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Travel Resuming for Snow-Blanketed Regions; Patrick Kennedy to Step Down; Healing Haiti: Organizing Aid for Quake Survivors
Aired February 12, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Ali Velshi.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Tony, thanks very much.
I'm still getting over that interview you had that says women are -- are not satisfied if they get 80 percent of what they want with -- out of men. We're going to follow this. It's Valentine's Day coming up this weekend, so we're going to talk about that.
I'm Ali Velshi. I'm with you for the next two hours, and for these two hours every Monday to Friday, to break down the issues you need to know about, to help you make better decisions. I'm going to give you the detail that's going to allow you to make decisions that matter to your money, to your safety, your security, and we've got lots of those issues to talk about today.
Here's what's on the rundown.
We're going to go to Haiti. It's a month since that devastating earthquake hit, and people are commemorating that. They're praying. They're dancing. They're singing. Sanjay Gupta is there. He's going to tell us what the situation is on the ground one month later.
In Southern Afghanistan, Afghan and NATO troops are now dropping leaflets. We just have word. They're dropping leaflets, warning residents not to shelter the Taliban. This comes ahead of an attack that we're expected, a new offensive in the war in Afghanistan. We've got brand-new pictures and a reporter to tell us what's going on there.
And here in the United States, President Clinton is back home from hospital, just one day after a heart procedure. What's the prognosis? Could you have the same thing? We'll find out about that.
And as it's been the case every day this week, again, weather is a major story across this country. Yet another storm, this time in the southeast of this country.
Let's go over to Chad Myers at the weather center and get some update on what the situation is.
Chad, around this time yesterday, we were talking about remarkable snow in Dallas that seems to have passed.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. But, boy, did they get a dumping.
There's Dallas right there, KDAF. Traffic seems to be moving.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: At least they've got some plows out. Temperatures got close enough to 32 and 34 degrees in the city that a lot of this melted on contact. But you get away from the city, and you get up toward, you know, into Arlington and the other places, north into Plano, it was sticking.
Here you go, another shot here. Look at this snow coming down here. There you go.
VELSHI: Is that Dallas?
MYERS: That's BJCC, community college there.
VELSHI: All right.
MYERS: You know what? This is the big one, Ali. You've got to concentrate. You have to really -- you have to stay with me on this one. I'm going to make it really big. This is Atlanta.
VELSHI: Uh-huh.
MYERS: And here's, like -- here's a dark spot. Here's -- this is another building. Actually, part of CNN's building is over here. There you go. There you see it. The flurry -- there it goes. The flurry of 2010.
VELSHI: It's starting. It has begun in Atlanta.
MYERS: It has begun. It is look -- it is not Snowmageddon, but it is the flurry. But...
VELSHI: It's a bit of snow.
MYERS: ... we could get 3 inches.
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: And that's the same as 30 in Minneapolis. Because we have ten times the amount of -- they have ten times the amount of snow.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: But they have ten times the number of trucks to push it away.
VELSHI: Right, right.
MYERS: So here it comes. It's back out to the west.
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: It's snowing in Mobile. VELSHI: Just coming in here. OK.
MYERS: Yes. Snowing in Montgomery and all the way into Birmingham. And today, right now, this is not the day to go take a drive to New Orleans at this point in time.
VELSHI: Got you. All right.
MYERS: Just cool your jets right here.
VELSHI: But, boy, the northeast can -- can -- they can breathe a sigh of relief at this point.
MYERS: Northeast is in good shape.
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: Northeast is done. But it's all that weight still on the buildings.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: And it's still that freeze/thaw thing that's happening.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: The sun comes out today. It melts some stuff. You didn't see it earlier.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: It wasn't there. Tonight after dark it freezes back up, and you don't see it, and you're breaking wrists, falling down.
VELSHI: Be careful when you're walking; be careful when you're driving.
Let's check in with David Magana. He's at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, of course, where they saw a number of cancellations and a lot of difficulty with that snow.
David, are you on the phone?
DAVID MAGANA, PUBLIC AFFAIRS MANAGER, DALLAS-FORT WORTH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT(via phone): I am on the phone, Ali. Good afternoon.
VELSHI: Good afternoon. We've got cancellations, actually, now moving further east than you are. A lot of airport cancellations where people are planning to travel this weekend. What's the situation? Are you back up and running? Everything back to normal?
MAGANA: Not back to normal quite yet, but we'll get there this afternoon. The snow that we had measured yesterday was 12 inches. A full foot at DFW airport.
VELSHI: Wow. MAGANA: And so that's a record-setter for one day in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, you know, unprecedented as far as we saw. So we saw probably 400 flights canceled out of our schedule out of about 850 yesterday. And about another 240 flights have been canceled this morning.
VELSHI: Yes.
