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Relationship between U.S. and Pakistan Strained by Discovery of bin Laden near Islamabad; South Prepares for Mississippi River Flooding; Some Say al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan May Be Vulnerable to Eradication; Newt Gingrich to Officially Run for GOP Presidential Candidacy; Talking to Bin Laden's Wives

Aired May 09, 2011 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Randi, thank you very much.

Hello to all of you.

Right now, I want to begin with the mighty Mississippi. The river is flowing so fast, so furious, it would only take a second to fill a football field 44-feet deep, one single second.

And that has cities and towns all the way from Memphis and New Orleans bracing for the worst. The rising water, obviously, that is no surprise here, but the Mississippi has been slowly swelling to record levels as people along its banks pull out everything in the playbook to try to control it. And we have been watching, the Army Corps of Engineers blowing up a large part of levee in Missouri, flooding 130 acres of farmland just to save that one town in Illinois. It was multiple explosions.

You remember, we told you about that last week. Well, today, they opened the floodgates further upriver from New Orleans. The gold here, it's sort of twofold. Really, it's to calm the rising river, but also to relieve the pressure on the levees, because if one of those levees fails to hold, we could have a major, major disaster on our hands.

I want to go to David Mattingly, who is live there in Memphis, Tennessee, where the river is usually a half-mile-wide, I know, David, in this part of downtown Memphis. And it is three miles across. So, tell me where you are standing and how deep it is right there.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, this is a very interesting location. This is River Front Drive. And just back behind me is where it intersects Beale Street, that famous street for entertainment here in Memphis.

Fortunately, all the bars the clubs are up on the hillside, but down here where it meets the river, you can see the water coming in. We are almost to the crest. We are just inches away from this river reaching its highest point here in Memphis.

It will be short of a record, but this is historic flooding. No one here has seen anything like this in generations. Strangely enough, while we see this massive amount of water along the waterfront and along the Mississippi, the problems around Memphis have been on the tributaries. Those are the rivers that normally empty into the Mississippi. Their water has nowhere to go, so they have been backing up.

And we have been seeing spot flooding in low-lying areas along these rivers all around Memphis, low-lying areas encompassing some neighborhoods, some trailer parks. We have got 300 to 400 people in shelters. And they are probably going to be in those shelters for quite some time because, as this water took days to get here, Brooke, it is going to take weeks for it to leave.

The Mississippi, you were talking about. Let's look over this way real quick. You were saying how it was a half-mile originally.

BALDWIN: Right.

MATTINGLY: This is what a three-mile-wide Mississippi River looks like. And that is going to take probably until June before this river gets back into its banks.

BALDWIN: Wow. So that -- weeks and weeks. They will have quite a bit of a while to deal with this, but, David, what about the levee system, the flood wall system in Memphis? I mean, do we know yet how it is holding up, how it will hold up when this river finally crests?

MATTINGLY: OK. Now we are going to go around back to the other side since you asked that question. The officials here in Memphis have been very confident that their flood walls and their banks and everything they have got built around this city are going to work.

You can see some of the protection here. What they have been looking at are these systems that have been put in place since the last great flood back in 1937. This was just one big bank, one -- one example to show you. You see people up there walking on top.

But what we have working here is a system that was put in place after the Great Flood of 1937. And that has been built to withstand that historic flood and then some. We are not going to get to that record this time. They feel very confident that all the protection they have in place is going to work.

But because the water going to stay here for so long, Brooke, they are actually going be looking at it very closely over the coming weeks to make sure there are not any weaknesses in there. And if they do see anything, they will act on them very quickly, but right now, everything is holding. Everything is working the way it should be, in spite of scenes like this, Memphis making out a whole lot better than it did back in the 1930s.

BALDWIN: Yes. And in that shot a moment ago, you can see some of the people sort of walking up behind you.

And I was reading it has almost become a tourist attraction right now for people to just see these places where we have said that the river is now three miles wide. But in terms the people who are not sticking around, who don't want to see the river, who have had to get out of town, get out of their homes, what are you hearing, David, in terms of evacuations in Memphis?

