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Proposed Pentagon Budget Cuts; Earthquake Strikes Italy

Aired April 06, 2009 - 15:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Coming at you now:

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United States is not and will never be at war with Islam.

HOLMES: President Obama chips away at a perceived image problem. Is this approach working?

Also, one congressman describes it as a bloody Monday.

ROBERT GATES, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We must rebalance this department's programs.

HOLMES: Huge slashes to the Pentagon's budget, putting American jobs on the line.

And we know they launched, but will the United Nations do anything about North Korea?

Rick's off. T.J.'s talking today. And you chat in real time and on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. Your national conversation begins right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: And good afternoon to you all, T.J. Holmes sitting in here in the NEWSROOM for Rick Sanchez, who has the day off.

We do need to start this conversation over in Italy, where the death toll continues to climb from a deadly earthquake there. We now know at least 100 people are dead. The death toll has kind of been all over the place, but it has been steadily rising by all accounts and all reporting we're getting. And the latest official word is that at least 100 have been killed.

You are seeing it, some of the video here of people who have been plucked out under a lot of this rubble. Now, again, this is an earthquake that struck at about 3:30 in the morning in this town of L'Aquila.

This is about 60 miles northeast of Rome. This is a very old town. A lot of the buildings here are literally hundreds of years old. And it is the worst-hit town that we know of so far. Reports are still coming in from other places surrounding L'Aquila, so we could see a high -- a much higher death toll. We do know of hundreds and hundreds who have been injured as well. Thousands of people are helping in this rescue effort, but, again, this is some of the latest video we're getting. You see a man there just being pulled out, a lot of this happening around that particular town.

Also, some other video here to show you. According to the government, about 1,500, again, injured. A ton of rescues we are seeing like this and the efforts continue around the clock. The prime minister there -- again, some of the still shots we can show you here of some of the rescue -- the Italian prime minister we know of, Silvio Berlusconi, had to cancel a trip.

He was heading to Moscow for a visit and now he has stayed behind. He's going to declare a state of emergency there. But again the death toll continues to rise. At least 100 people have been killed.

Want to turn it over now to our Chad Myers.

Want to bring you in on this, Chad. You have been keeping an eye on. And it's always helpful to see some of these maps and get more perspective about these earthquakes and again where they are exactly. So show us exactly where this place is and exactly, I guess, how this damage kind of went out from this epicenter.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: About 60 miles from Rome, really. And you think, wow, did Rome get hurt? And there wasn't much shaking in Rome itself.

This was a very shallow quake, about six miles deep, and so it shook right above the epicenter and didn't spread out very much.

Let me give you an idea. This town you're talking about, at about 2,200 feet, right now, the temperatures for these rescues at 43 degrees. It's not going to go much lower than that, but that's cold enough with fog.

And there you see these tiny little just alleyways where cars wouldn't even fit, because this town was built hundreds of years ago. That means it was built well before any type of earthquake insulation was ever instituted.

And then there are these towns that are even closer to the epicenter that we have no information whatsoever, completely cut off from electricity and from phone service at this 6.3 earthquake.

And you can just begin to see the Apennine Mountains there in the background. See how mountainous this is, how rugged this? And this is part of why the earthquake happened here. In 1997, we had a 6.0 earthquake about 50 miles from this point. This is just the region where plates are coming together.

That's why the mountains are there in the first place. That's why the mountains in the Rockies are all there in the first place. As things come together, things push up, and the earth hasn't stopped cooling down, hasn't stopped moving. That's why we still have earthquakes, too, right there in the middle -- T.J.

HOLMES: All right, and a mess going over there. Chad, we appreciate you, as always, being able to break it down like that and show us those maps. Thank you.

And rest assured we will continue here at CNN to keep an eye on all the reports we are getting out of L'Aquila there in Italy, again, the death toll around 100, 1,500. Also, we know 100 killed, 1,500 injured. We are all over that story and do have someone on the ground, so we are getting our updates, continue to bring those to you.

Other major story, breaking story we are just keeping an eye on here over the past hour, hour-and-a-half or so, the defense secretary, Robert Gates, has come out and says things are going to look a whole lot different at the Defense Department. They are changing the way they do business.

