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Secretary of State Colin Powell Tours Tsunami Devastation
Aired January 07, 2005 - 14:00 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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL: I have never seen such utter destruction, mile after mile. And you wonder, where are the people? What happened to them?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Disaster on an overwhelming scale. Some survivors make it to tent camps. We'll take you inside one of them.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: It's a story you'll see only on CNN. Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks with our John King as he tours the tsunami zone.
O'BRIEN: Civil rights murder arrest. Their killings inspired the movie "Mississippi Burning." Now 40 years after the crime, police finally arrest a suspect.
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 disaster in the making. Never before seen amateur video of the Indian Ocean tsunami consuming a Southern Indian coastline on the morning of December 26.
Twelve days later, an unprecedented international relief campaign is in full gear, or as the U.S. military puts it, at the top of the crisis curve.
The crisis, carnage, catastrophe all came into brutal focus today for the U.N.'s Kofi Annan, seen here in exclusive video from his helicopter tour of Indonesia's Aceh province.
The secretary general says he's never seen such utter destruction mile after mile. He called on nations that have pledged almost $4 billion in aid to make good on almost $1 billion of that by June.
The U.S. secretary of state today visited an aid distribution hub in the Sri Lankan capital. In reflections you'll hear only on CNN, Colin Powell told John King you've got to see the devastation to believe it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) COLIN POWELL, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: No briefing book, no television picture really can convey what really happened here.
As you drive through the town, to see all these fishing boats that have been tossed up on the shore, to see an 800-ton freighter -- literally was taken out of the ocean and simply plopped on a wharf. And it sits there until something big enough can come along and get it off.
And to hear stories about young children or children who saw the tide go out suddenly, and not knowing what that meant, ran down to the beach to see why the tide went out so suddenly and picking up fish only a few minutes later to see this monstrous wave coming and taking their lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Powell says the $10 million of the U.S. aid embarked for Sri Lanka will go to jobs programs aimed at cleanup and reconstruction.
O'BRIEN: CNN remains your most comprehensive source of tsunami reporting, 19 correspondents and anchors backed by dozens of producers and crews in four countries.
Among those faces, the host of CNN's "NEWSNIGHT," Aaron Brown, at a refugee camp in Northern Indonesia.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AARON BROWN, CNN "NEWSNIGHT WITH AARON BROWN" HOST: This is the office to the refugee camp. And it's, as you can see, plastered with pictures of people who are missing.
Up in the corner, 3-year-old Mohammed Usef Harwan (ph) missing, as are tens of thousands of others in Indonesia.
Here there are 5,500 people who have been found, many of them children, 16 of them, we believe, orphaned. They are living, as you can see, in whatever sort of tent can be set up.
The Chinese government medical unit has set up a tent here.
This camp is being run by university students, who just got together and set it up. Relief agencies come in a couple times a day to distribute food and water.
There is -- Tom, if we can just walk past here a little bit. In this building up here, the Jordanian medical team has set up a surgical center. And they are doing field surgery, mostly broken limbs and trying to get people in splints and in casts as best they can.
No one here has any idea how long they will stay here. Many of them, in truth, have no idea how they got here in the first place. But what they do know is that they are here, and that they are being fed, and there is water, and there is attention.
And they are a lot better off than many people in Indonesia today for that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: That's Aaron Brown.
A troubling sign of the times in Aceh relief camp set up and run by a group called Laskar Mujahidin, Islamists with suspected ties to al Qaeda. There is a sign in the camp, in English, which reads Islamic law enforcement.
Members of the group say they are simply gathering corpses, giving out food and preaching Islam.
PHILLIPS: Around the clock airlift to the Sri Lankan capital has filled to overflowing a warehouse the size of two football fields. Today, U.S. Marines began taking that aid to the people who need it one helicopter load at a time.
CNN's, Satinder Bindra is in Colombo.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SATINDER BINDRA, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Marines on the move as another U.S. transport lands at Colombo's international airport. Staff sergeant Claude Pyle and his men race to check the equipment and supplies on board.
A father of three, Sergeant Pyle of New York City believes this is one of the most important missions ever, both for him and his men.
STAFF SGT. CLAUDE PYLE, U.S. MARINE: What do they want to be doing right now? More. More. More, sir.
BINDRA: Since arriving in Sri Lanka just a few days ago, Sergeant Pyle and his Marines have been organizing logistics.
More than 45 countries are airlifting 750 tons of supplies, everything from baby milk, rice and water through this airport every day.
Relief workers describe the crash (ph) as competitive compassion. And Marines are at the center of it all.
BINDRA (on camera): These Marines are tasked with off loading every single plane from any corner of the world that lands here. They're also organizing the delivery of heavy machinery and other material to be used in rebuilding large parts of Sri Lanka.
(voice-over) Once supplies are taken off planes, they are brought to this giant, football field-sized warehouse. Here a team of international volunteers first stacks and then organizes their onward journey.
Faisal Salehi from Maska (ph) has been working nonstop for the past week.
FAISAL SALEHI, VOLUNTEER: We are still alive. If we don't help these people, who will help them? We have to do that.
BINDRA: Sergeant Pyle agrees. He says this tragedy is bringing about a rare unity among nations, private companies and soldiers.
