Return to Transcripts main page

Live From...

Two Suspects Arrested In Alabama Church Fires Case; President Bush In Louisiana's Ninth Ward; Security In Dubai; Complex Relationship Between Iran and Iraq; California High-Speed Chase turns Into Hostage Situation

Aired March 08, 2006 - 14:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Three suspects now in custody in that baffling series of church fires in Alabama. Two students at Birmingham Southern College, Ben Moseley and Russell Debusk, were hauled into federal court in Birmingham today, where both were ordered held on arson charges. Sources now say a third suspect, Matthew Lee Cloyd, a student at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, also has been arrested.
CNN's Rusty Dornin is following that story from Birmingham, Alabama. A lot of new developments just within the past hour -- Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It keeps happening every hour on this, Kyra, and investigators suspected from the very beginning that this might be the possibility of thrill-seeking, and that -- that looks like that may have been the case, according to one of the witnesses. At least a suspect told one of the witnesses that it started out as a joke that got way out of hand.

Now, police, apparently using just old-fashioned police work and a set of tires from four different fires in Bibb County in early February, traced a very unusual tire tread to a dealer. That dealer traced the tire that was specially ordered to a Matthew Lee Cloyed.

He is the third student that was arrested today, 20 years old, at the University of Alabama. He is a student there. Apparently, when investigators spoke to his parents, his parents said they asked his son if they were ever involved in the fires on March 7, he said no, but he knew who did. He later apparently, according to one witness, reportedly said that he was involved, that he was there and was part of it.

Confessions are a part of the court papers today involved in the first appearance of the two suspects. Apparently, the Bibb fires were started in early February, and then later four fires were started in western Alabama, which the suspects now tell authorities they did to throw investigators off the track.

So right now it looks like at least two of them are going to be charged with arson. We don't know. Of course, Matthew Cloyed likely to face those same charges.

We have learned a little bit about them. At least two of the students here at Birmingham Southern, which is a Methodist university, an old Methodist, very well-respected university, they were actually theater majors and had been involved in concert choir. One of them had been in a school play recently called "Young Zombies in Love." Very active members apparently of the student body.

So very baffling as to how they got involved in this whole thing, if they did, Kyra, if they were actually involved in this -- in these series of fires.

PHILLIPS: All right. Rusty Dornin, we'll continue to talk, of course, as this develops.

Thank you so much.

Still struggling, still angry, still worrying about the future. President Bush heard all that and more in New Orleans today on his 10th tour of the hurricane zone in six months.

He came with new aid, or at least a new proposal. This one for homeowners who lost everything. If Congress approves it, they could get as much as $150,000 a piece. The president is also getting another look at the damage down the coast in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi.

The visits are appreciated, the promises encouraging, but when it comes to presidential attention, hurricane victims, by and large, say, show me the money.

Our Gulf Coast Correspondent Susan Roesgen is here with more on their concerns and their hopes.

Hi, Susan.

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN GULF COAST CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kyra. That's so true. That's what folks are saying, show us the money. They know that a lot has been promised.

The president was here today again in the Ninth Ward area talking to people, encouraging people who would like to come back to this area that the federal help will be on the way. And yet, I talked to a small business owner who has a shop not far from here, Kyra, who says promises are not enough.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN (voice-over): Lined up on wax paper, these blobs of sugar and butter and pecans are a New Orleans favorite. They're pralines, only Yankees say praline, made by Loretta Harrison from a recipe passed down to her from her grandmother. Since the hurricane, Loretta's praline business is back up and running, but she says she's struggling to make end's meet.

LORETTA HARRISON, BUSINESS OWNER: I'm willing to roll up my sleeves and get to work and all we ask is that the federal government will send in the money that we're promised so that each and every one of us can do the same thing, roll up our sleeves and move forward. ROESGEN: Loretta was with a group of small business owners who met with President Bush the last time he was in New Orleans, almost two months ago. Back then, she was waiting to get approved for a government loan of $250,000. Now she's gotten the approval, but she says the government only releases the money in drips and drabs, less than she needs each month to pay a handful of employees and keep the business going.

HARRISON: This is the mixture for the original pralines that we make here.

ROESGEN: That you still make even after the hurricane. But there's something else in this kitchen that I want you to see. Not just butter and sugar and pecans, other foods are being prepared in this kitchen now. Another way that Loretta is surviving after the hurricane.

While New Orleans doesn't have many tourists these days to buy pralines, Loretta found that a lot of locals just need a place to eat. So the candy maker became a cafe owner, serving hot lunches.

PIERRE CHARBONNET, CUSTOMER: She's local. She's trying to get her business back. So -- and I live here and I want to see her get it back, so we come and support her and it's good. It's real good.

ROESGEN: By being flexible, Loretta Harrison has been able to keep her business and part of New Orleans food culture alive. And if she were to meet the president again, she'd offer him a praline and a piece of her mind.

HARRISON: If you just continue to tell us what's going to happen, that's one thing. But when the revenue and the money coming to do it, that's another thing. That's what we need to see. We need to see the monies come in so that the people can decide what they want to do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROESGEN: Kyra, an estimated 60 percent of the small businesses in New Orleans were just wiped out by the hurricane, so Loretta Harrison feels lucky to still be in business after 26 years of making pralines here in New Orleans.