He told reporters at the Pentagon about his budget suggestions that he will be sending to the president's desk and also budget suggestions that over in Congress, they could actually scrap. Expecting a big battle over this and a big lobbying effort from a number of different entities, trying to really shift the way that the Defense Department does business.

Take a listen here to the defense secretary just a little while ago shaping what need to be the future priorities for the Defense Department.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GATES: My decisions have been almost exclusively influenced by factors other than simply finding a way to balance the books or fit under the top line, as is normally the case with most budget exercises.

Instead, these recommendations are the product of a holistic assessment of capabilities, requirements, risks and needs for the purpose of shifting this department in a different strategic direction.

Let me be clear. I would have made virtually all of the decisions and recommendations announced today regardless of the department's top-line budget number.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: All right.

And now John Robinson, the editor of the "Defense Daily," joins me now to talk about this.

John, we appreciate you being here.

Are we now looking -- is it going to be a leaner and meaner Defense Department, one that's not so geared towards fighting those traditional conventional battles out there on the battlefields against other major militaries, but against those counterinsurgencies, more focused on those -- the counterinsurgency and more on those intelligence efforts?

JOHN ROBINSON, EDITOR, "DEFENSE DAILY": Well, T.J., it's really too early to say.

And to start off with sort of a sports analogy, we really are sort of at the top of the first. This was the first sort of strike across the bow. I think what you are going to find and you are going to see in the hours to come some fairly intense congressional reaction to some of these cuts that are affecting parts of the country that may already be financially distressed that are going to have to absorb a bigger hit because of some of these cuts, places like Upstate New York that builds the presidential helicopter, Marietta, Georgia, which builds the F-22.

Places like that, you are going to be hearing from those congressional members, and plus their suppliers in other parts of the country that are going to be affected by these proposed cuts. And I have to emphasize that, because President Obama hasn't quite put his imprimatur on this budget yet. This is still sort of an internal recommendation that was brought in a fairly unconventional way to the outside world.

HOLMES: So, John, on that logic there, it seems like a lot of -- and we are expecting it -- a lot of these members of Congress who might see jobs cut in their districts will then come back and they will be fighting for these contracts and to keep them, but at the same time, the secretary of defense saying we don't need them.

So, is it possible that some of these members of Congress could win out and we do keep as a country making things that the Defense Department doesn't necessarily think we need?

ROBINSON: Absolutely.

And you can be sure we're going to continue building certain things that clearly the armed forces doesn't want, because of how the congressional support can be lined up.

But, T.J., you really have to understand this is going to be very controversial and it's going to be played out in months, in hearings, and there is going to be a lot of give and take. So what we saw this afternoon is not what's going to come out at the end. It's going to be very different, I would predict.

HOLMES: Last thing here. Anywhere close to what we saw today? At the end of the day, it's really not up to the defense secretary.

ROBINSON: It's up to Congress. And Chairman Ike Skelton just put out a press release saying Congress is going to preserve that right to have its oversight over the budget. And they will obviously do that. So some components probably will stay, but many of it will be -- much of it will be changed.

HOLMES: All right, editor of the "Defense Daily," John Robinson, sir, we appreciate you being here with us.

ROBINSON: Thank you.

HOLMES: Thank you so much. And we're going to be picking up this subject in just a little bit with someone who knows all about putting together a budget and making those sacrifices. The former Defense Secretary William Cohen, he's going to be with us in just a moment.

Right now, though, take a look at this. What was happening here? Can you make out this scene? You might even hear some gunfire there. What was going through the officer's head? He opened the door of a suspect's car and this is what went down. We will explain to you exactly what happened here and what happened to that officer. You need to see how this thing ends.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: And welcome back, everybody. I'm T.J. Holmes, sitting in today for Rick Sanchez.

The president, Obama, he is winding up his first big overseas trip as president, first overseas trip. And new pictures we're just getting here, this is the president today in Turkey. He's sitting there with the prime minister of Turkey today. Held some meetings, spoke to parliament over there as well.

And he made no bones about it. Yes, he is stopping -- there was a purpose to stopping here in Turkey. He was there to signal to the Muslim world that, hey, we're your friends, not your enemies.

