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London Bombing Suspect Arrested; Bomb in Park Raises Questions about Fifth Bomber; Commander Hints at U.S. Withdrawal Starting in Spring; Aruban Police Drain Pond in Search for Teenager

Aired July 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, HOST: Bombing suspect nabbed as investigators try to learn exactly who planned the London attacks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He came from the backyard, through an open door of the back of this house, out the front door, on to this street, and then took off up the street.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Following in the footsteps of a possible fifth bomber still on the loose.

When will American troops start getting out of Iraq? A top commander makes a prediction.

Aruba investigation. Could the key to solving the case be at the bottom of this pond?

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

More raids, more arrests, more leads in London. Our "Security Watch" focuses on one suspect now in particular, in connection with last week's failed terror attacks, now under lock and key in a high security jail. CNN's Jon Mann on the scene at Paddington Green.

What's the latest on the raid, Jon?

JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, it started very early this morning. It is already front-page news nationwide. You can see the headline.

Police say they've arrested Yasin Hassan Omar. He's a 24-year- old Somali who's believed to be one of the men who carried out the botched bombings last week.

He was taken in Birmingham, this country's second largest city, entirely by surprise at 4:30 a.m. local time. He resisted arrest, and police used a Taser stun gun to subdue him, long enough to grab him and then bring him here to Paddington Green.

PHILLIPS: Talk about Paddington Green for a moment. There's tremendous history around this police station, Jon. This is where members of the IRA have been interrogated, also detainees at Gitmo. Tell us about the history and also the interrogation process he's going under right now.

MANN: Well, I'm not sure if you can see behind me. But essentially, this is the highest security police station in the British capital. It's built like an office building set atop a very carefully protected bunker.

Paddington Green is, as you mentioned, where they interrogated IRA suspects, where the men who were held at Guantanamo Bay, the British subjects who were released, were brought before they were set free here in the U.K.

They are interrogating Omar and five other men, according to our calculations, in connection with the attacks.

One more thing to mention about this location, it has been at the very center of the terror strikes that struck Britain quite literally. Just across the road from the station is the Edgware Street -- or Edgware Road, I should say, subway station, where six people and one of the bombers were killed back on July 7.

So this has been, both geographically and in terms of the investigation, really, the center of the storm that has hit this country.

The interrogation that's under way is very much a secret to most of us. What we do know is that they have a lot of work ahead. They're trying to find three other bombers who are still on the loose. They're trying to find the men who equipped them, who trained them, and who inspired them.

So even with this, a very important advance that the police feel they have made, they have a lot of work yet to do.

PHILLIPS: No doubt, some of the best interrogators there at Paddington Green. Jon Mann, thank you so much.

Another mystery surrounds another bomb found over the weekend close to one of Thursday's targets. Does this mean a fifth bomber is on the loose? Our CNN international correspondent, Nic Robertson, now with a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): It's the bomb that hasn't been explained. It was found when someone noticed the suspicious backpack in London's Little Wormwood Scrubs Park.

It was similar to the four bombs, like this one found on a bus in east London, that failed to go off on July 21. In fact it used the exact same container as the other four bombs. And police were forced to use controlled explosions to disarm it.

(on camera) The ground is still damaged where the bomb disposal team dealt with bomb number five. But the question is, who left it here?

(voice-over) Could it have been one of the suspected bombers that police are looking for? Or is there a fifth man?

Westbourne Park subway station in west London. At 12:21 p.m. last Thursday, while three would-be bombers are setting off together on their mission from a south London subway station, the man police call suspect number four is caught, apparently alone, on a security camera here.

He is just minutes away from boarding a train and trying to detonate the explosives in his backpack and is the only one of the four bombers known to go anywhere near Little Wormwood Scrubs Park, where the fifth bomb will be discovered two days later.

(on camera) The important thing to note here is that he only has one backpack and it's only big enough for one set of explosives. Now, remember that as we go along the route.

(voice-over) His journey would have been quick, passing through just two stations.

