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New Revelations on Flight 93; USS Ronald Reagan Homeports
Aired July 23, 2004 - 13:58 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The final moments of Flight 93 -- new revelations from the 9/11 report about what happened in the cockpit and on that plane.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Miguel Marquez live in San Diego, where the ceremony to welcome home permanently the USS Ronald Reagan is just about to begin. I'll have a report.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Athlete accusations -- the ex-husband of Olympic star Marion Jones levels charges of illegal doping.
O'BRIEN: And healing Hollywood style, from funky acupuncture to vibrating crystals. The stars swear by them. Should you give them a try? From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Miles O'Brien.
PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now. We begin this hour with the fight for Flight 93. Two years and 10 months after a hijacked 757 hit the ground near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the world knows a whole lot more about the confrontation that claimed 42 lives, but may have saved thousands more. CNN's David Mattingly has pored over the new information from the 9/11 panel's final report -- joins us with a mystery largely solved now.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, it's hard to believe that life and death struggle over the skies of Pennsylvania and Ohio that day lasted just a little over a half an hour. And now, the 9/11 Commission reports on what was the final words of the hijackers and the passengers in those final, terrible moments aboard Flight 93.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY (voice-over): Over the skies of western Pennsylvania, just minutes away from a violent end at the abandoned strip mine outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the sounds of what the 9/11 Commission report describes as a "sustained assault" can be heard from inside the cockpit as Flight 93 passengers fought back against their hijackers.
At the controls, Ziad Jarrah tried to throw the passengers off balance by pitching the plane to the left and to the right, then up and down, but to no avail. Eight seconds after 10 a.m., Jarrah can be heard saying, "Is that it? Shall we finish it off?" Another hijacker replied, "No, not yet. When they all come, we finish it all."
Eighteen seconds later, a passenger said in the cockpit, "If we don't, we'll die." Sixteen seconds later, a passenger yelled, "Roll it," the passengers possibly trying to use a beverage cart to ram their way into the cockpit. About 30 seconds later, Jarrah, still at the controls, says, "Allah is the greatest, Allah is the greatest," and he asks another hijacker, "Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?" The other replied, "Yes, put it in it and pull it down."
The passengers continued their assault for the next minute and 23 seconds. A hijacker shouts, "Pull it down, pull it down." As the plane went into a dive, the hijacker again shouts, "Allah is the greatest, Allah is the greatest."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
And the 9/11 Commission reveals what the hijackers and passengers were going through that very end. They stopped short, however, of saying whether or not the passengers actually made it into the cockpit that day, something the family members are puzzled about today.
PHILLIPS: Yes, you've talked to the family members, and you and I were talking about it. You remember that day so well. You were there covering the story. And I mean, for you, for me, for a lot of people, it got us thinking about if we were in that situation, what would we do? Would we storm the cockpit? How would we react? You think differently about flying now, and if, indeed, something like that happened.
MATTINGLY: That story continues to resonate with almost everyone I fly with. Everyone can relate to this story. They've probably all asked that question of themselves, "What would I have done that day?" The fact that they consulted, they voted, decided to fight back, and fought so valiantly, and were successful in stopping the flight from reaching its targets in Washington, D.C. just elevates their status as heroes in this society and among everyone who's probably ever been on an airplane ever since.
PHILLIPS: Yes, we'll never forget them. David Mattingly, thanks so much -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Off now to Washington we go, where some lawmakers want to strike while the iron is hot and the ink is damp on the 9/11 panel's painstaking analysis and recommendations. CNN's Sean Callebs looks at the prospects for Congress in finding fast track during the summer recess, in an election year -- lot of reasons not to do anything here, Sean. The devil surely is in the implementation on this one.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Miles. As they say, the devil is in the details. A lot of public pressure out there on congressional members to begin discussing the recommendations that came out. And clearly, the commission members don't want the recommendations in their 567-page book to sit on a shelf somewhere collecting dust.
And they are vowing to make their call for reforms an election year priority. Now, among the proposed changes -- we talked about it extensively -- creation of a national counter-terrorism center to better-coordinate efforts to root out possible terrorist threats. A new high level White House post of national intelligence director to whom the CIA and parts of the FBI would report, and reform of congressional oversight.
One of the conclusions of the committee -- the Congress simply dropped the ball when it came to checks and balances of intelligence agencies. Senate leaders say they have a goal of getting legislation to the full Senate by October 1st of this year, and tackling the national counter-terrorism center and the national intelligence director, what they say the two most pressing issues are.
