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CNN Live Saturday

New Terrorist Groups Not Linked to al Qaeda; New Terrorists Organizational Structures; Organ Extraction from Chinese Prisoners

Aired June 17, 2006 - 17:30   ET

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

MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL, US MILITARY SPOKESMAN: within minutes to determine the status of these soldiers. We are currently using every means at our disposal on the ground, in the air and in the water to find them.
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CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR, CNN LIVE SATURDAY: At least 36 people were killed today in six separate explosions in Baghdad. The worst was at a police checkpoint late today where 12 Iraqis died. Join CNN's John Roberts for, "Iraq, A Week at War," that's tonight at 7:00 Eastern.

In Afghanistan the military says U.S.-led forces killed about 40 Taliban fighters gathering for a meeting in southern Afghanistan. The attack was part of Operation Mountain Thrust.

Two weeks from today, NASA finally announces when the space shuttle Discovery is going to launch. It's NASA's first manned space flight in nearly a year and only the second since the Columbia tragedy.

Now, there is a rescue effort on Oregon's Mount Hood. Five injured climbers stranded at 9,000 feet up the side of a mountain. A short time ago, we learned that the rescue operation is successful. Two climbers are critically injured, though.

The changing face of terrorism. Small cells and one-man operations with no links to big terror organizations, are waging attacks and it's a new trend and it gives anti-terrorism officials more sleepless nights. CNN's Anan Naidoo reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANAN NAIDOO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): March 2004, bombs explode on commuter trains in the Spanish capital Madrid. London, July 2005, terrorists strike subway trains in heart of the British capital. Earlier this month, 17 men and boys are arrested in Canada accused of planning attacks in that country. Here in the United States, two men from the Atlanta area are charged in a terrorism- related case. The leader of an Islamic prison gang and three others indicted in Torrance, California, on charges of planning terrorism attacks. And in Lodi, California, a Pakistani man faces at least 30 years in prison for supporting terrorism. Security experts are calling these cases homegrown terrorism, groups or individuals that are operating independently, with no formal ties to known terrorist groups. VICE ADMIRAL JOHN S. REDD, DIR. NATL COUNTERTERRORISM CTR: While not controlled by al Qaeda, these new networks draw inspiration from their ideology. Clearly we're not immune here in the United States.

NAIDOO: Redd was testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill earlier this week. Also appearing before the committee was the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, Ambassador Henry Crumpton.

AMB: HENRY CRUMPTON, STATE DEPT: The terrorist threat is constantly evolving. Self-radicalized and self-organized groups and cells pose a growing threat. Enemy elements are becoming smaller in size and less tightly organized. We see more threats emerging from tiny cells and even individuals.

NAIDOO: These experts and others say this ominous trend and the fact that the terrorists plot and organize on the Internet makes them especially hard to disrupt. Add into that they say are threats posed by other groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon. Anan Naidoo, CNN, ATLANTA.

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LIN: Joining me now to talk about this dangerous turn of events is Arnaud de Borchgrave of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Arnaud, very timely that we're talking to you. It just so happens that one of our sister companies, "Time" magazine is coming out with a report early next week reporting that al Qaeda -- a cell operating here in the United States had plans to release a poisonous gas in the New York City subway similar to the gas used in Nazi death camps. How is this so, that the FBI is denying that there are any active terror cells operating right here in the U.S.?

ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE, TRANSNATIONAL THREATS PROJECT DIR: Well, Carol, we've known since 1994, a year after the first attack on the World Trade Center, that there were quite a few of these cells around the United States and it was documented in the PBC "Frontline" special called "Jihad in America." That was in 1994. Last year you had the Virginia jihad case with 11 people arrested. Three were sentenced, one to life, one to 85 years and another to 80 years. This has been going on for a long time. And the FBI could not really report on any of this because they didn't have the assets. The assets required in a case like this would have to be Arabic speakers who could infiltrate some of the more militant mosques. I mean there are lots of people around this country who are not necessarily terrorists or potential terrorists, but who belong to a support group that approve of what al Qaeda's been doing around the world. So it's not surprising that all of this is finally being aired in public. We've known about it for a long time. In Europe as you know Carol, there are hundreds of little al Qaeda or pro-al Qaeda cells. In Holland alone, they have discovered 20. And those 20 in turn were in touch with 300 to 400 others around Europe, North Africa.

