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American Morning

Terror Investigations in London; Discovery Scheduled for Launch

Aired July 13, 2005 - 08:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery set for lift-off in less than eight hours. Miles live at the Kennedy Space Center as America returns to space.
Police in London now saying the terror attacks could have been carried out by suicide bombers. If that's true, the attacks would be the first of their kind in all of Western Europe. A live update on the investigation is just ahead.

And in Baghdad, a suicide bomber attacks American soldiers while they're handing out treats to Iraqi children. At least two dozen people, including children, are dead and the death toll could rise on this AMERICAN MORNING.

ANNOUNCER: This is AMERICAN MORNING.

Live from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, here's Miles O'Brien, with Soledad O'Brien in New York.

S. O'BRIEN: And welcome, everybody.

To our special coverage of the Shuttle Discovery launch.

Miles, as was just mentioned, is live for us at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where they are watching many things, including the weather today -- hey, Miles, good morning.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Watching the weather so far, Soledad, it looks great. Look at it behind me. It's a wonderful morning here in Florida. But it is summer and by the time the afternoon rolls around, you know what that means -- thunderstorms could build up. So we'll be watching that very carefully.

NASA engineers, meanwhile, think they've gotten everything else taken care of on the orbiter, as you see live pictures of the Space Shuttle Discovery in its role as the return to flight orbiter for the second time in its illustrious career. In 1988, it was after Challenger.

This historic space -- return to space is set to begin. Coming up, as we spend a lot of time this morning thinking about Columbia and the crew we lost two and a half years ago, we'll talk to a man who lost his brother on that flight and we'll talk about the remarkable film that he made during his training and in space. It's an amazing story -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, wow!

All right, Miles, thanks.

We'll look forward to that.

Other stories making news this morning, let's check in on them with Fredricka Whitfield.

She's at the CNN Center in Atlanta -- good morning, Fred.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning again.

A suicide bomber in Baghdad has killed at least seven Iraqi children. Officials say a vehicle filled with explosives drove up to a U.S. Army Humvee just as the troops were handing out treats to children. The explosion killed at least 27 people, including at least one American soldier.

Israeli troops say they have detained five members of the group Islamic Jihad. The arrests followed Tuesday's suicide attack in the city of Netanyahu. Israel says four Israeli women died and some 90 others were wounded in the blast. An Israeli military spokesman tells CNN parts of the West Bank and Gaza will remain closed until further notice.

"Time" magazine reporter Matthew Cooper is expected to face a grand jury today. At issue, who leaked the name of the CIA operative to reporters? A recently disclosed internal "Time" magazine e-mail names political adviser Karl Rove as the source. But some Republicans say Rove is the victim of a partisan attack.

And Lance Armstrong taking a big step toward winning a seventh Tour de France title. Armstrong reclaimed the overall lead and the yellow jersey Tuesday in a grueling trek up the Alps. The mountains are usually where Armstrong has done his best. Cyclists are due to ride into Paris on July 24.

Now back to Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Fred, thanks a lot.

Our top story this morning, London police following evidence that last week's terror attacks were the work of suicide bombers. They've got four suspects on security cameras and have followed their trail 200 miles north of London, to Leeds.

John Vause is following the investigation in Leeds -- John, good morning to you.

Give us a little more information about these four suspects.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Soledad, we're learning a little bit more now about at least one of the suspects. An uncle of Shahzad Tanweer, the young man who lived in this house just behind me, says that his nephew did travel to Pakistan last year. He spent time at a Madrassa, or a religious school, in Lahore. But this uncle has denied reports that his nephew actually went to Afghanistan.

Now, neighbors have expressed surprise, disbelief that the young man who lived on this street, the young man who loved cricket and sports could be involved in this bombing. They say he was a quiet man. He was a practicing Muslim who went to the mosque sometimes five times a day to pray.

Now, the family, according to the uncle, have been actually devastated by all of this. He says their future in this community is now over, especially now, as evidence emerges that Tanweer could be one of four men involved in the first suicide bombings ever carried out in Britain.

