who are protesting saying "I only want healthy kids like mine in here."
Also, one other thing, swine flu, when you're going swine flu or any other kinds of virulent influenzas, kids are already washing their hands several times.
CHETRY: That's right.
ROMANS: They are already being told to stay away from each other, not to get too close, not to share saliva. So reasonable accommodations, I guess is in the -
CHETRY: And the other thing, at the end of the day, it's a first grader. When you get older, when you're a grown-up, you have to make decisions for yourself. But she is - her school, her parents, and her community are the people that protect her -
VELSHI: I don't buy they're targeting the kid. They're worrying about -
CHETRY: OK. There were signs that said, "Why isn't my kid special too?"
VELSHI: (INAUDIBLE) first grader's fault but nonetheless, we can all be a little bit more accommodative.
CHETRY: All right. Well, it's 31 minutes past the hour. I want to bring you up to date on the top stories this morning.
Fears of a reactor core breach at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. This has major implications if it is the case. It is a possibility that more radiation is being released into the air or penetrating the ground if, indeed, there is a core breach. Engineers are trying to now trace a water leak at reactor number three that caused three workers to be hospitalized after getting the water on their skin.
An air traffic controller suspended now after admitting yes, he did fall asleep in the tower at Reagan National Airport. Two pilots trying to land early Wednesday morning were unable to get a response from the tower, so they landed without clearance. The controller was alone and he was working an overnight shift. They're checking into whether human fatigue was a factor in this.
ROMANS: All right. Just a week since the resolution to create a no-fly zone. NATO has agreed to take command of enforcing that no-fly zone, leaving coalition forces to handle actual air strikes on Gadhafi ground forces. This creates a split command that concerns some military experts. Does anyone want to be in charge here? And what about the divisions of the military and the political ambitions in this region?
Joining us now is Damon Wilson, he is the executive vice president at the Atlantic Council and served as a top aide to then NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson. Welcome to the program. You described this as sort of a three legs of the mission. The arms embargo, the no-fly zone, and then the ability to bomb Gadhafi assets. NATO taking over two of the three. Does this open up a split in how we're responding to the Libya crisis?
DAMON WILSON, EXECUTIVE VP, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Good morning. Yes, Christine. I think what's key here is the alliance has taken over two of the three legs of the operation. The naval blockade to enforce the arms embargo, the no-fly zone enforcement mission which will begin this operation. That's the decision the alliance took yesterday. But the third key piece is the mission to protect civilians.
And that's where the alliance has yet to come into agreement to take over command of the civilian protection mission. So until they've reached that decision in Brussels, we will have a duo command, if you will. I think it remains an imperative to unify these under one unified military command. When you're fighting a war, when you're in the middle of a military operation, unity of command it's critical to military effectiveness.
ROMANS: Let's listen to something that Gen. Mark Kimmitt, about that very idea of sort of a split command in the air. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY (RET.): It's going to be tough for two separate four stars running two separate operations on the same terrain with airplanes moving at the speed they're moving for this operation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: What do you think about that? I mean, does this create the possibility of maybe some chaos or a lack of cohesion?
WILSON: I would say a bit of lack of cohesion. I would not overestimate it for chaos. If you recall in Afghanistan, for years we ran the operation in Afghanistan with two split chains of command. The United States (INAUDIBLE) operation freedom. And NATO itself through the international security assistance force. Here what's key is a lot of attention to what happens in the air space over Libya and you want to have unified control over that air space.
So I don't think it's a crisis, but I do think it puts an imperative on seeing the NATO alliance move very quickly, as quickly possible to adopt this third leg of the Libya operation so that the entire military operation in Libya is brought under one unified chain of command.
ROMANS: The third leg, you know, how tough is it to get consensus within NATO. I mean, this has been a problem we've had before, right? They agree on enforcing the no-fly zone, but it becomes more political when you talk about protecting the civilians and about actually going after Gadhafi's strongholds and trying to, I guess, even - even somehow helping the opposition. WILSON: That's right. This is by far the most controversial part of the mission. And that the protection of civilians requires strikes against Gadhafi's forces, his artillery, his tanks, his troops, and this is certainly the more contentious aspect. So is there a difference within the alliance? Sure there is.