(on camera) The police say when he tried to let off his bomb, he then escaped by climbing out the back window of the train.

(voice-over) They say he left his backpack on the train and that he ran along the track for about two to three hundred yards, then climbed down behind these houses.

(on camera) He came from the backyard, through an open door at the back of this house, out the front door, onto this street, and then took off down the street.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ran down here.

ROBERTSON: Down the street here?

RIZGIR NASIR, EYEWITNESS: Down the street.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Rizgir Nasir was working in a garage at the end of the street. He says the man he saw running down the street, the man police think was the would-be bomber, was alone.

(on camera) Was he carrying anything?

NASIR: No, just he had spare clothes with him.

ROBERTSON: Spare clothes. No second backpack?

NASIR: No.

ROBERTSON: No backpack at all?

NASIR: No, definitely not.

ROBERTSON: Suspect No. 4 was last seen about 10 minutes later, under this bridge, not carrying a pack. He was half a mile from Little Wormwood Scrubs Park.

(on camera) So does it mean there is a bomber number five on the loose? And if that's the case, why do the police say they're still only looking for four men?

Nic Robertson, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Twenty-two years behind bars for the so-called millennium bomber. Ahmed Ressam was sentenced just moments ago for plotting to blow up the Los Angeles Airport on New Year's Eve 2000.

The Algerian was caught on the U.S.-Canadian border weeks earlier with nitroglycerin in his car. He had made a deal with prosecutors to testify in other cases. But he recently quit cooperating with them and they asked for a longer sentence.

Now if you're headed for certain airports, you could see longer security lines. The TSA is moving screeners all over the place now, taking a number from New York's JFK, Pittsburgh and Portland, Oregon, and moving them to Las Vegas, Houston, and Los Angeles. Two airports in Florida can also expect more screeners, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.

CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. Stay tuned to CNN for the latest information day and night.

A surprise visitor to Iraq. Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld dropped by with a message for the country's leaders. In short, get tough and get moving to stem the flow of insurgents into Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: They need to be aggressively communicating with their neighbors to see that foreign terrorists stop coming across those borders and that their neighbors do not harbor insurgents and finance insurgents in a way that is destructive of what the Iraqi people are trying to accomplish.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: U.S. troops, Rumsfeld and the top U.S. commander in Iraq say they can now see a little light at the end of the tunnel. CNN's Aneesh Raman joins us now from Baghdad with that.

Hi, Aneesh.

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, good afternoon.

The comments coming from General Casey, suggesting a sizable troop reduction by mid next year. They came, though with a good number of variables.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) RAMAN (voice-over): Wherever the U.S. secretary of defense goes, so follow questions about coalition troop size in Iraq. And on a surprise visit Wednesday, Rumsfeld's top commander here tackled that issue, suggesting possible troop reduction following the general elections in December, an answer punctuated with a number of ifs.

GEN. GEORGE CASEY, COMMANDER, MULTINATIONAL FORCES: If the political process continues to go positively, and if the development of the security forces continues to go as it is going, I do believe we'll still be able to take some fairly substantial reductions after these elections in the spring and summer of next year.

RAMAN: A scenario heavily reliant on Iraq itself. Ahead of meetings with both the president and with the prime minister, Secretary Rumsfeld voiced strong concerns on border security...

RUMSFELD: Well, it's important for them to work with their neighbors to see that the behavior of, particularly Iran and Syria, improves. It has been harmful and Iraq is a big country...

RAMAN: And on meeting the looming deadline, now just weeks away, to finish writing a constitution for a public referendum in October, something Rumsfeld sees at risk of crumbling, bluntly warning Iraqi politicians that they must move forward and that compromise is necessary.

From the Iraqi prime minister, agreement. And, along with a call for speedy withdrawal of foreign troops, a caveat.

IBRAHIM AL-JAAFARI, IRAQI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We do not want to be surprised by withdrawals that are not in connection with our Iraqi timing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAMAN: And, Kyra, further evidence of why Iraqis are wary of any timetable that is too quick, another suicide car bomb detonating today in the northern part of Baghdad. At least two civilians were killed, 10 others wounded.