It seemed to go over well with a lot of folks at least on the street there in Turkey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We started to love and like America because of Obama.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's what people are expecting from Obama, I think, so ending this conflict with other countries, bringing peace to the world and these issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: All right, let's bring in now a friend of the show here, Patricia Murphy. She is in Washington, columnist with PoliticsDaily.com.

Well, that sounded pretty good there, Patricia. Is he getting done what he hoped to get done, at least on this stop in Turkey?

PATRICIA MURPHY, POLITICSDAILY.COM: I think he certainly is.

And I can't imagine a better response on just the streets of Turkey than to hear what those Turkish citizens had to say. And that really was President Obama's message when he went over to Turkey -- it's his first stop in a Muslim nation -- to say, we are not at war with Islam and we never will be.

That was very, very key. There was some feeling in the Muslim world while we had the war on terror going on -- and we certainly still do, but Barack Obama is trying to change the tone on that and say that we share a common purpose here, we share a common enemy in terrorism, but we are not at war with Islam. That was his message. And it seems to be getting across.

HOLMES: OK, another message he was trying to get across, not just to the people there in Turkey, but to people in the wider region there, including the people of Iran, he made a speech today and spoke directly to the people there. Let's take a quick listen. And I will ask about it on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I have made it clear to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran that the United States seeks engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect. We want Iran to play its rightful role in the community of nations. Iran is a great civilization. We want them to engage in the economic and political integration that brings prosperity and security. But Iran's leaders must choose whether they will try to build a weapon or build a better future for their people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: All right.

Well, he has been doing a lot in his first few days as president, not a few. I guess we're up to 70 plus now, but, still, a lot done and really overturning or at least starting to shape foreign policy now and show people the way he wants to get things done, certainly differently from the way things have been done.

So, are people at least right now, including the people of Iran, willing to give him a good first look, a second look, and think at least he's authentic?

MURPHY: Well, that is the big question here. And that really has been the question of Obama's presidency. Can he translate his personal popularity -- he is beloved by crowds everywhere he goes -- can he translate that into changes in policy?

That is a huge departure that we just heard there from the Bush administration's tone toward Iran. Their concept was, you were either with us or you're against us. Iran was perceived to be against us. That is a major olive branch that he has just put out towards the people of Iran. It wasn't toward the government of Iran.

But that's a major, major change in tone. And it remains to be seen. He has gotten a lot of criticism, the president has, of not achieving enough on this first trip, but I think it's a lot to hope that he's going to get everything he wants on his first trip abroad. So, I think that time will tell if his popularity translates into policy changes.

HOLMES: Yes. And like I heard someone comment, you know what? He's maybe not going to get everything he wants, but at least on this trip, he is passing the audition. So, that's something to be said there.

Patricia Murphy, always good to see you. Wish we had more time to talk about this big trip, but I got to let you go here.

MURPHY: Great to see you.

HOLMES: So, we will see you again soon.

MURPHY: OK.

HOLMES: Well, an officer opening a suspect's car door -- this video -- gets a pretty big surprise, gunfire coming his way. We will show you this scene.

Also, we will continue the discussion on what to do with North Korea now that they have fired that rocket we know of, despite all the warnings, what to do with them now.

All that, and you can chat while I'm doing the talking with William Cohen, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: All right, we're going to return now to one of the top stories of the hour, really of the day, big announcements coming from the Pentagon, mostly about money.

Now, while I'm going to be speaking to my guest here, the former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, you will see a few of our viewers chatting on the topic on the right side of your screen. So, by all means, check those out while I'm having this conversation.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, meanwhile, says he will advise the president to stop making some weapons systems and to start pulling lots of money into others.

Those are the types of decisions that William Cohen did have to make when he was secretary of defense.

And, Mr. Secretary, I assume you're maybe glad you're not having to make a lot of these tough decisions that he did have to make today. So I will just ask you in general terms before we get into some specifics today. He said it himself. Some of this stuff is going to be controversial. How do you think this plan is about to be greeted up on Capitol Hill?

WILLIAM COHEN, CNN WORLD AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think it's going to be greeted with some controversy, primarily because of the economic situation that we find ourselves in.

There will be a number of states who will be very hard hit by this, if the cuts were actually to go through. You also have to remember that I think he's clearly speaking on behalf of the president. It's somewhat unusual to have a -- sort of a rollout of the defense budget. The commander in chief's abroad.