MAGANA: That's just to give everybody a chance to recover and get those runways cleared up, and we're ready to go this afternoon.
VELSHI: And DFW does -- does act as something of a hub for some airlines, so as Chad always likes to tell us, you may not think Dallas is in your plans or it didn't matter, but it does have some system- wide effects.
MAGANA: It absolutely does. There's 141 destinations domestically that we serve here through the American Airlines hub. They have a big operation here. So one out of -- one out of eight or so passengers in the United States who connect -- connect through here.
VELSHI: Right.
MAGANA: So it's a very big hub, and it does have an impact nationwide.
VELSHI: And David, thank you for that. We'll stay on touch with what's going on with the airports.
And of course, that's another thing. You talk about Atlanta. But it's a major highway thoroughfare.
MYERS: Yes.
VELSHI: And it's a major airport thoroughfare.
MYERS: I have friends that work for the airlines...
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: ... on almost all of the airlines. And they hate it when a plane can't get to the destination.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: You think, "Oh, they canceled that plane because there's not enough people on it." They did not.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: They don't -- because the crew that was going to take that plane is sitting there in Miami, and they're going, "We don't have a plane."
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: Can't go home. Where the crew back here can't fly anymore, because they're out of time.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: And now they have to match up crews and match up planes. They really don't like it. It's going to take a while.
VELSHI: And we've seen with Delta and AirTran, a lot of cancellations out of Atlanta. And as you just showed us the picture, it's just starting to come down, but that's why it's important to people who aren't in Atlanta and couldn't care less about whether it's snowing here and whether they can handle it. The reality is, travel around the country does get affected, like it does for Newark or Dallas.
MYERS: Yes.
VELSHI: All right. We'll stay on top of it with you, Chad.
When we -- when we come back, we're going to have an interesting conversation about politics. For the first time since 1962 there's an unusual situation. In the next -- in the next Congress, there isn't going to be a Kennedy. There isn't going to be somebody with the last name Kennedy. What does that mean for politics? We'll tell you when we some back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC: "Happy Valentine's Day")
GRAPHIC: Eight billion of the Conversation Heart candies are sold between January 1 and February 14.
VELSHI: Eight billion of those Conversations Heart candies are told between January 1 and February 14, 8 billion. Now, a bunch of them come in little packets. It's not 8 billion singles. I would not have guessed that many of those would be -- would be actually sold.
Valentine's Day, all sorts of little tidbits of information for you about it all through the show. Getting ready for love on Sunday.
Listen, we got some -- some interesting developments out of -- out of Washington. Rhode Island Representative Patrick Kennedy, the son of Edward Kennedy, is announcing that he is not running again when his term expires. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PATRICK KENNEDY (D), RHODE ISLAND: My father instilled in me a deep commitment to public service, whether through elected office, like he and his brothers, or nonprofit advocacy like my Aunt Eunice's work with Special Olympics. Now, having spent two decades in politics, my life has taken a new direction, and I will not be a candidate for re-election this year. Going forward I will...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: And the reason it has music on it is that's a commercial that he's releasing.
The interesting thing here is that that means that it will be the first time, the next Congress, elected in November, taking office in January, will be the first time since 1962 that a Kennedy has not been in Congress. The 48-year stretch of Kennedys on Capitol ill -- Hill, all of whom have had a similar political bent, in fact, a very specific political agenda.
Let's bring in our senior CNN political analyst, David Gergen, who's in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and our deputy political editor, Paul Steinhauser, who's in Washington, to discuss this for a moment.
David, is there significance other than the -- the emotional and symbolic significance of the fact that there won't be a Kennedy on Capitol Hill?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's certainly the passing of an age. Here in Massachusetts, Ali, actually, people think that not only goes back to 1962, but the Kennedy dynasty really started in 1947, when Jack Kennedy went to Washington, you know, fresh, had put away his war uniform, a hero, and then elected in 1946, went to Washington. Same freshman class as Nixon, by the way.
And so there has been a legend here in Massachusetts for a long time and in the northeast that is important to understand. And as it comes to an end.
But I think it's also, of course, there -- one has to take into account not only the stresses of Patrick Kennedy's life, but the fact is, he was also facing a tough re-election. There was a poll recently that showed he had 56 percent unfavorability. Now, maybe he could have overcome that in the election. But I think it shows, as Paul I'm sure will underscore, the shifting winds in politics, as well, that took Scott Brown to the Senate.
Patrick Kennedy called Scott Brown's candidacy a joke, and here's Scott Brown, as 41st senator. So is there something -- there's a significance that stretches beyond the legend itself.
VELSHI: And that's the -- that's the important part of this conversation. It's not just the legend; it's also that significance.
