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U.S. Army to Send 1,500 Troops to Iraq for Elections; Lynndie England Returns to Court for Pretrial Motions; Scott Peterson Penalty Phase
Aired December 01, 2004 - 13:59 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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Fredricka Whitfield, in for Miles O'Brien.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
One hundred and fifty thousand troops for election day. That's said to be the thinking behind the Pentagon's decision to rush hundreds of reinforcements from the 82nd Airborne Division to Iraq and to prolong the tours of thousands of soldiers and Marines already there.
We get the details now from CNN's Kathleen Koch.
Kathleen, what do you know?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, this move that has been expected for weeks. Some 1,500 soldiers, basically two battalions from the 82nd Airborne Division, will be sent to Iraq from Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. Their mission, to beef up security in advance of the upcoming January 30 elections there.
This unit is called the Division-Ready Brigade. So they are prepared for missions like this at any moment, ready to leave within 18 hours anywhere in the world where they're needed.
Right now, what we're being told is that within a matter of days or weeks these forces will head to Iraq. The plan is for them to be in place for roughly four months. These actually -- these soldiers of the 82nd Airborne, they were also pressed into very similar service earlier this fall, back in October, when elections were held in Afghanistan.
Now, also at the same time, troops in the Army's 1st Cavalry Division and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit -- these are forces already on the ground in Iraq -- they will have their tours of duty extended, Kyra, past the elections. Again, to help provide more security.
PHILLIPS: Some other new news coming out today. And that is, when the Pentagon first got the rumblings of the abuse taking place at Abu Ghraib. What do you know? What have you found out?
KOCH: What we're learning is that apparently top military leaders may have learned as early as December of 2003 that abuse might be occurring at some detention facilities in Iraq. Pentagon officials confirm that a confidential report that was given to Army generals in December of 2003, one that elite Special Operations forces there might be abusing prisoners.
The author, Colonel Stuart Harrington, was called there to Iraq to basically see if there was a way to beef up the kind of information that they could get from interrogations at facilities like Abu Ghraib and others. And what we told by Pentagon officials is that, while he saw no abuse himself, he spoke to no one who had seen abuse, he did speak to medical personnel who had treated prisoners who appeared to have been beaten, he spoke to other top military leaders there. That led him to believe there was enough to recommend this is something that needed to be investigated, and Pentagon officials say indeed it was.
PHILLIPS: Kathleen Koch live from the Pentagon. Thanks -- Fred.
WHITFIELD: In North Carolina, Abu Ghraib is also being dredged up today at Ft. Bragg, site of pretrial hearings ahead of next month's scheduled court-martial of Private Lynndie England. CNN's Susan Candiotti is there -- Susan.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Looking trimmer about seven weeks after giving birth, Private First Class Lynndie England appearing in court for pretrial hearings here at Ft. Bragg. It's likely to be the last round of them before her court-martial, which is scheduled to begin here at Fort Bragg next month.
Now, this is the last chance for both sides to argue motions. The defense is going for broke, asking the judge for a number of things, including this, to throw out all those digital photos, hundreds of them taken inside Abu Ghraib prison, many of them showing alleged abuse. CDs, many of them turned over by Specialist Joseph Darby, who told investigators after he saw them, he was compelled to turn them in.
The defense also asking the judge to scuttle sworn statements made by Lynndie England to criminal investigators in Iraq in -- starting in January of this year. Criminal investigators testifying that Lynndie England during those statements was "very cooperative and pleasant and said that she understood her rights." The defense is trying to prove otherwise.
Now, England's own attorneys have referred to her as the poster child of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal because of now very familiar photos. You'll recall several of them, including one where Lynndie England is shown holding a prisoner on a leash, another one where she is shown pointing to a row of naked detainees.
Now, during pretrial testimony, the government presented some witnesses who said that she testified that she did all of this just for fun. The defense says otherwise, arguing that she is being made a scapegoat, that she and others were simply following orders to "soften up detainees before they were questioned."
Lynndie England, you will recall, faces 19 charges and, if convicted, would face up to 38 years in prison. The question is, will she plead guilty before trial?
Remember, she is a new mother. The father of the -- of her son is identified as Specialist Charles Graner, who is also scheduled to make an appearance at Ft. Hood, Texas, next month -- or just next week, rather.
Back to you.
