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Search For Katrina Victims Continues; Former Enron CFO Set to Testify; Florida Authorities Search For Missing Pregnant Woman

Aired March 06, 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: Six months after Katrina, and still finding bodies -- cadaver dogs led New Orleans firefighters to the attic of a house in the Lakeview -- Lakeview neighborhood yesterday, just four miles from the French Quarter. It appears the victim died like so many others, trying to get higher than the floodwaters. Katrina is blamed for more than 1,110 deaths in Louisiana.
In the Lower Ninth Ward, special teams are going house to house, door to door, taking one last look before condemned homes are demolished.

Our Sean Callebs is on the phone with more on these searches.

And, Sean, just before we talk about those searches, can I just ask you about -- this is something we were talking about last week, while Mardi Gras was going on. It's like the tale of two cities. I mean, they're still finding dead bodies in these homes.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really is, Kyra.

That -- that's a very good analogy, a very good way to look at things. I can tell you, there are three different cadaver dog teams. The one you talked about, last night, from the state of Maine, they found an individual who had crawled into a very narrow attic. And the state medical examiner says, it appears the victim was trying to crawl out through a very small vent, simply had nowhere to go. The water was all the way to the top of the house.

And there's no easy way to say it. We can't know for sure, but the mechanical examiner believes he had a very, very horrible death. And I can also tell you, there was a positive (AUDIO GAP) on remains down just a short while ago, down here in the Ninth Ward, when cadaver dogs picked up a scent. Authorities went inside.

They found what appears to be either a hand or a foot. Now, Louis Cataldie, the state medical examiner, told me that Orleans Parish coroner went in there about two weeks ago and removed a victim. So, he's trying to figure out exactly what is going on at that site.

Now, they're not necessarily going house to house. What they're doing is, homes that are in the middle of roads, been blown right off the foundation, before they are being torn down, the cadaver dogs and fire officials are going through those.

Also, calls that are coming in from a national call center from, say, a family that says, I'm looking for so and so, so and so, they're going to all of those homes as well, Kyra. So, that's the very exhaustive effort being played out here.

PHILLIPS: And, Sean, of course, when we hear about finding bodies or -- or body parts, it's something we definitely don't feel comfortable talking about. But, at the same time, it -- it has got to give family members or loved ones some sense of closure, I would hope, if, of course, Cataldie is able to identify who that individual was.

CALLEBS: Exactly.

The remains that were in the Lakeview home were simply mummified. And that family is going to get a sense of closure. They can use DNA testing. They have a pretty good idea who that victim is. However, that said, just two days earlier, the New Orleans Police Department had gone through that house, checked it out, and said it was clear; there were no remains in there.

So, that could have torn that down, theoretically, the remains just taken away with the debris. So, that is what everyone is afraid of here. That is the reason this work is going on in such -- in what appears to be such a painstakingly slow fashion.

PHILLIPS: Sean Callebs reporting for us from New Orleans -- thanks, Sean.

Now a levee check -- the man in charge of repairs says progress, so far, is right on target. After briefing the president, Lieutenant General Carl Strock, the chief of the Army Corps of Engineers, denied anyone is cutting corners.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIEUTENANT GENERAL CARL A. STROCK, UNITED STATES ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS CHIEF: We are using the right material, and we're putting it down in the right way. We're giving tremendous scrutiny into not only how we do this, but also into the results after the fact. So, we're doing extensive testing of the in-place structures to ensure that they are up to the standard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Strock says about 100 miles of the 169-mile system are repaired, and pumping stations are running at 85 percent of capacity.

Attempted murder by SUV at UNC? An Iranian native and recent graduate of the University of North Carolina is accused of trying to mow down nine people at a popular campus hangout. Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar appeared in court today to face charges.

Gerrick Brenner with CNN affiliate WTVD has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GERRICK BRENNER, WTVD REPORTER (voice-over): In an orange jail jumpsuit, Mohammed Taheri-azar smiled and waved before his first court appearance.

Inside, Orange County's district attorney read the charges, including nine counts of attempted murder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why did you do it?

BRENNER: Police say he intentionally hit nine students with an SUV on the UNC campus on Friday. Taheri-azar says he will be his own lawyer...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Speak up.

