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National Security Concerns Arise in Hayden Confirmation; FBI Searches Michigan Horse Farm for Jimmy Hoffa; Duke Rape Suspect to Appear in Court; Agents Find Tunnels Under Mexican Border

Aired May 18, 2006 - 13:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, ANCHOR: For those of our viewers who are just tuning in, we've been covering for the last three and a half hours or so the confirmation hearings of General Michael Hayden to be the next CIA director. They're in recess right now for lunch. The hearing schedule to resume in about half an hour, 1:30 p.m. Eastern, although that usually slips somewhat.
Candy Crowley is here in THE SITUATION ROOM with us. So is John McLaughlin, the former deputy director of the CIA, our CNN national security advisor. We're standing by. We hope to speak with Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat, of California, Candy, momentarily, to get her assessment. She just asked some serious, tough questions of General Hayden.

He ducked a lot of the questioning, though, saying he would prefer in closed session to answer many of these questions. Is -- we hear that all the time. Is that usually satisfying to these members?

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it will be satisfying to them if they hear what they want to hear in closed sessions, not particularly satisfying for us. Would that they would open it up and answer these questions.

But what I'm -- the totality of this, I think, over the 3 1/2 hours, has been -- it's been a pretty mellow -- I mean, yes, there have been, you know, strong question, concerned questions. They've been on these hot-button issues. But nothing that I would say was sort of over the top kind of thing that we have seen sometimes. I don't think anybody scored any points here. I think so far he has acquitted himself quite well.

BLITZER: I've heard retired intelligence officials tell me that under this new structure that the U.S. government has, John Negroponte being the director of national intelligence, it is that agency, that department, that is going to be the premier analytical part of the U.S. intelligence community, surpassing the CIA.

And the CIA is eventually going to find itself more on the front wars, the front lines in the war on terrorism, undertaking operations, recruiting spies, if you will, leaving the analysis for Negroponte's shop. I mean, I'm sure you've heard that.

And what are you making -- how will analysts at the CIA feel about that if they're going to take the cream of the crop and move them over to Negroponte? JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: Well, actually, Wolf, I don't think that's going to happen. I've heard that rumor, as well. But if you listened to John Negroponte the other day when he talked about Mike Hayden's nomination, he made the point that the CIA has two pillars: the clandestine service, overseas operations, recruiting spies; and all-source analysis. And he called those the two central points of the CIA that would remain.

Interesting for me in that there is so much attention just focused on the CIA director's nomination at a time when everyone says the CIA has actually been reduced in influence and so forth. I think what we're seeing here is an instinct on just about everyone's part that this agency, as General Hayden says, has a lot of connective tissue that makes it, in many ways, still, if not the central agency of the community, makes it kind of a keystone.

A lot of things run through there. And analysis is one of them. Because the analysts there have some characteristics that you'll find in no other agency of the -- of the intelligence community. They're global, follow everything. They look at all sources. They're multidisciplinary. And probably most importantly of all, they're not affiliated with any department that makes or implements policy. And that's what really gives them their uniqueness.

In my mind, and I think in the mind of many policymakers, that analytic body is kind of a national treasure. With all of its imperfection, it still does extraordinarily good work.

And at this time when everyone is trying to sort out the roles and responsibilities under this new structure, I think it would be -- and I think most people will conclude -- it would be a mistake to, in essence, break up the CIA, which, as these hearings indicate and all of the attention we're giving to the CIA suggest, is still seen as kind of one of the things that works. It's an anchor, if you will, in this intelligence community. And so I doubt -- I've heard the rumors, but I don't think that's going to happen.

BLITZER: And David Ensor, who's covered the intelligence community for a long time, our national security correspondent, he's been watching these hearings together, with all of us.

What other role does the CIA undertake increasingly visible, although they've been doing it for a long time behind the scenes. We know they're analysts. We know they recruit spies. But they're also in operations. They're in Afghanistan. They're looking for Osama bin Laden. They're engaged in Hellfire missile attacks against suspected terrorists.

