Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Meeting Between British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Muslim Leaders; Large Weapons Cache Found by U.S. Troops in Mosul

Aired July 19, 2005 - 06:00   ET

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

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: It is Tuesday, July 19.
Right now Britain is reaching out to its Muslim community. Tony Blair tries to bring more Muslims into the mainstream. But is he just swimming against the current? We'll go across the pond for that.

Plus, the lowdown on the high court -- could today be the day that President Bush makes his Supreme Court choice?

And Emily is about to take what could be its final shot. And people in south Texas are running for cover.

From the CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Betty Nguyen, in for Carol Costello this morning.

Hi, everyone.

Chad Myers will have your forecast in just a moment.

Also ahead, you have noticed your credit card payments going up lately? What's behind the trends in plastic?

And Kenny Rogers, the pitcher, ticked off yet another news camera.

But first, here are the stories now in the news.

There has been a deadly shooting northeast of Baghdad this morning. Gunmen fired on a minibus, killing 10 Iraqi civilians who worked for a U.S. military base. The bus then swerved out of control and crashed into a car, killing three more people.

He commanded American troops in the Vietnam War. Retired General William Westmoreland has died. He was 91 years old. Westmoreland always contended that the U.S. did not lose the war in Southeast Asia.

And American Airlines flights from Fort Lauderdale to San Juan, Puerto Rico made an about-face last night after a passenger found a suspicious note saying "bomb, bomb, bomb -- meet the parents." A bomb squad searched the plane. The flight finally landed in San Juan about five hours late.

CNN is your hurricane headquarters. And we are keeping a close eye on the movements of hurricane Emily this morning. Residents along the Texas Gulf Coast are preparing for the worst. Parts of Texas could see as many as 10 inches of rain. But it looks like they may escape a direct hit from the storm. That is some good news. The rain is also expected to be a problem for residents in Mexico City. But they will also to contend with Emily's expected 90 mile per hour winds. Landfall should take place a little bit later today.

The cleanup is already underway in Emily's wake, though. Many tourist areas in the Yucatan Peninsula lost power poles and plenty of trees. But luckily there have been no reports of fatalities.

You want to keep it tuned to CNN. We are your hurricane headquarters.

And speaking of that hurricane, Chad Myers is here tracking Emily -- good morning, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Betty.

It rolled off the Yucatan Peninsula with very little momentum, very little going for it whatsoever. But in the overnight hours, it has really blossomed into something again, back up to 90 miles per hour, headed to be a category three. Now, a category three, from 111 miles per hour up to 130 miles per hour. That's what a category three is. And that is considered a major hurricane.

Don't expect it to be on the high side of that number, but certainly it is going to be in that range somewhere. There it is, coming off Progresso and Merida. And as the storm moved right into the Gulf of Mexico, this is where the warmest water is right now. There's South Padre. We have a reporter there.

Here's Mexico. Laguna Madre, right through here, a very swampy region right through here. But Monterey, the town, or the city that I'm very worried about. It could be picking up five inches of rain there and four million people live in that city right there. So as the storm tracks south of Texas -- that's the Rio Grande River right there -- it is going to move into Mexico itself, make very heavy flooding and rainfall for many of those mountain areas. The mountains all then, obviously, the water has to run down. And as it runs down, people get flooded and they don't even know that they're in the way. So we have to be very careful out there.

Winds at 90 miles per hour, headed to about 115 at landfall. And that should be very close to 2:00 in the morning, like 20 hours from now. Landfall may be a relative term, because there's not much land here where landfall is going to be occurring. But then it runs up the mountains and into Monterey.

Now, if the storm does not make this little turn -- do you see this little bow here? If it does not make that bow, it'll be much closer to Brownsville and Matamoros. And some of that right front quadrant will get up into Texas. And that's why hurricane warnings are posted for the southern coast of Texas, all the way from about Port Mansfield right on down to Brownsville and including South Padre Island. So I assume that they'll be probably evacuating South Padre later on today.

