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Pentagon Stands by Authenticity of Al Qaeda Letter; Iraqis to Vote on Constitution Saturday; New Orleans Hospital Investigated for Alleged Mercy Killings

Aired October 13, 2005 - 13:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, HOST: Terror letter from al Qaeda's top deputy to al Qaeda's leader in Iraq. Could it be a fake? We're live from the Pentagon with new developments.
And allegations of mercy killings in the days after Hurricane Katrina. A CNN investigation into what some say happened at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans.

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

Al Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi. Al Qaeda's elder strategist in hiding to battlefield commander in Iraq. Real or fake? New questions about the manifesto supposedly authored by Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant and aimed at bin Laden's followers in the Iraqi insurgency.

We get the details now from CNN -- CNN senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre, and our senior Arab affairs editor, Octavia Nasr.

Jamie, let me begin with you first. At first, the U.S. legitimized these letters. What has since happened?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, the U.S. government is essentially discounting the claim by al Qaeda in Iraq that these letters were fake, made up by the U.S. government. They insist that they were obtained during a counterterrorism operation in Iraq, the letter, that it was verified by multiple sources over an extended period of time.

And a spokesman today for the national -- director of national intelligence reiterated their statement: quote, "We have the highest confidence in the authenticity of the document."

Now, the letter is interesting for a number of -- in a number of respects. One, it outlines a pretty comprehensive look at al Qaeda's strategy, both in Iraq and around the world. And it also suggests a split between Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 to bin Laden, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq over tactics, specifically talking about, for instance, that perhaps it would be better to shoot captives, rather than to behead them.

In one part of the letter, he says, "We're in a media battle for the race for hearts and minds. We can kill captives by a bullet. We would achieve what we -- what is sought without exposing ourselves to questions and answering doubts."

That letter, supposedly from al-Zawahiri to Zarqawi on July 9, 2005.

And again, the U.S. government, which has posted this letter on the web site of the director of national intelligence, is standing by its authenticity again, emphasizing that top government officials have the highest confidence that it is what it purports to be -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And Jamie, is that in part because it doesn't seem as though it would be a stretch, that details in this letter indicate that al Qaeda would want to capitalize off the freedom of Iraqis once the coalition were to depart?

MCINTYRE: Well, I mean, I think they believe that the letter outlines what they think is an accurate reflection of the strategy. But how they verified it, again, goes through multiple sources. It's both how it was obtained, what it says, and, again, they believe it's authentic and they're standing by it.

WHITFIELD: All right. Jamie McIntyre, at the Pentagon, thank you so much.

Now, on to Octavia Nasr, who is our senior Arab affairs correspondent.

And Octavia, why is it that there seems to be some doubt now about whether these, indeed, letters are legitimate? I'm not talking about the U.S., as we heard from Jamie, standing by the authenticity.

OCTAVIA NASR, CNN ARAB AFFAIRS EDITOR: Well, this morning, posting on an Islamist web site, one of the web sites that we monitor on a regular basis and a web site that has posted messages from al Qaeda and Iraq -- that is these Zarqawi group in Iraq -- has a posting from the group and also signed by the man who has become like the spokesperson of the group, so these are the ways we authenticate or we try to authenticate these claims or these letters.

But very important to say here, CNN cannot vouch to the accuracy or the authenticity of these claims. All we can do is just report on them.

Let's take a look at what this posting says. Here's one quote from it. It says, 'We in the al Qaeda organization declare that these allegations are baseless and untrue and exist only in the wild imagination of the politicians of the Black House and their slaves." Of course, the reference to the Black House is to mean the White House.

And the letter itself, the statement blasts the U.S. administration. It talks about fabrication of stories that they continue to do. Again, we cannot authenticate the claim. But because that message was posted on an Islamist web site that is used by this group on a regular basis, it led us to report it. We think it's important to bring in this side of the story. Now, the question is, do we usually hear from the Zarqawi group on a regular basis? And especially when they respond to U.S. allegations? And the answer -- the quick answer is yes, when the U.S. says that they captured the No. 2 man in al Qaeda in Iraq, the web sites are abuzz with messages, postings, saying -- either confirming yes, indeed, someone was captured, or denying or saying yes someone was captured but they were No. 2 or No. 3 or whatever.

So we are used to seeing answers to allegations, answers to any claims or announcements by the U.S. administration.

WHITFIELD: Octavia Nasr, thanks so much.

Iraqis are counting down to constitution day. That would be Saturday. A return to the polls to either pass or pass on a charter that underwent a huge revision only yesterday. Some Iraqis in hospitals and prisons are voting already.

And we get the latest now from CNN's Aneesh Raman in Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A political breakthrough of sorts. Amid elaborate ceremony, a deal announced between the Shia-Kurd coalition and the largest Sunni political party.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): This is a historic day, a day of national consensus.