It's almost like a military arm of the CIA, which increasingly is becoming at least more visible if not more important.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right. And maybe our viewers will remember that the first man who died in Afghanistan was Mike Spann, and he was a CIA officer. He was a paramilitary officer. He had a long background in Special Forces work. And he'd been recruited by George Tenet, CIA, to come in and help them. And remember the pictures, seeing him there with his machine gun in his hand. I mean, this was paramilitary intelligence- gathering. And unfortunately, he died doing it. There's going to be a lot of that.

And this is that area that a lot of the hearing was covering there, Wolf, where the Pentagon is moving more into kind of trying to gather intelligence for its military operations. And the CIA is moving more into that field as well. And they're going to be people tripping over each other. And the great goal is to avoid that, both here in Washington and in the field. Not clear whether that's going to be possible.

BLITZER: One final question, David. This whole question of the rules of engagement and interrogating prisoners, we heard some serious questions asked of General Hayden about all government employees, military and civilian. It was a little murky in my mind what the rules are for U.S. government contractors who are in the process of interrogating suspected terrorists or insurgents in Iraq. Are they bound by the same laws as everyone in the U.S. government, military and civilian?

ENSOR: My impression -- and frankly, that's all I can say it is -- is that contractors are bound by the rules that cover the people they're contracted to. In other words if they're contractors for the CIA, they have to follow the rules the CIA has to follow, which is not quite as complete as the military. The military has to follow the Army -- Army code of conduct, which is a bit more stringent and has more limitations on it than the laws and treaties that the CIA is covered by.

BLITZER: David Ensor, thank you very much. Candy, thank you. John McLaughlin, thank you to you, as well.

The hearing is in recess right now. They're taking a lunch break. They will resume supposedly around 1:30 p.m. Eastern. We'll have a lot more coverage here on CNN throughout the day. Certainly at 4 p.m. Eastern in THE SITUATION ROOM, we'll have a complete wrap-up of everything that has gone on.

I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. Our coverage continues now with Kyra Phillips and LIVE FROM.

KYRA PHILLIPS, HOST: Thanks, Wolf. Hello, everyone, I'm Kyra Phillips at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. We're monitoring the Senate confirmation hearings for CIA nominee General Michael Hayden. In the meantime, there's a number of other developing stories that we're on. LIVE FROM starts right now.

Like America's version of the Loch Ness Monster, the name Jimmy Hoffa surfaces every few years. The infamous Teamster boss disappeared in the summer of '75, last seen at a restaurant near Detroit, where he'd reportedly planned to meet with a couple of reputed mobsters. Now the FBI is digging for answers again, this time at a Michigan horse farm.

CNN's David Mattingly is on the scene. David, the feds have found Hoffa's final resting place, it's going to disappoint those who believe he's buried in the end zone of the Giants stadium.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as a native New Jerseyan, I can tell you that is quite the popular legend up there.

But officials here say when you think about it, this would be a very appropriate place for someone who wants to do someone harm. Because 30 years ago at the end of this dirt road leading to this farm, there were hardly any houses out this way. It would have been a very long and dark and lonely ride to this farm with a lot of privacy for anyone who might have been doing some thing illegal out in this area.

But right now everyone is acting on a recent tip that is pumping new life into a very, very old mystery.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Whatever happened to Jimmy Hoffa, the former Teamsters boss who disappeared over 30 years ago? It's been an enduring mystery, up there with did Oswald act alone and who is Deep Throat? We now know about Deep Throat. But now another puzzle could soon be solved.

FBI and Michigan police are digging for Hoffa's bones on a rural horse farm outside Detroit. Investigators say they are searching for "evidence of criminal activity that may have occurred under previous ownership on the property." They say their tip is credible, but they won't identify their source. But it has the locals talking.

DEB KOSKOVICH, LIVES ON PROPERTY: It's very unusual. It's just a big surprise. I'm still trying to figure it out, soak it in.