NGUYEN: Yes, better safe than sorry. MYERS: Absolutely.

NGUYEN: Thank you, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

NGUYEN: CNN has learned that two of the London terrorist bombers traveled to Pakistan just a few months before the attacks. Shazad Tanweer and Mohammed Sidique Khan spent nearly two months traveling in Pakistan. They returned to Britain in February. Now, the reason for their trip and their activities in Pakistan are still unknown.

And we are learning more this morning on British intelligence leading up to the attacks. The "New York Times" reports that an assessment of threats was issued less than a month before the bombings. That assessment stated there was no group with current intent or capabilities to carry out an attack. And it was that assessment that led to a lowering of the threat level from severe defined to substantial.

Now, two Tennessee sisters injured in one of the bombings are in good condition. But their mother says they still have emotional wounds. Emily and Katie Benton were injured by flying debris in their subway car. They were moved from a London hospital and are now being cared for at Duke Medical Center in North Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATTY BENTON, SISTER'S MOTHER: It was really hard for me to sit there and listen to it and think of the images that my daughters will carry in their minds for the rest of their lives. You know, they've lost their innocence in a way that most people, none of us will ever have to experience. I won't lie to you and say that there's not anxiety there or that they're not having flashbacks or, you know, that there's not some emotional stuff that they're going to have to deal with. It's not just the physical healing, it's the emotional healing, as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: And another American who witnessed one of the blasts is Steve Schulz. He is a teacher from Sanford, Maine who was vacationing at the time when a bomb tore through a double-decker bus. He was nearby trying to shield the eyes of the schoolchildren next to him.

He then spoke to another witness about what they saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE SCHULZ, WITNESSED ATTACK: The amazing thing that came out of that conversation was here I am a Christian man, he's a Muslim man, and together in the face of this hysteria, we realized the only thing we could do was help these innocent children.

Having been through this event, it makes me realize all the more that my job as the teacher is to tell this story. I'm going to bring this back to my classroom. I'm going to talk about this with my kids. Not that any one of us singularly can stop this, but I think it's that notion of we've got to work together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: "An evil ideology," that is what the British prime minister calls the version of Islam that led to the deadly bombings there in London. Blair also says he is ready to work with the Muslim community to take on the extremists. That work begins today.

And CNN's Robin Oakley joins us from Ten Downing Street in London with more on an important first step for the prime minister.

What do you know about this meeting today -- Robin?

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Betty, Shahid Malik, a British member of the -- a member of the British House of Commons, who is himself a Muslim, said after the terror attacks on the London subway that condemnation was not enough, that the British Muslim community had to confront the evil voices that were in their midst.

And basically the meeting today between Tony Blair and Muslim leaders and the leaders of other opposition parties in the British parliament is to discover exactly what ideas the Muslim community themselves have to prevent the radicalization and recruitment of disaffected young Muslims, and, of course, what the British government can help them to do in that process.

And we've already seen this week 500 imams issue a fatwa, a decree condemning the violent attacks in London, which will be read out at mosques all over Britain on Friday. And members of the Muslim community are saying that they are keen to do what they can to help, though, of course, they are also saying that they can't really do the job of the security forces for them -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Robin Oakley in London.

Thank you for an update on that meeting.

Well, life in prison -- that's what Eric Rudolph got for the 1998 bombing of a women's clinic in Birmingham. A federal judge sentenced Rudolph to two consecutive life terms for the attack that killed an off duty police officer. The officer's widow called Rudolph a terrorist and a monster.

Emily Lyons also spoke at that sentencing. She was a nurse at the clinic who was severely injured in the attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMILY LYONS, BOMBING VICTIM: What I told him essentially was that he failed. He didn't shut the clinic down, or the one in Atlanta. He did not cause anyone to leave the employment of the clinic and patients either rescheduled or went to another clinic. He made me a mentally stronger person than I had ever been. So he's the one to thank for that. (END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: And you can hear more of that interview with Emily Lyons coming up on AMERICAN MORNING at 7:00 Eastern.