But I have no doubt in my mind that this has been cleared by President Obama and he's agreed with virtually everything that Secretary Gates has recommended.

HOLMES: On that one point you just made there, why go about it this way? And there were some I guess complaints the way this was done, in that it was done in such a secretive manner. Reportedly, he even made some of his top generals and people helping him with this sign some agreements that said they would not leak anything.

So, why would he go about it this way and not really bring in members of Congress before he put it out like this?

COHEN: Well, I think it's because it's a rather significant reorientation or reform, as he has said, of shifting away from larger, more expensive, more complicated and fewer systems and to put it more into manpower-intensive operations, health care, other types of personnel.

We're about to see, I would suspect, an increase of 93,000 to 100,000 individuals we want to bring into the military. So, the budget, the bottom line, isn't going down very much.

HOLMES: Yes.

COHEN: In fact, this doesn't include the supplementals that will be coming along to pay for Iraq and Afghanistan. So, you're looking at roughly the same amount of money, but it's a shift away from systems more to the asymmetrical type of warfare that we're currently engaged in, in both Iraq and in Afghanistan.

HOLMES: And getting away from some of those systems, that means that, undoubtedly, if his plan goes through, and there's a long way to go, as you mention, if it were to go through, that would undoubtedly mean the loss of jobs in certain places around this country, many places around this country.

And a lot of folks on Capitol Hill, a lot of congress men and women, are going to be fighting for those contracts to continue, so the folks in their district will not be losing jobs.

Sir, is that a good way to do business? Should we continue -- and nobody wants to lose a job, but is it a good way to do business to continue to build something that we know the military might not really need, just for the sake of keeping some jobs, which, of course, is a good cause, but still, we're building things we don't need?

COHEN: Of course, there's bound to be some debate within the military itself.

I think what Secretary Gates has indicated, he has the support of the Joint Chiefs, and so he has the support of the top brass, but there may be disagreements within the bureaucracy and certainly within the services.

So, that's hard to see. What happens is, once a program gets started, it's very difficult to terminate it. And this is why I think Secretary Gates has come out and said we're going to put a hold on some of the land components of the future combat systems. We are going to go with unmanned aerial vehicles. We will go with helicopters, but we are going to cut back on the land systems until I'm satisfied that I see that we have got a requirement and this technology will meet it at a reasonable cost.

So, I think what he is doing is trying to get ahold of systems before they get too big. And once they get big, they have got a big constituency, hard to terminate them once that happens.

HOLMES: And like you said, help people understand here for a moment. This is the way it's been done for so long. Like you said, hard to terminate them.

One program he mentioned was the helicopter program, the presidential helicopters. It was just almost accepted. This thing was six years past due. It was twice as big as the original budget estimate. And this is just how things have been done over the years.

Why is it so hard to get out of a lot of these contracts?

COHEN: Well, one of the reasons that these big cost increases take place is because the requirements change.

What starts out as a helicopter of one capability, suddenly, they start adding on and adding on and adding on, and you now then have to go back to the contractor and say, how do we integrate these systems? It's going to be much more expensive.

And, so, what starts out as a relatively inexpensive or fixed type of cost that you can identify suddenly becomes a major overrun because the requirements keep changing. That's something in which the procurement system really has to deal with.

And I think that Secretary Gates is going to go back and say, look, we have to stop the way we have been doing business. We can't continue to have these add-ons and then put the contractor in the position of saying you have got to absorb the costs. Contractors won't be able to stay in business if they do that.

So, the procurement system itself has to be fixed. We have got to get back to more competition and to really focus on how we instill a competitive spirit and stop just trying to, you know, satisfy a local constituency.

We have the issue about tankers. We have got to have a tanker fleet. We're now talking about refueling our helicopters and aircraft up in Afghanistan, very tough area to operate in. Those tankers are very, very old.

We have got to get a tanker system now that's going to be competed again this summer and hopefully a decision will be made. But it's time to really reform the procurement system and get something that we can get a handle on.

HOLMES: And, last thing, sir, Mr. Secretary, and, if you can, quickly, is this really just a wish list for Secretary Gates; it's really not up to him at the end of the day?

COHEN: It's not a -- it's a -- it's not a wish list. It's what he wants to do.