MATTINGLY: Well, the people who have been affected, the property that has been affected, we are talking about thousands. The people who have had actually to leave their homes because they have been inundated, we are talking about hundreds.

And now, at this point, though, we are looking at the broader implications of this, the people whose businesses might be affected, the people whose travel plans might be impacted. That could be in the thousands to thousands to 10 thousands, Brooke.

BALDWIN: What about -- you mentioned Beale Street? You have Beale Street. You have the Pyramid Arena. You have Graceland, and, you know, B.B. King's blues club there on Beale. Are they expected to be affected by this?

MATTINGLY: I have -- actually, I talked to one of the manager the B.B. King's. And she was telling me that this is supposed to be one of their biggest months. They have got that big barbecue cook-off coming up next weekend.

There's going to be lots of people here, a big sellout situation. That is normally supposed to take place right back over there. Well, naturally, the river has got that covered up. It is not going away anytime soon.

BALDWIN: Yes. You are pointing to the river now.

MATTINGLY: So, what they had to do -- right. It's -- the area that they usually have it is back over that way, where the river is.

So, they had to move the barbecue contest to high ground to a stadium. And now that is where they're going to have it. So the people that go there are not going to be able to come down here and eat the barbecue and then walk to Beale Street. So that manager was a little worried that was not going to be a very good May for them.

But were talking about the tourism. Tourists have been coming down here looking at the river, but the river is always a great attraction. They come down here for so many things. And Mud Island, one of those places they like to go to, a lot of those attractions there are underwater right now, as well as a couple of homes that might be -- that are getting hit with the water on the other end of that island.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes. It is stunning just -- just to look at it behind you and think of how much worse it can get downriver.

David Mattingly, we will check in with you again next hour.

(WEATHER UPDATE)

BALDWIN: And our in-depth coverage of the rising Mississippi River continues later this hour.

As I mentioned, I'm going to speak with a former member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about the strength of the levees all along the Mississippi River and what the impact opening these floodgates or spillways, as Chad was just mentioning, will have on homes in and around New Orleans.

Next hour, I will also be speaking with the governor of Illinois, Governor Pat Quinn, who just toured some of the devastation and the damage in his state. He will talk to us about what he saw firsthand coming up.

But up next: the price at the pump just pennies away topping that $4- a-gallon mark. But hang on. Don't panic just yet, because some good news -- I love being able to say this -- good news could be just around the corner. We will explain that.

Plus, this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hear a scream from the stewardess. And I see her fly across the thing. And it's -- so, I go running, and I see this guy with his hands on the door, and these two guys trying to hold him, and they couldn't. The guy was a bull.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Talk about a scare in the skies for passengers on board this Continental jet. Find out what happened after a man tried to open the cabin door 30,000 feet in the air. That is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Want to check some other top stories now.

First, Pakistan is setting some ground rules for U.S. investigators who want to question Osama bin Laden's wives. And this is one them. There are five. Three were captured at his compound in Abbottabad. Now, a senior intelligence source is telling CNN that Pakistan will allow U.S. the question these wives only if their country of origin gives the green light, gives the OK.

Pakistan says bin Laden's family members will be sent back to their home countries once they are interrogated.

Also, a daring escape from Libya for the woman who claimed she was beaten and raped by Moammar Gadhafi's forces. Eman al-Obeidy is safe now in Qatar right now. She tells us two defecting Libyan army officers helped her escape across the border into Tunisia just last Thursday and managed to get her through various government checkpoints by using their military identity documents. She says she is not quite sure what she will do next, but she is overjoyed to be out of Libya.

And get ready to see something remarkable. This is Dallas Wiens walking in here in this room being helped out a little bit. He is the first person in the United States to get a full face transplant. Doctors at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston gave him a new nose, lips, skin, muscles, and nerves during a 15-hour surgery just back in March.

Wiens is a construction worker who was critically burned in a high- voltage power line accident back in 2008. And, today, he sat there. He spoke about how he felt right after that full facial transplant.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DALLAS WIENS, FULL FACE TRANSPLANT RECIPIENT: When I woke up, I was able to feel that I had features again, eyes. There was a nose and a mouth. I even said out loud that this should not be medically possible, because it doesn't seem like it should be, but here I am today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: How about that? Wiens says he has relied on his faith to get him through this whole ordeal.