PYLE: We all fight for the same cause. We all want to do the same thing. And that's just help the people here.
BINDRA: The Sri Lankans are grateful that with so much international aid they are now solely focusing on recovery.
Satinder Bindra, CNN, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Kofi Annan says an unprecedented catastrophe requires an unprecedented, global response. And that's just what we've been witnessing -- almost $4 billion in aid committed by public sources alone.
But Annan also notes the difference between pledges and contributions, between promises and hard reality month after the fact.
CNN's Bill Schneider looks at the phenomenon some call disaster fatigue.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): Remember Bam? A terrible earthquake hit that city in Southeast Iran on December 26, 2003, exactly one year before the Indian Ocean's tsunami.
Around 26,000 people perished.
ADAM ERELI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: The United States was -- responded quickly and meaningfully in response to this humanitarian crisis, precipitated by the Bam earthquake about this time last year.
SCHNEIDER: The problem has been sustaining the commitment.
JAN EGELAND, U.N. UNDERSECRETARY GENERAL: We have are not -- have not -- forgotten the pledges that were made to come.
SCHNEIDER: World leaders have now committed themselves to a much bigger relief effort after the much bigger tsunami disaster.
ANNAN: We've got over $2 billion, but it is quite likely that at the end of the day we will not receive all of it.
I think you heard about the Bam earthquake in Iran. We got lots of pledges, but we did not receive all the money.
SCHNEIDER: The threat is one of disaster fatigue. Leaders are already warning about it. SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: We're talking not a couple weeks, we're talking years of us being more deeply involved in that region of the world.
SCHNEIDER: To cope with disaster fatigue, you have to keep problems in the spotlight. President Bush tried to do that in September when he drew attention to the shocking situation in the Sudan, where more than 70,000 people have died and nearly two million have been driven from their homes.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: At this hour, the world is witnessing terrible suffering and horrible crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan, crimes my government has concluded are genocide.
SCHNEIDER: Nelson Mandela tried to do that by personalizing in the AIDS crisis that is claiming the lives of more than two million Africans a year.
NELSON MANDELA, FORMER SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT: That is the only way in which we can make people understand that HIV is an ordinary illness. And that's why we have come here today to announce, Mak (ph), my son, has died of AIDS.
SCHNEIDER (on camera): Compelling personal stories remain the best way to fight disaster fatigue, which is becoming more of a problem now that news cycles have gotten faster and attention spans shorter.
Bill Schneider, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Don't forget to join CNN at 7:00 Eastern for our prime time special report tonight, "Turning the Tide." Reporters, anchors and correspondence of ours will bring us the latest on the tsunami crisis.
PHILLIPS: Assignment Iraq, President Bush calls the upcoming election an historic moment in the history of the country, but concerns about the security situation are growing.
But prompting the Pentagon to send in a retired four-star general and a temporary boost in Army troop levels may become permanent.
CNN pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, joins us now with the details -- Barbara?
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, perhaps a sign that things are not going quite as expected in Iraq, indeed.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is sending one of his behind the scenes advisers, retired four-star general, Gary Luck, to Iraq.
General Luck is the former commander of U.S. forces in South Korea. He has worked the Iraq problem before for the pentagon. And he is going to go take a look at the situation there.
Tops on his list will be the status of Iraq security forces, how well they are doing, how trained and equipped and ready they are. And so far, that situation is very problematic. There are growing concerns that Iraqi security forces are performing very unevenly.
Now, President Bush earlier today talked about this mission.
BUSH: And that's precisely why the assessment team is going to Iraq, to make sure that at this historic moment in the history of Iraq there is a focused, determined strategy to help the new government and the new -- the new government to stand up to forces necessary to defend themselves.
STARR: And whether the Iraqis can really defend themselves is the key question right now.
Let's take a look at the numbers -- 121,000 Iraqi security forces trained of the 273,000 required. But what U.S. military officials are coming to say privately is that the Iraqis simply are performing quite unevenly. Some units are doing OK, but there are a lot of Iraqi units that are not.
The assessment, we are told by these officials, is that many Iraqi units lack the confidence, the leadership and basically the structure organization capability to really fight as a coherent force in defense of their country.
There is a feeling, top officials say, that the Iraqis remain very vulnerable to intimidation. So one solution, we are told, that is on the table is to put more U.S. military advisory teams with those Iraqi units, that if they fight side-by-side, that will boost their confidence, that U.S. forces will be with them, able to call in air strikes, ground support when it's needed, and that this may help.
But Kyra, the feeling here by military officials is they have to solve this problem. The June 30 elections are approaching. There's every expectation that there will be more violence.
And the feeling is that the only way to defeat the insurgency in the long run is to have the Iraqi security forces take on that job and do it. And they are not yet ready -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: Barbara Starr, live from the Pentagon, thanks.
O'BRIEN: The election in Iraq will be a milestone moment there, but it's also going to be a big event in Nashville, Detroit and several other cities well outside Falluja.
Ahead, we'll talk with an Iraqi in the U.S. who will cast his vote from thousands of miles away.
