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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Spy at the White House; California Wildfire Closes Freeway, Threatens Homes; Rapes Committed in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina; Mysterious Illness in Canada
Aired October 05, 2005 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And good evening, again. I'm Anderson Cooper in New York.
AARON BROWN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And I'm Aaron Brown. And ahead in the second hour of NEWSNIGHT tonight, allegations of spying at the White House. Who's the target? What was compromised? What countries are involved?
Also the naughty question of whether terrible crimes -- rapes were committed at the Superdome, the Convention Center and shelters in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
And the Bird Flu. We'll hear from one of the few people who actually got it, became terrible ill and obviously survived to tell about it. All that and more in the hour ahead.
Anderson?
COOPER: We begin with the story breaking tonight, the basic description of which involves words that may never have been used in the same sentence before. Spy is one of them, White House are two others. Throw in U.S. Marine and naturalized citizen, and you begin to get some idea of just how strange this business is.
CNN Justice Department Correspondent Kelli Arena has more.
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CORRESONDENT: A former U.S. Marine, who's already been arrested for stealing from FBI computers, is now being fingered for allegedly stealing classified information from White House computers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a number of very sensitive sources and methods, interception technologies, human agents; and it's possible that by revealing the information, he actually reveals its source. And once the source is revealed, we can lose the source.
ARENA (voice-over): As first reported by ABC and confirmed by multiple U.S. government sources for CNN, Leandro Aragoncillo allegedly misused his top-secret clearance to download the information, including a dossier on the Philippine president, which he allegedly passed on to her political opposition.
Aragoncillo worked at the White House for three years, from 1999 through 2001, in the vice president's office. But it wasn't until he left to work as an analyst for the FBI that he was nabbed.
Last month federal prosecutors said Aragoncillo and an accomplice were seeking to reveal classified information to foreign nationals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: While it is disheartening to realize that a man, who was hired to be an analyst in our own organization and who was a former serviceman who swore to uphold the United States Constitution, would conduct these types of activities. The American public should be aware that the FBI's ever vigilant against all threats, whether they emanate from beyond our shores or within our own borders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARENA: In a criminal complaint, Aragoncillo was charged with giving the information to Michael Ray Aquino, a former officer with the Philippines Secret Police, who government sources say is expected to be indicted this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have to tell you that our -- our view on matters like this is that there is to be no compromising the secrets of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARENA: Aragoncillo has not been indicted. CNN is attempting to locate both his and Aquino's lawyer for comment.
Officials tell CNN that Aragoncillo has been cooperating with investigators who are trying to determine the scope of his alleged illegal activity. The White House says it's cooperating too, but would not comment on the ongoing investigation and neither would the Justice Department.
Anderson?
COOPER: Do you know what that means that he's been cooperating, meaning he's cooperating he's confessed? Or he's simply being --
ARENA: Well, he's cooperating providing information that officials have described to us as useful, Anderson.
BROWN: Kelli, in the scheme of things here, does it look like we're talking about a Jonathan Pollard case -- a case where someone spied for an ally -- in this case, Israel; or an Aldridge Ames case, which did enormous damage to the federal government?
ARENA: You know, Aaron, it's very difficult to say at this time, but some of the security experts that I spoke to said it really does depend on exactly which computers he had access to in the White House. And that makes a big difference because some of those computers are hooked into some really sensitive security systems; and if he had access to those and revealed methods and sources, then you're talking big trouble. BROWN: All right. Kelli Arena, thanks very much.
Earlier, I discussed the developing story with Ronald Kessler, a former investigative reporter who went on to become a best-selling author of 15 books, including his latest, titled "The Matter of Character Inside the White House with George W. Bush." Kessler's also written books about the FBI, CIA, and several books about spying.
I began by asking him if he's surprised that someone is accused of spying inside the White House.
RONALD KESSLER, AUTHOR: It is such a spectacular thing to have somebody actually spy in the White House, that, you know, I was shocked when I heard about it.
COOPER: Is it easier to spy though in the White House? I mean are -- what are the -- what are the kind of security methods do they go through? Do they do background checks -- obviously they do background checks. Do they do polygraphs?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KESSLER (voice-over): They do background checks, but not polygraphs. And I think this case is going to point in that direction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KESSLER: They do have polygraphs at the FBI now, ever since the Robert Hansen case, even though it had been recommended long before that. And way before that, the CIA started doing regular polygraph tests, and they're important not only to detect spying, and they do detect spying, but they're also important as a deterrent because what spy will want to engage in espionage, knowing that they're going to be polygraphed every six months or every year.
COOPER: What is the rationale that the White House has used that -- to not do polygraphs?
KESSLER: I don't think they've every really thought about it. You know, there's always also been this, of course, concern that somehow if some other agency is involved and in deciding whether people should or should not work there, that that would be political interference, but in fact the FBI does that when they do a background check and it's still up to the White House whether that person will be employed.
