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Fatal Shooting of Russian Opposition Leader; CPAC Is Unofficial Start of GOP Primary; Interview with Lloyd Blankfein; Egyptian Court: Hamas A Terrorist Organization; Frayed Edges Showing In U.S.-Israeli Relationship; Border Drones: High Price For Eye-In-The-Sky
Aired February 28, 2015 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And another thing he apparently said that he had some new information on what exactly was going on in Ukraine. We gather this from opposition sources. However, it's unclear what that information was supposed to be.
Now, after what happened, of course, what's going on now, that rally that was supposed to take place tomorrow is going to be a morning rally instead. What will happen is there's a march of mourners that's going to go through central Moscow, mourning the death of Boris Nemtsov, and so things have changed.
But one of the things that I want to hit on as well, Fredricka, because you mentioned that, is the model, Anna Duritskaya, because she does play a pivotal role. I spoke to one of Boris Nemtsov's friends yesterday. What happened was after this incident here is that she called this friend. He was over here in about 10 minutes and saw Nemtsov lying here on the ground dead. He said that before she was then taken in for questioning by the police that she was able to talk to him to that she did give him a quick run down of what happened. She said the two of them were walking here along this bridge where all this happened, and all a sudden, a car stopped next to them. As you said, several people were in the car. She says that immediately someone from the car opened fire and that then, shortly afterwards, the car sped away -- Fredricka?
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, my goodness. So Putin is promising punishment in the investigation. Do people believe that will take place?
PLEITGEN: Well, of course, there's certain people who have serious doubts that will take place or whether or not anyone will be found. However, the Russian authorities are saying they are already making headway in their investigation. They've already said they have identified a white vehicle that they believe might have been used in all of this. There was CCTV video of the vehicle earlier, and now apparently it's been found on a lot here in Moscow.
Also, what the Russian authorities are saying is that they are talking to witnesses, but they also say they are still going through hours and hours of additional CCTV video, because one of the things we have to keep in mind, Fredricka is this happened here, next to the Kremlin, in the Red Square, is one that has a lot of surveillance. It's also one that has a lot of people here, would have had a lot of people here at the time that all of this happened. So there certainly appears to be a lot of witnesses and also a lot of electronic surveillance that happened that seem to show or would have shown what exactly took place here on Friday night.
WHITFIELD: Gosh. Well, seems like those details would likely be documented. We will soon find out.
Frederik Pleitgen, thank you so much, in Moscow.
Just last spring, Boris Nemtsov sat down with our Anthony Bourdain as part of his CNN "Parts unknown," and Nemtsov spoke about the dangers that come with criticizing the Russian government.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CNN HOST, PARTS UNKNOWN: Bad things seem to happen to critics of Vladimir Putin. Journalists, activists, and those seemingly untouchable with fair game if they displease the leader.
(on camera): So we were to be dining in another restaurant this evening, but they heard you were joining me, and we were uninvited. Should I be concerned having dinner with you?
BORIS NEMTSOV, RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER: This is a country of corruption. If you're in business, you're in a very unsafe situation. Everybody can press you and destroy your business. This is a system.
BOURDAIN (voice-over): Meet Boris Nemtsov. He's deputy prime minister under Yeltsin, and today, he's one of Putin's most vocal critics.
(SHOUTING)
BOURDAIN: This restaurant was kind enough to take us in. But the chef is a Brit so maybe he has less reason to worry.
UNIDENTIFIED CHEF: First course, gentlemen.
BOURDAIN (on camera): Ah.
(voice-over): At this restaurant, they serve their own versions of Russian classics. A modern riff on borsht, typically, a chunky broth and chunks of meat, but here, it's a puree with an elegant deconstructed presentation.
(on camera): Critics of the government, critics of Putin, bad things happen to them.
NEMTSOV: Yes. Unfortunately, existing power represent what I say Russia of 19th century, not of 21st.
BOURDAIN (voice-over): Critics of Putin, beware.