Commission members are making a hard, public push to get Congress to act on their recommendations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB KERREY, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: We've examined this in great detail. In many cases, we've taken recommendations that were made before and adopted them as our own. Where we didn't have to reinvent the wheel, we didn't. I just don't think it's a good excuse, when security is the most important issue that Americans care about, to say that we're going to wait till next year or study this, et cetera. I think a special session, or something special, is called for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CALLEBS: Kerrey and other members of the panel say the congressional summer recess and the upcoming presidential election should not sidetrack efforts to reform the way the United States gathers and disseminates intelligence. And commission members have talked privately, Miles, about issuing a report card in six months to gauge progress.
O'BRIEN: Sean, let's talk about that briefly, because it seems to me if constituents don't hold their elected officials feet to the fire through all this, it could very well be a case of gridlock here.
CALLEBS: Oh, without question. You've heard, even before this report came out, some members of Congress saying, "Look, we're not going to be rushed into anything." We're talking about overhauling the way the United States gets its intelligence, the way it shares it among agencies. And we're talking 15 agencies that are out there gathering intel.
But at the same time, we heard one commission member this morning say, perhaps, this could be a double-edged sword, because as all these members of Congress are out there campaigning, maybe their constituents say, "Where do you stand on these reform measures?" -- Miles
O'BRIEN: Sean Callebs from Washington. Thank you, sir. Alert the media -- the FBI says if there is any violence at next week's Democratic convention in Boston, it may -- and we stress the "may" word here -- be aimed at the news vans and trailers that are camped outside the FleetCenter. That's where we find CNN's Bob Franken. Bob, what's the latest on all this? BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have a tendency to focus on that which concerns us. And there has been uncorroborated, as you pointed out, unconfirmed information that some domestic groups might decide to make their statement by throwing some sort of incendiary device at a news trailer or a news van, or something like that.
But the much larger concerns have to do with the thousands who are going to be here and the concerns that terrorist groups might decide to use this venue, the highly visible Democratic National Convention, for an attack that security officials in the United States government fear is going to come between now and the election.
And as a result, Boston has really been shutdown, or is going to be shutdown. That highway in back of me, which is Interstate 93, it's a main artery here -- during, before, and after the hours of the convention, it's closed. You're not going to be able to get back and forth. Officials are asking the people of Boston just to stay home next week, which, of course, is going to mean that the city's business shuts down.
There are a lot of people, particularly the businesspeople, who are anything but happy about that. There's also the demonstrations. The demonstrations were already going to be seriously curtailed. They're being kept in an area just by the FleetCenter. It's across the street from the FleetCenter. It amounts to a "holding pen," as the demonstrating groups are calling it, and they are not happy about it at all.
They went to court. They weren't happy with the decision either. The judge said it was appropriate. It's going to be very slow going here -- very, very many nervous security people making sure that they do everything they can to prevent something that they don't even know is going to happen -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Bob Franken in Boston, thank you -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: On the road again, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry is kicking off a pre-convention tour. Later this hour, he's back in Colorado, where he was born. From there, he'll spend the next week traveling cross-country to Boston. Kerry's campaign calls it a journey from his birthplace to the birthplace of America. The kickoff event is scheduled to begin in less than 30 minutes. We'll have live coverage.
Doubts about Democrats -- that's what President Bush highlighted today during his address to the National Urban League in Detroit. He asked the audience a series of questions, including, "Does the Democratic Party take African-American voters for granted?" Bush touted his agenda as the alternative. The president was criticized last week for declining to speak at the NAACP convention.
O'BRIEN: Home at last. The USS Ronald Reagan has arrived in San Diego Harbor amid pomp and circumstance, and a bittersweet ceremony. The aircraft carrier's namesake died as it was heading from Norfolk around the tip of South America. Former first lady Nancy Reagan is at the top of a list of family and friends of the former president there for the honors, as is Miguel Marquez, who joins us now live. Hello, Miguel.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN, SAN DIEGO: Yes, Miles. The ceremony for the homeporting of the USS Ronald Reagan just got underway. The colors have been presented and they're going to start the national anthem here in a moment. It's just an absolutely gorgeous day here in San Diego -- the flags of all 50 states surrounding the area where they are celebrating this warship coming home.
The ninth Nimitz class aircraft carrier for the U.S. fleet. There will be one more. Nancy Reagan is here. She arrived here a short time ago while the aircraft carrier was still out at sea, about a mile off of San Diego. And very smart and very politic, she was clad in white as sailors who were lining the deck -- they were holding California flags and symbolizing their new home.
She was met by the captain of the ship, Captain Jim Simons, and a select number of sailors who were also there to shake her hand. And she shook all those hands. At one point, she looked up at our camera position and I waved at her, and she waved back -- a much different Nancy Reagan than we saw just a month ago when she was bearing her husband, whose name is on this ship.
And this ship is an absolute testament to the 40th president. "Peace through strength" is the official motto for this ship. There's a museum to him, speeches, a piece of the Berlin Wall in there, statues and the like -- pictures of him and Nancy Reagan throughout the ship, everywhere, in all the galleys and the mess halls and the like.
