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President Obama Posts Health Care Plan; 27 Civilians Killed in Air Strike in Afghanistan; Pilots at Europe's Largest Airline Walk of Job

Aired February 22, 2010 - 11:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All over the last year he let Congress write their own versions, but right now they're sitting and collecting dust.

Last hour, President Obama laid out his very own comprehensive health care reform plan. In fact, I have it in my hand, all 11 pages of it. And what it essentially does is mirror the Senate legislation with a couple tweaks and this key addition. Take a look with me.

The president wants to give the federal government power to block over-the-top rate increases by insurance companies. Also in this proposal, the plan would require most Americans to carry health insurance. Those who cannot pay would get help.

And you also couldn't be denied coverage because of what they call a pre-existing condition. And the tax on expensive health plans, so-called Cadillac tax, you've heard it referred to as, it would remain in a scaled-down form.

Now, the president is putting his cards really on the table here three days before the televised health care summit with Republicans. That is Thursday.

White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux joins me now.

And Suzanne, I'm sure you have a copy of this, too. And just taking a look at it, this is really the first time we have seen a president's proposal since we've been talking about this for the last year.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely right, Brooke. And this really is what his White House communications director called this morning. He told me it is a first bid, if you will.

This is essentially his effort at putting this out there, all cards on the table. And obviously cueing up for that big health care summit on Thursday with Republicans and Democrats.

The president is inviting Republicans to come up with their own plan, post it on the Internet as well, before that meeting. Obviously, there's a bit of stage craft here going on. But clearly, this is the president saying, look, for the most part, he approves and would like to push forward the Senate portion, the Senate version of health care reform.

There are some important differences and exceptions. You mentioned a couple of them.

Another one that's really important is this whole idea that they're eliminating any kind of special deals for senators, or particular states, that all of the states are going to be treated the same when it comes to Medicaid funding. And that, in particular, getting rid of that Nebraska deal that was made with Senator Ben Nelson. That has been eliminated and the president is not supporting that, Ben Nelson.

And the other thing, of course, is closing the gap on what is -- what's called the doughnut hole, which essentially would enable senior citizens to pay full price for prescription drugs. That is going to be eliminated. It's going to close that gap.

This is something the president feels is important, these particular items on the Senate side, clearly pushing this through. He mentioned it when he met with the governors just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As governors, I know you feel the same responsibility to see the people we serve through difficult times. And I know you share my feelings that we've also got responsibility to think beyond the crisis and build an economy that works for our future, to tackle some of the problems and barriers that have held us back and to secure our rightful place as the preeminent economy in the 21st century. And that's why we've taken up the cause of better health care that works for our people, our businesses and our governments alike.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Now, Brooke, I spoke with the communications director, and he also said this morning that, look, the president is rejecting this call from Republicans to start from scratch, that that is not going to happen, that they're putting this forward, on the table. And this really, Thursday, is going to be kind of a "show me what you got" kind of health care summit, because he essentially is challenging the Republicans to come up with their own plans, their own proposals to do this in a very public way.

Obviously, it's going to be before the television cameras on Thursday. This president raising the stakes -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Absolutely. We'll talk about also what's at stake with Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash next hour.

Suzanne Malveaux at the White House for us.

Suzanne, thank you.

Also, checking other big stories right now. You know the story out of Iran, the nuclear chief now saying potential sites for new uranium enrichment plants have been chosen. He says construction of two facilities will begin in the next Iranian year, which, by the way, begins next month.

Western nations are convinced Iran is trying to build an atomic bomb. And today's nuclear revelations prompted new calls for sanctions.

Police in Texas have now arrested two men they believe are responsible for all those church fires. They're counting at least 10. So, for now, take a look here.

They have charged Jason Robert Bourque and Daniel George McAllister with one count of arson a piece. Investigators say a simple tip led them to the pair, and they say they actually do have DNA evidence linking one of them to at least one of these fires.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVEN C. MCCRAW, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPT. OF PUBLIC SAFETY: We're being asked and have an obligation to protect these churches. There are 713 churches in this area of operation.

