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CNN Live At Daybreak

Dead or Alive?; Managing Mold

Aired November 21, 2005 - 05:30   ET

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

KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Don't go away, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: And good morning, everyone. From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK for a Monday. I'm Kelly Wallace in today for Carol Costello. Thanks so much for waking up with us.

Coming up in the next 30 minutes, is one of the world's most wanted terrorists dead? Uncovering the fate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi just ahead.

And it's got water, it's got fish and now it -- all it needs is you. We're giving you a sneak peak at a massive new aquarium. That's coming up.

But first, these stories "Now in the News."

President Bush is on his way back to Washington after wrapping up his weeklong Asian trip. The president made a quick stop in Mongolia this morning, the last leg of his trip. There he thanked the country for sending troops to Iraq.

Fighting back against war critics, Vice President Dick Cheney will deliver a speech today on the war on terror and also be talking about Iraq. He's expected to defend the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq. And you can catch it all live on CNN this morning at 11:00 a.m. Eastern.

And a political shocker in Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is expected to announce in just under two hours that he will be starting his own political party. Sharon also requested Parliament be dissolved, paving the way for early elections this spring. He contends the majority oppose his policies, making it impossible for him to govern.

To Jacqui Jeras in the Forecast Center who is talking about rain and cold temperatures throughout the country -- Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Hey, Kelly.

(WEATHER REPORT)

WALLACE: All right, Jacqui, we'll be checking in with you throughout the morning on the forecast for the week ahead, especially as people are planning travel for Thanksgiving. Talk to you in a few minutes, Jacqui. And our top story this half-hour, in Iraq, the price on his head $25 million. The U.S. military now conducting tests to determine whether Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among those killed in a weekend raid in northern Iraq. A White House official, though, says it is not likely.

Want to go live now to Baghdad and our Nic Robertson.

Nic, always great to see you, give us a sense about these reports. What's the latest from there?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kelly, I think perhaps we can get the best sense because these original reports were generated in newspaper articles here Saturday night into Sunday morning. They center around eight insurgents being holed up in a building in Mosul in the north of Iraq.

There was an intense firefight that lasted many, many hours to try and get in the building into the insurgents. During that firefight, they reportedly detonated a lot of explosives around them. There was a huge amount of damage. And by the time the Iraqi police were able to get in and the security forces able to get in, the people inside the building were all burned.

Now the analysis is going on now to determine if any one of them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It does seem unlikely. The U.S. military here really seems to be playing it down. And the same newspaper that wrote this article is the same newspaper that said last year, or earlier this year, rather, that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was seen driving a taxi around an Iraqi town. So perhaps they are stretching some of the facts here.

But what is known is that Zarqawi does travel around the country. Military commanders here will say there are times that they believe he has passed through their areas of control and that he does use false documents. So trying to find him and track him down is difficult.

And this sort of analysis going on with these bodies, one would imagine, would be DNA-type analysis -- Kelly.

WALLACE: And I know, Nic, another violent day in Iraq. What can you tell us about a car bomb attack, which, we understand, was targeting a market?

ROBERTSON: A car bomb attack targeting a market, perhaps about 50, 55 miles northeast of Baghdad, not far from a town called Baquba. What happened there, a U.S. military patrol passed through the town. The U.S. military believes that the remote-controlled bomb was detonated just after they had passed, but it went off in this crowded market. Five people were killed and 11 wounded.

But in the town of Baquba, a very unfortunate incident reported this morning. A family driving a car close to a U.S. base very early this morning came too close to a U.S. military patrol waiting to move out. Warning shots were fired. Three warning shots were fired. According to the U.S. military, the car continued towards the U.S. troops. Shots were fired into the vehicle. According to the U.S. military, three people were killed, one wounded. According to the Iraqi police, four people were killed, five wounded.

And the pictures of the injured and dead in the hospital today show that -- reveal that they were a family in a car traveling away from the town and driving too close to this patrol. Three of them ending up, at least three, ending up dead -- Kelly.