Oligarch, Michel Kovokaski (ph) accused Putin of corruption, and he spent 10 years in prison in labor camps. Alexander Litvinenko accused state security services of organizing a
coupe to put Putin in power. He was poisoned by a lethal dose of radioactive polonium.
And Viktor Yushchenko, the former Ukrainian president, was poisoned, disfigured, and nearly killed by a toxic dose of dioxin.
(on camera): I'm not saying official Russian bodies had anything to do with it, but it's mighty suspicious.
I don't think you need to be a conspiracy theorist to believe whoever did this very much wanted everyone to know who done it. Everybody understands --
NEMTSOV: Yes, of course.
BOURDAIN: -- and everybody is meant to understand.
NEMTSOV: Yeah. Everybody understands. Everybody understands everything --
BOURDAIN: Right.
NEMTSOV: -- in this country.
(LAUGHTER)
BOURDAIN (voice-over): When you're talking classic conspiracy theories and classically Russian-style paranoia, you want the classic Russian food with it.
Komini (ph), minced beef dumplings served on a pillow of cabbage with sour cream.
(on camera): Very good. Maybe the most extreme visible example of how things seem to work here is the Sochi Olympics.
NEMTSOV: If you look at the map of Russian configuration, it's difficult to find a sport without snow and ice at all. But Putin did.
(LAUGHTER)
BOURDAIN: Seems like an obvious question. I mean, if we wanted to hold winter Olympics in Miami, presumably someone says, isn't it a little warm there.
NEMTSOV: This is absolutely personal Putin project.
BOURDAIN: Right.
NEMTSOV: They spend more than 50 billion of dollars, which is the most expensive games of mankind.
BOURDAIN: 26,000 a seat for the curling stadium to build?
NEMTSOV: Per seat. Putin road for probably across (INAUDIBLE), which is 30 miles. Price for that, nine billion of U.S. dollars.
BOURDAIN: This is a road, right?
NEMTSOV: It's three times expensive than American program flying to Mars.
BOURDAIN (voice-over): Who got many of those contracts for the roads and stadiums and infrastructure? Well, there's these guys. Put Putin's childhood friends and judo partners, the Rotenberg (ph) brothers, whose company received contracts worth upwards of $7 billion. And Putin's associate of 20 years, Vladimir Yokunin (ph), who owns the state railroads. His company received $10 billion worth of contracts.
NEMTSOV: It's very easy to imagine what's happened with this money.
BOURDAIN (on camera): Right.
(voice-over): You know who cares in Russia? Just about no one.
(on camera): This is a case of -- the Litvinenko case -- a known enemy of Putin, hit with a fatal dose of radioactive polonium, aren't you concerned?
NEMTSOV: Me, about myself?
BOURDAIN: Yeah. You're a pain in the (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
NEMTSOV: I was born here, 54 years ago. This is my country. Russian people are in a bit of the trouble. Russian court does not work. Russian education declines every year. And I believe that Russia has a chance to be free. There's a chance. It is difficult, but we must do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And Ukraine president, Petro Poroshenko, called Nemtsov a bridge between Ukraine and Russia and suggested that he was murdered, quote, "not by accident."
The presidential election here in the U.S. is more than a year away, but conservatives are already casting their ballots. Our political panel weighing in, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right, in just a few hours, we'll know who die-hard conservatives want to be their next president. That's when CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, releases this year's straw poll. Attendees have heard from several potential candidates for president and have been voting all weekend long.
Let's bring in our political panel. In Los Angeles, CNN senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein, the editor at the "National Journal."
Good to see you.
And Larry Sabato, director of Center for Politics in University of Virginia.
Good to see you as well.
Ron, you first.
It seems the GOP has many or more potential candidates as in 2012, so what will be different this time? Who stands out and how?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, my thought -- I was not in the room, I watched it on TV, so I can't tell you who played best in the room. But historically, that hasn't been a good predictor of anything.