Paul Steinhauser keeps very close track of that. He watches these numbers come in. And they're -- one might argue, Paul, that the mores and the values that the Kennedys have represented for so long, those solid liberal values are perhaps, in the end of 2009, early 2010, about as out-of-fashion as they've been for a while. It doesn't mean they don't come back into fashion. But this isn't a high point for those -- those sorts of politics.
PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR: One thing national polling is showing, Ali, our polling and just about everybody else, is that Republican voters, conservative voters seem to be much more energized right now than Democratic voters or liberal voters.
And, hey, the last three statewide elections, the one David was just talking about, that special in Massachusetts for the Senate, and the two gubernatorials last November, the Republicans scored three big victories, took three seats away from the Democrats.
So it seems like the energy, the enthusiasm right now is on the Republican and conservative side.
VELSHI: But we do know winds shift very quickly.
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, these two gentlemen stay with us to discuss. It's not just the Kennedys. It's not just -- just this seat that's not going to be contested by a Kennedy: there are all sorts of people from both parties who are not running again. How that is going to affect the shifting political winds in the United State. This conversation continues in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRAPHIC: Consumers expected to spend $103 on Valentine's Day gifts, meals, and entertainment.
VELSHI: A hundred and three bucks. That's what consumers are expected to spend on Valentine's Day. I'm always surprised by how much it cost. Valentine's Day gifts, meals, entertainment, chocolate, things like that. Knock yourselves out. Fifty cents more than 2009. Recession, what recession?
No matter that it's changing the political landscape and changing the way people vote, people are still spending on Valentine's Day.
But you both, David Gergen, our senior political analyst and Paul Steinhauser, our deputy political director, you both point out shifting winds, changing political landscape.
David, let's examine this a little bit more. Patrick Kennedy has pressures on his own life. As you mentioned, he may be making a very personal choice. He certainly served for a long time. But is it less welcoming an environment for not just for a Kennedy but -- but for liberal Democrats right now?
GERGEN: Sure. There is an anti-incumbent wind blowing, blowing very hard. We are all seeing these various surveys. CNN and others are showing a vast majority of Americans are dissatisfied with government and the direction it's taking. And because the Democrats have larger numbers and they're in power, this -- it tends to have a greater impact on them.
We're seeing a large number of retirements. We have 32 retirements so far, and it's likely to be -- to go higher. And it's going to be probably higher than what we've seen on average over the last three election cycles, which has been 34. And those are going to be Democratic seats.
There is a widespread feeling in Washington, and Paul can probably identify the numbers a little more precisely.
VELSHI: Yes. GERGEN: But I think there's widespread feeling that Democrats are going to lose a lot of seats this November if things continue. Not sure if they'll lose their majority, but it's going to be a blow for the Democrats.
VELSHI: Paul, let's talk of this. Of those 32 departures -- and these are retirements; these are people running for other offices -- actually, a couple more of them are Republican than Democrat.
STEINHAUSER: Yes. I sent out this e-mail list every time a member of the House decides to retire. And Ali, it seems like I'm sending it out every five minutes this week. Seriously, we've had four this week, four. And of those, half were Democrats, half were Republicans.
And you've got about, yes, about 30, 32 vacancies so far. And as David said, that's kind of average, what we've seen the last couple years. It's nowhere close to 1994. That's when the Republicans stormed back and won control of the House and the Senate. Fifty-two.
VELSHI: And when Patrick Kennedy was first elected.
STEINHAUSER: Exactly. That was his first year, first election victory. We had 52 that year, and of those, 31 were Democratic retirements.
But as David said, we're going to see more retirements, most likely, over the next few weeks and over the next few months, because most of these states haven't had their deadlines yet for declaring a candidacy.
So, this is -- and as David also mentioned, our polls, the CNN poll, we just took about two weeks ago. You know what? About half of the people we questioned said that they were angry at both political parties...
VELSHI: Right.
STEINHAUSER: Not just the Democrats. But the simple task, the Republicans need 40 seats. They need to win 40 seats in November to take back control of the House. That's a lot, but in this climate, we will see.
VELSHI: All right, gentlemen, good to talk to you both. Paul Steinhauser and David Gergen, always a pleasure to talk to you both. We'll have a chance to keep doing that math on this show throughout the course of the year.
OK. Let me bring you up to date on the top stories right now. Snow in the Deep South. Parts of the Sun Belt shivering through a powerful winter storm. Hundreds of flights are grounded. Emergency crews are gearing up in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. The worst seems to have passed through Dallas. We were just talking to officials at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Things are getting back up to speed.
Let the Winter Olympic games begin. They don't mind snow there. The opening ceremony for the Vancouver Games takes place tonight. No word yet on who will be the final torch bearer to light the Olympic flame, kicking off 16 days of competition.
