Return to Transcripts main page
Live From...
Suicide Bomb Disrupts Meeting Between Insurgents, Iraqis; Most of Marines Killed in Crash From Hawaii; Man Who Caused Train Derailment to be Charged With Murder
Aired January 27, 2005 - 13:00 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CO-HOST: The high price for peace and security in Iraq. Two and a half days to go until Iraq's elections, and today another bombing. Will the country be ready? I'll talk with Iraq's national security adviser.
MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Sixty years after the horror of Auschwitz, those who survived it remember. We'll hear from one of the children who made it out alive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fire was coming out all the time, day and night, and this was the crematoria, where people were burned. And the smell of the flesh was all over the camp.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ted Rowlands in Glendale, California. The man investigators say caused yesterday's deadly train derailment is now facing the possibility of the death penalty. I'll have that story coming up.
MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Thank you, Ted. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Miles O'Brien.
PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
O'BRIEN: Politicians and police, soldiers and symbols of power together on the firing line in the final two and a half days before Iraqis attempt democratic elections.
In the northern city of Sinjar today, a suicide tractor bombing killed four Iraqi soldiers and a guard outside the headquarters of the Kurdish Democratic Party. We're told the city-owned tractor was stolen before being packed with explosive.
In Baghdad two more schools that are due to be polling places Sunday, bomb sites today. But so far as we know, no teachers or students are hurt.
We're also waiting for details on a reported car bombing outside a U.S. base in Ramadi, capital of the turbulent Anbar province. Earlier, at least one Iraqi soldier was killed there when insurgents attacked yet another voting site. In Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad, a so-called peace day meeting was marred by suicide bombing at the governor's office. An Iraqi police officer from a passing convoy was killed, but the governor had not yet arrived. The meeting among insurgents and government officials went on in what may be the only Iraqi province where Sunnis have religious permission to vote.
Our Jane Arraf is there -- Jane.
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, it was a remarkable meeting for the intent as well as for what happened. It was a meeting, essentially, of reformed insurgents who had come to pledge that they would not support attacks, that they would renounce violence. And in exchange the U.S. military commander in the region said that they would no longer seek to arrest them.
Now, while they were gathering, waiting for the governor, a huge explosion rocked the building that we were in. It was, indeed, a suicide car bomb detonated just at the intersection as an Iraqi police patrol went past.
U.S. forces and coalition and Iraqi forces have been on high alert for all sorts of bombs in these days running up to the elections. But despite that, the chief electoral official here in Baqubah tells us that he believes that more than 50 percent of voters will, indeed, turn out on Sunday -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Jane, give us a sense on what you've seen just traveling around the streets there. What are the evident signs of security precautions in advance of the election?
ARRAF: Well, in Falluja, where we've been for the past week, just came from this morning to Baqubah, certainly there's increased security around the city. And that's one of the reasons why that city is relatively safe, ironically, after that fierce battle that took place there in November. Very stringent security checks on people coming into the city.
Here the polling sites have remained a secret. That's part of the way that they have managed to maintain the security around the sites, where people will vote. They will have to tell them, obviously, where to go to vote, but they're waiting to do that until essentially the last minute.
Now, when they get to those voting sites there will be layers and layers of security. On the outer cordon, it will be U.S. military, Marines in some cities, U.S. Army in others.
And as voters get further in, they will see only Iraqis: Iraqi police, public order battalions, and in the middle cordons the Iraqi army. Now, there will also be other measures such as snipers on the rooftops, multiple checks. They'll pat people down.
It will be an ordeal to go out and vote, but this is historic. It is the first time most Iraqi will have had a chance to vote in a lifetime, and some of them appear some to be willing to take that risk -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Jane Arraf in Baqubah, thank you very much -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: A world of hurt is how one Marine describes Camp Pendleton in Southern California after yesterday's devastating helicopter crash in western Iraq. Thirty Marines and a sailor perished when their Super Stallion transport craft went down in Rutba near the Iraqi-Jordanian border. Most were based in Hawaii, but all of them had strong ties, logistic and otherwise with Pendleton, home of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
CNN's Sean Callebs joins us from nearby Oceanside -- Sean.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly right, Kyra.
Here in the town of Oceanside, we can tell you, a lot of heavy hearts. We're about 35 miles to the north of San Diego, just outside Camp Pendleton. As you mentioned, 27 of the 31 who died in the helicopter crash in the Iraqi dessert yesterday were from Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii.
