Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Pressure Mounts in Airbag Problem; Canada Considers Tougher Anti-Terror Laws; Peshmerga Forces to Help in Battle for Kobani

Aired October 24, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome, sir. I appreciate your being here.

JASON VINES, FORMER ADVISOR, TAKATA: Thank you for letting me come on board.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here this morning. So this air bag problem has been ongoing since 2005. Why didn't Takata, the maker of the air bags or these manufacturers address this problem sooner?

VINES: I think it was a lot of moving parts, no pun intended. You had allegations that Takata hid it and some lousy reporting and lousy data collection all led to a really bad situation. Some are calling it a PR crisis and I think that trivializes it. It's a crisis-crisis. People are dying much like in the Firestone tire crisis and with GM's switch. Somebody knew about it and did very little to put the customer first.

COSTELLO: I agree with you. It's a crisis. 52 million cars have been recalled this year alone. That's one in five cars on the road. You have to wonder where the quality control is.

VINES: I think it's not the quality control, I think we're getting better at finding defects. Because of the Tread Act which came out of the Ford Firestone tire debacle, much more stringent reporting requirements for recalls so they're grabbing them typically faster and putting the customer first.

The problem with safety recalls is it has such a horrible name for it and automakers try to fight that moniker "safety recall" because the plaintiff's attorneys like to use it and beat them over the head with it. So it's typical of the engineering -- not always typical -- but engineers will try to prove that there's no defect and when they can't prove that they try to put a smallish fence around the population that's affected and then they try to prove to NHTSA it's not a safety recall.

I think it looks like what Takata did. You know, there's just recall or service action in a few states and I think early on they were doing too little and it may hurt them big time in the end.

COSTELLO: Well, you know, we would like to think we learned something from the GM recall, right? Because that's where the bulk of those 52 million cars recalled are coming from. But cynics might say we haven't learned anything at all, have we? VINES: I think we have. I mean these are very complex machines;

there's more computers on your car than anywhere and anything you have. They're designed to save your lives and, for instance, with the air bags, air bags save tens of thousands of lives over the decades and we have a little bit of a problem with these air bags and that is a fact that the regulation has not kept up with the technology and consumer behavior.

Right now they have to meet a standard for the belted driver and some fool who doesn't want to wear a safety belt. And for those fools that don't want to wear their safety belt, that bag has to be designed to come out faster and with more power. If we could get rid of that standard, relax it a bit so you only have to meet the belted standard and for those idiots that want to continue not wearing a safety belt, let Darwinism take over.

I mean folks that don't wear motorcycle helmets, they're putting their lives on the line. If they want to make that choice, let them make it. But there is a real need and the automakers and safety people have been looking for it to re-look at the airbag standard because they're wonderful devices when coupled as a system with the primary safety device, which is the seat belt.

COSTELLO: Ok. So going back to the defects and how car manufacturers and car companies handled them, I think Honda has kind of a great idea. Top executives will have their pay cut for the next three months because of motor engine defects in their products. Should American companies follow suit?

VINES: Well, I don't know if that really works. It seems like a band-aid, but with some of these recalls, this is going to cause Takata a lot of money. Especially when the plaintiff's bar gets really heated up knowing that they possibly hit something, it's being investigated, but they are certainly slow on the switch. This is going to cost them hundreds of millions if not billions and billions of dollars which is going to impact the compensation of their executives. So they're going to get it in the pocket, too. You just have to find out where was the hiding going? Was it a low-level engineer or did it go up to the top and they knew they had something they just didn't want to put the customer first?

The investigation is ongoing. I think some people are jumping too fast on this. Let's see where it is. Unfortunately, quite a few people are dead in a lot of these incidents we're hearing about lately. Don't jump the gun but let's make sure that we can get those cars as fast as possible and all these companies, as I say in the book, put your customer first and whatever you do, don't lie or you're dead.

COSTELLO: Great advice. Jason Vines, thank you so much for your insight. We appreciate it.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: Members of Canada's parliament are telling stories of diving for cover and barricading themselves when gunfire echoed through the halls during Wednesday's terror attack. Others made a run for it and managed to get out of the Capital building with their lives.