Three thousand sailors now are home. For many of them, it's a brand new home here in San Diego. The ceremony will go for some more time today, and then they will get off that ship, and I can tell you, they are very excited to see their new home -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: I'll tell you what, Miguel. Let's listen to the national anthem for just a moment here and take this all in.
(PAUSE FOR NATIONAL ANTHEM)
O'BRIEN: That was the country-western group She-Daisy with the national anthem, and a flight of F-18s over the USS Ronald Reagan as, at long last, it returns to its homeport in the Port of San Diego. We'll be watching this ceremony as it unfolds and bring you more of it a little bit later. Kyra...
PHILLIPS: Nothing like a Navy flyover. Well, straight ahead, casualty of war, the Iraqi healthcare system -- that country appeals for help to heal the sick. We're live from Baghdad with a special report. Flying rumors and the search for a missing pregnant Utah woman. Her family speaks out about both ahead on LIVE FROM. And Laura and Jenna Bush ready to chat with you -- a new cyber stop on the campaign trail.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: Well, it's been a little over three weeks since sovereignty was handed back to the Iraqis, and so far, no let up in the violence. Gunmen killed an Iraqi general in a drive-by shooting in Mosul. That man retired from the military under Saddam Hussein, but had recently returned to military service.
US-led forces launched a strike against insurgents in Fallujah. A coalition statement says the attack was directed at about 12 fighters linked to terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Now, local residents say that strike injured five civilians, including three children. And just north of Baghdad, nine Iraqis were killed, 10 injured when a minibus collided with a tank. That bus was trying to pass another vehicle when it crashed.
Now, to add to Iraq's woes, that country is also facing a grave healthcare crisis. Officials say that vital drugs and medical equipment are in short supply, and security at hospitals remains a major problem. Matthew Chance has the latest on how the new interim government is tackling the crisis.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The cancer wards of the Child Welfare Hospital in Baghdad. These are always tragic places. But with the right treatment and enough drugs, there's always hope -- not here. Usraya (ph) and her son Hussein have been through agony together. At just one-and-a-half, he has a tumor the size of a fist inside him. In Iraq, the doctors can't help.
"The staff are doing their best for us," she says, "but the operation must be done outside. They've already opened up his stomach and couldn't remove the tumor," she says.
CHANCE: Iraqi health officials say lack of resources, money, training, and drugs is having a terrible impact on the sick.
ABDUL AMIR AL MUKHTAH, HOSPITAL DIRECTOR GENERAL: There's no question about that -- both suffering, yes, dying. We're certainly losing patients that we shouldn't lose.
CHANCE (on camera): Because of the lack of drugs and machinery.
MUKHTAH: Definitely. That's a definite factor.
CHANCE (voice-over): But it's not the only factor. This bombsite was a crowded surgical ward smashed in an insurgent rocket attack. Inside, there was carnage. Four people died, Dr. Hussein told me -- patients and visitors ripped to shreds. Not even sickbeds were a haven from the violence.
DR. RAFA AL HUSSEINI, SURGEON: Tens of patients discharged upon the hospital before we are complete or finishing from their treatments, even those wounded people who made their operation even in the morning yesterday -- they discharge from the hospital on their responsibility because they are afraid of the security situation of this hospital. CHANCE: And those who stay must risk poor hygiene and searing heat. Iraqi officials say they need an extra billion dollars to get this health service on its feet.
(on camera): These wards are no stranger to neglect. Under Saddam Hussein, UN sanctions and corruption all took their toll. But this is now the problem of the new Iraqi government. People are turning to them to solve it.
(voice-over): People like Alla Abbas (ph) and her three-year-old daughter Yad (ph), desperate for cancer drugs to keep her alive.
"We had no benefit from the previous regime, and now we have none from this one," she says.
CHANCE: Iraq's new government has enormous challenges ahead of it. Healing its people may be among the toughest.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHANCE: All right, well, it's not as if, Kyra, that there isn't anybody helping in this situation. Of course, there are. People are bringing in drugs. The Iraqi interim government is bringing in as many drugs as it can. But quite simply, though, the scale of the problem is so great that the authorities here are simply finding it hard to cope -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Matthew, you and I talked a little bit about -- there is a bit, I guess, a glimmer of something positive, and that is now that sanctions have been lifted, because there was a lot of blackmail that was going on, there are those getting care that never had a chance to get that care when Saddam Hussein was in power, is that correct?
CHANCE: Well, certainly, that's the theory. There were UN sanctions, of course, enforced here in Iraq for a decade, imposed by the United Nations. And under that regime, then, corruption became widespread. What drugs that were available were sold at extremely high prices on the black market and in the streets before they could be given free to the actual patients who need them in the hospitals.