You've seen some allies, the French and others, very focused on ensuring that NATO taking over the command. It doesn't actually end up limiting the operational flexibility of the commanders to execute the fighting. But you've seen other allies such as the Turks reluctant to see NATO actually responsible seen as publicly accountable for the mission when in reality it doesn't have full control of the mission.
So I think we're still trying to bridge that gap. I think it is bridgeable. I think the plans that NATO military commanders are developing provide for wide latitude and flexibility for the military commanders. And as we've seen in the campaign in Afghanistan, at the end of the day, the NATO, the political authorities, the diplomats within NATO, they stay out of the tactical and operational decisions.
ROMANS: Right. Let me ask you, CNN sources are calling sort of this no-fly plus. Thinking that NATO might be, NATO command might be moving toward this no-fly zone plus. What would that look like? And would that satisfy all these competing interests?
WILSON: I think so, yes. Part of this is in the near term unifying the military operations under the alliance. Alliance aircraft, still involving the United States and U.S. commanders, but under unified NATO command, enforcing the no-fly zone, executing the combat operations on the ground. Unified with the operations that are taking place in the Mediterranean, I think that brings the full package together.
The tension comes a little bit down the line when you've got a no-fly zone enforced, you've degraded Gadhafi's abilities to attack allied aircraft. And then you'll have pressure on the coalition again in terms of the end state and the mission.
ROMANS: All right. Damon Wilson, thanks so much.
WILSON: Thank you, my pleasure.
ROMANS: You guys, Ali and Kiran, it's fascinating when you look at sort of U.S. involvement, how the U.S. has led this thing so far. You look at the Tomahawks fired, 168 of them, U.S. Tomahawks. The U.S. and the U.K. are, of course, the only ones who have got them. That's 175 and then you look at the mission, the sorties, U.S., 449 of those. The U.S. has really led this.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: The president had said he would like NATO - he would like to step back and make sure that this really is a group effort here. But the whole idea of no-fly plus, that's pretty fascinating the political and military competing interests. VELSHI: Pretty clear at the moment until this does change, it's a U.S.-led operation.
ROMANS: Yes.
CHETRY: All right. Up next on "American Morning," we have census numbers revealing that Hispanics went through quite a population boom over the past decade. The growth leading to a new trend toward diversity. We're going to break down the numbers.
It's 38 minutes past the hour.
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VELSHI: Good news we're hearing this morning about remarkable progress being made by Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. As you know, she's in a Houston rehab center trying to recover from an assassination attempt not far from where her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly is getting ready for his next mission into space.
John Zarrella has got more live from Miami right now. John, will she or won't she be there to watch Mark Kelly get on the last mission of the space shuttle "Endeavor?"
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's certainly a good chance of that, Ali, as you said. Absolutely remarkable. Yesterday at the pre-launch news conference out in Houston, Mark Kelly and his crew meeting with members of the media there. And Kelly said that her condition is improving remarkably.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK KELLY, NASA MISSION COMMANDER: As her doctors described in her last press conference on March 11th, she's doing remarkably well. She's improving every day. And in the realm of brain injuries, that is very significant and pretty rare. She's starting to walk, talk more, more every day, and she's starting to process some of the tragedy that we all went through in January. She's going through that as we speak.
Despite that, she remains in a very good mood. She spends most of her day in therapy, enjoys brief visits from friends and colleagues. She was really happy to see my brother last week after he returned from space. She gets staff briefings from her staff when they're in town on what's going on with her office and the district and what's going on in Congress. I see her every morning before I go to work, and when I come home from work at the end of my day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARRELLA: Kelly was asked if preparing for this mission has been any more challenging than other flights. Given the circumstance, he said, you know what? Not really, I've given this all my attention. And the fact is, it probably would have been more challenging if I hadn't flown before. But he's flown twice before as a pilot, Ali, and once as a commander. So preparing for a shuttle flight for a guy like Kelly, old hat.
VELSHI: Right. And by the way, in most of these shuttle flights, we don't really know these commanders and these astronauts intimately, but in this case, he's got all of America sort of egging him on to go do it. So he had a lot of support.