WALLACE: Another deadly day in Iraq.

Nic, thanks so much, and we'll be checking in with you in the next hour of DAYBREAK.

Our Nic Robertson reporting live for us from Baghdad.

Well back here in the United States, what does New Orleans mean to the country? An editorial in yesterday's "Times-Picayune" attempted to answer that question, but it also included a very strong call for help.

It reads in part -- quote -- "We need the federal government. We need our Congress to fulfill the promises made in the past." And the editorial goes on to say -- quote -- "Some voices in Washington are arguing against us. We were foolish, they say. We settled in a place that is lower than the sea. We should have expected to drown."

One promise alluded to in the editorial is a strong levee system that could withstand a Category 3 hurricane. But now, protection from a Category 5 may be needed. Engineers say it could take more than five years and billions of dollars to upgrade. And so far Congress hasn't approved any money to even start that kind of project.

Well the recovery of New Orleans still has a very long way to go. Several neighborhoods still have no electricity and more than 100,000 homes were damaged by flooding. And that water has left behind a toxic reminder in the form of black mold, but we're happy to say there may be some help on the way.

CNN's Rusty Dornin takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOMBARD (ph): We try to clean things.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's growing in the Lombard house.

LOMBARD: The mold grew about four, five feet here. It's black mold. They say it's really toxic, really bad.

DORNIN: It covered parts of Bob DeFelice's restaurant.

BOB DEFELICE, RESTAURANT OWNER: And if you look down here, you can kind of see the black mold kind of taking over the weaker mold. DORNIN: As it has in thousands of homes on the Gulf Coast.

DEFELICE: We might be able to salvage those.

DORNIN: Like many, Bob DeFelice, owner of Pascal's Manale, a New Orleans restaurant institution dating back to 1913, was facing weeks of work ripping out and rebuilding all his interior walls. That's the standard treatment.

Then he heard about a gas fumigation system, a system that would sterilize his restaurant, every nook and cranny, without rebuilding. The company, Sabre Technology, used the same gas to decontaminate Capitol Hill following the 2001 anthrax attacks. Turns out, chlorine dioxide kills everything from termites to mold.

Back at the restaurant, DeFelice's employees were told they could bring any moldy items.

CARMEN PROVENZANO, CHEF: Well, the mold is in the closet.

DORNIN: So we went along with the sous-chef, Carmen Provenzano (ph), to grab some clothes at his wrecked home.

PROVENZANO: I'd rather take a chance and see if it can be saved.

DORNIN: Provenzano hung the clothes in the restaurant's closet. The building was then tented and the gas pumped in. Twelve hours later, the gas is gone, and we followed DeFelice into his restaurant.

DEFELICE: This is incredible. I'm just totally blown away. Look at this wood here. I mean, that was just so dark before, and it's -- you can see all the grain.

DORNIN: What about Carmen Provenzano's clothes?

PROVENZANO: Everything is a little dirty still, just given the situation, but it's definitely clean. You can smell the difference. You can see the difference in the -- there is no mold on anything.

DORNIN: Chlorine dioxide is a pesticide approved by the USDA for everything from purifying drinking water to keeping baby carrots from getting slimy. It costs about $8 per square foot to treat mold with chlorine dioxide, putting the price at under $40,000 for an average house. It won't repair water damage, but it does eradicate mold. And for Bob DeFelice, that means the famous barbecue shrimp will be back on the menu by January.

Rusty Dornin, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: Some hopeful signs in New Orleans.

Well still to come here, the big debate in Washington is whether it's time to pull troops out of Iraq. Could the squabbling hurt both Democrats and Republicans? A closer look coming up. But first, here is what else is making news this Monday morning, November 21.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: Time now to read some e-mail. And, Jacqui, I bet you have received numerous e-mails this morning.

JERAS: Yes, quite a few, and some very interesting and fun responses, also, Kelly.

We'll start out here from April (ph) in New Jersey, she says, yes, you can find the love of your life online. I met my husband through Match.com and he asked me to marry him three months after we first met. However, she does admit that due to the anonymity of the net online dating, it is far from ideal.

