Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Syrian Teen Risks His Life For Another; Massive Bank Cyber Attack Planned; U.S. Soldiers Killed In Suicide Bombing; Hugo Chavez Had Surgery Complications

Aired December 13, 2012 - 14:00   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This stage is stage six. It's 30,000 square feet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So long, Hollywood. America's got a new hot spot for movies in the deep south.

Top of the hour. Good to be with you. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

And I want to begin with a CNN exclusive. But I have to warn you here, this is tough to watch. But the pictures speak volumes about what the Syrian civil war is doing to its own people. This is about this teenager who defies the basic survival instinct, running away from a hail of bullets. Oh, no. Instead, this young man, who used to work in a bakery decides to crawl into the gunfire to try to save a stranger's life. This is a reality for so many Syrians every single day. Here's CNN Arwa Damon. But just a final warning to you, if there are children in the room, get them out now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A fighter slithering across the street, his body hugging the cold pavement. Yards away, a woman lies motionless. She's been shot by a sniper. Her rescuer is not a relative, nor a neighbor. He's never met her. Abdullah Hada Fehan (ph) is just 17. He knew he had to save the woman or die trying.

When we met him later, he tells us, "we had a feeling that she was still alive. We wanted to save her, to get her to a hospital."

As he crawls closer, he can see her hand, her fingers shaking. "Cover him. Cover him," someone shouts. Other fighters lay down cover fire. Abdullah quickly ties the hose to her legs but he's unable to retreat.

"I said to myself, if I die, it's God's will that I die next to this woman," he tells us.

Finally, he makes a run for it. And the rebels drag the woman back. DAMON (on camera): The woman and her son were walking right down the street there. Rebel fighters shouted at them to stay away, but it was too late. Aleppo is crisscrossed with similar sniper alleys. Some are known, but others do not reveal themselves until the first shot has been fired.

DAMON (voice-over): Despite Abdullah's efforts, the woman dies. Her son utterly distraught. "Don't die now. Don't die today," he pleads. "Answer me, mom. Answer me. She's not dead. She's not dead," he says as he collapses.

Abdullah is left wondering whether her life could have been saved if he'd reached her sooner. Until recently, he worked at a bakery. Now, like thousands of young Syrians, he puts his life on the line.

"I am not a hero. I am just like anyone else," Abdullah tells us. And we're left to wonder, how many similar acts of courage go unrecorded every day in Syria? And how many innocents are lost?

Arwa Damon, CNN, Aleppo.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: There are new signs the man behind the war scene you just witnessed may be close to defeat. And one of them comes from the official scene right here beside Syrian President Bashar al Assad. So the man on the right, right here, this is Russia's deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov. He told his country's state run news service that the Syrian government is losing control of more of the country. A quote here from Bogdanov. "We need to look the facts in the eye. Unfortunately, we can't exclude a victory by the opposition." Keep in mind here, Russia was one of the votes that has kept the United Nations from acting against Assad. On top of that, today the NATO secretary-general said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN, NATO SECRETARY-GENERAL: I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse. I think now is only a question of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Another possible sign of Assad's regime cracking. Four scud missiles that a U.S. official says were aimed at anti-government factions in northern Syria. Scud missiles here. Analysts say the regime is using such reckless extremes, that's it's a sign of desperation now. We'll talk a lot more about that at the top of the hour.

But let me just let you know, today, 28 Syrians were killed. This is according to opposition groups. Nearly all of them died in two car bombings in the Damascus suburbs.

And now a warning today, your bank account, yes, your account could soon come under attack from cyber criminals. This warning here coming from the computer security firm McAfee. McAfee claims a gang of hackers is planning this massive cyber attack on the customers of 30 U.S. banks and financial institutions. Take a look here and see if your bank's on the list. This is a partial list of whom McAfee says will be targeted. The attack is called Project Blitzkrieg, which supposedly launched here by two Russian hackers set to begin sometime next spring. The goal, steal millions from customer accounts.

Kevin Mitnick, let me bring you in here. You're a former hacker who now -- you have your own cyber security consulting business. So, Kevin, welcome.

KEVIN MITNICK, FORMER HACKER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Explain this to me. Project Blitzkrieg. How is this supposed to work?

MITNICK: Well, it's a -- it's going to be a large scalable attack. They're going to be using all types of technology, basically what we call bot nets, to gather a lot of computer systems of average people into this bot net. And how that's done is these attackers are able to get malicious software on to these computers and then they can control these computers and install malicious software that could gather banking credentials or even, as you're online with your bank, they could be actually changing how it looks to you on your screen.

