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Sunday's High-Risk Exercise in Iraq; Diplomat's Debut; Train Derailment Suspect

Aired January 27, 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.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Symbols of the election of democracy under attack today in Iraq. Insurgents step up the campaign of violence.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Also ahead, commotion over car heads. Some popular but fake online ads are causing quite a stir. We'll show you.

PHILLIPS: And then forced to quick. One company says kick the habit or lose your job. Is it legal or has this company gone too far?

O'BRIEN: 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.

Schools as targets, tractors as weapons, suicide attacks on Peace Day. Desperation grows as Iraq's historic attempts at free elections draws even closer, now less than two and a half days from now.

The tractor attack occurred in the northern town of Sinjar, just southwest of Mosul. A provincial official tells us the city machine was stolen, packed with explosives and set off near the headquarters of the Kurdish Democratic Party. Four Iraqi soldiers, one guard and the attacker were killed.

Closer to Baghdad, in Baquba, a suicide car bombing killed an Iraqi police officer just outside the governor's office. The governor was hosting a Peace Day meeting in which former insurgents pledged to stop fighting and join the political process. Baquba's Diyala Province is thought to be the only one where Sunnis have religious permission to vote.

Two more voting sites in Baghdad are in ruins after two more attacks on school. One or both of those happened outside school hours. We have no reports of injuries.

To understand the real point of Sunday's high-risk exercise, it helps to remember Woody Allen's quote that 80 percent of success is just showing up. Here's CNN's senior political analyst Bill Schneider.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): Sunday's election in Iraq will seem kind of strange to Americans. Iraqis will not be voting for president or prime minister. They'll be voting for a national assembly whose main job it to draft a new constitution. So what does the campaign look like?

APARASIM "BOBBY" GHOSH, "TIME" MAGAZINE: There's no campaigning, there's no candidate going out and kissing babies, there's no rallies and demonstrations in the street. The candidates are afraid to have their names published, much less go out and talk to people.

SCHNEIDER: What are the big issues?

GHOSH: Well, there hasn't really been a discussion about issues as yet.

SCHNEIDER: Moreover, insurgents are threatening to kill anyone who votes. That could, shall we say, put a damper on voter turnout.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you see is going to depend very much on where you are and what people think is going to happen, if they they're going to be in danger.

SCHNEIDER: So here's an election where voters are threatened with violence, where turnout is likely to be low, where there is no real campaign, no real issues, and most of the candidates are unknown. How can an election like that mean anything?

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The fact that they're voting in itself is successful.

SCHNEIDER: The president has a point. To vote in Iraq on Sunday is an act of courage, literally a death-defying act, as the governor of Najaf asserted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If they go to kill us, we're not going to stop them. If they bomb the city, we're not going to stop. Freedom, democracy must take place in this country.

SCHNEIDER: Every Iraqi voter will be risking his or her life to make a statement against the insurgents.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are very much voting for the process itself. A lot of people are saying, "I don't care who I'm voting for, but I want to vote."

SCHNEIDER (on camera): The insurgents charge that anyone who votes is siding with foreign occupiers. But to vote is actually to make a defiant statement for democracy and against the insurgents. That's the issue at the heart of this election.

Bill Schneider, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: That is certainly the issue at the heart of the election. The question is, how will it all play out on the ground?

Telling us a little bit about this, our military analyst, Major General Don Shepperd, retired, who is tracking the hotspots for us.

General Shepperd, good to have you back with us. Let's talk for just a moment, if we could, about the ethnic balance that -- are you there?

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I am. I am, indeed, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Oh, OK. Are we not doing this now? OK.

SHEPPERD: Miles, I'm general -- Major General Don Shepperd, and I'm on the CNN telestrator, and I'm here to work with Miles O'Brien and Kyra Phillips. And we're going to talk about the Iraqi elections.

O'BRIEN: All right. We'll be back with more in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Condoleezza Rice is promising democracy will take hold around the world. It's Rice's first day at work as secretary of state. And she's not wasting any time, as we find out from our CNN State Department correspondent, Andrea Koppel -- Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Miles, her first official overseas trip has now been announced. Secretary of State Rice will be leaving early next month on an eight-day, nine- country whirlwind swing through a number of European capitals, and also to Israel and Palestinian territories.