WHITFIELD: Al right. Susan Candiotti at Ft. Bragg, in North Carolina. Thanks so much -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Elsewhere "Across America" this hour, tears and salutes for a New York firefighter killed while serving in the Army National Guard in Iraq. Thirty-nine-year-old Christian Engeldrum (ph) of Ladder Company 61 in the Bronx and the 105th Infantry in Iraq is the first New York firefighter to die there. FDNY says Engeldrum (ph) helped raise the first flag over ground zero after 9/11.
The world's top diplomat is diplomatically silent on a U.S. senator's insistence to resign. Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman overseas a probe of the U.N.'s pre-Iraq war Oil-for-Food program and lays blame for alleged malfeasance at Kofi Annan's doorstep.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. NORM COLEMAN (R), MINNESOTA: The bottom line is one man was in charge. And if we're going to get to the bottom of this, he's got to step back so that we can have trust and credibility and transparency in sorting out what happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: And he's not exactly resigning, not quite retiring, but NBC's Tom Brokaw is giving up the "Nightly News" anchor chair after his broadcast tonight. Our esteemed colleague has been the face and voice of NBC News since 1983. And at 64, says he looks forward to fishing, grandparenting and thinking about fewer things.
WHITFIELD: Well, turning now to crime and punishment in California, and life or death in the Scott Peterson murder trial. The defense is hoping to convince jurors that Peterson's life should be spared.
Our Rusty Dornin is covering the trial in Redwood City, California.
Hello, Rusty.
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, some say that will be an uphill battle, and it's not being led by defense attorney Mark Geragos, but his co-counsel, Pat Harris. This doesn't come as a great surprise, as some say that Geragos lost credibility with the jury.
Obviously they ruled against him and convicted Scott Peterson of first degree murder. Some say Pat Harris might have a better time in this case trying to convince them to save Scott Peterson's life.
In his open and very soft tones, speaking to the jury, he talked about the fact that they only knew him for five months and heard very bad things about Scott Peterson, but he was going to show them 30 years preceding that, and how Scott Peterson was a kind and generous person who often thought of others before he thought of himself. That there will be former employers, golf coaches, college professors, college roommates, a number of witnesses who will talk about the Scott Peterson they knew as a kind and generous person.
Now, this is very personal information that they want to lead with because they want to say this is a life worth saving. Legal analysts say, however, that Pat Harris may have made one serious omission.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM HAMMER, LEGAL ANALYST: I think the one thing that he didn't mention today, and I hope he mentions in his closing argument, I think he hinted at it today, was lingering doubt, when Pat Harris said, "This is a decision you have to be comfortable with in 20 years from now." I mean, I think he's going to come at the end of the case and basically say, can you be sure this crime happened exactly like the prosecution said it happened?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DORNIN: Now, Lee Peterson, Scott Peterson's father, is on the stand now. He spent about the first hour just talking about his own history, his paper route, where he was born, his parents, that sort of thing.
Now, some analysts are saying they're trying to gain distance between that very emotional testimony that was given by Sharon Rocha yesterday, which is why they're sort of trying to string this out. Lee Peterson will be the first. That will be followed by others, as I said, witnesses, former teachers, that sort of thing. And then the last witness will be Jackie Peterson, Scott Peterson's mother, who will make that final plael to spare her son's life -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right. Rusty Dornin in Redwood City. Thanks so much.
PHILLIPS: Well, it's been an amazing political statement by hundreds of thousands of people.
WHITFIELD: They've been taking to the streets in Ukraine protesting alleged election fraud. Straight ahead, we'll talk with an American who witnessed the voting problems firsthand.
PHILLIPS: And later on LIVE FROM, are you helping thieves steal from you without even realizing it?
And starting today, some of you can get your hands on your credit report for free. Details on that just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Democrats in Washington State have until Friday to decide whether to pay for a hand recount of the vote for governor. The state yesterday certified Republican Dino Rossi as the winner over Democratic attorney general Christine Gregoire, but his margin is only 42 votes.
Florida election supervisors want to replace Election Day with an 11-day voting season. The election chiefs also propose to do away with voting precincts. They're calling on the state legislature to approve the changes for 2006.
PHILLIPS: Ukrainian opposition and government negotiators have agreed to a way to a supreme court ruling now on the disputed presidential election. Talks resumed today after parliament passed a vote of no confidence in the government. Supporters of candidate Viktor Yushchenko charged Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych won the presidency in a rigged election.
Joining us now from Washington is an international elections observer. He just returned from Ukraine. Ron McNamara is deputy chief of staff of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Good to see you. Glad you're back safely, Ron.