WHITFIELD: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: I thought the best two presentations were Rand Paul and Jeb Bush. And ironically, I thought they were the best because they were the most against the current in the hall. What we saw on the first day of the conference was reaffirmation of traditional hawkish Republican foreign policy, kind of a post-Iraq, the post, post Iraq period. Rand Paul, that was seen to be a threat to him, he came out and gave a very forceful presentation on Friday basically making the case for a more restrained foreign policy and couching it effectively pretty effectively with conservative language.
And Jeb Bush, going into the lion's den with an audience skeptical of him, did a good job balancing the argument conservative of governor without backing away from some of the positions that rankle conservatives but could make him strong in November if he gets that far.
WHITFIELD: Interesting.
So, Larry, is Jeb Bush the biggest threat here?
LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Well, Bush is naturally the front runner. He's not a heavy front runner, not doing well in the polls, but given the fact that he has the lion's share of large donors, important staff members, and connections in the Republican party, I think, clearly, you'd put him first.
Scott Walker did reasonably well, but I agree with Ron. I think, you know, Jeb Bush deserves a T-shirt that reads "I survived CPAC."
(LAUGHTER)
Clearly, they were not willing to listen to his positions on immigration, Common Core, and there's some resistance to the idea naturally of nominating a third Bush within this short period of time. But on the whole, he got through it and showed good humor doing it. Walker played well with the audience, and Marco Rubio played well. Some minor candidates did well, like Carly Fiorina, who is auditioning to be the anti-Hillary Clinton spokesperson of the Republican Party.
WHITFIELD: Does she stand a good chance of that? I wonder if voters feel fatigue seeing a familiar face one more time running again. It's like they cancel them out, meaning the American, you know, voting public cancels them out even though the person with the experience in running feels like, you know, I learned something from the last campaign and I want to try it again, Larry?
SABATO: Well, if you are talking about Carly Fiorina --
(CROSSTALK)
WHITFIELD: Yes, I am.
SABATO: -- she's a minor candidate. She's trying for a cabinet post or something like that.
Look, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton are fascinating. They need one another. They really do. They have dynasty problems. There's Clinton fatigue and more Bush fatigue. They have the establishment balancing involved, and they need each other in this campaign. I think, you know, in a way, Hillary Clinton and her people hope that Jeb Bush gets the nomination unless Republicans throw it away by nominating somebody too far to the right to win.
WHITFIELD: Ron, is that Bush-Clinton fatigue big?
BROWNSTEIN: It is definitely an issue if it comes to that. I want to add another name that Larry mentioned, focusing on Scott Walker a second. He has the potential to be a very formidable opponent to Jeb Bush's right --
(CROSSTALK)
WHITFIELD: And why is that, and how is that?
(CROSSTALK)
WHITFIELD: Especially since his performance on handling certain issues has not really been polished and precise. Why is it, so far, he seems to be the favorite there in CPAC?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, because I think that -- what he's been -- he's been able to do something so far in early polling that we have not seen since George W. Bush. He's been able to appeal across the party. The more upscale, secular affluent, managerial side of the party, they picked the last two nominees, Mitt Romney, John McCain. Jeb Bush is likely the favorite of that part of the party. The more populous, conservative, evangelical side of the party, they've had nominees -- champions in Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Santorum in 2012, who could not reach beyond that beachhead. What we see in early polling is Walker, to a far greater extent than Santorum or Huckabee, is doing well among those populous conservatives but also and showing strength among the more upscale managerial conservatives. That makes him a more formidable challenger if he emerges from Iowa. And that's the key. Does Iowa elevate a candidate who ultimately can win or does it elevate a candidate who is only appealing to a small faction of the party.
WHITFIELD: All right, Ron Brownstein, Larry Sabato, good to see you. Thank you so much.
SABATO: Thank you.
BROWNSTEIN: Thanks.
WHITFIELD: All right, still ahead, he's one of thee most powerful men on Wall Street, and says inequality in America is destabilizing the economy. Hear what else Goldman Sach's chairman and CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, told CNN's Poppy Harlow. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Over the years, we increased the amount of technology in our homes, and that's meant increased demands on the electric grid. So we turned to solar and wind power as renewables became all the rage.