Kaneohe does come under the operational command of the 1st Marine Division here at Camp Pendleton, the gates not terribly far from where we are standing right now.
Now the impact is being felt hard in Hawaii. It is the worst loss of Hawaii-based troops since Pearl Harbor. Senator Daniel Akaka issued a statement from Washington, D.C., saying his state is, without question, feeling the effects of the war in Iraq.
In a statement, the senator says he's deeply saddened by this event, going on to say that he is stunned that so many lives were lost in a single incident. His heartfelt thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathies go out to the families of all the Marines who lost loved ones yesterday.
Now an agonizing wait as the names of those Marines, as well as the hometowns begin to filter out.
At this point the Pentagon says there is no reason to believe that enemy fire had anything to do with bringing down this large helicopter in the desert. They are look at foul weather, but the investigation is going on.
Many Marines here say they feel as though they've lost brothers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COL. CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT, U.S. MARINE CORPS: It's hard. When I heard initially last night, I was going to bed. I heard a Marine chopper went down, and I -- my first thoughts were, "Well, I hope it's just one of the Cobras and the crew is OK."
And then when I woke up and heard 31 Marines, I'm thinking, "Oh, that's a 53. God help us. That's a lot of people. I hope there's survivors. I hope they made it out." (END VIDEO CLIP)
CALLEBS: More than 75 troops based in Hawaii have so far been lost in fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Now, one of those killed in the Iraqi desert yesterday has been identified as Lance Corporal Tony Hernandez. He was 22 years old. His family says he grew up near San Antonio, Texas.
The PIO office here at Camp Pendleton says that nearly 400 Marines have died fighting in the Iraq conflict so far, more than 160 of those, Kyra, based from Camp Pendleton.
PHILLIPS: Sean Callebs, live from Oceanside, just outside of Camp Pendleton, thank you.
And you've heard or read that yesterday was the single deadliest day of the Iraq war to date for U.S. forces. Thirty-seven people killed, between the wreck, the crash cause still undetermined, and unmistakable hostilities elsewhere.
Included in those, a nighttime ambush and firefight near the town of Adita (ph), just northwest of Baghdad, captured on tape by embedded correspondent Jim Dolans and photographer Joe Tsaro (ph) of WABC in New York.
Here's their report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM DOLANS, WABC REPORTER (voice-over): Night ops, Hapliniyah (ph), a small village outside Haditha in remote, western Iraq. Marines search but the objective building is empty, and they head out.
It starts as a few shots, but in second it is an all-out barrage. Rocket-propelled grenades, small arms fire, machine guns. Tracers light up the night sky from every direction.
A transformer gets hit, and for a moment there is quiet. But it was a costly mission. In the gunfire that followed, three Marines were hit. None of them apparently seriously. Right now they're rushing to get them back to the base so they can get medical attention as soon as possible.
But it is still far from over. The RPGs and gunfire start up again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They must have come out from some hiding positions, fallen on equipment that they had already pre-positioned and then they waited for the word for the initial volley (ph). When that first RPG shot went off, that's where we signaled the ambush.
DOLANS: That one hits the vehicle armor between photographer Joe Tsaro (ph) and me.
Finally the echoes fade under a full winter's moon, and there is quiet. But the casualties are high. The injured are medivacked out. But four Marines died out there in the firefight: young men, young American men, a world away from home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These Marines served together. They fought their way out together. Casualties that we took last night, our wounded, and our KIAs, that's something that we carry with us forever.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, in just a few moments we're going to talk more about Iraq's many struggles with its national security adviser, today visiting Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. That's at quarter past this hour right here on LIVE FROM.
O'BRIEN: What police describe as a poorly thought out suicide attempt yesterday turns into murder with special circumstances today. That's the charge facing a California man, who allegedly set off that commuter train catastrophe in Glendale in which 11 people, not including the suspect, were killed.
In a grimly ironic twist, however, Juan Manuel Alvarez could be eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted. We get the latest from CNN's Ted Rowlands -- Ted.
ROWLANDS: Miles, here in Glendale the search continues for possible victims. One victim in particular is being sought out. A missing passenger, a woman who authorities believe could still be in this wreckage. They've been at it all night and continue this morning.
As for Juan Alvarez, the 25-year-old man who authorities say is responsible for this horrific crash, he, as you mentioned, is facing the possibility of the death penalty. At this point he faces 11 counts of murder. That could go up if more victims surface.
But at this point the district attorney here says that they are moving forward with the possibility of the death penalty, because he's eligible for special circumstances just because he was involved in a train derailment. California law dictates that that would trigger special circumstances.