MATTINGLY: Jimmy Hoffa made his share of enemies in his time as leader of the influential Teamsters labor union during the '70s. He also had run-ins with Robert F. Kennedy, who investigated Hoffa's links to organized crime.

Hoffa disappeared in July 1975, last seen at a Michigan restaurant, ostensibly meeting with reputed Mafia enforcer Anthony Giacalone, a New Jersey Teamster, Anthony Provenzano. Hoffa believed the meeting had been set up to settle a feud with Provenzano. He was never seen again.

GENE ZAFFT, HOFFA ATTORNEY: We thought at that time he'd been kidnapped, and they were kind of waiting to hear from someone, making a demand. Never came.

MATTINGLY: There is no shortage of conspiracy theories on what happened to Hoffa. Buried in Giants stadium, put in a steel drum and buried in a toxic waste dump or shot by a Teamster in a Detroit home. Investigators dug up the floorboards of that home two years ago but found nothing. They also dug up a backyard pool in Michigan the year before that and, again, nothing. ZAFFT: No one really know knows. Those who know aren't talking.

MATTINGLY: Will this latest search answer history's questions? The mystery continues.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And we haven't seen a whole lot of digging going on out here today, but just a short lime ago we did see a group of people in a field nearby here. They all had metal rods, and they were taking steps and pushing those rods down to the ground, creating a grid and marking areas where those rods might have struck something underneath the soil. I guess it's something they're going to come back and check later.

Agents will tell us later at 3 p.m. today -- that's Eastern Time. They will have a news briefing to explain what they're doing out here, what they're finding and what they hope to find -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. You've got to give me some more details around this tip, David.

MATTINGLY: Well, a law enforcement official tells CNN's Kelli Arena that this is the result of information they've gathered, compiled and analyzed over years and only recently verified through a source that they consider credible.

That source told them that on the night that Hoffa disappeared there was some suspicious activity going on at this farm. Again, it was a very dark and remote place at the time. He said that suspicious activity involved a backhoe operating here that night. He said this was an area where the mob figures would meet privately. But after that night when Jimmy Hoffa disappeared, the mob figures did not meet here at all anymore.

At the very least, this is a very interesting story with a very high "hmm" factor involved here. And the FBI agents felt like it was a credible enough source to devote a lot of manpower to come out here and check it out.

PHILLIPS: We're also interested when a tip like this arises, and they actually put themselves into action. We're going to take a live news conference, David, at about 3 p.m. Eastern Time, right? Is that when we're expecting it?

MATTINGLY: They're calling it a briefing. Not suggesting that they're going to have any news to break. But they say they will tell us what they're going -- what's going on and what they're looking for out here. Answer as many questions as they possibly can.

PHILLIPS: Great, David Mattingly, thanks so much.

On the offensive. A Duke lacrosse player accused of rape is set to make his first court appearance next hour, and his lawyers have a list of demands.

CNN's Jason Carroll has been covering this story from the very beginning. He joins us now from Durham.

What do we know, Jason?

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the court proceeding is called a first setting. It's usually a basic short proceeding, a legal proceeding that goes on. But this time around, Reade Seligmann's attorney has filed a number of motions that he's going to ask the judge to rule on. These motions basically dealing with evidence, evidence that he wants the district attorney, Michael Nifong, to turn over to defense attorneys, evidence such as the alleged victim's toxicology report, the result of the rape kit -- that's the medical examination that was performed the night of the alleged attack. Also, her cell phone records. They want that turned over to them, as well, in addition to asking that Reade Seligmann's bond be reduced from $400,000 to $40,000.

So a number of things that Reade Seligmann's defense attorney, Kirk Osborn, is going to be asking for during this hearing.

What's expected to happen is the district attorney, Mr. Nifong, is expected to say these are not the types of things that need to be handled during this proceeding. These types of things should be handled during the second setting, which is about one month from now -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jason, you mentioned cell phone records of the victim. Any other types of evidence the defense is requesting?

