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Live From...

Shootout as Authorities Attempt Arrests in Weekend Bombing; Five Arrested in Second London Bombings; Former NASA Administrator Discusses Columbia Disaster

Aired July 25, 2005 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, HOST: The heat is on. Deadly temperatures from the deep south to the Midwest.
Terror investigation, two suspects identified. Now London police ask shopkeepers for help with a crucial clue.

Global phenomenon. Why a sandstorm in the Sahara could mean a gorgeous sunset for Florida tonight.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

Well, if you're one of the millions of people trying to stay cool on another miserably hot July day, here's a comforting thought: Christmas is only five months away.

For now, you're being urged, though, to drink plenty of water, crank up the A.C. and take it easy. It's sizzling hot a third of the country with the mercury soaring to the triple digits in some places. That's creating quite a dangerous situation.

Our meteorologist, Jacqui Jeras, keeping track of those rising temperatures.

Hi, Jacqui.

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Jacqui Jeras, thank you so much.

We want to take you overseas to the other story we've been talking about all morning, Egypt in the midst of a terror investigation, as you know. Today President Bush signed a book of condolences for the dozens of people killed in that bombing at Sharm El-Sheikh.

CNN's Chris Burns is there, joins us by phone. Give us the latest on the investigation, Chris.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, this investigation has turned violent. Authorities say that there was a shootout in a village that is not far from Sharm El-Sheikh. They say that they've been rounding up a number of suspects. They won't give any numbers, but what we're hearing from local media is that it's in the scores. They are also talking about a possible Pakistani connection that they already had even before these latest attacks. They've been looking for a number of Pakistanis across the country, indicating there being some possible link between extremists here, the home-grown kind, and those from abroad.

Also, the investigation of trying to find out who exactly died in these attacks, not only among the suicide bombers but also among the innocent, of those who were kill. They finally were able to identify one American woman. Her English boyfriend is still missing. A lot of foreigners are still missing in these attacks.

So far the death toll is at 84, but authorities expect that to rise as more people are identified, and it's quite possible that more will die, those who have been severely injured, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Chris, what can you tell us about those involved in the investigation? Are there authorities from London involved in addition to Pakistan, also Egypt, even the United States?

BURNS: Well, that's a good question. The authorities here, extremely tight-lipped how this investigation is going on. It is quite possible that there are international contacts, though we did hear from the Pakistanis earlier today that they would like to hear more from the Egyptians about their allegations of a Pakistani connection. So it's not exactly clear how much communication is going on, at least between the Egyptians and the Pakistanis.

PHILLIPS: All right. Chris Burns, rather, joining us live by phone there, as we continue to follow that terror -- the terror investigation, rather, in Egypt, since the bombings in Sharm El-Sheikh just a couple days ago.

We want to take you to London now, where the number of people arrested in connection with last week's attacks has now grown to five, but investigators are still looking for those bombers. British police today identified two of the four prime suspects in the blast. They're calling it the biggest manhunt in history, at least in that country.

CNN's Jonathan Mann is keeping track of developments in London -- Jon.

JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, there are new details, in fact, about three men whose faces have suddenly become very well known across this country.

The first of them is the Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot and killed, essentially by mistake when police mistook him for a terror suspect last week.

What we've learned within the last hour comes to us from the independent investigation that was already looking into his death and that has disclosed that he was shot eight times. That's more than we had previously been told, and it will only add to the astonishment of many people who wonder how an incident like that could have happened. There are also two other men, two men who are named and identified publicly as suspects in this case for the first time in great detail by the police. The first of them is Muktar Said Ibrahim, a 27-year-old also known as Muktar Mohammed Said. He is said to be the man who tried to bomb a bus here last Thursday.

The second man identified by police is Yasin Hassan Omar, age 24, who tried to set off his bomb in the subway.

There were four would-be suicide bombers, all of whom botched their attacks. They are, as you say, very much on the loose. Two of them, only, now have been publicly identified. The police is ask -- the police, rather, are asking the public for help finding them and identifying the two other men whose faces have also been spread through the media.

Intriguingly, a new clue that emerged in all of this is a strange one. A kitchen container that seems to be a common thread through the four different botched bombings and a fifth bomb found that was found unexploded and subsequently detonated by police.

It's the kind of thing that many people, you might even have in your home. A large plastic container, translucent with a white cover. The common container found in the backpacks that didn't explode, and then the device that police themselves exploded. The police now are asking for help with that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER CLARKE, ANTI-TERRORIST BRANCH, METROPOLITAN POLICE: My appeal is to any shopkeepers or shop workers who may have sold five or more of these identical food containers in recent months, perhaps to the same customer. Do you remember selling any of these items at the same time? Do you remember selling them to men, perhaps, who you recognize from the pictures we have put out today?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello? OK. Thank you.