(on camera): Being energy efficient is just the start. Imagine if your home provided all its own energy. For instance, the heat from your television powers your coffee maker.
(voice-over): This house can do just that. On the outside, it looks like any other home in suburban Washington, D.C. On the inside, it's a laboratory.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We take over 500 readings of data every minute.
QUEST: The National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, for short, built this house to prove that Net Zero is possible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So a Net Zero energy home is a home over the course of the year produces as much energy as it consumed. We have a virtual family that lives here, and they perform all the same functions you would with your own family. We have the vices, for example, that emulate a toaster, a blender, a hand mixer, and all of these devices operate at a precise time according to a schedule, so that the home is occupied as a home normally would be.
QUEST: In the first year, the house went way beyond Net Zero. It actually produced a surplus. Enough energy was left over to drive an electric vehicle 1400 miles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right. Do you feel like all Americans get a fair shake when it comes to getting a piece of the American dream?
One of thee most powerful men on Wall Street, Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs speaks out about that. He's giving a wide ranging interview to Poppy Harlow.
Poppy, here in the studio. Wide ranging. He just said, you know what, I'll talk about anything and everything, and he did.
(LAUGHTER)
POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You never make any agreements in the interviews, and you want to ask them anything. But we talked about oil prices, the China's economy, U.S. economy. But one of the things we found most interesting, Fred, was income inequality. You have one of the upper echelons, part of the 1 percent, talking about the issue of income inequality in the country, and he weighed in with some particular feelings on how important it is to us right now. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: You have said that income inequality is a destabilizing factor in this country, and I am wondering what you think it could mean if there is not improvement in, say, the next five years. We saw what the lack of economic opportunity has done in the Middle East, for example.
(CROSSTALK)
HARLOW: Are you worried about social uprisings?
LLOYD BLANKFEIN, CHAIRMAN & CEO, GOLDMAN SACHS: Look, no. The American culture is not that way. Look, we went through a Great Depression with unemployment rates 25 percent. We're not -- you know, we're not there. It's -- we're not destabilized. It is destabilizing. You know, when people are not happy and think the economic system is not working for them. We have done a better job in this country at creating wealth than distributing it, and we have to do a better job. And it behooves everybody to join.
By the way, the people who are the beneficiaries of the economic progress are not necessarily the cause of it. In other words, if you ask people to vote, are you for inequality, everyone says no. There have been a lot of factors in the world that have evolved that have skewed the world. There was a rise of technology, a winner-take-all market. I think we all have to get together and work on this problem. It's everybody's problem.
HARLOW: So other than growing the pie, what can be done? Where does the responsibility lie?
BLANKFEIN: Listen, one of the things we have to do, which I think is the easiest thing, is I think we have to supply to the general public, and cheaply or freely, freely, all the things that the very well-to-do can buy for themselves that the poor don't, that are the predicate for success later in life. So training, education, housing. Those are things that the wealthiest people have and the poorest people do not have. And if you don't have it, you lose your access to the escalator that could take you up and through the middle class and higher.
So what we have to do is, if you collected revenue from the whole, which means from -- the progressive tax system, the wealthier people, and not write checks to people, but rather invest it in education, housing, those benefits will disproportionally move to the immediate elements of society.
HARLOW: I feel people know this but it doesn't happen.
BLANKFEIN: Well, you know, we have a political system that's stuck and it's very, very hard to get -- it's very, very hard to move things along. Harder than it should be.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: All right. He said some pretty extraordinary things there, you know, namely, said, you know, we've done a better job of creating wealth and distributing it but, at the same time, we have to invest more in education. So which is it? I mean, is he happy, you know, that there is some progress made in the direction, or is he saying there is work to be done?
HARLOW: I think he said the government stalls trying to get this done And interesting headed into the 2016 election, right, who is he going to support, who is wall street going to support. And, you know, he has, in the past, has made very positive comments about Hillary Clinton. So I asked, are you supporter of Hillary Clinton. He said, you're asking me endorse them before they have announced they are running. He gave indications that he was a supporter there.