PHILLIPS: Oh, I remember eating a number of those pralines. Now Susan, I know that you are thinking, OK, everybody, it's praline, not praline. We had to give a little 101 to the news media the other day.

Now, explain to our viewers why this difference -- the difference in pronunciation is so important.

ROESGEN: Well, it's French. It's from a French term. The praline is a French candy, and that's just how we say it here.

And I was thinking, Kyra, it's like crayfish, crawfish. Yankees say "crayfish." Here in New Orleans you better not say "crayfish," because you're marked instantly as a tourist from Atlanta or Chicago, or whatever, instead of a local.

So it's praline and crawfish.

PHILLIPS: Outstanding. Save some of both for me, please.

Susan Roesgen, thank you so much.

ROESGEN: You bet.

PHILLIPS: What's it worth to the White House to salvage that port deal with Dubai? Leading House Republicans plan to find out by attaching legislation that would kill the deal to a bill all agree is must-pass, funding for Iraq and Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina recovery. President Bush has vowed to veto any interference with the port management takeover despite opposition from both parties.

The White House points out that more U.S. warships are serviced in Dubai than in any other port outside the U.S. CNN's Wolf Blitzer has spent the past few days there, where Customs inspectors gave them a closer look at what they do.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's state-of-the- art technology designed to see through heavy metal containers. It can detect illegal drugs and contraband weapons and ammunition. It can also detect chemicals and biological agents. And perhaps most important, it can detect nuclear equipment as well.

(on camera): So if there were, god forbid, a radiological bomb inside a container, they would be able to determine it?

AHMED BUTTI, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, DUBAI CUSTOMS: Absolutely, yes.

BLITZER: They would see that?

BUTTI: Yes.

BLITZER (voice-over): This hand-held piece of equipment can detect radiation levels.

BUTTI: We have also the machine that will tell you that.

BLITZER: Ahmed Butti is in charge of Dubai Customs. During an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour, he proudly showed off the technology, the hardware, and the software that are already used in Dubai, and he spoke of the even more sophisticated equipment now on the way that could detect a dirty bomb.

BUTTI: We are in the process right now in working together with the Department of Energy of establishing in all our gates to put the radiation machine to detect that, and we have a team from our instructors. Already they are on the stairs (ph) right now to be trained how to operate these machines.

BLITZER: This multimillion-dollar mobile scanner can literally see inside the containers. Highly-trained operators can focus in on even the smallest details.

The same can be done inside the structure. Here in Dubai, when it comes to security and checking what's inside containers, they say they are not worried about politically incorrect ethnic profiling.

(on camera): What percentage would you say are actually physically inspecting?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some, from certain countries, 100 percent sometimes.

BLITZER: Really?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some countries, no, 30. Some countries, 20. It depends where it's coming from. It depends the companies.

BLITZER: How suspicious ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.

BLITZER (voice-over): He won't say which countries have everything inspected, though presumably this Iranian ship loaded with Iranian cargo which we drove by would be a prime target for a thorough inspection.

BUTTI: Our country, it's based on the commercial, based on the trades, based on the tourism. So we are -- the vision of our government is to develop the tourism and the commerce and the financial center (ph). We cannot have these things if we don't have a proper security.

BLITZER: Some 1,600 people work for Dubai Customs. Ahmed Butti says every one undergoes a thorough background check.

MOHAMMED SHARAF, CEO, DUBAI PORTS WORLD: So they tell them that we have inspected your box, we have...

BLITZER: Mohammed Sharaf is the chief executive officer of Dubai Ports World, the firm seeking to take over operations at six major U.S. ports.

(on camera): How often do they do -- do they find anything in a container that's dangerous.

SHARAF: Well, they don't tell us. They just tell us, OK, stop the box and send it to the facility. What's in there they don't tell us. They just inspect it the way that they want to.

BLITZER (voice-over): Wolf Blitzer, CNN, Dubai.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: More deadly bombings, more grisly killings, more brazen kidnappings. Gunmen in Iraqi police uniforms stormed a private security company in Baghdad today, seized as many as 50 people. Many are former members of Saddam Hussein's armed forces.

Elsewhere in the capital, 18 bodies were found in a van. Most had been strangled. Two were shot.

The bodies of six more men, four strangled, two shot, turned up in other parts of the city.

At least six people were killed in the latest batch of car and roadside bombings. Four police officers are among the latest victims.

In Falluja, a civilian car hit a roadside bomb, killing two people. In northern Iraq, a roadside bomb killed another U.S. soldier.

Iraq's problems often seem overwhelming unsolvable -- overwhelmingly, rather, unsolvable. In a neighboring government -- is a neighboring government making things worse?

CNN's Aneesh Raman looks at a close and complex relationship that's having complex and uncertain consequences.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Iran's (ph) diplomats are now likely to battle at the United Nations over Iran's nuclear program, but it's a battle that has Iraq right in the middle.

KEN POLLACK, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: The Iran nuclear issue tends to be divorced from the reconstruction of Iraq, but most senior officials here in Washington recognize that the two are intimately intertwined.