So what we did, in effect, working as a team of teams, is conducted a coordinated -- the largest coordinated patrol operation that has been seen in east Texas for one purpose -- to prevent one more church from being burned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Those two men could be spending the rest of their lives in prison if they are convicted. Bond, by the way, set at $10 million.

A smooth landing for the Space Shuttle Endeavour. There she is.

The shuttle and its six-member crew touched down in Florida late last night. The astronauts spent the last two weeks at the International Space Station, installing a new room up there. Endeavour will be going up one final time before the shuttle program ends next year.

Deadly mistake in the Afghan war zone. Twenty-seven civilians killed in a single NATO air strike.

CNN' Senior International Correspondent Ben Wedeman joining me now live from Kabul.

And Ben, we know that General Stanley McChrystal has reached out to Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, sending his respects. But what really is the coalition here doing to minimize these casualties, these civilian casualties?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we understand that, for instance, they've modified the use of some of their weapons when they are in combat areas, trying to avoid these kind of casualties. But given that there are so many forces down there, 15,000 coalition and Afghan army forces in this southern part of the country, and they're having trouble in the Operation Moshtarak, in Helmand province -- and what they thought, this group of cars that was going south from central Afghanistan, they thought they were Taliban fighters in them and they struck.

It's a very difficult situation in which to operate. Sometimes the intelligence is faulty. Sometimes things just don't work out.

So, apparently, over the last few months, the civilian deaths have, in fact, decreased. That, after a high of last year of more than 2,400. So they are making progress, coalition officials say, but clearly it's not good enough -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Civilian casualties, Ben, that has to worsen any kind of relationship between the U.S. and Afghanistan.

I mean, how would this incident complicate the current coalition offensive happening now in Marjah, in southern Afghanistan?

WEDEMAN: Well, in a sense, it's a gift to the Taliban. In fact, we spoke with one Taliban official who confidently said that after this sort of tragedy, that the people of the southern part of Afghanistan are going to be more sympathetic to their cause.

So, really, the coalition forces are sort of between a rock and a hard place. They have to defeat the Taliban in the southern part of the country, but sometimes it's just not possible without this these sort of civilian casualties happening. And the people that benefit, of course, are the Taliban -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: A gift to the Taliban, that's a way to look at it.

Ben Wedeman for us in Afghanistan.

Ben, thank you.

Later this hour we're talking about this NATO detention policy. It's under scrutiny right now.

And Abbie Boudreau of CNN's Special Investigations Unit, she'll be joining me live with a look at what's called the 96-hour rule. And the question we're asking is, does it actually endanger troops while protecting Taliban spies? Stay there for that.

Meantime, thousands of airline passengers can't get to their destinations as planned. Pilots go on strike for better pay and job security.

But first, let's take a look at the latest on the Dow. It is minus 12 if you round up just a little bit there, the Dow Jones Industrials.

CNN NEWSROOM will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Pilots at Europe's largest airline walked off the job today, leaving thousands of travelers all around the world pretty much in a lurch.

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen is at Lufthansa's main hub. That is Frankfurt Airport in Germany.

And Frederik, how many people are we talking this affects here?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's a lot of people who are affected by this, Brooke. And they're not only people in Europe. It's also Americans who are affected by this, because a lot of Americans actually use Lufthansa to make a hop through Frankfurt, to then go on to Asia or the Middle East.

If you look on over there, this is the main board at Frankfurt's airport. And you'll see a lot of the word "anulete" (ph), which is the German word for "flight canceled." Certainly a lot of people have been affected by this, in the tens of thousands, and a lot of them are Americans.

We were able to speak to a couple from Philly that's trying to get to India via Frankfurt, and they are having a terrible time. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANK WORRELL, FLIGHT CANCELED: We were supposed to continue to India, but because of the strike, we now have to catch Thai Air to Bangkok. So we get all those free extra miles, plus they're letting us rest up for 13 hours in the terminal, Bangkok, before we go on to India. Bad timing on my part, I think.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So we really felt sorry for those people. But there's many like them who really have to take massive detours to try and get to their destinations.

And certainly people traveling from America, who have to do a hop via Frankfort or via Munich, they should really check their listings to see whether or not their flight was canceled if they have some sort of involvement with Lufthansa, if they're traveling on a Star Alliance flight or something. It's definitely advisable to check. Lufthansa says the strike could go on for another four days -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Oh, man. I felt for that couple.