LIN: So it's Internet based, the London train bombings, for example, you're saying that it's Internet based.

DE BORCHGRAVE: It has been Internet-based for quite a long time. They've moved now from militant mosques -- they used to communicate as members of a militant mosque. Now they do it through the Internet.

LIN: So are you saying Arnaud that they are Arabs. You're saying that these are Arab-based cells?

DE BORCHGRAVE: Not necessarily. You have some homegrown cells. In fact, there's a novel out by John Updike, John Updike's 22nd novel came out two weeks ago called "The Terrorist." And he documents very well the makings of a homegrown terrorist who happens to be an American Muslim who lives in a poor rundown town in New Jersey and who becomes a self-hating American. So there are many ingredients that go into this. And let's not forget that we started this culture at the beginning of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when we and the Saudi intelligence service put together a plan to flood Afghanistan with Islamic extremists and guerrillas and Mujahadin and about 20,000 came from different parts of the Arab world.

LIN: So what needs to be done right here in the United States to prevent another attack from happening? Because the terror strike that I was explaining that will be in "Time" magazine next week, it wasn't the FBI or any law enforcement agency that stopped the attack. It just so happened that Ayman al Zawahiri himself called it off for unexplained reasons.

DE BORCHGRAVE: What we need is more and more intelligence, more and more Arabic speakers willing to work for counterintelligence. And what Admiral Redd explained extremely well in those congressional hearings is something that's been around for a number of years.

LIN: Arnaud de Borchgrave, we'll have to leave it there. But thank you very much.

DE BORCHGRAVE: My pleasure.

LIN: CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. So stay tuned to CNN for the latest information day and night.

In our world wrap tonight, adding to an offer Iran's foreign minister says his government will probably suggest amendments to the west's latest nuclear proposal. That proposal would give Iran nuclear technology and other incentives if Tehran suspends uranium enrichment. A little political back and forth here on that story.

Now, protests against Iran's leader at a World Cup match in Germany. Hundreds of people gathered in Frankfurt angry over the Iranian president's denial that the holocaust ever happened. The protest continued even after the Iranian team lost to Portugal.

And civil war fears in Sri Lanka. Eight government sailors and more than 20 rebels were killed in fighting today. The battle was sparked by a new rebel attack off the coast. Fighting on both sides has increased in recent weeks.

A father of six must make a life or death decision. He desperately needs a new liver. Ahead, how far is he going to go to get it and who becomes the sufferer because of his choice? (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: So how far would you go to save your own life? Medically, financially, psychologically, even geographically, where would you go? None of us really knows until we're faced with that life or death decision. Well, you're about to meet a desperately ill California man, a husband and father who found hope in a practice some call organ tourism. CNN's Randi Kaye reported for ANDERSON COOPER 360.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eric De Leon of California, a father of six, desperately needs a liver transplant. But he's so sick with nine tumors on his liver, doctors concluded even with a new liver, his chances for survival were low. So they removed him from the U.S. transplant list.

ERIC DE LEON, NEEDED LIVER TRANSPLANT: I just knew that cancer was going to grow and spread throughout my body and I would be another statistic. I just thought, I got to get it out of me.

KAYE: But Eric would not give up. Online, he found websites offering transplants in China. Many advertise kidney, liver and other transplant surgeries for as much as $200,000. He would have only weeks to make a life or death decision.

DE LEON: I didn't want my kids to watch me wither away and die in front of them. So this was either, it works or it doesn't and then it is cut and dry and done.

KAYE: In fact, people who cannot get transplants travel to China from all over the world.

REP. CHRIS SMITH (R) NEW JERSEY: They house these people in hotels. You know, the dictatorship makes an enormous amount of money.

KAYE: Chris Smith chairs the House subcommittee on global human rights. With tens of thousands of foreigners paying for transplant surgery in China, he says many do not know the terrible truth about the program. Those organs may be surgically cut from an executed death row prisoner without consent. Even worst, to keep the organs as fresh as possible, some organs are said to have been removed before the prisoner even took a last breath. Human rights activist Harry Wu testified before Congress about a doctor who told him he removed an organ from a prisoner who was still alive.