Secretary Rice is a familiar face to many world leaders and to foreign ministers who have gotten to know her over the last four years in her capacity as national security adviser. The Rice trip is being billed as both a prelude to the European trip President Bush is going to take later in February, but also officials suggest is proof positive that the Bush administration is serious about mending fences with U.S. allies in Europe and jump-starting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

In her first public comments since she was sworn in as the nation's 66th secretary of state, Rice was greeted at the State Department in the lobby here and waxed eloquent, echoing the ambitious agenda laid about by President Bush last week in his inaugural address.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: I can't think of a better call than to say that America will stand for freedom and for liberty, that America will stand with those who want their aspirations met for liberty and freedom. And I'm going to look, and the president's going to look to this department to lead that effort.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: Now, despite the warm welcome that she received, I guess the best way to describe it, Miles, is there's really a mood of uncertainty and concern here among thousands of State Department employees who recognize that over much of the last four years, their ideas and those of Secretary Powell were sidelined. And there's really sort of a feeling of anxiousness as to whether or not Secretary of State Rice is going to want to use her clout, very well known to all of us, with President Bush to kind of put their ideas front and center with the president.

And we heard Secretary Rice mention today that she was going to have an open door, and that she wasn't just going to be looking to them to implement policy, but to come to her with ideas. So trying to hit all the right notes -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Andrea Koppel at the State Department. Thank you very much -- Kyra.

Oh, a programming note first. Condoleezza Rice will be Wolf Blitzer's guest Sunday on "LATE EDITION." Be sure to tune in at noon Eastern -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, the man police blame for yesterday's commuter train derailment in California is scheduled to be arraigned in about three hours. And the suspect, Juan Manuel Alvarez, could be eligible for the death penalty if prosecutors pursue that route.

CNN's Ted Rowlands joins us live now with an update -- Ted.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, the decision on whether or not prosecutors will pursue the death penalty against Alvarez is likely to come in the next few weeks or even months. They're going to gather all the information they can before moving forward with that decision.

In the meantime, as you mentioned, Alvarez is expected to be arraigned this afternoon in Los Angeles on 11 counts of murder. Eleven victims have been killed because of this train accident that investigators say was caused by Alvarez.

He was a suicidal man that drove his Jeep Cherokee onto the tracks that caused a collision with a commuter train. That train derailed and crashed into another train yesterday. Investigators say the fact that Alvarez was despondent and trying to kill himself, and not necessarily trying to kill other people, really doesn't matter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE COOLEY, LA COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: All the facts related to the state of mind will be brought out in a court of law. And sometimes someone's being despondent or suicidal or upset or whatever their problem is, is nothing more than a motive that can suggest an intent to commit a crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROWLANDS: Here in Glendale at this hour, investigators are still sifting through the wreckage. We have some good news to pass along. They do not believe there are any more victims in the rubble. There was a missing woman earlier this morning. They say that that individual who was feared dead has been accounted for. And they've been able to lift up a considerable amount of this debris and put cameras underneath. And in their estimation, there will be no more victims found.

They say that there's still a chance, but the good news is they don't believe any more people have perished. Within the last hour, they read the names of nine of the victims. Two have not yet been positively identified -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Ted Rowlands, thank you so much.

Straight ahead, we're going to tell you about a Michigan company taking its anti-smoking policy just a step further: break the habit or get a new job. Can they do that?

And who's this bunny on my browser? Buster is making some in Washington hopping mad. We're going to tell you why.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange. Up next, there's talk of another telecom marriage. Will Ma Bell be gobbled up by a baby bell? I'll have word of a possible $15 billion deal coming up on LIVE FROM.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: No doubt that's a chilling sound for survivors from Auschwitz. It's a grim milestone. Holocaust survivors, political leaders and royalty are gathering at the camp on the 60th anniversary of its liberation.

It will stand as one of the darkest chapters of human history. Six decades after the liberation of this Nazi death camp, Auschwitz, the world is remembering its victims.

CNN's Chris Burns is there -- Chris.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, that was a very, very moving tour, two hours or so, really, with more than 40 world leaders here, including Vice President Dick Cheney and others from Russia, from Europe and elsewhere. A very, very emotional scene here with more than 1,000 survivors braving this cold. As you can see, it's still snowing here.

The candles are also still flickering, even at this hour. Some of the candles that were placed there next to this monument for the victims of Nazis, these -- these candles that were laid by Dick Cheney and others to remember the more than 1.1 million people here who died, most of them Jewish, at the hands of the Nazis from gassings, from exposure, and, of course, from executions from shootings and so forth.