BRENNER: ... and thanked the judge for the trial as an opportunity to express the will of Allah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was just messed up. His character and everything was messed up. He came in laughing. Everything was a joke.

BRENNER: No one was seriously hurt on the crowded campus.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were you trying to kill people?

MOHAMMED REZA TAHERI-AZAR, DEFENDANT: Yes.

BRENNER: "Yes," Taheri-azar responded. His sister attended the arraignment, but left with no comment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: While court was under way, UNC students held a rally at that campus, condemning religious violence.

It was the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. And families of the victims are reliving it, because Zacarias Moussaoui is back in court. On closed-circuit TV, they're watching the sentencing trial of the only person charged in the U.S. in connection with 9/11. A jury in Virginia will decide whether Moussaoui spends life behind bars or dies for his admitted ties to al Qaeda and his admitted ambitions to carry out attacks.

Moussaoui denies any role in 9/11, but prosecutors say he lies prevented -- his lies, rather, prevented investigators from cracking the plot. The defense says, the government missed any number of clues that an al Qaeda attack was coming.

He has been called a terrorist, a thug, and an outright nut. But, to his mother, Zacarias Moussaoui is a beloved son.

And, in this exclusive interview with CNN's Jeanne Meserve, she defends him, as only a mother would.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AICHA EL-WAFI, MOTHER OF ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI (through translator): What I would 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 has 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.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: 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 upstanding, 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 -- 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 a loved ones in the United States. But I -- I -- I cannot say -- you -- my own pain, my own inner grief, is something that I really cannot express. It is so deeply 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 according with their conscience. The only thing that I do hope is that my son will not be used as a scapegoat.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Moussaoui was known for his outbursts in earlier court hearings. But, in this early stage of his sentencing, he has been relatively quiet.

Bombings in Baghdad and Baquba, 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.

(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 Baquba, 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 with 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 president, though, today announcing that the parliament will meet on Sunday. That is the last day that 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-Jaafari, the current prime minister, who last month was renominated to the post by the Shia Alliance, 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: Hope, yes, but still no breakthrough in the nuclear standoff with Iran.

Envoys are meeting in Vienna, headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, says that he's hopeful of a breakthrough soon. Iran warns, if the IAEA sends the case to the U.N. Security Council, it will start large-scale enrichment of uranium -- it will start that program, rather.

It's a process that could lead to nuclear weapons. And that is what the U.S. and its European allies fear. Iran insists its program is peaceful.

What is 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 reactors, 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: Fast times for Fastow -- Enron's former top money man is ready to testify about those infamous off-the-book maneuvers aimed at pumping up profits and fooling investors. We will have a preview coming up on LIVE FROM. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: They're the smartest guys in the boardroom, but, this week, they're in the courtroom. Former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow is scheduled to take the stand tomorrow against his old bosses, Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.

CNN's Chris Huntington has a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The hottest ticket in Houston is to federal court, to see Andrew Fastow take the stand in the government's case against Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling.

The infamous off-the-book deals that Fastow helped create ultimately sent Enron into collapse. Federal prosecutors hope his testimony will send his former bosses to prison.

JACOB ZAMANSKY, SECURITIES ATTORNEY, ZAMANSKY & ASSOCIATES: Andy Fastow is going to explain in detail how Enron hid the losses in off- book partnerships that he set up, and he's going to say that Lay and Skilling were right there with him, they knew everything, and they approved it.

HUNTINGTON: Fastow was once Enron's financial boy wonder, but became the feds' biggest catch when he was charged with a 98-count indictment.

In early 2004, he cut a deal, pleading guilty to two counts, and agreeing to cooperate, in return for a 10-year prison sentence.

Fastow was 28 when he joined Enron in 1990. Not renowned for his command of accounting principles, he did have a talent for creating complex transactions that inflated Enron's profits by sweeping losses and debt off of its public financial statements.

DOUG CARMICHAEL, PROFESSOR OF ACCOUNTANCY, BARUCH COLLEGE: Someone with some understanding of business should be able to pick up the financial statements, read the notes, and understand the full effect of those transactions on the financial statements. With Enron, they couldn't.

