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Voices of Terror; Is FEMA Ready?; Shattered Lives in Congo

Aired May 24, 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: Once a mentor, now a coward, that's how Lee Boyd Malvo describes John Allen Muhammad. The snipers are facing off this week in a Maryland courtroom, where Muhammad is on trial for the killings of six people in 2002.
Acting as his own attorney, he spent the morning cross-examining the man he still calls "my son". Malvo says that he plans to plead guilty to the Maryland shootings. He and Muhammad both have been convicted of killing -- of a killing in Virginia. Malvo admits that he lied to police right after their arrest, claiming he was the trigger man.

He says he hand-picked the 9/11 hijackers, and Zacarias Moussaoui was not one of them. Osama bin Laden is heard in an audio clip that surfaced on the Internet contradicting Moussaoui's own courtroom pronouncements.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OSAMA BIN LADEN, AL QAEDA LEADER (through translator): I begin by talking about the honorable brother, Zacarias Moussaoui. The truth is, he has no connection whatsoever with the events of September 11. And I am certain of what I say because I was responsible for entrusting the 19 brothers -- Allah, have mercy upon them -- with those raids, and I did not assign brother Zacarias to be with them on that mission.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: U.S. prosecutors didn't claim Moussaoui was a would-be 9/11 hijacker, only that he hid the plot from the FBI.

When the al Qaeda leader talks, a lot of people listen over and over again.

Our national security correspondent, David Ensor, joined one of them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The voice on this audiotape definitely Osama bin Laden. In his New Jersey home, acoustic expert Tom Owen identifies voices. To learn more, he focuses on the moments when bin Laden is not speaking.

TOM OWEN, AUDIO ANALYST: Let's just take a very small section where he hesitates for a second, and let's see what we can hear in there. There is something in the background. You can't really tell what it is.

ENSOR: Tom Owen is one of the nation's top sound analysts using spectrographic equipment like that used by the CIA, the FBI, and others to identify voices. Listening for clues on the recent bin Laden tape, right away Owen runs into something.

OWEN: You hear that noise in the background?

ENSOR (on camera): Yes, sure.

OWEN: It sounds like metal scraping metal.

ENSOR: Yes.

OWEN: It's to eliminate noises other than the voice, but it's a little overused.

ENSOR: Visually, this is such a flat band of sound here.

OWEN: Right. It's been -- it's been compressed.

ENSOR: So you think they may have compressed this, taken off the highs and lows to make it harder to draw any clues out of the tape as to where he's hiding?

OWEN: Right.

ENSOR: Do you think it's conceivable that a clue off of an audiotape might lead U.S. intelligence to Osama bin Laden one day?

OWEN: It's possible. It's possible. It wouldn't be the first time.

When -- when they were doing the mob cases in New York, one of the ways that they were finding out where certain people were and where certain gangsters were conducting operations is because they heard the airplanes overhead.

ENSOR (voice over): And, in fact, he does find a tantalizing clue on this tape.

OWEN: Yes, right through here.

ENSOR (on camera): Starting in right in there, yes.

OWEN: Right through here.

ENSOR: There's something.

OWEN: It almost sounds like a (MAKES NOISE) kind of thing going on.

ENSOR: Yes.

(voice over): It could be engine noise. That would say something about bin Laden's hiding place. When there are pictures to look at, there's much more to analyze. Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, generally use plain backgrounds to reduce the clues, but analysts soon notice that on this one he did not move one of his arms.

RICHARD VORDER BRUEGGE, FBI ANALYST: Members of the medical profession were brought in to review that, and there was an opinion that, in fact, he probably had been hurt at some point.

ENSOR: In the early days, things were different. Bin Laden and Zawahiri even put out a walking tape showing terrain. That sent analysts to examining rock formations and listening to bird calls. But the former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit says since then al Qaeda has learned to be careful.

JAMES FITZGERALD, FBI AGENT: The enemy is stupid that they're going to give us a tape that tells us where they are geographically, if it's going to give us a fix on them. So a lot of this stuff is just -- we go through the motions so we can cover our behinds and say we've checked everything we could think of.

ENSOR: Nevertheless, over the years there have been successes against al Qaeda. Officials will not say whether tape analysis contributed to them. Each time a new terrorist tape emerges, though, American analysts go through every sound, every image just in case.

David Ensor, CNN, northern Virginia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

Severe weather now. Alerts in the Midwest. CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano keeping an eye on all of it for us.

Hey, Rob.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Kyra.

(WEATHER REPORT)

MARCIANO: Back to you.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Rob.

We're a week away from hurricane season. The big question, is the government, especially FEMA, ready for the next big storm?

Homeland Security Correspondent Jeanne Meserve joins me now with more.