The survivors and the world leaders here were trying to make the point that yes, we must remember, but we must also look now and ahead to find anti-Semitism that still lurks here. This is what the Polish president had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI, POLAND (through translator): Auschwitz (UNINTELLIGIBLE). This place bears terrible truth about the greatest downfall of mankind. This is a truth that we have to face.

It's our duty to pass this terrible memento to future generations. And we should say the truth, and we should counter all Auschwitz lies that should be punished in all civilized countries. We must do everything we can that the enormity, the symbol of which is Auschwitz-Birkenau, will never happen again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNS: Now, there was one man from southern California, Mel Mermelstein (ph), who was here with his son, David, to remember how he survived through here but watched his mother, two sisters and father and brother being taken away to the gas chambers. He was one of those who has been fighting very hard against Holocaust denial. In fact, he went to court in California against it and won. Here he says he takes candles here and makes silent prayers every year to those who died.

Back to you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Chris Burns, thank you so much -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: One of the survivors of Auschwitz says he can never forget what happened to him and the others who were sent there. But he got through it in a way that might surprise you.

Here's CNN's Aaron Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Each of the people you see in these photographs died in Auschwitz. But to try and grasp the magnitude of what happened there, think of this: each of these faces needs to be multiplied by 5,000 to represent the one million people murdered at that one camp.

Max Garcia, a now retired San Francisco architect, does not need these pictures to remind him of that camp.

MAX GARCIA, AUSCHWITZ SURVIVOR: Here I am 60 years later. Every day, every day that I am alive, that I wake up is a day that I stole away from the Nazis.

BROWN: He grew up in Amsterdam. His younger sister died in Auschwitz. His parents died in other camps.

Garcia arrived in Auschwitz in July of '43. And 14 months later, he became part of what is preposterous, even in his words: a cabaret at Auschwitz started by another prisoner with god connections. His friend Lex. GARCIA: Well, he got a little combo together of about five or six of us. And he went to the SS officer in charge of his unit, and he said, "This is what I want to do." And he laughed at him.

He said, "Not a chance in hell." And he persisted, and we finally got the OK to do it. And every Sunday after that, we had a cabaret performance in Auschwitz, in the main camp.

My only task was to be the emcee. My task was to tell the jokes. My task was to introduce what next song they were going to play.

Most of the fellow prisoners there had other things to worry about. But the prominent ones had nothing to worry about. They could take time off on Sunday afternoons.

What we didn't expect -- and this was a total surprise to us -- is that the SS guards and the SS officers came to the performance every Sunday afternoon. Lex had been told, "Be sure that you tell your people there will be no jokes about Hitler, no jokes about fascism or Nazism, no jokes about the prison."

BROWN: The SS guards would sit in the first two rows.

GARCIA: It was always a high-wire act in many ways. We were always there, but we had to be very cautious in what we did because once we stepped out of the bounds and we got some SS officer pissed off at us, we could be dead the next day.

We didn't know how we were balancing the act until after we were liberated. But we didn't now how audacious we had been, how much chutzpah we actually had to promote this thing and do it.

BROWN: Sixty years later, the cabaret is not something Garcia dwells on. The burden of survival, too complicated for that, too real.

GARCIA: Nightmares are a constant reminder how lucky you are that you're still alive. They waken you. You're full of sweat. You can scream at times.

You see the whole thing marching right in front of you, like all over again. And there is not a goddamn thing you can do about it. And you have to relive it.

BROWN: Aaron Brown, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, many of today's high school students may know the basic facts about the Holocaust, but those horrific deaths are also helping some students gain a crucial understanding of the value of life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It can't be, you know, something that you turn on the news and you see it on the bottom of the screen and then you change the channel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: I'll have more on this moving high school lesson on Auschwitz about an hour from now right here on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, a multibillion-dollar deal between two telecom giants could be in the works.

O'BRIEN: Susan Lisovicz at the stock exchange with that and more.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

(WEATHER REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: "Now in the News," a 25-year-old man charged with 11 counts of murder in connection with the California train crash. Juan Manuel Alvarez is scheduled to be arraigned in two and a half hours. Eleven people were killed, one is still missing after a commuter train hit a car, derailed and plowed into two other trains in Glendale. Alvarez could face death if convicted.

The government wants your medical records on a hard drive somewhere. President Bush is proposing the mass computerization of medical data. The White House announced it will ask for $125 million to test the storage of medical records. The president campaigned on that issue last year.