HUNTINGTON: In the late '90s, analysts applauded Fastow's financial wizardry as groundbreaking and innovative. He won "CFO" magazine's excellence award in 1999.

But, when Fastow's deals started to fail in late 2001, Enron buckled under its massive debt, imploding into what was then the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. Initially, Fastow and his lawyers insisted he had just followed orders.

DAVID BOIES, ATTORNEY FOR ANDREW FASTOW: Those transactions will be transactions that were reviewed by the board of directors of Enron, reviewed by the top management of Enron, and which, I believe the record will show, the audit committee of the board and the outside auditors.

HUNTINGTON: That argument failed to protect Fastow, but it will likely be the crux of his testimony, that Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay knew exactly what the off-the-book deals were used for, a shell game to fool investigators and prop up Enron.

Chris Huntington, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: A heavenly voyage becomes a trip from hell for more than 240 passengers aboard a Caribbean cruise ship. They're back in Miami after getting sick during a weeklong trip aboard the Explorer of the Seas.

Nineteen Royal Caribbean crew members also had problems with a gastrointestinal illness. The cruise line says the sick passengers will get 50 percent credits should they ever get their sea legs back.

The death of a 15-year-old Canadian girl is still a mystery, but it wasn't caused by a peanut butter kiss. You may remember, Christina Desforges died in November. Her death made headlines because it was first thought that her severe peanut allergy reacted to a kiss from her boyfriend, who had just eaten a peanut butter sandwich. Well, the coroner now says peanut butter wasn't responsible,but he's not revealing the actual cause of death yet.

Smiling broadly, but walking gingerly, New York Governor George Pataki stepped into the sunshine today, after almost three weeks in the hospital. The 60-year-old Pataki suffered complications after emergency surgery to remove his appendix. He told reporters he's feeling a lot better, but still not 100 percent. Pataki is serving his third term as governor.

He has also been weighing a run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

A combat mystery, the death of former football star Pat Tillman -- was criminal negligence involved? Ahead on LIVE FROM, a new investigation -- stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Mom-to-be MIA -- it a missing-persons case in Florida that has devastated a family and stumped a police department.

CNN's John Zarrella reports from Tallahassee.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): In the shadow of a billboard no mother ever wants to see, Laurvetta Grimsley McLawrence breaks down.

LAURVETTA GRIMSLEY-MCLAWRENCE, MOTHER: I really miss your voice. I love you so much. I don't know why. I don't know why. Lord... (CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will find her. We will find her.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know why.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will find her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my baby. I want my baby back.

ZARRELLA: Her daughter, Ali Gilmore, expecting a child, simply vanished one month ago from her home here in Tallahassee, Florida. For police here in the state capital, it's a mystery like none they have ever seen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know -- we don't know where she is.

ZARRELLA: There are virtually no leads, no clues.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no signs of a struggle inside. Ms. Gilmore is four-and-a-half months pregnant. She was very excited about the pregnancy. She had pregnancy books by her nightstand. She had a pregnancy book on her bed. She had baby clothes inside of another room.

ZARRELLA: Ali Gilmore left work at this Publix supermarket at 11:00 p.m. on February 2. That was the last time anyone saw her.

JAMES GILMORE, HUSBAND OF ALI GILMORE: We have been married for five years, been together for seven.

ZARRELLA: Gilmore and her husband, James, were supposed to meet the next morning, Friday, for a marriage counseling session. The two had been separated for a couple of months. Neither one showed up for the appointment. James Gilmore says he overslept. He tried reaching Ali to apologize, but she never answered the phone.

GILMORE: And I tried to get up with her over the weekend, but I kind of figured she was just upset with me, you know, she was avoiding me over the weekend because she was upset with me because I missed the marriage counseling appointment.

ZARRELLA: Police say James Gilmore says he was at his brother's house during the timeline for Ali's disappearance. He had been staying there since the separation.

GILMORE: I'm available for the police if they need me for anything. And, I mean, I don't have anything to hide from anyone, or the police, or nobody.

ZARRELLA: On Monday, February 6, when Ali didn't show up for work at her other job at the Department of Health, co-workers called police. They found her car at the house. Inside the house, nothing was out of place. Nothing had been stolen, no traces of blood. They searched a nearby construction site. Nothing.

