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Live From...

Finally Home; Aruba Missing Teen; Bombings in Baghdad

Aired June 22, 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)
TOBY HAWKINS, BRENNAN'S FATHER: I told Brennan -- I said, "Brennan, you know what? I don't know how many 11-year-old boys could survive could what you went through."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Proud parents of a once-missing Utah boy call his rescue a miracle. We're live from Bountiful, Utah.

Frustrations and delays in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. We're live from Aruba with the newest developments in that case.

And all shook up. New information on a fault line running right down the middle of the U.S. that could trigger major earthquakes.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Fredricka Whitfield, in for Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM begins right now.

Once lost, now found, an amazing story of grace, grit and sheer good fortune. The high note being Brennan Hawkins' deliverance from the Utah wilderness and his return to his overjoyed family.

It's very big day in Bountiful, just north of Salt Lake City, and CNN's Rusty Dornin is there -- Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, the mystery has really been how did little Brennan Hawkins survive four days in the wilderness? His parents say they haven't been able to glean a whole lot. They do say that he is not very good at expressing himself and is a bit slow, but he does take things very literally.

And he had two mantras. One was stay on the trail, and the other one was don't talk to strangers.

Now, we know he stayed on the trail because that's where they found him. The other one, we know he didn't talk to strangers because apparently several times he did see searchers on horseback but he hid in the bushes because he was told not to talk to strangers.

Now, apparently, he also spent the nights -- he would go into something called midget mode. He would take his T-shirt, he would crouch down on the ground like a little kid and pull the T-shirt over his knees.

Also, he told his dad he didn't drink any river water, although they're thinking that he probably did, he may not remember, because he also says he only rembers a couple of nights that he slept out in the woods. And remember, he was gone for at least four days.

The parents, Jody and Toby Hawkins, came out a little earlier and talked to reporters and talked about the fears and anxieties that they've gone through over the last four days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JODY HAWKINS, BRENNAN'S MOTHER: I never felt that he was abducted, that he was in harm's way. I felt peace with the situation. But at that point I really didn't think he could have survived that long in the wilderness.

And so when I got into the sheriff's -- when I was going to get into the sheriff's car, I knew they were going to tell me that Brennan was no longer with me. And I collapsed before I could get into the truck. And they put me into the truck, and then they told me that Brennan was still alive and that he was in good shape. My brain still cannot comprehend that.

And it's just been -- you know, we talk about it. Up there wasn't real, this isn't real. And it's going to take some time to process this event in our heads.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) T. HAWKINS: I would like to get our children out, and then we'll just go through that whole scenario. And I think that will make enough of an imprint if we do it two or three times and create a scenario and let them know what resources are going to be.

J. HAWKINS: Because they did remember the rest that they were taught.

T. HAWKINS: Yes.

J. HAWKINS: They did. They did.

T. HAWKINS: That's -- that's the beautiful part...

J. HAWKINS: Yes, they did remember.

T. HAWKINS: ... is that Brennan was just rock solid in everything that he had been taught.

J. HAWKINS: Yes. He was.

T. HAWKINS: You know? He was on a trail. He stayed away from strangers.

J. HAWKINS: Yes.

T. HAWKINS: He knew that it would be bad if he was taken by an a stranger. You know? All these things, he responded, you know, like a champ. QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)

J. HAWKINS: Yes. Yes.

T. HAWKINS: Yes. I think that that...

J. HAWKINS: He didn't process each information. He knew two things, stay on the trail and stay away from strangers.

T. HAWKINS: Stay away from strangers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DORNIN: ... it's been ablaze in yellow. Everywhere in Bountiful you can see signs now, "Welcome home, Brennan." You can see the high school kids at the local -- we were driving in, putting up signs while they were playing soccer, "Welcome back."

Professional posters are up. The whole town that has been -- jumped in to help volunteer to find him is now celebrating the fact that he is home. It turns out the parents also are going to come out with the family and possibly Brennan in about an hour.