And in Haiti, a national day of mourning. It's been one month since the earthquake that left 217,000 people dead. So today, thousands of survivors are gathering in Port-au-Prince. singing and praying for the victims. Momentarily we'll go live to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who is in Haiti, to tell us how things are on the ground one month later.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. Let's bring you back up to speed with what's going on in the weather situation right here in the CNN severe weather center with Chad Myers.
Chad, what's the situation?
MYERS: We have snow coming down in places that don't usually see snow.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: And this is going to be the problem, you know? We have -- we have rain in Seattle. We have snow in the mountains, and we have snow where the Olympics are.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: Four days worth of snow, 40 inches.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: How about that? Let's do it.
VELSHI: Which is a little bit of a worry up there.
MYERS: They didn't have enough snow.
VELSHI: Here you go. This is the problem.
MYERS: There you go. All the way across the dry part of the country.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: All the way here to Atlanta, Montgomery, and Dothan, and right on up into Atlanta. And that's where we have the snow at this point in time.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: The snow is going to come in. And this is unlike a 3-inch snow in Detroit, where people can handle it. We don't get a lot of practice.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: In fact, we get probably one day of practice every two years.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: Think about Baltimore -- think about Baltimore Colts. Think about the Indianapolis Colts, if they only got to practice one day out of two years.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: They wouldn't have made it to the Super Bowl. So, we're not making it to the Super Bowl of driving.
This is Birmingham. The...
VELSHI: Wow.
MYERS: ... convention center there.
VELSHI: Wow.
MYERS: It is snowing in Birmingham. And then I've got -- I've got one more.
VELSHI: There's Atlanta. You blow it up far enough, you might see more of those snowflakes.
MYERS: I know. I'm thinking about going out there and putting a black sheet in front of it there so we can actually see the snowflakes coming, but they are. And it will probably be a two-inch snowfall for Atlanta. And two inches will paralyze the city.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: Not tongue in cheek. It just will happen. So, get out of here and go home.
VELSHI: You're just a bad omen for me. Hang around with you.
MYERS: And I just got put on the 8 p.m. show. There's no chance I'm getting home tonight.
VELSHI: All right. We'll be staying on this.
We want to go to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, right now. It's a day of mourning there exactly a month after the earthquake. Sanjay Gupta has a story on what's going on with health care in Haiti right now.
Let's listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What you're looking at is a long line forming outside one of the largest public hospitals in Port-au- Prince. It is nearly four weeks after the earth earthquake, and a couple things you'll notice right away.
First of all, the majority of the patients here are not people who were injured in the earthquake. These are people who have chronic diseases, like diabetes, heart disease, who are seeing a doctor, perhaps, for the very first time, some of them, in their entire lives.
The other thing you'll notice is that things are much more organized than they were a few weeks ago. Compare that to just two weeks ago. Here you see mainly quake survivors, patients who were dramatically injured requiring amputations. There was a lack of organization. There was a lack of supplies. Certainly, things have improved in a very big way.
You may be wondering, like I was, what happens to so many of those patients? Well, you're looking at it. Many of them end up here, in what is supposed to be a temporary tent city.
Just take a look around. I mean, this is the conditions in which people are supposed to recover from major operations.
I can tell you, back in the states, patients would be getting all sorts of different treatments. They might still be in the hospital. They would be getting dressing changes. But instead, they're forced to recover in conditions like this. It is dirty. There's a lack of medications, and there's a lack of food, as well. Lack of good nutrition.
And there's something else here that people are really worried about. It's rainy season. We saw our first rain this week in a month. And with rain comes all sorts of potential infectious diseases. World Health Organization says the incidence of measles goes up, the incidence of tetanus and the incidence of diarrhea, as well.
Take a look at this. I mean, rainy season is pretty tough here. Imagine living in this. This is somebody's home in the middle of rainy season. Instead they opt for structures like this, corrugated tin, to try and protect them.
It's not to say that people aren't trying to help. In fact, mobile clinics are going out into these tent cities, trying to give vaccines in a country that has not seen nearly enough vaccines in the future.
But this is it. People are trying to recover in a temporary tent city that I can tell you is increasingly becoming more permanent.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: All right, Sanjay joins us now.
Sanjay, boy, you've been there the whole time. And Chad and I were talking about this yesterday with the rain moving in. You know, we think about it in terms of what you just said, the shelters and how people are going to get affected if they get rained on and they've just got cardboard or sheets above them. But this issue of waterborne illnesses, something you're very familiar with, what could happen now? How much worse could that make the situation in Haiti?
GUPTA: Well, you now, it's one of those things, Ali. After natural disasters people always are out there talking about what they call a second wave of death. And to be fair, we hardly ever see that, that people say the second wave will be larger than the first wave. That typically doesn't happen.
Now what the real concern here is, as you mentioned, because of the rain, what would otherwise be innocuous infections that don't spread that easily all of a sudden can spread very easily, because they can contaminate water supplies and cause a lot of the diseases that we're talking about.
