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CNN Live Saturday

Protesters in Paris Clash With Police; New Investigation Finds Egregious Waste by the FBI; Navy Vessels Fight Pirates off the Coast of Somalia; Taliban Setting up Stronghold in Northern Pakistan

Aired March 18, 2006 - 18:00   ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: A live report from Washington is coming up.
A wild scene in Paris. Thousands in the French capital, a half a million across the country, take to the streets. They're protesting a new law that allows companies to fire younger workers during the first two years on the job. Protesters set cars on fire and clashed with police. At least 16 people were hurt.

And a scathing report on the FBI. A new audit by congressional investigators finds the FBI and its contractors may have wasted millions of dollars trying to upgrade the bureau's outdated computer system, some of the money spent on first class air tickets and missing equipment. A live report straight ahead.

No bond for Kenneth Hinson. The South Carolina man was in front of the judge about two hours ago. The convicted sex offender is accused of kidnapping and raping two teenage girls and holding them in what an investigator called a dungeon, hidden underground on Hinson's land in rural South Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LIN (voice-over): It was here under a storage shed on Kenneth Hinson's property that police say the convicted child rapist constructed an underground bunker where he allegedly lured the two teenage victims.

ANDY LOCHLAIR, DARLINGTON CO. SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: They were both abducted over a period of time, one individual after the other, taken to this dungeon, if you call it, duct taped and sexually assaulted.

LIN: The girls managed to escape and told police, launching a massive manhunt. Hinson had fled into a wooded area around his home. Surrounded by police and volunteer searchers. Days later police received a phone call from Hinson's relative and neighbor saying he was at her door wanting a glass of water. That's when authorities nabbed him.

LT. ROBIN BRYANT, DARLINGTON CO. SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: We were on him before he had a chance to even move. He went down without a fight. He had a pistol on him, but he didn't try to use it. So he knew he was caught.

LIN: Hinson has been charged with kidnapping, first degree sexual assault and assault and battery with the intent to kill. He was a registered sex offender and served nine years in prison for raping a 12-year-old girl at knife point in 1991. Police say he hadn't had any major run-ins with the law since his release in 2000. But investigators have discovered more hidden lairs beneath his storage shed, raising questions about what he used them for.

LOCHLAIR: With the construction well done with this hide-away that he had, this bunker type, dungeon type deal, there may be some other things. There is some intelligence that's come into our office that there may be one or more of these places that he may have built.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: All right. Chris Huffman of WBTW was at Hinson's bond hearing today. He's on the telephone with me right now. Chris, this Guy Hinson looked pretty smug in some of the video we had. What was his demeanor like in court?

CHRIS HUFFMAN, WBTW CORRESPONDENT (on phone): Well, Carol Lin, he was actually really upset. He was very upset because he wanted to make sure he had a public defender with him and the judge tried to tell him that it's a Saturday afternoon and the clerk of courts office isn't open until Monday. And so he was very upset that he had to go to this bond hearing without a public defender.

LIN: All right. But he was denied bond, so he remains behind bars.

HUFFMAN: That's right. He will be behind bars for the end of the weekend. On Monday he meets again with a circuit court judge for some of the other -- for a burglary charge that he also has. And on Monday, that could change. But it's likely, Carol Lin, that he will stay behind bars at least until his trial.

LIN: It's unbelievable that he only served less than half of his original sentence for raping a 12-year-old girl. And now investigators are saying there may have been even more activity in that bunker, maybe even more victims. What are you hearing about that?

HUFFMAN: Well, Carol Lin, in 1991 he was convicted of raping a 12- year-old girl at knifepoint. He served nine out of the 18 years. Under South Carolina sentencing guidelines, that was perfectly acceptable. Now, since then, South Carolina legislature has revised a lot of those guidelines. And if he is found guilty or if he pleads guilty, that sentencing will be a lot more strict, especially because he has this prior conviction on his belt.

LIN: All right. Chris Huffman, thank you very much.

We've been talking about this previous conviction, this rape of this 12-year-old girl. If you can believe it, he was let go after serving so little time, nine years. So I'm going to be talking with the South Carolina attorney general, Henry McMaster. He's actually very critical of that release. So you're going to hear some of his comments and what he has to say next about what's going to happen to this guy at 10:00 Eastern tonight.