Sal (ph) says that online dating is complete hell. The online dating world is drenched with freaks and social failures.

WALLACE: My god.

JERAS: Go to church to find true love, he says.

Interesting.

Joanne (ph) of Pennsylvania says I met my husband 10 years ago online. We have a wonderful 10 years together and hopefully another 20 happy years ahead.

So good for her.

And this one kind of cracked me up. From Robert (ph), he says I joined almost all of them. He joined eHarmony, Match True, Yahoo! and no luck. He says he saw the same pictures on all three sites. And of all things, he was introduced as his soulmate to his ex.

WALLACE: To his ex. You are kidding?

JERAS: He says he makes out better at local bars.

WALLACE: What are the chances of that?

JERAS: Poor Robert. I know.

WALLACE: Well, you know I guess it is to each his own. You know some success for some, not for others.

JERAS: Right.

WALLACE: Like you said, your own family, a wedding that would not have been possible without online dating, so.

JERAS: I know. And a great guy, too. I know I was very hesitant when she first said she was doing that, but it turned out really great. WALLACE: All right. Well, we'll be watching this story unfold.

Jacqui, talk to you in a few minutes.

JERAS: OK.

WALLACE: Still to come here on DAYBREAK, a big fish in a big pond. We'll take you to the depths and introduce you to some of Atlanta's newest residents.

And a quick programming note, tonight on CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE," an exclusive interview with Bob Woodward of "The Washington Post." Lots of questions about who his sources in the CIA leak case. That's 9:00 Eastern here on CNN. You won't want to miss it.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: And welcome back.

"Entertainment Headlines" for you this morning.

Singer Christina Aguilera is now a married woman. The 24-year- old got hitched to music executive Jordan Bratman over the weekend. The couple asked their guests to make donations to Hurricane Katrina relief in lieu of wedding gifts.

Aussie pop star Kylie Minogue is going back on stage. The 37- year-old singer canceled her hometown tour after she was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. But now Minogue's tour manager says it looks like she'll make up the shows late next year.

And Courtney Love is out of rehab. A judge is letting her serve out the rest of her six-month sentence at home. The volatile singer will be subjected to twice-weekly drug tests and a 10:00 p.m. curfew. She went into rehab in late September after admitting to a probation violation. Love says she spent her time in rehab working on songs for new albums.

Well, if you have heard about the Georgia aquarium opening in Atlanta, then you are going to love this. It is an inside look at the aquarium before its opening on Wednesday. Bernie Marcus, one of the founders of Home Depot, financed the building of the aquarium.

"Beyond the Soundbite" this morning, he talks about these beluga whales and the whale sharks, two of the aquarium's biggest attractions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERNIE MARCUS, HOME DEPOT CO-FOUNDER: Well, you have five beautiful beluga whales, and these are magnificent animals. They are -- they swivel their necks. They're the most charismatic animals that I know of, and you fall in love with them. People just stay in front of the tanks watching them all day. These are very large animals, by the way. They go from 11 feet to about 15. And what happened here is that we had two Mexican belugas that we rescued. They were under a roller coaster ride in Mexico, and we introduced them, and they'd been there for a long time.

And we introduced them to the three girls. And I want to tell you something some love affairs have already begun. They are swimming together. They're enjoying themselves. And we're hoping that somewhere along the line we're going to have an offspring.

We have two whale sharks. Now, you think these guys are big. Let me tell you about the whale sharks. They're about 20 feet long today. They're babies. They're adolescents. And they are going to grow to 45 to 55 feet.

Now, 45 to 55 feet, you're talking about a boxcar. And basically, if you think about it, how does a boxcar fit in this tank and how big is this tank? And this tank that we have them in is the biggest tank in the world. It has 6.1 million gallons of water. It's 30 feet deep. They have plenty of room to roam. And they're surrounded by all kinds of fish of the ocean, groupers, sharks, rays, everything that you could possibly imagine.