And new developments here just in the last few minutes in the case of the possible Long Island serial killer. Investigators say minutes ago that they are appearing to be dealing with more than one killer. And they add that the area where several remains have been found appears to have been used as a dumping ground for bodies for several years.

Investigators say one killer went to great lengths to hide the identity of one of the victims. She was dismembered. And her body parts were dumped in two separate locations. The killer also tried to scratch off her tattoo. And coming up next hour, I will be speaking with a former New York state detective, Steve Kardian (ph), about what he makes of these -- some new details that have just eked out in the last couple of minutes. I will be talking to him next hour. Don't miss that.

And for weeks, we have been charting the steady and dare I say painful rise in gas prices, the national average getting close to the $4 mark. Well, guess what? Gas prices may have now topped out after all. The price per gallon has fallen every single day since last Thursday.

But hang on. Don't start high-fiving just yet here, because it is still way up there -- $3.96 is the national average. Look what it was just one year ago. Ah, $2.91. The reason for the up and down, it is complicated, the oil companies, the speculators. A lot has to do with the news headlines.

Allan Chernoff, there he is with me in New York to help me make sense of all of this.

And I know, Allan, a new CNN/Opinion Research poll is out. How worried are people? I mean, everyone I talk to is worried about gas prices. What are you hearing?

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, they are mighty worried. And that is very good advice about the high-fives...

(LAUGHTER)

CHERNOFF: ... because the price of crude oil is back up today. So, we may be jumping back up for gasoline.

The vast majority of Americans surveyed, 82 percent, say gas prices are either a major problem or even a crisis -- 16 percent of those folks are in the crisis camp. So, clearly, people are feeling serious pain at the pump.

When Americans pay more for gas, they often cut back on other spending. And, Brooke, that could hit the economic recovery.

BALDWIN: How -- specifically, how are people having to cut back many? Because many, many people are because of the -- you know, the tens -- what -- what -- you know, people are paying $60, $70, $80 to fill up the tank.

CHERNOFF: Yes. When you see those numbers, it hurts. And the biggest change, well, right at the pump. Sixty-three percent of Americans are cutting back on driving. It seems more people are carpooling, driving less for entertainment.

In fact, have a look at this -- 39 percent of people are changing their vacation plans because of high gas prices. We saw that back in 2008, when the staycation became popular. The staycation is popular once again. Finally, more than 60 percent of people say they would consider buying a fuel-efficient vehicle.

And we have had evidence of that. Automakers released their April sales numbers last week. And smaller fuel-efficient vehicles, like the Ford Focus and the Chevy Cruze, were especially hot -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: So, I said earlier gas prices are going up and down. So far, you are telling me they are going up, Allan Chernoff. When are they going down, A., and what is to blame for this, B.?

(LAUGHTER)

CHERNOFF: Well, you know, they typically do go up in advance of the summer driving season. So I don't think we can necessarily be very hopeful.

But maybe if things cool off in the Middle East, we will get better news. Now, the overwhelming majority of people are blaming oil companies. ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron, they earned between $6 billion and $10 billion each in the first quarter. These are giant companies, but let's keep in mind the oil correspondent do not set the price of oil. It is traded on the open market, which brings us to speculators.

Many people are blaming speculators in the futures market for pushing prices up, foreign countries, and, as I mentioned, the unrest in the Middle East also. Those are near the top of those blame lists, but look at that bottom. Even the Obama administration is getting blame from one-quarter of those surveyed. Brooke, I don't know that the president had that much to do with it.

BALDWIN: Well, you know, if you are the guy in charge, it makes for an easy scapegoat situation, doesn't it, Allan Chernoff?

CHERNOFF: Hmm.

BALDWIN: Allan, thank you very much.

And now listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ, SAN FRANCISCO POLICE: A passenger from the coach section of the airplane walked into the first-class cabin and approached the cockpit door of the flight deck.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That passenger is now behind bars, but why did he try to barge inside the cockpit of an American Airlines plane? We're going to tell you how this whole thing ended. We are getting new details today. We're going to pass that along to you.