But let's ask really what's at stake here for the pilots. They're asking for what, better pay, job security?

PLEITGEN: Well, job security is one of the things.

First of all, they're asking for better pay. They want 6.4 percent more pay. But they say they're willing not to take that pay if they get job security in return.

What's going on here is actually what's been going on, the same thing as you see at a lot of American airlines. What Lufthansa has been doing, it's been buying a lot of low-cost carriers and trying to have those low-cost carriers flying on routes that Lufthansa planes have been flying on.

And now what the pilots are saying is that they have had enough of this. They feel that they should be able to determine which routes are flown by Lufthansa planes.

Now, that's something where, in return, the company says it doesn't want the pilots to determine the company's strategy. And I can tell you right now, the two sides are still very, very far apart. There's a lot of bad blood between these two sides -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: What I'm reading, this may go on for, what, at least a couple days? We'll check back in with you, Frederik Pleitgen --

PLEITGEN: Absolutely. Four days.

BALDWIN: -- yes -- in Frankfurt, Germany. A tough situation there.

Frederik, thank you.

And with the Lufthansa strike already in place, we're now waiting to hear if British Airways will possibly follow suit. The results of the cabin staff though could come at any minute. And here's the deal.

It basically comes down to two concerns here -- pay and work conditions. So if the strike is approved, crew members could walk off the job as early as the 1st of March.

And starting today, new rules apply to your credit cards. But what if you don't want to use them? Our personal finance editor, Gerri Willis, shares some alternatives.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It is a new era in credit cards today, as credit card companies begin to play by new rules. So what will this new world look like, and are there really any good alternatives out there to credit cards?

CNN Personal Finance Editor Gerri Willis joining me now from New York.

All right, Gerri. I use the plastic just like everybody else. What's new today?

GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Yes, don't we all?

BALDWIN: Yes.

WILLIS: Well, good morning, Brooke. It's estimated that the new rules will cost credit card companies $11 billion each and every year. Now, to make up for that lost revenue, companies are looking into new revenues, new fees.

We spoke to the American Bankers Association to see what lies ahead for your credit card.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NESSA FEDDIS, SR. COUNSEL, AMERICAN BANKERS ASSOCIATION: There are unintended consequences. The law does mean that interest rates will go up a bit across the board for everybody, and it will be harder for people and small businesses to get credit. Limits may be lower.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIS: All right. So things are getting a little worse out there even with the new legislation in place. So you have to know the terms of your card and how they're changing.

Bottom line, don't throw out any mail from your issuer. You've got to read all the fine print -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: So, as we read the fine print, are there any viable alternatives to credit cards? What would you suggest?

WILLIS: Absolutely. Well, credit cards from credit unions were less likely to charge fees and penalties than the big banks. And when fees are involved, those fees are less.

So, to join a credit union, you typically need to be a member of some sort of organization. Ask your employer or your college alumni organization if there's a credit union you can sign up with. To find a credit union near you, go to CreditUnion.coop -- Brook.

BALDWIN: Credit unions, credit cards. What if you just plain flat can't get a credit card? Then what?

WILLIS: Right. A lot of people out there in that situation.

Consider what they call a prepaid credit card. Basically, you deposit money on to this card and use it until the money runs out. So you're borrowing your own money, in essence.

There are no bills. No interest charges. But consumer beware. There can be a lot of fees associated with prepaid cards, including activation fees, transaction fees, and fees when you put money on your card. And there are fewer protections if your card is lost or stolen, although some companies will offer some fraud protection.

These cards may be a good option for younger folks out there who are just getting introduced to the world of revolving credit. If you really want to build up that credit score, this a good option for you -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: You said it. I think whatever kind of card you're using, read the fine print. There are all kinds of fees. We all need to be buyer beware.

WILLIS: That's right.

BALDWIN: Gerri, thanks.

A terror suspect expected to plead guilty this afternoon. Our Security Desk is on that story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The numbers are staggering, and it could reflect some of the frustration that's really growing now in America's middle class. The Bindner family is caught in a squeeze and is one of our faces on this story.