Hey, Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hi. David Paulison is the acting director of FEMA. Today he had confirmation hearings. The former Miami-Dade fire chief and U.S. fire administrator did not get any questions from the Senate Homeland Security Governmental Affairs Committee about his qualifications for the FEMA job, but he did get questions about how prepared the government is for the hurricane season, which as you mentioned, is only days away.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID PAULISON, ACTING FEMA DIR.: We are working together as a team.

MESERVE (voice-over): Civilian and military officials insist there will not be another debacle like Katrina. The federal government raked over the coals for its sluggish response, put on a full-court press to try to convince critics they will do a better job next time.

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECY.: We're on a much more solid footing this year, and much more prepared as a nation than we've ever been to confront a major hurricane.

MESERVE: Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says enough ice, water and MREs are now stockpiled to sustain a million people for a week. The National Guard has invested $800 million in new communications gear, and officials claim that matters of coordination and command are clarified.

LT. GEN. STEVE BLUM, NATL. GUARD: Our job is save lives, not waste time arguing who's in charge.

MESERVE: The National Guard says it has 367,000 soldiers and airmen ready and available to respond to the next disaster.

And the Department of Defense insists that despite deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, it can do its part.

PAUL MCHALE, ASST. SECY. OF DEFENSE: The response to Hurricane Katrina was the largest, fastest civil support mission in the history of the United States military. And if we have to, we can replicate or exceed that capability this year without impairing our war-fighting ability.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: There are, of course, skeptics, including some state emergency managers who say the federal government hasn't yet done enough or given them enough. But many people feel the federal government will be bending over backwards to avoid repeating the mistakes of Hurricane Katrina. One person jokingly suggested that they just fly a cargo plane over the affected area, open the back and push out cash -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Yes, more cash. Then who figures out where the cash goes? What about these evacuations in New Orleans, Jeanne? What do you hear? Are they going well? Are they working?

MESERVE: Well, you know, there -- there is this drill going on, this exercise down in New Orleans to practice evacuations. And administration officials say that virtually every day there is a drill going on somewhere in preparation for this hurricane season, and there's a big one right here today in Washington. Fourteen cabinet secretaries, a lot of other senior level officials, participating in a three-hour exercise which involves a Category 4 storm heading for New Orleans. They're hoping to learn where the gaps are and they hope they have time to fix them if they find some -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jeanne Meserve, thanks a lot.

MESERVE: You bet.

PHILLIPS: All this from one little spark. A huge fire today at Turkey's biggest airport is being blamed on sparks from a welder's torch. The flames ripped through a cargo area in Istanbul's Ataturk airport, sending up huge clouds of smoke and slightly injuring three people.

Fire-fighting planes helped to bring things under control, but now before 2,000 people were evacuated. Flights are up and running again.

A cure for bird flu. Buyer beware.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: None of these products have any scientific evidence to show that they're safe and effective for either the treatment or the prevention of bird flu.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Would you call it false advertising?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would call it fraud.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Coming up, cracking down on the latest Internet scam.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: No cigar, no designer suit, or military fatigues. Just a frail, thin, and petite Tariq Aziz on the witness stand at Saddam Hussein's trial in Baghdad. The former Iraqi foreign minister and deputy prime minister wore pajamas in his first public appearance in three years.

He told the court Hussein and his co-defendants were justified in responding harshly to an attempt on the former president's life in 1982. Aziz has complained of health problems since turning himself in to Americans after the 2003 invasion. Acts of unimaginable cruelty, victims left barely alive facing pain and shame. All are women, all live in Congo.

CNN's Africa correspondent, Jeff Koinange, has more on these shattered lives.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN AFRICA CORRESPONDENT (voice over): They sing to comfort each other and to find strength. These mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters, have all been raped again and again by men in uniform. The crimes are not isolated incidents.

Twenty-year-old Tintsi was attacked by 15 men wearing uniforms of the Congolese army. She says they raped her for eight days and eight nights. She was brought here on a stretcher. Now she needs a cane to walk. "They can take away my womanhood," she says, but they will never be able to break my spirit."

The stories get even worse. Twenty-eight-year-old Henriette Nyota says three years ago she was gang-raped while her husband and four children were forced to watch. The soldiers then disemboweled her husband and continued raping her and her two oldest daughters, ages 8 and 10. This went on for three days, she says.

"I wish they could have killed me right there along with my husband," she says. "What use am I now? Why did those animals leave me to suffer like this?"

Nzigire tells us soldiers used her as a sex slave for more than a month. She bore a child as a result. Every day, she says, feels like a death sentence. This 19-year-old mother struggles to keep her maternal instincts alive.

"I sometimes feel like killing myself and my daughter," she says. "I look at her and all I see is hate. I look at myself and all I see is misery. Sometimes I wish I were dead."

(on camera): Officials here say this past year there were more than 4,000 reported rape cases in this one province of the eastern Congo alone. An average of 12 women arrive here at the rehab center for treatment every single day.

As part of the peace deal that ended the civil war here more than two years ago, the country's various militias were integrated into the army. The men in uniform now rape at will.