BALDWIN: OK. So this is --

MITNICK: So it's pretty scary.

BALDWIN: It is incredibly scary. But here's the thing. You know, when you read about this, one of the criticisms is that these U.S. financial institutions, they're not doing enough to beef up their security online, right? They're putting the onus on, you know, we the customer. We have to give up all this personal information in order for us to access a bank website. So if and when this happens, let's hope it doesn't, what do banks need to do?

MITNICK: Well, I mean, as a consumer, first thing I would think about is moving away from the Windows operating system like, for example, to the Mac or a Linux-based operating system because those Trojan types of malicious software isn't written for that operating system yet.

BALDWIN: OK.

MITNICK: But it probably will be in the future. And also, not to be gullible on the Internet. How your computer gets infected with malware is you'll receive an e-mail. It will contains an attachment or some sort of hyper link.

BALDWIN: Don't open it.

MITNICK: And if you're gullible enough to click on it or open it, now this malicious software sits on your computer and it can do these nasty things, like interfere with your banking transactions. So it's really important not to be gullible and be careful what you open on the Internet. BALDWIN: There are also -- we should point this out -- a lot of skeptics out there. A lot of people in the cyber security community. They say, this may -- this whole thing could be run by, you know, Russian police trying to catch hackers, or maybe it's the ramblings of a wannabe cyber criminal. What do you think?

MITNICK: No, I think it's -- I think it's real.

BALDWIN: You do?

MITNICK: I think right now -- I think that, you know, we have organized crime that use computer hacking techniques. They want to steal money. Remember the old -- you know, they asked Willie Sutton, why did you rob the bank? Well, that's where the money is. It's the same idea. And now they want to make their operation scalable because now there's millions of dollars at risk. And the two ways that they're going to get you is by tricking you into opening up that attachment or clicking that hyper link or what they'll -- or what they'll do is exploit a security flaw on your computer system. So it's really important to keep all your operating system files up to date and also these applications that sit on your desktop. And there's even a free software tool that can help you do that. If you Google "software personal inspector." What that piece of software does is it looks on your computer, finds the software that's out of date so you can fix it and it's absolutely free.

BALDWIN: This is great information, Kevin.

MITNICK: Yes.

BALDWIN: It's great information. We're going to put this on the blog. I can guarantee people right now, because a lot of these folks could be affected by this if we're talking 30 banks and U.S. financial institutions.

Kevin Mitnick, thank you so much. We'll put it on the blog, cnn.com/brooke.

Tragedy in Afghanistan today. One American killed when a suicide bomber attacks this one area where Defense Chief Leon Panetta had just visited. You see Erin Burnett, she's traveling with Panetta. We'll get her report coming up.

Also, you've seen the bickering, you have seen the public sniping. But what you haven't heard is the behind the scenes here of the fiscal cliff negotiations. That is until now. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Nineteen days now. Nineteen days and counting until our government goes over the fiscal cliff. You know the deal. Your taxes automatically go up. And at this moment I wish I could tell you they were close to a deal, but after House Speaker John Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke, there they were just a short time ago, deep sigh. Not there yet. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: The Republicans put out a letter that had more signatures than it had ideas. And it had like one number. So, that's not -- that's -- let's get real. Let's really get real about this if we're going to have a solution.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: Here we are at the 11th hour and the president still isn't serious about dealing with this issue right here. It's this issue -- spending. Now, you go back to -- and want to talk about polling. Most Americans would agree that spending is a much bigger problem than raising taxes. They want us to deal with this in a responsible way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: As you just heard, the House speaker says the White House isn't serious about cutting spending. But the White House says this could all be over if Republicans just agreed to raise taxes on the wealthy, the top 2 percent. Well, guess what, 76 percent of adults surveyed agree with the president on this one. This is according to this polls. This is a "Wall Street Journal"/NBC poll.

Let's go straight to Washington to our senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash.

And, Dana, you talked to these two guys, these two men, who spent their careers in Congress making deals like this. How did they pull it off?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was such a fascinating conversation. The two men you're talking about, Brooke, are two former Senate majority leaders. A Republican and a Democrat. Trent Lott and Tom Daschle. And they worked on opposite sides of issues, but together, for almost a decade. And so that is the question that I asked them. You know, how did you -- and it wasn't always pretty, but how did you, at the end of the day, come up with deals when you had tough negotiations like the one that's going on right now. And their answer was really simple -- talk to each other.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRENT LOTT (R), FORMER SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: And I do think they've reached a point where they need to quit talking to each other through the media. I'm talking about both parties and the president and the leaders in Congress. Some of our most effective results came when we sat down at a conference table with -- sometimes with the president but -- or at least with his chief of staff or his OMB director, with our key budget people, and we really talked about alternatives and hammered it out.

