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Neil Entwistle Arraigned on Murder Charges; Police Report Released in Cheney Shooting

Aired February 16, 2006 - 15:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Innocent, he says. In a court appearance you saw live on CNN, Neil Entwistle pleaded not guilty to charges that he murdered his wife and baby daughter in their home outside Boston last month.
Entwistle, who is British, returned to Massachusetts after waiving extradition. He will be held without bond until his next court date, March 15.

Outside the courtroom, his lawyer and his late wife's family talked to reporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELLIOT WEINSTEIN, ATTORNEY FOR NEIL ENTWISTLE: I don't know that Mr. Entwistle will ever be able to get a fair trial on these charges. And my concern that he can't get a fair trial is because of what has occurred in the publicity surrounding this event.

I am certain that anybody watching this telecast or reading the reporting of today's arraignment has already formed an opinion with respect to Mr. Entwistle's guilt, and that opinion is based upon the reporting, and that opinion is based upon absolutely no facts and absolutely no evidence.

JOE FLAHERTY, RACHEL ENTWISTLE FAMILY SPOKESMAN: Seeing Neil Entwistle standing accused of this awful crime, it gives us little comfort, and, in fact, only adds to our enormous pain and suffering.

To think that someone we loved, trusted, opened our home to, could do this to our daughter and granddaughter is beyond belief. The betrayal to this family, to Neil's family -- to Neil's family, to our family, to our friends here and in the U.K. is unbearable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Prosecutors say that Entwistle was driven to desperation by money problems.

Harry Whittington is doing extremely well and he could be going home soon. That's the word from the hospital administrator in Corpus Christi, Texas. The 78-year-old lawyer is recovering from wounds suffered when he shot -- he was shot by Vice President Dick Cheney. That accident happened last week during a quail hunt.

The White House spokesperson says that President Bush is satisfied with how Cheney has handled the incident. He didn't say if the president thought word of the mishap should have been revealed sooner. The shooting happened Saturday afternoon. It wasn't made public until Sunday.

Still a few unanswered questions about the turn of events after Whittington was shot.

CNN's Ed Lavandera has a copy of the sheriff's report. He joins me now live from Corpus Christi, Texas.

Is the investigation over with, Ed?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It sure is.

In fact, just a short while ago -- you know, we have been talking over the last couple of hours some of the questions, new questions, that this report had raised for us. And the sheriff's deputy and the chief deputy down in Kenedy County spoke a little while ago. And they don't really seem that much more interested in talking about this.

In fact, we tried to clear up some of the questions we had. The sheriff said, you know, the report is out -- quote -- "If you need to know anything else, read the report." So, the questions that we had mainly deal with kind of the timeline as to when sheriff's deputies actually physically made it onto the Armstrong ranch to question witnesses that saw the shooting on Saturday afternoon.

And our understanding, from reading this report, is that none of the sheriff's deputies physically made it onto the Armstrong ranch to interview these witnesses until 8:00 Sunday morning, when the chief deputy interviewed Vice President Dick Cheney.

What is interesting is that two of the members of the hunting party are related to the constable in Kenedy County. And it is our understanding, also from reading this report, is that much of the sheriff's conclusion that he reached, that this was an accidental shooting, was based on his conversations with the constable.

So, we can deduce from there that perhaps the constable had been talking to his relatives that were a part of the hunting party. And this is some of the line of questioning we have been trying to get cleared up from the sheriff's office. But, as I just told you a short while ago, we were told that, if we had any other questions, just to simply read the report, but that there will be no criminal charges filed at all, and that this is simply just a hunting accident -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Any word on when Whittington could be coming home?

LAVANDERA: Well, you know, a couple of days ago, they had said up to a week that he would be -- remain in the hospital.

But the hospital officials seemed much more encouraged this morning. In fact, there are about five days left that they had planned to keep him here at the hospital in Corpus Christi, but he could be going home sooner. What they are doing is waiting for the results of a CAT scan. If that comes back much more encouraging, they say that he could be released directly to go home sooner than the five days.

PHILLIPS: Ed Lavandera live from Corpus Christi -- thanks, Ed.

The job is not done, far from it, but the morgue shut down. You probably know, more than 2,000 Hurricane Katrina victims are still unaccounted for. You may not know, more than 50 sites in New Orleans' Ninth Ward alone are believed to be the final resting places of residents who have yet to be found. But the city has no money to search. And now the makeshift morgue that was set up, at great expense, to process remains has been closed.

CNN's Sean Callebs reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A grim sign, and the only indication that, today, yet another body has been removed from a New Orleans home, nearly six months after Katrina.