In the meantime, a story of piracy. This time against the U.S. Navy. But the U.S. Navy says it successfully repelled an armed attack by those pirates. It happened off the coast of Somalia in international waters earlier today. Now, according to the navy, which provided these photos, two warships -- yes, warships, came under attack. Now, from the small vessel you see here, CNN's Barbara Starr says the Naval response was immediate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Two warships, the Cape St. George and the Gonzales were patrolling in the waters off Somalia. They approached a suspicious vessel. There were pirates onboard brandishing shoulder-fired grenade launchers and those pirates opened fire on the U.S. Navy and immediately sailors onboard the decks of both of those U.S. Navy warships returned fire with a variety of machine guns and weapons. They killed one pirate, wounded five.

A number of people have been taken into custody. The Navy now investigating this entire incident, trying to determine why these pirates thought they could possibly win opening fire against U.S. Navy warships.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Our Barbara Starr, who was tipped off to that story by the U.S. Navy.

Now, pirate attacks are nothing new off the coast of Somalia. In fact, they've become almost common in the last 14 years as Somalia slips deeper into anarchy there. Now, there were some 30 reported piracy incidents just last year alone.

Now, just this year, the navy stopped this purported pirate ship and its crew some 50 miles off the Somali coast. Weapons were confiscated from the craft as were some of its crew. Now possibly the most publicized pirate attack was the November 5th incident involving the luxury cruise liner seaborne spirit. If outran an assault by two suspected pirate ships. A hundred fifty passengers were onboard the Spirit during the attack, complete with rocket propelled grenades. Now, luckily no one was hurt.

Just 11 days ago 50 Yemeni fishermen were kidnapped off an island near Somalia, pirates against the prime suspects.

Well, the FBI may have wasted millions of dollars trying to update its computer systems. And a new investigation concludes it may spend millions more before the job is done. Our Gary Nurenberg has been looking into the FBI computer troubles and is in Washington to bring us an update live.

Gary?

GARY NURENBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Carol. It's an interesting story. CNN has obtained a new report by the Government Accountability Office that concludes millions of dollars may have been misspent trying to bring the FBI computer system into the 21st century.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NURENBERG (voice-over): The report was requested by legislators concerned about the $500 million cost of the FBI computer upgrade. It questioned $17 million in spending saying more than 1,200 pieces of equipment can't be accounted for. Price tag for that, $7.5 million. The FBI says it has tightened up accounting procedures. After 9/11, the FBI says it was under great pressure to find a quick fix.

JOHN MILLER, ASSISTAND DIRECTOR, FBI: The pressure certainly came to bear on the bureau to launch a computer system that was capable of connecting the dots and to do it quickly. And under that pressure, sometimes -- not in every instance, but sometimes the message was get it done and if an obstacle came up, to move it out of the way.

NURENBERG: The FBI says it is miles ahead of where it was in 2001 with far superior computer systems. But computer experts say it still has a long way to go.

MARK RASCH, COMPUTER SECURITY EXPERT: They've collected the information and they can't work with it effectively. And that's what we're paying the FBI to do, to know what they know and act on it to protect the American public.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NURENBERG (on camera): The GAO recommends the FBI do a better job overseeing the contractors it uses for computer work and the FBI says it's using new procedures to oversee its new $400 million computer upgrade contract awarded this week. But one of the legislators who asked for the GAO report, Senator Charles Grassley wonders if the FBI, quote, "learned its lesson," especially since the FBI is using on the new project two of the same contractors it used on the old one.

Carol?

LIN: Boy, Gary. So, what happened to the missing equipment?

NURENBERG: The FBI said it did its own audit and actually was able to account for most of it. It said part of problem is if a computer was broke and sent out to be repaired, it may have been taken off one set of books and moved to another one. Computer comes back fixed, sent to another city. They said they checked and have now been able, in their words, to account for most but not all of that equipment.

LIN: Gary, that's called bureaucracy.

NURENBERG: Indeed.

LIN: Thank you.

Well, fires -- Protests in the streets of Paris. And fires as well tonight. Shanon Cook has more details as we go global. Shanon?