He's putting it on the government to say we need to make more progress on this front, behooves us all. A lot of people look at companies, Goldman Sachs, a number of companies across sectors, and says, well, what are you companies doing, and he said we're doing a better job at making money in this country than distributing it. What is that going to mean going forward? That's one of thee key issues in 2016, no question.
WHITFIELD: Very provocative statements.
There's much more. Poppy, glad that, you know, folks can catch more of this, this interview, right here on CNN.com/investing (sic). I wish I knew more.
HARLOW: CNNMoney.com/investing. There's a full interview. It's all right there.
WHITFIELD: Poppy, thanks so much.
(CROSSTALK)
WHITFIELD: All right
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Hello, again. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. A developing story out of Egypt. Today, an Egyptian court ruled that
Hamas is a terrorist organization. That same court designated the armed wing or Hamas a terror group last month. A Hamas spokesman says the decision will contaminate the reputation of Egypt. The Egyptian government has been at odds with Hamas since former President Mohammad Morsi was ousted in 2013.
I spoke earlier with a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Edward Walker, and here's what he said about today's decision by the Egyptian court.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDWARD WALKER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO EGYPT: The Egyptians have been facing a very serious problem in the Sinai that affects both their security and the Israeli's security, so I think it makes a lot of sense now, problem is, of course, Morsi was part of Hamas, and the former president was part of Hamas.
And so there's going to be accusations against the Israeli regime, but it seems to me pretty reasonable that they would then follow through with their basic threats that if you don't support us, get out of the way.
CNN's Ian Lee is in Cairo. So Ian, will today's decision, you know, sit well with the average Egyptian?
IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think what the average Egyptian, Fredricka, believe that Hamas is a threat to Egypt. They are part of the Muslim Brotherhood. They accuse Hamas of fuelling the insurgency in Northern Sinai, which Egypt has lost hundreds of security personnel.
They also accuse them of a 2011 jailbreak that involved Muslim Brotherhood leaders escaping from jail. So these are the accusations that are going against Hamas. These are things also Hamas denies, but it is unclear what this ruling actually means.
This sort of declaration usually is left to the executive branch. The president makes this call. There's also a new terrorism law here in Egypt that says that this court doesn't have the sort of jurisdiction.
It belongs to another court and the general prosecutor. So we're still waiting to see if this ruling will be upheld. It can be appealed, but it is another big blow between relations between Egypt and Hamas, things soured since 2013.
And Egypt has been a broker in the peace deals between -- during the wars between Hamas and Israel, and we'll wait to see, you know, what that means for Egypt and Hamas going forward.
WHITFIELD: All right, Ian Lee, thanks so much, from Cairo.
All right, still ahead, the Israeli prime minister will speak to Congress about Iran in less than three days. His visit is already straining U.S. and Israeli relations. Will there be any improvement?
But first, CNN Money's Laurie Segall has a look at this week's money innovation report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ADRIAN GRANIER, ACTOR: What do you do with a blue whale?
LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: I have no idea.
GRANIER: You cheer him up. What do you do with a lonely whale?
SEGALL: I don't know.
GRANIER: You fund the kick starter so he can find him.
SEGALL (voice-over): That's Adrian Granier. You might know him as Benny Chase from the show "Entourage."
(VIDEO CLIP)
SEGALL: So why is he tailing me whale jokes? It all comes down to a movie he wants to make about a whale nicknamed "52."
GRANIER: He speaks at 52 hertz whereas other whales speak at 15 to 15 hertz so he's on a different wave length. He's calling out his whole entire life without even once receiving a response.
SEGALL (on camera): That is so depressing.
GRANIER: Well, it's certainly lonely.
SEGALL (voice-over): It's a story that dates back to 1989 when an oceanographic researcher picked up a 52-hertz frequency in the ocean. The scientist, Dr. William Watkins, determined the sound belonged to a one of a kind whale whose call could not be heard by any other whales. He spent years tracking 52 also known as the loneliest whale in the world.