These are seminal months ahead, amidst this insurgency, for Iraq, Kyra: constitutional referendum, nationwide election, the installation of the first permanent government in Iraq. And all agree that many of these steps have to be met before any serious dialogue of a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals can go forward -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Aneesh Raman, live from Baghdad, thanks, Aneesh.

We'll expect to hear more about a troop pullout next hour during the daily Pentagon briefing. We'll bring you whatever comments are made.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS (voice-over): Next on LIVE FROM: will this pond contain the clues leading to Natalee Holloway? A forensic expert tells us what they're looking for.

Also ahead, life for prostitutes on the streets.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And they locked me in the back of a crackhouse and they sent men in for days.

PHILLIPS: Hear their stories of the man who rescued them and the moment his work and his life was cut short.

Later on LIVE FROM, you've heard the tune...

(MUSIC)

PHILLIPS: But have you seen the movie? We've got Andre 3000's number as he join us for the LIVE FROM interview.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: In Aruba, an agonizingly slow process as police drain a flood basin. That basin lies near the beach where Natalee Holloway was last seen, according to three young men who are the suspects in the case.

It's also where a new witness claims to have seen Van Der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers ducking down inside a parked car at 2:30 in the morning when Holloway vanished.

CNN photojournalist Bethany Chamberland is on the scene there in Palm Beach, Aruba.

Bethany, tell us what you're seeing. Explain the process and how it's working here at this catch basin.

BETHANY CHAMBERLAND, CNN PHOTOJOURNALIST: They started the process about 15 hours ago, where they've been trying to drain out the water. And originally, when we got the first estimates last night, they were taking out about 3,600 gallons a minute, and they expected to be wrapping up about now.

I can tell you that there's still a lot of water left in that basin. As we speak, they are bringing in some additional pumps. Hopefully, the process will begin to go faster. But they're nowhere near finished. And the last official that I was able to flag down, he thinks the earliest they're going to be done is tomorrow.

PHILLIPS: Well, have they told you exactly what they're looking for?

CHAMBERLAND: They really haven't. They said that there could be some kind of clues that are -- going to find in there. But they have not been very specific about what they're hoping to find. They're saying that there's hopefully going to be something underneath there.

PHILLIPS: Tell us about the different types of equipment that have been brought in. And is it from there in Aruba, or was any type of special equipment brought in from outside of Aruba to drain this and drain this as fast as they could, and carefully, so they don't destroy any possible evidence or clues?

CHAMBERLAND: It appears that all the equipment here is from Aruba fire department. They are the ones who are coordinating all of the process right now. And, yes, everything looks like it definitely came from Aruba. I don't think anything has been brought in physically at this point. But they have not been very forthcoming with information.

PHILLIPS: All right, Bethany Chamberland, continue to monitor what's taking place for us there, as they're working in that catch basin. Tell us when you have more information.

And meanwhile, clearly, authorities wouldn't drain this flood basin unless they expect to find something. But it's been more than eight weeks since Natalee Holloway has disappeared. And if there was any evidence, what kind of condition would it be in?

Forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs has extensive crime screen experience from around the world. Her latest book, "Cross Bones," has just been released. She joins us live from London.

Kathy, great to have you with us.

KATHY REICHS, AUTHOR, "CROSS BONES": Oh, thank you.

PHILLIPS: Let's talk about, first of all, as they drain this pond -- I mean, obviously, due to eyewitnesses and some of these suspects being seen in this exact area, authorities believe something is there, possibly a body.

REICHS: Right. If the body's in there, I don't know how much action in the water there is, how much current action. I don't know the temperature of the water. I don't know if there's active fish life or other types of crustaceans in the water. All those things affect what condition the body's in, if it's a body.

Eight weeks in water, probably relatively warm water, that body's going to be very badly decomposed. It's probably going to be a case that's going to require dental identification. I would assume that they've got dental records at this point from the family.