And the only place that you could see these fish are Tokyo or the middle of the ocean somewhere, and most people are not going to be able to see them. So I'm telling you, people from all over the United States, people from all over the world are going to be coming here just to see these two fish.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Excited about the aquarium? We are. It opens for yearly members today and to the general public on Wednesday.

Well, are you headed home for the holidays this year? We can tell you this you won't be alone at the airports. That is for sure. In the next hour of DAYBREAK, tips on surviving holiday travel from the experts at "Travel & Leisure" magazine.

This is DAYBREAK for a Monday. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: Music to get you up this Monday morning.

Time now for our DAYBREAK "Eye Openers."

A masterpiece came tumbling down in the Netherlands, but it was on purpose. You're actually watching a new world's record. More than four million dominoes made up the masterpieces. It took two months to put them all in just the right place. And, get this, just an hour and a half for them to all topple over. I always love watching that.

Well here's another interesting display, it's an entire miniature city made up entirely of natural materials, all except the trains, of course. And that means all the buildings and bridges are made of plants, moss and twigs. The display at the New York Botanical Gardens has been growing for the past 14 years.

They're working on a very sweet world record in Portugal. It's the biggest nativity scene made entirely out of chocolate. It took more than two-and-a-half million pounds of chocolate to build. Get this, that's about 28 million Hershey bars. The chefs say the display could actually hold up for several years, as long as it doesn't get too hot. That's for sure.

And I guess you could say they like things big in Portugal. This is the biggest Christmas tree in all of Europe. The 236-foot tree towers over Lisbon. And just to put that in perspective, everybody, that is taller than the national Christmas tree and the Rockefeller Center tree combined.

A tall, beautiful tree, Jacqui, there it is in Portugal. But your attention, I know, is on online dating. Does it help? Does it hurt?

JERAS: I'm having fun with these today.

WALLACE: Does it work? Does it not? What are you hearing?

JERAS: A lot of yes, I got married and a lot of no way, so it seems to be one extreme or the other.

Lynette (ph) says, of course you can find love online, but you can also find crazy.

Duane (ph) from Harrisonburg, Virginia, says Ernestine (ph) and I met online in a chat room. We talked for a year before we finally met. She had walked away from four different weddings in her life but walked down the aisle to marry me.

And Jeff (ph) from Gardner, Massachusetts, he's just a cynic. Kelly, he says...

WALLACE: What is he saying?

JERAS: ... sorry to tell you, but there is no such thing as true love online or off.

WALLACE: Say it isn't so.

JERAS: I know.

WALLACE: We must call him -- Jacqui.

JERAS: Jeff, you just haven't met the right girl yet. Hang in there.

WALLACE: Yes. Yes, come on.

JERAS: You'll find her.

WALLACE: You'll find her. Just, I guess, I don't know, if you're not going to use online dating, you're not going to use bars or meeting with friends, how is he going to meet someone -- Jacqui?

JERAS: Right, well somebody said church is a good place.

WALLACE: That's true. That's true.

All right, Jacqui, thank you so much. And we'll be talking about this, I'm sure, in the days ahead.

The next hour of DAYBREAK begins just one minute from now. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: It is Monday, November 21.

An afternoon of shopping turns into an urgent hostage situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was like boom, boom, boom, and went out and saw it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was horrible. The worst thing I have ever seen in my life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Scared shoppers relive the experience. Now we're learning about what might have been a foreshadowing message from the gunman himself.

And when could American troops come home? Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shares an assessment. We'll talk more about the politics surrounding such decisions.

Plus, the dispute over a wanted man, is he dead or alive?

And good Monday morning, everyone. I'm Kelly Wallace in today for Carol Costello. Thanks so much for starting your day with us.

We'll have much more on the shopping mall shootings in just a moment.

But first, these stories "Now in the News."

President Bush is heading home from Asia. He took off from Mongolia about two-and-a-half hours ago. It was the final stop on his eight-day four-nation trip. And while in Mongolia, he thanked the country for providing troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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