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 - 14:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Symbols of the election of democracy under attack today in Iraq. Insurgents step up the campaign of violence.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Also ahead, commotion over car heads. Some popular but fake online ads are causing quite a stir. We'll show you.

PHILLIPS: And then forced to quick. One company says kick the habit or lose your job. Is it legal or has this company gone too far?

O'BRIEN: 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.

Schools as targets, tractors as weapons, suicide attacks on Peace Day. Desperation grows as Iraq's historic attempts at free elections draws even closer, now less than two and a half days from now.

The tractor attack occurred in the northern town of Sinjar, just southwest of Mosul. A provincial official tells us the city machine was stolen, packed with explosives and set off near the headquarters of the Kurdish Democratic Party. Four Iraqi soldiers, one guard and the attacker were killed.

Closer to Baghdad, in Baquba, a suicide car bombing killed an Iraqi police officer just outside the governor's office. The governor was hosting a Peace Day meeting in which former insurgents pledged to stop fighting and join the political process. Baquba's Diyala Province is thought to be the only one where Sunnis have religious permission to vote.

Two more voting sites in Baghdad are in ruins after two more attacks on school. One or both of those happened outside school hours. We have no reports of injuries.

To understand the real point of Sunday's high-risk exercise, it helps to remember Woody Allen's quote that 80 percent of success is just showing up. Here's CNN's senior political analyst Bill Schneider.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): Sunday's election in Iraq will seem kind of strange to Americans. Iraqis will not be voting for president or prime minister. They'll be voting for a national assembly whose main job it to draft a new constitution. So what does the campaign look like?

APARASIM "BOBBY" GHOSH, "TIME" MAGAZINE: There's no campaigning, there's no candidate going out and kissing babies, there's no rallies and demonstrations in the street. The candidates are afraid to have their names published, much less go out and talk to people.

SCHNEIDER: What are the big issues?

GHOSH: Well, there hasn't really been a discussion about issues as yet.

SCHNEIDER: Moreover, insurgents are threatening to kill anyone who votes. That could, shall we say, put a damper on voter turnout.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you see is going to depend very much on where you are and what people think is going to happen, if they they're going to be in danger.

SCHNEIDER: So here's an election where voters are threatened with violence, where turnout is likely to be low, where there is no real campaign, no real issues, and most of the candidates are unknown. How can an election like that mean anything?

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The fact that they're voting in itself is successful.

SCHNEIDER: The president has a point. To vote in Iraq on Sunday is an act of courage, literally a death-defying act, as the governor of Najaf asserted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If they go to kill us, we're not going to stop them. If they bomb the city, we're not going to stop. Freedom, democracy must take place in this country.

SCHNEIDER: Every Iraqi voter will be risking his or her life to make a statement against the insurgents.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are very much voting for the process itself. A lot of people are saying, "I don't care who I'm voting for, but I want to vote."

SCHNEIDER (on camera): The insurgents charge that anyone who votes is siding with foreign occupiers. But to vote is actually to make a defiant statement for democracy and against the insurgents. That's the issue at the heart of this election.

Bill Schneider, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: That is certainly the issue at the heart of the election. The question is, how will it all play out on the ground?

Telling us a little bit about this, our military analyst, Major General Don Shepperd, retired, who is tracking the hotspots for us.

General Shepperd, good to have you back with us. Let's talk for just a moment, if we could, about the ethnic balance that -- are you there?

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I am. I am, indeed, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Oh, OK. Are we not doing this now? OK.

SHEPPERD: Miles, I'm general -- Major General Don Shepperd, and I'm on the CNN telestrator, and I'm here to work with Miles O'Brien and Kyra Phillips. And we're going to talk about the Iraqi elections.

O'BRIEN: All right. We'll be back with more in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Condoleezza Rice is promising democracy will take hold around the world. It's Rice's first day at work as secretary of state. And she's not wasting any time, as we find out from our CNN State Department correspondent, Andrea Koppel -- Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Miles, her first official overseas trip has now been announced. Secretary of State Rice will be leaving early next month on an eight-day, nine- country whirlwind swing through a number of European capitals, and also to Israel and Palestinian territories.

