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North Korea Tests Nuke?; Manhattan Serial Bomber?
Aired May 25, 2009 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN ANCHOR: Live pictures on what the White House was requesting on this Memorial Day, a national moment of silence to be at 3:00 today to mark those many fallen heroes who gave us this day and every day we speak freely here.
I'm Drew Griffin, in for Rick Sanchez, with the next generation of news, a conversation, not a speech, your turn to get involved.
And we will bring you all today's news right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRIFFIN: They were warned not to do it. They did it anyway.
North Korea says it tested a second nuclear detonation, this one reportedly larger than that first explosion back in 2006, also today, apparently test-launching a short-range missile, all this on the heels of last month's unsuccessful test launch of a rocket. It appears the regime is on course to deliver nuclear weapons long-range.
President Obama this morning denounced North Korea's actions. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world, and I strongly condemn their reckless action.
North Korea's actions endanger the people of Northeast Asia, they are a blatant violation of international law, and they contradict North Korea's own prior commitments.
Now, the United States and the international community must take action in response.
The record's clear: North Korea has previously committed to abandoning its nuclear program. Instead of following through on that commitment, it has chosen to ignore that commitment. Its actions have also flown in the face of United Nations resolutions.
As a result, North Korea is not only deepening its own isolation, it's also inviting stronger international pressure. That's evident overnight, as Russia and China, as well as our traditional allies of South Korea and Japan, have all come to the same conclusion: North Korea will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons.
We will work with our friends and allies to stand up to this behavior, and we will redouble our efforts toward a more robust international nonproliferation regime that all countries have responsibilities to meet. In this effort, the United States will never waver from our determination to protect our people and the peace and security of the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRIFFIN: That's the entire statement from the president this morning, urging, obviously, the international community to do something to respond. The question is what.
Richard Roth is in New York monitoring the United Nations.
And, Richard, the U.N. is going to have a meeting. The question is, what are they going to do about it?
RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Drew.
The Security Council has been rather impotent when it comes to challenges by North Korea, now another nuclear test, three years after the Security Council started telling Pyongyang to forget about doing this. No matter what they seem to come up with at the council, behind closed doors and then in public statements, it's not enough.
And you have a divide in the Security Council between Russia and China, which believe that statements and sanctions only threatens the peace on the peninsula and further enrages North Korea. China is wary. China doesn't want millions of refugees coming across their common border.
The United States and Britain, they -- they feel something must be done a little tougher than what was done in April. So that diplomatic showdown will come up and start in an hour or so.
GRIFFIN: Yes. And what -- what actually is the agenda? What are they going to be talking about behind closed doors?
ROTH: Well, behind closed doors, they will go around the table, all 15 countries. It's very smooth and peaceful and diplomatic, despite the nature of the events overnight, and despite it being an emergency meeting, and every country will get its chance to speak.
And that's where the big powers will begin to hear what the other side thinks. Now, Secretary of State Clinton was already working the phones, talking -- don't know if it happened already -- to her Chinese and Russian counterparts. So, the U.S. will have a pretty good idea of what they might hear across the table.
These -- they always say it's a process here...
GRIFFIN: Yes.
ROTH: ... that you don't expect like a resolution and Khrushchev-like table-thumping within minutes.
GRIFFIN: OK. Well, thanks, Richard. Thanks a lot.
We are going to bring in Jim Clancy with CNN international.
You have covered North Korea quite a long time.
Told not to do it, warned not to do it, sanctions. Why did they do it?
JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're angry. They're angry because, when Pakistan tests a nuke and when Pakistan launches a missile, they don't face sanctions. Oh, no. It's just North Korea. That's their feeling. It's an unreasonable fear that they have.
And even North Korean officials today are saying this was done for local consumption, to reassure the people here that we can defend you. We are going to stand our ground.
They are more isolated than they have ever been. They are angrier than perhaps they have been in a very long time. They are frustrated. They wanted a deal to ensure their security. They wanted somebody else to pay for those nuclear weapons programs, all those other things. It hasn't happened.
GRIFFIN: So, we can't feed you, but we can protect you?
CLANCY: Yes. Well, you know, they have rejected some of the food aid.
But there's reason to be concerned about all of this, Drew. And, you know, I talked with Dr. Han Park, who helped arrange Jimmy Carter's first trip down there to talk to the North Koreans.