And during the Clinton White House, a lot of times the FBI turned up drug use, and the Clinton White House just didn't care and waived that.
So I don't think that that should be a concern. I think this really does show that there should be regular polygraph tests at the White House because the -- the secrets that you can get in the White House are even more spectacular and possibly damaging to the United States' interest than you can get at the CIA or FBI. COOPER: And is it easier in some way to get secrets to the White House?
KESSLER: There's certainly less security. They don't have quite as rigorous a system. For example, for checking on whether people are getting documents from computers that they shouldn't be getting -- and that's actually the good news in this case because allegedly this Marine later went to work for the FBI and the FBI is the one who caught him trying to get documents out of FBI computers that he shouldn't have been looking for.
COOPER: So, are -- are more secrets discussed in meetings at the White House? Is that fair to say, than --
KESSLER: No.
COOPER: -- than in a place like the FBI where might be you could get classified documents?
KESSLER: That's right. There'd be all kinds of secret initiatives, diplomacy, plans being discussed at meetings at the White House that could involve a wide-range of countries, for example. So, just -- just incredible what this person might have picked up beyond what he was interested in for the Philippines.
But apparently, supposedly, he is cooperating. And therefore he is revealing what he may have picked up and what he may have passed along. And I'm sure he's being polygraphed to determine the veracity of what he's saying. So, I think we're going to find out in the end quite a bit about what he may have done.
COOPER: It's important to point out that this is developing story; and given what happened to Captain James Yee, important not to jump to -- to too many conclusions.
BROWN: No, but I always think it's interesting about the polygraph question. I'm not literally not sure how I feel about it. That somehow people think it's OK to polygraph the cleaning people who come in, but if you suggest polygraphing the secretary of state or the chief of staff --
COOPER: They're shocked.
BROWN: Right, they -- they throw a conniption. Yes, --
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: On to James Yee, in 2003 Captain James Yee made news. He spent 76 days in solitary confinement because the Army said he was a spy. He's a graduate of West Point. He converted to Islam. He was working as a chaplain at Guantanamo Bay and started to complain about the way detainees were being treated.
The espionage charges were eventually dropped. Earlier this year, Mr. Yee was given an honorable discharge -- even a medal. But he never got an apology and he never got an explanation. We spoke with him earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: What's it like for an Army captain, a West Point graduate, a child of New Jersey to hear the words that say, you're being charged with spying for -- against your country. You could be sentenced to death. What is that moment like?
JAMES YEE, FORMER GUANTANAMO CHAPLAIN: When those -- when I heard that I was going -- I was being charged with those kind of things and those accusations were being made against me, I actually -- maybe I was being a little naive, but I thought this was all going to be cleared up in a few days and be simply casted as a simple misunderstanding. But, as I -- the longer I stayed in jail, then it started to sink in and that became frightening a little bit.
BROWN: Do you want to scream --
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: What are you people, nuts? I'm not a spy.
YEE: I did want to scream that. But being a chaplain down in Guantanamo and seeing how prisoners are treated, there's not much recourse to -- to object. I was fearful that if I was to object or scream out like that, that that might end up into some kind of violent beating on me, with the excuse that I was a resisting arrest or something like that.
BROWN: Did you -- you -- did you ever worry that you might just disappear, that we would never hear of James Yee again?
YEE: You know, I -- I thought about that. When they transferred me from Jacksonville, Florida, brig in Jacksonville, Florida, down to South Carolina, I was subjected to sensory deprivation, where they actually put goggles, blackened out, on my eyes. I couldn't see anything. They put these heavy industrial earmuffs on my ears. I couldn't hear anything. And I knew about this practice or tactic. It was called sensory deprivation. They use it when they transport detainees from Afghanistan to Guantanamo.
At that point is when I started to think I might be -- they might be taking me somewhere where I may disappear, just like you said. That definitely was going through my mind and that was -- that was scary.
BROWN: Do you think your life will ever be the same?
YEE: No, it won't be the same. One, I know what I went through, what I suffered through. Those 76 days in jail, under conditions in to much extent, worse than in down in Guantanamo, has actually made me a stronger person.
BROWN: Do you love your country any less? Do you think of your country any differently? YEE: Definitely not. Because I know that our country -- the basis for our country are principles, and those principles don't change. Whether people uphold them or not, those principles stay the same. And the country is really the principles of diversity, the religious freedom that I was promoting, equality for all people, justice. Those things aren't going to go away.
BROWN: Nice to meet you. Good luck to you.
YEE: It's a pleasure.
BROWN: Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we were -- we were talking about accountability this afternoon in a different context. But at some point it does seem to me that the Army needs to be accountable here. If there are legitimate reasons why this man was put through this, we ought to know that.