Secretary Rice is a familiar face to many world leaders and to foreign ministers who have gotten to know her over the last four years in her capacity as national security adviser. The Rice trip is being billed as both a prelude to the European trip President Bush is going to take later in February, but also officials suggest is proof positive that the Bush administration is serious about mending fences with U.S. allies in Europe and jump-starting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

In her first public comments since she was sworn in as the nation's 66th secretary of state, Rice was greeted at the State Department in the lobby here and waxed eloquent, echoing the ambitious agenda laid about by President Bush last week in his inaugural address.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: I can't think of a better call than to say that America will stand for freedom and for liberty, that America will stand with those who want their aspirations met for liberty and freedom. And I'm going to look, and the president's going to look to this department to lead that effort.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: Now, despite the warm welcome that she received, I guess the best way to describe it, Miles, is there's really a mood of uncertainty and concern here among thousands of State Department employees who recognize that over much of the last four years, their ideas and those of Secretary Powell were sidelined. And there's really sort of a feeling of anxiousness as to whether or not Secretary of State Rice is going to want to use her clout, very well known to all of us, with President Bush to kind of put their ideas front and center with the president.

And we heard Secretary Rice mention today that she was going to have an open door, and that she wasn't just going to be looking to them to implement policy, but to come to her with ideas. So trying to hit all the right notes -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Andrea Koppel at the State Department. Thank you very much -- Kyra.

Oh, a programming note first. Condoleezza Rice will be Wolf Blitzer's guest Sunday on "LATE EDITION." Be sure to tune in at noon Eastern -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, the man police blame for yesterday's commuter train derailment in California is scheduled to be arraigned in about three hours. And the suspect, Juan Manuel Alvarez, could be eligible for the death penalty if prosecutors pursue that route.

CNN's Ted Rowlands joins us live now with an update -- Ted.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, the decision on whether or not prosecutors will pursue the death penalty against Alvarez is likely to come in the next few weeks or even months. They're going to gather all the information they can before moving forward with that decision.

In the meantime, as you mentioned, Alvarez is expected to be arraigned this afternoon in Los Angeles on 11 counts of murder. Eleven victims have been killed because of this train accident that investigators say was caused by Alvarez.

He was a suicidal man that drove his Jeep Cherokee onto the tracks that caused a collision with a commuter train. That train derailed and crashed into another train yesterday. Investigators say the fact that Alvarez was despondent and trying to kill himself, and not necessarily trying to kill other people, really doesn't matter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE COOLEY, LA COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: All the facts related to the state of mind will be brought out in a court of law. And sometimes someone's being despondent or suicidal or upset or whatever their problem is, is nothing more than a motive that can suggest an intent to commit a crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROWLANDS: Here in Glendale at this hour, investigators are still sifting through the wreckage. We have some good news to pass along. They do not believe there are any more victims in the rubble. There was a missing woman earlier this morning. They say that that individual who was feared dead has been accounted for. And they've been able to lift up a considerable amount of this debris and put cameras underneath. And in their estimation, there will be no more victims found.

They say that there's still a chance, but the good news is they don't believe any more people have perished. Within the last hour, they read the names of nine of the victims. Two have not yet been positively identified -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Ted Rowlands, thank you so much.

Straight ahead, we're going to tell you about a Michigan company taking its anti-smoking policy just a step further: break the habit or get a new job. Can they do that?

And who's this bunny on my browser? Buster is making some in Washington hopping mad. We're going to tell you why.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange. Up next, there's talk of another telecom marriage. Will Ma Bell be gobbled up by a baby bell? I'll have word of a possible $15 billion deal coming up on LIVE FROM.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: No doubt that's a chilling sound for survivors from Auschwitz. It's a grim milestone. Holocaust survivors, political leaders and royalty are gathering at the camp on the 60th anniversary of its liberation.

It will stand as one of the darkest chapters of human history. Six decades after the liberation of this Nazi death camp, Auschwitz, the world is remembering its victims.

CNN's Chris Burns is there -- Chris.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, that was a very, very moving tour, two hours or so, really, with more than 40 world leaders here, including Vice President Dick Cheney and others from Russia, from Europe and elsewhere. A very, very emotional scene here with more than 1,000 survivors braving this cold. As you can see, it's still snowing here.

The candles are also still flickering, even at this hour. Some of the candles that were placed there next to this monument for the victims of Nazis, these -- these candles that were laid by Dick Cheney and others to remember the more than 1.1 million people here who died, most of them Jewish, at the hands of the Nazis from gassings, from exposure, and, of course, from executions from shootings and so forth.