SHANON COOK, CNN ANCHOR: Hey there. Thank you, Carol. Hundreds of thousands of people turned out in Paris and other French cities today protesting a new labor low affecting youths. Demonstrators threw bottles and burned bonfires. Some clashed with riot police and scattered violence was reported. The protesters fear that this new labor law makes it easier for employers to fire young people in their first two years on the job and for no reason, while supporters say that this new law eases unemployment by encouraging employees to actually hire young people.

To Iraq now. More violence in Baghdad. Nine Shiite pilgrims were wounded by a roadside bombing. They were actually walking to Karbala to commemorate a Shiite holy day. And a separate roadside bomb injured five Iraqi police officers. Also in Baghdad, police and soldiers found the bodies of 22 people in several neighborhoods. Some showed signs of torture.

And around the world, anti-war demonstrators marked the third anniversary of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. In London, thousands gathered near Big Ben and parliament. A much smaller group turned out in Sydney, Australia, demanding that troops be withdrawn from Iraq immediately. And there were also demonstrations in Turkey and Tokyo.

And in Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic is laid to rest. The former Yugoslav president was buried at his hometown of Posaravac (ph) after tens of thousands of supporters turned out for a service in Belgrade. Milosevic died a week ago in his jail cell at the Hague. He had been on trial since 2001, charged with war crimes and genocide.

Carol, back to you.

LIN: Shanon, do you know whether his wife was able to attend the funeral? Because there's a warrant out for her arrest in Serbia.

COOK: Right. No, she was not in there. In fact, no immediate members of the family. But Mira Markovic apparently too afraid that she would be detained, even though the court did suspend that warrant that is out for her arrest so that she could actually attend the funeral. But she was also supposed to show up at a hearing. That was one of the conditions of her going there. So, obviously, she just was too afraid to risk it. However, a letter that she wrote was apparently read out at the burial of her late husband.

LIN: Interesting. Shanon, thank you.

COOK: Thank you.

LIN: Well, before Katrina debris can be removed, these highly trained dogs must be brought in. We'll explain why they're critical, absolutely crucial to recovery efforts in New Orleans.

And find out what these men did today in Washington to help protect Americans tomorrow against a potential smallpox terror attack.

It's very similar to what has been going on or what was going on in the early period of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. They are hanging people and torturing people who they consider as un-Islamic.

LIN: You're going to see where the Taliban may be on the rebound. You're watching CNN SATURDAY. Stay right there. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Every week, we like to bring you the more personal stories from the front lines. And today, the grim search for bodies in the wreckage of what once were vibrant neighborhoods in New Orleans. Estimates of the number of people still unaccounted for vary widely. Here's CNN's Sean Callebs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Four bodies have been removed from the wreckage of New Orleans homes since cadaver dogs resumed work March 1st. Before splintered homes are carted away, they have to be checked by cadaver dogs. So Ranger and his trainer Kerry Foster from Shreveport are searching debris in the Lower Ninth Ward. The house-to-house monotony broken up by a sign Ranger may, just may, be on to something.

KERRY FOSTER, CADAVER DOG TRAINER: The problem we're running into from the dogs, it could be anything from body fluids to actual remains.

CALLEBS: Potential sites are marked. In the coming days, teams of New Orleans firefighters trained for this kind of grisly work will make their way through debris piles.

FOSTER: Good boy. Let's find more.

CALLEBS: Only then will they know if Ranger is on the mark or picking up some other scent. And only then can debris be carted away. At times it seems the work will never end.

STEVE GLYNN, N.O. FIRE DEPARTMENT: It's very time-consuming, very tedious to be able to go through each one of these properties and be able to say it's safe to go ahead and remove this property.

CALLEBS (on camera): The dog searches were called off back in December because the city ran out of money and couldn't pay crews. Since they have resumed, four bodies have been recovered. Not a lot of victims considering the state medical examiner says there may be as many as 400 bodies still unaccounted for.

GLYNN: I don't think we're ever going to find those numbers.

CALLEBS (voice-over): So what is a realistic figure? The cadaver dogs have been busy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We think we're going to find at least 50 to 60 victims.