COOPER: Right.
BROWN: And if there aren't, they at the very least, ought to apologize.
COOPER: Do we live in a country where no one apologizes anymore? I mean, whether it's this or from Katrina, we've yet to hear a public official stand up and say, you know what? This is the mistake that I made and I am personally sorry about it, rather than, you know, taking blanket blame, but not actually specifying the mistakes they made.
You just kind of want people to stand up and say, you know what? I made a mistake. I'm sorry about it.
BROWN: Jim Yee would, I know that.
His ordeal played out in a moment of time when the country was a little crazy, when you think about it. It was the years after -- the couple of years after 9/11. We talked about sleeper cells and dirty bombs and the possibilities of both, which is to say a moment or terror. Some of it was justified, some of it not. Spies, after all, really do exist. They always have in the country and probably always will.
Spies and accusations of spying are as old as the first chapter of American history. Every school child knows Benedict Arnold, and every child and adult fears being called a Benedict Arnold.
You don't suppose anyone's ever been called a Julius Rosenberg, but Julius Rosenberg and his wife, Ethel, were the most famous spies of their time, they early days of the Cold War.
Convicted of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets, they were executed on the 19th of June 1953. To this day, there is a robust debate about their guilt. In more recent days, there's been Aldridge Ames, the CIA agent. In '94 his job was finding Soviet spies. You can imagine, if not remember, the agency's embarrassment when it turned out he was a Soviet spy.
Robert Hansen worked at the FBI and worked for the Russian government, too. For 25 years he sold out his country and sold out 100 American operatives. He serves a life sentence.
We don't yet know where this new name fits in, small fish or history changer. We only know that he is there again, the beginning of another chapter in the long book of those who have spied and sold out their country.
COOPER: And, of course, the question is why this time if in fact that is what he has done.
Here's a look at some of the stories happening "Cross-Country," right now. A mystery virus has killed at least 16 in Canada, sent dozens more to the hospital. Hardest hit, a nursing home in Toronto. Scientists know the killer bug is not Bird Flu, but they do not know what it is -- not yet, at least. Much more on this in a moment.
Tropical Storm Tammy spun up out of nowhere this morning. It is already pelting the coast of Florida. Tammy's only packing winds around 50 miles an hour, but it's expected to dump three to five inches of rain in Georgia. Some parts of George, frankly, could use the rain.
Still reeling from two hurricanes, the state of Louisiana has run up a one-billion dollar deficit. Spokeswoman for Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, says the state is running out of money to pay policemen, firefighters and emergency workers. We'll talk to a police officer in New Orleans in a moment.
And finally, failing a stability test in Lake George, a sister boat to the Ethan Allen, which capsized over this weekend, killing 20 elderly passengers, has failed a stability test. The test used 25- gallon drums, instead of people. The test was stopped early for safety reasons, as the boat became unstable.
Coming up tonight, trouble just keeps on coming for New Orleans. Now it is money problems. More on what this could mean for the city's police. We'll talk to the new superintendent.
And a report from Asia. Ground Zero for Bird Flu and the girl who was infected, but survived.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: The New Orleans water worries may be nearly over -- at least we all hope they are. But the city's money troubles are just beginning. Finances also are drying up. That is the bad news. I spoke earlier this evening with the New Orleans Acting Superintendent of Police Warren Riley. Now he wanted to address some allegations made about his past record on the force. I started by asking Superintendent Riley if his officers' jobs may now be in jeopardy because of the city's money problems.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARREN RILEY, ACTING SUPERINTENDENT: No, not at this time. I mean, we have no indication that we will be laid off; 3,000 city workers were in fact laid off, but at no point has the mayor mentioned that law enforcement or any public safety officials will be laid off.
COOPER: What about the 249 officers who disappeared during Katrina -- have any investigations begun? Have you, you know, they were talking about tribunals, where each would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Have you started that process? And has anyone been disciplined or what's going on?
RILEY: We started the process. No one's been disciplined at this point. Some officers will be terminated who were not here. But some officers left after the storm with legitimate reasons. And then we have officers who were actually stranded on rooftops and attics who showed up three or four days after being rescued. So, that 249 is a list that is compiled of all officers who were not here or who left after the storm.
COOPER: What do you say --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: What do you say to the officers? Because I mean, I talked to a lot of them, you know, behind the scenes, and they say, look, I don't want to accept these guys back. I mean, they -- you know, the officers who stayed on their job -- and the vast majority of them -- I mean, they were doing that in impossible circumstances, they had a million reasons why they should have left their post, but they didn't. What do you say to the officers who say, look, why should we take these guys back?
RILEY: Well, I think that we've already sent that message to those officers. We're determining who in fact, as it was stated, is a deserter. Some people were absent without leave. Those who where it is determined that they in fact deserted their post, they will have serious consequences.