Our Carol Costello reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The American Dream, 1950s style. Middle class America seemed to have it all then --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And we'll have the living room right here.

COSTELLO: -- a nice home, a car, economic security.

MOIRA BINDNER, ALEXANDRIA, VA: You and your chocolate brownies.

COSTELLO: Sixty years later, the Bindners and much of the middle class think thanks to Uncle Sam, all of that is disappearing.

(on camera): Do you think government is broken?

MOIRA BINDNER: No, but I think it's bruised.

MICHAEL BINDNER, ALEXANDRIA, VA: Yes. That's a good term.

MOIRA BINDNER: I think it's bruised.

COSTELLO (voice-over): And not exactly working for Moira and Michael Bindner. Like many Americans, they're one financial crisis away from falling out of the middle class. Both had to find new jobs which shrunk their income by $30,000 a year.

MOIRA BINDNER: You don't go to the dentist. You don't get the car repaired until it's desperate, you know, and we've got 165,000 miles on the Ford Focus and every repair is $600. The retirement plan went out the window.

COSTELLO (on camera): President Obama says he gets it now. He's talking about job creation, he's talking about giving tax credits to small businesses. Do any of these things make you feel hopeful?

MOIRA BINDNER: I'm not sure because over the last year, I've got -- the only thing that I think that's come out of Washington is more and more gridlock and more and more game playing.

COSTELLO (voice-over): The Bindners say Washington's lost its moral compass and hasn't really cared about the middle-class pocketbook for decades.

Commerce Department statistics show from 1990 to 2008 middle- class incomes rose just 20 percent, and most of that happened in the first decade. Income stagnated after 2000, yet home prices shot up 56 percent, college costs 60 percent, and health care costs shot up 155 percent.

So how did it happen when president after president after president after president went to great lengths to show middle-class Americans they got it?

JACOB HACKER, AUTHOR, "THE GREAT RISK SHIFT": Money matters a lot more in American politics than it used to.

COSTELLO: Jacob Hacker is a political scientist who wrote "The Great Risk Shift".

HACKER: There's a lot of pressure for politicians to appease those who have the most money in the system.

COSTELLO: As in big political donors and lobbyists.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Democrats aren't listening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republicans are ramping up their attack machines.

COSTELLO: Hacker also says partisanship has hurt the middle class.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Democrats chose to go it alone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) role in this is all about slow down, stop, and no.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pelosi and Reid, why don't you just...

ISABEL SAWHILL, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: None of them are willing to do the unpopular things, which means they're not willing to raise taxes, and they're not willing to cut spending. So we're at an impasse.

COSTELLO: And until Washington comes together, the Bindners say they keep hanging in there, hoping that financial catastrophe doesn't happen.

MOIRA BINDNER: It just feels like the rug has been totally pulled out, and it's really challenging on a day to day basis to accomplish everything with the paychecks coming in the door.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Voters are itching to throw the bums out, but some analysts say that won't solve the problem. We'd just send a new batch of politicians to work on the same old broken system -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: I bet a lot of Americans can relate with the Bindners' frustration, Carol. Thank you.

COSTELLO: Sure.

BALDWIN: And Carol's piece is just one of the reasons why starting today, exclusively here on CNN, we are talking about broken government. This will be a weeklong CNN investigation. And one good place to start here is with politicians and bureaucrats.

Take a look at these numbers here.

This is a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll. And look at this. It finds 75 percent of people asked believe federal government officials are dishonest. Less than a quarter think officials are actually trustworthy.

So, looking for answers to why Congress isn't functioning quite like it should, our John Roberts turned to two men who decided to get out of government, former Republican congressman Tom Davis from Virginia and retiring Congressman John Tanner, a Democrat from Tennessee.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN TANNER (D), TENNESSEE: The most partisan elements of our society, those on the left and the right who believe their party's always right and the other guy's always wrong, are electing, to the best of our count, almost 350 members of the 435 members here in the House. And so people are responsive to the people that elect them. So you have the left and the right here, and there's very little in the middle.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Congressman Davis, do you agree with that, that redistricting is the problem? You know, we had a poll out last week. Sixty-three percent of respondents think that most members of Congress don't deserve to be reelected. Yet, on average, in an election 90 percent of House members return.