Also, it's just simply harder for people to get their vaccines. It's harder for the infrastructure to work properly. And it's harder for people to recover from, you know, if they've had an operation, for example. And those operations can get infections, you know, those operative sites can get infected.
VELSHI: Yes.
GUPTA: So, that -- those are all big concerns here. Ali, the thing that sort of struck me the most is there was a huge push, an important one, to try and take care of people in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, understandable.
But unless some of these chronic, longer-term, recovery issues are dealt were, it really makes that acute care less meaningful.
VELSHI: Right.
GUPTA: And that's really what we're seeing here.
VELSHI: Obviously, when you first went down there, you and Elizabeth and others were discussing the supply bottlenecks, with the port not being opened initially and the roads still being full of disruption.
We know a lot of supplies were sent to Haiti. Are we at least seeing that? Whether it's acute care or longer-term care, are we seeing medical facilities which have adequate supplies now?
GUPTA: Within Port-au-Prince, it is a lot better.
There's really two issues. Still areas outside of Port-au-Prince, outside of this capital city, still aren't seeing enough of the basic aid supplies.
But, Ali, you know, when it comes to longer-term care, the types of supplies that are need starts to change. So, instead of having the operative equipment to perform amputations, you really need more dressing material. You need antibiotics to be able to give people longer term, and you need things to be able to treat wound infections. Those things are all going to be issues over the next several months.
So, yes and no to your question. Supplies that people were asking for in the immediate aftermath have arrived in Port-au-Prince, for the most part. Longer-term supplies are needed, and some -- all of those supplies need to get out of Port-au-Prince.
VELSHI: All right. Sanjay, thanks for keeping us up to date, and thanks for the great work that you're doing down there. We'll check in with you again soon. Sanjay Gupta in Port-au-Prince. All right. Another story that we're -- that you're all going to be following, particularly this weekend, starting tonight, the Olympics. The Vancouver Winter Olympic games kick off tonight, the opening ceremonies. What are we supposed to expect? Who's got the best chance of taking home the most medals? What are the Americans doing at the Olympics?
We're going to tell you all about it when we come back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Let's take a look at what's going on in the Winter Olympics. I'm new to Atlanta and I've only been here a few weeks, and everybody is scaring me about all the snow that's coming down tonight, and it doesn't matter, because I'm watching the opening ceremonies here.
Listen, here's what the olympics are all about in Vancouver, 17 days of games, 82 countries are competing, 5,500 athletes at a cost of about $1.63 billion to operate it, including a whole lot of security.
Let's go to Mark McKay, he's with CNN Sports. He's in Vancouver covering this whole situation. Mark, how's it looking out there? Is it getting under way? People excited?
MARK MCKAY, CNN SPORTS: Yes, people are very excited, Ali. What's up with that? You're in Atlanta, you're getting the snow. I'm at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and --
VELSHI: I know.
MCKAY: No snow down here. We have it at Whistler, that's good news for the alpine events, but here in Vancouver -- it seemed like the whole city, Ali, was up before dawn this Friday morning because the Olympic torch relay made its way into the city limits.
If I had a Canadian dollar, even if though the exchange rate is bad, if I had a Canadian dollar for every time somebody asked me where is Arnold going to be running with the torch, I'd be a rich man today because Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California governor and the actor was part of the torch relay in Stanley Park, the 1,000-acre park, west of the city.
Now the torch is making its way through the streets of downtown Vancouver. There are huge crowds coming along with it, they are all heading to BC Place where the opening ceremony will be taking place under cover tonight, Ali.
VELSHI: All right, Lindsey Vonn, the American skier, what's the update on her?
MCKAY: The update on her is that she is feeling a whole lot better. She came to the Olympics in whole lot of pain. We saw her at the airport, Ali, on Tuesday when we arrived. No indication as to what she would reveal on Wednesday that her pain in her right chin was in her words excruciating. She had injured it in a training run in Austria last week. She was able to put a boot on that shin yesterday. She's hoping to get a run in. She did a free run. She didn't go down the official course yesterday, but she's hoping to get a free run in today.
She is the U.S. team's star, let's put it that way, Ali. She's in five events, a gold medal favorite in two or three of the events. It's looking better and better. In a couple hours, she'll be up at Whistler trying to go again.
VELSHI: Hey, Mark, real quick, and be careful with your answer because I'm Canadian. Who has the most pressure in these games?
MCKAY: How about the men's hockey team, you know quite well, Ali, that it is a religion here.
VELSHI: Yes.
MCKAY: Hockey has just taken over this country and has for years, wonderful tradition. Four years ago, the Canadian men's hockey team fell short. They didn't get on the podium. They are hoping, as Canadians want to say, own the podium of these olympics. Not only does the team want to top the olympic medal board, but the men's hockey team immense pressure for them to come away with the gold, Ali.