Forty years after the crime, this man now charged with murder in the civil rights era that inspired the movie "Mississippi Burning." We'll have a live report on that. And a paid pundit. Revelations that a conservative talk show host, one familiar to viewers here, is paid -- or was paid -- by the department of education to promote a Bush program. Shouldn't he have told us?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: More than 40 years ago, three killings inspired national support for the growing civil rights movement. Now, a man finally is charged with the murders.
CNN's Eric Phillips joins us from Philadelphia, Mississippi, where Edgar Ray Killen appeared in court today -- Eric?
ERIC PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, we are here in front of the Neshoba County courthouse were Edgar Ray Killen did make that appearance today. A lot of people will tell you that for them this has been a long time coming.
Seventy-nine-year-old Edgar Ray Killen made his way here around 11:00 a.m. local time. He looked rather frail, was totally cooperative with authorities. He made his way into court.
Just before he got there, though, his family got there, very emotional, somewhat hostile toward the media. His family did not want to have any comment whatsoever today.
But when he got to court, he made it very clear that to the charges of murder, he was not guilty.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Twenty-one-year-old James Cheney, 20- year-old Andrew Goodman and 24-year-old Michael Schwerner, three civil rights workers killed in the summer of 1964 in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Now, more than 40 years later, the first person to face state murder charges in this case has been arrested. Edgar Ray Killen was indicted Thursday by a grand jury. This is a case many in this community will never forget.
The three men had come to Philadelphia to investigate the burning of a black church where some of their voter registration efforts had been taking place. The men were pulled over by local authorities after leaving the church, arrested and taken to jail.
Hours later, they were released, only to drive into a deadly trap on a dark road.
Ku Klux Klan members forced them to stop, beat them, shot them and buried their bodies in a nearby earthen dam. Killen is being held without bail in the Neshoba County jail charged with the three murders.
Back in 1967, Killen was one of 19 who faced federal conspiracy charges in the killings. Seven of the accused were convicted, but his case ended in a mistrial.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: The indictment of Edgar Ray Killen is the result of the Mississippi attorney general, Jim Hood, reopening this case last year and presenting lots of evidence to a grand jury.
Many in this community are hoping that others who were involved in the murders of these three that are still alive now will also be indicted. However, I talked to the district attorney today after today's arraignment, and he said, that's not likely -- Miles?
O'BRIEN: Eric Phillips in Philadelphia, Mississippi -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: Secretary of State Colin Powell tours the tsunami disaster zone and gives us an exclusive interview, to our John King, about being the odd man out in Washington and about his future after the Bush cabinet.
It's a story you'll see only on CNN. We'll have it for you straight ahead.
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I'm David Haffenreffer at the New York Stock Exchange.
The December jobs report is out. I'll tell you how Wall Street feels about the numbers coming up on LIVE FROM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Conservative -- excuse me. Conservative talk show host, Armstrong Williams, a frequent guest here on CNN, CNN LIVE FROM, as well, has been a big booster of President Bush's leave no child behind education program.
And no wonder -- the Bush administration reportedly paid him nearly a quarter million dollars to promote it, and urged other black journalists to do just the same.
Now White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, says the deal apparently was worked out through the department of education. And the contract ended last week.
Earlier today, Williams defended taking the money in an interview with Bill Hemmer on AMERICAN MORNING.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL HEMMER, CNN "AMERICAN MORNING" ANCHOR: Armstrong Williams with me from D.C., and good morning to you.
ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Bill. How are you?
HEMMER: I'm doing fine. What did you do in return for the money? WILLIAMS: Well, Bill, the -- we were subcontracted to Catch Em (ph). And what we were doing, they used our media. We own our syndication, The Right Side, where we syndicate our shows all of the country.
And with many of the affiliates, we have to pay them. And especially, in particular markets that they wanted this "no child left behind" to be on their airwaves. They paid for advertising time is what they paid for.
And in addition to that, which is what our contract called for -- I made it clear because it's something that I really believed in as a commentator, something I wrote often about -- that I would use my contacts with people that I knew in different media outlets from time to time to get them to talk about "no child left behind."
HEMMER: OK. Stop there -- a couple of questions here.
Did you disclose to your readers, did you disclose to your viewers about the transaction?
WILLIAMS: Listen, I disclosed to different people whose airwaves that we use. I disclosed it to different commentators. I don't -- I can't recall whether I disclosed it to the audience or not.
HEMMER: Right, but part of your job is to persuade people, right? And part of your job is to present arguments that you believe in. And if you did present those arguments and were getting money in return for it, why not tell people?
WILLIAMS: Well, you know, it's not as if it was an issue that I did not want to tell them. If the issue did come up on the air, I made it very clear that we had a professional relationship where "no child left behind" was using our media as advertising.
It was advertising. It's not as if we were paid. People look at the article and say we were paid $240,000. It was in advertising. They used our media.
We taped a one minute commercial with Secretary Paige where we produced -- we did for about 20 minutes, and we produced a one minute commercial. He had two, one minute commercial spots in our shows, on our commercial reel.
HEMMER: Stop again -- sorry.
You made money off this, right?
WILLIAMS: Our company did. We made money, yes.
HEMMER: In turn, you did because you are employed by the company.
How often would you...
WILLIAMS: No, no, no -- not employed by the company, I own the company.