RONALD MCNAMARA, COMMISSION ON SECURITY & COOPERATION IN EUROPE: Good to join you here.
PHILLIPS: Well, your stories were pretty fascinating about what you witnessed. Let's get right into it. When you were -- tell us the area you were in charge of, and start telling us these stories of fraud that you witnessed firsthand.
MCNAMARA: Sure. Our team was deployed in central Ukraine in a city of about 300,000 named Kidrovoga (ph).
PHILLIPS: All right. Now, tell me -- you sent us a number of pictures. I'm so glad you took digital pictures.
Tell us, first of all, about this one picture about this safe that was knocked over. You actually -- these are folks that tried to get in and vote, but I guess one of the candidates closed it down on -- tell us what happened.
MCNAMARA: Sure. The picture that you're looking at right now is actually at a court in the city.
What happened was, on election day, nearly 500 opposition members of polling commissions were summarily kicked off by the territorial election commission. In fact, at the station that I was at for the opening, there was an announcement at the beginning of the day at 8:00 in the morning that four more members had been kicked off.
In addition to that, at station 102, which was at the university in Kidrovoga (ph), the -- the pressure was so intense on some of the members of the commission by the government that they decided that the best thing was simply not to show up. That was a station at a dorm at a university. So obviously, the sympathies of those students would largely be in favor of the candidate, Mr. Yushchenko.
PHILLIPS: So basically you're saying commission members who were in support of the opposition and were supposed to be helping to get this election going in a fair manner were being threatened and being forced out of the jobs due to?
MCNAMARA: Well, actually what happened was the pro-Yanukovych people were the ones who were the no-shows. It was the opposition people who later in the day were able to break into the room where the safe that we've seen was located with the ballots and the voting lists and so forth, and they literally had to cut open that station.
And the station only opened at 4:10 in the afternoon. Our team visited there around 5:30 in the afternoon, and there were literally hundreds of students in line to vote.
One of our concerns was that the station stay open long enough to accommodate all of those individuals who wanted to vote. But obviously under these extenuating circumstances it was a question whether they would be able to vote.
PHILLIPS: Now, tell me about these missing ballots.
MCNAMARA: At the station that I observed for the closing, station number 98 in the city, there had been a problem because the pro-opposition chairman of the commission had been illegally thrown off of the commission. So his deputy, a supporter of Yanukovych, had been operating and running the -- that particular polling station pretty much all day.
The pro-opposition chairman was reinstated towards the end of the day. He was very concerned for his own safety.
And when we visited the station, he was expressing those concerns. And we made a point of saying we would probably be seeing him later in the evening, because at that point my intention was to go back to actually observe the situation there. Because there were a number of young sort of skin-head-type characters who were intimidating some of the people, including the opposition members of the election commission.
So we went back. When they closed the station and began the administrative functions, they discovered that 312 unmarked ballots were unaccounted for from that station.
So right there, there was a question, well, where are these ballots? When they proceeded to the count, it turned out that there were 970 votes for Mr. Yushchenko and 383 votes for Yanukovych. Basically -- go ahead.
PHILLIPS: You know I want to get in real quickly, because this is something that hasn't been talked a lot about here in the United States, and you were there, you saw this, Yushchenko, the opposition leader, actually was poisoned and at one point had to be taken out of the country?
MCNAMARA: That's true. During the campaign period, Mr. Yushchenko had to seek medical attention in Vienna. When he arrived in Vienna, the medical experts there determined that there had been some form of poisoning.
Actually, the materials they were not able and, as far as I know, have not been able to identify. But when Yushchenko came to -- to brief the election observers that I was part of, our teams, he looked physically significantly altered from his earlier appearances. And this is, as I understand it, a residual effect of this apparent poisoning that took place.
PHILLIPS: Amazing. Ron McNamara, chief of staff of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Also there as an international observer who actually witnessed the fraud that took place.
I'll be waiting for your book, Ron. Thank you very much.
MCNAMARA: Yes, right. Thank you.
PHILLIPS: All right -- Fred.
WHITFIELD: Well, a new television channel aimed at a niche market: America's nearly seven million Muslims. We'll go in depth with the network's founder about his first of its kind venture.
And it's the ultimate versatile vehicle, traveling on land, sea and air. Details on how it can be yours later on LIVE FROM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, in some parts of the country consumers can get free credit reports starting today. That's a good deal.