WHITFIELD: All right. And Rusty, everyone can't wait to hear from Brennan. I know the mother has said that he's been sleeping since last night, sleeping well into the day. What about his physical status? How is he doing? What did the family say about, you know, his overall spirits?

DORNIN: His spirits apparently have been great. He wasn't very dehydrated, which is why they think he probably was drinking some kind of river water. He had some scratches and bruises.

He was wet when they found him, not because they think he fell in the river, but because it was very muddy in the area where they found him. They think maybe he did fall down.

But other than that, very good spirits. Very excited to come home. His first thing he wanted to do was come and check the mailbox to see if his Pokemon cards had arrived. So he had a focus, and it was not on his past experience, it was on the future.

WHITFIELD: An 11-year-old boy all the way. Rusty Dornin, thanks so much.

And of course CNN will be covering that 5:00 East Coast time press conference involving the family, even if it does happen a little bit earlier. We're hearing as well it could happen as early as an hour from now.

A Texas rescue crew gets ready to head to Aruba to search for a missing Alabama teen, but the trip is delayed. And the missing teen's mother pleads for people not to give up on the search.

Natalee Holloway was last seen more than three weeks ago. CNN's Chris Lawrence is live in Palm Beach, Aruba, with the very latest. And Chris, why the delay for this rescue team?

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they had some trouble getting a charter flight out here and also getting clearance to bring their search dogs in. But they did get the go-ahead from the prime minister, so they will be in here on Friday with a team of about 17 people.

Meantime, we're getting some -- a little bit more information on that meeting between Natalee Holloway's mom and the mother and father of one of the suspects. Beth Holloway Twitty was out passing out prayer cards yesterday and came across the wife of Paul Van Der Sloot.

Paul Van Der Sloot and his wife invited her in. She spent about an hour and a half inside the home talking. And we heard from an attorney for the Van Der Sloot family, who told us that, for lack of a better word, the meeting was "friendly" and that there was no animosity between the three. Beth Holloway Twitty came out of that meeting convinced that there is more out there for investigators to find.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETH HOLLOWAY TWITTY, NATALEE'S MOTHER: The only thing I -- I think there are some other individuals, though, that need to be pursued. And I know the local authorities are -- are doing that and will be doing that. From my point of view, as Natalee's mother, and my intuition all along, I definitely feel there are some more individuals involved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE: Now, the Van Der Sloot's son Joran and two of his friends, they were the last ones to leave that bar with Natalee on the night she disappeared. All three of them have now been moved to the only prison on the island. And that same attorney tells us they're actually more comfortable there. He described conditions at the police holding facility, where they were being held, as terrible.

Now, here on the island, there is no lie detector tests, so authorities have brought in people who are experts at reading body language and demeanor. And those experts have been sitting in on some of the interrogations -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Interesting. All right. Chris Lawrence, in Palm Beach, Aruba. Thanks so much for that update.

The pilot of an American U-2 spy plane has been killed in a crash overseas. U.S. military officials say the spy plane went down in the United Arab Emirates last night. They say the pilot, a member of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing, was returning to base following a fly- over of Afghanistan when the crash occurred. The cause is still under investigation.

A joint offensive in southern Afghanistan has left some 40 insurgents dead. The U.S. military says Afghan and coalition troops came under attack while conducting a search-and-destroy mission near Deh Chopan yesterday.

A firefight ensued, five U.S. soldiers and two Afghan police officers were wounded. One Afghan national police officer was killed.

And now a developing story out of Iraq. A trio of suicide car bombers rocked a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad a short time ago.

CNN's Jennifer Eccleston is live from Baghdad with the very latest -- Jennifer.

JENNIFER ECCLESTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Fredricka. Well, Iraqi police are telling us that three car bombs went off almost simultaneously, about a half a mile apart. They say that 18 people were killed, 48 were wounded in the mainly Shiite district of west Baghdad.