But, again, Congress has the power of the purse strings. They are a co-equal partner. The president may be the commander in chief, but Congress is a co-equal partner when it comes to funding it. In fact, Congress has the ultimate say on how much we're going to spend.

HOLMES: All right. Former Defense Secretary William Cohen, sir, we appreciate you being here today. And you're not having to make these decisions anymore. You can be with us here and talk about them. Sir, we appreciate your time.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: Great to see you.

HOLMES: All right.

Well, the Pittsburgh police mourning the loss of their own. There's a gun law debate that has picked up again.

Also, there's an officer that is -- he's pretty thankful, pretty lucky, even, to be alive. This could have been a deadly mistake in judgment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, Pittsburgh police mourning their own today. The city's police chief says three officers shot dead on Saturday during a domestic violence call will lie in repose this week until the city memorial event that is planned for Thursday. The man accused of killing the three policemen is now in custody.

All right, turn to this dashboard cam now. Look at this video here, a scary moment for an officer there. This is happening in South Carolina. An officer is making a traffic stop. Now take a listen -- take a look and listen now to some of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir? (INAUDIBLE)

(GUNSHOTS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: God! (INAUDIBLE) shot!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: All right. Sergeant Jackie Lawson (ph), you see him here, he is making that traffic stop. And, then, of course, gunfire rings out. He's actually hit in the arm, dropped his weapon.

And he's in shock at all that is happening here. And the man who shot him didn't shoot him again. What you're seeing here now in this video is that the guy who's doing the shooting starts arguing with his buddy who was driving the car.

You also don't see it in the dash-cam. The shooter eventually takes off in the police car. He was eventually caught. And then he got 38 years behind bars.

Now, this was from last month, a little earlier, but the sergeant, Lawson (ph), he says he is releasing the video, releasing it now, because he wants other officers to learn from his mistakes. Now, again, that mistake was made actually last year. We're just getting a peek at the video now. But he's releasing it now because he wants others to learn the lesson that he learned, which was you need to be a little more cautious and also never open a door unless you know what is on the other side of the door, again, a mistake he said he made he's hoping other officers will learn from now.

Well, North Korea -- can North Korea's firing of that rocket, can it -- despite some warnings we have seen, they're saying it's a victory. The rocket, some saying it was a success, others saying it was not, them launching this rocket, supposed to be putting a satellite up into space. We will tell you what the State Department is saying now and also what is at stake.

Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HOLMES: Two victims of that shooting rampage were buried yesterday in Upstate New York. What I'm talking about was in Binghamton. Sadness and shock still rippling through that town after a man opened fire on that community center, killed 13 people. The mayor spoke out today, said his town actually will be stronger for having gone through this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR MATTHEW RYAN, BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK: A lot of people have talked about whether our community will be defined by this tragedy. And what we're trying to tell people is our community will be defined by the response to this tragedy and what it really is, and that's a great community with a very low crime rate and a very accepting community of immigrants and diversity in our community. We pride ourselves with this and have a long history of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Here now, take a look. This is in Binghamton yesterday, this was outside a mosque which is about two miles from the scene of that shooting. Two of the victims of that shooting were Muslim. The shooter was a 41-year-old Vietnamese immigrant, killed himself after gunning down those 13 people on Friday.

HOLMES: We'll turn back to international affairs and North Korea. President Obama says North Korea needs to be punished after that rocket launch this week. Well, so far, not much punishment for them. The U.N. Security Council hasn't taken any action just yet on North Korea.

Now this rocket, it didn't necessarily work as planned, but as our Pentagon correspondent Chris Lawrence, explained, it still was enough to prompt some new worries.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): North Korea claims it put a satellite into orbit. But U.S. defense officials say it failed.

(on camera): Here's the launch site on the eastern side of North Korea. U.S. Navy missile destroyers are positioned here and here on both sides of Japan. Stage one of the rocket falls right here in the Sea of Japan, roughly where the North Koreans thought it would, but then a few minutes later, something goes wrong, because the satellite does not make it into orbit, and part of the rocket falls here, into the Pacific Ocean.

(voice-over): U.S. officials say the payload did not separate successfully during the last stage, but North Korea was able to control its rocket through that point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is a significant step forward for any missile program, because oftentimes those missiles become unstable as they go through these staging events.