They're basing that on forensic evidence, in particular, the state of the bodies of the four suspects. It indicates that they may have been carrying the explosives at the time of the blast. Closed- circuit television videotapes show four men on the platform at Kings Cross train station around 8:30 on Thursday morning. They were carrying rucksacks. Police say the bombs only weighed 10 pounds and could have easily fitted into those rucksacks -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: The investigation continues, obviously.

John Vause for us.

John, thanks for that update.

And let's head back to the Kennedy Space Center with Miles -- Miles, good morning again.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad, we're a little -- good morning.

We're a little less than eight hours and counting toward the shuttle launch.

Will the weather cooperate? That seems to be the question we're focusing on today. So far, no huge technical issues to think about.

Chad Myers is in the Weather Center and he's got all of his technical wherewithal pointing at the very spot where I sit -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, you know, we have four radars coming around you, all the way from Jacksonville, right on back to Melbourne. The Miami thing is turned on. Also, Tampa is turned on. We're looking for thunderstorms within a 20 mile radius of the launch site. If that happens, they actually have to scrub the launch.

There's another thing that could happen, too. If there are thunderstorms to the west of the launch site but the top of the thunderstorms, the anvil itself, if that gets too close, then you could also have the launch scrubbed because of that.

The entire area there not really seeing too much in the way of any weather now. There are a couple of showers back out here to the east, but the rest of the shuttle launch area, at least at this point, looks very good.

Here's your shuttle weather, though, throughout the day, because obviously they don't care about right now. They care about 3:51.

Clouds will come across the area this morning. They will break up. The land will heat up. The sea breeze will blow in. Showers will fire up west of Daytona. And as the area comes up here, we see the clouds here. They don't want those clouds. They have to be able to see this thing all the way into the sky so that they can take their cameras and know if anything fell off like last time.

So we really need clear skies. A 60 percent likelihood of launch according to the NASA Web site. We'll have to see if that holds up.

Miles, I know you know the answer to this. I asked you a little bit earlier, you know, we've only got a 10 minute window here from when they can launch. I know we're trying to catch something that's moving. But...

M. O'BRIEN: There you go.

MYERS: But can't there be...

M. O'BRIEN: And once again, Chad.

MYERS: But can it be 2:00...

M. O'BRIEN: Once again.

MYERS: No?

M. O'BRIEN: No. Here's the deal. You played football, right?

MYERS: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Think of the space station as your receiver. Think of the shuttle as the football.

MYERS: Yes?

M. O'BRIEN: The football has to be thrown at just the right moment in order to hit that receiver. And there's only one time each day that that just works out perfectly. And it's within a five minute time frame. Otherwise, they don't have enough fuel to catch up to the space station.

MYERS: I see, because I was thinking...

M. O'BRIEN: That's the basis.

MYERS: I was thinking this thing goes around the Earth, I mean how many times a day, 24 or whatever it is? Can't they just catch up to it an hour later? But they can't, huh?

M. O'BRIEN: No. You've got to have -- you need a lot of motion lotion to do that. So it's better to just wait and catch up at just the right moment.

MYERS: Fair enough. Now I know.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, Chad Myers, thank you very much.

MYERS: Thanks, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: And let's move on and talk a little bit more about Discovery, but Columbia, as well. This will mark the space agency's first manned mission, of course, since the Columbia tragedy two and a half years ago now. It's hard to believe it's been two-and-a-half years. You know, on their uniforms, the crew today will wear a special patch to remember the mission and the crew of Columbia, all seven of them.

Doug Brown's brother, Dave, died in the Columbia tragedy.

He joins us now.

Dave you not -- or, excuse me, Doug, you're not the only family member who is here today. I assume it was kind of a tough decision, a little bit of ambivalence, that brought you here.

DOUG BROWN, BROTHER OF COLUMBIA ASTRONAUT: We have five of us over the OSK. And it is harder for some than others. For me, it's a chance to help that crew be remembered through Dave's films. So that brings me here today.

M. O'BRIEN: We want to talk about the film in just a moment. But I know you've had an opportunity to speak with the administrator. He talked to all the family members who are here.

What did he say to you and were -- was it the kind of words you wanted to hear on the eve of this launch?