WHITFIELD: And online, too, I understand. Rhonda Schaffler joins us from the New York Stock Exchange with more on that -- Rhonda.
(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
Aired December 1, 2004 - 13:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Fredricka Whitfield, in for Miles O'Brien.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
One hundred and fifty thousand troops for election day. That's said to be the thinking behind the Pentagon's decision to rush hundreds of reinforcements from the 82nd Airborne Division to Iraq and to prolong the tours of thousands of soldiers and Marines already there.
We get the details now from CNN's Kathleen Koch.
Kathleen, what do you know?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, this move that has been expected for weeks. Some 1,500 soldiers, basically two battalions from the 82nd Airborne Division, will be sent to Iraq from Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. Their mission, to beef up security in advance of the upcoming January 30 elections there.
This unit is called the Division-Ready Brigade. So they are prepared for missions like this at any moment, ready to leave within 18 hours anywhere in the world where they're needed.
Right now, what we're being told is that within a matter of days or weeks these forces will head to Iraq. The plan is for them to be in place for roughly four months. These actually -- these soldiers of the 82nd Airborne, they were also pressed into very similar service earlier this fall, back in October, when elections were held in Afghanistan.
Now, also at the same time, troops in the Army's 1st Cavalry Division and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit -- these are forces already on the ground in Iraq -- they will have their tours of duty extended, Kyra, past the elections. Again, to help provide more security.
PHILLIPS: Some other new news coming out today. And that is, when the Pentagon first got the rumblings of the abuse taking place at Abu Ghraib. What do you know? What have you found out?
KOCH: What we're learning is that apparently top military leaders may have learned as early as December of 2003 that abuse might be occurring at some detention facilities in Iraq. Pentagon officials confirm that a confidential report that was given to Army generals in December of 2003, one that elite Special Operations forces there might be abusing prisoners.
The author, Colonel Stuart Harrington, was called there to Iraq to basically see if there was a way to beef up the kind of information that they could get from interrogations at facilities like Abu Ghraib and others. And what we told by Pentagon officials is that, while he saw no abuse himself, he spoke to no one who had seen abuse, he did speak to medical personnel who had treated prisoners who appeared to have been beaten, he spoke to other top military leaders there. That led him to believe there was enough to recommend this is something that needed to be investigated, and Pentagon officials say indeed it was.
PHILLIPS: Kathleen Koch live from the Pentagon. Thanks -- Fred.
WHITFIELD: In North Carolina, Abu Ghraib is also being dredged up today at Ft. Bragg, site of pretrial hearings ahead of next month's scheduled court-martial of Private Lynndie England. CNN's Susan Candiotti is there -- Susan.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Looking trimmer about seven weeks after giving birth, Private First Class Lynndie England appearing in court for pretrial hearings here at Ft. Bragg. It's likely to be the last round of them before her court-martial, which is scheduled to begin here at Fort Bragg next month.
Now, this is the last chance for both sides to argue motions. The defense is going for broke, asking the judge for a number of things, including this, to throw out all those digital photos, hundreds of them taken inside Abu Ghraib prison, many of them showing alleged abuse. CDs, many of them turned over by Specialist Joseph Darby, who told investigators after he saw them, he was compelled to turn them in.
The defense also asking the judge to scuttle sworn statements made by Lynndie England to criminal investigators in Iraq in -- starting in January of this year. Criminal investigators testifying that Lynndie England during those statements was "very cooperative and pleasant and said that she understood her rights." The defense is trying to prove otherwise.
Now, England's own attorneys have referred to her as the poster child of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal because of now very familiar photos. You'll recall several of them, including one where Lynndie England is shown holding a prisoner on a leash, another one where she is shown pointing to a row of naked detainees.
Now, during pretrial testimony, the government presented some witnesses who said that she testified that she did all of this just for fun. The defense says otherwise, arguing that she is being made a scapegoat, that she and others were simply following orders to "soften up detainees before they were questioned."
Lynndie England, you will recall, faces 19 charges and, if convicted, would face up to 38 years in prison. The question is, will she plead guilty before trial?
Remember, she is a new mother. The father of the -- of her son is identified as Specialist Charles Graner, who is also scheduled to make an appearance at Ft. Hood, Texas, next month -- or just next week, rather.
Back to you.