TRACY SMITH, SISTER OF ALI GILMORE: Aliens swooped down with some radar beam and just perfectly took her off this planet, which I don't believe that.

ZARRELLA: Tracy, Ali's older sister, has led the effort to find her.

SMITH: I just have to believe every day that she's saying, Tracy, help me; come get me; help me.

ZARRELLA: Friends, family, police all say Ali Gilmore was not the type of person to just run off; she vanished, but not of her own will. Someone here, police say, knows what happened to Ali Gilmore.

John Zarrella, CNN, Tallahassee, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And if you have any information about Ali Gilmore's disappearance, call Big Bend Crime Stoppers in Florida at 1-850-891- HELP.

Imagine walking a mile in this man's shoes. He faces a much longer journey than that, though. He was wounded on the front lines, but his battle is only beginning -- starting a new life, with new limbs, coming up on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Let's check in with meteorologist Jacqui Jeras.

I guess it's good news for skiers, but bad news for travelers.

(LAUGHTER)

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. We do have a little bit of travel trouble across parts of the West again today, Kyra, with that wet weather coming down.

We have got some nice weather, though, taking place across the nation's midsection, where it has been unbelievably warm. So, we have got some winter weather and spring-like weather, of course, spring two weeks away, officially, from this day. So, if you're wondering where it is and when it's coming, it's right around the corner, but, certainly, feeling a little bit even more like summer here -- Dallas, right now, 81 degrees. Your average high is down in the 60s, so we're pushing 15, 20 degrees above average here already.

Kansas City should be in the 50s. You're up at 61. And 51 is your average high in Denver. And you're at 67 degrees. We have got some mild air in place right here today -- the humidity, not too much of a problem here, but, tomorrow, the winds are going to be kicking up. And we are concerned about that fire danger beginning to push into the region. Phoenix, we're also worried about, much of Arizona, for the fire danger, as well. It has been 139 days, once we get through today, of consecutive dry weather -- very wet in California. It's the haves and the have-nots -- more showers across mostly northern parts of the state, but a little bit of rain trying to make its way into Los Angeles.

We had a dry spell for the last couple of hours here, if you want to call it that, around the San Francisco Bay area, up towards Sonoma, into Napa. But you can see some new showers beginning to reemerge. The flood warnings in this region have been canceled now, or have been allowed to expire -- so, getting a little bit better here.

But the chance of showers, even some isolated thunderstorms, will be ongoing into the afternoon hours, as our upper-level system is just taking its time, moving in across the West. We have got another strong system coming in late in the week. So, we will be watching that threat for mudslides and landslides and more flooding once again.

Across the Great Lakes, it's spring and summer, a little bit of both. The snow showers have been pulling on through across parts of Michigan, extending down into Ohio -- Indianapolis reporting some snow showers at this hour, might get a nice little dusting, but this is very quick moving. And, overall, this is very light precipitation. But it will be a little bit dicey, especially on the bridges and overpasses. So, on your drive home tonight, use a lot of caution.

Tomorrow, your travel concerns, lesser -- looking, still, a little bit wet, particularly in the morning in the West. Now, we will have problems along I-80, with the snow coming into play across the Sierras. That will be ongoing through tomorrow afternoon.

Nation's midsection, there you can see the hot, dry weather again. So, we will be watching the fire there, basically, in the eastern parts of New Mexico, into the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, where temperatures will get back in the 80s once again -- and temperatures warm enough that I think this is going to be a rain event along I-35, from Des Moines, on up toward Minneapolis. Watch out for some showers here.

You head up towards International Falls, though, and that is certainly going to be snow -- beautiful conditions across the East tomorrow, Kyra, but temperatures a little bit cooler than they have been -- plenty of sunshine, so no travel trouble expected out to the East tomorrow.

PHILLIPS: All right, Jacqui, thanks.

Well, he captured the hearts of a nation, Pat Tillman giving up his promising pro football career for the uniform of an Army Ranger. Tillman died in Afghanistan in 2004. The Army first said he was killed by the enemy. Later, officials admitted, it was friendly fire.