HEMMER: OK, well...
WILLIAMS: There's a difference.
HEMMER: ... even better.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
HEMMER: How often did you come here on CNN and promote what you talked about, or wrote about or were, in turn, paid for?
WILLIAMS: Well, you know, I can't recall that because when I'm on CNN, we talk about issues of Iraq, when I'm on Wolf Blitzer's show, when I'm on "CNN MORNING."
I can't even recall if there has ever been a time that we talked about "no child left behind." But certainly if the issue arises, it's very possible. I'm certainly going to talk about it because I'm an advocate for it.
HEMMER: Through our research, it appears back in October, on the 18th of October, you came on and talked about that very thing.
Do you recall that discussion? Do you recall that conversation?
WILLIAMS: Oh, I wouldn't recall it, but it's quite possible. I mean, I appear on your broadcast quite often. And "no child left behind" is an issue that was consistently in the media for the last two years.
HEMMER: Let me just and clarify this.
Can you understand how someone, you know, colleagues in the business here would consider this to be unethical possibly, perhaps with a bit of an odor that comes from it if, indeed, you're promoting values and ideas in programs in exchange for cash?
WILLIAMS: Well, certainly I understand that. In fact, I made it clear in my interview with Greg yesterday, from "USA Today." I can certainly understand how some people would feel that it was unethical.
You know, the thing about our shows, Bill, which I think you need to understand, many of the affiliates that we broadcast on, we can not use paid advertisers. Unless it's a public service announcement, many of our affiliates will not run it.
In our commercial reel, 90 percent of our commercials are PSAs. In the history of The Right Side Productions, the only advertisers that we've ever had is the National Rifle Association, since the beginning, "Forest (ph) Magazine" in the beginning, and just Anderson Brothers Bank out of my home town of Marion, South Carolina.
It's rare that we have paid advertisers. And so, yes, I understand. But the reason why this was able to work because not only was this a public service announcement, and so it passed the muster (ph) for some of our affiliates.
But I understand the conflict...
HEMMER: Sure.
WILLIAMS: ... and I understand why people would be concerned.
HEMMER: One more thing here. We've got to run. I'm sorry. I'm out of time.
Would you do it again?
WILLIAMS: It's a judgment call. I have no problem with...
HEMMER: But if you do it again, would you tell folks? Would you tell your listeners and viewers?
WILLIAMS: I definitely -- I think I have an obligation to be more vociferous about the fact that they are advertising on our programming. And I definitely should acknowledge that to the public, yes.
HEMMER: Well, thanks for coming and clearing it up. We wanted to get your side of the story, and you gave it to us. So thanks, Armstrong.
WILLIAMS: Well, thank you. I appreciate your having me.
HEMMER: Armstrong Williams down there in D.C.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: All right. This just in to CNN.
We have a statement on all of this from the department of education. Not specifically linked to any one individual, just listed as a statement from the department of education.
It says, "the department's prime public relations contractor had sought avenues to" re, re -- excuse me -- "reach minority parents such as Right Side," which is Mr. Williams company.
"The contract paid to provide the straightforward distribution of information about the department's mission on no child left behind, a permissible use of taxpayer funds under legal government contracting procedures."
And meanwhile, there are some Democrats in the Senate, Senator Frank Lautenberg has written the president -- I've got the letter right here -- asking that he get the money back from Armstrong Williams and Right Side.
We're going to hash that out with him in the 3:00 p.m. Eastern hour. He'll be our guest then -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: All right, well Wall Street has been waiting for it all week, the December jobs report.
O'BRIEN: David Haffenreffer in New York. Hello, David.
HAFFENREFFER: Hello, Miles. Hello, Kyra.
Yesterday's December employment report shows a bit of a pickup in hiring, but it still came in a bit shy of expectations. The economy created 157,000 jobs last month. That's roughly what's needed to keep up with population growth.
Retailers surprisingly shed jobs during the holiday season due to the seasonal adjustments made by the labor department. But construction, manufacturing and temporary workers were added to the workforce.
In addition, job totals for both October and November were revised slightly to the upside. And the unemployment rate remained at 5.4 percent.
For all of last year, if you're counting, 2.2 million jobs were created. Compare that to 2003 when 61,000 jobs were lost.
But it's still an Achilles heel in the economic recovery for the administration. Since President Bush took office four years ago, the economy has lost 122,000 jobs -- Kyra, Miles?
PHILLIPS: All right. Let's talk about how the markets reacted to the numbers -- David?
HAFFENREFFER: A reaction indeed. Somewhat of a listless market today, stocks have been bouncing in and out of the plus column today. Investors trying to assess what the jobs report means for interest rates.
Some say it takes some pressure off the federal reserve to act aggressively within the next few months. The fed had spooked investors earlier this week when minutes released from its last meeting raised some concerns about inflation. Those concerns are still keeping investors somewhat cautious.
Right now, the Dow Jones industrial average virtually unchanged now, lower by just 0.60, 10,622. NASDAQ is up a third of a percent.
That is the latest from Wall Street.
Coming up, a month ago the big concern was there wouldn't be enough of the flu vaccine to go around. But now, some of the shots could go to waste. I'll tell you why later this hour.