TOM DAVIS (R), FMR. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Well, 80 percent of the members come from districts where their race is the primary. It's not the general election. So they don't get rewarded for compromising. They get punished if they compromise with the other side.

By the way, the Voting Rights Act, in concert with Baker vs. Carr, because the Voting Rights Act has (INAUDIBLE) minorities, which means Democrats into districts. And that has made the districts even more partisan.

The difficulty is a lot of these members' races are in primary elections, not in generals. And in primaries, you don't get rewarded for compromise with the other side, you get punished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Well, let's talk more about our CNN/Opinion Research poll.

It shows that a majority of Americans think the government is broken. So, the question we're asking is, what are their doing about it?

"TIME" magazine's editor-at-large, David Bons-Raylee (ph), joins us in the next hour of the CNN NEWSROOM. We'll be drilling down on a couple of those topics to see what exactly is going on and if there is any kind of solution.

Meantime, Taliban spies working side by side with U.S. troops. One former commander says a NATO rule oftentimes puts soldiers in danger. You won't want to miss. This is a CNN special investigation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: I want to take you now inside the war in Afghanistan. U.S. troops targeted by Taliban spies. Now, not one or two spies here. We're talking about a dozen at a base where two NATO troops were killed and 30 were wounded. Now, the U.S. commander in charge roots out the spies only to face his biggest challenge yet, finding the evidence to hold them.

Under NATO rules, the commander has just 96 hours, that is four days, to gather enough evidence. If he can't do that, they go free, returning to the Taliban, armed with even more information and deadlier than ever. It's called the 96-hour rule. It's a controversial policy already under review at the highest level of the U.S. Defense Department.

CNN's Abbie Boudreau has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBIE BOUDREAU, SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Roger Hill was the commander in charge of (INAUDIBLE) province in eastern Afghanistan for much of 2008.

ROGER HILL, FORMER U.S. ARMY CAPTAIN: It's deceivingly beautiful. Because there's quite a bit of treachery and barbarism that occurred in this very valley.

BOUDREAU: He was assigned just 89 soldiers to cover an area the size of Connecticut.

HILL: The enemy seemed to kind of know where we were.

BOUDREAU: Hill feared the Taliban was tracking his every move. He suspected an inside threat, maybe a spy.

HILL: Out of a 90-man company, you know, we had 30 wounded, two killed in action.

BOUDREAU: Hill says his headquarters sent a team to the base to weed out possible spies. It screened cell phone activity to find out which Afghan civilians working on the base were really working for the Taliban.

HILL: It turned out that it wasn't just one, two, or three but we actually had a full dozen, 12 infiltrator spies on our (INAUDIBLE).

BOUDREAU: There were all Afghans hired as contractors. They were janitors, heavy equipment operators. Some of them worked on the cell phone tower. And there was one man, one alleged spy, who Roger Hill knew well, his very own interpreter, Nori (ph). Hill had trusted Nori. For six months they fought the Taliban side by side. Hill even helped Nori begin to apply for a U.S. visa.

HILL: I don't know what to say other than it was a huge heartbreak. You know, we were so shorthanded that we just -- we were forced to depend on each other on a very intimate level. He wore one of our uniforms.

BOUDREAU: He had no idea Nori might be the one sabotaging missions. Angry and frustrated, Hill detained all 12 men in this small building on the base. That's when NATO's 96-hour rule went into effect.

(on-camera): What you may not realize is that nearly half of the U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan are not actually serving the U.S. military. They're assigned to NATO. And NATO has very different rules when it comes to detaining the enemy. (voice-over): Because Hill's unit served under NATO, his men have only 96 hours to provide the evidence required for the Afghans to lock up detainees or the NATO soldiers have to release them. The rule is designed to give the Afghan government control over detainees and to avoid abuses like what happened in Iraq at Abu Ghraib.

Hill says the NATO rule simply don't not work and many times dangerous suspects are released because there's not enough time to gather evidence. But Hill was not just up against the clock. He says he had another problem. The evidence against the 12 men was too sensitive to hand over to the Afghans. Hill was ordered not to share classified intelligence with the Afghans for fear it could be used against U.S. soldiers in future battles. Sharing it was just too risky.