CALLEBS: This is the Find Family national call center based an hour north of New Orleans in Baton Rouge. See all these yellow marks. Those are houses in the Lower Ninth where people have reported family and friends missing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congress Street? CALLEBS: Men, women, children who may never be found.

When do you know you're done?

HENRY YENNIE, FIND FAMILY NATIONAL CALL CENTER: That's a great question, and I don't have a good answer for you.

CALLEBS: The bright spot for the call center, this. A tiny bell that carries an important message. Every time it rings, another missing person has been found alive. But for the next several months, as long as a number is written here, teams like Ranger and Foster will be here.

FOSTER: Get to work.

CALLEBS: Sean Callebs, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: And it's official. The New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is in the CNN Center. I'm going to be talking with him about the city's recovery efforts, the upcoming elections and the upcoming hurricane season. So stay right there.

Also, you want to try the Atkins diet? Well, we've got some news for you. You're going to want to hear about a new study raising health concerns about the high protein plan.

And, also, the luck of the Irish up there in New York City. The Empire State Building is dressed in green in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: On our "Healthwatch", initial tests indicate an Egyptian woman has died of bird flu. And if confirmed, she would be Egypt's first human death from bird flu. The woman died late this week and officials say she was raising poultry at her home and some of her birds also died.

Now, seniors and depression. A new study says drugs may be better than psychotherapy in treating seniors with recurring bouts of depression. The authors of the study say some seniors might benefit from taking antidepressant medications indefinitely just like they would for high blood pressure or diabetes.

And Atkins diet dangers. A new study links a woman on the Atkins diet to a dangerous medical condition. The 40-year-old was diagnosed with a dangerous buildup of acids in the blood. Now, that could be caused by eating a mostly protein diet, which is what the Atkins diet -- really at the core of the Atkins diet. Now that woman was admitted to a hospital's intensive care unit after becoming short of breath. The study was published in a British medical journal.

We're also talking diets in today's "Fountain of Youth." Every time you turn around, it seems there's a new way to lose weight. And some people have tried all the diets and they're still, well, you might say large. Now a Washington lobbyist has come to terms with his weight and written a book about it. Michael Berman is the author of "Living Large, A Big Man's Ideas on Weight and Acceptance." He joins me now from Washington. Mike, good to have you.

MICHAEL BERMAN, AUTHOR, "LIVING LARGE": Hi. Thank you for having me.

LIN: When you say large, give me a perspective. What do you mean? How large?

BERMAN: I weigh 240 now and I weighed 332 at my top.

LIN: And you were deputy council to the vice president of the United States. Why would your weight matter? You're a player in Washington?

BERMAN: My weight didn't matter in terms of my profession, my political career. It never affected me except one time 30 years ago when I was rejected for a job because I was fat. So it had more to do with health and how I felt about myself than any specific things in my professional career.

LIN: Did you have embarrassing moments when you were out in public?

BERMAN: Many embarrassing moments. One of the favorites I talk about is being at the Kennedy Center, sitting in a box that a friend had invited me to. It had armchairs. We got up at the intermission and the armchair came with me. And I of course assumed that the entire Kennedy Center audience was looking at me. Fortunately, they weren't.

LIN: Now, did your friends in Washington take it as a given or did you really feel that there were times of discrimination?

BERMAN: I didn't really feel discrimination, quite frankly. Once I had established myself politically, I thought I was pretty well accepted. And many people, even though I talked about being too fat or being very fat often said they didn't see me as a fat man.

LIN: Mm-hmm. So why did you feel the need to write this book?

BERMAN: Well, in the late '90s when I was once again thinking about losing some weight, I started reading a lot of the books that were available. And I could find nothing by or about fat men. So I decided to try and see if I could put down what happened to me and perhaps share it with others in a similar circumstance.

LIN: When would you say you hit bottom?

BERMAN: I think I hit bottom, quite frankly, in 1984 after the '84 presidential campaign. I weighed 330 plus. My wife says I was green. I literally couldn't walk a block. I couldn't walk upstairs without it sounding like I had just ran a marathon and I was just completely depressed and down.

LIN: You were 170 pounds when you were 13 years old.

BERMAN: Yes. LIN: Did your parents offer you any feedback or help?