TOM DASCHLE (D), FORMER SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: This will be the test. If we reset, it's going to have to happen around the fiscal cliff first because that's the first order of business. But there are a lot of other issues out there that could be addressed if we can really create a new climate. And whether we do in part depends on the success of this -- this effort right now. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And, Brooke, you heard him mention the word climate. That really is a major difference that these two men admitted exists in the atmosphere between now and maybe -- and even five, 10 years ago, and that is that -- Senator Lott even admitted that if he were leader, he might be concerned about a primary challenge from the right if he cut a deal that Republicans didn't like too much. And, you know, same goes for Democrats. That is a dynamic that really has blossomed and in a big way over the last few years and it is a big reason why these -- both sides are having trouble coming up with a deal.

BALDWIN: That is so fascinating. They sort of get the behind the scenes of these two men now that, you know, that they're friendly and talking about it in the open. Just quickly, what about secret conversations? I mean where do they do that? The golf course? At a hotel? How does that happen?

BASH: Well, these two men had something really interesting. They actually had a hotline.

BALDWIN: What?

BASH: They had one phone line that went directly from senator to senator. Their staff didn't know about it. Nothing. And they also just told me that they met secretly on balconies sometimes to try to work things out without anybody around.

BALDWIN: Balconies. I'm picturing like smoke signals and a bat phone or something. That is fascinating.

Dana Bash, thank you. Thank you so much, for us from The Hill.

BASH: Thank you.

BALDWIN: We are getting some new details today on the man behind the shooting rampage in Oregon and the tragic, tragic aftermath of his rage. Coming up next, hear how the shooter's ex-girlfriend describes him and his final days before the tragedy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We are now learning new information today about that young man behind the mall shooting in Oregon and the tragic aftermath of his own rage. Take a look at this picture here. This is the picture that Oregon police released of 22-year-old Jacob Roberts. Shocked friends say he was kind, he was upbeat. In fact they say he was studying to become a firefighter. Take a listen here to what his former girlfriend said in interview with ABC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HANNAH PATRICIA SANSBURN, EX-GIRLFRIEND OF JACOB ROBERTS: This is the last thing I would have ever expected, especially from him. He was just too sweet. Never mean to anybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Too sweet. She also says Roberts recently quit his job, sold his things. He was planning to move to Hawaii. She said he had bought a ticket, but now she wonders if he really planned to move. Here now is a counselor from Roberts' high school.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARNOLD BUNTING, COUNSELOR, OREGON CITY HIGH SCHOOL: He was a counseling aid with us. Kids would sometimes be assigned to be our assistant and they helped us with some of the work in the counseling office. I found him to be a very polite young man, soft spoken, nice smile. And just really surprised that somebody with his personality would end up doing something like this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We are also learning today a little bit more about his victims. Take a look here. This is 54-year-old Cindy Ann Yullie. She was a hospice nurse. And her family says she was everyone's friend. Also, 45-year-old Steve Forsythe had two children, loved to coach kids' sports. Kristina Shevchenko, she is the one young woman here who is in the hospital in stable but serious condition with bullet fragments in her lung and her liver. Doctors say the 15-year-old will recover, but faces more surgery.

On the move again. John McAfee, that anti-virus software pioneer, yes, he's back in the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MCAFEE, ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE PIONEER: I don't even know why I'm here. You know, this morning I was in jail. Today, here I am.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: A bizarre murder mystery had this mogul on the run and in hiding from Belize to Guatemala. Now Miami Beach. So what's next for McAfee? Our CNN crews caught up with him. That's head.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Tragedy in Afghanistan. One American killed. Another three injured after a suicide bomber launched an attack just outside of a base in Kandahar. And all of this coming here after Leon Panetta just left the area. CNN's Erin Burnett is on that trip.

Erin.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I was traveling with the defense secretary today. Was in Kandahar with him. And I can tell you, at this point, that the U.S. Defense Department says that they have -- they don't know whether this attack was linked to the secretary's arrival. Of course, you may remember, earlier this spring, when Secretary Panetta visited Afghanistan, there was an unauthorized vehicle that gained access to an air base on that visit. But they're not sure whether this was linked or not.