GRIFFIN: Right.
CLANCY: He talked to him this morning. He talks to him every -- he goes over there and visits all the time. He says, you know -- and I asked him. I said look, you say they're angry. He's the one that told me this.
You say they're angry. Angry enough to sell a nuclear weapon for, say, a billion dollars to an Iran, that angry?
Listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAN PARK, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA: I think they're angry enough -- this may be a somewhat unconventional assessment -- angry enough and hungry enough to sell anything they can put their hands on.
GRIFFIN: To anyone?
PARK: And to anyone. I would say to anyone. And also that's pretty lucrative. That's the only source of (INAUDIBLE) earning. That's their lifeline.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CLANCY: Lifeline. Their lifeline, Drew. And when he says to anyone, that could also be a terror group, our worst nuclear nightmare.
(CROSSTALK)
GRIFFIN: Terrorists.
Hold on. Let me bring in Doug Bandow.
You're with us from the Cato Institute.
DOUG BANDOW, SENIOR FELLOW, CATO INSTITUTE: Yes, I sure am.
GRIFFIN: It's how -- how to respond, how to deal with North Korea.
And you wrote in an article that we should respond with bored contempt, rather than excited fear.
Doug, should we respond at all or should we just isolate them?
BANDOW: Well, I think we want to respond, because our hope is to engage them and come up with a negotiated settlement, particularly involving the Chinese.
The worst thing, though, we can do, I think, is to get excited and do nothing. And that's what worries me about the Security Council. You know, last -- in April, we came up with a nonbinding statement asking for enforcement of prior sanctions. That's not going to scare them. If all we do is get excited, we're rewarding them, frankly.
And we need to turn the negotiating process around, so they get rewarded for doing good things, not for doing bad things.
GRIFFIN: Well, Mr. Bandow, is what happened in the Rose Garden this morning and what is happening at the U.N., is that responding excitedly, in your definition?
BANDOW: Well, it would be in my definition if the Security Council doesn't come up with anything. If all we get out of this emergency meeting and presidential statements is yet another nonbinding statement saying, well, we should enforce what we did before, it doesn't strike me that we're being particularly helpful.
I think the critical question, of course, are the Chinese. They seem rather fed up with North Korea. But they frankly fear a North Korean collapse more than they fear a North Korean nuclear weapon, and that's -- until we can turn that around, we have a problem.
GRIFFIN: OK. Thank you very much.
Jim Clancy, thank you. Richard Roth at the United Nations, thank you as well.
(CROSSTALK)
GRIFFIN: That is the bicycle bomber from New York when he blew up or tried to blow up part of the recruiting station in Times Square. He or she may have struck again. Is there a serial bomber on the loose in Manhattan?
And debate over what to do with terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay -- are the U.S. prisons strong enough to house them and who wants them? A special report on the prison that's supposed to be the safest supermax? Super lax?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRIFFIN: Breaking news on that 13-year-old cancer patient whose mother took him from hospital care in Minnesota. They have apparently turned up or have been brought back to Minnesota, this according to the sheriff's office there, which says Daniel Hauser, the 13-year-old with Hodgkin's lymphoma and his mother, Colleen Hauser, have been returned to Minnesota -- a press conference scheduled for later today.
That is just about all we know. This was the subject of a nationwide and an international search when it was believed that the mother might have taken her son to Mexico for alternative treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma. Doctors said that, with chemo, a 95 percent chance success rate that he would survive that cancer. Without it, it was looking pretty bleak.
So, a break in that case, that the 13-year-old and his mother are back in Minnesota. We will bring you more updates on that as soon as we get it.
Meanwhile, in New York City, they may have a serial bomber launching his attacks from a bicycle. This is what it looked like after an explosion outside an Upper East Side Starbucks. This happened in the middle of the night. The Starbucks was closed, nobody hurt, but people living in the apartments above it had to leave for awhile.