Of course, Alvarez was attempting suicide when he drove his Jeep Cherokee onto the train tracks here. The district attorney in Los Angeles County says the fact that Alvarez may not have sought to kill innocent passengers is really no excuse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE COOLEY, LOS ANGELES DISTRICT ATTORNEY: The train has been derailed. It was his car that caused the derailment. He put the car there. He certainly intended to commit the act of train derailment. And under California law, committing that act alone, whether one intended to kill anyone on the train or not, can lead to murder charges.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ROWLANDS: Alvarez's family says that he was suffering from depression and was going through a divorce with his wife. There's a restraining order out against him from his wife. They say that that may have led to his decision to kill himself.
He is expected to be arraigned in a Los Angeles County courtroom this afternoon at 3 p.m. local. It's been pushed back an hour, 6 p.m. on the East Coast. Meanwhile here, the painstaking job of sifting through this mangled metal wreckage continues as they search for more victims -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Ted, is the suspect cooperating with authorities? I read some accounts that he's quite despondent.
ROWLANDS: He is. But authorities say that he has been very cooperative with their interviews to this point, which has enabled them to gather a lot of information in terms of his state of mind and intent, and they used that information to file charges against him. Whether or not they will come back to actually help Alvarez in the end remains to be seen. But at this point he is facing the possibility of the death penalty.
O'BRIEN: All right. Ted Rowlands, thank you very much -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Securing the Iraq election. It's a daunting task for both U.S. troops and Iraqis. Straight ahead, I'll talk with Iraq's national security adviser about his plans to protect voters preparing to head to the polls.
Remembering Auschwitz. Of the survivors, only several hundred children survived. When we return, CNN correspondent Allan Chernoff with a very personal story of his mother and how she survived one of the most notorious death camp.
Then, selling hate one CD at a time. We'll show you how a new generation of American neo-Nazis is spreading its word.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Talk about being in the hot seat. With three days to go until Iraq's elections, that's definitely where our next guest finds himself. Mr. Mowaffak Al Rubaie, who spent years working for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, is now Iraq's national security adviser. He joins us live from Davos, Switzerland, to talk about Sunday's landmark vote and what's being done to make sure it happens.
Mr. Al Rubaie, pleasure to have you, sir.
MOWAFFAK AL RUBAIE, IRAQ NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Thank you for having me on.
PHILLIPS: Let's talk about the security right now in Iraq. How are you planning to protect voters? How are you planning to protect the polling stations?
AL RUBAIE: Well, the Iraqi interim government has mobilized all its resources to protect the voters, the ballot boxes, the election stations, and the transport of the boxes. And we are -- we are going to have, also, multinational forces in Iraq over the horizon to ask them if we need any help.
So, we are trying our level best, and we are trying our level best to protect the process of election and to protect the voters who are going to attend the ballot boxes.
PHILLIPS: On a much broader scale, sir, as the Iraq national security adviser, how are you targeting insurgents? How are you protecting the Iraqi-Syrian border and preventing these insurgents from coming into your country?
AL RUBAIE: See, Kyra, this is an intelligence-led war. This is not a conventional war. This is not about tanks and airplanes and the -- this is an intelligence war.
And we are -- we are building our intelligence services to combat this. And we are leading the international or global anti-terrorism in Iraq. We are in the forefront. We feel, in Iraq, at the forefront of the war on terror in the world.
So we have a full plan and a comprehensive plan to tackle this problem. We have speeded up our effort to protect our borders -- our borders with Syria, our border with Iran, and our border with Saudi Arabia -- because these porous borders and, especially from the Syrian side, they are very dangerous borders.
PHILLIPS: Well, from a personal perspective, I'm curious, sir, besides talking to the Iraqi people and addressing the Iraqi people what do you tell your family, what do you tell your friends when it comes down to election time and the changes going on in Iraq? Looking at all the violence, how do you restore the confidence, their confidence in what's taking place in your country?
AL RUBAIE: Well, this is -- what we are telling our people, this is the last battle they -- they should fight to get their freedom, to get their elected government. This is the last fight they have to face the al-Zarqawi people, Saddam loyalists, Osama bin Laden, and all these extremists that want to bring the dictatorship back to Iraq.
This is what we are telling our people. And our people are brave enough, determined enough. They are so resolved to go to the ballot boxes and cast their votes, because this is their faith. This is their -- they feel they are writing history.