No matter what, though, this was a terrible attack. People lost their lives. One coalition force member lost his life and two Afghan civilians. In terms of injuries, three coalition forces are injured and 18 Afghan civilians. Those numbers, of course, could change. The Taliban, in an e-mail to CNN, has claimed responsibility for this suicide bombing and they, in fact, praised -- the spokesman for the Taliban praised the suicide bomber for his bravery.

The timing on this is very tough for Afghanistan, for the United States. Both of whom are trying to tell a story about improving security in this country with an insurgency that is on the wane, if not on its way to defeat. Today, General Abrams, the commander in the southern part of Afghanistan, in Kandahar, said to me, look, the security situation gets better every day, and said the insurgents are pretty limited in what they're able to do. And when he gave examples on what insurgents had tried to do and failed to do, attacking Kandahar Air Field was on that list.

Now, just to make it very clear here, this attack happened at the entrance to the Kandahar Air Field and it's unclear as to whether they actually were able to breech the perimeter at this time.

Back to you.

BALDWIN: Erin, thank you.

Secretary Panetta, by the way, revealing that President Obama has invited Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Washington for meetings sometime early next year.

Meantime, I want you to listen here to what Leon Panetta told Erin Burnett about al Qaeda hours before that attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: The original mission here was, I'll quote the president, right, to defeat, disrupt, and destroy al Qaeda. Is that mission accomplished?

LEON PANETTA, DEFENSE SECRETARY: The mission of defeating and deterring al Qaeda, I think, is well on the way towards, you know, achieving the mission with regards to Afghanistan and the threat that we face here. We continue to face al Qaeda, obviously, elsewhere, not only in Pakistan, but in Yemen and Somalia and elsewhere. But, you know, we have -- we have had remarkable success going after special operations against al Qaeda here and we're continuing to do that.

I think, you know, the main challenge here is obviously to make sure there's no safe haven for al Qaeda in which to conduct attacks. But the key to that is an Afghanistan that can secure and govern itself. Those two are interlocked in terms of the mission that we have in Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: You can hear more from the defense secretary on "Erin Burnett OutFront" tonight at 7:00 Eastern.

Bottom of the hour now. Thanks for being with us here. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Just into CNN, we are getting word that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez suffered some kind of complications from his operations.

Rafael Romo here with what exactly happened? A hemorrhage?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. Just a few moments ago, the communications minister for Venezuela, (INAUDIBLE), gave a speech to the nation, to all Venezuelans, confirming that that's exactly right. President Chavez, during a surgery for cancer in Cuba, Havana, Cuba, he experienced a hemorrhage and he said that he -- the president had to -- the surgeons had to take corrective measures to stop that hemorrhage.

Let me tell you exactly what he said. He said it will take some time for him to recover because of the complexity of the operation he underwent, as well as complications that arose during surgery when there was a hemorrhage that required corrective measures to get it under control.

Now, it's important for our viewers to know that President Chavez is the president of Venezuela. It's a nation that supplies about 14 percent of the oil that we consume in this country. And has been unfriendly to the government of the United States and to western powers. He first was diagnosed with cancer back in June of last year has undergone a number of procedures in Havana, Cuba.

BALDWIN: Yes, taken multiple trips there.

ROMO: The most recent one was this weekend when he announced that once again they had found malignant cells in his body and he had to undergo another surgery.

Now, the interesting part here, Brooke, is that he has to take office on January 10th. He has already named the former prime -- foreign minister, Nicholas Merudo, to replace him. He has now become the vice president. If he is unable --

BALDWIN: Replace him in the interim or if he can't --

ROMO: To be in charge of Venezuela in the interim and to replace him in case he is unable to take office on January 10th. Again, he won the elections in October.

BALDWIN: Got it. Got it, so hemorrhage right now. Let me ask about a different topic and something you also covered. The death of superstar signer, Jenny Rivera, we now have some sad news for her family.

ROMO: That's right. We have been talking to her family from the very beginning and they were still clinging to the hope that she was somehow alive. Well, the bad news came in about two hours ago from the government of the Mexican State confirming that DNA samples matched the remains of Jenny Rivera that were found at the crash site.

Remember she died in a plane crash on Sunday and now Mexican authorities say they can positively identify those remains and those of her publicist and also one of the pilots in the airplane.

BALDWIN: So sad, Rafael. Thank you. Thank you very much. If you thought our Congress was dysfunctional -- take a look at this. What made these lawmakers come to blows in the Ukraine next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)