One of them is a Canadian parliament member Rosane Dore Lefebvre. We're glad you're safe this morning. And thank you so much for joining me.

ROSANE DORE LEFEBVRE, MEMBER, CANADIAN PARLIAMENT: My pleasure, thank you.

COSTELLO: We all watched together what happened in Canada's parliament yesterday when there was a standing ovation for the hero -- the new hero in Canada. What was that like for you?

LEFEBVRE: Really emotional to see all the constable, the RCMP, the police on the hill, everybody was thanking them for all the great job they did on the 22nd. So when we all got up to make a standing ovation for Kevin Vickers, who is our sergeant at arms, I started to cry. I can't thank him and his team enough for the wonderful job he did to make sure we were all protected.

COSTELLO: He seemed so stoic to me but it also seemed like he had tears in his eyes and made me wonder what was going through his mind during this series of standing ovations.

LEFEBVRE: I think it's hard, maybe, for him to realize what he did. He's an amazing man. He's -- on the hill he's always smiling, helping us, making sure we're always in security. He's a great, great man. He worked for the RCMP, our police services in Canada for a really long time. He's really professional. But we could see in his eyes that he was really, really emotional yesterday. I saw him just five or ten minutes before the standing ovation in the house and he saw me and he just came to me and gave me a big, big hug and he said to me everything's going to be all right. So it was a pretty emotional day.

COSTELLO: He just seems like an awesome guy. We have to talk about the man who created this terror in Canada, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. Right now there are no links to Middle Eastern terrorists. What do you think about that?

LEFEBVRE: As I was saying earlier. I believe in the police services here. They're going to make an investigation. We have to find out how those things happened. Why he got on the hill. How come he got a card? There're so many questions right now that we can't answer but all the parties -- all the political parties in Ottawa, we all agree we need total independent police investigation on that to see who he is and why this event happens on the 22nd.

COSTELLO: Rosane Dore Lefebvre, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

LEFEBVRE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, officials scrutinizing the safety of U.S. troops in Turkey after ISIS tries to kidnap a Syrian rebel. What precautions could our military take? We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Turkey says a deal has now been reached to let some 200 Kurdish Peshmerga force through the country to help Syrian fighters battle ISIS in the war-torn town of Kobani. The town has been the center of fierce clashes as the terrorist organization tries to take control of Kobani and extend its hold on the region.

But a new report in the "Washington Post" detailing an attempted kidnapping in Turkey plotted by ISIS is sparking fears about the group's reach in Turkey and whether U.S. troops could be the next target of these kidnapping groups.

Joining me now, Liz Sly, Baghdad bureau chief for the "Washington Post", she's skyping for us from her hotel room in Turkey; and Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, our CNN military analyst. Welcome to both of you.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thank you -- Carol.

LIZ SLY, BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF, "WASHINGTON POST": Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. Liz, in your report you talk about growing concerns about what you call ISIS' deep roots in Turkey. Tell us more about that network.

SLY: Well, yes, as we all know, for these past three years we've had a lot of foreign fighters flowing across the border through Turkey into Syria. What people have not looked at so closely is the fact that they are now right on Turkey's border and they come back into Syria. They come back into Turkey. They come back and forth. They move across this border very freely.

And there's plenty of evidence emerging that they are establishing some quite deep roots in Turkey. They've got family here. They use Turkey for their supplies, for their medical supplies. They get medical treatment here and now we have the situation where they have actually attempted to kidnap in Turkey. They snatched a Free Syrian Army commander, took him across the border and he managed to escape but it was an incident that reminded us how alarming the situation could become.

COSTELLO: So Liz, just to be clear, what's happening is ISIS is paying criminal elements within Turkey to kidnap military personnel so that they can use them for ransom or for what? Well sadly, we know for what.

SLY: In this instance, this was a commander who's taken a very prominent stand against them and he's fought against them. It would have been a big publicity coup to have caught him. The people who told us about this incident said they appeared to be Turkish mafia but I kind of suspect that it wasn't just freelancers. There might be some quite close ties between Turkish gangs and ISIS that they have used these networks in the past to smuggle themselves in and out of Turkey and -- in and out of Syria and to secure their support networks in Turkey.