GRANIER: Imagine calling out and nobody responding. Imagine feeling like you're being misunderstood.
SEGALL: The story strikes a chord and Granier wants to move behind the camera to capture it.
GRANIER: We're asking for help with our search.
SEGALL: They are looking to raise $300,000 on Kickstarter to fund a quest to tell 52's story, collect data, and make a film.
GRANIER: We're looking to fund a scientific expedition that will actually give us an opportunity to study hybrid whales and the effects of ocean noise pollution on these majestic creatures.
SEGALL (on camera): What is your personal connection to the lonely whale?
GRANIER: "Entourage" is all about friendship and connections. Vince and the gang, they have each other. I guess it's safe to say that the lonely whale needs an entourage.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: It's a badly kept secret, that there is no love lost between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, but ever since the Israeli leader agree to accept an invitation to speak to Congress next week, those underlying tensions have risen to the surface. CNN global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The bickering between the White House and Benjamin Netanyahu over his planned speech to Congress hit a new low this week, the U.S.-Israeli relations deteriorating to the worst scene in decades.
SUSAN RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: There has now been injected a degree of partisanship, which is not only unfortunate. I think it's destructive of the fabric of the relationship.
LABOTT: The Israeli leader's decision to accept House Speaker John Boehner's invitation behind the White House's back further strained a frosty relationship with President Obama.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The prime minister and I have a very real difference around Iran. It does not make sense to sour the negotiations a month or two before they're about to be completed.
LABOTT: With the suggestion that Netanyahu was playing election politics, the administration refused to meet with him two weeks before Israelis go to the polls. Netanyahu has doubled down saying he too had a very, quote, "profound disagreement with the White House over Iran" and while he wasn't picking a fight with the president.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: I intend to talk about this issue before the March 24th deadline and I intend to speak in the U.S. Congress because Congress may have an important role on a nuclear deal with Iran.
LABOTT: The speech became fodder for partisan bickering about two dozen congressional Democrats plan to skip the speech and are urging the speaker to delay the address which they warned was, quote, "undermining the president's diplomacy."
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: It's out of order in terms of the protocol and the respect.
LABOTT: Undeterred the speaker is taking on the White House head on.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: What is destructive in my view is making a bad deal that paves the way for a nuclear Iran.
LABOTT: As the visit draws closer, the jabs are getting sharper and more personal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you even had this discussion?
JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: He may have a judgment that just may be not correct here.
LABOTT: Leaving little hope for a thaw in this tense relationship any time soon.
NETANYAHU: I respect the White House and the president of the United States, but I must do anything to prevent such a great danger for Israel.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LABOTT: This is just the latest war of words in the long simmering feud between the White House and Netanyahu. In October, an unnamed senior administration official was quoted using an expletive to describe the prime minister calling him a coward for refusal to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians. Elise Labott, CNN, Jerusalem.
WHITFIELD: Still ahead, did you know the government is using drones to track down undocumented immigrants at the border each arrest costing about $28,000. And guess who is paying for that? Our Drew Griffin has a special CNN investigation next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: For nearly a decade, the U.S. has been quietly patrolling hundreds of miles of the Mexican border with unmanned drones, chasing down undocumented immigrants, drug smugglers, and possibly even terrorists.
But as senior investigative correspondent, Drew Griffin, discovered, this high flying technology comes at an extremely high price for taxpayers with questionable results say some.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are sleek, mostly silent retooled weapons of war, now battling the war on Arizona's border. Predator drones patrolling the skies in the hunt for illegal immigrants. And according to the retired marine general who runs this program, they are proving invaluable.
RANDOLPH "TEX" ALLES, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION: We could never see the border in the same ways as we could before we got these platforms.
GRIFFIN: Trouble is, General Randolph "Tex" Alles is one of the few in government who think so, and a look at the price tag tells you why. Report after report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general is basically calling this entire operation a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Tom Barry with the Center for International Policy studies the billions spent securing the border and nothing could be a bigger waste, he says, than the $28,000 spent on a predator drone to catch just one illegal immigrant. You heard that right, $28,000 to catch a single illegal immigrant.