CARROLL: Just a laundry list. As we said, toxicology report, cell phone records. And I know some people were asking why in the world would they want that. Well, in terms of -- once they -- defense attorneys get a hold of the alleged victim's cell phone records, they're hoping they can trace her whereabouts that night of the party and where she was before she showed up to the party to perform.

So a number of things they're going to be asking for they want the judge to rule on. Not clear as of yet if the judge will, in fact, decide to do that today.

PHILLIPS: Jason, you were on this story from the very beginning, and this leads up to the question -- I remember from weeks and weeks ago, that possibly she had come to this party already with some bruises and scrapes?

CARROLL: That is correct. And, in fact, we have seen some of the photographs that were taken the night of the party. And one photo that I saw in particular did, in fact, show some sort of open wound on her knee. And so clearly there was a wound there.

In terms of whether or not she was in some way intoxicated before, from the pictures, one could argue that it does appear as if she was, in some way, inebriated or intoxicated when she was at this party.

These are just some of the things that defense attorneys and prosecutors will be arguing in the days and weeks and months to come. PHILLIPS: All right, Jason Carroll, thanks so much.

Let's get straight to Carol Lin. She's working on a developing story for us, a train collision in Florida.

Carol, what do we know?

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Just outside of West Palm Beach, Kyra, it looks like there was a tractor trailer that was sitting kind of halfway on the tracks when this Amtrak train collided into it.

When you take a look at these pictures, there you can barely see the train on your left-hand side and a fire engine response. But look at that. I mean, there was a huge -- it was like an explosion of vehicles there. And yet only two people with minor injuries hurt in the other cars.

More than 100 people on that train going from -- I believe it was from Miami to New York. The passengers are still on that train right now. And as the investigation goes on around them, Kyra, they're having lunch. They're having lunch on board. That's the good attitude. My goodness.

PHILLIPS: Keeping a positive outlook here.

LIN: Yes, there you go.

PHILLIPS: They're going to figure out something, even while taking a quick break.

LIN: Well, free drinks can make up for a lot sometimes.

PHILLIPS: There you go. Those pictures coming to us from WPEC. Carol, thanks.

LIN: Sure.

PHILLIPS: Bouncing around on Wall Street. Investors seem to feel a bit better today after Sears came out with a better than expected earnings report and oil prices dropped.

Yesterday, the Dow had tumbled 214 points after a jump in consumer prices raised fears of still more hikes in interest rates. It was the Dow's biggest one-day loss in more than three years, and it sparked a sell-off hours later in markets around the world.

Right now, you can see the Dow is up slightly about nine points. We're live from the New York Stock Exchange straight ahead.

The news keeps coming. We'll keep bringing it to you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: President Bush visits the front line in the immigration battle. He's due to arrive this hour in Yuma, Arizona, in a follow up to his big speech Monday on immigration reform and border security.

Part of the plan is for National Guard troops to beef up border enforcement. Yuma is said to be the nation's busiest illegal border crossing, where agents catch as many as 450 people a day.

Well, the U.S./Mexican border can be a forbidding place, even more so if the Bush administration puts up vast new walls or fences. Enter the tunnels, the avenue of choice for drug smugglers and many illegal immigrants, the bane of federal agents. Anderson Cooper went under for "A.C. 360."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER 360": Another tunnel, another sign of how difficult it is to seal the border.

FRANK MURWOOD, DEPUTY SPECIAL AGENT, ICE: '05, '06, the latest tunnel discovery here on San Josedro (ph) border.

COOPER: This one is just three feet high by four feet wide and just about 90 feet long. Authorities call it a gopher hole. A multiagency U.S. tunnel task force found the secret passage on Friday.

As the tunnel passes under the border fence it transforms into a 30-inch wide plastic tube. Here you can see dirt and sandbags placed in front of the entry on the Mexican side to conceal the tunnel. Immigration authorities say...

MURWOOD: The plate sitting to my left here on the ground is the actual metal plate that they utilized to sit on top of some cinder blocks used to reinforce this hole. And then all of this debris was piled back on top of it during the daylight hours so that nobody could notice that the thing was even here.