VELSHI: And betting on who lights the olympic cauldron, speaking about Canadian hockey, maybe Wayne Gretzky?
MCKAY: Yes, his name has been mentioned for sure. Wayne Gretzky, part of the younger generation, Sidney Crosby, but it's a state secret here in Canada, as it is in every olympics, be it a summer or winter games.
And Ali, we don't know where the olympic cauldron will burn for the 17 days of the game. Remember, the opening ceremony will be held under cover in the 60,000-seat BC Place, that flame can't burn in there for everybody to see it, so we are anticipating not only who lights the cauldron, but where the cauldron will burn here in Vancouver.
VELSHI: Mark, good to see you. You have a fantastic time there. We'll be checking with you frequently. Mark McKay in Vancouver covering the Winter Olympics.
We'll stay with something sports like for a while. We're going to tell you about NASCAR, and we are going to CNN's Chief Stock Car Correspondent, Barbara Starr, in just a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
All right, one-third of the U.S. population, one-third of the U.S. population, is a NASCAR fan, which means you probably are as well. NASCAR is the number one attended spectator sport in the United States. So we wanted to talk a little bit about Daytona 500. Happens this weekend and we thought who better to tell us about this than Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR: You know, folks are used to seeing me at the Pentagon or standing in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, but this time, I'm here in Florida. I came on assignment. Couldn't get home because of the blizzard, so we came here to Daytona to have a look at the world of NASCAR and the preparations for the Daytona 500. What did you notice right away? NASCAR is loud. This is my first time. What's going on? What's that all about?
RAMSEY POSTON, NASCAR COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: The cars are heading out for practice.
STARR: But where's the softness in the NASCAR world in terms of the recession. Where is it hitting you?
POSTON: We saw it -- we see it at some of our tracks, some of the places geographically where the country is hit the worst, that also translates into public fewer ticket sales in those places. It's not over. I mean, all of us as Americans and as a sport, have still a long way to go. But it's getting better.
STARR: OK, I am standing here in the garage area, next to Jimmie Johnson, the -- you know, master of NASCAR, and I'm about to do my first interview ever with a NASCAR driver. I wanted to ask you is, what's your big concern about the race right now, and how are the cars looking to you?
JIMMIE JOHNSON, SPRINT CUP CHAMP, 2006-2009: We just scratched this one, so we got to get a new car.
STARR: OK, so I did it. I asked a NASCAR driver how it's going, and he told me it ain't going so well today, but he's still going to make the race.
STARR (voice-over): Even at Daytona, a familiar logo, the U.S. Army. Driver, Ryan Newman won the race two years ago, and, yes, he has an engineering degree, from Purdue University.
STARR (on camera): And how did the car feel to you?
RYAN NEWMAN, DRIVER #39, U.S. ARMY CAR: It was good. The car felt really good. The U.S. Army Chevrolet was pretty good in straightaway speed as well as in a corner.
STARR: What is it about representing the U.S. Army? What's different here?
NEWMAN: I'm representing people and it's an honor to represent people that are not just people, they are people that are fighting for our freedom or have fought for our freedom or will fight for our freedom.
STARR: Unlike the corporate sponsors out here, the U.S. Army, we found, has a different goal in mind. They hope to recruit some new soldiers from some of NASCAR's 75 million fans. Barbara Starr, CNN, Daytona.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: And, of course, Barbara joins us now from our Washington Bureau. Barbara, first of all, ever the trooper, you are stranded somewhere and you end up doing a story. But you've interviewed generals and soldiers, you've been in battle fields, you've been all over the world, but you still were a kid in a candy shop at NASCAR. It is one of the most fantastic gatherings of humanity I've ever seen. I've been to Daytona 500, and it's really an experience.
STARR: It is something else, Ali, 75 million fans, think about it, across the country, Daytona is revved up for the race, not only is it fun, not only is it really an experience of seeing great sportsmanship amongst the teams and the drivers, but this is serious business with those 75 million fans. You know, the auto industry obviously hurting and all the advertising, that's a real advertising base for them and NASCAR is coming back from the recession, they tell me.
VELSHI: Particularly American sport, one that people can rally around and get proud of. Always an exciting time, it was great to see you out there, Barbara. Thanks so much for joining us.
STARR: Thank you.
VELSHI: Barbara Starr. Back in Washington, but after having fun at NASCAR.
Afghan and NATO troops are prepping for what is being called the biggest anti Taliban offensive of the war. Today, they dropped leaflets in and around the southern city of Marja, warning people not to give shelter to the Taliban. They are also using radios to get the message out and asking people to tell them about any explosives that they may spot.