More "News Across America" now.

A Florida teacher will stand trial for having an affair with a 14-year-old student. That trial starts December 5. Now, the defense for 24-year-old Debra Lafave is expected to center on what her attorney calls mental problems. Plea negotiations broke down over the length of a prison term. Lafave's lawyer says putting an attractive woman like her in prison is similar to throwing raw meat to lions.

Well, the mother of a murdered 6-year-old was questioned late into the night by police in Washington, D.C. Police say the boy was found in a bathtub with his hands and feet bound. He was discovered by his grandmother. The cause of death has not been disclosed.

And we have new pictures this morning of wildfires near Phoenix, Arizona. Firefighters are working to keep a pair of fires away from a hospital and other structures. So far, only three mobile homes have been damaged by the blaze. But fires are believed to have been started by lightning strikes.

And Discovery remains grounded for now. But NASA is hopeful that a new round of tests could finally make headway with a fuel sensor problem. That problem caused last week's launch to be scrubbed. The current launch window for the shuttle closes on July 31. But that could be extended by almost a week. The next one opens in September.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAYNE HALE, SADDAM HUSSEIN DEPUTY PROGRAM MANAGER: My rule has never been to plan my life around the shuttle launch schedule because, you know, things happen. It could be the weather. It could be technical problems. It could be any number of things. And a few days delay to figure out what is going on and make sure we're safe is always the right answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: NASA set the launch window for the maximum amount of daylight that's needed so that new cameras can get a good look at the shuttle as it lifts off to make sure there are no problems like the one that doomed Columbia.

Still to come here on DAYBREAK, the president changes his wording. What would happen if someone in his White House is caught red-handed in the CIA leak scandal?

Also ahead, we have a look at what is pushing the price of plastic up, up and away for many of you.

But first, here's a look at what else is making news on this Tuesday morning. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: All right, Texas Rangers' pitcher Kenny Rogers and his ongoing battle with news photographers has another chapter and an audio track to it this time. Monday, Rogers turned himself into police on assault charges. An arrest warrant was issued for Rogers for the on field fracas that he had with a couple of photographers last month.

Now, he just couldn't stay quiet while being booked with the cameras rolling.

Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNY ROGERS, TEXAS RANGERS PITCHER: Dave, you're getting really close, you know that? Do you hear me? You must be pretty proud of yourself, too.

DAVE: It's my job, Kenny.

ROGERS: Yes? It's your job. That's a good excuse. A good excuse, it's just your job. That ought to suffice.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now let's get your other hand.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: All righty. Rogers bailed out of jail on $1,500. He could face up to a year in jail if convicted. Baseball suspended him for 20 games and fined him $50,000.

We have your news, money weather and sports.

The time, 6:14 Eastern, and here is what's all new this morning.

Hurricane warning and storm warnings have been issued for Texas to Mexico, as hurricane Emily is expected to strengthen. It's forecast to hit Mexico a little bit later today, possibly with winds topping 100 miles per hour.

In money, are you one of those who uses TiVo to skip TV commercials? Well, that could change. The digital video recorder pioneer is trying to cash in on advertising dollars with new pop-up ads.

In culture, actress Geraldine Fitzgerald has died. She was best known for her 1930 films such as "Dark Victory" and "Wuthering Heights." A family spokesman says Fitzgerald had a lengthy bout with Alzheimer's. Fitzgerald was 91 years old.

In sports now, Larry Brown's time with the Detroit Pistons may be drawing to an end. The team is negotiating the terms of a contract buyout with its head coach. Larry Brown has led the Pistons to the last two NBA finals and they won one of them. So why do they want to get rid of him -- Chad?

MYERS: You know, I have no idea, unless it's his idea. I don't know, maybe he's just getting tired of all that. I'm not sure. Yes, he's done a fantastic job for Michigan...

NGUYEN: He sure has.

MYERS: No question that Detroit -- it's his -- they're the hero up there.