ZARRELLA: Yes. Absolutely.
And it does look good that she'll be there on the 19th for "Endeavor's" flight to the International Space Station, which of course, Kelly is commanding.
VELSHI: Very good. John, good to see you as always. Thank you.
ZARRELLA: Good to see you.
CHETRY: All right. We want to tell you a little bit more, dig deeper into the census report. The numbers are coming out from the Census Bureau and paints a racially and ethnically diverse population.
Let's take a look at some of the numbers from the 2010 census report. Remember, we all sent in our paperwork. We'll hear the results. 308.7 million people living in the United States, that went up nearly 10 percent. So when we look at the breakdowns, Hispanics growing as one of the largest minority populations, 50.5 million Hispanics and now the nation's number two ethnic group, up 43 percent since 2000.
All right. Let's take a look right now where the other breakdowns for the rest of America. Whites making up 197 million, still 64 percent of the population. Blacks 40 million making up nearly 13 percent of the population. But we saw a big boom in the Asian population, as well, up 43 percent since the 2000 census making up nearly 15 million people, five percent of the population tied with Hispanics for the fastest growth.
And when you take a look at where the growth is coming from, this is pretty astounding, 90 percent of the population growth came from minorities and we'll probably have to find a new term by the year 2015. Minorities are expected to be the majority by that year. So there's a look at some of the numbers.
About 9 million people also saying that they were of more than one race. So this is interesting, this is a trend in which minorities again are expected to become the majority by 2050. But more people are defining themselves by more than just one ethnicity or racial group. Ali, Christine --
ROMANS: And some states already seeing that like Texas. I think Nevada and California are already majority-minority states. So it's been a trend that's been underway for some time -- it's been incredible to watch.
VELSHI: Well, still ahead, a small town in Tennessee in turmoil after residents find out about plans to build a Muslim mosque in their neighborhood. Soledad O'Brien with the special report.
ROMANS: And it's Friday, so what's the weekend travel forecast looking like? Rob is going to drop by with this morning's travel forecast for you right after the break. It's 45 minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: Welcome back. We are 48 minutes past the hour right now. We're getting a check of the weather headlines. Did you get that 1-800 number, Rob for the cherry blossoms?
MARCIANO: 1-877-44-bloom.
CHETRY: That's right. You can call ahead to find out --
VELSHI: Rob, you've been here for a long time. How often do we give out a phone number for something on TV? The Washington D.C. cherry blossom phone number to give out and it's stuck in my head now.
MARCIANO: It's all about viewer interaction, you know. If we can get the viewers to pick up a phone and call somebody else, why not? You know, as long as they're still watching.
Good morning, guys. Listen, it's going to be beautiful weather for the cherry -- that are blossoming. A little bit earlier this year, February was pretty warm, that may be one reason. And it's not going to be terribly warm in the next few days, but it will be dry across parts of the east coast. That's for sure.
A little bit wet and at times snowy from St. Louis back through Kansas City and some of it getting up to Chicago, but it's really not amounting too much. There's no real advisories out with this.
But another story across parts of the west coast, very winter- like system here. They got pounded over the weekend. They got pounded in the beginning of this week, and hit hard again today. Here's what it looked like across the Bay Area, tremendous amount of rainfall here.
Really a couple inches here, break, and then a couple of inches there so flooding across - I'll tell you what, from Santa Cruz up through Sonoma County, Marin, everybody seeing a ton of rain from this thing and the river's not handling it.
Folks even in the Bay Area are having a hard time. We've got flood watches and warnings that are posted for parts of the Bay Area up through Sacramento and obviously this is going to mean heavy snow in the mountains, as well.
The totals from this could be 4 to 6 feet of snow in the Sierras and it's pretty cold so it's fairly light and dry even for January, February, and March so this weekend, the beginning of next week, amazing skiing up there in the Sierras.
If you're traveling San Francisco into or out of, rain and the wind is going to create some delays, and the New York metros might have delays, as well, because of some volume and light, breezy conditions. Severe weather potentially across parts of the midsection of the country and fire threat out there in New Mexico, 40 in St. Louis. That's kind of chilly, 33 Chicago, chilly, 43 in New York.