LAWRENCE: This was a more advanced rocket than the one North Korea launched in 1998. And it improved the range from a similar test in 2006, when the missile blew apart 40 seconds after launch. But experts say the longer test gave the U.S. military more to study.

CHARLES VICK, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: I think for the first time we've gotten full images of the entire vehicle. I don't think we've ever fully had that except back in 1994, when we saw the mock-up of the concept of it.

LAWRENCE (on camera): And the U.S. can incorporate that information into its own missile defense systems. Experts say this missile could potentially reach Alaska and Hawaii and could carry a nuclear warhead.

Now, North Korea is not there yet, but there's a concern that it could sell the technology that it does have to other nations which may be developing their own nuclear programs.

Chris Lawrence, CNN, Washington.

HOLMES: Well, someone out there is saying that the former vice president has not been behaving like a statesman. Those are the words of a current White House adviser.

Also, we'll have more on 100 people dead and that number likely to go higher after that earthquake in Italy, a live report from there on the rescue efforts and helping those who are left homeless by this disaster.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, if you tune in to this newscast on a regular basis, you usually see Rick Sanchez sitting in this seat. And from here, he often calls attention to comments made by the former vice president, Dick Cheney, comments that some of them which were on CNN that were less than complimentary of the Obama administration and its new approach to foreign policy.

In fact, Mr. Cheney has suggested that President Obama's decisions are putting Americans at risk, while former President Bush, meanwhile, and on the other hand has said that his predecessor, quote, "deserves my silence."

So you know what else, we haven't heard a peep from anyone in the current White House about this, until now. Who is it now? The senior adviser, David Axelrod, on CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JOHN KING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID AXELROD, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISOER: Let me say in contrast how much we appreciate the way President Bush has behaved. He was incredibly cooperative during the transition and when he left, he said, I wish you guys the best, I'm rooting for you. I believe that to be the case. And he has behaved like a statesman. And as I have said before here and elsewhere, I just don't think the memo got passed down to the vice president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Well, still no word about whether or not that memo he speaks of has been passed along.

We turn back now to Italy, where Italian officials continue to comb through the rubble of a deadly earthquake. Death toll now over 100, expected to rise. A live report from Italy is coming your way.

Also, for the first time in nearly 20 years, the media allowed to cover the return of fallen U.S. service members. We'll take a live look -- we'll take a look, rather, at a solemn moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: All right. Hello again, everybody. I'm T.J. Holmes sitting in today for Rick Sanchez here in the CNN NEWSROOM. We've covered a number of topics today. A bunch of big stories we have coming to you. One of the biggest stories is about the defense budget. Today the defense secretary, Robert Gates, came out and told what he would like to do with the defense budget, some money he would like to add to certain programs, some he wants to take away. But he's saying he's going to be totally reshaping the way they do business over there at the Defense Department. We are getting some feedback from you all on this story and a number of others. Let's take you over here to Rick's Twitter board.

Let's see here. Who should we start with? Let's go with "Beth" here, saying: "The Pentagon needs to be upfront with budgets instead of coming back to us for money hidden in omnibus bills."

Also, just up top from that one, we're getting on that says: "Wow, these dash cams are great." Now this is in response to a story we just did showing a police officer who was actually shot, the dash cam picked this all up. The police officer now releasing that video so he can teach others how not to make the same mistake he made. But this comment saying: "Wow, these dash cams are great. From training videos to evidence, those things are there to stay."

So we appreciate you, as always, sending your comments to Rick on his Facebook page, his MySpace page, also on his Twitter account. So we thank you for that.

And again, the other story -- major story we are watching today, just devastation over in Italy. The death toll has continued to rise all day. And we are expecting it to get a lot higher. Some of the latest pictures here we're seeing where the work continues and will continue around the clock, where there has been a major earthquake, 6.3 on the magnitude scale, at least 100 people dead, 1,500 we know injured, and tens of thousands are homeless right now after this devastation.

We are keeping an eye on all things that are happening surrounding that earthquake. The very latest coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: All right. I want to turn back to a major story of the day, still a developing story. At least 100 dead in a major earthquake that took place in Italy. This was around 3:30 in the morning local time. This town is just about 60 miles northeast of Rome. It's called L'Aquila. CNN's Diana Magnay has made her way there.