BERMAN: Yes, they told me I was too fat and then fed me.

LIN: A lot.

BERMAN: A lot, although it's -- I can't really blame them. We had pretty good sized meals but a good deal of the food I ate, I ate outside the home.

LIN: Why did you say in your book you have given up on the notion that fat adults can ever be thin?

BERMAN: Because that's what I believe. I've come to the conclusion that being really fat is really a chronic disease. It is a disease that can't be cured and it's a disease that you have to learn to manage. That's what I've been able to do in my case.

LIN: So how do you manage it, then? How do you plan on living a long and healthy life?

BERMAN: Well, the first thing you do is see to your health. That is to say find doctors that will treat what happens to you. I have high blood pressure, I have kidney disease. Rather than tell me to lose weight, to use other means to help me control those illnesses. The second is fitness which I have come to call functionality, in other words, do enough exercise -- I go to a gym several times a week, not try to be a marathon runner but to make sure 15 or 20 years from now I can get off the commode on my own. And finally, think about the things that make your life good, the things you do well, perform at them and enjoy your life.

LIN: Yeah. And I can see that you are. And your wife is a real doll, isn't she?

BERMAN: She's absolutely perfect.

LIN: All right. Good to know. Thanks very much, Mike Berman. A pleasure to have you. Good luck to the book.

BERMAN: Thank you.

LIN: They gave safe harbor to al Qaeda and fought Americans in Afghanistan. But is the Taliban gaining new strength inside the borders of a key American ally? We'll explain.

Plus, how vulnerable is your daily gas supply? Find out what could happen one day to send soaring prices up to $7 a gallon.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Elaine Quijano live at the White House. Top Bush administration officials met next door today to review how the government might respond to a possible biological attack. I'll have that story coming up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LIN: Happening right now in the news. Suspected pirates open fire on two U.S. Navy ships. The attack was off the coast of Somalia. The American ships returned fire, killing one suspected pirate and wounding five others. The Navy says the suspects had rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons.

Kenneth Hinson is denied bond in South Carolina. A hearing for the convicted sex offender, Hinson, was held earlier today. He's accused of kidnapping and raping two teenage girls. The girls told police that the convicted sex offender held them prisoner in a hidden underground bunker on his property.

In France, anger over a governments job program continues to boil. A half million demonstrators filled the streets in Paris and other cities. The student-led protest called on the government to scrap the plan.

Now a new audit blasts the FBI for more than $17 million in questionable expenses during a failed project to upgrade its computer system. The bureau says it will spend another $425 million to try to finish the project.

And the U.S. military says Operation Swarmer continued for a third day in Iraq. They say resistance is very light to the effort to root out insurgents in the area northeast of Samarra. Sixty people have been detained.

In our CNN "Security Watch" today, fears of bioterrorism. We haven't seen a case of smallpox in this country since 1949. But White House officials are looking at this scourge from the past today, assessing how they would handle an outbreak. CNN's Elaine Quijano is at the White House with more. How did the drill go?

ELAINE QUIJANO, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The so-called tabletop exercise lasted a little over four hours today next door to the White House at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. A number of top officials and cabinet secretaries attended this exercise. They included the president's Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff. Also, the Health and Human Services Secretary, Michael Leavitt and Fran Townsend, the president's Homeland Security Adviser.

The White House is emphasizing this is merely an exercise. They say that they have nothing to indicate that in fact a smallpox attack might be imminent. Now, an administration official is saying that this drill was really designed to examine the federal, state and local plans to identify any gaps that they might have found in preparedness and to exercise lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina, specifically for a scenario where a catastrophe might exceed the capabilities of what state and local officials can handle.

It was a little over three years ago that President Bush actually ordered that military personnel be vaccinated against smallpox. Officials consider the virus a possible biological weapon that could be used by terrorists since most people do not have immunity to it.

The administration says the government has actually stockpiled enough of the smallpox vaccine for every American. As for today's exercise, President Bush himself did not attend. He's spending the weekend at Camp David, where he's preparing for a speech that he'll be delivering Monday in Cleveland on Iraq.

Now, in his radio address, the president previewed some of his comments, saying that he will share concrete examples of how he believes the administration's approach in Iraq is working. And of course, Carol, tomorrow marks the three year anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Carol.