BROWN: Well, Mike is a very technical guy, which is interesting. And he did make one kind of global point which I thought was relevant. He said it's still dangerous, it's difficult and it's expensive. And I think that the astronauts all know that. I think every one should know it will still be a dangerous activity. We're not going to eliminate that no matter how much work we do.

M. O'BRIEN: So the shuttle program is ready to resume.

Do you think your brother would be whole-heartedly in favor of all that, if he were here today?

BROWN: Well, you know, just before launch at Christmas, I asked David, what would you want me to say it you didn't make it back? We didn't spend a lot of time on it, but he said, you know, I would hate to see the program slow up on account of me. He says we lost 10 people in peacetime after Challenger in the first 30 days, just carrier landings and so on. And the program should move forward.

And knowing Dave, I know he wouldn't have wanted to do anything unsafe. He didn't mean that. But he would say it's a dangerous activity, we choose to do it and we should get going.

M. O'BRIEN: I bet you've thought about those words a lot over the past couple of years.

Let's talk about the film.

Your brother was, you know, to call him an amateur filmmaker is not giving him enough credit. He really had a talent for it -- and he documented, really, and this was a long training flow that they went through, because they got delayed so many times -- documented the whole process of this crew training and coalescing. And there's a program out and I just want to show our viewers and listen in for just a moment to an except of what's called The Astronaut Diaries.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM "THE ASTRONAUT DIARIES," COURTESY THE SCIENCE CHANNEL)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want you guys to understand we've only got a one way ticket out to the pad, all right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not going

stuff again, all right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a one way ticket.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And everybody's got one of these patches on and go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: And this is them in the astronaut van, the astro van, as they call it, as they went out to the launch pad. You know, this is the story that NASA doesn't share with us very frequently, the personal story.

What is it like seeing it?

BROWN: You know, the first four times I watched it I cried just because it was so special. But really what it is is that these people gave their lives in the pursuit of space exploration, which is for all mankind. You want them to be remembered for who they were and that's what we got on this film. And the news just did a great job putting it together. I think, I'm really proud that we took the time and effort to do this.

M. O'BRIEN: And it airs, once again, tonight at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Discovery Science Channel.

There's a letter that the families have all put together. I assume you were a part of this letter.

BROWN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: And I want to read just a brief excerpt for our viewers, because it is -- it's kind of a moving statement: "As important as solving the technical risk is, we must be vigilant to ensure the organizational and cultural issues that contributed to Apollo -- we're talking about the fire in 1967 -- Challenger and Columbia are forever remembered. Under the leadership of the new NASA administrator, we have every confidence that the sacrifice of our loved ones and those that preceded them will be realized for the benefit of all humankind. Godspeed. Discovery."

Does that reflect pretty well how you feel this morning?

BROWN: Yes. I think that, you know, culture has been made a big issue at NASA. But, you know, my experience as a businessperson is that all large organizations have cultural issues and that the spirit is from all three accidents, we need to be vigilant against complacency and that will not go away no matter what any one administrator does, whether it be the one after Mike or the next one. And the families should remind them of that, to be ever vigilant.

This complacency is -- it just creeps into everybody and you have to keep at it. And so that's what we want to do.

M. O'BRIEN: All right.

Doug Brown, good to have you with us, the brother of the late Dave Brown.

The program is "Astronaut Diaries" and it's, once again, Discovery Science Channel, 3:00 p.m. Eastern tonight.

Thank you very much for being with us.

We appreciate it.

And we wish you well.

I'm sure there will be a few butterflies as we get a little closer to the launch -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I'm sure many of those. It's pretty remarkable to have that discussion with this brother, you know, before he took off the last time, for the last time. Pretty amazing.

All right, Miles, thanks.

We're going to check-in with you again, obviously, Miles.

Also, there is much more ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

A pretty chilling interview with the BTK murderer. Dennis Rader's own words on what led to the killings.

Plus, a new study reveals some mixed news for women and hormone replacement therapy.

That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: The confessed BTK killer says he feels for the families of his victims. He also says his sentencing next month is going to be very emotional. Dennis Rader is talking from behind bars about a number of things, including what he calls his own weird sexual fantasies.