RAMAN: Consensus that the current draft constitution will not be the last, that changes can be made following December's general election, and that another referendum will take place next year, a success with some Sunnis, now urging a yes vote on Saturday.

But the most contentious issue, how powerful the central government will be, now is...

MAHMOUD OTHMAN, IRAQI ASSEMBLY MEMBER: Just delayed until the next assembly, next assembly we'll deal with their problems.

RAMAN: Which is why not all Sunni parties are on board, still urging their community to vote down the constitution, despite the new compromise. And given only a few days remain until the referendum, the stage still set for a majority of Sunnis to do just that.

(on camera) To reject the constitution, a majority of voters, or two-thirds of three provinces, need to vote it down. But a failed referendum is not the worst case scenario. The greater fear is it will pass, but barely.

(voice-over) Such an outcome could lead to further violence.

MICHAEL RUBIN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Because that's indicative that the Arab Sunnis mobilized to vote and still lost anyway and, therefore, they may feel even more disenfranchised.

RAMAN: But politics is zero sum. If the Sunnis win, others lose. A failed referendum means the arduous process starts over.

LEITH KUBBA, IRAQI GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN: It will add another six months of an interim period, transitional government, and a lot of people would like to get on with their lives.

RAMAN: In a matter of days, questions of huge consequence will be answered. Will Sunnis participate in the political process or stay away? Will U.S. troops have to remain longer than anticipated? And most importantly, how many Iraqis will turn out to vote? How many are still invested in the country's democratic experiment?

Aneesh Raman, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Another shakeup in U.S. intelligence circles. The head of the CIA, Porter Goss, gets a new portfolio, that of human intelligence manager, or Humim, for short. Not only in his own shop but across the 15-member intelligence network.

Eight days rain and the ninth, maybe tenth, probably even 11th, on the way. New England, New York, New Jersey are all saturated, if not ravaged, by floods, as are parts of New Hampshire. More rain is expected throughout the weekend. Flood warnings are posted in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, though not for the moment in New Hampshire, where damage is in the millions of dollars and four people remain unaccounted for.

CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen is watching the skies from our weather center, and he'll be joining us in the next hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD (voice-over): Next on LIVE FROM, allegations of mercy killings at a New Orleans hospital.

DR. BRYANT KING, PRACTICED AT MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER: This other doctor said she'd be willing to -- she'd be willing to do it. I was like, "You're crazy."

WHITFIELD: What really happened at Memorial Medical Center? A CNN investigation.

Later on LIVE FROM, eminent domain showdown.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of a sudden everyone wants to be in Malbrandt (ph) so we're not good enough to be here any more.

WHITFIELD: People fighting to keep their homes after a Supreme Court ruling paves the way for a seaside city to take them. Could this fight be brewing in your hometown?

And also ahead, outsourcing. Corporations do it, so why can't one man?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I decided to outsource every one of my daily tasks to a team in Bangalore, India.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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WHITFIELD: It's a controversy, a spectacle, a distraction in a city trying desperately to get back on its feet. Last weekend's videotaped beating of an allegedly drunk and abusive retiree by New Orleans police has led to charges, claims and denials on both sides and to frame by frame analysis of this hard to watch video.

This morning, CNN's Miles O'Brien went through it with the lawyer for the New Orleans police union, Frank DeSalvo.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST, "AMERICAN MORNING": Now let's go to the takedown. Let's advance it a little bit further if we could, Danny, because I want to see how this takedown goes. Right there. Let's freeze it right there, if we could.

FRANK DESALVO, LAWYER FOR NEW ORLEANS POLICE UNION: All right.

O'BRIEN: And take a look there.

DESALVO: Who took him down?

O'BRIEN: First of all, is that an FBI agent, or is that New Orleans police officer, one of your clients? He's in plain clothes.

DESALVO: The big guy -- the big guy is an FBI agent.

O'BRIEN: OK. That's FBI. So -- so this...

DESALVO: Who saw -- who saw the man resisting arrest.

O'BRIEN: All right. And this is New Orleans. That's New Orleans, right? And over here, that's an FBI guy? And that's an FBI guy, correct?

DESALVO: That's correct.

O'BRIEN: OK. Now, as he takes him down, I want you to look very closely here, if you would, at the way his arms are kind of protecting his face. I know you have said to other interviewers that you feel the takedown is where the injury occurred. Do you really believe that to be true?

DESALVO: Absolutely, it's where it occurred.

O'BRIEN: Well -- well, how can you say that?

DESALVO: Well, all you have to do is look at the tape you saw and every blow that you see was to either his shoulder, the back of his neck or I think one to the back of his head. And it was one glancing blow to the side of his face. O'BRIEN: I counted one, two, three, maybe four hits, and it's right in the back of the head. Now...