Give us the very latest, we understand this work will continue around the clock to continue to try to find survivors.

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, T.J. Well, I'm in the town of L'Aquila, which is near where the epicenter of that quake was, about 18 hours ago now. But the whole of this central part of Italy, it's the mountainous Abruzzo region was hit.

So around 26 other towns badly are affected. This is the capital. Rescue operations here are under way behind me. This is a student dormitory, this is a university town. A lot of students were sleeping here last night when the quake struck.

And rescuers here are trying to pick six more people out of the rubble. And all day, worried friends and family have been standing around dressed in blankets, some of them in the pajamas that they woke up in when the quake hit, hoping to get news that those six in there are still alive.

And this is a situation which is playing itself out across the entire region. There are 4,000 rescuers here, there have been emergency field hospitals set up because the hospital in the town of L'Aquila has collapsed itself, and there are up to a thousand tents where people are going to be placed for a very rainy night -- T.J.

HOLMES: Diana, you just mentioned there that there was a hospital where these people are needed to be taken that was badly damaged itself. Is there enough places, enough areas to take them for this -- I guess this medical help that a lot of these people need?

Where are they taking them? Because I assume so many of those medical facilities have been damaged.

MAGNAY: Well, we're hearing that there are 50,000 homeless people, two field hospitals have been established so far to try and take care of the up to 1,500 injured.

Now, the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, came to the site earlier, called in this enormous rescue operation, he held a cabinet meeting tonight to try and work out how many more funds to give to this situation.

Obviously as it stands now, those two field hospitals are coping with the large number of injured, but the situation is developing. The death toll continues to rise. We heard from an official working on the rescue operation that that toll was now at 150 and the numbers keep changing.

So -- but the Italian rescue forces are quite well-equipped to deal with this kind of situation. They are used to seismic activity in these areas, and they have mobilized pretty fast, 4,000 rescuers is a huge operation to have got under way in really quite a short time since that quake hit -- T.J.

HOLMES: All right. Diana Magnay for us in that badly hit town of L'Aquila, thank you so much.

Our Chad Myers has been helping us navigate this area here.

And, Chad, I guess put in, I guess, perspective here, the town -- how old this town is, and these buildings here, I mean, they weren't built at a time when anybody was thinking about standing up to an earthquake.

MYERS: No. Some of these castles and buildings in the downtown from the 1500s, so clearly, there was no rubberized shaking, no foundations thought of that could withstand the earthquake. The last big earthquake that was in the area, about 50 miles to the north, happened in 1997.

It's in the Apennine Mountain range. Let me show you Italy and we'll kind of -- right down the spine in the middle of the country is where this activity occurs, 2,000 earthquakes a year, most of them not 6.0, though, of course.

And there's the town that we are talking about. Notice how the red brick tile, just the quintessential Italian town, but very small little alleys, smaller obviously than even cars can go through.

Now I'm going to put on what's called a "shake map." And it's going to turn a different color. The shake map determines how much shaking went on, and it also tells you how much of the town was affected or how much by this orange or the red which is moderate to severe shaking.

Now I'm going to slowly just ease out. That's only about a 10 square mile area there that had the most intense shaking. This area to Rome, that's only 60 miles, but notice Rome only had light shaking. That indicative -- really, it indicates that this was a very shallow quake, right above the epicenter is where it shook the most, but because it wasn't a deep rumbling quake, it didn't have far-reaching consequences in other big areas.

Another problem that I'm seeing, I'm going to take off the color, you will be able to see a little bit better, but there are many, many towns that we haven't had any contact with whatsoever.

This is very close to the epicenter, these towns, 500, 1,000 people, not the city that we were just talking about there, but we're thinking that the devastation in these towns is probably widespread, considering it was even closer to the epicenter than the city we're in right now. But we just can't get there right now.

HOLMES: All right. Chad, we appreciate you.

And I want to wrap up here with Diana Magnay -- CNN's Diana Magnay, who is still there on the ground for us.