There has been some severe weather up in Michigan yesterday in the overnight hours, as well. So maybe that -- maybe he doesn't like the severe weather, although I doubt it, because it's hard to get away from.

(WEATHER REPORT)

NGUYEN: In the meantime, bombs, guns and plenty of ammo -- CNN has learned that U.S. and Iraqi security forces have found a large weapons cache in northern Iraq.

And CNN's Jane Arraf is embedded with the U.S. military.

She joins us now from Mosul with an exclusive report.

Exactly what did you find -- Jane? Or what did this group of troops find there in Mosul?

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Betty, it was quite extraordinary. We went with -- Iraqi police had received a tip from someone they had detained and they led us, with U.S. soldiers from the Striker Brigade, to a farmhouse just on the outskirts of Mosul. An ordinary looking farmhouse, an ordinary looking barn with sheep in it.

But the informant told them where to dig and lo and behold, they dug up plastic barrels that would not have been detected by a metal detector. And inside were the makings of at least 30 improvised explosive devices, those roadside bombs that keep going off, in addition to rocket propelled grenades, mortars, all kinds of ammunition, a manual explaining how to fire rocket propelled grenades and other weapons.

And this was the third find, Betty, by Iraqi police here in Mosul in 24 hours. In another huge one just a few hours before that, another informant led the police and U.S. soldiers to find at a chicken farm, essentially, a farm with chicken and geese, where they found 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 150 rockets, all sorts of detonating devices, one of the biggest finds that they've discovered so far -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Jane, we were looking at video of the weapons that were found, but we also saw some video there of a man being handcuffed, per se.

Who is this person who was taken into custody? ARRAF: Betty, that was someone who is believed to have been involved with the fact that weapons were buried on this remote farmhouse. Now, we were with the soldiers as this person led them to there. The person they detained and took away in handcuffs was believed to have been someone involved in the cell.

Now, all of that material laid out like that indicated, according to the soldiers we were with, that it was an IED cell, a cell responsible for making these roadside bombs, as well as what they call direct action, which is direct attacks on U.S. forces, Iraqi forces.

We were up very early this morning with another unit of the Striker Brigade and the Iraqi Army, where they launched targeted raids. One of the people they ended up getting, they believe, is linked to al Qaeda. They took him away for questioning, as well. But they have an extensive list of suspects, many of them based on information from Iraqis who are coming to them now, they say, people responsible for these attacks -- Betty.

NGUYEN: And maybe what was found there will also lead them to some more folks involved in this.

Jane Arraf, we thank you, from Mosul this morning.

Well, still to come here on DAYBREAK, those convenient little cards in your wallet are costing you big bucks. We will check out which ones are getting more expensive.

Plus, a meeting with the most powerful man in the world and they wore flip-flops? Hey, if the shoe fits, use it for a good cause. We'll explain.

But first, we want to say good morning to a steamy Las Vegas, Nevada, where even at midnight, it was a chilly 101 degrees.

DAYBREAK will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Time now for a little "Business Buzz" for you.

A bidding war may be underway for Maytag. Whirlpool has tendered a $1.37 billion offer for the appliance maker. Now, this follows a lesser offer from the Triton Investment Group. Maytag's board of directors say it will consider the Whirlpool offer, but it has not changed its recommendation that shareholders approve the Triton proposal.

And Nissan is recalling more than 140,000 Murano SUVs made over just the past two years. These are new cars. The government says a wire could break in the alternator and that could cut power to the engine, possibly causing a crash.

Well, nobody enjoys paying those monthly credit card bills. But, when you find out how much those bills are padded with service fees and how much the banks are cashing in with those extra charges, you might begin to reach for the scissors.

According to bankrate.com, more than a third of credit card revenues come from those fees. And you think your late fee charges are higher now, you can bet on it. How about triple in the past 11 years? And how better to juice those late fees by cutting down your grace period, down about six days each month.

And if that wasn't enough, some are even raising your minimum monthly payments.