Now, in a rare rebuke of Army investigators, the Pentagon's inspector general is ordering a new probe to learn whether Tillman's fellow soldiers may have been guilty of criminal negligence. They were wounded in battle, but, for some veterans, the war is only beginning. They have a new mission now, to be whole again. And they're getting a little help from their friends back home.

Our Kelly Wallace has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bring it up and hold it. Hold it, hold it, hold it. Hold it. Down.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There is a lot that 24-year-old Christian Bagge wants to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Attack that cone. Attack that cone. Push, push, push. Shuffle, keep going, keep going, keep going.

STAFF SGT. CHRISTIAN BAGGE, U.S. ARMY: I want to run, I want to swim, I want to mountain bike. The biggest goal is to do what I did before.

WALLACE: What he did before the attack in Iraq, before the Humvee he was driving was blown apart by a roadside bomb and his life forever changed.

BAGGE: I told one of the guys to tie my wedding ring around my wrist and they did. That was last image I had in my mind was my wedding ring being tied around my wrist. I woke up in Germany with my amputated legs.

WALLACE: Before going off to war, Christian's passions included playing drums in a Christian rock band and a gal named Melissa. The two were good friends in high school who fell in love about a week before he left for Iraq. They married while he was on leave just three months before he became a double amputee.

MELISSA BAGGE, CHRISTIAN'S WIFE: There's been times when I thought, how am I going to do it. There's always someone there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dig in. Last cone. Dig in.

WALLACE: And always someone who knows just what they're going through. The Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio is home to one of only two U.S. Army amputee care centers in the country.

BAGGE: It's like a brotherhood. We're all rooting for each other and pushing each other to do the best that they can.

WALLACE: The pushing comes not just from peers but from a team of physical therapists.

CAPT. JUSTIN LAFERRIER, U.S. ARMY: Some people come in and say, wow, I never thought I would be able to do that again and they need to be pushed to be shown that it is possible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good. You look good. WALLACE: Also available to amputees like Christian, state of the art technology to create custom made legs for any activity they choose.

Christian's immediate goal, to run with President Bush. When the president visited the center on New Year's Day, Christian asked if they could jog together sometime. He says Mr. Bush said yes.

BAGGE: He said I would be an inspiration to other people and I think he's right. Hopefully I can be an inspiration.

WALLACE: His positive outlook doesn't mean there haven't been really hard times. In the beginning he was angry and depressed and every day there are reminders of what life used to be like.

BAGGE: It takes me longer to shower. It takes me longer to get my legs on, get dressed. Putting pants on is a 20-minute process and I hate it.

WALLACE: But Christian and Melissa are adjusting, even thriving, gearing up for their second wedding ceremony this weekend, this one for family and friends since they eloped the first time.

BAGGE: You learn a lot about true love being away from your family and you learn the important things in life.

WALLACE: Charting a new life with new limbs and new friends with friends who know what it's like to walk in their shoes. Kelly Wallace, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Destination U.S.A. Mothers and children separated by poverty, willing to risk life and limb for a chance to be reunited. It's an unforgettable tale that's happening every day. LIVE FROM brings you Enrique's story after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: A harrowing journey for freedom and love. Huddled on box cars, braving the elements, risking corrupt police and gangs, thousands of children from Central and Latin America suffer weeks or even months of misery just in hopes for reuniting with their parents in the U.S.

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sonia Nazario made that frightening trip herself gathering information for her new book, "Enrique's Journey." It profiles a Honduran boy's unforgettable story. She joins me now live from Los Angeles. Sonia, great to see you.

SONIA NAZARIO, AUTHOR, "ENRIQUE'S JOURNEY": Thanks for having me.

PHILLIPS: I want to talk about Enrique. But before we do that, I just want to know what gave you this idea. What compelled you to work on this for five years and put a book together?

NAZARIO: It started with my housekeeper who would come twice a month to clean my house. One day I asked her if she was planning to have more children. She suddenly went silent and started sobbing and told me that there were these four children she had left behind in Guatemala. She was a single mother, her husband had left her. She couldn't feed them. She listened do their cries of hunger at night and she had made this decision to come to the United States and send money back so that they could have a better life.