Now, police wonder if it's the work of the same person responsible for three other New York explosions over the last four years, including this blast last year at the military recruiting station in Times Square. Those happened in the middle of the night, too, and surveillance video showed a suspect escaping on a bicycle.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAYMOND KELLY, NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMMISSIONER: The explosive is a -- what I would call a low-order explosive. It caused no physical injury. It caused minimal damage. But, if you live in the area, understandably, you would be upset.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRIFFIN: Many parts of Manhattan, of course, are surrounded by security cameras, not so on the Upper East Side, where this blast occurred, but they are looking for security video inside the stores in that area to see if it yields any clues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our investigator could easily have been an al Qaeda terrorist with a bomb to be planted inside the queen's car.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRIFFIN: A big embarrassment right there -- Britain under ridicule again after reporters posing as businessmen from the Middle East allegedly breached security at Buckingham Palace. Find out how they got in.
On this Memorial Day, Google has a new and innovative way to honor U.S. service women and men killed in action.
And should terror suspects from Guantanamo Bay be moved to prisons on U.S. soil? A special report on the security of one of the toughest prisons in America.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal supermax prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRIFFIN: What to do if you close Gitmo, the president making the case last week closing the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay and bringing suspected terrorists on to U.S. soil would pose no threat to our safety.
But, while it is true no one has ever escaped a supermax prisons, there have been super problems at the nation's toughest prisons, one such supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, where I visited shortly after a Justice Department report found murder plots, drug deals, and even terrorist-linked letters, all being hatched from the inside.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Here in the shadows of the Colorado Rockies are many of our worst known terrorists, Ramzi Yousef, the first World Trade Center bomber; 9/11 wannabe Zacarias Moussaoui, the shoe bomber, Richard Reid, the Olympic bomber, Eric Rudolph, the Unabomber, one of the Oklahoma City bombers, all locked up for life in the nation's toughest prison, Supermax.
Almost every hour is spent in these cells, eat here, shower here. Solid doors and narrow windows make it hard to even see another inmate.
But, in a 2006 report, the inspector general said the Bureau of Prisons -- quote -- "is unable to effectively monitor the mail of terrorists and other high-risk inmates in order to detect and prevent terrorism and criminal activities."
One criminal case in point, L.A.'s 18th Street gang, which marks its turf and runs drug sales near downtown Los Angeles.
CHARLES SOSA, RETIRED LAPD POLICEMAN: What has happened is, is that every street corner now has a gang.
GRIFFIN: The gangs extort kickbacks. They call it taxes or rent from the street dealers.
SOSA: You'd better pay your taxes, pal, or else you're going to get killed or you're not going to deal dope in my town.
GRIFFIN: The man running that drug gang, the FBI says, was Ruben Castro, operating from his cell at Supermax.
(on camera): And even though he's behind bars and away for life, he still holds that power?
SOSA: Most definitely.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): The FBI says, for past three years, Castro had been able to give orders in telephone calls and coded letters from the inside.
SOSA: And he uses his girlfriend, wife or mistress or whatever she is or any -- any other person that will take a message out.
GRIFFIN: The breach was identified in the scathing 2006 report that found some letters and telephone calls of inmates were not being monitored. After the 2004 train station attacks in Madrid, investigators discovered an al Qaeda follower had been writing to terrorist suspects in Spain from his cell at Supermax.
The Justice Department now insists 100 percent of phone calls and mail in and out of Supermax is being checked. But the federal prison guards union remains concerned about low staffing at the facility. And there is another problem. It's full.
So, is Supermax safe, safe to bring in suspected terrorists?
(on camera): If somebody is in there right now over that hill and they are plotting and planning a terrorist attack, there's a good chance that we wouldn't know about it, yes?
BUFFIE MCFADYEN (D), COLORADO STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Absolutely. Could happen. Could happen. And that should be frightening for any citizen in the United States of America.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: That was Colorado legislator Buffie McFadyen two years ago, when she was pushing for increased security at Supermax. And there she is live from Denver.
Has anything changed in the last two years and are there people of her district willing to take in the country's worst enemies? Well, we will ask her live next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRIFFIN: The president got pushback from his own party when he suggested some of those Guantanamo detention detainees would come to supermax prisons anywhere in the U.S., One of those places possibly, Florence, Colorado.
The supermax there is Buffie McFadyen's district, Colorado's 47th. She's a state representative there.
And we took a little tour a couple of years ago, Representative McFadyen, and you told me that things were not as safe as they could be. You got some senators to come out there and hold a hearing. And you also got Alberto Gonzales, then the Justice Department head, the attorney general, to come out take a look.
Are things better?
MCFADYEN: You know, Drew, we did take a tour two years ago, and I don't know that things have changed greatly.