The trouble is, is that system of corruption has become so endemic here in Iraq that it still continues to this day. Hospitals report that a lot of the drugs that are meant to be delivered to them never actually make it. They end up, again, being stolen and again sold on the flourishing black market outside.
PHILLIPS: It's like you want to pump a promotion for the health ministry to donate antibiotics and other drugs. Final question -- they have been able to stave off any kind of epidemic, right?
CHANCE: Yeah, I mean, that's one of the big things that the health ministry say they're extremely proud of, the fact that they have managed to hold things together to the extent that they've held off any major epidemics of things like cholera and diarrhea and things like that that people were concerned about -- public health issues with the quality of the water and things like that.
Perhaps they've had a degree of luck in that. Certainly, they're very open about the fact that there are a great deal of things that have to be done. A great deal of work has to be done just in the basic infrastructure of the hospitals, never mind the actual drugs, and the equipment, and the training for the doctors. The hospitals themselves are falling to pieces. The pipes are bursting, the air conditioning isn't working.
And believe me, in a country with a temperature as high as this, that's a really important factor that costs lives.
PHILLIPS: Pretty incredible report -- very eye-opening. We'll follow up with you. Matthew Chance, thanks so much. Miles...
O'BRIEN: Marion Jones' ex says the Olympic track star is not an innocent victim. He has some pretty blistering accusations about her in the Olympic doping scandal. We'll have details on that. A dead heat in the dog days of summer. Kerry and Bush tied as we set our sights at Boston...
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Now, to the track trials and tribulations of sprinter Marion Jones. The Olympian is already under investigation by anti- doping officials. Now, her ex-husband has reportedly told investigators she did use performance-enhancing drugs. C.J. Hunter reportedly says that he personally injected Jones with banned substances. "The San Francisco Chronicle" had that story today.
Chronicle reporter Mark Fainaru-Wada joins us now live with more. Appreciate you being with us -- let's get right into your article and these allegations. They're pretty dramatic.
MARK FAINARU-WADA, REPORTER, "THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE": Right, they are pretty dramatic allegations, in fact. You know, Mr. Hunter states that Marion Jones was using banned substances prior to, during, and after the Olympics. He talks about specific drugs she was using, things like human growth hormone, and EPO, and insulin, and a steroid called "the clear."
And he talks about her injecting herself, and he talks about him injecting herself, and having some of those drugs at the Sydney games.
PHILLIPS: Let's talk about specifically this one quote that you had in your article -- "At times, Hunter said he personally injected Jones with banned substances. He also reported seeing Jones inject herself with drugs at the residence that they shred in Australia." Give us a little background here. First of all, when they got divorced, didn't they sign an agreement that they wouldn't reveal or slam each other publicly? And second of all, I want you to talk about the credibility of Hunter also.
FAINARU-WADA: Sure, yes. They did sign a non-disclosure agreement at the time that they got divorced, and that's one of the things that comes up in Conte's statement to the federal government, is that they had signed this non-disclosure agreement, and Hunter had been abiding by that agreement, he states, and that Jones, though, wrote a book in which she was somewhat critical of him, and that he threatened to sue her, at one point, over that.
So I think, perhaps, he felt freed up to start talking about her. And then, certainly, that will pose some credibility issues. Mr. Hunter failed some steroid tests prior to Sydney and didn't end up competing. He's, you know, being portrayed as a bitter ex-husband. And, of course, the counter to that is people talking about the sort of wealth of circumstantial evidence that seems to lead the speculation about Marion Jones, as well as the, obviously, dramatic accusations by Hunter himself.
PHILLIPS: Let's talk about the athletes connected to BALCO. Let's remind our viewers about BALCO, because you talk about this in the article. And just talk about the sort of guilt by association here. You revealed that Marion Jones' name came up with the BALCO name. But there has been a lot of talk that this has been guilt by association, and she's really free and clear.
FAINARU-WADA: Yes, you know, I think people have talked about guilt by association with her as it relates to some of the men she's chosen to associate herself with in her life -- C.J. Hunter first. She ended up training at one point with Charlie Francis, the coach who admitted providing steroids to Canadian Olympian Ben Johnson. And then, of course, she's been with Tim Montgomery now, who we've reported previously, told the grand jury that he had been using banned substances.
So I think she's acknowledged, perhaps, some questionable choices previously, but says that that doesn't necessarily indicate she was using drugs. But there's also other sorts of information that the government or authorities perhaps believe, you know, lend itself to the question of whether she was using or not, which are things like suspected doping calendars, ledgers, checks, invoices, those kinds of things, which Ms. Jones' people say that she had nothing to do with.
PHILLIPS: It will be interesting to see if this, or does not, affect the Olympics. Mark Fainaru-Wada with the San Francisco Chronicle, we're following your stuff. Thank you so much.