She hadn't seen them in 12 years. I was stunned by her answer. How is it that a woman can come to the United States, travel 2,000 miles away not knowing when they would see her children again. I wondered what I would do in her shoes. What I learned was that her choice was a very difficult choice, but a very common choice. There are millions of women who have come the United States from these countries left their children behind. Sometimes they're separated from them for five or ten years.

PHILLIPS: Gosh. We're looking at pictures now of how these kids try to escape and it's on these trains. Before we get to Enrique, since we're looking at so many of these kids, general pictures that you have taken. What they go through is unbelievable when they get on the trains. Set the scene of how dangerous it is, Sonia.

NAZARIO: These children, and there's more than 48,000 children who enter the United States illegally, alone, without either parent, each year. Many of those children are coming to follow a parent, usually a single mother who has come before them to the United States.

All along the way, they travel the only way they can since they're penniless. They cling on to the tops and sides of these freight trains coming up Mexico. All along the way are literally hunted down like animals by all sorts of bad actors.

For example, in the south of Mexico, these gangsters control the tops of the trains. There is 20 of them at a time that go from car to car and they'll surround a group of migrants, and they're armed with machetes and knives and guns and wooden bats. And they beat them and they strip them down and they take what few coins they have and sometimes they toss them off the train and, quote, feed them to the wheels.

And Enrique, the boy that I write about, his journey to find his mother in the United States -- he is beaten like this on top of the train, and he almost dies and they're strangling him and he's thinking, my mom won't know what happened to me. She won't know that I died here by the side of the rails in Mexico. Luckily, he's barely able to escape and throws himself off this moving freight train and continues on his journey north to try to return to the United States.

PHILLIPS: And he was 16 when you linked up with him, right?

NAZARIO: That's right. He was 16 years old. He was on his eighth attempt to reach his mother in the United States. PHILLIPS: And Mom left him behind when he was five. So as he got older, he just decided, that's it. I want to find my mom and I'm going to do whatever I have to do. When you connected with him, tell me what that journey was like for him and also for you.

NAZARIO: Well, when I connected with him, he had made it as far as northern Mexico. And for him, it was a very cruel journey. He had gone through these incredible obstacles. He been beaten and he had been robbed repeatedly. But all the time, from the time he was five years old until he left 11 years later to go find his mother on his own, he had just -- he loved his mother so much and he just despaired of being with her again. And he saw other children who had mothers and he wanted that, too.

And so he just said, I am going to go and find her. He had gone through these horrific things. And I really wanted to understand what he had been through, so I went back to Honduras and I did the journey exactly as he had done it. I traveled more than 1,600 miles and I did half of that on top of these freight trains, up seven freight trains up the length of Mexico.

And I went through some horrific things myself. Every day I was in fear of being beaten or robbed or raped. People had warned me about all these things that could happen on the trains, but not one thing which was as the train was moving forward, pitch dark, dead of night, and this -- the migrants from the front of the train start calling back, "ramas," branch.

And all of a sudden, this huge branch hit me square in the face and it sent me sprawling back and I almost fell off the train. I was able to grab onto the guard rail and pull myself up. The next day when the train stopped, I learned that a teenager from Honduras on the car behind mine had been swiped off by the same branch, and his companions didn't know if he was dead or alive. Because as the train moves forward, it produces this wind that rushes under the train and it pulls you into the wheels.

PHILLIPS: Well, and we're looking at pictures now of all these other kids that have been injured, either thrown off -- this one mother who lost both her legs. You actually focus on her also in the book, and you talk about how Francisca (ph) just wanted to get, you know, food, daily food to her kids.

NAZARIO: Many of these woman -- this woman who lost both of her legs, she talked about how she could only feed her children two pieces of bread each a day and a cup of watery coffee. And the youngest, a one-year-old, only one piece of bread and breast milk. And so she had made this very difficult decision to come north and -- for the sake of her children.

And every day, hundreds of women are making this decision. They are single mothers. As we're seeing more divorce and family disintegration in Latin America, more of these women are making this choice. And out of sheer desperation, they come to the United States to try to provide a better life so these children won't have to the live in the same misery that they grew up in. PHILLIPS: Now, Sonia, is your book feeling the immigration debate?