COOPER: Let me ask you, you've entered now the realm of -- the public realm in a new way with your new position, and with it comes scrutiny and I know you wanted to address some of the things that are floating out there tonight, and we appreciate that. So I wanted to ask you, there had been a lot of talk about suspensions, that you have been suspended at times in your -- in your past on the police force -- how many times have you been suspended from the police force?
RILEY: Yes, I've actually -- there are -- there are some things that need to be cleared up. I have in fact been suspended five times in my career. Now, three of those were for a traffic accident. And we have a policy that if you're involved in a traffic accident, that you're suspended.
So, I was in fact suspended three times, minor accidents, no one was ever injured. One time as a rookie police officer I was suspended for not appearing in court -- in municipal court. It was an oversight on my part. And then once for neglect, where it was stated that I was -- I did not write a report on a domestic violence issue back in 1994- 1995. This was a mix-up and it was a procedure that was not in place that I was judged by. So, those are the three things --
COOPER: Well, let me ask you about -- let me ask you about that in particular, because that's the one that's gotten a lot of attention. When you ran for Orleans Parish Sheriff, questions were raised about your behavior. A woman named Sharon Robinson came to you, asking for help. She said her boyfriend, a New Orleans police officer, was abusing her, it was domestic violence. Several months later she wound up dead. The case is still unsolved. Her family says basically you should have done more. You should have filed a report. Do you feel you did your due diligence?
RILEY: Yes, I did in fact do my due diligence. I am the person who actually brought that -- at the time of her death, brought it to our public integrity bureau because I was in public integrity. I was promoted to lieutenant. I think -- I guess maybe three months later, this young lady's body was found in a lake. I notified PIB.
The person who she accused of doing that was never ever charged with this crime. He actually received $250,000 in a lawsuit because his name was slandered. I was never investigated for that by the FBI or anyone else and never had a part of it -- a part -- anything to do with it. I did my job appropriately at the time. I was in fact reprimanded for it, but that was basically Superintendent Pennington, who was the chief at the time, basically stated in civil service that it was a mistake.
COOPER: Were you suspended for that, though, for three days?
RILEY: I was for three days, yes.
COOPER: OK, your critics say basically -- and now, you've heard this before and I want to give you the opportunity to address it. They say, look, your department has looting investigations ongoing, desertion investigations, and they ask, given your track record, are you the man to lead this department?
RILEY: Well, I -- there's no one on the job that's more qualified. I've been on for 24 years. I'm not a perfect human being. If you look at my record, I have a master's degree, a bachelor's degree, I've been on 26 years, I've worked in every bureau that this department has and I've been in charge of two of those bureaus, so there's no one that's more qualified. And I admit it, in 24-25 years, have I been perfect? Absolutely not. But I have been a dedicated professional with integrity, yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And he has a very difficult job ahead of him, Superintendent Warren Riley.
(INTERRUPTED BY CNN COVERAGE OF BREAKING NEWS)
COOPER: I have some breaking news to report. I want to show you this video. It is a California -- the latest wildfire -- we've just gotten information about is threatening about 100 homes. It's closed a freeway out in Calimesa, California.
According to the Associated Press, the fire has burned at least 1,000 acres of brush east of Los Angeles. It burned to the edge of the 60 freeway. According to a fire department official, quoted by the Associated Press, motorists were actually passing within yards of the flames before authorities closed ten-mile stretch of the road.
Airplanes have dropped fire retardant on this area, but as you see only about five percent contained that we are being told at this hour. This fire, out in Riverside County in California. I will continue to watch this, and bring you any updates as warranted.
Still to come tonight on NEWSNIGHT, what exactly happened in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina? We've been asking this question -- and in the Convention Center, as well. We've been asking this question now for a month. Still trying to investigate, trying to find out answers, put together the piece in the puzzle. We heard stories of violence and rapes, but were they just rumors? Some new information on rapes. We separate fact from fiction, tonight.
And, the Bird Flu. What exactly is it and why are scientists so concerned it could become a pandemic?
NEWSNIGHT continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Two places still in the eye of the storm in New Orleans. At first, the Convention Center and the Superdome promised shelter from the storm, literally. They quickly became the center of the storm, the storm of criticism. Not simply symbols of everything that went wrong, but examples of what went wrong, including a flood of rumors that sometimes seemed to be news, reports of rapes. So were they just rumors or were they facts?
CNN's Drew Griffin reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They were caught between the storm and chaos, trapped in a city being shrunk by flood waters. The people of New Orleans fled to the only shelters they knew were still dry, and they came by the thousands.
All kinds of reports came out of the Convention Center and Superdome, some of rapes, fueled by a police chief who didn't know.