WHITFIELD: Al right. Susan Candiotti at Ft. Bragg, in North Carolina. Thanks so much -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Elsewhere "Across America" this hour, tears and salutes for a New York firefighter killed while serving in the Army National Guard in Iraq. Thirty-nine-year-old Christian Engeldrum (ph) of Ladder Company 61 in the Bronx and the 105th Infantry in Iraq is the first New York firefighter to die there. FDNY says Engeldrum (ph) helped raise the first flag over ground zero after 9/11.
The world's top diplomat is diplomatically silent on a U.S. senator's insistence to resign. Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman overseas a probe of the U.N.'s pre-Iraq war Oil-for-Food program and lays blame for alleged malfeasance at Kofi Annan's doorstep.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. NORM COLEMAN (R), MINNESOTA: The bottom line is one man was in charge. And if we're going to get to the bottom of this, he's got to step back so that we can have trust and credibility and transparency in sorting out what happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: And he's not exactly resigning, not quite retiring, but NBC's Tom Brokaw is giving up the "Nightly News" anchor chair after his broadcast tonight. Our esteemed colleague has been the face and voice of NBC News since 1983. And at 64, says he looks forward to fishing, grandparenting and thinking about fewer things.
WHITFIELD: Well, turning now to crime and punishment in California, and life or death in the Scott Peterson murder trial. The defense is hoping to convince jurors that Peterson's life should be spared.
Our Rusty Dornin is covering the trial in Redwood City, California.
Hello, Rusty.
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, some say that will be an uphill battle, and it's not being led by defense attorney Mark Geragos, but his co-counsel, Pat Harris. This doesn't come as a great surprise, as some say that Geragos lost credibility with the jury.
Obviously they ruled against him and convicted Scott Peterson of first degree murder. Some say Pat Harris might have a better time in this case trying to convince them to save Scott Peterson's life.
In his open and very soft tones, speaking to the jury, he talked about the fact that they only knew him for five months and heard very bad things about Scott Peterson, but he was going to show them 30 years preceding that, and how Scott Peterson was a kind and generous person who often thought of others before he thought of himself. That there will be former employers, golf coaches, college professors, college roommates, a number of witnesses who will talk about the Scott Peterson they knew as a kind and generous person.
Now, this is very personal information that they want to lead with because they want to say this is a life worth saving. Legal analysts say, however, that Pat Harris may have made one serious omission.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM HAMMER, LEGAL ANALYST: I think the one thing that he didn't mention today, and I hope he mentions in his closing argument, I think he hinted at it today, was lingering doubt, when Pat Harris said, "This is a decision you have to be comfortable with in 20 years from now." I mean, I think he's going to come at the end of the case and basically say, can you be sure this crime happened exactly like the prosecution said it happened?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DORNIN: Now, Lee Peterson, Scott Peterson's father, is on the stand now. He spent about the first hour just talking about his own history, his paper route, where he was born, his parents, that sort of thing.
Now, some analysts are saying they're trying to gain distance between that very emotional testimony that was given by Sharon Rocha yesterday, which is why they're sort of trying to string this out. Lee Peterson will be the first. That will be followed by others, as I said, witnesses, former teachers, that sort of thing. And then the last witness will be Jackie Peterson, Scott Peterson's mother, who will make that final plael to spare her son's life -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right. Rusty Dornin in Redwood City. Thanks so much.
PHILLIPS: Well, it's been an amazing political statement by hundreds of thousands of people.
WHITFIELD: They've been taking to the streets in Ukraine protesting alleged election fraud. Straight ahead, we'll talk with an American who witnessed the voting problems firsthand.
PHILLIPS: And later on LIVE FROM, are you helping thieves steal from you without even realizing it?
And starting today, some of you can get your hands on your credit report for free. Details on that just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Democrats in Washington State have until Friday to decide whether to pay for a hand recount of the vote for governor. The state yesterday certified Republican Dino Rossi as the winner over Democratic attorney general Christine Gregoire, but his margin is only 42 votes.
Florida election supervisors want to replace Election Day with an 11-day voting season. The election chiefs also propose to do away with voting precincts. They're calling on the state legislature to approve the changes for 2006.
PHILLIPS: Ukrainian opposition and government negotiators have agreed to a way to a supreme court ruling now on the disputed presidential election. Talks resumed today after parliament passed a vote of no confidence in the government. Supporters of candidate Viktor Yushchenko charged Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych won the presidency in a rigged election.
Joining us now from Washington is an international elections observer. He just returned from Ukraine. Ron McNamara is deputy chief of staff of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Good to see you. Glad you're back safely, Ron.
RONALD MCNAMARA, COMMISSION ON SECURITY & COOPERATION IN EUROPE: Good to join you here.