If you recall, back in 2005, we had two murders inside of Supermax. And I'm not hearing a lot different on the staffing levels in Supermax. And if you look at the bureau's numbers across the country, back in 1997, we had one correctional staff to 3.7 inmates. Now we only have one to five. That across the country, with an increase in inmates, looks around like 9,000 staff short throughout the Bureau of Prisons in total.
GRIFFIN: And...
MCFADYEN: So, I don't suspect it's any better today than it was back in 2006.
GRIFFIN: Yes. And -- and what shocked me was -- the president is true. Nobody has ever escaped from there. And I really -- I really doubt anybody could.
But when I was reporting this story, the level of communication from the inside to the outside, the secret messages, there was even a plot hatched by a couple of Aryan Nation men to kill somebody, and they actually -- actually carried out the murder.
It was astounding to me. And it all had to do with staffing, that the staff wasn't able to monitor what was going in and out of that prison.
MCFADYEN: You're -- you're absolutely correct.
And those that know the nuances, foreign language, those that understand the nuances of gang language, those -- those people are not -- are not abundant in this country. And we really need to make sure we have those people.
I'm hearing from -- from other states, from other prison systems, that there are messages coming out of Supermax again through the mail. We need to look at staffing. We still don't have a hardened perimeter around our facilities.
And, this past year, we have seen 18 people murdered in the Bureau of Prisons. We're already on track for four already this year. And to give you some perspective, back in 2007, we only had 12, and, in 2006, only seven murdered throughout the system.
We're severely understaffed. If you want to have safety, you have to have staffing, you have to have the intel necessary in the system. I can also tell you I spoke with Brian -- Bryan Lowry of the Council of Prison Locals, the national president of those locals, and he told me that the -- they're willing to take on this mission, whatever the mission that is given to them by the president of the United States, but they need the staffing and the funding to do it.
And, right now, we're understaffed throughout the system. I suspect we still are ADX at Florence, too.
GRIFFIN: Well -- well, let me ask you, because the president is asking. He wants these people to go somewhere. Your governor, a Democrat -- you're a Democrat. The president's a Democrat. So, you're all on board there. But are you telling me, Buffie, that you don't want them?
MCFADYEN: I -- I definitely am a Democrat. I definitely support the the -- president of the United States.
What I can tell you is, we are full at Supermax. These are not inmates that you can freely move around the country to other facilities. When I said we have had four murders to date in 2009 in the system, we just had one recently at the United States penitentiary at Florence, the next level down from administrative maximum, also known as supermax.
There is only one supermax in the country. It is at Florence. It has a capacity of about 480 inmates. I do understand we are at capacity. If there's a vacancy, there are only two or one beds. So, my question would be, what facility would they actually go to? What funds would follow?
I can tell you, since the attorney general and the two U.S. senators did come through the -- the tour two years ago, we did finally get radio communication for our local fire department as a first-responder.
And I think probably the best solution to this problem is to think it through, to actually invite the attorney general, the Department of Justice, the president or his designee and -- and those in the Colorado delegation to come back and tour the Florence complex.
It's a misnomer to think that this facility is in the middle of nowhere. It's next to a Gary Player golf course, a housing subdivision. It's right next to town.
GRIFFIN: All right, Buffie McFadyen, Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to meet you a couple years ago, and glad to have you back.
MCFADYEN: Thanks, Drew.
GRIFFIN: Thanks a lot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any infantryman or cavalry guy says he didn't want to go to war, I don't believe him, because this is what -- this is what you sign up for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRIFFIN: On this Memorial Day, soldiers sharing the truth on their personal experiences of war and life in Afghanistan.
And there's a new attack ad against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by Republicans, even though the party promised to keep its focus on the president?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRIFFIN: We have some twitters to show you on our national communication here about our last segment.
"The problem not Gitmo," says trey21. "It was the people who ran it. Keep it open with a new staff. Simple." Loves Obama.
"Sending the Gitmo prisoners to federal prison are going to like it there. Look at that mountain view?"
And how about the miamidogtrainer says, "I agree there should be no contact with the outside at all. They do not deserve to have contact at all."