NEW ORLEANS POLICE CHIEF EDDIE COMPASS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) babies getting raped. GRIFFIN: And days later, denials from rank and file, who say nobody was raped.
DAVE BENELLI, LIEUTENANT: I'm the commander of the sex crimes unit. My unit handles all rapes. We had two reported attempted rapes.
GRIFFIN: Attempted?
BENELLI: Attempted rapes. And they were handled, and the individuals were arrested.
GRIFFIN: Now CNN is learning the truth, maybe much more disturbing and painful.
WANDA PEZANT, SEXUAL ASSAULT NURSE EXAMINER: Do I think that people were raped after and during Hurricane Katrina? Absolutely. Have I treated victims from New Orleans that were raped either during or in the immediate 48 aftermath of Katrina? Yes.
GRIFFIN: Wanda Pezant says over the last weeks she has counted them; 18 victims. One as young as 13, have now come forward to this sexual assault nurse examiner, to say in the confusion of Katrina, they were raped. Caught in dark corners in the Superdome, in shelters across Louisiana; victims and predators, she says, were suddenly trapped in the same mess and the predators saw opportunity.
PEZANT: When predators are loose in the environment, unsupervised and unchecked by law enforcement, victimization happens.
GRIFFIN: The question for Judy Benitez is how much really did happen. Benitez runs Louisiana's Foundation against Sexual Assault. Since the hurricane first struck, she says her 15 crisis centers across the state have been getting calls from rape victims and those who witnessed rapes and either never went to the police or there were no police to go to.
JUDY BENITEZ: Some people have taken the view that because something wasn't reported to the police, that it didn't happen. And that's not really an accurate way to look at things when you're talking about sexual assault. There are a lot of reasons, under normal circumstances, why victims don't report sexual assaults to the police; or they may report them a couple of weeks later.
GRIFFIN: The truth is, says rape counselors, after the hurricane, when people lost jobs, homes and lives, reporting a rape became a lower priority than finding food and shelter.
BENITEZ: It's just one trauma and one tragedy inside another tragedy. I think it's going to be awhile before we get anything that resembles true numbers.
GRIFFIN: Benitez is setting up a statewide reporting system, in hopes of a more accurate count of post-Katrina sexual assaults.
(on camera): But no matter what the count, there will be no way to make those who committed sexual assaults pay.
Here, at the Superdome and across Louisiana, predators may have simply gotten away with it. Too many days have passed. Any evidence to be collected would be unusable.
What do you say to those people?
BENITEZ: I tell them that I'm their nurse and that we're going to take care of them, and we have. And that I can meet their medical need; I can't meet their legal need.
GRIFFIN: It has been more than a month since Katrina hit. Rape victims are now finding new homes, reuniting with their families. And finally having the courage to deal with what happened to them during the hurricane.
The latest woman to report came forward just this week.
Drew Griffin, CNN, New Orleans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AARON BROWN, HOST: Still to come on this edition of NEWSNIGHT, a killer virus baffles public health experts and worries the people of Toronto and beyond.
And better known and much more feared, the bird flu could kill millions. Can anything be done to stop it?
We'll take a break. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Welcome back. Talked through the resets (ph) and the stories we are following right now.
Some breaking news out of northern Riverside County in California to tell you about. A new fast-moving wildfire scorching at least 1,000 acres of brush. It is threatening about 100 homes right now and is burning to the edge of the freeway.
This is a live picture that you see - that fire line - it is moving fast.
At one point actually it had come close to the highway, Highway 60. Motorists actually getting very close indeed to it until they - authorities shut down that part of the highway.
We'll continue to watch this, though, throughout the hour and bring you any updates.
At the White House a former Marine now accused of stealing classified information and passing it on to a former officer in the Philippines secret police.
The man at the center of it worked at the White House from 1999 until 2001. He's reportedly now cooperating with investigators.
And a billion dollars, that is how far into the red Katrina and Rita have driven the state of Louisiana. A spokeswoman for the governor says the state is running out of money to pay policemen, firefighters, and emergency workers.
And you've heard of pop-up thunderstorms - Tammy is like that. The tropical storm seemed to come out of nowhere. It is now soaking the East Coast of Florida.
Tammy is only packing winds around 50 miles an hour, but it is expected to dump three to five inches of rain on parts of Florida and Georgia as it moves inland.
BROWN: I've had enough storms for one year.
COOPER: When I heard that I was like I just cannot deal with any more.
BROWN: No, that's enough. Enough already.
COOPER: Yeah.
BROWN: We'll go on to the flu and we'll probably get to that point with the flu, too. It's that time of year again for flu shots. The fears of the new epidemic.
The scare this year is the bird flu, which is a real concern, and it may be a close relative of the flu epidemic, pandemic, that killed up to 100 million people in 1918, and we'll get to that in a moment.