DR. LOUIS CATALDIE, LOUISIANA STATE CORONER: Put this in the person's mouth.

CALLEBS: Normally, doctors would use forensic techniques to try to identify the body. But the state medical examiner, Dr. Louis Cataldie, says he no longer has the equipment. Why? FEMA built this enormous new morgue about an hour north of New Orleans to do just this kind of examination on what authorities feared would be 10,000 to 20,000 people killed in the storm. It cost $17 million.

But after examining only 60 bodies, FEMA shut it down Monday, saying its work was done, and keeping it open would cost $230,000 a week.

CATALDIE: Well, would I like to have the use of the facility? Sure. Do I understand that there's a timeline and there's a -- you know, they need to pull their stuff out? Absolutely.

CALLEBS: FEMA officials didn't want to go on camera, but pointed out that they told Cataldie in December they would be closing the site. Still, FEMA has no clear plans for the facility, so the bunkbeds, washers and dryers and gym equipment for its staff are being mothballed -- the high-tech autopsy gear already shipped out.

Cataldie says, he thought, by now, most of the 2,100 people still listed as missing would have been accounted for. But, as it turns out, he's still expecting to find scores more bodies.

CATALDIE: We certainly feel we have, depending on rough, rough estimates, 60 to 100 bodies in the Ninth Ward, so, folks that need to be recovered.

CALLEBS: But in a sign of just how many problems New Orleans faces and how those problems are so often connected, not only is the $17 million morgue off limits; the city also doesn't have the $400,000 it would cost to find the bodies, and hasn't been able to get the money from FEMA. STEVE GLYNN, RESIDENT OF NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA: It's extremely frustrating. And it has been frustrating since we shut down.

CALLEBS: Steve Glynn is the chief of the fire department special ops unit. From October until December 10, he worked with teams using cadaver dogs, going through the debris from splintered homes. He tells CNN, the dogs made at least 58 hits, meaning probable human remains.

FEMA says, the city should go ahead and look for the bodies, and then ask FEMA to reimburse it for the $400,000 it costs. The cash- strapped city says, it needs the money first, because it only has enough cash to pay firefighters for emergency operations.

GLYNN: You know, I have talked to a number of officials. And it always just kind of seems to go in a circle. We -- we always end up right back where we started.

LAMONT MARRERO, NEW ORLEANS SPECIAL OPERATIONS UNIT CHIEF: And I don't -- I don't understand that.

CALLEBS: Lamont Marrero's invalid mother rode out the hurricane in her house. No one has seen her since. He's convinced she's buried in debris.

MARRERO: You have 58 bodies, and you're not trying to do anything. You're going to close a facility, and people haven't -- people are still looking for their family.

CALLEBS: That's right. The government spent $17 million to build this facility, but now is closing it before it has even figured out how to recover and identify the rest of the bodies still buried in the debris.

To families here, it all looks like yet another bureaucratic dead end.

(on camera): I spoke with a FEMA representative in Washington, D.C., and she says she believes the needed $400,000 will quickly be freed up, putting firefighters back on the job and, hopefully, ending months of anguish for scores of families here.

Sean Callebs, CNN, in New Orleans' Ninth Ward.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Still bad, but better than before, Iraq's acting minister of human rights describes Iraqi prisons, in light of new and graphic images of mistreated inmates at Abu Ghraib.

The pictures were obtained by Australian TV and aired around the world. Salon.com published more today, apparently from the same set. All were taken about the same time as the photos that triggered a worldwide scandal, when they came to light in 2004.

Iraq's prime minister condemns the new photos, but notes, some of the U.S. troops responsible have been punished.

Torture victims or terrorists or both? A blistering U.N. report says the terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are stripped of their clothes, beaten, shackled and threatened with snarling dogs. It's tantamount to torture, the U.S. (sic) says, and the only solution is for the detainees to be tried or released and for the camp to be closed.

The White House maintains, the prisoners are dangerous terrorists. And the U.N. report is a rehash of old allegations. Old or new, the claims are resounding in Europe.

CNN European political editor Robin Oakley is listening.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN EUROPEAN POLITICAL EDITOR: There's no direct action that the U.N. can really go for in these circumstances. It doesn't really have the power to enforce the demands that it's making for the closedown of the Guantanamo Bay operation.

But we're going to see an intensification of international pressure, because European leaders, in particular, have felt very uncomfortable about Guantanamo Bay -- happy to join the U.S. in the worldwide war against terrorism, don't like that sort of method being used.