Stay tuned.
LIVE FROM is back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired January 7, 2005 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL: I have never seen such utter destruction, mile after mile. And you wonder, where are the people? What happened to them?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Disaster on an overwhelming scale. Some survivors make it to tent camps. We'll take you inside one of them.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: It's a story you'll see only on CNN. Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks with our John King as he tours the tsunami zone.
O'BRIEN: Civil rights murder arrest. Their killings inspired the movie "Mississippi Burning." Now 40 years after the crime, police finally arrest a suspect.
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 disaster in the making. Never before seen amateur video of the Indian Ocean tsunami consuming a Southern Indian coastline on the morning of December 26.
Twelve days later, an unprecedented international relief campaign is in full gear, or as the U.S. military puts it, at the top of the crisis curve.
The crisis, carnage, catastrophe all came into brutal focus today for the U.N.'s Kofi Annan, seen here in exclusive video from his helicopter tour of Indonesia's Aceh province.
The secretary general says he's never seen such utter destruction mile after mile. He called on nations that have pledged almost $4 billion in aid to make good on almost $1 billion of that by June.
The U.S. secretary of state today visited an aid distribution hub in the Sri Lankan capital. In reflections you'll hear only on CNN, Colin Powell told John King you've got to see the devastation to believe it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) COLIN POWELL, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: No briefing book, no television picture really can convey what really happened here.
As you drive through the town, to see all these fishing boats that have been tossed up on the shore, to see an 800-ton freighter -- literally was taken out of the ocean and simply plopped on a wharf. And it sits there until something big enough can come along and get it off.
And to hear stories about young children or children who saw the tide go out suddenly, and not knowing what that meant, ran down to the beach to see why the tide went out so suddenly and picking up fish only a few minutes later to see this monstrous wave coming and taking their lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Powell says the $10 million of the U.S. aid embarked for Sri Lanka will go to jobs programs aimed at cleanup and reconstruction.
O'BRIEN: CNN remains your most comprehensive source of tsunami reporting, 19 correspondents and anchors backed by dozens of producers and crews in four countries.
Among those faces, the host of CNN's "NEWSNIGHT," Aaron Brown, at a refugee camp in Northern Indonesia.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AARON BROWN, CNN "NEWSNIGHT WITH AARON BROWN" HOST: This is the office to the refugee camp. And it's, as you can see, plastered with pictures of people who are missing.
Up in the corner, 3-year-old Mohammed Usef Harwan (ph) missing, as are tens of thousands of others in Indonesia.
Here there are 5,500 people who have been found, many of them children, 16 of them, we believe, orphaned. They are living, as you can see, in whatever sort of tent can be set up.
The Chinese government medical unit has set up a tent here.
This camp is being run by university students, who just got together and set it up. Relief agencies come in a couple times a day to distribute food and water.
There is -- Tom, if we can just walk past here a little bit. In this building up here, the Jordanian medical team has set up a surgical center. And they are doing field surgery, mostly broken limbs and trying to get people in splints and in casts as best they can.
No one here has any idea how long they will stay here. Many of them, in truth, have no idea how they got here in the first place. But what they do know is that they are here, and that they are being fed, and there is water, and there is attention.
And they are a lot better off than many people in Indonesia today for that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: That's Aaron Brown.
A troubling sign of the times in Aceh relief camp set up and run by a group called Laskar Mujahidin, Islamists with suspected ties to al Qaeda. There is a sign in the camp, in English, which reads Islamic law enforcement.
Members of the group say they are simply gathering corpses, giving out food and preaching Islam.
PHILLIPS: Around the clock airlift to the Sri Lankan capital has filled to overflowing a warehouse the size of two football fields. Today, U.S. Marines began taking that aid to the people who need it one helicopter load at a time.
CNN's, Satinder Bindra is in Colombo.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SATINDER BINDRA, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Marines on the move as another U.S. transport lands at Colombo's international airport. Staff sergeant Claude Pyle and his men race to check the equipment and supplies on board.
A father of three, Sergeant Pyle of New York City believes this is one of the most important missions ever, both for him and his men.
STAFF SGT. CLAUDE PYLE, U.S. MARINE: What do they want to be doing right now? More. More. More, sir.
BINDRA: Since arriving in Sri Lanka just a few days ago, Sergeant Pyle and his Marines have been organizing logistics.
More than 45 countries are airlifting 750 tons of supplies, everything from baby milk, rice and water through this airport every day.
Relief workers describe the crash (ph) as competitive compassion. And Marines are at the center of it all.
BINDRA (on camera): These Marines are tasked with off loading every single plane from any corner of the world that lands here. They're also organizing the delivery of heavy machinery and other material to be used in rebuilding large parts of Sri Lanka.
(voice-over) Once supplies are taken off planes, they are brought to this giant, football field-sized warehouse. Here a team of international volunteers first stacks and then organizes their onward journey.
Faisal Salehi from Maska (ph) has been working nonstop for the past week.
FAISAL SALEHI, VOLUNTEER: We are still alive. If we don't help these people, who will help them? We have to do that.
BINDRA: Sergeant Pyle agrees. He says this tragedy is bringing about a rare unity among nations, private companies and soldiers.