LIN: Thanks very much, Elaine.

Now, from the threat of bioterrorism to the threat of energy and its uncertainty. The U.S. has become dangerously dependent on foreign oil. Tonight "CNN PRESENTS" takes a look at what could happen if the spigot runs dry. It's called "We Were Warned: Tomorrow's Oil Crisis." Frank Sesno has a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK SESNO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In Houston, Texas, it is a terrifying time. The streets are deserted. Just the day before, gridlock finally gave way to exodus as residents fled one step ahead of this year's monster storm, Hurricane Steve.

The region is home to nearly two dozen major refineries. Together they process about a fourth of all the oil used in America. Category five Hurricane Steve slams ashore with winds of nearly 200 miles an hour. The death toll is modest. But the physical damage is breathtaking. Especially oil refineries, storage facilities and hundreds of offshore platforms badly damaged. Gasoline prices shoot up across the country. Panic buying leads to long lines and fears of shortages.

September 26, 2009. Saudi Arabia is pumping 10 million barrels a day. Much of the kingdom's oil passes through the sprawling Abicaid (ph) processing facility near Ras Tanura. At 12:45 p.m., air traffic controllers pick up a distress call from a passenger jet flying from Tehran to Riyadh. The plane disappears from their screens.

At 1:04, an Arab satellite channel reports massive explosions at Abicaid. Within minutes there are reports of a second attack on Saudi Arabia's two largest export terminals at Ras Tanura and Yanbel (ph) on The Red Sea.

Oil markets are in chaos. A barrel of crude quickly tops $150. Oil experts predict gasoline will hit $7 a gallon in the U.S., $10 a gallon in Europe. Political and business leaders fear the worst.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: This special edition of "CNN PRESENTS: We Were Warned: Tomorrow's Oil Crisis" airs tonight and tomorrow night at 8:00 eastern.

From energy to uncertainty, to security threats posed by extremist groups, the U.S. went to war in Afghanistan to topple the repressive Taliban regime which, if you can believe it, has simply packed up and moved next door to Pakistan. Here's CNN's Mike Chinoy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE CHINOY, SENIOR ASIA CORRESPONDENT, (voice-over): This is a new video just released buy the Taliban, an apparent declaration that, despite U.S. forces, it has simply picked up and moved and remains as defiant as ever. These men executed, their bodies dragged through the streets. A chilling scene the Taliban claims recorded by their own cameraman. Journalist Ahmed Rashid.

AHMED RASHID, AUTHOR, "TALIBAN": It's very similar to what was going on in the early period of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. They are hanging people and torturing people who they consider as unIslamic.

CHINOY: The Taliban appeared to have moved from Afghanistan and taken effective control of much of the rugged Pakistani tribal area called Waziristan. This is the result, a brutal system America went to war in Afghanistan to destroy, now recreated just across the border in Pakistan. Reinforcing that impression, the video initially acquired by the online Journal "Asia Times" was shot not in some remote mountain hideout but in Waziristan's main town and shows events which reportedly occurred just in the last couple of months.

This is the market, crowds gawking at the bodies of those executed by the Taliban. This one obscenely posed with a porcelain dog perched on its head.

(on camera): Some things on the video are so gruesome we can't show them. They include beheadings, the Taliban carrying the severed heads of those they've executed around in the market before placing those heads on a pole for all to see.

(voice-over): So pervasive is the Taliban's grip that a reported 70,000 Pakistani troops have been unable to dislodge them, despite fierce battles like this. Instead, Waziristan has not only become in many ways a miniature Taliban style state, it's also said to be a key staging ground for jihadi fighters who cross back into Afghanistan in lightning strikes against American troops.

SAMIA AHMED, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: Judging by this documentary that they've made, they're boasting about what they've done. It seems that they have a fairly comfortable position. They are -- they don't feel threatened. They are pretty much in control.