And remember, we have never had any free and fair election for the last 50 years. And we are experiencing this freedom now. We are experiencing this sense of belonging to Iraq. We are building a new nation, and this is going to have a domino effect in the region. We -- this is going to -- Iraq is going to be the beacon of democracy, and stability, and prosperity in the whole region. PHILLIPS: And no doubt we'll be following it closely. Iraq national security adviser, Dr. Mowaffak Al Rubaie, thank you for your time, sir.
O'BRIEN: As we mentioned at the top of the broadcast, today marks the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. When LIVE FROM returns, the story of a then young girl and how she managed to survive the largest death camp of the Nazi regime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I always figured out this is my last chance. I'm going to tell them let's have an uprising and not go in there, and let's resist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: The sound of a freight train, ordinary to most people, but in another place, at other time, it signaled the ominous delivery of more humans to Nazi concentration camps to die.
Southern Poland is a far different place today than 60 years ago. That was when the Soviet army discovered the notorious Auschwitz and Birkenau extermination camps and freed a small number of people who managed to survive there.
It's nighttime at the camp memorials now after a day dedicated to the more than six million people who perished and were cremated at the hands of the Nazis. The camps stand today as a stark reminder of the thousands of others that existed across Nazi occupied Europe.
Several European heads of state attended, as did Vice President Dick Cheney.
O'BRIEN: Only a small fraction of those who entered the Nazi death camps survived to tell their treatment within. To this day, they carry more than the physical scars of the experience, of course. One of those survivors is a member of CNN's extended family.
Here's Allan Chernoff.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Among the few child survivors of Auschwitz, an 11-year-old girl, Rena Margolis (ph), my mother. She and her mother, Hinda (ph), had endured half a year at the death factory, each day pushed deeper into the hell on earth that was Auschwitz.
Eleven years ago, our family visited the camp in Poland. My mother described the last time she saw her 9-year-old brother, Roman, the day he was selected to be gassed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And he took this piece of bread and threw it over the fence for my mother and said, "You take it. I won't need it anymore." And then he started crying and ran away into the barrack.
CHERNOFF: shipped in a cattle car from the slave labor camp Lesion (ph), my mom was tattooed upon arrival, prisoner A-15647. Her bed was a wooden slat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was just filled in straight through, ten people.
CHERNOFF: Starvation was the daily diet. Chicory flavored water masquerading as coffee, a sliver of bread and a bowl of watery soup. Sometimes there was a chance to swipe or organize food, as the prisoners said. Sixty years later, my mother remembers grabbing a cabbage near the kitchen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I looked left, and I looked right, and no one was around. I took this cabbage as a birthday gift to my aunt Eva, and this was the best gift I could ever give her. It was worth more than any jewelry or gold or anything.
CHERNOFF: My mother got by as only a child could, using her imagination.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I always told my mother and my aunt what I am going to eat after the war. This was the big pleasure. So I always said I'm going to have for breakfast 20 loafs of bread and five dozen eggs.
CHERNOFF: Yet every day she was surrounded by death. The crematoria smoke stacks towered over the camp, blown up by the Nazis before liberators arrived.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fire was coming out all the time, day and night. And this was crematoria, where people were burned. And the smell of the flesh was all over the camp.
CHERNOFF (on camera): Were you afraid of dying?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't think of death. I always figured this is my last chance. I'm going to tell them let's put up an uprising and not go in there and let's resist. And this was my plan.
CHERNOFF: By sheer luck, her selection never came. She and her mother survived. Her father, Abram Haim (ph), was killed trying to escape a death march.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know how I survived it. It's a pure chance, not that I was in any way different from everybody else.
CHERNOFF: My mother, Rena Margolis Chernoff (ph), witness and survivor. Survivor of some of the darkest days on this planet. Witness to man's inhumanity against man.
Alan Chernoff, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: No x-ray left behind? President Bush praising high- tech medicine today as he visits Ohio's Cleveland clinic. The clinic has been helping the government develop standards for computerizing health records. Mr. Bush says such high-tech records could reduce cost and errors. The White House is pushing $125 dollar budget proposal for testing computerized records next year.
And the doctor is officially in at the State Department. Newly sworn in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hit the ground running this morning. Her first day on the job in Foggy Bottom, she told her colleagues they're responsible for helping implement the president's bold agenda for American foreign policy. Dr. Rice says history is calling us.