In Chappaqua, New York, former President Bill Clinton back home after leaving hospital. He had surgery yesterday to unblock an artery. Doctors say he didn't have a heart attack and there's no damage. In 2004, former president, had a quadruple bypass.
And in Utah, you may not know his name, but you probably tossed around his famous creation, Water Frederick Morison, the inventor of the frisbee, has died at the age of 90, 200 million frisbees had been sold since Morison licensed them in 1957.
Well, listen, most people don't get Julia Roberts to act -- to play them, to portray them, in a movie. And most people who do get somebody to portray them in a movie, don't have such a storied history as -- as Joanne King Haron, she is standing right there in Houston. We'll talk to her about her famous portrayal about the policies she's influenced and about what's going in Afghanistan right now. Stay with us.
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OK, you may have heard earlier this week, former Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson died at the age of 76. He was a 12-term congressman. You may have seen him. He was made famous for his support of anti- soviet forces in Afghanistan, and that support inspired the 2007 movie "Charlie Wilson's war" which highlighted Wilson's efforts to arm Afghan Mujahadin in their war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
Wilson was a member of the house appropriations committee. He helped secure money for weapons and it depends where you fall on this thing. It plunged the U.S. into a risky venture. His partner in this venture was Houston socialite Joanne Herring. The former TV talk show host was first introduced to the Middle East by her late husband, millionaire oilman Robert Herring.
By the late 1970s, she had held volunteer positions in the Middle East, including honorary consul to Pakistan and Morocco. Joanne Herring got involved in the Soviet/Afghan conflict because she was concerned that Americans were dismissing it as mere tribal warfare and not a potential security threat to the U.S. and the world.
Well, she was portrayed in the movie by Julia Roberts. You may know her that way. But joining me now from Houston, Joanne King Herring, who, you know, some of it was portrayed in the movie, but, Joanne, you have had a long and storied history and you continue on this in this fight. Thank you very much for being with us.
JOANNE HERRING: Ali, first give me my money back.
VELSHI: I'm trying to. I'm trying to, Joanne.
HERRING: I love your book, Ali.
VELSHI: Thank you.
HERRING: It was a terrific book and very timely, and every American should read it.
VELSHI: Thank you, Joanne.
HERRING: I'm trying to give them some money back, too, instead of flowers for Charles. In other words, this was Charlie's dream.
VELSHI: Yes.
HERRING: And we are trying to bring it to fruition. And as you know, Ali, it costs $1 million to keep a soldier in the war on the battlefield for a year. We can rebuild Afghanistan, food, water, education, jobs, and basic health care for $11 a person. And the Afghans will fight their own battles. But people have forgotten in the United States. Is that not one American military person lost their war in the -- excuse me. I'm so -- lost their lives in the war with the Russians.
VELSHI: Here's an interesting thing. This is very timely today, because we've got this NATO new offensive, it's sort of reenergized us. But you've been on this for a long time. How did you -- how long have you had this idea of this -- of this new marshall plan as you call it, to try and figure out how to get Afghanistan to win this war for themselves?
HERRING: About three years ago, and when I realized that the statistics came out for 63 years we have been trying to alleviate poverty, and we have spent $15 trillion. And we haven't alleviated it.
So, I read the statistics on why. You can -- a country cannot raise itself up unless they have food, water, and education. We also thought they need basic health care and jobs, because we don't want to create a welfare state that's dependent on the United States.
So, we set out to do that. And we said -- and this was Charlie's dream, too, remember. That was the last thing in the movie. But, he wasn't able to do it, so we -- we forged ahead and decided to do this, make it come true. And we decided that the best way to do it was with the nonprofit organizations, which have been doing this for 15 years, or 5 or 10. But, anyway, somebody who has been really successful in giving the Afghans food, water, and education, but on a small scale.
VELSHI: Yes.
HERRING: Because they didn't have the money. But we found the money, and it wouldn't cost the American taxpayer one penny. The money is sitting there right now. And if we can access that money, we can provide the opportunity --
VELSHI: Yes --
HERRING: For Afghanistan to rebuild itself and bring our troops home.
VELSHI: Hold that thought, Joanne, we're going to come back, take a quick break and we'll come back and talk a little more about how exactly we can bring our troops home. I know a lot of Americans are looking forward to that. Joanne King Herring right after the break.
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Tom Hanks playing Charlie Wilson who passed away this week and Julia Roberts playing Joanne Herring who joins me right now. Joanne accurate portrayal of your relationship with Charlie Wilson and your influence over his determination to get some stuff done in Afghanistan?
HERRING: I loved Julia Roberts. I was thrilled to death when she was given the part, and she was marvelous. I like to think that I wasn't quite as snooty as she was. I never called anybody a slut in my life, and to tell you the truth, I have never gotten into the hot tub in the middle of the party either.
VELSHI: Because that would be rude to leave the party.
HERRING: Well.
