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Sentencing Phase for Moussaoui Begins; U.N. Watchdog Group Still Hopes for Negotiated Nuclear Deal with Iran; More Bombings in Iraq, Calls for Government to Organize

Aired March 06, 2006 - 13:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips.
A staggering question and an uncertain answer in a monumental act of terror. Would the victims of 9/11 be alive today if Zacarias Moussaoui had just told the truth? Prosecutors say yes, and that's essentially their attempt to put Moussaoui to death. The jury was seated in the past hour, and reporters say the defendant stayed quiet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW BARAKAT, POOL REPORTER: He said very little. He was not disruptive. I think after the first break it was hard to hear. It sounded like he said, "May I use the toilet?"

Now, afterwards they took a short break, and the -- Judge Brinkema gave instructions to the jury and during that he wrote a hand written note on a yellow legal pad and handed that to one of his court-appointed lawyers, Alan Yamamoto. At the end Mr. Yamamoto said that Mr. Moussaoui was asking the judge to reconsider his pro se (ph) status, essentially asking to reconsider that he could be posted back as his own lawyer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Our homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve is outside the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.

I don't know if you heard that pool reporter, Jeanne, but it sounded like he was out of breath. A lot going in that courtroom?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he was trying to shout loud so all of us assembled out here in the cold could hear him.

Let me tell you a little bit about this jury. A jury of 12 and five alternates have now been seated. There are 10 men and seven women, all of them white except for one black woman.

Now, Moussaoui a month ago when jury selection started was very disruptive in the courtroom, shouting, "I'm al Qaeda" at one or two points. None of that today. Just as you heard from the pool reporter, this passing of a note asking to represent himself. The judge responded that issue is over and done with.

Among those in town for the start of this trial was Moussaoui's mother. I spoke with her last night. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AICHA EL-WAFI, MOUSSAOUI'S MOTHER (through translator): We'd like to say to the American people is that I'm extremely sorry for the things that my son says during the hearings, but one must understand that he's been in isolation for four years now. And he's in a situation of a person who cannot talk to other people, and what he's expressing is his pain, his suffering.

MESERVE: What are your feelings tonight with the trial beginning tomorrow morning? What are your fears? What are your hopes? What are your thoughts?

EL-WAFI (through translator): He was clearly the most outstanding, the most righteous, the kindest of all. So what switched? What triggered this change when he was in the U.K.? I really could not tell you. I really don't know.

As far as the American people, I am with the American people. I share their pain. I share their grief, whether he was involved or not, because I share the pain, I understand the pain of all the people who lost loved ones in the United States.

But I cannot say my own pain -- my own inner grief is something that I really cannot express. It is so deep and personal to me.

So what do I hope right now? I hope that he gets a fair trial. I hope that the truth will come out. The judge, her honor, up until now has done her job. She has done it well. I just hope that the jury will decide and act in accordance with their conscience.

The only thing that I do hope is that my son will not be used as a scapegoat. All I can say is that he's not a liar.

MESERVE: Do you believe that he can get a fair trial here?

EL-WAFI (through translator): I don't think so. I will rely on the judge. I will rely on the jury, but the fact of the matter is, is that my son's trial is not a trial that is based on the evidence. It has turned into a political trial, so I don't think so.

MESERVE: Do you feel that he is a scapegoat?

EL-WAFI (through translator): Yes. What do they have against him? What can they reproach him? All they can have against him is the things that he said, the words that he has used. But actual acts that he committed, there aren't any.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: Moussaoui's mother says she has not seen her son for three years. She hasn't had a letter or a phone call since last May. She will not actually be in the courtroom today. She's being seated in a separate room, where she'll get a translation of the proceedings.

Back to you. PHILLIPS: What about victims' families, Jeanne? Are they in the courtroom?

MESERVE: There are some public seats in there. We don't know if they're going to be in those seats, any of them won those seats. If not, there is an overflow room here where they'll see a closed-circuit version of the proceedings. Also it's being piped to five other locations around the country so they will be able to view these proceedings, some of which are likely to be very upsetting.

Amongst the things prosecutors have said they will use here is a recording of the flight recorder from the flight that went down on Pennsylvania on 9/11 -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Jeanne Meserve, live outside the courtroom, thank you so much.

Well, threats and counter threats in the nuclear standoff with Iran. The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, is meeting in Vienna, where it may take a step that Iran warns will cause a lot of problems.

CNN's Matthew Chance joins me now with the latest -- Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, thanks very much.

And the IAEA is meeting here in Vienna to discuss its latest report into the nuclear activities of Iran. It's a report that underlies some of the uncertainties still surrounding those activities.