I would assume that the autopsy to determine what's happened to the body, assuming it is one, is going to require an anthropologist and a pathologist, because they're going to have to go to more than just the soft tissue, which is going to be in a very compromised state.

PHILLIPS: Anything else -- let's say there is not a body, but possibly there could have been a body in this area. What else could they look for or what else could they find that could be of help in this investigation?

REICHS: Well, it could have been anything that the perpetrator threw in there to, hopefully, make it disappear. It could be a bundle of clothing. It could be anything that had come in contact with Natalee or anything relevant to the site at which the murder or the accidental death -- whatever it turns out to be -- might have taken place. It could have been anything that they threw in there. It could be hair. There could be all kinds of evidence that might have been in contact with the perpetrator or the victim.

PHILLIPS: Now Kathy, since this is a catch basin, it's possible that there wasn't water in this area before Natalee Holloway went missing. So is it possible that they could be draining this because they believe she might be buried under mud or possibly there might have been some type of ditch dug in that area before it was filled with water?

REICHS: Yes, I don't know exactly what the geology or the climactic conditions are in that particular location, but obviously, they've been told something and something that's led them to suspect that she could be under there. Whether or not that was dry at the time of her possible death. And you know, hopefully for her parents that's not the case. We still don't know that, of course.

But whatever it is they've been told, it's brought them to that particular location. If the body's buried or if the body's in water, it's still going to be a very difficult analysis, once they recover it.

PHILLIPS: You brought up the issue of if, indeed, the body had been in water. Fish life, temperature of the water, obviously, would not be helpful, if, indeed, they came across something. But let's say the body was buried and had not been in a pond like this, in a catch basin, for the number of days. If buried, could the body be more well preserved?

REICHS: Well, it makes a difference, on the surface, in the ground, in the water. And that's kind of the gradient for how fast it's going to decompose.

But everything is temperature dependent. It's also dependent on scavenging activity. Animals are going to get at a body if it's left on the surface.

Even if it's just a shallow grave, and presumably this is quickly dug, in order to quickly conceal a body. It's probably going to be a shallow grave. You're still going to have scavenging animals that can make it below a certain level. You're still going to have insects, insect activity that's going to reach down a foot, or even possibly as much as two feet, below the surface.

You're going to have various kinds of marine creatures that are going to scavenge. Fish are going to scavenge. It really -- unless the body is protected in something, unless it was wrapped in plastic, that's probably going to minimize or at least discourage scavengers, but there's still the possibility they can get in through that protective wrapping.

PHILLIPS: Forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, it's always interesting to talk to you. Thanks, Kathy.

REICHS: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, he was a friend of prostitutes and drug addicts, because he believed life could be much better for them. Just ahead on LIVE FROM, the people he rescued remember Sergeant Jerry Vick, the man who made a difference.

Also ahead, could tiny particles lead to big problems for the space shuttle? We'll explore it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: A partisan disagreement breaks out confirming Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. But it's not the candidate. It's the calendar at issue.

Republican Arlen Specter, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, wants to start August 29, in hopes of finishing by the time the court begins a new session in October. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy wants to wait until September 6 when Congress returns from August recess.

Once, twice, three times a governor, is apparently enough for George Pataki. Pataki says today he won't seek a fourth term for the state of New York's highest office. But it's not because he's tired of politics. Pataki is considering a run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008.

An emergency divorce granted in Wichita, to the longtime wife of confessed killer Dennis Rader. In waiving the usual 60-day waiting period for a divorce, the judge agreed that a delay would further endanger the mental health of Paula Rader. She was married to Dennis Rader for 34 years. During that time, he terrorized the Wichita area as the BTK killer.

And NASA goes to the videotape. The crew of the Shuttle Discovery is going over the spacecraft inch by inch, using a camera mounted to a newly modified robotic arm. They're scanning for possible damage after a piece of debris was seen falling away during Tuesday's launch. NASA officials say it could have come from a tile near a door that covers the nose landing gear.

(STOCK REPORT)

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