TOM BARRY, CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY: It has been a waste since the program began in 2005. The inspector general says that we should not spend any money. I think it should be shut down.
GRIFFIN: Seen up close, it's impressive technology. Drones at 18,000 feet silently view the landscape below. Determine and lock on to potential suspects crossing the vast Arizona desert. Commanded by a control team, safely tucked inside a virtual cockpit, those controllers send the guards right to where they are needd.
(on camera): So this is happening now in realtime. That's the pilot of the drone. This is the person who is the second pilot. He's watching the camera. They have detected a group that's now crossing the border or illegally, potentially suspects.
And another group of gentlemen, which we can't show you, actually has the radar screen to try vector in agents to see, are these guys illegal? Are they carrying dope? Do they need to be arrested? That's happening right now.
(voice-over): It seems perfect until you actually do the math. That arrest, according to the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general cost you, the taxpayer, $28,000.
(on camera): That does not seem like an efficient way to protect the border?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, that's one of the reasons that we wrote this audit.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Each drone cost $12 million. Operations run $62 million a year. The entire program is $300 million. All for nine drones that fly part time. Although he won't say it flat out, Inspector General John Roth's latest report is clear, military drones used by the Customs and Border Patrol to catch illegal immigrants is a waste.
(on camera): The CBP has fired back, they are saying that you, your office, the inspector general did not capture a lot of the things that we believe are valuable about this program that can't be measured.
JOHN ROTH, INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: So the question you have to ask yourself is what do are we getting from this? You have to be able to measure your investment, and that's true in the government, true in business, and I think that's what the American taxpayer wants.
GRIFFIN: And in the measure of this drone program, it's not measuring up.
ROTH: As we see it, while it contributes to border security, they have not put measurements in place as to whether it's effective. The measurements we saw show that in fact it is not effective.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): The inspector general says his job is to point out where money is being wasted, and the drones, he says, are indeed a waste. Yet they fly, and Congress is even debating to buy more. To Tom Barry, it's a clear example of Congress and the Customs and Border Patrol simply ignoring the facts.
BARRY: The CBP refuses to set performance goals that it snubs its nose at these very reports that are made by government investigators so one can become very indignant as a researcher and certainly indignant of the taxpayer.
GRIFFIN: The U.S. is now spending more than $12 billion a year supposedly to secure the border, which almost by almost all accounts is hardly secure with or without predator drones.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: All right, Drew Griffin, with me now in the NEWSROOM. All right, so $28,000, but what's the alternative?
GRIFFIN: Well, the alternative, the border guards, hire more guards, make the arrests on the ground where these people are coming through roads, also at bus stops, at other forms of transportation, which right now they are not doing to the extent that they are, but 18,000 feet up they say is too high, too slow to get people on the ground.
WHITFIELD: But then if the bottom line, $28,000 per person, that's kind of the needle pricking a lot of people, how much would it cost with the manpower there and the issue of their personal safety.
GRIFFIN: Right. Well, there's the great unknown in this and how much does the drones help the border guards on the ground, who actually are credited with making these arrests?
So there's a lot of money manipulation and accounting finger pointing here, but the fact of the matter is there's many people who believe the drones are too expensive and not the right piece of equipment for the job.
These were -- predator drones were built to get terrorists and kill them in Afghanistan. Now they are repurposed to patrol the border on the southwest side of the country.
WHITFIELD: Are critics now threatening to remove this program?
GRIFFIN: No. You know, that's the thing. Everybody wants to try to make this work, even in Congress the critics say, well, we have to have better accounting to see how they work and the general in charge of this wants to do a better job before he gets more. But nobody says scrap the whole program. They are saying let's try to make these drones work before we buy more.