Now, the bombs went off in a about 10-minute span around 9:00 p.m. That's about an hour ago local time in the Shu'la district. That's the site of multiple car bombing attacks and also a number of killings.

And the details are fairly sketchy. But what we know now is that the first car bomb took place in front of the offices of Muqtada al- Sadr. And he's the Shiite cleric from Najaf.

The second took place in front of a garage. And the third was at the neighborhood's main entrance.

The police say that only civilians targeted. There were no Iraqi police, nor were there any military at the site.

Now, the Shu'la neighborhood, just for a little background, is considered one of those focal points of tension between the Shiite community and the Sunni community -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And Jennifer, is this unusual, a nighttime series of car bombings?

ECCLESTON: Nothing really is unusual in Baghdad these days with the intense insecurity that clouds this city. We normally do see the car bombs, however, in the daylight hours. But as I mentioned, nothing is unusual. Nothing really surprises us. When there's so much tension and insecurity in this city and there is just so much strife, that it's quite feasible that these things happen 'round the clock.

WHITFIELD: All right. Jennifer Eccleston. Thanks so much for that update out of Baghdad.

Well, in other news from Iraq, a Filipino man taken hostage in Iraq has been freed after almost eight months in captivity. Robert Tarongoy was abducted along with American Roy Hallums, from their Baghdad office in November. Hallums' fate, however, is still unknown.

The U.S. military has suffered another casualty in Iraq. An American soldier was killed during a combat operation near Ramadi on Tuesday. The soldier was a member of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force.

On a positive note, Iraq's transitional government is receiving broad international support to help rebuild the war-torn nation. More than 80 senior officials from the U.N., EU, the U.S. and many other nations adopted a declaration of support for Iraq during a one-day conference in Belgium. The U.N. secretary-general calls the show of support a turning point in Iraq's history.

President Bush is trying to light a fire under Congress once again for an energy bill. A domestic priority of his first term is an even higher priority of his second term, especially with gasoline stalled at more than $2 a gallon. Today, Mr. Bush elected to talk electricity at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Maryland.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Nuclear power is one of America's safest sources of energy. People right here practice a lot of safety. They're good at it.

You've got nuclear engineers and experts that spend a lot of time maintaining a safe environment. Just ask the people that work here. You wouldn't be coming here if it wasn't safe, I suspect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: The president say he's hopes to get an energy package encompassing nukes, oil innovation protection and conservation by August

Well, should middle America be worried about earthquakes? New information about a fault line running down the middle of the country straight ahead on LIVE FROM.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID GROSH, FMR. DIRECTOR, AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL CENTER: I'm embarrassed and disgusted to be part of this whole thing. The Lakota Indians have a word, "waikisu" (ph), which aptly describes all of us right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Who is this guy and what does he have to do with big money lobbyists, powerful politicians and casino gambling? A live report from Capitol Hill straight ahead.

Plus, Oprah Winfrey snubbed in France. Find out why designer stores promising the talk show queen they'll let her in next time.

(WEATHER REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WHITFIELD: Tirades, outbursts, allegations, ruminations. The floors of Congress see all those and more on a weekly basis. Apologies, however, are rare, especially the kind delivered yesterday with quavering voice by the second highest ranking Democrat, Richard Durbin, of Illinois.

One week earlier, Durbin suggested that purported human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay were comparable to those committed by Nazis, the Soviets or Pol Pot. Yesterday, he said he never intended to do diminish the Holocaust, nor to cast a negative light on the U.S. military.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: In the end, I don't want anything in my public career to detract for my love for this country, my respect for those who serve it, and this great Senate. I offer my apologies to those who were offended by my words. I promise you that I will continue to speak out on the issues that I think are important to the people of Illinois and to the nation.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Were Native-Americans taken advantage of by one man they hired to represent them on Capitol Hill? Documents just released seem to point in that direction. Here's how one witness at a hearing before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee put it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID GROSH, FMR. DIRECTOR, AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL CENTER: I'm embarrassed and disgusted to be part of this whole thing. The Lakota Indians have a word, "waikiso" (ph), which aptly describes all of us right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Let's get more from our congressional correspondent, Joe Johns.