BURNS: There were raids in north London across the city where from the police were most active over the weekend. They arrested three men in the south of the city. Now word that they arrested one more yesterday and one today in north London, bringing the total number of people being questioned to five.

Five men being held under the British Terrorism Act in connection with the botched bombings earlier last week. But not the men they believe who carried out those bombings. And so with five men in custody, with the investigation proceeding, there are still four would-be suicide bombers believed to be still on the loose -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Meanwhile, just one quick question about the shooting of the young Brazilian, Jon. What's the mood with regard to how Londoners are feeling about the police and about the systems right now? Evidently, there is a lot of fear within London. Do they feel it's somehow justified because of the situation, or is there a lot of protests with regard to the police right now?

BURNS: It really depends who you ask. The truth is that Londoners were terrified to get back into the subway, many of them, terrified to use public transit because of the terrorists, and people wanted strong action by the police and the investigation seemed to be moving so quickly, they were very proud of what the police were doing.

Muslims and other people in the minority communities here were a little more skeptical about the information they were getting, and those people, especially since the shooting are furious, and they say they're very frightened.

In fact, just moments ago, Muslim leaders emerged from Scotland Yard here after a meeting with the people who run London's Metropolitan Police to try and figure out, collectively, they are going to address the issue of security in the Muslim community and what's going on inside mosques.

But I can tell you that there's a lot of mixed feelings. People here have never really supported the arming of the London police. Very few traditionally carry guns and now they've not only used their weapons, which is extraordinarily rare, but they've used them to kill an incident man.

So astonishment is the collective feeling, a lot of anger among minorities and a lot of concern among just about everyone else -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jonathan Mann, live from London. Thanks, Jon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS (voice-over): Next on LIVE FROM...

LINDA HAM, FORMER NASA EMPLOYEE: I had no clue. No clue that something that terrible could happen.

PHILLIPS: Some called her a scapegoat for the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. On the eve of the Discovery launch, the woman who led the last liftoff speaks out.

PHILLIPS: A murder trial with a video game at the center of the case.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are there murders simulators?

PHILLIPS: Can a game be blamed for the deaths of two police officers and a dispatcher?

Later on LIVE FROM, the Tour de Lance. Can any other athlete even come close to the streak of seven straight? The Americans waiting in the wings to cycle to the top.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: And a massive dust cloud from half a world away could blow into Florida today. The dust cloud, which is almost the size of U.S., formed in the Sahara Desert. Forecasters believe it could move over Florida anytime between now and Wednesday.

Dust clouds are not uncommon this time of year. It's not expected to pose any serious health risks. If anything, it could make for a spectacular and romantic sunrise or sunset.

Well, NASA says it may have to bend its own safety rules tomorrow to launch the Space Shuttle Discovery. Space agency officials say it may prove a waiver if a problem with a fuel tank sensor comes up together. A faulty sensor forced NASA to scrub the mission two weeks ago. But NASA's test director says that he doesn't expect any trouble ahead of the launch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE NIKOLENKO, NASA TEST DIRECTOR: I believe that we're ready, and I feel very confident going into the conduct of the terminal launch countdown that the entire team's ready to execute the -- ready to execute this mission. And we fully expect that it should work as designed, which is -- which is what we would expect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Thousands of spectators, including first lady Laura Bush, will be at Kennedy Space Center to watch that launch, as will CNN. Our special coverage will begin at 10 Eastern, 7 specific (sic).

Well, a successful launch would definitely restore a lot of confidence within the space program. The woman who some say became the scapegoat for the disaster will be watching this shuttle mission from the sidelines.

And our CNN space correspondent, Miles O'Brien, brings us the reasons why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the Ham house in Houston, the beat goes on, or so it seems. The boys are practicing -- playing -- thriving -- happy. Well, there is math homework to contend with.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And to millimeters --

O'BRIEN: But it's nice to have a mom who's a math major. She is Linda Ham, a space shuttle superstar...

HAM: Did you hand it in?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... who became a scapegoat for a catastrophe. HAM: It's just really not a job -- it isn't something that you go to do every day. It's your life. It's just a part of your life, seven days a week always. Always thinking about. So, yes. I miss -- I miss the job.

O'BRIEN: Ham was No. 2 at NASA's $3.5 billion space shuttle program and a lock to be the boss one day. A smart, talented beautiful woman, a competitive body builder no less, in a world dominated by guys in short-sleeved shirts with pocket protectors.

HAM: I was the first woman section head in the entire division, first woman flight director, and even in the program, there weren't a whole lot of women at the level of management that I was in.

O'BRIEN: It didn't bother her a bit. She came here straight out of school from Wisconsin, hired over the phone. She came, they saw, she conquered.

HAM: Landing about 50.