PHILLIPS: Well, your stories were pretty fascinating about what you witnessed. Let's get right into it. When you were -- tell us the area you were in charge of, and start telling us these stories of fraud that you witnessed firsthand.
MCNAMARA: Sure. Our team was deployed in central Ukraine in a city of about 300,000 named Kidrovoga (ph).
PHILLIPS: All right. Now, tell me -- you sent us a number of pictures. I'm so glad you took digital pictures.
Tell us, first of all, about this one picture about this safe that was knocked over. You actually -- these are folks that tried to get in and vote, but I guess one of the candidates closed it down on -- tell us what happened.
MCNAMARA: Sure. The picture that you're looking at right now is actually at a court in the city.
What happened was, on election day, nearly 500 opposition members of polling commissions were summarily kicked off by the territorial election commission. In fact, at the station that I was at for the opening, there was an announcement at the beginning of the day at 8:00 in the morning that four more members had been kicked off.
In addition to that, at station 102, which was at the university in Kidrovoga (ph), the -- the pressure was so intense on some of the members of the commission by the government that they decided that the best thing was simply not to show up. That was a station at a dorm at a university. So obviously, the sympathies of those students would largely be in favor of the candidate, Mr. Yushchenko.
PHILLIPS: So basically you're saying commission members who were in support of the opposition and were supposed to be helping to get this election going in a fair manner were being threatened and being forced out of the jobs due to?
MCNAMARA: Well, actually what happened was the pro-Yanukovych people were the ones who were the no-shows. It was the opposition people who later in the day were able to break into the room where the safe that we've seen was located with the ballots and the voting lists and so forth, and they literally had to cut open that station.
And the station only opened at 4:10 in the afternoon. Our team visited there around 5:30 in the afternoon, and there were literally hundreds of students in line to vote.
One of our concerns was that the station stay open long enough to accommodate all of those individuals who wanted to vote. But obviously under these extenuating circumstances it was a question whether they would be able to vote.
PHILLIPS: Now, tell me about these missing ballots.
MCNAMARA: At the station that I observed for the closing, station number 98 in the city, there had been a problem because the pro-opposition chairman of the commission had been illegally thrown off of the commission. So his deputy, a supporter of Yanukovych, had been operating and running the -- that particular polling station pretty much all day.
The pro-opposition chairman was reinstated towards the end of the day. He was very concerned for his own safety.
And when we visited the station, he was expressing those concerns. And we made a point of saying we would probably be seeing him later in the evening, because at that point my intention was to go back to actually observe the situation there. Because there were a number of young sort of skin-head-type characters who were intimidating some of the people, including the opposition members of the election commission.
So we went back. When they closed the station and began the administrative functions, they discovered that 312 unmarked ballots were unaccounted for from that station.
So right there, there was a question, well, where are these ballots? When they proceeded to the count, it turned out that there were 970 votes for Mr. Yushchenko and 383 votes for Yanukovych. Basically -- go ahead.
PHILLIPS: You know I want to get in real quickly, because this is something that hasn't been talked a lot about here in the United States, and you were there, you saw this, Yushchenko, the opposition leader, actually was poisoned and at one point had to be taken out of the country?
MCNAMARA: That's true. During the campaign period, Mr. Yushchenko had to seek medical attention in Vienna. When he arrived in Vienna, the medical experts there determined that there had been some form of poisoning.
Actually, the materials they were not able and, as far as I know, have not been able to identify. But when Yushchenko came to -- to brief the election observers that I was part of, our teams, he looked physically significantly altered from his earlier appearances. And this is, as I understand it, a residual effect of this apparent poisoning that took place.
PHILLIPS: Amazing. Ron McNamara, chief of staff of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Also there as an international observer who actually witnessed the fraud that took place.
I'll be waiting for your book, Ron. Thank you very much.
MCNAMARA: Yes, right. Thank you.
PHILLIPS: All right -- Fred.
WHITFIELD: Well, a new television channel aimed at a niche market: America's nearly seven million Muslims. We'll go in depth with the network's founder about his first of its kind venture.
And it's the ultimate versatile vehicle, traveling on land, sea and air. Details on how it can be yours later on LIVE FROM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, in some parts of the country consumers can get free credit reports starting today. That's a good deal.
WHITFIELD: And online, too, I understand. Rhonda Schaffler joins us from the New York Stock Exchange with more on that -- Rhonda.
(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