Let's move on now to politics and a Web ad that's ignited the blogosphere. I want you to see you a little bit of this video, which ran on the Republican National Committee's Web site.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC: JAMES BOND THEME)
GRAPHIC: Pelosi Accuses CIA of 'Misleading' Her on Interrogations. - Washington Post.
Panetta to Pelosi: We Don't Lie to Congress. - Newsweek.
Pelosi vs. CIA.
(END VIDEO CLIP) GRIFFIN: Trying to capitalize on the CIA accusations by the speaker, a James Bond spoof. Some liberal bloggers say it's vulgar and sexist, because it seems to compare House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the character of Pussy Galore from the movie "Goldfinger." One shot showed Pelosi and Pussy Galore in a split screen. Another shows a woman's back and uses the words "Democrats galore."
There's something even more interesting about this video. And that's why we asked CNN political editor Mark Preston to join us from Washington.
Mark, I want you to join us as we look at what the Republican national chairman, Michael Steele, said just -- just last week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL STEELE, CHAIR, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Strategists writing memos and doing briefings, urging the Republicans aboard confronting the president, steer clear of any frontal assaults on his administration. They suggest that instead, we should go after Nancy Pelosi, who nobody likes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRIFFIN: Who is in charge here? The Republicans putting out this ad on their Web site just less than a week after Michael Steele says, "We need to focus on President Obama and his policies."
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: You know, Drew, some would say that the Republican National Committee has gone a step too far. Not only did they compare the House speaker to the Pussy Galore, but they also have her framed up down the barrel of a gun. And I think for a lot of people, that was very upsetting.
You know, I spoke to some Republicans here in Washington, Drew. Not a lot of people have seen this video yet because of the holiday season. Those who have seen it, though, are very frustrated. They're disappointed.
This is an issue that the GOP really was able to capitalize on, the fact that Nancy Pelosi seemed to be giving contradictory statements regarding her contact with the CIA and the interrogation methods, and now it's being sidetracked by this video.
GRIFFIN: Yes. More than anything else, it didn't seem as vulgar as just stupid, just a bad play by the Republicans to me, to essentially lose an issue that they were winning on.
PRESTON: Yes. No question about that. You know, I have reached out to the Republican National Committee today, and because of the holiday, haven't heard back from them. But I was able to reach one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's spokesmen. And this is what he had to say about it.
"At a time when the American people are looking to elected officials to offer solutions on health care and create jobs, voters are shaking their heads at what they are seeing from the Republican National Committee."
So these are statements right now that other Republicans here in Washington, D.C., and throughout the country don't necessarily want to hear, because what has happened is that this issue has become sidetracked.
GRIFFIN: Mark, as you talk to -- specifically talk to Republicans about this and other things, can you give me a sense of where this party is, organizationally speaking? Is -- the question was when I first saw it, is anybody in control, is anyone listening to Mr. Steele?
PRESTON: Well, you know, there are a lot of voices out there right now, really, and there is a struggle in the party about what direction the Republican Party should head, and they had devastating losses in November. They lost more seats in the Senate, more seats in the House and of course, control of the White House.
You have social conservatives on one side; you have centrists on the other side, who are all trying to battle to see what direction the party goes in.
At the same time, we have Michael Steele out there, acting as the head of the party, as he is, but he's still in competition with the likes of Newt Gingrich and with the likes of Vice President Cheney and with the likes of congressional Republicans.
So no one is necessarily in control of the party, and it's something that we probably won't actually see a natural leader until they're able to get a nominee in perhaps 2012.
GRIFFIN: And this ad specifically, it popped up on the Web site and then it, just as quickly, it disappeared. It's going to live in blogosphere. I mean, I think the liberal bloggers are going to catch this and replay this as many times as they can. But do you know any of the back channel of that? I didn't ask you this off camera, but give me a back channel of what actually happened: who put it up and then who decided to take it down?
PRESTON: You know, and that's what I was trying to figure out today, Drew, and trying to get in touch with the RNC. Of course, the fact is, we're at Memorial Day, and it was difficult to get in touch with them.
But, you know, these Web videos are very easy to do. They don't cost any money. There's no money behind this. We're not showing this on television. These are very easy to do. It could have just been a staff decision.
GRIFFIN: And Mark Preston, we appreciate you being here on Memorial Day. I know there's not a lot of people working in D.C. today. But we sure are glad you came with us.