HILL: We're in this "Catch-22" where they're saying hey, we'll take these guys off your hands, but give us the evidence. And I'm saying, I can't do that. Well, if you can't give us the evidence, then we can't take these guys off your hands. So the clock continues to tick.

BOUDREAU: Wade Barker was a force protection officer who worked on Hill's base. He says most evidence collected on the battlefield is considered classified, including intelligence information like thumbprints and retinal scans and even some witness statements.

WADE BARKER, FORMER FORCE PROTECTION OFFICER: If you pass off too much information, you're giving back what we know potentially to the enemy. So you have to classify. You've got to be so careful about what you give away.

BOUDREAU (on camera): It's almost like you're protecting your information more than you're protecting soldiers if everything is classified.

BARKER: We have certain rules we have to follow. We have to protect our soldiers and we have to protect the soldiers through protecting the information.

BOUDREAU: But how does that protect the soldier if you're releasing people who have been shooting at them?

BARKER: It doesn't. It puts the soldier right back in harm's way. It's just a vicious cycle. It goes round and round. It's the most frustrating thing I've ever seen.

BOUDREAU (voice-over): If Hill were going to convince the Afghans to lock up the 12 suspected spies, he would need evidence that was not classified and he needed it before the 96 hours were up. What he really needed was a confession. So at the 80th hour, Hill came up with a plan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: How about that? So what is the plan? What happened in the 80th hour? You will see when our CNN special investigation continues on the other side of this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We'll get you back to that special investigation in a moment, but first some of our top stories. Just last hour President Obama unveiled his new health care plan. It would allow the Federal government to stop insurance companies from raising rates excessively. It also requires most Americans to carry some kind of coverage.

An investigation is under way here into a NATO air strike that killed more than two dozen civilians. It happened in southern Afghanistan yesterday. NATO forces say they fired on a convoy believed to be carrying insurgents. But when U.S. troops got there, they found women and children.

Take a look at these pictures, lots of hugs, kisses, some tears as well. Hundreds of Marines arriving home from their second tour of duty in Iraq. This happening just over the weekend. They were in charge of working border security and training Iraqi troops.

All right, let's get back to that investigation here. The former U.S. Army captain in Afghanistan had lost just two soldiers in this IED attack. Dozens more had been seriously injured on other missions. The enemy seemed to anticipate where Captain Roger Hill and his soldiers were headed. As it turned out, 12 Afghans working on his military base were suspected spies, including Hill's own interpreter.

Hill now faced an impossible choice, violate orders and give the Afghan government classified evidence against the 12 suspected spies or simply let the men go. Under NATO rules he had just 96 hours after the men were detained to figure it all out. At the 80th hour he came up with a plan.

CNN's Abbie Boudreau picks up the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOUDREAU (voice-over): As the clock ticked toward the 96th hour NATO deadline, the 12 suspected spies were held in this small building on base.

HILL: I decided that I needed to break protocol and interrogate them myself. I took three gentlemen outside, sat them down, walked away, fired my weapon into the ground three times, hoping that the men on the inside left to their own imaginations would think that they really needed to talk.

BOUDREAU (on camera): Meaning that maybe you killed these men?

HILL: Or hurt them. I really did not consider what they would think. I just knew that it would gain a reaction.

BOUDREAU: You thought it would scare them.

HILL: Yes and that's all I was concerned about because I needed that intelligence.

BOUDREAU: What happened?

HILL: Fired three rounds into the ground, walked back inside. And, sure enough, some of the detainees started to talk.

BOUDREAU: How nervous were they? Were they crying? Were they scared?

HILL: They were frightened. I think it would be safe to assume that, you know, some of these guys thought that the gentlemen that were outside were no longer breathing.

BOUDREAU (voice-over): What the detainees told him inside this building was ultimately enough to convince the Afghans to take all 12 suspects into custody including Hill's interpreter, Nori. Hill felt he'd done the right thing, that he'd protected his soldiers.

HILL: I broke protocol and more or less took matters into my own hands out of necessity, out of self-defense.