FAINARU-WADA: It's been my pleasure. Thank you.
(MARKET REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired July 23, 2004 - 13:58 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The final moments of Flight 93 -- new revelations from the 9/11 report about what happened in the cockpit and on that plane.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Miguel Marquez live in San Diego, where the ceremony to welcome home permanently the USS Ronald Reagan is just about to begin. I'll have a report.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Athlete accusations -- the ex-husband of Olympic star Marion Jones levels charges of illegal doping.
O'BRIEN: And healing Hollywood style, from funky acupuncture to vibrating crystals. The stars swear by them. Should you give them a try? From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Miles O'Brien.
PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now. We begin this hour with the fight for Flight 93. Two years and 10 months after a hijacked 757 hit the ground near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the world knows a whole lot more about the confrontation that claimed 42 lives, but may have saved thousands more. CNN's David Mattingly has pored over the new information from the 9/11 panel's final report -- joins us with a mystery largely solved now.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, it's hard to believe that life and death struggle over the skies of Pennsylvania and Ohio that day lasted just a little over a half an hour. And now, the 9/11 Commission reports on what was the final words of the hijackers and the passengers in those final, terrible moments aboard Flight 93.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY (voice-over): Over the skies of western Pennsylvania, just minutes away from a violent end at the abandoned strip mine outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the sounds of what the 9/11 Commission report describes as a "sustained assault" can be heard from inside the cockpit as Flight 93 passengers fought back against their hijackers.
At the controls, Ziad Jarrah tried to throw the passengers off balance by pitching the plane to the left and to the right, then up and down, but to no avail. Eight seconds after 10 a.m., Jarrah can be heard saying, "Is that it? Shall we finish it off?" Another hijacker replied, "No, not yet. When they all come, we finish it all."
Eighteen seconds later, a passenger said in the cockpit, "If we don't, we'll die." Sixteen seconds later, a passenger yelled, "Roll it," the passengers possibly trying to use a beverage cart to ram their way into the cockpit. About 30 seconds later, Jarrah, still at the controls, says, "Allah is the greatest, Allah is the greatest," and he asks another hijacker, "Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?" The other replied, "Yes, put it in it and pull it down."
The passengers continued their assault for the next minute and 23 seconds. A hijacker shouts, "Pull it down, pull it down." As the plane went into a dive, the hijacker again shouts, "Allah is the greatest, Allah is the greatest."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
And the 9/11 Commission reveals what the hijackers and passengers were going through that very end. They stopped short, however, of saying whether or not the passengers actually made it into the cockpit that day, something the family members are puzzled about today.
PHILLIPS: Yes, you've talked to the family members, and you and I were talking about it. You remember that day so well. You were there covering the story. And I mean, for you, for me, for a lot of people, it got us thinking about if we were in that situation, what would we do? Would we storm the cockpit? How would we react? You think differently about flying now, and if, indeed, something like that happened.
MATTINGLY: That story continues to resonate with almost everyone I fly with. Everyone can relate to this story. They've probably all asked that question of themselves, "What would I have done that day?" The fact that they consulted, they voted, decided to fight back, and fought so valiantly, and were successful in stopping the flight from reaching its targets in Washington, D.C. just elevates their status as heroes in this society and among everyone who's probably ever been on an airplane ever since.
PHILLIPS: Yes, we'll never forget them. David Mattingly, thanks so much -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Off now to Washington we go, where some lawmakers want to strike while the iron is hot and the ink is damp on the 9/11 panel's painstaking analysis and recommendations. CNN's Sean Callebs looks at the prospects for Congress in finding fast track during the summer recess, in an election year -- lot of reasons not to do anything here, Sean. The devil surely is in the implementation on this one.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Miles. As they say, the devil is in the details. A lot of public pressure out there on congressional members to begin discussing the recommendations that came out. And clearly, the commission members don't want the recommendations in their 567-page book to sit on a shelf somewhere collecting dust.
And they are vowing to make their call for reforms an election year priority. Now, among the proposed changes -- we talked about it extensively -- creation of a national counter-terrorism center to better-coordinate efforts to root out possible terrorist threats. A new high level White House post of national intelligence director to whom the CIA and parts of the FBI would report, and reform of congressional oversight.
One of the conclusions of the committee -- the Congress simply dropped the ball when it came to checks and balances of intelligence agencies. Senate leaders say they have a goal of getting legislation to the full Senate by October 1st of this year, and tackling the national counter-terrorism center and the national intelligence director, what they say the two most pressing issues are.