VELSHI: And you are not terribly comfortable with the description of being a socialite? HERRING: Well, good heaven's, I hate that. Wouldn't you? I mean, After all, I have spent my life trying to do something for my country, and I have a book coming out next year that talks about exactly what I have done.
And I mean -- I am a lot of other wonderful people like you, Ali, who have spent your life trying to do things or the country that we love and to preserve, really what our forefathers have fought so hard to give us. And now we want to give that opportunity to people in places like Afghanistan, but, let me tell you something about Afghanistan, Ali.
VELSHI: Yes.
HERRING: There is a marvelous opportunity for jobs over there for Americans. That is a country, and it is surrounded by seven other countries, all of the Stans I call them, that really are totally undeveloped. Middle-class Americans could go over there and make a fortune with cleaning establishments, beauty shops, and selling cell phone and repairing them, and in fact, just repairing the hospital equipment, and things like that which becomes a doorstop in six months.
VELSHI: As long as there is a security issue that is safe. If Afghanistan were a safe place, it could open up to business. Is there a way that we can achieve this now? Because there is an offensive under way where they are trying the do just that.
HERRING: Absolutely. Absolutely. Let me tell you what we have to do is the Afghan army want a 400,000-man Afghan army. Right now they have 90,000 with about 35,000 defecting every month.
We can stop that, because one of the reasons they defect is because one, they cannot read nor write nor read a street sign and go around the country. We also need to be sure that the villagers at home have enough to eat. They are starving, Ali. That is what America doesn't understand. They are starving to death, these people. They don't have food.
VELSHI: And your argument is that the Taliban is providing the salary or the food, and that is what is getting the allegiance of the villagers?
HERRING: Yes, because they are paying more in the army than there is to be paid in the Afghan army, and the Afghan army has no gasoline, no food. They eat about once a day, if they are lucky. But the thing is that the Afghans will fight, Ali, and the Afghans, they have shown us that twice that they have fought to the death against the Russians and against, and then again after 9/11 we asked them to fight the Taliban, and they fought again.
VELSHI: Yes.
HERRING: But we always walk out. You cannot do that to leave a country been at war for 30 years, and people starving to death. Then they don't like you anymore. VELSHI: Joanne what a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for your continued hard work on an issue that you have been working on for so long. Joanne King Herring joining me from Houston. Good to talk to you, Joanne.
A quick look outside here in Atlanta. We are going to be talking to Michael Holms in a minute about his "back story" and talking what about is going Afghanistan, but right now, here is a picture of Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta.
I have to tell you. I've lived in northern climates in my life, but I didn't think I would be seeing this in Atlanta. There a lot of snow out there and it is just the beginning for us. You saw what happened to Dallas. This storm is moving this way.
When we come back, I am talking with Michael Holmes. We go back to the Afghanistan story. We're going to off road with some troops. We'll be back in a minute.
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VELSHI: It is Friday which means my man Michael Holmes is with me and he host of "Back Story" on CNN International which is fantastic. It takes you behind the stories of so many stories that we do. To me, because I know the business is fascinating and I know it is for the viewers. What have you got for us?
MICHAEL HOLMES: Well, it is. We have been reporting on Afghanistan and the operation taking place any moment now in the next few hours. Anyway, Atia Abawi is there, she is covering with her photographer Mary Rogers, and she sent in a report that when this operation occurs, they will go off the road.
Years and year ago all of these canals were built in Afghanistan for irrigation, but if you are off-road, there is an obstacle. So what do you do? You take your own bridge. Take a look.
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ATIA ABAWI: This tank is from the Vietnam era and it's attached to one of the most critical pieces of equipment when it comes to the operation in Marjah. Marjah is an area with many canals built in the 1950s and 1960s, making Helmand one of the bread baskets of Afghanistan back then, but now it is under strong Taliban control and the U.S. and NATO forces will see the canals as huge challenges, but because of this bridge, they will be able to get into the city.
SGT. CHRISTOPHER GORE, U.S. MARINE CORPS: The bridge is a class 70 bridge which is able to support up to 70 tons. It is really important. Without this, they would not be able to cross canals. They'd have to find another way to get across and some of the vehicles are really heavy. This is the one bridge that can support all of the vehicles that the Marine Corps has, so it is very essential.
ABAWI: This may look like something out straight out of a science fiction movie maybe transformers or star wars, but this is called an assault breacher vehicle and this is very critical when it comes to destructing IEDs, that's improvised explosive devices.
CPL. TANNER BUNTING, U.S. MARINE CORPS: It is important for finding explosive obstacles and it gets us in there, and without us, they can't get in there.
ABAWI: IEDs are responsible for more than 80 percent of the casualties in Helman province alone and considered the number one killer of NATO forces throughout the country. Atia Abawi, CNN, Helman Province, Afghanistan.
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