BOUDREAU: But the Army saw it differently. Hill was charged with detainee abuse. He accepted a plea deal and received a general discharge last year. His military career was over. NATO spokesman James (INAUDIBLE) announced the 96th hour detention rule in 2005 after talks with both U.S. and Afghan military commanders. He told CNN, quote, "We have to balance the requirement for protecting our soldiers with the reality that Afghanistan is a sovereign country, that there must be limits on the time we can detain Afghans before handing them over to Afghan authorities."

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham says cases like Roger Hill's are the reason NATO needs to change the rule.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: The one story I hear told over and over and over again, Senator Graham, this policy makes no sense. It is putting our folks at risk for no higher purpose. Quite frankly, here's what's going to start happening. We're going to take less prisoners. They're going to start shooting these folks.

BOUDREAU: Graham has seen the problem firsthand. He's the only U.S. senator who serves in the Air Force Reserve. He's a colonel and was in Afghanistan just last year.

GRAHAM: Who the hell made this rule up? Why did you pick 96 hours versus 80 hours or 100 hours? I can't get anyone to tell me how this thing was formed, whose idea it was and how it became policy.

BOUDREAU: To find out, we tracked down Cully Stimson. In 2006, working for the Pentagon, he advised then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the 96-hour rule.

(on camera): Did you have concerns at that time?

CULLY STIMSON, FORMER DEPUTY ASST. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I did then. I do now in certain circumstances. But I do believe the policy works for the most part. There is no perfect system. There is no magical number in terms of hours or days or weeks. And so I think it's a healthy compromise.

BOUDREAU: Was that a concern, then, of yours at the time, that soldiers would be turning detainees, dangerous, alleged terrorists, over to the Afghan government only to be released?

STIMSON: Yes.

BOUDREAU (voice-over): At CNN's request, NATO compiled data on what happened to detainees. Turns out, four out of every 10 were released with the rest turned over to Afghan authorities. But we've also learned NATO does not track what happens from that point on.

General David Petraeus is the commander in charge of all U.S. forces in the region. He's the one who would know best if the 96-hour rule really is working on the ground. After a public appearance, we asked him about the detainee rule.

(on camera): I'm with CNN. We just have one quick question. Is 96 hours enough?

GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: Ninety six hours is not enough if you are going to ensure that they stay behind bars, obviously. Again, there has to be a process by which the individuals that need to be detained are detained or that if they're handed over to Afghan officials, that there's confidence in the system working.

OK? Good. You bet. That's a big concern of mine, personally.

BOUDREAU: Big concern of yours?

PETRAEUS: Yes.

BOUDREAU (voice-over): Now, CNN has confirmed the 96-hour rule is being reviewed at the highest levels of the Department of Defense. A spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert Gates told us, quote, we are currently reviewing the 96-hour rule but have yet to make decisions about how we wish to proceed in light of some of the obvious problems associated with it.

(on-camera): So what happened to the 12 suspected spies that Captain Roger Hill turned over to the Afghans? According to Army investigators, despite the confessions, all 12 men were released.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOUDREAU: Just recently Britain decided to extend the 96-hour rule because they feel dangerous prisoners could be released and put their soldiers' lives at risk. They say they'll only extend the 96 hours under extraordinary circumstances. So you have to wonder, is the U.S. going to follow their lead? Is it going to come up with a totally different plan of their own? We don't know. We'll have to wait and see.

BALDWIN: It was interesting seeing General David Petraeus walk away and voluntarily say this has been important for me, personally important for me and also you mentioned in the second piece is that once the suspect is handed over to Afghan authorities, NATO no longer tracks them from that point on. How is that possible?

BOUDREAU: Right. That was really surprising to us as well. That's just how it is. Everybody has been telling us, NATO is not in the detention business nor does it want to be. So once someone is handed over, once a detainee is handed over to the Afghan government they say, listen, now it's your responsibility to figure out what you're going to do with them. If the Afghan authorities, the government decides, you know what, we are going to release them, we're going to keep them, it's up to them. It's not up to NATO and at that point NATO does not track that. That's the way the rule was devised. So the problem here, of course, is if the Afghan government decides they are going to release somebody, how does NATO know if it doesn't track that information?

