Return to Transcripts main page

Live From...

White House Is Defending Port Deal; Habitat for Humanity and Oprah Winfrey's Angel Network Help Katrina Victims; New Orleans Police Still Living On Cruise Ship; Family Reunited With Cat After Six Months; Fear Of Civil War In Iraq; Fifteen Men Get Nod as Cardinals

Aired February 22, 2006 - 14:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The White House is forced into damage control as members of both parties vow to fight the president over a deal to hand management of six U.S. ports over to a company based in the Middle East.
Our Suzanne Malveaux has an update from the White House -- Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, as CNN reported a couple of days ago, and Scott McClellan had confirmed in the briefing, the president found out about this Dubai port deal through media reports just a couple days ago when this turned into a firestorm of controversy, if you will.

But the White House insisting that the proper process involving those 12 federal agencies, that panel, carried out what it was supposed to do, essentially determined that this company was not a threat to national security, and that also they're making the point here that it's in the U.S.' interest to acknowledge, to reward Arab allies, to treat them fairly when it comes to business dealings.

All of this a part of the president's and White House officials effort to reach out now to members of Congress and give them more details about this port deal. Scott McClellan earlier today even acknowledging, if you will, that in hindsight perhaps they should have notified members of Congress sooner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: If this transaction were blocked, this would not change port security one iota. The Coast Guard and the Customs and Border Patrol remain in charge of our security. The Coast Guard remains in charge of physical security, the Customs and Border Patrol remains in charge of cargo security. And there are a number of safeguards and security measures that we have put in place to make sure that cargo is screened before it reaches our shores.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: McClellan again trying to reassure the American people and members of Congress that this is not a threat to national security, that the proper channels were followed here. We also learned that the president just yesterday reached out to several cabinet secretaries to ask them essentially, were you OK with this deal, do you feel that there's any concern here? He was reassured that they did not.

So he, of course, moving forward, saying that he will veto any legislation that will simply put this deal on hold or even delay this deal. That is a very strong statement that the president is making, and again the White House behind the scenes reaching out to those members of Congress to see if in fact it can sway them.

I can tell you that the president has not reached out to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist or House Speaker Denny Hastert, those two who led this effort to block the legislation -- the block the deal, rather.

WHITFIELD: And, in fact, Suzanne, Scott McClellan saying even the president went back and checked again with some of those department heads to make sure that everything was on the up and up. But would McClellan or anybody else explain the extent of the management that this United Arab Emirates company would have over the U.S. ports?

MALVEAUX: Well, he certainly is trying to make a distinction here between the ports and the facilities at the ports. He's saying, of course, that security is still going to be in the hands of U.S. Customs, U.S. Coast Guard, but he's talking about the machinery, the mechanism for delivering things. Those are the kinds of things that this company would own.

Clearly trying to make a distinction that this is not a security issue, but certainly it is a very hot, hot political one -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: It is, indeed. All right.

Thanks so much.

Suzanne Malveaux, from the White House.

Well, some FEMA mobile homes are finally getting mobile. For months, almost 11,000 mobile homes had been sitting in Arkansas, intended for Katrina victims, but mired in red tape.

The problem? A federal regulation that bars the homes from floodplains, exactly where the need is the most severe.

Now 300 of the mobile homes are on their way to Louisiana. No word on whether others will soon follow.

Meantime, 50 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina are moving into new homes in Houston because of efforts by Habitat for Humanity and Oprah Winfrey's Angel Network. Winfrey was joined in Houston by CNN's Anderson Cooper.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You built all these houses behind us. You built, and you're building more here. What are you doing?

OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: Well, you know, this is the thing, I think everybody has to do what they can -- I think everybody has to do what they can. And this is something I could do.

Some people can build a house or volunteer for a weekend or, you know, go to our registry. I have set up a whole registry where people could buy a chair or a toaster or an oven or a refrigerator and help a family. But I could build a neighborhood.

So I think that here is -- here is an opportunity for those of us who call ourselves Americans and everything that that stands for, meaning having as much concern for your welfare and your well-being as you do for the people who live around you, that this is the time you step up and you show what that really means for you. So for me it was building this neighborhood.