NAZARIO: Well, I hope that it leads to a discussion. I hope that it humanizes the migrant so that -- because I feel that too often, immigrants had been dehumanized and in telling the story of these women and children, it humanizes them.

But also, what becomes clear talking to people along the rails is that when you see the desperation of these women and these children to make it, and the determination really to make it to the United States -- Enrique makes eight attempts over 122 days and he travels 12,000 miles.

I talked to a boy who had made 27 attempts, and he had just been robbed by the side of the rails by bandits who had held him at knife point. They had raped the girl in his group. He was about to be deported to the south of Mexico. And he told me, tomorrow, I will start on attempt number 28.

And when you see that, you realize that this issue, this flow will continue until it is addressed in terms of the poverty in these handful of countries that send the great majority of migrants illegally to the United States.

PHILLIPS: Sonia Nazario, and we won't give it away. We won't tell our viewers if Enrique actually found his mother or not. We'll leave that to the viewer to read the book "Enrique's Journey." Sonia, thank you so much.

NAZARIO: Thank you for having me.

PHILLIPS: Coming up on LIVE FROM, Wolf Blitzer live in the United Arab Emirates. He's investigating the flap over port security. The news keeps coming. More LIVE FROM, straight ahead.

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PHILLIPS: This just in from Alexandria, Virginia. Opening arguments have now ended. As you know, we have been telling you about the jury that was seated today to hear the sentencing phase of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. As you know, he's the only person charged in the United States with crimes related to the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Opening arguments began this afternoon. They have now wrapped up. We will continue to, of course --to follow every move of this trial. Now, to reach a verdict for execution, the jury must find that Moussaoui participated in an act contemplating that life or lives would be lost and at least one person died as a result. That's is what the verdict is going to -- or the jury is going to have to be convinced of if, indeed, he is going to be sentenced to execution. We'll continue to follow it, of course, tomorrow.

Now, coming up at the top of the hour of CNN, "THE SITUATION ROOM" with Wolf Blitzer. Wolf is in Dubai with a firsthand look at the firm involved in the port security flap here at home.

And Wolf, I know you had an exclusive interview with the owner of Dubai Ports Company. What were your impressions?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: There's no doubt, Kyra, that this is a very, very well-run operation, Dubai Ports World. Mohammed Sharaf, who is the chief executive officer of this company, he runs a tight ship.

It's a big operation. They have been 5,000 people who work in this port alone. But they have a lot of people working all over the world. And they clearly, Kyra, want to have some more people working for Dubai Ports World in the United States at the six major ports including in Miami and Baltimore and New York, New Jersey.

Certainly, this would be a major escalation of their business, a major improvement. They think they have a good story to tell, and they're anxious to tell it. And we are going to have a lot more, Kyra, coming up at the top of the hour on our special edition from Dubai here in "THE SITUATION ROOM."

PHILLIPS: Well, of course, Wolf, we have also been talking so much here at home. Do Americans believe in this company that it should be running these ports? You asked that question directly to Mohammed Sharaf. And he said, look, there are a lot of misconceptions.

Let's listen to what he said. I want to get your response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHARAF: Number one, there's a misconception about port operators. Port operators don't control the security of the port. Any personnel coming in to work in U.S. will have to go through U.S. immigration, will have to go through U.S. security authorities. And then only they can come in and work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Tell us more about...

BLITZER: There's no doubt, Kyra, that Dubai Ports World -- any port operator has an important role to play in security. But at all the major ports, whether here in Dubai or in the United States, it's either the Department of Homeland Security or customs, the Coast Guard, they play the major role.

In fact, earlier today I was at one of the largest ports here in Dubai. And I met with the director general of Dubai customs. They are in charge of security. He showed me some of the extraordinary security measure they undertake here at these two large ports in Dubai.

And we are going to have an exclusive behind the scenes report on that. But Dubai Ports World is going to have a role to play in security. And they have an uphill struggle to convince American lawmakers and the American public that they know what they're doing.