It talks about the fact that Iran has been stepping up its uranium enrichment, despite international concerns. It also mentions the fact that after three years of intensive inspections, the agency here is still not able to say with any degree of certainty whether or not Iran's program is an exclusively peaceful one.

So there are several issues of deep concern to the international community. It's also discussions that may set the tone of debate at the U.N. Security Council when the issue is eventually taken up there. The Security Council, of course, has the power to enforce resolutions and try and bring punitive action against Iran.

But the director general of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, saying for the moment, he believes negotiations are the best way forward.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMED ELBARADEI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, IAEA: I think confrontation could be counterproductive. It would not provide us with a usable solution. So, the earlier we can bring the parties back to the negotiating table, I think it's better for everyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE: The diplomats here are saying that, despite the entrenched positions of the various sides, efforts are still underway to try and find the last-minute negotiated settlement to this. But the big stumbling block, though, remains this one issue of uranium enrichment. Iran that says that it wants to have the right to keep on small-scale uranium enrichment on its own territory. (AUDIO GAP) It is not acceptable if any deal is going to be brought -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Is there any possible deal, any possible deal at all among all these players that could come to some type of resolution?

CHANCE: Well, certainly diplomats here at the IAEA believe that, you know, these negotiations that are underway could bear some kind of fruit, but somebody's going have to compromise when it comes to making a deal.

Is it going to be the Iranians? They said very clearly that they'd drawn their red line (ph). They need to have some kind of small-scale uranium enrichments on their territory. They've made such a big political issue about it in Iran itself. It's going to be difficult for them to step away from that.

The United States on the other hand, can it find a compromise with its European allies, as well, and accept perhaps some type of small scale uranium enrichment for Iran to -- that would be closely monitored by the IAEA. The United States says at the moment absolutely not and its allies. That's not acceptable if any deal is going to be done, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Matthew Chance, thanks.

What is the IAEA and why is Iran so concerned about it? Let's get a "Fact Check."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS (voice-over): The International Atomic Energy Agency, more commonly known as the IAEA, has been called the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog. Established in 1957 as an autonomous organization under the United Nations, President Dwight Eisenhower actually proposed the creation of the agency in 1953 to monitor the spread of nuclear technology.

The IAEA is headquartered in Vienna, Austria. It has 139 member states, who meet annually. The IAEA currently has safeguard agreements with more than 145 countries around the world. Under these agreements, inspectors are sent out to monitor nuclear reactor, to make sure nuclear material is not being made into weapons. More than 900 facilities around the world are under IAEA safeguards.

Since 1997, Mohamed ElBaradei has been the director general of the IAEA. Along with the agency, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his efforts to limit the spread of atomic weapons.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Bombs in Baghdad and Baqubah. Civilians killed and wounded. An Iraqi general shot dead. The fight for Iraq takes to the streets once again. CNN's Aneesh Raman has the latest for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A number of car bombs in Iraq left at least 10 people dead on Monday, some 53 others wounded. The worst attack coming in the city of Baqubah, where some six people were killed, including three children, after a bomb detonated at a marketplace.

In the aftermath there, residents screamed, voiced their anger at Iraqi politicians, who they say are more concerned with their positions of power than bringing stability to the streets of Iraq.

Some three months after Iraqis went to the polls to elect a parliament, they are still yet to convene. Iraq's parliament will meet on Sunday. That is the last day they can meet based on a constitutional deadline.

There is still no answer, though, to the basic question of who will be running Iraq for the next four years. There is growing momentum to see Ibrahim al-Jafari, the current prime minister, who last month was renominated to the post by the Shia Alliance to step down.

Sunni, Kurdish and secular politicians say he is simply too weak to bring about the necessary security to Iraq, as well as to deliver on the basic needs that remain, water and electricity as long -- along with unemployment that is still staggeringly high.

So Iraq's government will meet on Sunday, the parliament. That sets in place, though, a 60-day timeline by when they must form a government, name a prime minister and a president.

Aneesh Raman, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Laying down the law to U.S. colleagues -- or colleges, rather. If you want government money, you're going to have to take military recruiters, too.

It's a unanimous ruling. The Supreme Court upholds a law that several universities have challenged on the grounds that the military discriminates against gays. Schools can still bar whomever they like, but it will cost them their shares of a federal payout worth about $35 billion a year.

An act of outrage or campus terror? A native of Iran who recently graduated from the University of North Carolina is in court today, charged with trying to kill nine people there on Friday.