Commission members are making a hard, public push to get Congress to act on their recommendations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB KERREY, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: We've examined this in great detail. In many cases, we've taken recommendations that were made before and adopted them as our own. Where we didn't have to reinvent the wheel, we didn't. I just don't think it's a good excuse, when security is the most important issue that Americans care about, to say that we're going to wait till next year or study this, et cetera. I think a special session, or something special, is called for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CALLEBS: Kerrey and other members of the panel say the congressional summer recess and the upcoming presidential election should not sidetrack efforts to reform the way the United States gathers and disseminates intelligence. And commission members have talked privately, Miles, about issuing a report card in six months to gauge progress.
O'BRIEN: Sean, let's talk about that briefly, because it seems to me if constituents don't hold their elected officials feet to the fire through all this, it could very well be a case of gridlock here.
CALLEBS: Oh, without question. You've heard, even before this report came out, some members of Congress saying, "Look, we're not going to be rushed into anything." We're talking about overhauling the way the United States gets its intelligence, the way it shares it among agencies. And we're talking 15 agencies that are out there gathering intel.
But at the same time, we heard one commission member this morning say, perhaps, this could be a double-edged sword, because as all these members of Congress are out there campaigning, maybe their constituents say, "Where do you stand on these reform measures?" -- Miles
O'BRIEN: Sean Callebs from Washington. Thank you, sir. Alert the media -- the FBI says if there is any violence at next week's Democratic convention in Boston, it may -- and we stress the "may" word here -- be aimed at the news vans and trailers that are camped outside the FleetCenter. That's where we find CNN's Bob Franken. Bob, what's the latest on all this? BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have a tendency to focus on that which concerns us. And there has been uncorroborated, as you pointed out, unconfirmed information that some domestic groups might decide to make their statement by throwing some sort of incendiary device at a news trailer or a news van, or something like that.
But the much larger concerns have to do with the thousands who are going to be here and the concerns that terrorist groups might decide to use this venue, the highly visible Democratic National Convention, for an attack that security officials in the United States government fear is going to come between now and the election.
And as a result, Boston has really been shutdown, or is going to be shutdown. That highway in back of me, which is Interstate 93, it's a main artery here -- during, before, and after the hours of the convention, it's closed. You're not going to be able to get back and forth. Officials are asking the people of Boston just to stay home next week, which, of course, is going to mean that the city's business shuts down.
There are a lot of people, particularly the businesspeople, who are anything but happy about that. There's also the demonstrations. The demonstrations were already going to be seriously curtailed. They're being kept in an area just by the FleetCenter. It's across the street from the FleetCenter. It amounts to a "holding pen," as the demonstrating groups are calling it, and they are not happy about it at all.
They went to court. They weren't happy with the decision either. The judge said it was appropriate. It's going to be very slow going here -- very, very many nervous security people making sure that they do everything they can to prevent something that they don't even know is going to happen -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Bob Franken in Boston, thank you -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: On the road again, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry is kicking off a pre-convention tour. Later this hour, he's back in Colorado, where he was born. From there, he'll spend the next week traveling cross-country to Boston. Kerry's campaign calls it a journey from his birthplace to the birthplace of America. The kickoff event is scheduled to begin in less than 30 minutes. We'll have live coverage.
Doubts about Democrats -- that's what President Bush highlighted today during his address to the National Urban League in Detroit. He asked the audience a series of questions, including, "Does the Democratic Party take African-American voters for granted?" Bush touted his agenda as the alternative. The president was criticized last week for declining to speak at the NAACP convention.
O'BRIEN: Home at last. The USS Ronald Reagan has arrived in San Diego Harbor amid pomp and circumstance, and a bittersweet ceremony. The aircraft carrier's namesake died as it was heading from Norfolk around the tip of South America. Former first lady Nancy Reagan is at the top of a list of family and friends of the former president there for the honors, as is Miguel Marquez, who joins us now live. Hello, Miguel.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN, SAN DIEGO: Yes, Miles. The ceremony for the homeporting of the USS Ronald Reagan just got underway. The colors have been presented and they're going to start the national anthem here in a moment. It's just an absolutely gorgeous day here in San Diego -- the flags of all 50 states surrounding the area where they are celebrating this warship coming home.
The ninth Nimitz class aircraft carrier for the U.S. fleet. There will be one more. Nancy Reagan is here. She arrived here a short time ago while the aircraft carrier was still out at sea, about a mile off of San Diego. And very smart and very politic, she was clad in white as sailors who were lining the deck -- they were holding California flags and symbolizing their new home.
She was met by the captain of the ship, Captain Jim Simons, and a select number of sailors who were also there to shake her hand. And she shook all those hands. At one point, she looked up at our camera position and I waved at her, and she waved back -- a much different Nancy Reagan than we saw just a month ago when she was bearing her husband, whose name is on this ship.
And this ship is an absolute testament to the 40th president. "Peace through strength" is the official motto for this ship. There's a museum to him, speeches, a piece of the Berlin Wall in there, statues and the like -- pictures of him and Nancy Reagan throughout the ship, everywhere, in all the galleys and the mess halls and the like.