HAM: And I really think I've been lucky all along, because from the day I got in there, it was one of those jobs where the shoe really fit.

O'BRIEN (on camera): In January 2003 she was on top of the world, running the mission management team, or MMT, for Columbia. The MMT met five times during Columbia's last flight, and on three occasions they talked about that falling piece of foam that hit Columbia's wing 82 seconds after liftoff. And on each occasion, Linda Ham and the others agreed it was simply a maintenance concern, which is what falling foam had always been.

HAM: Deep down inside I didn't believe -- I didn't feel we had an issue. I'm pretty intuitive, very intuitive, and this time, I had no intuition that this was going to be an issue.

O'BRIEN: Why not?

HAM: I think it's back to the feeling that we lose foam every flight. Strikes the orbiter every flight. It's never a significant issue.

O'BRIEN: Convinced there was nothing to worry about, Ham blocked the efforts of others at NASA who wanted to ask the Pentagon to train spy satellites on Columbia while still in orbit to check for damage.

(voice-over) On the morning Columbia was to land she gathered in a room that overlooks mission control with other senior shuttle managers, Ralph Roe and Ron Dittemore.

HAM: I think the hardest thing is just the fact that the whole 16 days of flight, feeling extremely comfortable that everything was going great and just not knowing, having no clue, no clue, that something that terrible could happen.

O'BRIEN: Yet the problem was screaming for attention. Two flights before in October 2002, a big piece of foam from the same spot fell off as Atlantis roared to space. It left a big dent near some sensitive electronics at the base of the left solid rocket booster. The shuttle team did not answer that stark wake-up call.

(on camera) Do you have any regrets?

HAM: The biggest regret is having launched in the first place. That's the biggest regret. We should have said we're not going to launch until we resolve the foam issue.

O'BRIEN: The problem was deep-seated, ingrained in NASA's culture. No one person to blame. And yet for a time, she became the focus, the embodiment of all that ailed the space agency. The scapegoat.

HAM (voice-over): Some people phrase it as being a lightning rod for criticism. One thing that I will say if they're picking on the NASA -- if they were challenging the NASA culture, I was certainly a part of that culture.

O'BRIEN (on camera): Are you angry about how it affected you personally in the end?

HAM: I am not angry at all. I am truly not angry. I think that NASA certainly treated me fairly. They needed to move me out of the program. At the time it didn't really feel good, but it was the best for NASA. It was the best for the program. It was best for me personally.

O'BRIEN: Do you think it derailed your career?

HAM: Oh, yes, I certainly do.

O'BRIEN (voice-over): And this does not sit well with her former colleagues, still in the trenches.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In this, the business of flying in space, it's too darn large to nick it down to a single person and say, boy, if Linda Ham had just been smarter the way she conducted those MMT's, this wouldn't have happened.

O'BRIEN (on camera): So was Linda Ham scapegoated, then?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not at all. She shared a part of the responsibility, along with her equals in the chain of command and her senior, Dittemore, who bears ultimate responsibility.

O'BRIEN: Retired Admiral Hal Gaiman (ph) led the Columbia accident investigation board.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She should have asked for a worst-case scenario, as well as a best-case scenario. The only thing that -- the only scenario or the only option that was ever presented into these meetings was the best-case scenario.

HAM: I do think about Columbia every day. There's not -- oh, I will forever. I run a lot. And that's probably when a lot of that guess through my mind. So that won't go away, but it was just so -- you just can't live in the past. And you certainly can't pity yourself. You've got to get up and you've got to get on.

Reporter: Miles O'Brien, CNN, Houston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, is North Korea really a nuke menace? We're going to talk with a terrorism analyst who just returned from that closed country, talks about who he met and what he saw, just ahead.

Seven straight for Lance Armstrong. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta reveals the unique physical strengths that make the cyclist nearly unbeatable.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Stories now in the news, an Indiana National Guardsman charged with murdering an Iraqi police officer pleads guilty to negligent homicide. The Associate Press reports that Corporal Dustin Berg originally said the officer shot him but later admitted that he shot himself to make it look like he fired in self-defense. Berg says he thought he was in danger and acted rashly.

New photographs are circulating of Iraq's notorious Chemical Ali under interrogation. The Iraqi special tribunal released these pictures of Saddam Hussein's cousin and several others of his henchmen being questioned before trial. It's not known when the photos were taken.

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts holding a fourth day of private meetings with senators on Capitol Hill. Roberts met today with Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. During the meeting Roberts remained mum when a reporter asked him why he was listed as a member of the Federalists Society.

Two unions representing millions of American workers are threatening to leave the AFL-CIO. In about 30 minutes, Teamsters and the service employees union plan to announce that they're quitting the federation. Two other unions who are boycotting the AFL-CIO convention say they're also fed up.

(STOCK REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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