I have a public charity called the Angel Network. I love the idea that we call this Angel Lane. And I'm hoping that everybody -- I'm going to move 65 families in here eventually, and tomorrow 12 families move into their homes. They get to see them for the first time.

But, you know, compared to what needs to be done, I am just one person. We have a whole government, a whole nation of people.

What I want is to have what we do on the show be a model for what can be done. And so I'm just one person. You have an entire government that can step up and show some leadership and get these people into -- into homes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And you can see more of Anderson Cooper on "360" every night at 10:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

Now, also in the New Orleans area, New Orleans police and their families are still living on a cruise ship on the banks of the Mississippi River. It should be easy to connect supply and demand, right? Well, not exactly.

CNN's Gulf correspondent, Susan Roesgen, investigates.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Life on a cruise ship doesn't sound so bad, but after nearly six months on a cruise to nowhere, hundreds of emergency workers in New Orleans are ready to get off.

HADEN BROWN, FIREFIGHTER: In the beginning it was OK. You know, it was almost like a vacation, but, you know, after a while everybody's cluttered in one room and it's kind of -- it's just real close, tight-knit. You know?

ROESGEN: Haden Brown and his 8-year-old daughter are two of five family members living in one ship cabin, and they're eager to move someplace bigger. They could apply for a FEMA trailer like this one, but at 25 feet long and eight feet wide, it's not much roomier than a cabin on the ship. What many emergency workers would like to have instead is one of these, one of the 11,000 mobile homes sitting unused in Arkansas.

Most are twice as big as a travel trailer, 50 feet long and 15 feet wide, with three bedrooms and two baths. The problem is FEMA says these mobile homes can't be sent to New Orleans because the rules won't let a mobile home be put in a place that's likely to flood. And most of the New Orleans area is a floodplain.

But standing in the parking lot of an abandoned New Orleans shopping center flooded by Katrina, Bob Stellingworth and Henri Wolbrett see a perfect opportunity to break the rules.

BOB STELLINGWORTH, NEW ORLEANS POLICE FOUNDATION: We envision in this parking lot 31 acres of mobile homes that would be here for a year to 18 months and then eventually go away so this area can be redeveloped as the policemen, firemen and EMS people go back to their normal lives.

ROESGEN: Stellingworth and Wolbrett lead the New Orleans Police Foundation, a local civic group, and they say they've gotten the go- ahead to lease the land around the shopping center if FEMA will agree to move about 300 of those mobile home in Arkansas down south. So far, no luck. And time is running out.

FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews told CNN, "If we can move mobile home in for the first responders, we can move them in for evacuees too. But the problem is the floodplain issue, which involves not only federal but local regulations."

She went on to say that "FEMA had every expectation that the mobile homes in Arkansas would be utilized." But she says FEMA "has been faced with undue resistance from Louisiana officials."

Louisiana officials have said the resistance really comes from FEMA. The New Orleans Police Foundation says without housing for the city's emergency workers New Orleans is in trouble.

HENRI WOLBRETT, NEW ORLEANS POLICE FOUNDATION: And you certainly can't rebuild a city without first responders. People need to feel secure, not only because of hurricane protection, they also need to be certain that when they pick up the phone and dial 911 somebody's going to answer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right. That report from CNN's Susan Roesgen.

Well, along with people losing their homes, so did a lot of pets. Cupcake was found on the streets of New Orleans 10 days ago, almost half a year, six months after Hurricane Katrina forced her owners to flee. But this black cat was a lucky cat. She was still wearing her collar and her rabies tags, and an animal welfare group managed to track down her family.

Well, this morning, Cupcake and Tristan Carter were reunited in Atlanta, and now they're right here at CNN. And also joining us from New Orleans is Juliette Watt from the Best Friends Animal Society, which says it has rescued about 4,000 animals in all.

Good to see all of you. What a great happy ending, Tristan.

What was this like? You must have been worried sick over the last six months.

TRISTAN CARTER, REUNITED WITH CUPCAKE: Yes.

WHITFIELD: You all had to leave. Give me an idea. What were the circumstances? You had to make a decision to leave your pets behind?

Yes. This -- I mean, it's not -- it's not anything that you -- it's not something you plan. You can't say, OK, well, we're going to go and we're going to leave the pets behind. It's just -- it's a no- win situation either way it goes.