RAMAN: The backbone of Iraq's government, the Shia Religious Alliance, is very close to Iran. Many of its leaders spent years there in exile during Saddam Hussein's dictatorship when the Shia were persecuted in Iraq. The two countries are the biggest in the Muslim world, where Shias outnumber Sunnis, and the U.S. says Iran is undermining American efforts in Iraq, smuggling weapons, arming and training Shia militias.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq, and -- and we know it.

RAMAN: An allegation made by Sunnis as well. A leading Sunni politician fears his country will become an even bigger battlefield.

SALEH AL-MUTAGH, SUNNI POLITICIAN: They want to do their attack first. They want to start the attack on the -- on the -- on the Americans in Iraq, and they want to make from Iraq the ground for the battle. Not Iraq. RAMAN: The United States worked hard for more than two years to create a secular government in Iraq, a U.S. ally in the region, but Shias linked to Iran won big in every election.

MOWAFFAK AL-RUBAIE, IRAQI NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: But we will not allow our Iraqi territory to be used against any of our neighbors. We do not want to get involved in this.

RAMAN: Something not lost on Washington.

POLLACK: They're forced to temper their actions regarding Iran's nuclear program by the recognition that this if they push too hard, they might wind up dooming the reconstruction of Iraq.

RAMAN: Reconstructing Iraq, analysts say, is the most important national security issue facing the Bush administration.

(on camera): This is a bad time for Iraq to be drawn into a growing diplomatic dispute, caught now in an unenviable position between its influential neighbor, Iran, and the United States, who, by many accounts, have the troops that are holding this country together.

Aneesh Raman, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Held hostage in Iraq since November, seen briefly in a tape on Al-Jazeera. Peace activists languish while their families suffer. I'm going to speak with two brothers of one of the hostages coming up on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: In the newsroom, Carol Lin.

You're following some live pictures. It looks like a high-speed chase turned into a hostage situation?

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. It's on the 710 Freeway, Kyra. You know this area very well, as you and I both worked in Los Angeles.

You're taking a look at pictures shortly there, live pictures. You see that red van there. There is a kidnapping suspect in that van right now surrounded by S.W.A.T. vehicles on the 710 Freeway. And for anybody who knows this area, it's right near the city of Bell.

It's very industrial. The 710 is the -- is the main connector freeway, highway, that goes to the Long Beach Port. So by closing this off, this is stopping a lot of trucking traffic as they try to resolve this situation.

According to the information we have, detectives were trying to arrest this man on a warrant for kidnapping that dates back to last year December in Long Beach, and they tried a traffic stop, and then the guy took off. So, now Long Beach police have taken over. The S.W.A.T. team is on the scene. The guy is barricaded in that red van. And clearly, it was a dramatic chase, because if you take a look at that thing that's hanging out, it looks like the front end of that car.

So, we're watching the situation very closely, Kyra. We're going to put it on a delay just incase anything happens. We have to monitor the situation very closely. Obviously, a tense situation there on the 710 Freeway.

PHILLIPS: And just -- Carol, you're right. My gosh, we know this area so well.

LIN: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Looking at that car, is it -- it looks like it's in between two of the S.W.A.T. trucks. Is that what it looks like to you?

LIN: It absolutely does.

PHILLIPS: OK.

LIN: I mean, I can't tell which way this is facing right now, but look at that. You've got two S.W.A.T. vehicles coming from either end. They corralled them along the median there.

PHILLIPS: There we go. We got a wider shot.

LIN: And look at that.

PHILLIPS: Yes.

LIN: Let me see what the exit is. Florence Avenue exit. So a very industrial area.

I mean, this is a major feeder highway -- they call it freeways out there -- highway that goes from the Long Beach Port all the way up towards downtown Los Angeles. And they have clearly evacuated the area, closed down this freeway, and they're trying to attend to this situation.

But they've got him sandwiched in. He's not going anywhere.

PHILLIPS: Actually, that's positive. And they're also close enough. Hopefully, they can develop some sort of communication.

As we both know, they're going to try and negotiate with whomever is inside of that van first. And hopefully, that last option will be pulling the trigger. Hopefully, that individual or the other individuals inside that van will comply with whatever they ask them to do.

LIN: Right. Right. And look at that. The -- you can see -- I think we got a glimpse of the other lanes as well. So they've got the northbound and the southbound lanes blocked off while they try to convince this man to surrender, give up, get out of that van. The chase is over. This is going to go down right here on the 710 Freeway at the Florence Avenue exit.

PHILLIPS: All right. Live pictures coming to us from KTLA.

Carol Lin, I know you're monitoring it. We've got it up here in the control room. We'll follow every move.

LIN: OK.

PHILLIPS: And we'll check in with you as soon as we've got some more information.

LIN: You bet.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Carol.

Reports of severe weather in the Midwest. Also, some tornado warnings, I understand. Let's get straight to meteorologist Bonnie Schneider for more.

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Well, things are heating up in the Enron trial as the defense gets its chance to take on the government's key witness.

Susan Lisovicz joins us live from the New York Stock Exchange with the latest from there.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

(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