Plus, the three wives Osama bin Laden left behind. The U.S. wants to talk to them. Now Pakistan says maybe. We will tell you the terms of today's agreement coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Have you heard what happened in the air just last night? OK. So, this is a flight to San Francisco. A man gets up, approaches the cockpit, resists the flight attendant, starts banging on the cockpit door.

Here is the official account of what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RODRIGUEZ: The flight attendant called for some help. Some passengers from the first-class section, along with some other flight attendants, assisted the flight attendant. Some flexible plastic handcuffs were used by the flight attendants to secure the -- the hands of that passenger. That passenger was then placed into a first- class seat, where he was held until the flight arrived at SFO.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Here is what we are learning. That man has a Yemeni passport. He is still being held. And we will talk about a little bit him more here in a moment.

But it was a strange day all around. Let me back up. A Delta flight from Detroit to San Diego made this unscheduled stop in Albuquerque after a flight attendant discovered a suspicious note in the lavatory. The FBI met the plane when it landed, the note's origin still unknown. Then a Continental flight, Chicago to Houston, a man described as unruly made a break for the emergency exit. The unidentified offender was left with feds at an unscheduled stop in Saint Louis.

And this harrowing scene we told you about just a second ago, it also happened on a flight from Chicago, but the plane was not actually diverted. As you heard the man say, police say, the man who allegedly rushed to the cockpit was handcuffed. You can catch just a quick glimpse of him. There he is in the back of that patrol car.

As we said, he had a Yemeni passport.

Thelma Gutierrez is live for me in Los Angeles.

Thelma, I know you have been digging on this today. What have you learned. What do we know about this guy?

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, I can tell you that according to San Mateo Police, 28-year-old Rageit Almurisi was handed over to the FBI this morning. He's expected to be charged later today with disrupting a flight crew, which is a federal offense.

Now, we are not sure exactly where he is currently being detained. Police told us the FBI is involved because the incident happened in the air, which is federal jurisdiction. Now, one law enforcement official, Brooke, told CNN that Almurisi had no known ties to any terrorist organization and that he appeared to have -- quote -- "mental problems."

Now, we do know he is 28 years old, a resident of Vallejo, California, which is up in the Bay Area, but a lot of questions, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Do we know, Thelma, how far into the flight this 28-year-old tried rushing the cockpit?

GUTIERREZ: Yes. You know, this flight, when you talk to the witnesses, was actually a normal flight until 30 minutes before the flight was about to land.

BALDWIN: Huh.

GUTIERREZ: Now, witnesses say -- who were aboard that American Airlines flight from Chicago to San Francisco say everything appeared to be normal.

Then on descent, that is when they say Almurisi, who was seated in coach, walked into first class. And he approached the cockpit door, and he started pounding on it and mumbling something.

Now, police, Brooke, say they are not exactly sure what he was saying. It could have been in Arabic. But they say that after that altercation last night, he was actually transported to a local hospital, where he was treated for cuts and abrasions to his face and arms. Apparently, a male flight attendant and several passengers helped to subdue him. And according to "The San Francisco Chronicle," one was a retired Secret Service agent, the other an off-duty police officer -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Wow. Both of them in the right place at the right time.

GUTIERREZ: Yes.

BALDWIN: Frightening for those passengers.

Thelma Gutierrez, thank you very much.

Now this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YOUSUF RAZA GILANI, PAKISTANI PRIME MINISTER: Pakistan alone cannot be held to account for flawed policies and blunders of others. Pakistan is not the birthplace of al Qaeda.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Pakistan pushing back. The country's prime minister says they knew nothing of Osama bin Laden's whereabouts. So is America's relationship with the country beginning to fray? We are going to tackle that next.

Plus, dams, levees, spillways, man's only defense against the mighty Mississippi River. We are going to go behind this mad dash to thwart another Katrina scenario down South.

Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right. We are just getting some news here from NASA.