And another step towards that elusive peace in the Middle East, perhaps. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei issues a ban on unlicensed weapons in Palestinian-controlled areas. The ban is seen as a major move against Palestinian militants. Many of them have said they will not give up their guns.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired January 27, 2005 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CO-HOST: The high price for peace and security in Iraq. Two and a half days to go until Iraq's elections, and today another bombing. Will the country be ready? I'll talk with Iraq's national security adviser.
MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Sixty years after the horror of Auschwitz, those who survived it remember. We'll hear from one of the children who made it out alive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fire was coming out all the time, day and night, and this was the crematoria, where people were burned. And the smell of the flesh was all over the camp.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ted Rowlands in Glendale, California. The man investigators say caused yesterday's deadly train derailment is now facing the possibility of the death penalty. I'll have that story coming up.
MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Thank you, Ted. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Miles O'Brien.
PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
O'BRIEN: Politicians and police, soldiers and symbols of power together on the firing line in the final two and a half days before Iraqis attempt democratic elections.
In the northern city of Sinjar today, a suicide tractor bombing killed four Iraqi soldiers and a guard outside the headquarters of the Kurdish Democratic Party. We're told the city-owned tractor was stolen before being packed with explosive.
In Baghdad two more schools that are due to be polling places Sunday, bomb sites today. But so far as we know, no teachers or students are hurt.
We're also waiting for details on a reported car bombing outside a U.S. base in Ramadi, capital of the turbulent Anbar province. Earlier, at least one Iraqi soldier was killed there when insurgents attacked yet another voting site. In Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad, a so-called peace day meeting was marred by suicide bombing at the governor's office. An Iraqi police officer from a passing convoy was killed, but the governor had not yet arrived. The meeting among insurgents and government officials went on in what may be the only Iraqi province where Sunnis have religious permission to vote.
Our Jane Arraf is there -- Jane.
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, it was a remarkable meeting for the intent as well as for what happened. It was a meeting, essentially, of reformed insurgents who had come to pledge that they would not support attacks, that they would renounce violence. And in exchange the U.S. military commander in the region said that they would no longer seek to arrest them.
Now, while they were gathering, waiting for the governor, a huge explosion rocked the building that we were in. It was, indeed, a suicide car bomb detonated just at the intersection as an Iraqi police patrol went past.
U.S. forces and coalition and Iraqi forces have been on high alert for all sorts of bombs in these days running up to the elections. But despite that, the chief electoral official here in Baqubah tells us that he believes that more than 50 percent of voters will, indeed, turn out on Sunday -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Jane, give us a sense on what you've seen just traveling around the streets there. What are the evident signs of security precautions in advance of the election?
ARRAF: Well, in Falluja, where we've been for the past week, just came from this morning to Baqubah, certainly there's increased security around the city. And that's one of the reasons why that city is relatively safe, ironically, after that fierce battle that took place there in November. Very stringent security checks on people coming into the city.
Here the polling sites have remained a secret. That's part of the way that they have managed to maintain the security around the sites, where people will vote. They will have to tell them, obviously, where to go to vote, but they're waiting to do that until essentially the last minute.
Now, when they get to those voting sites there will be layers and layers of security. On the outer cordon, it will be U.S. military, Marines in some cities, U.S. Army in others.
And as voters get further in, they will see only Iraqis: Iraqi police, public order battalions, and in the middle cordons the Iraqi army. Now, there will also be other measures such as snipers on the rooftops, multiple checks. They'll pat people down.
It will be an ordeal to go out and vote, but this is historic. It is the first time most Iraqi will have had a chance to vote in a lifetime, and some of them appear some to be willing to take that risk -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Jane Arraf in Baqubah, thank you very much -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: A world of hurt is how one Marine describes Camp Pendleton in Southern California after yesterday's devastating helicopter crash in western Iraq. Thirty Marines and a sailor perished when their Super Stallion transport craft went down in Rutba near the Iraqi-Jordanian border. Most were based in Hawaii, but all of them had strong ties, logistic and otherwise with Pendleton, home of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
CNN's Sean Callebs joins us from nearby Oceanside -- Sean.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly right, Kyra.
Here in the town of Oceanside, we can tell you, a lot of heavy hearts. We're about 35 miles to the north of San Diego, just outside Camp Pendleton. As you mentioned, 27 of the 31 who died in the helicopter crash in the Iraqi dessert yesterday were from Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii.
Kaneohe does come under the operational command of the 1st Marine Division here at Camp Pendleton, the gates not terribly far from where we are standing right now.