And when it came down to it, we were, you know, alerted that Hurricane Katrina was coming. And there was no room for us to take all our pets.

WHITFIELD: And so, when you left and while you were away, you were thinking, OK, you know, Cupcake is going to be safe at home or -- I mean, what were your thoughts? Surely you were...

CARTER: Honestly, we just were hoping for the best. We couldn't say they were going to be OK, we couldn't say they're not going to be OK.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

CARTER: It was just, let's hope for the best, because there have been so many hurricane threats to New Orleans that we just kind of figured, OK, this one's going to come, it's going to pass.

WHITFIELD: So after a while, month two, month three, month four, you're still not at home. Are you thinking to yourself, you know what, I may never see Cupcake again?

CARTER: Honestly, yes.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

CARTER: You don't want to lose that faith, you don't want to stop giving...

WHITFIELD: But six months is a long time.

CARTER: Six months is a long time.

WHITFIELD: Five months -- four is a long time.

CARTER: It's a long time.

WHITFIELD: All right.

Then we bring in Juliette there in New Orleans.

So six months have passed. Tristan is thinking, you know what, I may never see cupcake again. How in -- how in the world did you all find Cupcake? What happened?

JULIETTE WATT, BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY: Well, one of our trappers actually brought her in, and she was looking very thin. And he brought her in, and we sent her to the LA/SPCA to be registered. And she came back to Celebration Station, and we saw the rabies tag, and we started with that.

WHITFIELD: Wow. And lucky for Cupcake she was wearing her collar, because so many other animals, you know, Juliette, that you've been finding haven't had collars, and that's why you really do have, you know, hundreds of animals. You don't know how to reach their family members, but in this case it was made a little bit easier, sort of?

How were you able to locate Tristan?

WATT: Sorry, say that again?

WHITFIELD: How were you able to locate Tristan and put the two together given the fact that she's living in Atlanta and the rest of her family has been displaced to other parts, Mississippi, et cetera?

WATT: Oh, well we had -- right, I'm sorry. You were a bit fuzzy. I couldn't hear you too well.

WHITFIELD: OK. I'll get unfuzzy.

WATT: We found the rabies number, and then we tracked -- we have this amazing lady who's doing tracking of all these different, you know, collars and things that do come in.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

WATT: So she tracked this rabies number, and it was actually to the wrong address. So she did some brilliant detective work and finally found the right address.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

WATT: So -- and you know the kitty was actually found on the street where it lived?

WHITFIELD: That's what's amazing.

WATT: Yes.

WHITFIELD: I mean, Cupcake did not go far from home, as if almost certainly...

WATT: She didn't.

WHITFIELD: ... somebody's coming back for me.

And I understand...

WATT: And I think it was about three or four...

WHITFIELD: Go ahead.

WATT: Three or four doors down, yes.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

And so, Juliette, I understand that you all as a group have put dishes of food out and about in various neighborhoods to at least try and help feed some of these abandoned pets. Or perhaps even lure some that have been a little bit frightened of people.

Is that right?

WATT: Yes. We've got about -- well, we actually are supporting the Animal Rescue of New Orleans with their 2,000 feeding stations around the city.

WHITFIELD: Wow. And so about how many, Juliette, pets do you have right now? Because they didn't have tags, are you hoping to place, you know, with families in need, et cetera?

WATT: Yes, we do. We have about 300 pets right now.

We have about 150 dogs and I think about 145 cats. And we really do need some special group, because a lot of our dogs are very, very shy, they're very afraid, and they're very hard to place.

WHITFIELD: They've been traumatized.

WATT: So -- extremely. Well, they've been on the streets now for about six months.

WHITFIELD: Right.

WATT: So their little faces are like just looking for their owners and they're not there. So we need special groups to come and help us, and, you know, take these guys in.

WHITFIELD: And speaking of which, we have a couple of, you know, cats that are looking for a home. We're looking at one right now. I think this is Lancelot, right? Or is this Sweetheart?

OK. This is Lancelot. And there's also a Sweetheart that's been brought in as well. All beautiful cats, and all seemingly have really been able to rebound quite a bit after the trauma of Katrina. It really is remarkable.

And Tristan, so what are your thoughts? How does, you know, Cupcake look? Initially you looked at her and...