PRESTON: Thanks, Drew.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROBERT JOBSON, EDITOR, "NEWS OF THE WORLD": Our investigator could easily have been an al Qaeda terrorist with a bomb to be planted inside the queen's car.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRIFFIN: A bit of a brouhaha across the pond. Reporters posing as businessmen slipped past guards at Buckingham Palace and even enjoyed a seat in the queen's limo? Wait until you hear how this one happened.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRIFFIN: Reaction on our MySpace account to that last segment regarding the Republican National Convention [SIC] using an old, old "Goldfinger" thing to ridicule Nancy Pelosi.
Stacy -- this was the funniest one I read: "Goldfinger? That's the problem with the GOP. They're living in the past. Apparently, in their world it is still the 1960s. LOL."
Not laughing so hard is the queen. She's not amused. A British tabloid says two of its reporters, posing as Middle East businessmen, got into Buckingham Palace after bribing a royal chauffeur. The chauffeur has been suspended. For what?
CNN's Tim Lister has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TIM LISTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Another embarrassing security lapse at Buckingham Palace. A chauffeur allows two men into the palace garages after allegedly being promised 1,000 pounds, about $1,500. They got in, despite palace security measures, and posed as businessmen.
But they were actually reporters for "The News of the World" and shot this video of their tour of her majesty's limousines. One was even invited to sit inside the queen's burgundy-colored Bentley.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is very much (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
LISTER: ... the same car regularly used by the queen on official engagements.
The paper alleges it set up the tour through the chauffeur's girlfriend and that its reporters went unchallenged throughout their tour.
JOBSON: It actually exposes a serious lapse of security at Buckingham Palace. We have had so many breaches of security over the years, but this one is really appalling. Our investigator is sitting where the queen sits in the royal limo. Our investigator could easily have been an al Qaeda terrorist with a bomb to be planted inside the queen's car.
LISTER: Buckingham Palace says, quote, "An individual has been suspended pending an investigation."
Scotland Yard expressed its concern about the issues raised by the "News of the World" story and said it was liaising with the palace on security arrangements.
This lapse is not the first and certainly not as dramatic as the one in 1982, when the queen woke up to find a homeless and delusional man sitting at the end of her bed, asking for a cigarette. He had scaled a wall and drainpipe, evading alarms and guards.
More recently, the footmen circled here was an undercover reporter and used fake references to get a job at the palace, and who allegedly had access to rooms due to be occupied by President George W. Bush during a state visit.
But this lapse comes after security was supposedly tightened.
DICKIE ARBITER, FORMER PALACE SPOKESMAN: You've got to look at the people that are manning the gates and asking, "Why did they let this person in? Why did they let the people in on the say-so of the chauffeur?"
LISTER: That's a question both the police and the royal household will want answered.
Tim Lister, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: We're following breaking news at this hour. That cancer boy, his name Daniel Hauser, 13 year old from Minnesota, went missing with his mother last week, subject of a national and international search. Now we're learning that Daniel and his mother, Colleen Hauser, are back in Minnesota. We're going to have Elizabeth Cohen here following that story to bring us an update on that next.
And you'll hear first-hand accounts from soldiers about their experience at war as our Memorial Day coverage continues here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRIFFIN: We will get to our breaking news in a minute. I want to show you a couple twitters that came in about our supermax.
"No," says colcomp, "I don't want them here in Colorado, and neither do so many others."
And on the queen, and the security breach, GatlyMayen, "Does the queen own a dealership or something? Look at all those cars. Contribute to the economy."
Interesting stuff.
Breaking news, though. The 13-year-old cancer patient from Minnesota whose mother took him away from Minnesota and away from authorities after they were telling her her son had to have chemotherapy, well, they're back, apparently, in Minnesota. The boy has a cancerous tumor in his chest. Doctors say he may die without treatment.
But what stuns me about this story, CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, is that he will almost automatically survive with the treatment.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Doctors say that a child this age with this diagnosis has about a 90 to 95 percent chance of living to the next five years after the diagnosis, if they receive the conventional round of chemotherapy, which is approximately six rounds of chemo.
Daniel Hauser, who you see here, has received one round. He -- his parents said that round made him very sick and that he and his parents chose not to do any more and, instead, to follow the alternative treatments recommended by someone who claims to be a Native American healer.