BALDWIN: And if they then join back with the Taliban, possibly and the cycle of that just continues to perpetuate.

BOUDREAU: Right because if you can't track them, you don't know where these people end up. And that is the problem.

BALDWIN: The fact that all these different spies, a dozen in one group. BOUDREAU: That's unbelievable. When we heard about that, yes. It is remarkable. We're hearing more and more about these kinds of spies on U.S. bases. And that's something that we are going to keep our eye on. That's for sure.

BALDWIN: Abbie Boudreau, excellent reporting. Thank you. Wow.

Well, he is a suspect in a New York City terror plot. We are learning he is expected to plead guilty. Our Jeanne Meserve is on the security desk with that one.

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BALDWIN: The economy, now, analysts say it is bouncing back, but we all want to know if the rebound will continue and whether it will include job growth. And today, there is a new forecast out. Darby Dunn is in New York for us with all those details. And Darby, I know there's been a lot of talk about this double dip recession. You're hearing from economists. What do they say?

DARBY DUNN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, most economists do not expect a double dip recession. A new survey from the National Association for Business Economics or NABE, shows that the leading economists expect this recovery to remain on track over the next two years. Economists say businesses will lead the way. Corporate profits are expected to grow by double digits this year.

Now that could give some companies room to hire. The NABE expects to see about 100,000 jobs added each month starting in the second quarter of this year. But the problem is that this recession has been so extremely harsh, with more than eight million people losing their jobs, so that monthly gain of 100,000 is good, but it's not going to be enough to bring down unemployment very quickly or very significantly.

As for what we're seeing on Wall Street today, stocks bouncing around the flat line following a big advance last week. Right now the Dow industrials down almost 18 points. The NASDAQ composite is lower by 5. GlaxoSmithKline's shares are down more than 2 percent because a Senate report released over the weekend questioned the safety of Avandia, which was once the world's top selling diabetes drug. That's pulling down other pharmaceutical shares as well as gold, energy and some oil stocks moving the market lower. Back to you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Darby thank you. Darby mentioned jobs. More than a million people could lose their jobless benefits and health insurance subsidy next month if Congress doesn't act fast. Check out the story. Just go to cnnmoney.com.

And got a lot going on for you for the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM here. Take a look at a Pennsylvania school system at the center of a laptop computer spying controversy. Have you heard about this? They're now responding to those accusations. We'll bring that to you. And our Tom Foreman boards the CNN express, finding folks who are hard at work building up America during tough times.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: One of three men charged in a plot to detonate bombs in New York last September is expected to plead guilty. That word coming down just this morning from a government official familiar with the deal. Want to bring in CNN homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve from Washington. All right, Jeanne. We're talking about Najibullah Zazi. Bring us up to speed here.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You remember Najibullah Zazi. He was the airport limousine driver who was charged back in September for allegedly plotting to explode bombs in New York city on 9/11, the anniversary of 9/11, I should say. A law enforcement source tells me this morning that he targeted multiple sites within the New York City subway station and you might recall that when he was arrested, sources told us that he was carrying video of Grand Central Station.

Now, looking back on this case to refresh your memory, Zazi visited beauty shops in the Denver area where he allegedly was purchasing chemicals with which to make the explosive TATP. It even came out that he had allegedly visited hotel rooms in the Denver area where he was supposedly cooking this explosive. However, the explosives and chemicals have never been found, to our knowledge. Nonetheless, he was charged with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. So once again, we're expecting him in court this afternoon to plead guilty. We don't have further details at this time though Brooke.

BALDWIN: Still hoping he'll be making that plea this afternoon. Jeanne, where will this be happening? What court?

MESERVE: This will be happening in New York. That's where he was -- he was picked up in Denver which is where he lived. But this had been a long-standing investigation, a lot of it centering in the New York City area. He had allegedly traveled there shortly before 9/11 supposedly with the intent to detonate these bombs. So he was transported to New York. That's where the court proceedings have been taking place. That's where he'll appear this afternoon.

BALDWIN: And we'll look for him this afternoon, Najibullah Zazi pleading guilty in New York. Jeanne at the security desk for us, Jeanne thanks.