Larry Hatteberg is an anchor at KAKE TV in Wichita.

He's been on the BTK story for over 30 years and he recently interviewed Rader over the phone and in person, too.

Larry, it's nice to see you again.

Thanks for talking with us.

LARRY HATTEBERG, KAKE TV ANCHOR: Good to be here.

S. O'BRIEN: What I was struck by most is sort of this lack of remorse that we saw in the courtroom.

In your conversations with him, though, did you get a sense of I'm sorry or even I'm sorry that I got caught?

HATTEBERG: Well, he is sorry he got caught. He wasn't ready to be caught. He told me that he was planning to kill again.

When you're talking to him in person and you look in his eyes and you hear the tone and tenor of his voice, you don't hear the remorse, although he says he has remorse for both his victims and the victims' families. But you don't hear it in the voice and you don't see it in his eyes.

S. O'BRIEN: You asked him the question about was he done, was he going to kill again? And I want to play a little bit of the tape from that interview.

So let's listen.

HATTEBERG: OK.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

HATTEBERG: So you were not going to kill again? You had no projects in the works?

DENNIS RADER: Well, yes and no. There -- there was probably one more. I was really thinking about it, but I was beginning to slow down age wise, my thinking process. So it would probably have never went. It was more of a, probably more of an ego thing.

HATTEBERG: Had you picked the person at that point?

RADER: Oh, yes. There was one already picked out.

HATTEBERG: Do you know her name?

RADER: No. No, not at this time. No, no, no. I'll never release that.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: I think that's just shocking. He wasn't quite done yet.

HATTEBERG: No, he wasn't done yet. And he had stalked and trolled, as he put it, for a number of his other victims. The Wichita Police Department has contacted a number of people and told them that Dennis Rader did stalk them, just so that they wouldn't be surprised by any media reports.

S. O'BRIEN: Wow!

You know, of course, for people who follow the story, the big question is, is why it happened. I mean here's a guy who looks like the picture of normal, if there is one. And you asked him sort of about when this all started.

And I want to play a little bit of that interview, too.

Let's listen.

HATTEBERG: OK.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

RADER: Sexual fantasies, probably more than normal. But you've got to remember that it was puberty, just having from puberty and I -- all males probably go through some kind of sexual fantasy. Mine were just a little bit weirder -- weirder than other people. Anyway, think somewhere along the line I knew, probably by the time I was in eighth grade or a freshman in high school, I knew I had some abnormal tendencies at that point in time. But they exploded on January the 15th, 1974. That's when I finally -- that's when the ball game exploded.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: He talks about exploded, meaning that's really when he started killing, that date?

HATTEBERG: That's right. That's when he killed four members of the Otero family -- the father, the mother and then two children. So that's when he says that everything, the sexual fantasies, really exploded. I asked him if he knew, really, the root cause of what caused him to kill. And basically he believes it's some sort of demon. I asked him if he had an accomplice with any of his murders and he said no, but I had a little friend with me. And come to find out as we talked to him, the little friend, we believe he's referring to a little demon that was with him on all of his murders.

He has manifested this demon in a letter. He draws it. It looks like a frog with horns and then a tail, a demon like figure. And -- but he wants to, in jail he is hoping that psychologists and psychiatrists can figure him out and figure out what the root cause was that actually made him kill.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, what a bizarre story.

HATTEBERG: Chilling.

KAKE TV anchor Larry Hatteberg in Wichita this morning.

Thanks, Larry.

Nice to see you, as always.

HATTEBERG: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: And let's go back to Miles at the Kennedy Space Center -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Soledad.

Still to come, strong emotions for families of the Discovery crew members today, as you might understand and anticipate. I'll talk to the husband of the commander, Eileen Collins, and see what's going on in his mind this morning and ask him what she's thinking, as well.

That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: If and when the Space Shuttle Discovery is launched today, Miles O'Brien will be talking about it. But he won't be on it. He very nearly was, though, two years ago, right, Miles, before the Columbia tragedy? And you were like this close to being the first American journalist in space.