PYLE: We all fight for the same cause. We all want to do the same thing. And that's just help the people here.
BINDRA: The Sri Lankans are grateful that with so much international aid they are now solely focusing on recovery.
Satinder Bindra, CNN, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Kofi Annan says an unprecedented catastrophe requires an unprecedented, global response. And that's just what we've been witnessing -- almost $4 billion in aid committed by public sources alone.
But Annan also notes the difference between pledges and contributions, between promises and hard reality month after the fact.
CNN's Bill Schneider looks at the phenomenon some call disaster fatigue.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): Remember Bam? A terrible earthquake hit that city in Southeast Iran on December 26, 2003, exactly one year before the Indian Ocean's tsunami.
Around 26,000 people perished.
ADAM ERELI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: The United States was -- responded quickly and meaningfully in response to this humanitarian crisis, precipitated by the Bam earthquake about this time last year.
SCHNEIDER: The problem has been sustaining the commitment.
JAN EGELAND, U.N. UNDERSECRETARY GENERAL: We have are not -- have not -- forgotten the pledges that were made to come.
SCHNEIDER: World leaders have now committed themselves to a much bigger relief effort after the much bigger tsunami disaster.
ANNAN: We've got over $2 billion, but it is quite likely that at the end of the day we will not receive all of it.
I think you heard about the Bam earthquake in Iran. We got lots of pledges, but we did not receive all the money.
SCHNEIDER: The threat is one of disaster fatigue. Leaders are already warning about it. SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: We're talking not a couple weeks, we're talking years of us being more deeply involved in that region of the world.
SCHNEIDER: To cope with disaster fatigue, you have to keep problems in the spotlight. President Bush tried to do that in September when he drew attention to the shocking situation in the Sudan, where more than 70,000 people have died and nearly two million have been driven from their homes.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: At this hour, the world is witnessing terrible suffering and horrible crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan, crimes my government has concluded are genocide.
SCHNEIDER: Nelson Mandela tried to do that by personalizing in the AIDS crisis that is claiming the lives of more than two million Africans a year.
NELSON MANDELA, FORMER SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT: That is the only way in which we can make people understand that HIV is an ordinary illness. And that's why we have come here today to announce, Mak (ph), my son, has died of AIDS.
SCHNEIDER (on camera): Compelling personal stories remain the best way to fight disaster fatigue, which is becoming more of a problem now that news cycles have gotten faster and attention spans shorter.
Bill Schneider, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Don't forget to join CNN at 7:00 Eastern for our prime time special report tonight, "Turning the Tide." Reporters, anchors and correspondence of ours will bring us the latest on the tsunami crisis.
PHILLIPS: Assignment Iraq, President Bush calls the upcoming election an historic moment in the history of the country, but concerns about the security situation are growing.
But prompting the Pentagon to send in a retired four-star general and a temporary boost in Army troop levels may become permanent.
CNN pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, joins us now with the details -- Barbara?
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, perhaps a sign that things are not going quite as expected in Iraq, indeed.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is sending one of his behind the scenes advisers, retired four-star general, Gary Luck, to Iraq.
General Luck is the former commander of U.S. forces in South Korea. He has worked the Iraq problem before for the pentagon. And he is going to go take a look at the situation there.
Tops on his list will be the status of Iraq security forces, how well they are doing, how trained and equipped and ready they are. And so far, that situation is very problematic. There are growing concerns that Iraqi security forces are performing very unevenly.
Now, President Bush earlier today talked about this mission.
BUSH: And that's precisely why the assessment team is going to Iraq, to make sure that at this historic moment in the history of Iraq there is a focused, determined strategy to help the new government and the new -- the new government to stand up to forces necessary to defend themselves.
STARR: And whether the Iraqis can really defend themselves is the key question right now.
Let's take a look at the numbers -- 121,000 Iraqi security forces trained of the 273,000 required. But what U.S. military officials are coming to say privately is that the Iraqis simply are performing quite unevenly. Some units are doing OK, but there are a lot of Iraqi units that are not.
The assessment, we are told by these officials, is that many Iraqi units lack the confidence, the leadership and basically the structure organization capability to really fight as a coherent force in defense of their country.
There is a feeling, top officials say, that the Iraqis remain very vulnerable to intimidation. So one solution, we are told, that is on the table is to put more U.S. military advisory teams with those Iraqi units, that if they fight side-by-side, that will boost their confidence, that U.S. forces will be with them, able to call in air strikes, ground support when it's needed, and that this may help.
But Kyra, the feeling here by military officials is they have to solve this problem. The June 30 elections are approaching. There's every expectation that there will be more violence.
And the feeling is that the only way to defeat the insurgency in the long run is to have the Iraqi security forces take on that job and do it. And they are not yet ready -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: Barbara Starr, live from the Pentagon, thanks.
O'BRIEN: The election in Iraq will be a milestone moment there, but it's also going to be a big event in Nashville, Detroit and several other cities well outside Falluja.
Ahead, we'll talk with an Iraqi in the U.S. who will cast his vote from thousands of miles away.