DESALVO: That one right there is the back of the head. The others are the neck and shoulders.

O'BRIEN: ... that is not police -- that is not police procedure, is it?

DESALVO: It certainly is police procedure.

O'BRIEN: Oh, come on. Really?

DESALVO: When they're trying to bring the right...

O'BRIEN: At the police academy, they tell law recruits to...

DESALVO: You want to hear about it, or you want to tell me to come on?

O'BRIEN: ... to bash people in the back of the head and have their face hit the wall?

DESALVO: No. No, they teach them to hit them between the shoulders and neck, where you have the pressure point that you can...

O'BRIEN: He was a little north of the pressure point, wasn't he?

DESALVO: ... cause the arm to come around.

O'BRIEN: Wasn't he a little north of the pressure point?

DESALVO: Well, you know, Muhammad Ali never hit his target every time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: That interview with Frank DeSalvo there.

FEMA, meanwhile, wants to move 22,000 storm evacuees from emergency shelters to somewhere they can live for at least six months. President Bush has set a mid-October deadline for clearing out and shutting down the shelters.

Meantime, "The New York Times" reports hundreds of thousands of evacuees are living in hotels at a cost to FEMA at $11 million a night. So far, about 6,000 housing units have been earmarked for evacuees in Louisiana.

New Orleans' mayor says the road to recovery leads right back to the home and businesses his people were forces to flee six weeks ago. Yesterday, however, Ray Nagin ventured out of New Orleans to visit a shelter in Shreveport where the tempers are short and the passion's high.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to go home. I want to help the people of New Orleans.

RAY NAGIN, MAYOR OF NEW ORLEANS: We'll get you home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But I can't do it if you're going to give us all this false pretense. We want everything legit to come to the table. It's people like us that's going to make the city flourish. Not promises and false hopes.

NAGIN: That's what we're trying to do.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to stand with you and if the city comes back and say, I am a business owner of 32 years, I can vouch with you then. But if it fails, I will there be and be your worst nightmare, I promise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Hurricane Katrina brought desperate days to New Orleans. We saw people begging, pleading, even looting to live. Did some acts of desperation go too far?

CNN's Jonathan Freed takes a look at serious allegations at one city hospital. This is a story you'll only see on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There was no power. Patients and staff thought they were stranded in 110-degree sweltering heat. It was desperate.

KING: I was really upset that it had come to this and we were -- we were a hospital, but we weren't functioning as a hospital. We were functioning as a shelter at this point.

FRANK BUTLER, NURSE MANAGER, MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER: It was battle conditions. I mean, it was as bad as being out on the field.

FREED: They were running out of food and water. Workers carried patients into the parking garage to wait for evacuations. But there were too few rescuers and often too late.

KING: There's no electricity. There's no water. It was hot. People are dying. We thought it was as bad as it could get. All we wanted to know was why aren't we being evacuated yet. That was our biggest thing. We should be gone by now.

FREED: Nine days after the hospital was finally emptied, there was dozens of bodies, in the morgue, in the hallways, and in the chapel. In all, hospital officials now say 45 bodies were found at memorial.

Some patients, already near death when Katrina hit, may have succumbed to their ailments. Others may have given in to the terrible conditions. (on camera) But a CNN investigation reveals that doctors and nurses grew so desperate that some of them openly and repeatedly discussed euthanizing patients whom they believed would not survive their ordeal. So desperate there was talk of mercy killings, talk of mercy killings by health professionals as a serious option at an American hospital.

BUTLER: My nurses wanted to know what was the plan. Did they say to put people out of their misery? Yes. Did they say to actually -- they wanted to know how to get them out of their misery.

FREED: To be clear, Butler says she did not see anyone perform a mercy killing. And she says because of her personal beliefs, she never would have participated. But at least one doctor there, Bryant King, is convinced it went beyond just talk.

KING: Most people know that something -- something happened that shouldn't have happened.

FREED: What Dr. King says he witnessed is a key element of an investigation by the Louisiana attorney general. The state constitution expressly forbids euthanasia, and prosecutors say charges could include manslaughter.

In exclusive interviews with CNN, Dr. King says he was approached at about 9 a.m. on Thursday, in the despair, three days after the hurricane, by another doctor. According to King, that doctor recounted a conversation with a hospital administrator and another doctor, who suggested that patients be put out of their misery.

KING: You got to be (expletive deleted) kidding me that you actually think that that's a good idea. How could you possibly think that's a good idea? And she said, "Well, we talked about it and -- this other doctor said she'd be -- she'd be willing to -- she'd be willing to do it."

I was like, "You're crazy!"