Mohamed Reza Taheri-Azar allegedly drove his SUV into a crowded campus hangout. Later, he turned himself in. Police say he told him he wanted to avenge the deaths of Muslims from around the world.

Some UNC students are calling it an act of terror. They held a rally today condemning religious violence.

A ghastly crime, a potential suspect. New York City police are questioning a man who may know more than anybody else about the final hours of Imette St. Guillen's life.

CNN's Allan Chernoff has more on the case.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A week ago Thursday, Imette St. Guillen was in Florida with her family, celebrating her upcoming birthday and her new life in New York. It would be the last time they ever saw her alive.

The next night, the 24-year-old grad student in criminal justice was out with a close friend at a popular Manhattan bar. They stayed until about 3:30 in the morning, when St. Guillen went, on her own, to a second bar several blocks away. She had a drink, then left at 4 a.m.

Seventeen hours later an anonymous caller to 911 said a body was laying in tall grass near an isolated Brooklyn street, 15 miles from the bar. Imette St. Guillen had been raped and beaten.

(on camera) The anonymous 911 call about the body came from one of these telephones right outside of the Lindenwood Diner here in east New York about a mile from where the body was found. There are 16 security cameras outside and inside of the diner, but unfortunately, not one of them is trained on this telephone bank.

(voice-over) Former detective Thomas Ruskin spent more than two decades with the NYPD.

(on camera) What are the police doing to try to identify the caller?

THOMAS RUSKIN, FORMER DETECTIVE: What the police are going to do from this standpoint is they're going to print this whole thing and, as you can see from right here, this is the forensic-laden print powder that's been put on here, and it looks like they have pulled some of the prints, possibly, off of here and dusted up here.

CHERNOFF (voice-over): Dozens of police officers have returned to the crime scene, searching for any evidence that may still remain.

RUSKIN: You don't want to take a chance that maybe he moved from this area to that area or just dumped the body over there.

CHERNOFF: St. Guillen's corpse was found wrapped in a bedspread, her arms and legs bound with plastic ties, her face covered from forehead to chin with strips of tan packing tape. Her hair cut and a sock stuffed in her mouth.

N.G. BERRILL, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: It's clear that this crime was enacted in a fairly methodical manner. CHERNOFF: Several of St. Guillen's fingernails were broken, indicating a struggle. New York's medical examiner has been analyzing skin from under the nails, hair and skin follicles found on the bedspread, as well as any bodily fluids found at the crime scene.

This is one of the most desolate parts of Brooklyn in the shadow of an old garbage dump. No one lives anywhere near here. So there's no apparent reason that anyone would be driving along the street and suddenly uncover a body. All evidence that leads Tom Ruskin to believe the caller to 911 may have committed the crime.

RUSKIN: If it was him who made the telephone call, it was him who wanted the body to be found sooner rather than later and was going to get excited by the fact that his crime was now going to be all over the media.

CHERNOFF: Adding irony t a horrific tragedy, police are using the same forensic skills that St. Guillen was studying for her masters in criminal justice to solve her murder.

Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: We're going to have more on this investigation in the next hour of LIVE FROM. Allan Chernoff will join us live from New York.

We're going to get straight now to Tony Harris in the newsroom. He's working a developing story for us -- Tony.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Kyra, this is a story we've been watching for the last 40, 45 minutes or so. We want to take you to the high-end trendy neighborhood of Buckhead in Atlanta.

And you're watching pictures now of a man being loaded onto a life flight helicopter to be taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Let me back this story up just a little bit for you.

Atlanta firefighters not that very long ago, inside the hour, responding to a porch collapse at a home in this Buckhead section of the city. And this man had quite an ordeal, as you see him being removed from the home now, from what appeared to be anywhere from 10 -- a 10- to 14-foot hole that was created once the porch collapsed.

A man and a woman were on the porch at the time. The woman was rescued relatively quickly, and it took quite awhile. Here you see the woman coming out of that hole, but it took quite awhile for firefighters to extricate the man from this hole.

And just a little bit more of the information leading to this rescue. Firefighters actually had to cut down a tree, Kyra, in a traffic circle in the cul-de-sac of this neighborhood in order to land that life flight helicopter.

Pictures now from a short time ago of the woman being pulled out of that hole. And the most recent photos, if we can go back to the live picture now, are of the man being loaded onto that life flight helicopter to be taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

No word on his condition at this time, Kyra. But pretty dramatic pictures as this rescue was taking place. We'll keep an eye on it for you.

PHILLIPS: All right. Thanks to our local affiliates there for those live pictures. Tony, thanks.