Joe, who is this guy?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, his name, Fredricka, is David Grosh. He's a construction worker, a bartender and a former lifeguard out of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. And he says two or three years ago he was given an offer he couldn't refuse. That was an offer to run an international corporation.

That was an offer made, in fact, by a Washington high-roller, a P.R. man named Mike Scanlon, who used to work for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. He's been involved in an investigation going on here on Capitol Hill, an investigation into a man you can describe as his partner, named Abramoff, Jack Abramoff, super lobbyist. Neither of them here today at this hearing, but a variety of other persons, some of whom took the Fifth Amendment, their right not to testify before the committee while these investigations continue.

The bottom line on the investigations is the question as to whether the tribes were ripped off. Many of them say they were, including the Mississippi band of the Choctaw Indians. A representative for them spoke to the committee today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD KILGORE, ATTORNEY GENERAL, CHOCTAW INDIANS: Clearly, after my consultation with an outside firm and with your staff, Senator, it has become apparent that Jack Abramoff and Mike Scanlon engaged in a consistent pattern of kickbacks, misappropriated funds, payments induced under false pretenses, and padded billings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: Now, Senator John McCain of Arizona has been lead this investigation, and it has taken him and his staff through a web of entities and transactions. He talked today about the amount of money involved with the Choctaw tribe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Even today, the tribe could not have envisioned the betrayal it suffered at their hands. And how big was that betrayal? According a January 8, 2002 e-mail from Mr. Abramoff to Mr. Scanlon, the two had charged the Mississippi Choctaw $7.7 million for projects in 2001. Of that amount, Mr. Scanlon spent $1.2 million for the efforts. He and Mr. Abramoff split an astounding $6.5 million.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: So back to the top, you heard David Grosh say the word, "waikiso" (ph). Well Virginia Nicolades (ph) at CNN here looked it up. It means fat taker or one who takes the best for himself. That apparently is what is under investigation here -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much. Joe Johns on Capitol Hill.

Grenade launchers, automatic weapons fire in broad daylight, and law enforcement officials being assassinated. It's not Iraq. It's right across the border from Texas. We'll take you to the streets of Nuevo Laredo.

And -- ooh, it looks like a scene from a Hitchcock movie, doesn't it. But it's a real life problem for a Wisconsin town that has gone to the birds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A flock of seagulls has taken up residence in a Wisconsin town, and now the gulls need to go away. Joe Gehl with CNN affiliate station WISN reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE GEHL, REPORTER, WISN (voice-over): Like a city within a city, hundreds of gulls nesting in the middle of a busy Sheboygan business district.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like they're not even afraid of you, so to speak, anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, terrible. Just terrible.

GEHL: What was once a messy nuisance residing in this vacant lot next to the Washington Square Shopping Center is now, by all accounts, a health hazard that has to go.

(on camera): It seems like everybody has an idea on how to get rid of the gulls, including these mechanical flying birds of prey. Of course it will all come down to which idea is actually going to work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll hold the umbrella up for you.

GEHL (voice-over): Ben Nelson is a wildlife specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Today, he began his own investigation into Operation Empty Nest, touring the site for solutions to relocate the gulls without harming them.

BEN NELSON, U.S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE: I'll look at it. Other specialists at our office will look at it. And we'll kind of make a group effort at determining what we'll actually do.

GEHL: For now, residents are being asked not to feed the problem, while threatening decoys already in place will keep doing what they can. All this as a nearby car wash continues to thrive.

In Sheboygan, Joe Gehl, WISN 12 News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Well, some lawmakers are taking aim at big companies like Wal-Mart. They say healthcare policies at those corporate giants hurt taxpayers.

To explain the connection, Kathleen Hays joins us now from the New York Stock Exchange.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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