Remember, the space shuttle Endeavour was scrubbed two Fridays ago because of some technical issues with of its heaters? We are now learning it will be rescheduled, launch date, Monday, May 16, 8:56 in the morning.

Remember, I was talking to Sanjay Gupta last Friday. And he is reporting that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords will be returning back to Cape Canaveral, back to Florida to see her husband, Commander Mark Kelly, and the five other astronauts launch into space, again, Monday, May 16, 8:56 in the morning.

Also this today: Pakistan is saying, don't blame us. Do not blame Pakistan that Osama bin Laden was hiding out on Pakistani soil for five years, as Islamabad insisted all the while, he is not there.

You have got Washington saying bin Laden was getting support from someone. But now in a speech today to Parliament, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani appears to be saying: Washington, hey, guys, look in the mirror.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GILANI: Pakistan alone cannot be held to account for flawed policies and blunders of others. Pakistan is not the birthplace of al Qaeda. We did not invite Osama bin Laden to Pakistan, or even to Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Also something else here, curious timing. Today, a Pakistani newspaper has printed the name of a man it identified as the CIA's station chief.

And that smacks of retaliation.

Reza Sayah is in Islamabad for me now.

And, Reza, did Prime Minister Gilani offer any kind of explanation for how bin Laden managed to hide out in Abbottabad, Pakistan, for five years?

REZA SAYAH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, the closest to an explanation that he came to is when he called it a Pakistani intelligence failure. But he added that it was a global intelligence failure, and so essentially he said that everyone is to blame. And I don't think that this is something that Washington and the Obama administration wanted to hear.

I think that the Obama administration wanted the prime minister to come out and acknowledge that there is a security issue here in Pakistan and for Pakistan to embark on a new direction of perhaps a new foreign policy when it comes to extremism. That didn't happen. This is a speech that was filled with nationalistic rhetoric and filled with attempts to deflect accountability.

And he also hit back against the U.S. he suggested that it was the U.S. that was partly to blame for the birth of Al Qaeda. He said it was the U.S. that in the 1980s Afghan jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, it was the U.S. who paid for and cultivated and supported Islamist mujahidin, and it is that movement that gave birth to Al Qaeda.

Of course, a lot of people will dispute that, but that is the prime minister's claim. So no indication that Pakistan is going to go in a new direction, a very defensive prime minister today.

BALDWIN: And saying that the bombing in Tora Bora meant that some of the members of Al Qaeda headed into Pakistan as well.

Let me ask you something else, Reza. You probably can't give a yes or no answer, but I have to ask. Folks want to know if the government of Pakistan just outed the local CIA station chief that was running the effort with that state hour and watching over bin Laden's compound. What can you tell me?

SAYAH: I think this episode really drives home some of the troubles that Pakistan and the U.S. are facing. This was an article that came out in the Pakistani newspaper, and allegedly named and therefore outed the CIA station chief here in Islamabad. Once you blow a CIA station chief's identity, obviously, Washington has to pull him out. It has happened here before in Islamabad.

Now, U.S. officials are neither confirming nor denying and they say they don't plan on pulling the CIA station chief. On the other hand, a Pakistani official is denying that this has happened.

But the bigger issue here is that the fact that the allegations are happening. It is really underscores the volatile and the uncertain and adversarial sometimes relationship that Pakistan and the U.S. has. This is two countries that are supposed to be partners in this crucial fight against extremism, but they are finger pointing.

BALDWIN: One final question. We hear that some of the wives of bin Laden are talking, but the U.S. has not had a chance to interrogate them yet. What kind of information are they sharing? And what about this condition that Pakistan is essentially saying to the U.S. that in order to the talk to the wives the U.S. has to do what?

SAYAH: Yes, well, the plan for Pakistan is to repatriate these three wives and the eight or nine children and send them back home. One is from Yemen. It's not clear where the others are from. And obviously the U.S. wants access to the wives because they could have a lot of information and could have information that could also implicate Pakistan's security establishment.

A Pakistani official told us that they will only consider giving the U.S. access to these women once their origin countries have been notified. It is not clear when that will happen, but I think this is going to be a barometer of where this partnership stands between the U.S. and Pakistan. If they deny Washington access to these women, you can be sure that there is going to be more finger pointing and more accusations.