The news keeps coming. We'll keep bringing it to you. More LIVE FROM after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Abandoned and betrayed. One man's perspective on his life, his country six months after Katrina. His family survived the storm, but his town is in shambles, his home is devastated and his life in limbo.

Our Gary Tuchman has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The tens of thousands of people celebrating Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street were only a few miles away from the city of Arabi, Louisiana. But Arabi looks like it's on a different planet.

Six months after Hurricane Katrina, houses still sit in the middle of the street. Neighborhoods still look like aerial bombing targets. Very little has been cleaned up, and the few residents who are left, like Rudy Aguilar, feel betrayed.

RUDY AGUILAR, HURRICANE VICTIM: I feel like the United States of America has -- has left my family behind, has forgot about us and gone on their business.

TUCHMAN: Rudy, his wife Rosalie and three children, share a cramped FEMA trailer in the front of their decimated home. They had a five-bedroom house. Rudy was an environmental engineer for St. Bernard Parish.

RUDY AGUILAR: They laid me off. They eliminated the environmental engineering position.

TUCHMAN: Finding another job has been very difficult, and the family is running out of money. Rudy, a Tulane university graduate, now receives donated Red Cross food to feed his family.

(on camera) Do you believe what's happening to your life over the past six months?

ROSALIE AGUILAR, HURRICANE VICTIM: No, it's like a nightmare. I still -- I still feel like I just -- if I wake up it won't be -- you know, it won't be reality, but it is in fact reality. That's what the kids -- that's what my daughter keeps saying.

TUCHMAN: Rudy Aguilar was born in this house. He doesn't want to move the trailer elsewhere, because he wants to keep his eye on potential looters.

RUDY AGUILAR: The bat is for protection for anyone who decides to loot.

TUCHMAN: And he also wants to rebuild the house, but he says working at that it makes no sense, because the politicians haven't decided if people will be allowed to rebuild in this low-lying area. The Aguilars believe Arabi is not at the top of any decision makers' priority list.

ROSALIE AGUILAR: We're in limbo.

TUCHMAN: The children play in the dirt and the germ-infested refuse that remains from Katrina.

RUDY AGUILAR: My kids used to look up to me, and now they wonder why Dad don't have a job, you know? Why Dad's constantly looking at the newspaper, you know? And then you slip into a depression and you kind of lay down and don't want to move, you know?

TUCHMAN: Because Rudy was working the day of the hurricane, the family did not evacuate.

ROSALIE AGUILAR: I saw the water bust through the door like a tidal wave.

RUDY AGUILAR: I actually had to go under water and come up here. When I came up, my children and wife was up there in their life preservers.

TUCHMAN: Understandably, it was traumatizing for the children. Their dog disappeared during the storm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was a German Shepherd, so the police probably took him.

TUCHMAN (on camera): The police probably took him, I think so. You're right.

(voice-over) Almost all of the residents in Arabi are gone. Many say they will never come back. The humor there is often a bit dark.

(on camera) If there was another hurricane, do you think you'd go far away from it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'd go to Timbuktu.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): But for now, they stay in a trailer on what was their front lawn.

RUDY AGUILAR: Six months and look. Look around you. Six months and this is what I have to offer my family. TUCHMAN: Their lives totally upended, their disillusionment continuing to grow.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Arabi, Louisiana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: A new warning for New Orleans. Without national intervention, the city won't return. A report called "The Mardi Gras Index" says New Orleans was left to fend for itself with tragic results.

Just yesterday the body of another Katrina victim was discovered in the attic of a flooded home in New Orleans' suburb. So is that city on the road to recovery or oblivion?

Stephen Perry, president of the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau joins us, along with Chris Kromm. He's the executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies in Durham, North Carolina. He co-wrote "The Mardi Gras Index."

Gentlemen, thanks for being with me.

STEPHEN PERRY, PRESIDENT, NEW ORLEANS METROPOLITAN CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU: Thank you.

CHRIS KROMM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR SOUTHERN STUDIES: Good afternoon.

PHILLIPS: What triggered our conversation? It was during Mardi Gras, actually, and it's sort of ironic and that your report is called "Mardi Gras Index," Chris. So I guess I want to get both of your takes.

Should Mardi Gras is have happened, considering everything going on, a dead body still found in an attic of a home. So much rebuilding. You look at that piece Gary did about the Aguilar family, still desperate to be able to rebuild and start working again.

Stephen, let's start with you. Should Mardi Gras have happened?

PERRY: Absolutely, unequivocally Mardi Gras should have happened. In fact, it would have been -- it would have been a horrible thing to the social fabric of our city and to the economic future of the city if Mardi Gras had not occurred.