PHILLIPS: And Wolf, let me ask you one final question. I went on the web site for D.P. World, and, you know, if you look at the management structure, there are a number of Americans that are working for this companies. I mean, the COO down to other lead positions, they're Americans. So have we not been hitting on that point enough, you think, here in the United States?

BLITZER: The chairman of the board is from the United Arab Emirates. The chief executive, Mohammed Sharaf, is from the United Arab Emirates, from Dubai.

But the number three official, Ted Bilkey, he's been in the United States. He's an American, and there are plenty of other Americans, Europeans, whether they are from England or the Scandinavian countries. There are people who work for this company from all over the world.

It is really an international firm, and they have plenty of people working there who are not necessarily Arabs. So it's part of the story. You correctly point that out as well.

PHILLIPS: Wolf Blitzer, live from Dubai.

We look forward to seeing your show at the top of the hour, Wolf. Thanks.

Well, how is this for irony? The Department of Homeland Security maybe be having trouble securing its home. Several private guards hired to patrol homeland security headquarters in Washington have filed whistle-blower complaints with Congress citing a long list of problems.

They say they were never trained to respond to attacks using weapons of mass destruction. They say chemical-sniffing dogs were replaced by what they describe as ineffective equipment. They say entrances to the Homeland Security campus are lightly guarded. And they say some guards have no radios and even those who do have trouble communicating on them.

The guards say when the suspicious white powder turned up in an envelope, well, their superiors carried it right past Secretary Michael Chertoff's office. Then without evacuating anybody they just shook the envelope outside Chertoff's window.

A DHS spokesman says there was never any danger because DHS mail is radiated before it arrives. The spokesperson also says that a new security contract is the works that sets new requirements for those guards.

LIVE FROM has all the news you need this afternoon. Stay with us.

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PHILLIPS: Atlanta, Charlotte, Daytona Beach, which city will wind up in victory lane? Well, we should find out next hour when NASCAR announces its choice for a hall of fame. Charlotte, which put together this design, is said to be the leading contender, and that's where the news conference will be held, so, you know, we are trying to put two and two together here, as we continue to play our good country music.

Well, school spirit and then some from a cheerleader in St. Louis yesterday. We had to tell you this story again because we can't get past this video.

The squad from Southern Illinois was doing a pyramid routine when Kristy Yamaoko (ph) fell to the floor with a thud so loud, you could you hear it all over the arena. Well, they put her on her back and neck, placed her in the stretcher and began wheeling her away. And yes, that's when it happened right here.

Flat on her back, un-phased by her concussion and undeterred by what was later diagnosed as a fractured neck, she completed her cheer. There it is. She expects a full recovery but will be out of action for six weeks. By the way, her team won.

Well, countdown the closing bell, Susan Lisovicz joins us live from the New York Stock Exchange.

Hi Susan.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi Kyra

Well, you know, there is really one headline that has been dominating the business news today, and that is the mega-merger in the telecom industry. AT&T putting its old empire back together, agreeing to snap up Bell South for $67 billion in stock. This deal would reunite four of the seven baby bells created in the historic 1984 breakup of AT&T.

But it's not the old ma Bell anymore. SBC bought AT&T last year but retained the name. The AT&T Bell South deal would create the world's biggest telecom company surpassing Verizon. If approved, it would also put control of Cingular Wireless, the largest U.S. cell phone company, under one roof.

Currently AT&T owns 60 percent of Cingular and Bell South. The other 40 percent, as a result of the merger, AT&T plans to cut up to 10,000 additional jobs during the next three years.

Some changes customers may notice, the Cingular and Bell South names likely to be phased out, replaced by the AT&T. And consumer groups who are opposed to the merger say prices could rise as competition shrinks. And shares of Dow component of AT&T losing three and a half percent on the news. But Bell South is jumping nine percent.

Overall, the market struggling this afternoon as interest rates in the market jumped to the highest level in nearly two years. It looks like the bulls just couldn't pull it together today. The Dow looks like it is going to close down about a half percent just under 11,000. The Nasdaq down about three quarters of a percent.

Shares of Blackberry make a Research In Motion, a big, big mover today scoring 15 percent on the settlement reached Friday.

Now it is time for "THE SITUATION ROOM" and Wolf Blitzer today from Dubai.

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