Forty years after the crime, this man now charged with murder in the civil rights era that inspired the movie "Mississippi Burning." We'll have a live report on that. And a paid pundit. Revelations that a conservative talk show host, one familiar to viewers here, is paid -- or was paid -- by the department of education to promote a Bush program. Shouldn't he have told us?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: More than 40 years ago, three killings inspired national support for the growing civil rights movement. Now, a man finally is charged with the murders.
CNN's Eric Phillips joins us from Philadelphia, Mississippi, where Edgar Ray Killen appeared in court today -- Eric?
ERIC PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, we are here in front of the Neshoba County courthouse were Edgar Ray Killen did make that appearance today. A lot of people will tell you that for them this has been a long time coming.
Seventy-nine-year-old Edgar Ray Killen made his way here around 11:00 a.m. local time. He looked rather frail, was totally cooperative with authorities. He made his way into court.
Just before he got there, though, his family got there, very emotional, somewhat hostile toward the media. His family did not want to have any comment whatsoever today.
But when he got to court, he made it very clear that to the charges of murder, he was not guilty.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Twenty-one-year-old James Cheney, 20- year-old Andrew Goodman and 24-year-old Michael Schwerner, three civil rights workers killed in the summer of 1964 in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Now, more than 40 years later, the first person to face state murder charges in this case has been arrested. Edgar Ray Killen was indicted Thursday by a grand jury. This is a case many in this community will never forget.
The three men had come to Philadelphia to investigate the burning of a black church where some of their voter registration efforts had been taking place. The men were pulled over by local authorities after leaving the church, arrested and taken to jail.
Hours later, they were released, only to drive into a deadly trap on a dark road.
Ku Klux Klan members forced them to stop, beat them, shot them and buried their bodies in a nearby earthen dam. Killen is being held without bail in the Neshoba County jail charged with the three murders.
Back in 1967, Killen was one of 19 who faced federal conspiracy charges in the killings. Seven of the accused were convicted, but his case ended in a mistrial.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: The indictment of Edgar Ray Killen is the result of the Mississippi attorney general, Jim Hood, reopening this case last year and presenting lots of evidence to a grand jury.
Many in this community are hoping that others who were involved in the murders of these three that are still alive now will also be indicted. However, I talked to the district attorney today after today's arraignment, and he said, that's not likely -- Miles?
O'BRIEN: Eric Phillips in Philadelphia, Mississippi -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: Secretary of State Colin Powell tours the tsunami disaster zone and gives us an exclusive interview, to our John King, about being the odd man out in Washington and about his future after the Bush cabinet.
It's a story you'll see only on CNN. We'll have it for you straight ahead.
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I'm David Haffenreffer at the New York Stock Exchange.
The December jobs report is out. I'll tell you how Wall Street feels about the numbers coming up on LIVE FROM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Conservative -- excuse me. Conservative talk show host, Armstrong Williams, a frequent guest here on CNN, CNN LIVE FROM, as well, has been a big booster of President Bush's leave no child behind education program.
And no wonder -- the Bush administration reportedly paid him nearly a quarter million dollars to promote it, and urged other black journalists to do just the same.
Now White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, says the deal apparently was worked out through the department of education. And the contract ended last week.
Earlier today, Williams defended taking the money in an interview with Bill Hemmer on AMERICAN MORNING.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL HEMMER, CNN "AMERICAN MORNING" ANCHOR: Armstrong Williams with me from D.C., and good morning to you.
ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Bill. How are you?
HEMMER: I'm doing fine. What did you do in return for the money? WILLIAMS: Well, Bill, the -- we were subcontracted to Catch Em (ph). And what we were doing, they used our media. We own our syndication, The Right Side, where we syndicate our shows all of the country.
And with many of the affiliates, we have to pay them. And especially, in particular markets that they wanted this "no child left behind" to be on their airwaves. They paid for advertising time is what they paid for.
And in addition to that, which is what our contract called for -- I made it clear because it's something that I really believed in as a commentator, something I wrote often about -- that I would use my contacts with people that I knew in different media outlets from time to time to get them to talk about "no child left behind."
HEMMER: OK. Stop there -- a couple of questions here.
Did you disclose to your readers, did you disclose to your viewers about the transaction?
WILLIAMS: Listen, I disclosed to different people whose airwaves that we use. I disclosed it to different commentators. I don't -- I can't recall whether I disclosed it to the audience or not.
HEMMER: Right, but part of your job is to persuade people, right? And part of your job is to present arguments that you believe in. And if you did present those arguments and were getting money in return for it, why not tell people?
WILLIAMS: Well, you know, it's not as if it was an issue that I did not want to tell them. If the issue did come up on the air, I made it very clear that we had a professional relationship where "no child left behind" was using our media as advertising.
It was advertising. It's not as if we were paid. People look at the article and say we were paid $240,000. It was in advertising. They used our media.
We taped a one minute commercial with Secretary Paige where we produced -- we did for about 20 minutes, and we produced a one minute commercial. He had two, one minute commercial spots in our shows, on our commercial reel.
HEMMER: Stop again -- sorry.
You made money off this, right?
WILLIAMS: Our company did. We made money, yes.
HEMMER: In turn, you did because you are employed by the company.
How often would you...
WILLIAMS: No, no, no -- not employed by the company, I own the company.
HEMMER: OK, well...