Most people don't realize, New Orleans is not -- Mardi Gras is not put on by the government here. It's put on by private citizens, and it's -- you know, for better or worse, tourism and the hospitality industry are the key to the New Orleans economy. And it was incredibly important for Mardi Gras to come together, and for a large number of people, to give them a sense of spiritual renewal, while at the same time we can never take our eye off the ball with all of those incredibly devastated families in the neighborhoods.

PHILLIPS: Steve, do you have hard numbers? Do you have numbers? Can you say, OK, "This year we brought in a million dollars in profit that's going to go right back into this city"?

PERRY: We're expecting that the net flow to the city could be in the 20 to 30 million range. Overall, the financial impact would be around $20 million, which is roughly 70 percent of a normal Mardi Gras, which would in normal years approximate a Super Bowl. This year you don't have as many retail stores opened, you don't have as much retail impact.

But one thing that you saw this year was that we had several days of Mardi Gras, where the crowds were as large as ever. And you saw black families and white families and Vietnamese families and Hispanic families side by side, celebrating at a time that they have gone -- in which they've gone through almost incomprehensible struggles. And it was really a coming together of the city in a lot of ways. But more importantly, it sent a message to the world that we are a tale of two cities here.

PHILLIPS: And there's definitely another message to get out, and that is this "Mardi Gras Index" that Chris, you've been behind and pushing, talking about still so much yet to be done.

I'm even reading a quote here that you had in your report from a professor. "The people left behind in the evacuation of New Orleans after Katrina are the same people left behind in the rebuilding of New Orleans: the poor, the sick, the elderly, the disabled and children, mostly African-American." Professor William Quigley there, law professor, Loyola, New Orleans.

Should Mardi Gras have happened, in your opinion?

KROMM: Well, I would never stand in the way of people celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but let's not sugar coat which is a very dire situation in that city.

You know, we've talked to hundreds of community leaders and residents in the city, analyzed thousands of pages of data. And it all came to the same sobering conclusion, which is that that city is facing some very basic problems with housing, with public health and safety, with schools, even whether it's ready for hurricane season, which is just three months away. And unless these basic, fundamental problems are met with bold action, this city is not going to come back.

PHILLIPS: Chris, you mentioned schools. Is it true only 17 percent of the schools have been reopened?

KROMM: There are 117 public schools. Only 20 have reopened, and the latest news is that the city is going to lay off another 7,500 teachers.

And so for the three out of five people who have not come back to New Orleans, the families are going to look at things like that in the dangerous neighborhoods and the lack of jobs. They're going to look at those issues, and they're going try to decide whether they should come back. And I'm afraid a lot of them are going to say they just can't do it. PHILLIPS: Stephen, why not make schools more of a priority, get more schools opened so families have a reason to come back and raise their families?

PERRY: That is exactly what we proposed. And in fact, this is that one moment in time where this city and this nation could look upon New Orleans as a living, urban template for social change, for rejuvenation of inner city, for just explosive new development of the kinds of schools that we should have. Frankly, you have New Orleans schools that were failing and dilapidated before the storm, just like you do at many urban areas around this country.

And the 17 percent figure is a little misleading. It's absolutely accurate, but it reflects the number of kids who were actually back here. So many of these families have not been able to come home.

And to me the key of where we have to go from here is exactly as your other guest stated. You've got to have bold, decisive, visionary action from the political leaders. They've got to make schools a priority, and they've got to make housing a priority, because if not, the recovery is going to be slowed down dramatically.

PHILLIPS: What about health and safety, Chris? You talk a lot in your report about the threat of mold, arsenic, things we really haven't thought about in a couple of months.

KROMM: Well, this is a huge issue, and it's really an issue of concern for a lot of the neighborhoods. There's at least four neighborhoods where they found a hundred times the safe level of arsenic, a deadly toxin, in those communities. You also find elevated levels of lead, cadmium, from oil spills.

And the basic issue is that to date there's been no commitment to clean this up. And again this, this is one of these issues that, unless there's some national vision and resources put to solving these problems. I absolutely agree, there's people in the city who want to rebuild. But unless there's a bold, national commitment to solving these kind of health and safety issues, families just will not return.

PHILLIPS: Steve Kromm and Stephen Perry. Let's keep talking about this as the weeks roll on, shall we? Will you come back?

PERRY: Thanks, Kyra.

KROMM: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: I appreciate it very much.

Well, he's a successful talk show host and a man on a quest to find a cure for M.S. Now Montel Williams has a new mission. He's here live. He's going to join us to talk about it, a little later on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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