GRIFFIN: Yes. We should point out, they're a Roman Catholic family, but they did follow the Native American tradition of kind of kind of a natural healing process. But were they actually seeking an alternative when they disappeared? Do we know that yet?
COHEN: We don't know. I mean, there were these rumors that they had gone to Southern California, were trying to get into Mexico, where a lot of Americans go for alternative healing.
I definitely want to say one thing here, which is that I've talked to many Native American healers who say, "Wait a minute. This is not Native American healing. We advocate, when people have cancer, that they get chemotherapy and traditional Native American healing. They are not mutually exclusive." In fact, quite the opposite. They want people to do both.
And that's one thing I'm going to be interested to see here, since they brought him back to Minnesota, have they reached maybe some kind of an agreement with his family to try to do chemotherapy and alternative therapy? It will be interesting to see what happens.
GRIFFIN: We were talking in the break, he had one round...
COHEN: Right.
GRIFFIN: ... of chemotherapy. He needed six total...
COHEN: Approximately six.
GRIFFIN: ... according to -- make progress. Right?
COHEN: Right.
GRIFFIN: But we don't know if damage has been done in the absence of that, what would have been his second round.
COHEN: That's right. We don't know precisely how long he has gone without chemotherapy, so we don't know what damage has been done by the fact that he didn't get that second chemotherapy when he was supposed to get it.
But I did ask a pediatric oncologist at Columbia University if Daniel does not get any more treatment -- let's say his mother had been successful at keeping him away from chemotherapy, how long would he have to live? And this doctor told me six months to a year. That's approximately how long he thought he had to live without any more chemo.
Now, the fact that he is back in Minnesota means, I assume, that he will now proceed on with this chemotherapy. And the cancer is getting worse. They know that from looking at various test results.
GRIFFIN: Yes. Elizabeth, thanks for joining us on this story. There is going to be a news conference, I believe, later this afternoon in Minnesota, where we will have more information, certainly, on why the two are back. It's going to be at 6 p.m., as I'm just now being told. We'll have that later for you in the day here at CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SPC. JONATHON ERWIN, U.S. ARMY: Any infantry man or cavalry man who says he didn't want to go to war, I don't believe him, because this is what -- this is what you sign up for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRIFFIN: Soldiers candid about returning to the war in Afghanistan, in their own words.
Google has an innovative way to honor soldiers who didn't come back. You'll want to see this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRIFFIN: It's Memorial Day, and we're part of a nation part of a coalition at war. The numbers of our combat wounded and combat dead rose nearly ever day. And it can be tricky to get your mind around those numbers. Google has made it easier to do that.
Watch here as CNN's John King walks us through.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If you look at all these figures here on the United States of America, this is each and every one of the U.S. troops, the men and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you add in coalition forces as well, the total right now is up to nearly 5,700.
We're going to begin right here. I want to show you how this program works. We touch right here, and we tap again and you meet Nathan Ross Chapman. He died in Afghanistan on January 4, 2002. He was the first U.S. combat death under hostile fire in Afghanistan. You see here how he died: shot in an ambush. You can sign a guest book if you'd like. Down here on this program, you can also visit several memorial sites down here.
I want to show you some of the other features of this remarkable program. You see Nathan's picture here, and the word "incident." We will tap incident, and we will fly around the world to Afghanistan. And it zooms in quickly there. Let me shrink the map down for you as we go. I want to show you this. You see the hills of Afghanistan here, and this is back in the very early days. I'm shrinking it down just a little bit more, so you can get this context when I play the time line now.
This is Afghanistan. We're back to January 2002. But as we play the timeline forward, you will watch now as the deaths mount a bit in Afghanistan, shrink the map a little bit more. Because you see as we're into 2005, the war in Iraq is underway, as well. If you're watching, each and every one of these lines is a line back home to the hometown of the U.S. or the coalition force.
As the toll mounts. We're going to zoom in on Iraq a little bit now as we come into 2008, move on into 2009, 5,679 total. And I'm going to touch right here, bring this out into Ira here, bring this up. This is the first combat death of an American in Iraq. It was back in March 2003, right at the very beginning. That was Shane Childers. He is from Mississippi.
And again, we can fly back to his hometown from there as we go back to the -- back to his hometown and pull out now to show you the United States. As we show you the United States, you can use this Google Earth function that perhaps you want to see someone from your hometown.