Three thousand sailors now are home. For many of them, it's a brand new home here in San Diego. The ceremony will go for some more time today, and then they will get off that ship, and I can tell you, they are very excited to see their new home -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: I'll tell you what, Miguel. Let's listen to the national anthem for just a moment here and take this all in.
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O'BRIEN: That was the country-western group She-Daisy with the national anthem, and a flight of F-18s over the USS Ronald Reagan as, at long last, it returns to its homeport in the Port of San Diego. We'll be watching this ceremony as it unfolds and bring you more of it a little bit later. Kyra...
PHILLIPS: Nothing like a Navy flyover. Well, straight ahead, casualty of war, the Iraqi healthcare system -- that country appeals for help to heal the sick. We're live from Baghdad with a special report. Flying rumors and the search for a missing pregnant Utah woman. Her family speaks out about both ahead on LIVE FROM. And Laura and Jenna Bush ready to chat with you -- a new cyber stop on the campaign trail.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: Well, it's been a little over three weeks since sovereignty was handed back to the Iraqis, and so far, no let up in the violence. Gunmen killed an Iraqi general in a drive-by shooting in Mosul. That man retired from the military under Saddam Hussein, but had recently returned to military service.
US-led forces launched a strike against insurgents in Fallujah. A coalition statement says the attack was directed at about 12 fighters linked to terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Now, local residents say that strike injured five civilians, including three children. And just north of Baghdad, nine Iraqis were killed, 10 injured when a minibus collided with a tank. That bus was trying to pass another vehicle when it crashed.
Now, to add to Iraq's woes, that country is also facing a grave healthcare crisis. Officials say that vital drugs and medical equipment are in short supply, and security at hospitals remains a major problem. Matthew Chance has the latest on how the new interim government is tackling the crisis.
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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The cancer wards of the Child Welfare Hospital in Baghdad. These are always tragic places. But with the right treatment and enough drugs, there's always hope -- not here. Usraya (ph) and her son Hussein have been through agony together. At just one-and-a-half, he has a tumor the size of a fist inside him. In Iraq, the doctors can't help.
"The staff are doing their best for us," she says, "but the operation must be done outside. They've already opened up his stomach and couldn't remove the tumor," she says.
CHANCE: Iraqi health officials say lack of resources, money, training, and drugs is having a terrible impact on the sick.
ABDUL AMIR AL MUKHTAH, HOSPITAL DIRECTOR GENERAL: There's no question about that -- both suffering, yes, dying. We're certainly losing patients that we shouldn't lose.
CHANCE (on camera): Because of the lack of drugs and machinery.
MUKHTAH: Definitely. That's a definite factor.
CHANCE (voice-over): But it's not the only factor. This bombsite was a crowded surgical ward smashed in an insurgent rocket attack. Inside, there was carnage. Four people died, Dr. Hussein told me -- patients and visitors ripped to shreds. Not even sickbeds were a haven from the violence.
DR. RAFA AL HUSSEINI, SURGEON: Tens of patients discharged upon the hospital before we are complete or finishing from their treatments, even those wounded people who made their operation even in the morning yesterday -- they discharge from the hospital on their responsibility because they are afraid of the security situation of this hospital. CHANCE: And those who stay must risk poor hygiene and searing heat. Iraqi officials say they need an extra billion dollars to get this health service on its feet.
(on camera): These wards are no stranger to neglect. Under Saddam Hussein, UN sanctions and corruption all took their toll. But this is now the problem of the new Iraqi government. People are turning to them to solve it.
(voice-over): People like Alla Abbas (ph) and her three-year-old daughter Yad (ph), desperate for cancer drugs to keep her alive.
"We had no benefit from the previous regime, and now we have none from this one," she says.
CHANCE: Iraq's new government has enormous challenges ahead of it. Healing its people may be among the toughest.
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CHANCE: All right, well, it's not as if, Kyra, that there isn't anybody helping in this situation. Of course, there are. People are bringing in drugs. The Iraqi interim government is bringing in as many drugs as it can. But quite simply, though, the scale of the problem is so great that the authorities here are simply finding it hard to cope -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Matthew, you and I talked a little bit about -- there is a bit, I guess, a glimmer of something positive, and that is now that sanctions have been lifted, because there was a lot of blackmail that was going on, there are those getting care that never had a chance to get that care when Saddam Hussein was in power, is that correct?
CHANCE: Well, certainly, that's the theory. There were UN sanctions, of course, enforced here in Iraq for a decade, imposed by the United Nations. And under that regime, then, corruption became widespread. What drugs that were available were sold at extremely high prices on the black market and in the streets before they could be given free to the actual patients who need them in the hospitals.