WILLIAMS: There's a difference.
HEMMER: ... even better.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
HEMMER: How often did you come here on CNN and promote what you talked about, or wrote about or were, in turn, paid for?
WILLIAMS: Well, you know, I can't recall that because when I'm on CNN, we talk about issues of Iraq, when I'm on Wolf Blitzer's show, when I'm on "CNN MORNING."
I can't even recall if there has ever been a time that we talked about "no child left behind." But certainly if the issue arises, it's very possible. I'm certainly going to talk about it because I'm an advocate for it.
HEMMER: Through our research, it appears back in October, on the 18th of October, you came on and talked about that very thing.
Do you recall that discussion? Do you recall that conversation?
WILLIAMS: Oh, I wouldn't recall it, but it's quite possible. I mean, I appear on your broadcast quite often. And "no child left behind" is an issue that was consistently in the media for the last two years.
HEMMER: Let me just and clarify this.
Can you understand how someone, you know, colleagues in the business here would consider this to be unethical possibly, perhaps with a bit of an odor that comes from it if, indeed, you're promoting values and ideas in programs in exchange for cash?
WILLIAMS: Well, certainly I understand that. In fact, I made it clear in my interview with Greg yesterday, from "USA Today." I can certainly understand how some people would feel that it was unethical.
You know, the thing about our shows, Bill, which I think you need to understand, many of the affiliates that we broadcast on, we can not use paid advertisers. Unless it's a public service announcement, many of our affiliates will not run it.
In our commercial reel, 90 percent of our commercials are PSAs. In the history of The Right Side Productions, the only advertisers that we've ever had is the National Rifle Association, since the beginning, "Forest (ph) Magazine" in the beginning, and just Anderson Brothers Bank out of my home town of Marion, South Carolina.
It's rare that we have paid advertisers. And so, yes, I understand. But the reason why this was able to work because not only was this a public service announcement, and so it passed the muster (ph) for some of our affiliates.
But I understand the conflict...
HEMMER: Sure.
WILLIAMS: ... and I understand why people would be concerned.
HEMMER: One more thing here. We've got to run. I'm sorry. I'm out of time.
Would you do it again?
WILLIAMS: It's a judgment call. I have no problem with...
HEMMER: But if you do it again, would you tell folks? Would you tell your listeners and viewers?
WILLIAMS: I definitely -- I think I have an obligation to be more vociferous about the fact that they are advertising on our programming. And I definitely should acknowledge that to the public, yes.
HEMMER: Well, thanks for coming and clearing it up. We wanted to get your side of the story, and you gave it to us. So thanks, Armstrong.
WILLIAMS: Well, thank you. I appreciate your having me.
HEMMER: Armstrong Williams down there in D.C.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: All right. This just in to CNN.
We have a statement on all of this from the department of education. Not specifically linked to any one individual, just listed as a statement from the department of education.
It says, "the department's prime public relations contractor had sought avenues to" re, re -- excuse me -- "reach minority parents such as Right Side," which is Mr. Williams company.
"The contract paid to provide the straightforward distribution of information about the department's mission on no child left behind, a permissible use of taxpayer funds under legal government contracting procedures."
And meanwhile, there are some Democrats in the Senate, Senator Frank Lautenberg has written the president -- I've got the letter right here -- asking that he get the money back from Armstrong Williams and Right Side.
We're going to hash that out with him in the 3:00 p.m. Eastern hour. He'll be our guest then -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: All right, well Wall Street has been waiting for it all week, the December jobs report.
O'BRIEN: David Haffenreffer in New York. Hello, David.
HAFFENREFFER: Hello, Miles. Hello, Kyra.
Yesterday's December employment report shows a bit of a pickup in hiring, but it still came in a bit shy of expectations. The economy created 157,000 jobs last month. That's roughly what's needed to keep up with population growth.
Retailers surprisingly shed jobs during the holiday season due to the seasonal adjustments made by the labor department. But construction, manufacturing and temporary workers were added to the workforce.
In addition, job totals for both October and November were revised slightly to the upside. And the unemployment rate remained at 5.4 percent.
For all of last year, if you're counting, 2.2 million jobs were created. Compare that to 2003 when 61,000 jobs were lost.
But it's still an Achilles heel in the economic recovery for the administration. Since President Bush took office four years ago, the economy has lost 122,000 jobs -- Kyra, Miles?
PHILLIPS: All right. Let's talk about how the markets reacted to the numbers -- David?
HAFFENREFFER: A reaction indeed. Somewhat of a listless market today, stocks have been bouncing in and out of the plus column today. Investors trying to assess what the jobs report means for interest rates.
Some say it takes some pressure off the federal reserve to act aggressively within the next few months. The fed had spooked investors earlier this week when minutes released from its last meeting raised some concerns about inflation. Those concerns are still keeping investors somewhat cautious.
Right now, the Dow Jones industrial average virtually unchanged now, lower by just 0.60, 10,622. NASDAQ is up a third of a percent.
That is the latest from Wall Street.
Coming up, a month ago the big concern was there wouldn't be enough of the flu vaccine to go around. But now, some of the shots could go to waste. I'll tell you why later this hour.
Stay tuned.
LIVE FROM is back in a moment.
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