For more on these changes involving your credit charges, Gerri Detweiler from Ultimate Credit Solutions joins us now to talk about it.

Gerri, first of all, Bank of America, the second biggest bank in the U.S., reporting second quarter profits of 12 percent, saying that that's partly in due to credit card fees.

So what kind of credit card fees are we talking about here?

GERRI DETWEILER, ULTIMATE CREDIT SOLUTIONS: We're seeing this all across the credit card industry -- late fees, over the limit fees, cash advance fees. In particular, late fees have gotten very expensive. And what they've done is they've given a cut off time. So if your payment isn't there on the due date by 11:00 a.m., for example, you're late, you get socked a with big fee.

NGUYEN: All right, so they're cutting the grace periods, basically, is what you're saying. But they're also increasing minimum payments.

Now, does that help the credit card user, because it goes more toward principal? Or does this really line the pockets of banks?

DETWEILER: Well, it absolutely helps the credit card users. And credit card -- the credit card industry would not be raising the minimum payments, except they were told to do so by the regulators. The concern I have is there are a number of consumers who are on the edge. They're struggling to make that minimum payment each month. And when they see this increase later this year, they're really going to be hurting.

NGUYEN: OK. So grace periods have been cut. Fees are up. Minimum payments are up. And then you also have this legislation that's coming into effect that doesn't allow you to file for bankruptcy as often. So it all seems kind of like a vicious cycle.

DETWEILER: Well, I've heard it called a perfect storm of debt, and it absolutely is. The folks I speak to, Betty, a lot of them have $50,000, $70,000, $90,000 worth of credit card debt, which is really crazy, but that's what the industry is up to these days. And so we're seeing consumers who are really having trouble getting ahead, along with the things you talked about, the interest rates are going up, too.

NGUYEN: All right, let's crunch the numbers. Let's take a look at some debt and how long it really takes for people to pay it off.

We've got something on the screen. I don't know if you can see it, but if you have $10,000 in debt, that's your credit card balance, and you pay 2 percent minimum payment, which is about $200 a month, the bill would take 33 years to pay off?

DETWEILER: Yes. That's what's happened with minimum payments. They've gotten so tiny the debt just stretches out forever and ever.

NGUYEN: OK, so you started out with $10,000. By the time you pay all of this off, with all these fees and all the interest and all that, it rounds out to be $21,450.

DETWEILER: And we wonder why they're making money.

NGUYEN: Well, OK, but that's a question here, too. How are they able to do this? Is this just a lack of competition, a lack of consumers complaining about it? What can be done?

DETWEILER: Well, the majority of consumers don't make the minimum payment. So the majority of consumers are going to pay off or pay some of the bill and they will pay interest, but they'll sort of keep the ball moving along.

What we're seeing, though, is the industry is consolidating. So the top 10 issuers have the large majority of the market. Of course, that's going to get even more closed with MBNA and Bank of America joining. And so they can afford to spread out the risks. Because they have so many cardholders across the country, they're able to afford to take risk on consumers who may not be able to pay because they have all the other cardholders that are making them enough money to take that risk.

NGUYEN: So really the only thing you can do is don't spend more than what you can afford.

Gerri Detweiler, thank you for your time today.

DETWEILER: Thank you.

The fallout over those flip-flops. Remember them? Well, it's not all bad. The flap started when some members of Northwestern University's championship lacrosse team wore flip-flop sandals -- you see them there at the bottom of the screen -- when they visited President Bush at the White House. Now, that led some people to say that the footwear was way too casual for the occasion. But there is a positive side, as we mentioned. The players tell NBC they plan to auction off those flip-flops. Proceeds will go to a fund for a 10- year-old girl with a brain tumor.

Still to come here on DAYBREAK, live from your hurricane headquarters, we will check in on some of the Texas communities bracing for Emily.

And the battle for the bottom line in the toy industry. Who heads -- who is heads above the rest? Maybe Barbie. That story in our "Business Buzz."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com