CHINOY: In control and a walk down the mountain back into Afghanistan. Mike Chinoy, CNN, Islamabad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

Hurricane Katrina leveled much of New Orleans and scattered its population throughout the country. And now its mayor is fighting for his job. Up next, I'm going to talk with mayor Ray Nagin about his vision for the future and why he thinks voters will keep him in city hall.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Government flood insurance checks will keep flowing to hurricane victims. Congress has OK'd a bill to let the federal flood insurance program borrow more money to pay thousands of claims from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Now, the new borrowing limit was needed to keep the program from running out of money this month. President Bush still needs to sign the measure, though.

Now, nearly two dozen candidates are challenging Mayor Ray Nagin in one of the more unusual mayoral elections in U.S. history next month. It's a bizarre race because the candidates are spending a lot of time campaigning for votes outside of New Orleans. That's because Hurricane Katrina displaced so many voters.

Today Mayor Ray Nagin is joining me right here in Atlanta. We're going to be talking a lot about this race, which is going to be really interesting on election day. Good to have you.

MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: Good to be here in Atlanta.

LIN: You're a man on the move.

NAGIN: I have to be on the move. I'm running a local race that has statewide scope as well as national scope. I have to get to the people.

LIN: And Katrina vivid with many of these voters. This is some of what you heard from folks at Houston. We want to play it for the audience.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Mayor Nagin, I'm going to tell you something. I respect you, but I -- it really put a bitter taste in my mouth the -- for what happened. I -- you know, I mean, you should have got with Jill Robichaux (ph) and stopped all bus services and got these people out. And I'm saying how I feel because it -- you know, it was -- it's terrible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Would have, should have, could have, but people are frustrated. How will this translate at the polls?

NAGIN: Hard to say. There's individual frustration out there. That lady I got with after that event and explained to her exactly what happened and she was fine. So it just depends upon who you talk to. But for the most part, people are moving beyond that and they really want to know how they get back to New Orleans.

LIN: You certainly have a reputation for telling it like it is. And you speak your mind. I want to share a quote with our audience of something that you said about --

NAGIN: They've probably seen it.

LIN: -- about the 23 candidates running for office. Put that up there. "Twenty-three candidates running for mayor, very few of them look like us...There's a potential to be a major change in the political structure in New Orleans."

What did you mean by that? Do you think that in this election people should be voting based on race? And is that going to be to their benefit?

NAGIN: No, I don't. But I will tell you that particular quote came from an NAACP event. I was walking in. People were asking me questions, who are these candidates, what do they look like? And of course me in my natural mode, I answer the questions very directly.

LIN: What does that mean, though? Do you think that a black mayor is going to be what's best for New Orleans post Katrina?

NAGIN: I think a competent mayor, an experienced mayor, somebody who can pick up the phone and call Washington, deal with the state and has the experience and has gone through an event like Katrina. So that's the decisions that the citizens have to make.

LIN: It's pretty clear who was hit hard the most in Hurricane Katrina. It's not the first time that you've brought up color in this race. The 'Chocolate City' remark, how do you think that will play out with the White voters in New Orleans?

NAGIN: The 'Chocolate City' remark was very intense initially, and then it turned into this kind of almost comical things with t- shirts and caps and candy bars and what have you. So the edge seems to be off of that. But I will bring you back to before that.

There were some articles that were in The Wall Street Journal where people were talking about they want to see a different New Orleans that didn't include poor people. I was trying to address that to make sure that everyone understood that they were welcome in New Orleans.

LIN: Context is everything, isn't it, Mayor?

NAGIN: Context and the stage you're on. Everything I say is analyzed and deciphered and spun in some respects. I take that burden on. But that 'Chocolate City' comment was basically a message to give hope to people who were giving up on the city.

LIN: The Justice Department ruled this week that the polling stations are only going to be in the state of Louisiana. All right. You've got this diaspora of voters all over the place. When people go to the polls do you think they'll see the outcome of the election as a legitimate one?

NAGIN: There will be most people who think that and some who will challenge it. The interesting thing about this election is that the absentee voting process is very paper intensive and when they come to New Orleans, the precincts that people were accustomed to are gone and there's not enough precincts in some areas. It could create some challenges.

LIN: How are people even going to find out where their polling place is?

NAGIN: That's the thing. FEMA and the state have not released any data on where people are. I can't communicate with them. That leaves just the state and FEMA to inform people about how they can vote.