HARRY WU, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: He said, of course, he's warm, breathing, the blood is still moving out. But we just push harder and harder, just take the organ, keep it fresh.

KAYE: Other gruesome tales come from this doctor.

TRANSLATOR: The prisoner had not yet died, but instead lay convulsing on the ground. We were ordered to take him to the ambulance anywhere where urologists extracted his kidneys quickly and precisely. KAYE: Critics say some prisoners in China both men and women, are actually executed for petty crimes such as tax fraud, embezzlement and bribery. The practice provides an endless supply of organs for needy foreigners willing to pay top dollar. Amnesty International says China executes more prisoners than all other nations combined, more than 4700 in the last two years. According to human rights experts, a single shot to the head if chest organs are needed, a shot to the body if the brain or eyes are needed. And recently China started using what's called death vans, mobile execution vans where lethal injection is administered inside. Death by injection leaves the whole body intact. And according to Amnesty International, allows for a speedier and more effective extraction of organs.

SMITH: You can't take prisoners who are on death row, destroy them, murder them and then take their organs. I mean, that smacks of Nazism, when people were reduced to mere commodities that were wanted only for the organs they could provide.

KAYE: Chinese law details the procedure. Transplant surgeons are actually poised at the execution site. Once shot, the prisoner's body is quickly placed inside an unmarked blue van like this one. Inside, doctors quickly and secretly remove the organs needed. Just last year, in a move that shocked the transplant world, China's deputy health minister acknowledged harvesting organs from Chinese prisoners, but said the organs come only from those who give consent. But what constitutes consent? In the United States, death row prisoners aren't allowed to donate their organs. The government believes they can't truly give consent while behind bars.

Still the Chinese government by law considers a signed piece of paper, a fingerprint on a donor form or unclaimed body consent. Though that sounds straightforward, death notices like these are often posted not immediately but days after an execution. So families have no time to collect the bodies of loved ones. Regardless, the Chinese government maintains they are not doing anything wrong and are merely performing transplants in accordance with their laws. Back in California with two small children, the tumors on his liver growing, Eric De Leon was getting weaker and weaker.

DE LEON: My feeling, my gut feeling was I wasn't going to live that long.

KAYE: But what did he really know about what seemed like his last best opportunity to survive? How much did it matter where his liver came from? What would you do?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: So just how far will Eric go to save his own life? Well, Randi Kaye has the rest of the story coming up after this two minute break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Before the break, we met Eric De Leon, a cancer patient determined to survive even if it meant going to China for a high cost, high risk transplant of dubious origins. Why China? Here again, CNN's Randi Kaye.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Eric De Leon, it is a race against the clock. Nine cancerous tumors are eating away at his liver. Chemotherapy hardly made a dent. And because his cancer will likely come back, doctors in the United States have taken Eric off the transplant list. But Eric is refusing to give up, refusing to die.

ERIC DE LEON, NEEDED LIVER TRANSPLANT: I said I'm going to beat this. I'm going to do whatever it takes to get this done. I'm not going the leave my family behind.

KAYE: Eric's doctors aren't nearly as confident. A transplant coordinator at Eric's California hospital wrote this note. I guess he is toast if he is looking to get transplant in China. Oh, well, life is sweet. A world away after mortgaging his home, Eric finds hope. China is offering organ transplants to foreign patients willing to pay whatever it costs. It's called organ tourism. Eric finds a Chinese transplant service. Two weeks later, Eric and his wife are in Shanghai.

You were never given any indication that your husband's new liver may come from a prisoner?

LORI DE LEON, ERIC'S WIFE: Not -- no. We weren't told beforehand that this is where it's coming from. We weren't told after.

KAYE: With more than 4700 prisoners executed in China over the last two years, according to Amnesty International, there's no shortage of organs, but the organs may be coming from prisoners who did not provide consent. Critics say some organs in China are even taken before the prisoner is actually dead.

Remember, not any donor is suitable because of the risk of rejection. Blood and tissue types must match as closely as possible. In China, Eric and other would-be recipients provide a blood sample. Then Chinese doctors find a match. But for some activists and physicians, that raises the question about the timing of certain executions.