BALDWIN: Reza Sayah live in Islamabad, thank you.

And with regard to the whole compound that was raided the CIA says it could fill a small college library with the sea of intelligence that the Navy Seals snagged from the compound. But time is of the essence here for investigators. Up next, what they are looking for, and can they find it in time?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: For the longest time we have heard that Al Qaeda is on the run. Bin Laden has been deader for a week, and I want you to listen to what the president said last night on "60 Minutes."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have the opportunity I think to really finally defeat at least Al Qaeda in that border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, the president is now saying that if we get this right, we have the chance right now to turn the lights out on Al Qaeda as an entire organization. He says that the government is putting everything that it has got into analyzing the intelligence and the thumb drives and the computers raided during bin Laden's compound raid in order to act on it ASAP.

Mike Baker a former CIA covert operations officer. Mike, the key here is speed, right? You have to get the intel, and you know, get the intel quickly before the roaches scatter, so to speak?

MIKE BAKER, FORMER CIA COVERT OPERATIONS OFFICER: Right. It is really a footrace. It is a kind of beat the clock. It has been ever since they retrieved the material and got it back to where it could be analyzed and exploited and all hands on deck in terms of the language specialists, and forensic capability and operational personnel who have the most experience in that region and with this organization.

Because what are you looking for? You are looking for off the cell phones and off the computers and the thumb drives and anything that will lead you potentially to a physical asset whether it is a person or Al Qaeda member or supporter or whether it is a bank account or phone number that will lead you to a person and whatever the identity may be, a safe house.

And so you are rushing to get all of the actionable intelligence. It is a massive effort, and at ]he same time on the other side of the fence as you pointed out you have Al Qaeda and all of the personnel scrambling to relocate or to dump phones or to change accounts, whatever it might be, so you can imagine the effort that is under way at this point.

BALDWIN: Right, it makes sense that the race is on right now, and in terms of Al Qaeda overall, we were talking to senator Dick Durbin in the studio here Friday and he said virtually nothing left of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and what is left in Pakistan?

BAKER: Well, I think that we are all getting ahead of ourselves if we think this is the immediate death knell of Al Qaeda --

BALDWIN: You don't think it is?

BAKER: No, I don't think it is. I think that this, this haul, this intelligence hit potentially, because it is speculative and still going through it, but what it means in terms of the serious blow the Al Qaeda is important and I'm not minimizing that and nor the actual death of bin Laden.

But we have to understand that this is a flat organization. This is not some organization that was, you know, commanded at the top. Even though we are thinking that bin Laden appeared to have more of an operational role, we don't want to read too much into that. They have an intelligence committee and a lot of personnel. It's not Lex Luthor, but there are enough capable people in Al Qaeda to -- I think that we are getting out ahead of ourselves. It is a little bit quick here to say it is all over as far as Al Qaeda goes. We want to be cautious about this.

BALDWIN: And then you have Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP. Over the weekend with a drone we apparently took a shot at Anwar al- Awlaki, didn't get him, hiding out in Yemen somewhere. Is that franchise, the links here enough that the intel that we are getting might lead us to al Awlaki, who is obviously very, very dangerous?

BAKER: Well, absolutely. And, you know, we have to hope, and, you know, likelihood is that some of the information that we will pull off of this, and remember that the courier was a part of this and both leading us to Abottabad in the compound and the go between in some respects for bin Laden and other serious members of Al Qaeda.

So you have to assume whether it is the cell phone or some of the material on computers is going to be immediately actionable and could leads us to the senior members or other operational important persons within Al Qaeda.

BALDWIN: Within Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who knows who else? Thank you, Mike Baker. Talk to you next time.

Back here in the United States, the engineers are desperately trying to hold back the historic floodwaters right now as the mighty Mississippi's tremendous surge makes its way towards the gulf. We will talk about what they are doing, and if it will actually work, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Many roads are now rivers near the mighty Mississippi River. This is historic flooding happening right now. Take a look at the picture that we are getting from you, the iReporters in Memphis, Tennessee. The river is at the highest level since 1937 when flooding killed some 500 people there. Thousands of homeowners are affected by this flooding. In Memphis alone 300 to 400 are sitting in shelters today.