LIN: FEMA has taken a lot of hits, to be sure. One of the big stories we covered on CNN was tens of thousands of trailers parked in other states, desperately needed in Louisiana, New Orleans. But FEMA says, rightfully so, hey, how can we put a trailer in a neighborhood that doesn't have running water or electricity yet? There's a severe housing shortage. What do you say -- do you think FEMA has taken hits unfairly? Does the city of New Orleans have a responsibility in the housing shortage?

NAGIN: Well, you know, FEMA -- I don't want to defend them and I don't want to disparage them. They have some issues that hopefully we'll work out before the next tragedy.

The city of New Orleans has done everything they can to free up the bureaucracy and the hindrances that they've had in the past. We are ready for trailers right now. We have a request of 45,000. They've only installed about 4,000. So there's a lot of work to be done.

LIN: Mike Brown, you watched his public comments. Have you had any personal conversations, any personal contact with him since he went public with his criticism of the Bush administration?

NAGIN: No, I haven't. But he's evolved. First he was --

LIN: You might say that, yes.

NAGIN: At first he was not the -- it was not his fault, then it was his fault, then it's his boss' fault. Then it's my fault. Whose fault is it today I'm not sure.

LIN: Have you talked to him?

NAGIN: No. I would love to.

LIN: Hear from him. What do you think of FEMA today?

NAGIN: I think it's still an agency overwhelmed and undermanned. It's still an agency that's not gone through a critical analysis and still an agency that needs to be adjusted and modified for the next event if we have one.

LIN: Well, three months away from hurricane season. Is it your sense that people are waiting to move back after hurricane season? What's the point? I mean, it's still so raw on the coast.

NAGIN: There's still lots of discomfort about the levees. I meet with the Corps of Engineers and I review the levees almost on an every other week basis. They're going to be bigger, better, stronger with pilings driven down as deep as 80 feet. If these levees fail the next time, probably the whole city will be gone.

LIN: Category five, June 1, New Orleans going to be ready?

NAGIN: They're going to be ready.

LIN: Thanks very much. Mayor Nagin, pleasure to meet you in person.

NAGIN: Thank you.

LIN: Now you see it and now you don't. Soon you won't. We're going to show you an impressive Ft. Worth building implosion next. First, here's what's coming up on CNN's "ON THE STORY."

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Ali Velshi and we're "ON THE STORY." Barbara Starr looks at the Iraq war three years after the first attack. Elaine Quijano reports on the president's defense of his Iraq policy. Chris Huntington has the latest on the Enron corporate corruption trial. All coming up, all "ON THE STORY."

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LIN: Looking at news across America now. Rusty Yates is getting remarried today. He's the ex-husband of Andrea Yates, the woman who was convicted of drowning their five children in a bathtub in 2001. That conviction was overturned. But the wedding comes just two days before the start of Yates' retrial. Her defense team is seeking a delay to accommodate the schedules of two defense experts.

A brazen robbery caught on tape in a Massachusetts grocery store. Police say the two armed robbers knew what they were doing. They committed the crime in less than a minute and they escaped in a stolen car. That makes them worried that the thieves could strike again.

And it was a distressing drive for a motorist in Massachusetts. The video we're about to show you may not be suitable for sensitive viewers. A 500 pound moose crashed through the windshield and ended up in the passenger seat. Emergency crews cut off the car's roof to free the animal. The driver escaped serious injury but the moose did not and had to be euthanized.

And the Texas skyline is changing. Take a look at that. The 380 foot landmark tower was brought down today in Ft. Worth. Rainy, chilly weather didn't stop thousands of spectators from turning out to watch the implosion. The space is being cleared to make way for a parking lot.

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LIN: Lots more ahead on CNN tonight. Up next at 7:00 eastern, "ON THE STORY." At 8:00, "CNN PRESENTS: We Were Warned, Tomorrow's Oil Crisis." And at 9:00, Larry King. His guest tonight, Donald Trump.

I'll be back at 10:00 eastern. South Carolina's attorney general talks to me about the capture of a convicted rapist and now accused of kidnapping and raping again. Why was Kenneth Hinson walking the streets a free man?

A check of the hour's headlines next, and then "ON THE STORY."

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