I guess, help us understand now, what are you hearing? Just how widespread, as Chad is mentioning here -- I don't know if you were able to hear everything he was saying, but just how widespread this damage could be, a lot of focus there on that town, but a lot of places around, maybe a lot of rescuers haven't been able to get to, do we have a good scope of just how widespread the damage is from where you are?

MAGNAY: Well, this is a very mountainous region, there are 26 towns and villages that are supposedly affected across this whole area, and if you think about it, the infrastructure to get up to those towns is fairly poor, the road is easily broken, this is not an easy region to get across.

So, sure, we are in the capital here, it's easy to start the rescue operations here, but further afield, and this is a very wide area, right in the heart of Italy, it is much more difficult for rescue teams to actually find out what exactly the kind of damage ask or what they're really dealing with -- T.J.

HOLMES: All right. Again, Diana Magnay for us there in L'Aquila, that hard-hit town. Thank you so much, today.

Also we'll turn now to something we haven't seen in 18 years. Media cameras allowed to focus on the flag-draped coffins bearing the bodies of fallen service members at Dover Air Force Base. The base opened last night as the lone body of Air Force Staff Sergeant Phillip Myers of Hopewell, Virginia, arrived home.

Our Susan Roesgen explains this change in policy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This was a live news draft in 1989. The U.S. had invaded Panama to remove military leader Manuel Noriega and the first President Bush was holding a news conference.

But when he was done speaking, the mood changed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. The president is in excellent health.

(LAUGHTER)

ROESGEN: The president appeared to be smiling at the same time viewers were seeing the first invasion casualties being brought to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The Defense Department won't confirm it, but it has been widely accepted that this is what led to the ban.

And in the next military conflict, the first Gulf War, the Pentagon banned any more media coverage of coffins at Dover.

But now, some families say it's time to lift that ban.

KAREN MEREDITH, SOLDIER'S MOTHER: His Hawaiian shirt over full body armor, that's the kind of soldier he was.

ROESGEN: Lieutenant Ken Ballard left for Iraq on Mother's Day, 2003. He came home in a casket on Memorial Day, 2004.

MEREDITH: I wanted the nation to grieve with me -- to grieve the loss of my only child. And if we don't see those images, then we don't know that these young men and women are dying. And to me, it's an honor to have an honor guard at Dover when they bring these young men and women back.

ROESGEN: But others say that honor should be private. Vince Rangel, a former Army Ranger captain in Vietnam, says he still thinks about the soldiers who were killed in his platoon.

VINCE RANGEL, FORMER ARMY RANGER CAPTAIN: When they come off the plane, these are anonymous caskets. And, you know, what is the greater good of that?

I would rather that they take that attention and give it everything it deserves at the grave site, in the communities where you can get all of the information so people can understand these people as human beings, not just as a flag-draped casket that comes off a plane.

ROESGEN: Two different views of how to give the dead the dignity they deserve.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Well, as Susan said there, it has been nearly two decades now since TV cameras have been able to see the coffins of American service members being returned to Dover Air Force Base. Some people still don't want you to see this solemn occasion, but others out there say these are important honors that we do need to see. We'll show you some of those honors and let you decide.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: An extremely solemn event happened last night at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, a ceremony that has been performed more than 5,000 times since our two wars began after 9/11. Don't know if you have seen a lot of pictures of it, we're going to show them to you in just a moment. So make sure you stick around for that.

But before we do get to that, we need to go see what's happening on Wall Street.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

HOLMES: And back to what I was mentioning just a moment ago, a ceremony that has happened some 5,000 times since the war in Iraq began, but likely you have never seen it. But last night the remains of a U.S. service member killed overseas arrived back in his home country.

Again, you have probably never seen such a ceremony, news cameras for years haven't been allowed to record them. Last night was different .

(VIDEOTAPE OF DOVER AFB CEREMONY)

HOLMES: This is a picture taken in March of 2008 of the man who made it home last night, U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant Phillip Myers, he received a medal in March of 2008. He died when a roadside bomb went off next to him in Afghanistan on Saturday. His family allowed his return to be recorded. Sergeant Phillip Myers was married and he was only 30 years old.

That does it for us here in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm T.J. Holmes again sitting in today for Rick Sanchez who will be back, I believe tomorrow. But for now we need to hand it over to "THE SITUATION ROOM" and Wolf Blitzer.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks very much, T.J.