Not so long ago, Condoleezza Rice came over and assured all the European leaders that the U.S. didn't condone torture in any circumstances. And even some of the strongest allies for the United States in Europe, for example, Angela Merkel, the new German chancellor, she said Guantanamo Bay has got to go.

Tony Blair, George Bush's staunchest ally of all in Europe, at a press conference last month, he insisted, too, that the Guantanamo Bay operation was an anomaly and had to come to an end -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's talk more of this criticism of the report. The U.S. argues that the U.N. panel didn't get the full story from Gitmo.

OAKLEY: Yes, there's no meeting of minds here at all.

The U.N. inspectors say that they were refused access to the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, if they had accepted an invitation to go there, and that it was pointless for them to go, if they weren't going to be able to talk to those detainees.

But the U.S. government is saying, well, hang on a minute. This is a very one-sided report. The evidence is flimsy. Why didn't they go and at least talk to medical people and officials around the camp, even if they couldn't talk to the detainees? And they say they haven't listened to the U.S.'s own case for its own laws, in terms of interrogation techniques -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: The timing is not real good here, is it, Robin? OAKLEY: The timing is an absolute disaster, really, because, already, we have had Muslim opinion worldwide inflamed by the Danish cartoons affair, the new disclosures about torture at Abu Ghraib. We have had pictures circulating across the Arab world of British troops beating up rioters in Iraq.

This is really cementing the poor week that this has been, in terms of the battle for hearts and minds across the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: That report, once again, from our European political editor, Robin Oakley.

Well, looking ahead at Saddam Hussein, talking about WMD, planning to make WMD, planning to hide WMD, on a batch of never- before-heard recordings, apparently from inner-circle staff meetings in 1995. That's between Gulf War I and Gulf War II.

A U.S. official tells CNN, the tapes don't change the story of what Iraq was up to, but the man who translated them says he will make them public this weekend, and you can decide for yourself.

Coming up on LIVE FROM, America's last MASH -- just like they said about the TV show, an era has come to an end.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: The cartoon controversy simmered today in Pakistan, but it didn't boil over. About 40,000 demonstrators marched through Karachi to protest depictions of the Prophet Mohammed published in Europe as satire. The march ended peacefully, unlike protests yesterday and Tuesday, that erupted into deadly chaos.

American firms have been hit by Pakistani demonstrators, despite U.S. efforts to aid Pakistanis in desperate need. In just a moment, we're going to bring you a report from CNN's Stan Grant, because he's in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

Actually, Stan's going to bring that to us right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STAN GRANT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the mountains of Northeastern Pakistan, earthquake victims take shelter in tents, many provided by the United States. They wear clothes and eat food delivered by American relief groups. They are treated in American field hospitals.

The United States, just this day, handing over to Pakistan a MASH unit used to care for victims of the quake. Yet, on the streets of Pakistan's cities, American flags torched, U.S. President Bush condemned, American businesses, like KFC, targeted.

The United States, at once, in Pakistan friend and foe -- the violence whipped up over a cartoon first published in Denmark, what many Muslims consider a blasphemous portrayal of the Prophet Mohammed. But the cartoon is now a catalyst for more widespread anti-Western fury. A fourth straight day of protests in Pakistan, this time Karachi -- more peaceful than previous days, where buses were torched, shops and cinemas attacked.

Heavily armed riot police clashing with angry mobs. Five people have died in the days of rioting, scores injured, and hundreds arrested -- Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf condemning the protests, calling for calm, yet, saying he understands the anger.

PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, PAKISTANI PRESIDENT: And I have always said, whether it is a moderate or an ultra-moderate or a progressive Muslim, all of us are one on this issue of condemning all this blasphemous act that has...

GRANT: Musharraf has been meeting with his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai -- on the agenda, stopping cross-border terrorism. Karzai says the West must do more about the cartoon controversy.

HAMID KARZAI, AFGHAN PRESIDENT: I ask once again on the leaders of the Western world to also condemn the publication of these cartoons.

GRANT: President Musharraf is about to head to China, a sensitive trip, after the killings of three Chinese engineers shot by militants in a remote tribal area of Pakistan.

(on camera): The attack on the Chinese not related to the cartoon controversy, but another sign of how difficult it can be to maintain law and order in Pakistan -- China and the United States, Pakistan allies, contributing aid to the earthquake crisis, yet finding that goodwill not always returned.

Stan Grant, CNN, Islamabad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Now, as Stan just told us, the U.S. government handed over one of its MASH units to Pakistan today, not just any MASH, but the last of the legendary combat hospitals still in existence.

As it happens, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta visited the MASH in October, after that catastrophic earthquake.