CARTER: She looks healthy.

WHITFIELD: Yes?

CARTER: She looks great. She was not this big when we first left.

WHITFIELD: Really?

CARTER: She was -- as Juliette says, she was...

WHITFIELD: She's been well cared for.

CARTER: Yes. She was thin, she was frail. Because we actually found her...

WHITFIELD: Ouch. Oh. Well, I guess they're not necessarily automatically going to get along there, huh?

They've been through a lot, together and separately. But still, if you're interested in adopting a cat, there are lots of dogs and cats, as Juliette, was saying, about 300, which could use a home, including Sweetheart here and Lancelot.

Bestfriends.org is the Web site in which to inquire about adopting a cat or a dog, all abandoned or left homeless after Katrina.

Congratulations to you.

And Juliette, thank you so much for being with us.

Juliette Watt, from Best Friends.

And Tristan Carter, thanks so much for coming in.

CARTER: Thank you for having me.

WHITFIELD: And congratulations on being reunited with Cupcake.

Little Cupcake, are you going to let me pet you there? OK, that's good.

All right. Well, congratulations.

CARTER: Thank you so much.

WHITFIELD: Well, the pope's inner circle widens quite a bit. Fifteen men, top clergy from four continents, get the nod as cardinals. All those details straight ahead on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WHITFIELD: Shiite versus Sunni, a deadly mix in Iraq today that's increasing fears of civil war. Men dressed as police commandos bombed a major Shiite mosque in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.

The blast blew off the top of the shrine's golden dome. It was the third major attack against Shiite targets in three deaths. No deaths have been reported, but the bombing triggered Shiite attacks on at least 27 Sunni mosques in Baghdad alone, killing six people, including three Sunni imams.

Shiite and Sunni fighting also broke out in the southern city of Basra.

The violence between Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis is not new, but reports of Shiite death squads in the interior ministry and deadly reprisals by Sunnis are the last thing the Iraqi government and the Bush administration need.

Joining us now is CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr.

How closely is all this being watched?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, it's being watched very closely here at the Pentagon and by the U.S. military out in that region. The latest bombing of the mosque in Iraq is only underscoring the rising sectarian violence. The U.S. military pressing the case that it is Iraqis that must take control of the situation.

WHITFIELD: And Barbara, what, if anything, can the Bush administration do since it has such a great vested interest in at least the latest election there?

STARR: Well, you know, Fred, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, came out just a day ago talking about this, making a series of very unusual statements, all after a bombing in a marketplace.

Let's have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): A car bomb parked at a Baghdad market killed 21 people and wounded at least 25 others Tuesday, one of the worst attacks on Iraqis in weeks. As the country is racked by ethnic violence, the Bush administration is stepping up the pressure for a new national unity government to be formed.

ZALMAY KHALIZAD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: The sectarianism and ethnic conflict is the fundamental problem in Iraq. Iraq is going through a period of state and nation building. The insurgency and the terror that is part of the scene is a reflection of this conflict.

STARR: A conflict that remains deadly for U.S. troops. Twenty- one-year-old Private First Class Matthew Connelly (ph) was due home from Iraq next month. Now, his family mourns his death last Saturday in an IED attack in Ramadi. EMILY CORDES, BROTHER KILLED IN IRAQ: It's been hard. It's very sad and everybody is in shock. And we just -- we really all keep thinking we're going to wake up and it's all going to be a nightmare. Mom keeps hoping he's going to walk through the door.

STARR: His pregnant wife, awaiting the birth of their child.

According to the Pentagon, more than 900 U.S. troops have been killed by explosive devices, more than 9,000 wounded. The Pentagon has stepped up its efforts to find and dismantle IEDs, but the attacks by insurgents have increased in the last two weeks, Pentagon officials confirm.

GEN. PETER PACE, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: They are now trying to stop the peaceful organization and stand-up of the government that's been elected through peaceful elections.

STARR: There are successes. Southwest of Baghdad, U.S. soldiers found 600 60 millimeter mortar rounds, IED material that won't be out on the roads.