And after that horrible 1937 flood, engineers built this whole system of levees designed to withstand that level of flooding in the future, and so far, it is holding up.

Here is what the army corps did today to help relieve the pressure on the levees downstream. They opened up this spillway northwest of New Orleans. So the levee system is doing what it is built to do so far. And look, all of us have the fingers crossed that it continues to work.

But a lot of people are watching this and they are worrying. I want to bring in retired Major General Thomas Sands who knows a lot about how these levees work. He used to be with the Army Corps of Engineers. He's with me now from New Orleans. Tom, sir, let's just begin with this spillway. It's the Bonnet Carre spillway 30 miles northwest of New Orleans. Can you explain to all of us who are learning what a spillway does - essentially, what is the goal essentially here? MAJ. GEN. THOMAS SANDS, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS (RET.): Well, there are several spillways and floodways that have been designed within the Mississippi River and tributary system to offer relief flowage of the main stem of the Mississippi River to impact the stages not only below the spillway or the floodway but above it. In Bonnet Carre in particular, it is designed to alleviate the stages between the Bonnet Carre and the Gulf of Mexico. Maximum, it is designed to carry is about 250,000 cubic feet per second.

BALDWIN: So there would be less pressure then on the levees around new orleans, thus, diverting the water through Pontchartrain to the Gulf. But as I'm bringing him in, Chad Meyers has explained to me that we know that, look, the Mississippi river is not the cleanest place in the world, and pesticides, et cetera. And I have been to Pontchartrain and covered the tar-balls back when that was an issue, right, and people love the Pontchartrain and swim in Pontchartrain. So how will this affect people's summers?

SANDS: Well, every time the spillway is opened, you do have flows from the river obviously that go through there and that carries a lot more sediment naturally than you will normally get that runs off that comes from the north shore of Pontchartrain.

So you will have a significant change as you get closer to the outlets into the Mississippi Gulf that will impact the solemnity. You will have a change of the brackish water to the normal freshwater environment. So it is going to change the character of the fishing that is in Lake Pontchartrain, and it is also going to have some potential impact in the short term on probably the shrimping in the area.

BALDWIN: The short term.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Sir, this is Chad Myers. Will there be an algae bloom like in the past?

SANDS: Well, I think you can anticipate that. Every time the spillway is opened, there have been some sort of algae bloom that collects on the south shore of the lake, particularly on the south shore of the lake. I don't know what it is going to be, but there will be some impact.

MYERS: Let's move on to Morganza spillway. What happens when that gets opened?

SANDS: Well, you just have another relief valve that carries a major portion of the flood flows. The basic design of the Mississippi River and tributaries project is to manage a design flow of about three million cubic feet per second at the latitude of the old river control structure, and that includes both the flows of the Mississippi and the Red River.

The Chapel basin floodway is designed to carry about half of that, about 1.5 million, and the Morganza is a major outlet which flows from the Mississippi to go into the Atchafalaya basin. So the combined flows of the Morganza and the Red River flows and at maximum design flood would be designed to carry 1.5 million cubic feet per second.

BALDWIN: Tom, we are talking about the different spillways, which are a way to calm the river and perhaps test the levee less. The bottom line, the levees will be tested and all of the literature and articles I am reading that people are confident that the levees are going to hold, and you think New Orleans and you think levees -- my question is why is everyone so confident?

SANDS: Well, you know, we have had high water on the Mississippi before. Certainly not at these levels. These are record flows. And every time you have a high water, you certainly have to go through a process of monitoring the levee systems. There's always some seepage to be expected generally in the earth and levee systems, and you manage the process by inspecting it, look for the seepage, and make sure that wherever you find it to control it.

So the level or degree of confidence in the levee system is basically borne based on the fact that it has performed so reliably in the past.

BALDWIN: And it has not been tested like this in a little bit of time. Retired Major General Thomas Sands, thank you.