Here's his report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the mountains of Pakistan, you need two functioning legs to survive. They tell me anything less, and like an animal, you die. In other words, to lose a leg here is a death sentence.

That's why they worry about 10-year-old Abita Danon (ph). She now has only one leg, the other crushed when the walls and roof of her school buckled all around here. CAPTAIN JOHN FERNALD, MASH PEDIATRICIAN: One of the true disasters in pediatrics is all the schools that collapsed. So, you know, every kid -- we see so many kids, where they're the only surviving child from a classroom.

GUPTA: Abita (ph) was one of three children to survive, out of more than 200. But she is considered lucky.

(on camera): It's hard to believe that this was actually a school once. These are actually tables over here, a bench for the students over here.

This is where they studied. You have notepads still lying on the ground, pencils all still standing, just the way it was on October 8.

I also couldn't help but notice some of these signs around the room -- this one in particular, "Out of the frying pan, into the fire," with the Urdu translation underneath -- how eerily true.

And, then, over here, just a whole collection of papers and books. Someone came back and wrote on this chalkboard in Urdu afterwards. It reads, "On October 8, 2005, the earth shook and wreaked havoc." And it certainly did for so many students in this school and so many members of this community.

(voice-over): It was also a description of what happened to Abita Danon (ph). She was so fragile, so badly injured, simply moving her meant it would take over a month to get her to the hospital, if she could get there at all. By the time she did arrive, she was infected and nearly dead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bones were sticking out of the skin for 30 days before they were treated and the infection is just persistent. And, you know, it requires a lot of trips to the operating room.

GUPTA: Nine operations so far -- it would take all the resources of the U.S. Army's 212th MASH unit to coax her leg and life back to health.

A MASH unit. Remember? A mobile Army surgical hospital. And this is the last MASH in existence. After it's gone, MASH will be disbanded, in favor of smaller, more nimble units. But here, in Northeastern Pakistan, 200 patients a day are lucky MASH is still open for business.

Here, a young boy with scabies. This man simply can't sleep. A woman who's lost all feeling in her hand.

And some of the stories are just too much to bear.

Dr. Mohammed Haque from New York City is volunteering, a Pakistani-American doctor and a Muslim. He took care of Americans after 9/11.

DR. MOHAMMED HAQUE, VOLUNTEER PHYSICIAN: I saw 9/11 traveling down. That was 9:00, 8:30. (INAUDIBLE) mother lost. Then they bring this baby (INAUDIBLE) starts crying.

GUPTA: No matter how hard he works, he can never bring back a young girl's mother.

This woman was carrying her baby that morning. And even though she broke her arm trying, she could not save her baby's life.

My own daughter is six months old -- these stories so incredibly hard to hear.

And this is just one day, all of this pain and grief in just 24 hours at the MASH unit here in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, this lady is a 40-year-old female. She had ARDS lung failure.

GUPTA (on camera): It's worth pointing out, you know, you get these tremendously ill patients here. I mean, this woman is on a -- on a breathing machine. She has her -- her monitoring over here. As well, she has chest tubes in, which are actually draining some of the fluid from her lungs, taking some of the pressure off of her lungs as well, probably.

As just pointed out, a patient like this would probably die in any teaching hospital here in Pakistan, but in this tent here in the middle of Muzaffarabad, she -- she may actually survive this type of injury, and that's what we're seeing here, as we're spending some time with this MASH unit here.

MAJOR FARID SHEIKH, MASH INTERNAL MEDICINE: They had medical problems before that weren't really taken care of. On top of that, some of them had trauma. So it's very difficult to take care of them, yes.

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Farid Sheikh is also helping provide something that didn't exist before in many parts of Pakistan, basic health care. According to the World Health Organization, immunization rates for disease have climbed in this area. Before, less than 50 percent had been immunized. Now it's above 70 percent.

Life-changing operations such as hernia repairs and removal of a goiter of the thyroid gland were considered elective, a luxury, but are now being performed free of charge.

(on camera): Now, one of the most important things you have got to be able to do is be able to operate and take care of people who need operations right away. Just behind me over here is the operating theater.

One patient has just had their operation completed. They are being woken up. And, at the same time, another patient has just been put off to sleep. Their operation will start momentarily.

(voice-over): As for little 10-year-old Abita Danon with the crushed leg, when she found herself in the middle of an earthquake, she didn't even know what to call it. The Urdu word is zalzala, but she had never needed to learn it. Today, her life has been forever changed by zalzala. Her school and home will be rebuilt, probably stronger than before. And the doctors at the 212th MASH have given her, her leg back.