Now the impact is being felt hard in Hawaii. It is the worst loss of Hawaii-based troops since Pearl Harbor. Senator Daniel Akaka issued a statement from Washington, D.C., saying his state is, without question, feeling the effects of the war in Iraq.
In a statement, the senator says he's deeply saddened by this event, going on to say that he is stunned that so many lives were lost in a single incident. His heartfelt thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathies go out to the families of all the Marines who lost loved ones yesterday.
Now an agonizing wait as the names of those Marines, as well as the hometowns begin to filter out.
At this point the Pentagon says there is no reason to believe that enemy fire had anything to do with bringing down this large helicopter in the desert. They are look at foul weather, but the investigation is going on.
Many Marines here say they feel as though they've lost brothers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COL. CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT, U.S. MARINE CORPS: It's hard. When I heard initially last night, I was going to bed. I heard a Marine chopper went down, and I -- my first thoughts were, "Well, I hope it's just one of the Cobras and the crew is OK."
And then when I woke up and heard 31 Marines, I'm thinking, "Oh, that's a 53. God help us. That's a lot of people. I hope there's survivors. I hope they made it out." (END VIDEO CLIP)
CALLEBS: More than 75 troops based in Hawaii have so far been lost in fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Now, one of those killed in the Iraqi desert yesterday has been identified as Lance Corporal Tony Hernandez. He was 22 years old. His family says he grew up near San Antonio, Texas.
The PIO office here at Camp Pendleton says that nearly 400 Marines have died fighting in the Iraq conflict so far, more than 160 of those, Kyra, based from Camp Pendleton.
PHILLIPS: Sean Callebs, live from Oceanside, just outside of Camp Pendleton, thank you.
And you've heard or read that yesterday was the single deadliest day of the Iraq war to date for U.S. forces. Thirty-seven people killed, between the wreck, the crash cause still undetermined, and unmistakable hostilities elsewhere.
Included in those, a nighttime ambush and firefight near the town of Adita (ph), just northwest of Baghdad, captured on tape by embedded correspondent Jim Dolans and photographer Joe Tsaro (ph) of WABC in New York.
Here's their report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM DOLANS, WABC REPORTER (voice-over): Night ops, Hapliniyah (ph), a small village outside Haditha in remote, western Iraq. Marines search but the objective building is empty, and they head out.
It starts as a few shots, but in second it is an all-out barrage. Rocket-propelled grenades, small arms fire, machine guns. Tracers light up the night sky from every direction.
A transformer gets hit, and for a moment there is quiet. But it was a costly mission. In the gunfire that followed, three Marines were hit. None of them apparently seriously. Right now they're rushing to get them back to the base so they can get medical attention as soon as possible.
But it is still far from over. The RPGs and gunfire start up again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They must have come out from some hiding positions, fallen on equipment that they had already pre-positioned and then they waited for the word for the initial volley (ph). When that first RPG shot went off, that's where we signaled the ambush.
DOLANS: That one hits the vehicle armor between photographer Joe Tsaro (ph) and me.
Finally the echoes fade under a full winter's moon, and there is quiet. But the casualties are high. The injured are medivacked out. But four Marines died out there in the firefight: young men, young American men, a world away from home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These Marines served together. They fought their way out together. Casualties that we took last night, our wounded, and our KIAs, that's something that we carry with us forever.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, in just a few moments we're going to talk more about Iraq's many struggles with its national security adviser, today visiting Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. That's at quarter past this hour right here on LIVE FROM.
O'BRIEN: What police describe as a poorly thought out suicide attempt yesterday turns into murder with special circumstances today. That's the charge facing a California man, who allegedly set off that commuter train catastrophe in Glendale in which 11 people, not including the suspect, were killed.
In a grimly ironic twist, however, Juan Manuel Alvarez could be eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted. We get the latest from CNN's Ted Rowlands -- Ted.
ROWLANDS: Miles, here in Glendale the search continues for possible victims. One victim in particular is being sought out. A missing passenger, a woman who authorities believe could still be in this wreckage. They've been at it all night and continue this morning.
As for Juan Alvarez, the 25-year-old man who authorities say is responsible for this horrific crash, he, as you mentioned, is facing the possibility of the death penalty. At this point he faces 11 counts of murder. That could go up if more victims surface.
But at this point the district attorney here says that they are moving forward with the possibility of the death penalty, because he's eligible for special circumstances just because he was involved in a train derailment. California law dictates that that would trigger special circumstances.