All these lines trace back to where it might have -- where the incident occurred in Iraq or Afghanistan. The blue means that is a woman soldier. This is a Anisa Ann Sheryl (ph). She is from Grafton, West Virginia. Think maybe someone from your hometown, you click on it there. You can go alphabetically here. The last name. You want to check the last time beginning with "H," tap on the "H." Let's try that again here. Come over here. Just tap on a letter of the alphabet, and you'll get here a list of everyone by that name.
You can check by men. You can check by women. You can check by coalition troops to look outside.
And again, the remarkable feature of this is you can -- once you get here, not only can you pay tribute -- maybe a friend, maybe a family member, someone you knew from school -- you can also visit these remarkable sites here, often read the obituaries, as well.
This a new Google Earth program, developed, remarkable. It is remarkable. And on this Memorial Day it is worth a visit for you to go.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: And before we end this Memorial Day edition of NEWSROOM, we want to spend these last moments reflecting on what the men and women of our armed forces face every day from this generation's front lines. Here are three American soldiers serving in Afghanistan and why they are over there serving in the U.S. Army.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STAFF SGT. EMMETT JARVIS, U.S. ARMY: I joined before September 11, 2001, so I had no idea it was going to happen.
ERWIN: My name is Jonathan Erwin (ph), and I'm a specialist in the U.S. Army.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am Sergeant Elizabeth Marseille (ph).
ERWIN: If any infantry man or cavalry guy says he didn't want to go to war, they're lying because this is what -- this is what you sign up for.
JARVIS: It's a privilege, really, to be a part of building a country, you know, and helping their people out. So I take a lot of pride in what I do. At first it started like a bad training exercise, but the day we took our first contact, I mean, that's when my eyes just opened up and realized this wasn't a game and this was serious stuff. And if I didn't do my job, then somebody could get hurt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A suicide bomber had hit a gate and blew off legs and limbs and lower body parts and lots of burns. It was really crazy because, there was one particular week that that happened back to back. We lost (ph) a lot of people at this one moment in time.
ERWIN: No one will understand war until they go to war. And individuals back home that don't understand and don't have the concept of it and don't understand why won't ever know.
JARVIS: Unless you walk in our shoes, it's very hard to really understand the mental effects and the emotional effects that it has on you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can't really describe to people that haven't been there. They can't really know unless they're there. And sometimes that's difficult. But then you have to realize where they're coming from, too. Maybe they don't want to -- maybe they don't want to hear about the goriness of it. They just want to hear about the happy times.
JARVIS: When you get home and get off that airplane, you don't have your weapon. You know, it's pretty important to just embrace your family, your friends, your loved ones and just, I guess, bask in the moment of, "Well, I'm not there, I'm here and I'm safe."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Obviously the medical provider, you want everyone to go home with all digits, all arms and legs. You want everyone to be OK.
ERWIN: The worst day for me was the day we left, because I knew we weren't coming back with everybody.
JARVIS: You know, it's like I told my guys. If we could go this entire deployment and not have to fire one shot, that would be a very successful deployment.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know how to explain to them why I should come back. Because I don't think they'd ever truly understand. I love what I do. I love helping people in the medical field; I love helping soldiers. So that's my reason, anyway.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: This morning the president laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. It's his first Memorial Day as president of the United States.
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(DRUMS)
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GRIFFIN: Many ways to honor our war dead, some of you on Twitter.
RenDale writing, "Flags still stand for freedom. God bless all who served and who serve now. Amazing strength and courage. God bless you and the USA."
Uberbabyboomer: "May we raise a generation that honors the fallen. That we find a way to end wars that create a need for Memorial Days." That end the need for Memorial Days.
Kat, "Also to the brave soldiers in tent mountain from Fort Drum, New York, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan,. Thanks."
And talkatme, "Thanks you, all the men and women who serve and who have served our country and for keeping us safe."
Kat, again, "To the veterans of 436 troop carrier group, who served under Adriel Williams in World War II."
EmmyMason writes, "Wishing President Obama and family a happy Memorial Day."
RhiannonLynn, "I want to thank all the vets out there who fought for our freedom."
And we would like to thank them, as well, on this Memorial Day. As we turn it over to Washington, D.C., and Susan Malveaux, who is anchoring "THE SITUATION ROOM" this afternoon -- Suzanne.