COL. JEFFREY SNOW, U.S. ARMY: Out in the rural areas is where the insurgents dig in these IEDs and put numbers of them together. That constitutes a little bit more significant threat to our forces.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: And Fredricka, U.S. commanders growing increasingly concerned that unless Iraqi security forces eventually can take control of the situation, the insurgency simply will be kept alive by a growing number of disaffected Iraqis -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Wow. And you have to wonder, Barbara, what, if anything, can the U.S. do without compromising this encouraged independence of the Iraqi government?

STARR: Well, it's not necessarily new, but there is sort of a shift in emphasis, indeed. The U.S. military placing much more emphasis nowadays on training Iraqi police forces, Iraqi counterinsurgency forces, as opposed to the regular army.

The feeling now is they really have to move into the towns and villages, get those police forces trained up, and get them moving away from joining militias, becoming part of the sectarian movement, get a new national unity government elected, and really try and get that government to take responsibility and control in the long term -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Barbara Starr from the Pentagon.

Thank you.

STARR: Sure.

WHITFIELD: Spiritually, politically and, in some cases, geographically, they're the men closest to the pope. And today, there are 15 more.

Pope Benedict XVI ended his weekly audience today by announcing the names of the newest cardinals, the so-called princes of the church.

CNN's Faith and Values Correspondent Delia Gallagher joins us now from New York.

And how significant is this, Delia?

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN FAITH AND VALUES CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's pretty significant, Fredricka. It's the first time that Pope Benedict has called a consistory. That is when he names these new cardinals.

Interestingly today, he's named two Americans, one from Boston, Archbishop Sean O'Malley, who you'll remember took over from Cardinal Law at the height of the sex abuse scandal. He's been there for a few years now and is being given the red hat by Pope Benedict.

The other, from San Francisco, formerly the archbishop of San Francisco, William Levada, who is now over at the Vatican. He took over the role previously held by Pope Benedict when he was Cardinal Ratzinger at the head of the congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

So those two Americans sort of an interesting surprise for some people, because they didn't think that the pope would actually name two Americans, because this means now that we have 13 voting cardinals in a conclave, which is a significant bloc, the highest, second highest bloc next to the Italians, and slightly disproportionate to the number of Catholics that we have. You know, there are other countries that have more Catholics in their country, but don't have as many cardinals as the Americans.

WHITFIELD: And significant, too, is the ages, because now at least you have a good number of them that are under 80, when we saw after the passing of Pope John Paul, much was being made of how many of the cardinals were over 80 with the eligibility of voting.

GALLAGHER: Absolutely. It's always important when you talk about cardinals to distinguish between who's under 80 and who's over 80.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

GALLAGHER: Some of them feel it's a little bit unfair, but there are 193 cardinals now total, but the ones under 80 are the ones that determine who the next pope will be, who are able to vote in the next conclave.

There's a cap on that at 120. So that's what the pope was doing, re-stacking the College of Cardinals to reach that 120 mark again of those under 80.

WHITFIELD: Yes. There are a couple of other very significant names that have come up aside from those Americans you mentioned. What do we know about them?

GALLAGHER: Yes. One I mentioned, Archbishop Zen of Hong Kong. Aside from having a very interesting name, he was named by Pope Benedict also to be a cardinal, a very outspoken critic of the communist government in China and sort of an indication that the pope is supporting the Catholic Church in that region.

Also, of course, there is Archbishop Stanislaus Dziwisz, was the long time support for John Paul II. He was the man by his side over 40 years. And he is now archbishop in Krakow, Poland, and he's being given the red hat really as an honorary title and a sign of recognition of all his work at the side of John Paul II.

WHITFIELD: And what do these picks overall say about the direction of this papacy?

GALLAGHER: Well, I think the interesting thing about this first consistory is that really many of these men were already in place by John Paul II. These are not men that Pope Benedict himself sort of hand selects and says these are my 15 favorite.

These are people that were in line to receive the red hat. The only person that Pope Benedict hand picked, as it were, is the former archbishop of San Francisco, William Levada, whom he chose to succeed him. So that's really the only person that you could sort of read into some kind of direction, but it's still too early, Fredricka, to decide exactly what the imprint is going to be on this papacy.

WHITFIELD: All right. Delia Gallagher, thanks so much, out of New York.

Well, they once fought on the same side. Now one is in power, the other wants his job. But in the race for one country's future, being a contender has also meant running for office from jail. Details on that straight ahead on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com