The survivors and the world leaders here were trying to make the point that yes, we must remember, but we must also look now and ahead to find anti-Semitism that still lurks here. This is what the Polish president had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI, POLAND (through translator): Auschwitz (UNINTELLIGIBLE). This place bears terrible truth about the greatest downfall of mankind. This is a truth that we have to face.

It's our duty to pass this terrible memento to future generations. And we should say the truth, and we should counter all Auschwitz lies that should be punished in all civilized countries. We must do everything we can that the enormity, the symbol of which is Auschwitz-Birkenau, will never happen again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNS: Now, there was one man from southern California, Mel Mermelstein (ph), who was here with his son, David, to remember how he survived through here but watched his mother, two sisters and father and brother being taken away to the gas chambers. He was one of those who has been fighting very hard against Holocaust denial. In fact, he went to court in California against it and won. Here he says he takes candles here and makes silent prayers every year to those who died.

Back to you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Chris Burns, thank you so much -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: One of the survivors of Auschwitz says he can never forget what happened to him and the others who were sent there. But he got through it in a way that might surprise you.

Here's CNN's Aaron Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Each of the people you see in these photographs died in Auschwitz. But to try and grasp the magnitude of what happened there, think of this: each of these faces needs to be multiplied by 5,000 to represent the one million people murdered at that one camp.

Max Garcia, a now retired San Francisco architect, does not need these pictures to remind him of that camp.

MAX GARCIA, AUSCHWITZ SURVIVOR: Here I am 60 years later. Every day, every day that I am alive, that I wake up is a day that I stole away from the Nazis.

BROWN: He grew up in Amsterdam. His younger sister died in Auschwitz. His parents died in other camps.

Garcia arrived in Auschwitz in July of '43. And 14 months later, he became part of what is preposterous, even in his words: a cabaret at Auschwitz started by another prisoner with god connections. His friend Lex. GARCIA: Well, he got a little combo together of about five or six of us. And he went to the SS officer in charge of his unit, and he said, "This is what I want to do." And he laughed at him.

He said, "Not a chance in hell." And he persisted, and we finally got the OK to do it. And every Sunday after that, we had a cabaret performance in Auschwitz, in the main camp.

My only task was to be the emcee. My task was to tell the jokes. My task was to introduce what next song they were going to play.

Most of the fellow prisoners there had other things to worry about. But the prominent ones had nothing to worry about. They could take time off on Sunday afternoons.

What we didn't expect -- and this was a total surprise to us -- is that the SS guards and the SS officers came to the performance every Sunday afternoon. Lex had been told, "Be sure that you tell your people there will be no jokes about Hitler, no jokes about fascism or Nazism, no jokes about the prison."

BROWN: The SS guards would sit in the first two rows.

GARCIA: It was always a high-wire act in many ways. We were always there, but we had to be very cautious in what we did because once we stepped out of the bounds and we got some SS officer pissed off at us, we could be dead the next day.

We didn't know how we were balancing the act until after we were liberated. But we didn't now how audacious we had been, how much chutzpah we actually had to promote this thing and do it.

BROWN: Sixty years later, the cabaret is not something Garcia dwells on. The burden of survival, too complicated for that, too real.

GARCIA: Nightmares are a constant reminder how lucky you are that you're still alive. They waken you. You're full of sweat. You can scream at times.

You see the whole thing marching right in front of you, like all over again. And there is not a goddamn thing you can do about it. And you have to relive it.

BROWN: Aaron Brown, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, many of today's high school students may know the basic facts about the Holocaust, but those horrific deaths are also helping some students gain a crucial understanding of the value of life.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It can't be, you know, something that you turn on the news and you see it on the bottom of the screen and then you change the channel.

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PHILLIPS: I'll have more on this moving high school lesson on Auschwitz about an hour from now right here on LIVE FROM.

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PHILLIPS: Well, a multibillion-dollar deal between two telecom giants could be in the works.

O'BRIEN: Susan Lisovicz at the stock exchange with that and more.

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PHILLIPS: "Now in the News," a 25-year-old man charged with 11 counts of murder in connection with the California train crash. Juan Manuel Alvarez is scheduled to be arraigned in two and a half hours. Eleven people were killed, one is still missing after a commuter train hit a car, derailed and plowed into two other trains in Glendale. Alvarez could face death if convicted.

The government wants your medical records on a hard drive somewhere. President Bush is proposing the mass computerization of medical data. The White House announced it will ask for $125 million to test the storage of medical records. The president campaigned on that issue last year.

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