Of course, Alvarez was attempting suicide when he drove his Jeep Cherokee onto the train tracks here. The district attorney in Los Angeles County says the fact that Alvarez may not have sought to kill innocent passengers is really no excuse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE COOLEY, LOS ANGELES DISTRICT ATTORNEY: The train has been derailed. It was his car that caused the derailment. He put the car there. He certainly intended to commit the act of train derailment. And under California law, committing that act alone, whether one intended to kill anyone on the train or not, can lead to murder charges.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ROWLANDS: Alvarez's family says that he was suffering from depression and was going through a divorce with his wife. There's a restraining order out against him from his wife. They say that that may have led to his decision to kill himself.
He is expected to be arraigned in a Los Angeles County courtroom this afternoon at 3 p.m. local. It's been pushed back an hour, 6 p.m. on the East Coast. Meanwhile here, the painstaking job of sifting through this mangled metal wreckage continues as they search for more victims -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Ted, is the suspect cooperating with authorities? I read some accounts that he's quite despondent.
ROWLANDS: He is. But authorities say that he has been very cooperative with their interviews to this point, which has enabled them to gather a lot of information in terms of his state of mind and intent, and they used that information to file charges against him. Whether or not they will come back to actually help Alvarez in the end remains to be seen. But at this point he is facing the possibility of the death penalty.
O'BRIEN: All right. Ted Rowlands, thank you very much -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Securing the Iraq election. It's a daunting task for both U.S. troops and Iraqis. Straight ahead, I'll talk with Iraq's national security adviser about his plans to protect voters preparing to head to the polls.
Remembering Auschwitz. Of the survivors, only several hundred children survived. When we return, CNN correspondent Allan Chernoff with a very personal story of his mother and how she survived one of the most notorious death camp.
Then, selling hate one CD at a time. We'll show you how a new generation of American neo-Nazis is spreading its word.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Talk about being in the hot seat. With three days to go until Iraq's elections, that's definitely where our next guest finds himself. Mr. Mowaffak Al Rubaie, who spent years working for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, is now Iraq's national security adviser. He joins us live from Davos, Switzerland, to talk about Sunday's landmark vote and what's being done to make sure it happens.
Mr. Al Rubaie, pleasure to have you, sir.
MOWAFFAK AL RUBAIE, IRAQ NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Thank you for having me on.
PHILLIPS: Let's talk about the security right now in Iraq. How are you planning to protect voters? How are you planning to protect the polling stations?
AL RUBAIE: Well, the Iraqi interim government has mobilized all its resources to protect the voters, the ballot boxes, the election stations, and the transport of the boxes. And we are -- we are going to have, also, multinational forces in Iraq over the horizon to ask them if we need any help.
So, we are trying our level best, and we are trying our level best to protect the process of election and to protect the voters who are going to attend the ballot boxes.
PHILLIPS: On a much broader scale, sir, as the Iraq national security adviser, how are you targeting insurgents? How are you protecting the Iraqi-Syrian border and preventing these insurgents from coming into your country?
AL RUBAIE: See, Kyra, this is an intelligence-led war. This is not a conventional war. This is not about tanks and airplanes and the -- this is an intelligence war.
And we are -- we are building our intelligence services to combat this. And we are leading the international or global anti-terrorism in Iraq. We are in the forefront. We feel, in Iraq, at the forefront of the war on terror in the world.
So we have a full plan and a comprehensive plan to tackle this problem. We have speeded up our effort to protect our borders -- our borders with Syria, our border with Iran, and our border with Saudi Arabia -- because these porous borders and, especially from the Syrian side, they are very dangerous borders.
PHILLIPS: Well, from a personal perspective, I'm curious, sir, besides talking to the Iraqi people and addressing the Iraqi people what do you tell your family, what do you tell your friends when it comes down to election time and the changes going on in Iraq? Looking at all the violence, how do you restore the confidence, their confidence in what's taking place in your country?
AL RUBAIE: Well, this is -- what we are telling our people, this is the last battle they -- they should fight to get their freedom, to get their elected government. This is the last fight they have to face the al-Zarqawi people, Saddam loyalists, Osama bin Laden, and all these extremists that want to bring the dictatorship back to Iraq.
This is what we are telling our people. And our people are brave enough, determined enough. They are so resolved to go to the ballot boxes and cast their votes, because this is their faith. This is their -- they feel they are writing history.