The trouble is, is that system of corruption has become so endemic here in Iraq that it still continues to this day. Hospitals report that a lot of the drugs that are meant to be delivered to them never actually make it. They end up, again, being stolen and again sold on the flourishing black market outside.
PHILLIPS: It's like you want to pump a promotion for the health ministry to donate antibiotics and other drugs. Final question -- they have been able to stave off any kind of epidemic, right?
CHANCE: Yeah, I mean, that's one of the big things that the health ministry say they're extremely proud of, the fact that they have managed to hold things together to the extent that they've held off any major epidemics of things like cholera and diarrhea and things like that that people were concerned about -- public health issues with the quality of the water and things like that.
Perhaps they've had a degree of luck in that. Certainly, they're very open about the fact that there are a great deal of things that have to be done. A great deal of work has to be done just in the basic infrastructure of the hospitals, never mind the actual drugs, and the equipment, and the training for the doctors. The hospitals themselves are falling to pieces. The pipes are bursting, the air conditioning isn't working.
And believe me, in a country with a temperature as high as this, that's a really important factor that costs lives.
PHILLIPS: Pretty incredible report -- very eye-opening. We'll follow up with you. Matthew Chance, thanks so much. Miles...
O'BRIEN: Marion Jones' ex says the Olympic track star is not an innocent victim. He has some pretty blistering accusations about her in the Olympic doping scandal. We'll have details on that. A dead heat in the dog days of summer. Kerry and Bush tied as we set our sights at Boston...
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PHILLIPS: Now, to the track trials and tribulations of sprinter Marion Jones. The Olympian is already under investigation by anti- doping officials. Now, her ex-husband has reportedly told investigators she did use performance-enhancing drugs. C.J. Hunter reportedly says that he personally injected Jones with banned substances. "The San Francisco Chronicle" had that story today.
Chronicle reporter Mark Fainaru-Wada joins us now live with more. Appreciate you being with us -- let's get right into your article and these allegations. They're pretty dramatic.
MARK FAINARU-WADA, REPORTER, "THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE": Right, they are pretty dramatic allegations, in fact. You know, Mr. Hunter states that Marion Jones was using banned substances prior to, during, and after the Olympics. He talks about specific drugs she was using, things like human growth hormone, and EPO, and insulin, and a steroid called "the clear."
And he talks about her injecting herself, and he talks about him injecting herself, and having some of those drugs at the Sydney games.
PHILLIPS: Let's talk about specifically this one quote that you had in your article -- "At times, Hunter said he personally injected Jones with banned substances. He also reported seeing Jones inject herself with drugs at the residence that they shred in Australia." Give us a little background here. First of all, when they got divorced, didn't they sign an agreement that they wouldn't reveal or slam each other publicly? And second of all, I want you to talk about the credibility of Hunter also.
FAINARU-WADA: Sure, yes. They did sign a non-disclosure agreement at the time that they got divorced, and that's one of the things that comes up in Conte's statement to the federal government, is that they had signed this non-disclosure agreement, and Hunter had been abiding by that agreement, he states, and that Jones, though, wrote a book in which she was somewhat critical of him, and that he threatened to sue her, at one point, over that.
So I think, perhaps, he felt freed up to start talking about her. And then, certainly, that will pose some credibility issues. Mr. Hunter failed some steroid tests prior to Sydney and didn't end up competing. He's, you know, being portrayed as a bitter ex-husband. And, of course, the counter to that is people talking about the sort of wealth of circumstantial evidence that seems to lead the speculation about Marion Jones, as well as the, obviously, dramatic accusations by Hunter himself.
PHILLIPS: Let's talk about the athletes connected to BALCO. Let's remind our viewers about BALCO, because you talk about this in the article. And just talk about the sort of guilt by association here. You revealed that Marion Jones' name came up with the BALCO name. But there has been a lot of talk that this has been guilt by association, and she's really free and clear.
FAINARU-WADA: Yes, you know, I think people have talked about guilt by association with her as it relates to some of the men she's chosen to associate herself with in her life -- C.J. Hunter first. She ended up training at one point with Charlie Francis, the coach who admitted providing steroids to Canadian Olympian Ben Johnson. And then, of course, she's been with Tim Montgomery now, who we've reported previously, told the grand jury that he had been using banned substances.
So I think she's acknowledged, perhaps, some questionable choices previously, but says that that doesn't necessarily indicate she was using drugs. But there's also other sorts of information that the government or authorities perhaps believe, you know, lend itself to the question of whether she was using or not, which are things like suspected doping calendars, ledgers, checks, invoices, those kinds of things, which Ms. Jones' people say that she had nothing to do with.
PHILLIPS: It will be interesting to see if this, or does not, affect the Olympics. Mark Fainaru-Wada with the San Francisco Chronicle, we're following your stuff. Thank you so much.
FAINARU-WADA: It's been my pleasure. Thank you.
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