And to you, Chad, he talks about seepage. To me, that seems like not a lot of water. Are we to assume from what he's saying that the potential flooding --

MYERS: No, the seepage could come from a breach in the levee where it would wash the levee out, which would be a catastrophic flood going one way or the other. Also, it could go under in what is called a sand boil or a mud boil, and it is easy to look up on Google, find out what it is, pressure of water forces itself under the levee, under the other side and it will wash out if not watched and checked.

BALDWIN: Thank you for clarifying. Chad Myers, thank you.

MYERS: They were the generation that was going to change the world and do everything little bit different and a little better. Now those baby boomers are retiring. And will they do that better too? Up next, one boomer who is living the good life on a basic budget.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Well, here is a question that may keep some of you up at night. Will I still be able to have the same lifestyle once I retire? This week, we're looking at the challenges facing the first wave of baby boomers as they hit the age 65. CNN Money's Poppy Harlow introduces us to one woman who apparently found the secret to retirement on a budget.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: Marilyn Lassiter takes great pride in her work at this Philadelphia library.

MARILYN LASSITER, RETIREE LIVING ON A BUDGET: Did my book come in yet, dear? HARLOW: And at 70 years old she swears she's living the good life.

LASSITER: It is amazing the freedom of not having to be some place at a certain time.

HARLOW: Marilyn retired back in 2007, right before the economy soured and millions found themselves out of work. Despite living on a fixed income, she was able to buy a new house, and she travels extensively.

LASSITER: I live on $3,500 a month.

HARLOW: And is it tight? Is money tight or no problem covering your bills, plenty to spend?

LASSITER: No problem. No problem. I don't spend. At a certain time in your life there is nothing that you should need.

HARLOW: Did you pass down your theory on the importance of saving to your kids?

LASSITER: Yes, I did. When they were little guys I would give them 50 cent a week when they were young. They had to save a quarter, and they could not understand that. But I was running the ship.

HARLOW: It was a lesson that wasn't lost on her son chad.

LASSITER: Is this a new suit?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, it's not a new suit.

HARLOW: What did your mom teach you that you really took away?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The importance of saving, but also more importantly the importance of making sure that you have a safeguard in place in the event something emerges like the most recent great recession.

HARLOW: But Marilyn doesn't think that frugality should only be taught at home. She believes retirement savings should be supported by employers and schools.

LASSITER: When you're hiring young people the start of with workshops on retiring, some decisions that you make when you first start your career you would not have made it or waited for it.

HARLOW: So you think we need more education early on?

LASSITER: Yes, I would like to see it in high school, really, about retirement.

HARLOW: But with so many seniors living longer, surviving on a fixed income can be a challenge. Marilyn's secret, identify what you need, not what you want.

LASSITER: It is incumbent upon each individual to do their own saving. You don't have to have that particular article that you just are obsessing over. Take your time. Go home, sleep on it, come back. Do you really need it?

HARLOW: Poppy Harlow, CNN Money, Philadelphia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Chris Christie keeps saying no, but many supporters keep saying yes. They want the governor of New Jersey to run for president. Who is chiming in now? That's making our Political Ticker right now. Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: I want to check in with Paul Steinhauser in Washington with the latest news hot off the CNN Political Ticker. Paul, we have a bit of an announcement coming up Wednesday.

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR: Yes, we got somebody jumping in and somebody staying out, Brooke. I'm talking about the race for the White House.

Who is jumping in? Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker on Wednesday will announce he's candidate for president of the United States. He'll do it, where else, but on Twitter and Facebook page. Good reporting earlier today from Kevin Bonn on Newt Gingrich becoming a candidate.

Who is staying out or still staying out? That would be Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, who is kind of a rock star among Republicans. There seems to be a hunger for him to run. In fact, a bunch of Iowa Republicans are headed to New Jersey later this month to urge Christie to run.

But here is what he said in a radio interview this morning. He said "You got to feel in your heart you want to be president more than anything else, and I am not there right now." That's Chris Christie, still staying out. Brooke, back to you.

BALDWIN: Still saying thanks, but no thanks. Paul Steinhauser, thank you.

STEINHAUSER: Exactly.