DE LEON: Somebody is killed for me, yeah, I feel bad. But there's no way of knowing that.

KAYE: The Chinese hospital gave Eric a cell phone and instructions. He and his wife should enjoy the sights until the cell phone rang. That would signal a matching organ was available. Though nervous, a new liver seemed all but certain. They did enjoy being tourists. Then just two weeks later, the phone rang. After 5 1/2 hours in the operating room, Eric had a healthy new liver, a second chance at life. U.S. doctors are seeing more and more transplant patients who have returned from China.

DR. THOMAS DIFLO, NYU MED CTR TRANSPLANT SURGEON: Whatever that source might be, one can speculate about. However there is significant correlation between the actual number of executions that are done at any particular time and the number of transplants that are done.

KAYE: Some doctors like New York transplant surgeon Thomas Diflo believe what may be happening to prisoners in China is a gross violation of human rights. He refuses to treat people who have had surgery in China. Dr. Diflo recalls the first time he heard about it. It was a female patient.

DIFLO: I said, where did you get your organ? And she said, from an executed prisoner.

KAYE: Dr. Diflo was horrified. So what is the United States doing to stop organ tourism? Chris Smith and more than a dozen other congressmen wrote this letter to the president of China, demanding the practice be changed. No response.

REP. CHRIS SMITH (R) NEW JERSEY: The Chinese government unfortunately is largely tone deaf when it has come to human rights.

KAYE: The Chinese government refused our request for an interview, but issued this statement to CNN. The reports about China's random transplant of organs from executed criminals are untrue and a malicious slander against the Chinese judiciary system. Adding, in China, it is very prudent to use organs from death penalty criminals.

SMITH: The bigger the lie, the better people will swallow it. And this is a big lie.

KAYE: As for Eric De Leon, he says the answer is more donors in the U.S. More than 90,000 people are on the transplant waiting list in the United States today. Last year, 6,268 people died while waiting. Still, Dr. Diflo calls Eric's decision ethically irresponsible and unacceptable. Eric has no regrets. What if they didn't consent?

DE LEON: If they didn't consent, that's a hard question.

KAYE: Would you still want that liver?

DE LEON: No, I don't think I would. But I don't think we'll ever know that.

LORI DE LEON: Everybody has a right to their own opinion. If you're not in the shoes that my husband was in or my position where, you know, you're so close to home with it, it's very hard for you to even judge somebody or state what you would or wouldn't do.

KAYE: So while the foreign powers figure out how to come to terms on organ tourism, Eric's children continue to celebrate their dad's recovery.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (INAUDIBLE) I felt the liver.

KAYE: You felt the liver in his shirt. Did you hug him and tell him you loved him?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Yeah.

KAYE: What did you say?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: I loved him.

KAYE: With a 90 percent chance his cancer will return and no spot on the transplant list, Eric is making the most of his time with family and quietly thanking the stranger who saved him, whether he did so willingly or not. Randi Kaye, CNN, San Mateo, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Those reports first aired on Anderson Cooper 360. And of course, you can join Anderson each weekday night for a comprehensive and in depth look at the day's news at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, 7:00 Pacific.

Well, a Virginia woman says she found Governor Jeb Bush's Social Security number and his address on the Internet. Could someone get their hands on yours? Coming up in the next hour of CNN LIVE SATURDAY, when your personal information becomes public.

And in about 30 minutes, senior political analyst Bill Schneider, he's going to take your questions and e-mails about President Bush's trip to Iraq. Did it provide the boost he need? Send those emails to weekends@cnn.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: This is CNN SATURDAY and I'm Carol Lin. And straight ahead in this hour, beyond the headlines, American soldiers missing in Iraq. I've got two interviews you will only see in this hour. First a retired Army general on what's happening right now in that search. And then CNN senior Arab affairs editor who is monitoring insurgent websites.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The rules of engagement are the license to do what they did.

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LIN: On the defensive, you are also going to hear from the attorney representing one of the Marines accused in the killings in Haditha.

Bet you've been busy this weekend, so let's bring you up to speed. The search is continuing for two American soldiers missing in Iraq. Now the military says that they disappeared during an insurgent attack at a traffic checkpoint. A third U.S. soldier was killed.

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