COSTELLO: General Hertling, this sounds really scary. How big of a risk is this down the road for a U.S. soldier?

HERTLING: Well, it's always been a concern across the borders between Turkey and Syria and Turkey and Iraq. We had the same problem when I was in northern Iraq in 2007 and 2008 that there were a lot of al Qaeda elements moving back and forth across the border. Of course when they go to the border outputs, they don't announce the fact that they are part of ISIS or part of al Qaeda, they just move through, show a passport and go.

But I think the linkage to the criminal network is critical. That's why ISIS is so dependent on the oil resources, the ransom resources that they're paying not only their fighters but these Turkish mafia, as she said. But it's a significant feature that's in the realm of forced protection for our soldiers that are in various places within Europe and in Turkey.

COSTELLO: Well, we do know, General, that earlier this month U.S. military officials in Europe reportedly told commanders they should consider instructing troops not to wear their uniforms off base. Do you think that's something that should be done?

HERTLING: Well, it is -- that's not the first time that's occurred -- Carol. When I was commander in Europe we did that several times based on terrorist threats and some active reporting. It is something that we try and keep as part of the force protection. You not only tell them don't wear your uniforms off base, travel in buddy teams, keep awareness. That's constantly advertised on the Armed Forces network.

But the critical piece is you not only have soldiers in Europe but you also have family members. There's about 30,000 soldiers assigned to European command and another 30,000 Marines, Air Force, Navy people assigned there. So you have close to 70,000 or 80,000 military personnel as well as diplomatic personnel throughout Europe.

Not as many in Turkey. You have the bases in Izmir, you have -- as you're showing right now the air defense forces that are part of a battery of German, Dutch and American air defensemen in Turkey. So they're very concerned about this but I think commanders really forced the message of be careful, travel in buddy teams, don't wear your uniforms when you don't have to.

COSTELLO: All right. Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling and the "Washington Post's" Liz Sly, thanks to both of you; I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a bus driver comes to the rescue when a thief tried to nab a passenger's purse. What happens next is amazing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A bus driver saves the day when a passenger tries to steal a woman's purse and, of course, it's all caught on tape. Jeanne Moos is up at bat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: This is the story of a Chilean bus driver who ended up at bat in his bus. He came to a stop, opened the door for passengers as the Norah Jones song "Sunrise" played. Keep an eye on the two guys at the end of the line. One of them is going to get what Norah was singing about.

The guy tries to grab the front row passenger's purse. He acts like he was joking but tries to grab it again. The driver slams the door, trapping his hand. The bus driver whacked him with a bat over and over as the thief tried to talk his way out of the beating by saying he was just playing a joke on his Aunt Maria. At one point, the driver told the thief I'm badder than you. And by the eighth whack, the thief was crying.

The driver drove the bus to the police, dropped the thief off into the hands of the law. Commenters on the Reddit page "Justice Porn" called the video insanely satisfying. "The bus driver is the real MVP. I'm pretty sure he was batting a thousand there."

Ok, he wasn't the usual hero bus driver. Like the one in Buffalo, New York, who saw a woman on a bridge contemplating suicide, stopped the bus --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma'am, are you ok?

MOOS: He got out, carefully approached her, put his arms around her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I said do you want to come on this side of the guardrail?

MOOS: She did and the bus driver ended up sitting down on the ground to comfort her.

Another driver near Portland, Oregon pulled over when he saw a barefoot toddler in a diaper wandering along the street. The driver got out and brought the two-year-old back. Turns out the boy managed to leave his apartment while his dad was still asleep.

The 22-year-old would-be purse snatcher was cuffed rather than coddled. Police left the bus, went on its way, at the wheel a driver who didn't bat an eyelash about batting -- a driver.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: It's amazing. They guy kept driving through all of that. And everyone was safe. So, give a tip to your bus driver today.

Thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

"@THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA" after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: No reason to be alarmed, but some certainly are after word the first patient with Ebola in New York road the subway and went bowling before being diagnosed.

We're waiting for a live update on that patient. We're going to be hearing from Mayor Bill de Blasio in just a little bit. We will bring you that news conference live.