But first, a mystery virus has already killed - it's killed 16 people at a nursing home in Toronto. So far the scientists there say they only know what it's not.
That it's not the bird flu, it's not SARS. So what is it?
Here's CNN's Keith Oppenheim.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN (voice over): The Seven Oaks Home for the Aged in suburban Toronto is under attack. The culprit: a virus that still has not been identified.
It was just a week and a half ago some of the most vulnerable patients at Seven Oaks began to get very ill.
DR. DAVID MCKEOWN, TORONTO DEPT. OF PUBLIC HEALTH: This outbreak has resulted today in six additional deaths among ill residents.
OPPENHEIM: Toronto public health officials now report the death toll has risen to 16 residents of the nursing home. All had previous medical conditions, most were in their 80s and 90s.
In addition, 72 other people have been infected by the virus. Some are staff at Seven Oaks, some visitors.
One woman whose husband is a resident worried about the unknown.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're doing their best, let's put it that way, to get it under control, but what it really is I don't know.
OPPENHEIM: Three different labs in Canada are trying to identify the virus, but it turns out in more than half of outbreaks like this, health officials in Ontario are unable to isolate the source of the disease.
DR. BARBARA YAFFE, ASSOC. MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH: A significant percentage of cases - of outbreaks - just never will find the organism, but we're looking for everything we can think of.
OPPENHEIM: Thirty-eight people exposed to the virus have been taken to Toronto hospitals. Officials here say the health of some patients is deteriorating, but most are getting better.
A 9-year-old boy wondered what will happen to his grandfather.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope the hospital's safer and that he can be healthy and not die.
OPPENHEIM: In the meantime, the nursing home has been closed to new patients and is for the most part keeping its doors shut.
AL DOBBINS, SEVEN OAKS RESIDENT: To me, it's been cooped up, you know, I mean I'm so - I'm so used to the outside, you know? And all of a sudden, bang.
OPPENHEIM: As dire as all this may seem, health experts here say this is all an extreme example of a common occurrence.
Across Canada, and the U.S., viral outbreaks routinely kill elderly and sick patients with weakened immune systems.
MCKEOWN: It's within the range of our experience in Ontario, but it's definitely at the severe end.
OPPENHEIM: With no new cases reported in the last 24 hours, health experts here believe the mysterious outbreak is being contained. They say it poses no danger to the general public.
But for the people who have relatives at Seven Oaks, it may be some time before they can feel that the threat of contagious illness is behind them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OPPENHEIM (on camera): Joining you live now in Toronto and Aaron keep in mind it was two years ago that the SARS outbreaks, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, came to Toronto, and that led to 44 deaths here.
The difference between what happened with the SARS outbreak a couple of years ago and this incident is that SARS went from hospital to hospital, generally affecting health care workers.
In this case, you have one long-care facility, just a single place that has been affected, so its very different, very contained.
But having said that, with just one facility effected, it's the worst of its kind in terms of just one place getting a hit like this now with a total of 16 deaths. And there's still a possibility there could be more.
Back to you.
BROWN: Keith, thank you. Keith Oppenheim.
We talked with a doctor up in Toronto earlier and he said he felt very confident that they had contained it, that it wouldn't spread beyond.
But viruses do spread.
COOPER: Yeah. And mutate, which of course is the greatest concern. The mystery of the bird flu isn't exactly what it is, but rather what it's going to become.
Scientists fear that this horrible disease, which actually drowns its victims in their own fluids if you can imagine that, may actually mutate into a form that can pass easily between humans.
Right now it can pass between species, but not necessarily so easily between humans.
Possibly if that happens it would be transformed into a pandemic that could kill millions of people and travel to our shores very quickly. The bird flu kills right now about half of those who are infected within seven to ten days.
And that means there are a number of people who have actually gone through all the symptoms of the disease and lived to tell about it.
CNN's senior Asia correspondent Mike Chinoy met up with one survivor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE CHINOY, SENIOR ASIA CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hyung An (ph) returns to the hospital where she almost died last year. She's greeted by the doctor who saved her life.
It's a routine visit now, but with Hyung An, nothing is really routine. She's one of only six people in Vietnam known to have caught the avian influenza virus and survived.
I had a little pet duck, she tells me. It died. I buried it, but had to dig it up and bury it some place else. The next day, I got sick. Three days after that, with a raging fever, Hyung An was moved to the hospital for tropical diseases in Ho Chi Minh City where the bird flu diagnosis was confirmed.
It was so hard to breathe, she says, my chest hurt so much. I thought I was going to die.
She'd never been that sick before, says Hyung An's mother, Tang Chao (ph). When we heard it was avian flu, we didn't think she'd survive. We started making plans for her funeral.
Dr. Chan Zin Yen (ph) shows me Hyung An's x-rays from the most critical days. Her lungs, almost completely blocked from the fast- acting infection.