But, for the time being, it's unclear how long they will be staying or what will happen to her after they leave.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Muzaffarabad, Pakistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: All right, we want to get straight to the Hill. I was watching Ed Henry in the other monitor there.

Ed, you're on your cell phone. You're taking your notes. You're actually there in the halls of the Hart Building to tell us about this -- Senate Republicans and the White House coming to some kind of deal about an investigation. Will it happen or not with regard to the NSA?

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right.

We have some news that, in fact, there's a potential deal here between the White House and the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee that would head off yet another congressional investigation of the NSA domestic surveillance program.

In fact, the Senate Intelligence Committee is meeting right now behind me behind those closed doors -- Republicans and Democrats considering a Democratic motion to launch a second congressional investigation of the NSA program -- as you know, the Senate Judiciary Committee already probing the legalities, the constitutionality, of that program as well.

But the Republican chairman, Pat Roberts, was about 20 minutes to -- late to this meeting. And he came and explained that he has an agreement that he has worked out, in fact, with the administration that would be twofold. It would basically come up with a legislative fix for the -- for FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and also would include more briefings of the Senate Intelligence Committee, amid concerns that the Congress has not been getting enough information from the White House.

Take a listen to what Chairman Roberts said on his way into this meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Has the White House been pressuring you not to have one?

SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), KANSAS: No.

QUESTION: Not at all?

ROBERTS: No. It's the other way around.

HENRY: How so? You're pressuring the White House not...

ROBERTS: We're trying to get some movement. And we have clear indication of that movement and an agreement, both on a fix for FISA and also further briefings with Intelligence -- with the Intelligence Committee.

So, I think we have made some progress. And whether or not an investigation is -- but I think, at this particular time, I'm not sure. We will have to decide that.

QUESTION: When you say you have an agreement...

ROBERTS: I will have a statement later.

QUESTION: ... who is that with? You say there is an agreement. Is that you and the White House?

ROBERTS: With the administration, yes.

QUESTION: So, you have just reached an agreement today, sir, that will mean you will not need to have an investigation?

ROBERTS: I don't know that. We will have to, you know, confer with the members. We have a commitment to work with the administration on those two subjects.

QUESTION: Thank you, sir.

ROBERTS: So, we will see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: And you could hear right there, Chairman Roberts was hedging a bit at the very end, because he had to go into that meeting. He has been in that meeting now for over a half-hour.

He still has to see whether or not the Democrats will try to push ahead for an investigation, despite this deal with the White House, whether or not the Democrats feel it's good enough, whether or not Republicans on this committee, who have raised concerns about the program, will also feel that the White House is giving enough here.

What we're hearing, to flesh this out a little bit, is that a proposal by Republican Mike DeWine of Ohio may be a centerpiece of this. DeWine has -- has said, and told us also on the way into this meeting, that he wants to create a new subcommittee of this Intelligence Committee that would oversee the NSA program.

We're told he -- he spoke today with White House counselor Harriet Miers. She indicated a comfort level with that proposal. So, that may be one area where the White House giving here, compromising with the Congress to try to get them to slow down these investigations, and also try to meet them halfway on giving the Congress more information -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: And just a quick question, Ed. Is it -- has there been talk that this could -- an investigation could reveal things that we just shouldn't know about the NSA with regard to national security?

And, number two, is it possible that the NSA program could just go away, if, indeed, more problems come out of this controversy?

HENRY: Well, first of all, Chairman Roberts has made clear that, if he did -- and that's a big if -- he had an investigation, it's very likely those hearings would be behind closed doors, for the very reason you mentioned, that it would be impossible to get into too much about the operational details of the NSA program in public.

As you know, the Judiciary Committee has already been investigating. Those hearings have focused on the legality of it, a hearing, for example, with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales not getting into the operational details -- obviously, the administration concerned that just the fact of the very nature of this program, that it exists, the fact that it has been revealed, that has already been damaging to national security, according to the attorney general and others.

And, on your second question, the administration has not indicated any move to shut down this program. And, in fact, Democrats up here who have raised questions about the program have also said they want the program to continue. Even though they have concerns about civil liberties, they do think that there's some value to the program.

They just want to make sure that Congress is clued in. And they want to make sure that civil liberties are not being violated. But they do -- even the Democratic critics have said that they believe there are values to this program. So, we would expect it will move forward.

The question is in what form and with what safeguards -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Ed Henry on the Hill, there in the halls of the Hart Building -- thanks, Ed.

HENRY: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Well, the news keeps coming. Will keep bringing it to you -- more LIVE FROM after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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