WHITFIELD: Those who are taking part in the program believe in the program and are really mum about saying whether there is a better average to take? GRIFFIN: Well, they believe in it. They believe there's much more going on with these drones than you can measure and kind of these metrics that they have back in Washington, D.C., but they want to be able to prove that to Congress before they ask for even more money for drones.
WHITFIELD: All right, Drew Griffin, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With each note, Alex Modi defies expectations. When he was five months old, doctors told his mother something was wrong.
CARRIE MCGEE, SPECIAL NEEDS ADVOCATE: He really did not sleep at all and had a very bad colic, cried 24 hours a day. Doctors discovered a heart condition and that he had lost weight.
GUPTA: Further tests revealed a devastating diagnosis.
MCGEE: We were told he has this thing called Williams Syndrome.
GUPTA: It's a rare genetic disorder, which can cause heart problems, developmental delays, and learning disabilities. She enrolled Alex in a public school and made sure he had much needed speech, physical, and occupational therapies.
But Carrie also knew her son needed something more, and so did she. A place where families could find support so with some other moms, Carrie created that place. It's called "Whole Children." Alex will graduate from high school this year and wants to be a deejay.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want people to think of me as a guy who faced fears.
MCGEE: I see what he brings to the world, which is an incredible gift, just so proud of him.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: The CNN series "FINDING JESUS" discovers fascinating new insights into the historical Jesus. It utilizes the latest scientific techniques and archaeological research to separate faith, fact, and forgery.
In the premier episode airing tomorrow night, CNN's Tom Foreman looks at the Shroud of Turin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a once in a lifetime event, this spring in Italy, the pope and thousands of others will view the biggest religious mystery on earth.
Many believe the shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus miraculously imprinted with his image, and others call it a fake. Considering no one knows what Jesus looked like or how it was made, each side has a lot riding on the debate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They both want to solve the mystery of the Shroud of Turin.
FOREMAN: David Gibson wrote "Finding Jesus."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nowhere in the New Testament, not for 200 or 300 years after Jesus do we get even a remote physical description. If this is basically a photograph of Jesus, then that's a game changer for history and for Christianity.
FOREMAN: Some of the greatest mysteries of the New Testament swirl around Jesus, how he fed the crowds, raised the dead, walked on water, such stories can simultaneously inspire and perplex because beyond gospel, little hard evidence exists. For example, there were several accounts of his birth and death, but little is known about the in- between.
CANDIDA MOSS, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME: One of the big questions, not just in the scholarly world, but world in general, was Jesus married or was he dating when he was a teenager? What was he doing for the 30 odd years?
FOREMAN: Ancient scripts supported the idea that some thought Jesus had a wife, arguments range over its authenticity. And in the Old Testament, the mysteries deepen.
(VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: Noah's Ark still inspires filmmakers and for centuries has spurred searches by those who want faith and facts.
DAVID GIBSON, AUTHOR, "FINDING JESUS": Somehow finding the ark that Noah loaded all those animals on to is the holy grail of people who are trying to prove that the bible is true.
FOREMAN (on camera): Yes, despite centuries of searching and even some claims of success, not one proven trace of the ark has been recovered. The same is true for the army, no swords or shields dredged from the bottom of the Red Sea where the bible says scores perished.
(voice-over): Where was the Garden of Eden? Did humans and dinosaurs coexist as some fundamentalists believe and scientists dispute? Are there missing books of the bible?
GIBSON: People are arguing so intently about Christianity and what Jesus means. They are looking for knock down evidence. They want to win the argument.
FOREMAN: And the biggest question? Should any of this matter? Christianity is all about faith. Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Watch "Finding Jesus" tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Thank you so much for being with me this afternoon. Much more of the NEWSROOM straight ahead with Poppy Harlow.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow joining you today from Atlanta. We begin with this brazen murder just yards from the kremlin sparking worldwide outrage.
Right now, police are scouring the streets of Moscow trying to figure out who killed one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most outspoken critics and why.
Boris Nemtsov was walking with a female friend along a bridge near the Kremlin late last night when a car pulled up. He was shot four times in the back. Here's what we know thus far in the early stages of this investigation.