Dr. Yen suspects Hyung An survived because she was diagnosed early and got anti-viral drugs fast.
Today he says she's okay. Hyung An's mother worries though because her daughter still tires easily, doesn't eat much, and isn't doing well at school.
Even so, the family knows Hyung An had a narrow escape.
It was so frightening, says Tang Chao. When she recovered we thought we were the luckiest people ever.
Today Hyung An is just like any other 10-year-old girl, but she says she's never going to have a pet duck again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHINOY (on camera): Now Anderson, the key to Hyung An's survival, the doctor's told me when I was in Vietnam, was early diagnosis and quick treatment with anti-viral drugs.
In fact, health experts say that the modeling they've done says that essentially within 21 days of a cluster that indicates human-to- human transmission, that's the critical time for getting everybody in that area treated with anti-viral medications.
And that raises a very big problem in this part of the world in backward, developing countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, where surveillance is really a problem.
And there is a lot of concern that in those remote villages, if you have these outbreaks that there won't be the time to get all the data, and experts say that if that's the case, without the surveillance, you can just throw all those anti-viral drugs into the sea, there won't be enough time for them to be effective at all.
COOPER: I was talking to Barack Obama earlier tonight - Mike, thanks for that - Aaron, and he was saying one of the keys is for the U.S. to start monitoring better what is happening in Vietnam and these places like that so that we get at least an early warning system a little bit on that. We've got these fire pictures just that we have been following out of California. This in Riverside County in Calimesa, California.
BROWN: This is just east of Los Angeles, it's fire season - we went through this last weekend in the San Fernando Valley - in the western part of the valley in Chatsworth, in the Burbank area.
And now this is east of the valley. We don't know the degree to which homes may be threatened. It's a big, wide area, out there in Southern California, and it gets hit like this and they say about five percent contained, and just to our eye and no more than that, it's gotten a little bit worse in the last 40 minutes or say.
COOPER: Yeah, it seems to be spreading. The Associated Press - about 100 homes are threatened right now. At least 1,000 acres of brush has burned, and it's getting very close to a highway.
Earlier it was close to the 60 Freeway; I'm not sure if that's the freeway it's close to right now.
But they've closed off, obviously, that portion of the highway.
BROWN: So we keep an eye on it. And while we do, still to come tonight, we go back to the flu.
Is the United States ready to deal with it? We'll talk with one U.S. senator who's concerned about what hasn't been done so far.
And we told you a lot tonight about the bird flu. How could it become the world's next pandemic? We'll have more when we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: We told you a lot tonight about the bird flu, how it could become the world's next pandemic, perhaps killing millions.
Now on top of all that, here in the U.S. the federal government doesn't have enough vaccines to treat such an outbreak.
Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has been urging the Bush administration to do more to prepare for and respond to the bird flu. I spoke with him earlier tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Senator Obama, if avian flu hit our shores today, are we ready for it?
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D) ILLINOIS: We are not ready for it. You know, if you look at the last pandemic we had on U.S. soil, that was the Spanish flu that took place in 1918, 1919; you had literally millions of deaths.
And unfortunately this is one of these situations where if you had a flu that mutated, that was brand new, had human-to-human transmission, you could see a million deaths; you could see ten million people hospitalized.
We don't have the infrastructure or the capacity to deal with that.
COOPER: You know, there's some people, though, who are going to hear this and say look, this is just like cable news hype, you know, remember the killer bees?
When I was a kid everyone was worried about killer bees coming to our shores and we weren't prepared for it.
Why do you think this is real, this is different?
OBAMA: We know that every several decades, you get these kinds of pandemics that sweep through the populations.
We don't know that this particular bird flu will show up next year and we won't be ready, but we know that some time in the next decade or two there is going to be a pandemic and we've got to put the infrastructure now to be prepared for it.
COOPER: And what we know about this bird flu, which is ominous enough, is number one there is a new strain, number two it jumps from - between species.
The only thing yet we don't have evidence of is, is it easily transmissible from human to human. But if that happens, that's really the final step.
OBAMA: There are a couple of things that we've got to do. Number one, we've got to have good surveillance mechanisms set up not just in this country but internationally, and I already allocated about $35 million to start cooperating with other countries on that process.
Number two; we've got to have a stockpile of anti-viral drugs that cut down the fatalities so that even if you contract the disease you don't die from it.
Other countries like Great Britain have 25 to 40 percent of their population covered with their stockpiles. Right now we only have enough stockpiles for about 2 percent of our population, so we've got to ramp that up.
And then we've got to put together an infrastructure to develop the kinds of vaccines and figure out how do we actually distribute those in local areas.
COOPER: To create a vaccine you have to have an actual sample of the mutation. You're not going to have a sample of the mutation until this thing actually hits, and then when it does hit, it's going to take at least four to six months, say authorities, to actually develop enough of vaccine to get to people.