COOPER: Murwood is a deputy special agent with Immigration Customs Enforcement. Whoever dug the tunnel was especially brazen. It's only about 100 miles away from the San Josedro (ph) crossing, the busiest legal crossing between the two countries.

MURWOOD: It's perfect for what they want to do. By the fact that they are close to the border, the tunnel can come across fairly easily. The fact that they're in a parking lot where there are lots of vehicles always here 24 hours a day.

COOPER: The small tunnel made two turns at right angles as it traveled between the two countries. Authorities believe it was built for drug smuggling but may have also been used to bring in illegal immigrants. But they can't be sure how long it was in use.

MURWOOD: We found implements inside of it that seemed to indicate there was a lot of activity still going on for building.

COOPER: It doesn't compare in scale or sophistication to the 2,400-foot Otay Mesa tunnel found back in January. And unlike the two tons of marijuana found there, no drugs were found here. It was the second secret tunnel found in this area this month. And while authorities were filling it with concrete on Monday, the concrete mixer nearly sunk into another tunnel only 100 yards away.

MURWOOD: These kinds of access roads are constantly traveled by border patrol and by other law enforcement agencies on the U.S. protecting the borders, and they literally sink into the drive, the roadway, on those places below that these smugglers have caved too close up with no reinforcement.

COOPER: But unlike the first tunnel, it had no exit point on the U.S. side. Authorities say this one was also dug by hand and considered to be primitive.

To Murwood, the two tunnels discovered right next to one another say a lot about the challenges for U.S. authorities and the people trying to come into the United States.

MURWOOD: With these kinds of small gopher holes what it's telling us is the desperation of the people, whether it's to bring aliens through or whether it's to bring now, as I indicated earlier, narcotics through, also, because it seems they're trying to utilize both of these, because we were so effective on getting the larger ones.

COOPER: Anderson Cooper, CNN, San Diego.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And you can join Anderson Cooper for more reports on the border, a special edition of "A.C. 360". Is the battle being won? That's tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern.

Thirty years, the latest chapter in the legal saga of Lionel Tate. He's the Florida teen who was once the youngest person in U.S. history ever sentenced to life in prison. But that conviction for killing a 6-year-old playmate was overturned. Today Tate got 30 years behind bars for violating parole by using a gun to allegedly rob a pizza deliveryman a year ago. He still faces trial on the robbery charge in September.

A deadly school stabbing, it happened in Conway, South Carolina, near Myrtle Beach just before the bell this morning. An 18-year-old woman was attacked in the parking lot between Carolina Forest Middle School and High School. The coroner's office says that the woman died soon after at a hospital. Police say a 24-year-old man is in custody. The school went into lockdown, but police say other students were never in any danger.

Off the Carolina coast, word that six of the seven people on a fishing boat that had been missing have been rescued. No word on their conditions or where they were found or what might have happened to the seventh person. Coast Guard launched a search for the 27-foot Super Suds 2 after it failed to return to a marina just north of Charleston last night. A drop in oil prices, but will that translate into lower prices at the pump? Details straight ahead. We're LIVE FROM the New York Stock Exchange.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Ireland plays chicken with bird flu. Some 12,000 chickens were gassed on a farm in Limerick in a test of government responses to a bird flu outbreak. Fifteen tons of liquid carbon dioxide was pumped into the birds' shed. That says that the hens showed little distress. All were dead within 10 minutes. Still, animal right groups are critical, saying another (ph) gas would have been more humane.

The FDA says OK to synthetic THC. That's the active ingredient in marijuana. The laboratory version treats nausea that afflicts many chemotherapy patients. FDA approval comes 17 years after the medication was pulled from the U.S. market.

Yesterday, the Dow suffered its biggest one-day point drop in three years. So is the sell-off continuing today? Susan Lisovicz live from the New York Stock Exchange with some answers.

Sort of a wacky day yesterday, Susan.

(STOCK REPORT)

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