You should be around 55, 56 degrees this time of the year. So even with those cherry blossoms blooming it's a little bit nippy out there. Be prepared. Guys --
CHETRY: Yes. You got to get them right when they bloom. They only last a few days. Thanks so much, Rob.
ROMANS: Did you see the movie "The Hangover"?
CHETRY: Yes.
ROMANS: OK, the big question now. The big question is will there another tiger in "The Hangover 2"?
CHETRY: Another Mike Tyson, right? Another Tiger type cameo?
ROMANS: Well, actor Bradley Cooper is dropping by. He's going to talk about his new blockbuster. A movie that debut last weekend made a ton of money and ask him a couple of questions about "Hangover" part two because I can't wait to ask him what that will be like. It's 50 minutes past the hour. Charlie Sheen! Is he in it? No, I'm just joking.
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VELSHI: So freedom of religion may be a fundamental right in the United States, but it does not guarantee freedom from suspicion. Take example from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a town that was recently thrown into conflict when residents found out about a plan to build a mosque there.
Soledad O'Brien joins us live with more on this. Soledad, you're working on a special that is going to air this weekend about - tell us a little bit about the story.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, our documentary is called "Unwelcome, the Muslims Next Door." Really, you'll remember when a lot of topic of the conversation was about the so-called ground zero mosque.
At the very same time, but not making a lot of headlines was a little mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and there is 140 churches in Murfreesboro and one mosque. And those - sort of peacefully co-existed until that mosque group and they decided to expand.
At that point, a rift emerged in the community of otherwise peaceful Murfreesboro, Tennessee. They discovered not only would it rip the city apart. It would also literally put Islam on trial in that city. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEVIN FISHER, MURFREESBORO RESIDENT: We are citizens, we have family and we have children in this community in which I look out for our future.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We thank you for your love! We thank you for your joy!
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Kevin Fisher has lived here in Murfreesboro for 20 years. He's a corrections officer and a single father. Last May, Kevin was stunned to discover local officials had approved plans for a 53,000 square foot Islamic center in his hometown.
FISHER: Neighbors were outraged. That something of this nature was being basically shoved down our throats so we didn't know anything about it.
O'BRIEN: A month later, the typically sleepy county commission meeting was anything but.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So many people turned up for the public hearing. Authorities wouldn't let them all in.
FISHER: I'm very happy to see this many people here that are really standing up.
O'BRIEN: A few residents complained about the lack of notice of the mosque plan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would respectfully ask for an expanded public hearing again.
O'BRIEN: Virtually, everyone else spoke out against the threat of Islam.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody knows who is trying to kill us and it's like we can't say it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would encourage the boycott of any contractor associated with the project. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our country was founded through the founding fathers, through the true God, the father in Jesus Christ.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry, but they seem to be against everything that I believe in and so I don't want them necessarily in my neighborhood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That concludes our public comment period. Thank you very much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: The opposition took members of the mosque, the mosque project itself to court and a lawyer hired by those opposed. It took an interesting strategy, which was literally put Islam on trial. It ended up spurring debate about Sharia law coming to America.
And also about exactly what the United States constitution protected. Our documentary, the title "Unwelcome" comes from a sign that was scrawled upon, not welcome, the Islamic center. It was vandalized and then torn down eventually.
We will cover that debate and what happened to the city of Murfreesboro, Tennessee on Sunday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on CNN.
VELSHI: Thank you for clarifying where the title comes from because there were a number of people I've seen some activity in social media saying is CNN taking a position that Muslims in America are unwelcome? You are taking that out of --
O'BRIEN: In this particular town, yes, I think in this particular town, it became very clear to the people when someone scrawled "not welcome," the Muslims in that community were not welcome and really the start of the fierce debate.
VELSHI: Soledad, thank you. Soledad O'Brien, chronicles a dramatic fight over the construction of a mosque in the heart of the bible belt. "Unwelcome, the Muslims Next Door" airs Sunday, March 27th at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN. Top stories coming your way in just 90 seconds.
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