So if this thing suddenly develops, I mean, there's very little to stop it from coming here. OBAMA: Well, here's what's already happened.
The NIH/CDC, they've been working on a vaccine based on projections of how the current avian flu might mutate. And the problem is, is that although it appears that it might be effective in providing some protection, you need much higher doses and we don't have the production capacity for the vaccine that's currently being developed.
We can probably produce about 450,000 of these vaccines. We know that there is going to be some sort of pandemic in our life times. We don't know whether this will be the big one.
And I hope the people realize that if we have a sense of urgency about this, and this particular bird flu doesn't end up being a pandemic our money is not wasted.
We've got to set up the kinds of infrastructure that's required regardless of what happens with this particular strain of flu in order that we're prepared when an actual pandemic hits.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Senator Barack Obama earlier tonight.
"Morning Papers" are next. Stay with us. And later, we might have actually figured out what this is. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Christopher Broaches (ph) and I am a perfumer.
We're going to do a blend that you think you're comfortable with.
The name of the gallery is "CB I Hate Perfume."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I noticed that your eye starts to water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Perfume is not necessarily all about what might be considered pretty. Scent is really about life.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like I can smell the scent; then you get the chocolate (ph) covering, too, or something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have 400 accords (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Umm, God, that smells really good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Accords are essentially the words that compose the story of a fragrance.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It really - it really does smell like what it is if you don't look it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The unnatural collection is probably one of the more oddball. Because it does have things like "doll head."
Soccer ball, ink - there's a gun smoke smell. Rubber cement. Skunk is something that I'm very fond of, which may seem insane to a lot of people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My God, that's smell exactly like what it says.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a brilliant roast beef. It smells exactly like Sunday lunch.
The accords range from $25 for 15 milliliters to about $280. The custom fragrances basically start at $200 and can range up to $5,000.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You want to know (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People will come in here and they'll be smelling through the accords and they'll pick something up and go "oohh" and then immediately look embarrassed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) fortunately.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not offended by that. No one can tell you that you're wrong if you don't like the way something smells.
That's really one reason that I choose to do the kind of work that I do in the way that I do it. Because scent is ultimately I think such a unique experience for everyone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: OK, time to check "Morning Papers" from around the country and around the world.
First I just want to say I'm a little miffed I didn't get the memo that it was no tie Wednesday.
The "Daily News" leads with this important news story: "Cruise Your Daddy" - Tom and Katie are expecting. At first I thought this was Kate Moss.
But she's the one that does cocaine, right? And this is Katie Holmes, who has been - who is happier than I've ever been in my life all the time. Any way, they're going to be a couple. Well, they are a couple - they're going to be parents.
The "Washington Post" leads more stately. This is a great story. Senate Supports Interrogation Limits by a 90 to 9 Vote. This is - limits how detainees are treated at Guantanamo and elsewhere. Ninety to nine. They're going to get that on the highway bill.
Conservatives Confront Bush Aide. This is over Harriet Miers. Ed Gillespie in defending the president told this group of Republicans this has a whiff of sexism and a whiff of elitism.
Since the Democrats won't fight for any of this, the only thing we can get out of politics these days is Republicans fighting among themselves.
Wings soar the lead in "The Detroit News." Didn't we miss it for a year? But it's back.
If you're in Chicago tomorrow or just care a lot, the "Chicago Sun-Times" says the weather will be perky.
When we come back we'll revisit the parable of the python and the alligator. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: All right, this is the scene from Riverside, California east of Los Angeles tonight.
Fire burning - 100 or so homes threatened by it, about 5 percent contained. This is the season for that, and unless the weather cooperates, we're going to see a lot of pictures like this over the next month or so.
They need the marine layer (ph) to come in from the ocean to make the weather more humid and put the fires out.
COOPER: Hard to tell if it's getting worse or not. It sort of looks that way by the pictures, but of course these could just be tighter shots that we're getting.
Hard to get a sense of sort of the overall scope, but we do know about 100 homes said to be threatened right now.
Earlier tonight we did a story on a python that ate the alligator, or tried to, at least, and I asked a simple question: I thought how does a python eat an alligator exactly?
Never expected our clever writers to look it up. Turns out alligators and pythons are fighting for the same patch of the Everglades. They are, if you will, the reptile equivalent of the Hatfield's and the McCoy's, or the Lindsey Lohans and the paparazzi.
Ever see a Hatfield try to swallow a McCoy? This is what it looks like.
You didn't get the memo about no tie Wednesday?
BROWN: I didn't.
COOPER: It's no shoe Thursday, so get ready.
BROWN: They'll never know. Good to have you with us tonight, we'll see you tomorrow.
COOPER: Good night.
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