FREED: King says at the time he dismissed the talk, because the doctor who had told him of the mercy killing conversation indicated that, like him, she opposed it.

(on camera) Then about three hours later, King says he it is noticed an uneasy quiet. The triage area where he was working on the second floor had been cleared of everyone, except for patients, a second hospital administrator and two doctors, including the one what had first raised the question of mercy killing.

(voice-over) King says the administrator asked if they wanted to join in prayer, something they hadn't done since the ordeal began.

KING: I looked around and one of the other physicians, not the one who had the conversation with me, but another, had a handful of syringes. I don't know what's in the syringes. I don't know what's -- and the only thing I heard her say was, "I'm going to give you something to make you feel better." I don't know what she was giving them. But we hadn't been giving -- we hadn't been giving medications like that, to make people feel better, or any sort of palliative care, anything like that. We hadn't been doing that up to this point.

FREED: King says he decided he would have no part of what he was seeing. He grabbed his bag to leave, and he says one of the other doctors hugged him. King says he doesn't know what happened next. He boarded a boat and left the hospital.

As for nurse manager Fran Butler, she says she never saw any patients euthanized. However, she says the physician who had expressed opposition to euthanasia to Dr. King also spoke to her about it.

BUTLER: She was the first person to approach me about putting patients to sleep.

FREED (on camera): Were you stunned?

BUTLER: Yes, just kind of -- I kind of blew it off because of the person who said it. But when this doctor approached me about that, she made the comment to me on how she was totally against it and wouldn't do it.

FREED: Tenet Healthcare, the company that owns Memorial, told CNN that many of the 45 patients who died were critically ill. Tenet had said as many as 11 patients who were found in the morgue had died the weekend before the hurricane. Twenty-four of the dead had been patients of a long-term acute care facility known as LifeCare that rented space inside Memorial.

KING: There was only one person that died overnight. The previous day there were only two. So for there to be, from Thursday to Friday, for there to be 10 times that many, just doesn't make sense to me.

FREED: Earlier this month, King repeated his account to investigators from the attorney general's office. At the request of the attorney general, coroner Frank Minyard is performing autopsies and drug screens on all the memorial dead. He confirmed to CNN that state officials have told him they think euthanasia may have been committed.

DR. FRANK MINYARD, CORONER, ORLEANS PARISH: Well, they thought that someone had -- was going around, injecting people with some sort of lethal medication, yes.

FREED: Minyard says that, because of the condition of the bodies, it may be difficult to determine why so many patients died at Memorial.

In early October, Tenet Healthcare said that the state had executed search warrants of Memorial Medical Center records and of the independent LifeCare facility operated inside the hospital. Over the course of several weeks, CNN has reached the three people King says were in the second floor area with him, at the time he saw the syringes.

The hospital administrator told CNN, "I don't recall being in a room with patients or saying a prayer," later adding that "King must be lying."

The doctor King identifies as having first broached the subject of euthanasia with him said she would not talk to the media.

The doctor King alleges held the syringes spoke by phone with CNN on several occasions, emphasizing how everyone inside the hospital felt abandoned. "We did everything humanly possible to save these patients," the doctor told CNN. "The government totally abandoned us to die, in the houses, in the streets, in the hospitals. Maybe a lot of us made mistakes, but we made the best decisions we could at the time."

When told about King's allegation, this doctor responded that she would not comment either way.

Nurse manager Fran Butler says that while some nurses did discuss euthanasia, they never stopped caring for the patients.

BUTLER: The people who were still there, they really and truly took and put their heart and souls into every patient, whether that patient lived or died.

FREED: For his part, King regrets leaving the hospital and wonders whether there was anything that could have done.

KING: I'd rather be considered a person who abandoned patients than someone who aided in eliminating patients.

FREED (on camera): The two health care companies we mentioned in this piece both chose to give CNN prepared statements.

Tenet Healthcare Corporation said, "In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the physicians and staff at Memorial Medical Center performed heroically to save the lives of their patients under incredibly difficult circumstances."

The statement goes on to say, "We understand that the Louisiana attorney general is investigating all deaths that occurred at New Orleans hospitals and nursing homes after the hurricane, and we fully support and are cooperating with him."

Jonathan Freed, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And as for LifeCare, it gave this statement to CNN: quote, "LifeCare employees at Memorial Medical Center during that week exhibited heroism under the most difficult of circumstances. LifeCare has been fully cooperative with Louisiana attorney general's office since the inception of their investigation, and is unable to make any comment on matters related to the investigation," end quote.

Well, imagine getting a letter saying you have to sell your house to the city. Eminent domain, what the fight in one New Jersey town could mean to you, later on LIVE FROM.

And baby makes 16? What? We'll introduce you to the newest member of an incredibly huge family, a bit later here on LIVE FROM.

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