Give me a sense, Miles, of the preparation and the planning that went into that and then how it sort of all fell apart after that terrible tragedy.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, we had been working on it for several years, Soledad. As a matter of fact, really, my predecessor, the late John Holloman, had really got the ball rolling many years ago, talking to the Russians about the possibility of buying a seat on the Soyuz to go up to maybe the Mir space station then. And then when I inherited his role after he tragically passed away, I picked up that whole notion. And then Dennis Tito flew to space in the summer of 2001, the spring of 2001. And that's when we really started getting enthused and excited about the prospects, started talking to the Russians as well as NASA.

And we got pretty far down the road. We were just a few weeks away from an announcement that I would go and actually be a part of the program as a missions specialist, in other words, go in there and spend -- I'd get the full training. In other words, not just a kind of a drive-by, parachute in type of thing, actually live out that experience.

So, of course, when Columbia happened, that was pretty much the end of that.

S. O'BRIEN: The launch that we're seeing today is the launch that theoretically you would have been on.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, not this crew, of course, and not this particular mission, because this -- they were assigned beforehand. But it's the right time frame, because it would have been a few years of training. So, yes, in a sense, that's kind of my ride out there, in a way. And -- but when you think of all that has happened and all the tragedy that has befell, like our previous guest, Doug Brown, you know, in the grand scheme, it's not that big a deal for me. But it was something that I looked forward to and was planning. We were planning to move to Houston and, you know, just get with the program, so to speak.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the day of the Columbia disaster. Remember, I remember that these things had become so routine and I was anchoring that day elsewhere and all of a sudden sort of we got a note, a wire that said the shuttle was late. It was sort of off its schedule. And that was, for me, knowing almost nothing about the shuttle at that point, I thought, boy, they're always on schedule. That's kind of odd.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: At what point did you realize that what we just thought was odd at first was really a terrible tragedy?

M. O'BRIEN: There was a moment when they indicated, as they were talking back and forth to them, that they didn't see them on the radar. And when I heard that, I knew that was very, very serious because it's one thing to lose the radio communication, but when the radar doesn't pick up the vehicle, that's a problem.

And as you point out, it's not like it's -- the shuttle was in a holding pattern over Dallas waiting to land there. It's -- you can set your watch to that landing time. And it, because it's a glider, after all. And so at that moment when there was no radar or very shortly thereafter it didn't materialize, it did not land in Florida, it was very evident to me that the crew was lost.

It took a little while before we could, you know, kind of report that. We sort of had to take viewers down that road. But it was just a moment that kind of took my breath away. And it must have been the same for you.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I think that's really fair to say.

You know, outside of the terrible personal tragedy that you've been talking about with the family members of the astronauts who perished and just the tragedy overall, I think it's fair to say for the nation it really had a huge impact on the direction of the space shuttle program and NASA, actually, too, right?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, you know, if there's a silver lining in all of this, you know, and that's kind of a cliche because these are profound losses for families, but if there is a silver lining, it prompted NASA and, for that matter, the president, to reevaluate the program and ask some hard questions about what they're doing.

It's time to retire the space shuttle and that decision has been made in the wake of this. It's time to move on and do something different, maybe go back to the moon and on to Mars. And that's what NASA has in the works. That is something that is good that comes out of this -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, we'll all be watching the launch today, but maybe nobody as closely as you'll be watching with the family members.

Miles O'Brien, thanks.

We're going to check in with you, obviously, throughout the day, throughout the morning, but through the whole day, as well, as we get nearer to the launch.

Also ahead this morning on AMERICAN MORNING, we're talking about Karl Rove. He's under fire for his role in the CIA leak case. Democrats say they want him out. Will the controversy cost Rove his job? We'll debate that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody, as it comes up to just about 8:30 here in New York.

Miles O'Brien is at the Kennedy Space Center and he, of course, is watching, along with the rest of us, what happens today with the Space Shuttle Discovery.

Miles, I have a question for you.

M. O'BRIEN: OK.

S. O'BRIEN: If for some reason, weather or otherwise, they have to scuttle the launch, how does it work? Do they just set it up for another day? Do they haul the whole thing out? Do they basically shut down the program? What happens?

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, well basically what happens is the -- remember I was talking to you about those narrow windows in order to meet up with the space station.

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