And remember, we have never had any free and fair election for the last 50 years. And we are experiencing this freedom now. We are experiencing this sense of belonging to Iraq. We are building a new nation, and this is going to have a domino effect in the region. We -- this is going to -- Iraq is going to be the beacon of democracy, and stability, and prosperity in the whole region. PHILLIPS: And no doubt we'll be following it closely. Iraq national security adviser, Dr. Mowaffak Al Rubaie, thank you for your time, sir.
O'BRIEN: As we mentioned at the top of the broadcast, today marks the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. When LIVE FROM returns, the story of a then young girl and how she managed to survive the largest death camp of the Nazi regime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I always figured out this is my last chance. I'm going to tell them let's have an uprising and not go in there, and let's resist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: The sound of a freight train, ordinary to most people, but in another place, at other time, it signaled the ominous delivery of more humans to Nazi concentration camps to die.
Southern Poland is a far different place today than 60 years ago. That was when the Soviet army discovered the notorious Auschwitz and Birkenau extermination camps and freed a small number of people who managed to survive there.
It's nighttime at the camp memorials now after a day dedicated to the more than six million people who perished and were cremated at the hands of the Nazis. The camps stand today as a stark reminder of the thousands of others that existed across Nazi occupied Europe.
Several European heads of state attended, as did Vice President Dick Cheney.
O'BRIEN: Only a small fraction of those who entered the Nazi death camps survived to tell their treatment within. To this day, they carry more than the physical scars of the experience, of course. One of those survivors is a member of CNN's extended family.
Here's Allan Chernoff.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Among the few child survivors of Auschwitz, an 11-year-old girl, Rena Margolis (ph), my mother. She and her mother, Hinda (ph), had endured half a year at the death factory, each day pushed deeper into the hell on earth that was Auschwitz.
Eleven years ago, our family visited the camp in Poland. My mother described the last time she saw her 9-year-old brother, Roman, the day he was selected to be gassed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And he took this piece of bread and threw it over the fence for my mother and said, "You take it. I won't need it anymore." And then he started crying and ran away into the barrack.
CHERNOFF: shipped in a cattle car from the slave labor camp Lesion (ph), my mom was tattooed upon arrival, prisoner A-15647. Her bed was a wooden slat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was just filled in straight through, ten people.
CHERNOFF: Starvation was the daily diet. Chicory flavored water masquerading as coffee, a sliver of bread and a bowl of watery soup. Sometimes there was a chance to swipe or organize food, as the prisoners said. Sixty years later, my mother remembers grabbing a cabbage near the kitchen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I looked left, and I looked right, and no one was around. I took this cabbage as a birthday gift to my aunt Eva, and this was the best gift I could ever give her. It was worth more than any jewelry or gold or anything.
CHERNOFF: My mother got by as only a child could, using her imagination.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I always told my mother and my aunt what I am going to eat after the war. This was the big pleasure. So I always said I'm going to have for breakfast 20 loafs of bread and five dozen eggs.
CHERNOFF: Yet every day she was surrounded by death. The crematoria smoke stacks towered over the camp, blown up by the Nazis before liberators arrived.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fire was coming out all the time, day and night. And this was crematoria, where people were burned. And the smell of the flesh was all over the camp.
CHERNOFF (on camera): Were you afraid of dying?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't think of death. I always figured this is my last chance. I'm going to tell them let's put up an uprising and not go in there and let's resist. And this was my plan.
CHERNOFF: By sheer luck, her selection never came. She and her mother survived. Her father, Abram Haim (ph), was killed trying to escape a death march.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know how I survived it. It's a pure chance, not that I was in any way different from everybody else.
CHERNOFF: My mother, Rena Margolis Chernoff (ph), witness and survivor. Survivor of some of the darkest days on this planet. Witness to man's inhumanity against man.
Alan Chernoff, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: No x-ray left behind? President Bush praising high- tech medicine today as he visits Ohio's Cleveland clinic. The clinic has been helping the government develop standards for computerizing health records. Mr. Bush says such high-tech records could reduce cost and errors. The White House is pushing $125 dollar budget proposal for testing computerized records next year.
And the doctor is officially in at the State Department. Newly sworn in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hit the ground running this morning. Her first day on the job in Foggy Bottom, she told her colleagues they're responsible for helping implement the president's bold agenda for American foreign policy. Dr. Rice says history is calling us.
And another step towards that elusive peace in the Middle East, perhaps. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei issues a ban on unlicensed weapons in Palestinian-controlled areas. The ban is seen as a major move against Palestinian militants. Many of them have said they will not give up their guns.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