(voice over): Dr. Denis Mukwege Mukengere is the lone physician at this hospital that specializes in victim of sexual violence. He says he performs an average of six complex operations a day to repair damaged tissue to mutilated victims. And even when he's successful in the physical, he's not sure he's able to repair the mental.

In his 23 years practicing in this region, he admits he's never seen such brutality. "When we hear stories of how some of them have knives thrust into them after being raped," he says, "and how some suffer gunshot wounds after a pistol has been fired between their legs, it's the cruelest and most barbaric thing I have ever seen."

He takes us to one of several wards filled with victims of sexual abuse. Colostomy bags hanging on the floor. And hanging over their heads is another frightening scenario. The chances are high that they could be HIV positive, raising the prospects of being rejected by family members once they leave the hospital.

He tells us that 19-year-old Helene Wamumzala (ph) first came here when she was 14 after being raped for days. She was treated and released.

Six years later, she's back. This time horribly disfigured, he says. And he's not even sure she'll be able to fully recover this time around.

"It's unimaginable that she could go through such pain," he says. "It's simply unforgivable."

Aid money designated by international charitable organizations for victims of sexual violence may be about to run out.

"It's so tragic that the world can afford to sit back and let these things happen," says Marie Walterzon of the Swedish Pentecostal Mission. "Is it because they are poor and voiceless Africans? The women of Congo deserve better."

Here in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it's easy to find the victims of rape. But Amnesty International and private donors say there seems to be no effort to find the rapists.

And so the women of this country must try to heal without justice. It makes the words of their song all the more powerful. "We will never be broken," they sing. "We will never be broken."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Jeff Koinange now joins us by phone.

Jeff, truly, this is a hate crime every way that you look at it. How can it stop? How can it be stopped? And who needs to take responsibility for what's happening with these women?

KOINANGE: Well, everyone needs to take responsibility, Kyra, but how can it be stopped? Well, right now the Congo is going through a very fragile period. They're about to hold their first ever democratic election in more than 40 years. This after decades of civil war, fighting, you name it.

So nobody wants to make any arrests right now, because nobody literally wants to upset the apple cart. It is such a tense situation right now. Obviously, the leaders know who the perpetrators are, but nobody wants to go after them because this will bring about more war. They want to get through the election and move on, but something definitely needs to be done, because while we were there, 12 new patients arrived. And every day it's the same thing -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So, Jeff, you're telling me that not one of the candidates that is running in this election is speaking out against this and doesn't think that by speaking out against this they will not win?

KOINANGE: None of them. In fact, there are 33 candidates vying for the presidency, among them three women. None of them have mentioned this.

It's almost a deep, dark, kept secret. They want to talk -- they want to get elected first. But again, they've waited for elections for 40 years. What difference is it going to -- why aren't they talking about it now?

Probably the one person who can make a difference is the person who is president right now, a former soldier, 35-year-old Joseph Kabila, who was thrust into power after his father was assassinated about five years ago. He knows discipline. He's been in the country for most of this life.

He's probably the most compassionate. He has a twin sister. He has a six-year-old daughter, he has a mother.

And I'm going to be meeting him in the next couple of days, and I will ask him this question. But if anyone can make a -- put a stop to this, Kyra, it will have to be this young man.

PHILLIPS: Boy, I look forward to your interview with him. That is for sure, Jeff.

Meanwhile, I've got to ask the obvious question. Where are the U.N. peacekeepers, and why aren't they trying to intervene in this?

KOINANGE: Very good question. And believe it or not, there are 19,000 peacekeepers right now on the ground in Congo, the most anywhere in the world. Their job -- and I can tell you, we met up with some of them over the weekend. They literally have their hands full doing day patrols, doing night patrols, because there are still some elements out there.

Over 10,000 guns in one region alone, rebels, militia still out there. And they can cause trouble at any moment.

The peacekeepers are also responsible for the elections, setting up voting stations. This country -- imagine a country a third the size of the United States. In fact, you can sit all of Western Europe into the Congo and still have room for it. It is that big.

But the logistics are a nightmare. Getting from one town to another, you have to fly because there are literally no roads. This is what the peacekeepers are doing. Taking care of this ongoing problem doesn't seem to be a priority for them right now -- Kyra. PHILLIPS: Jeff Koinange, we'll follow up on this story and the election there in Congo. Thanks so much.

And if you want to help rape victims in Congo, here are some groups you can contact. The Swedish Pentecostal Mission. Their Web site is pmu.se/english. Then there's a British group called Tear Fund. It's also helping out. The Web site is tearfund.org.

And if you want to contact one of the doctors that is helping these women, you can e-mail them at denismukwege@hotmail.com. You can see the spelling there on your screen.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: So, will Jeb Bush go from Fla. to NFL? He's been asked. The National Football League is looking for a new boss. Current commissioner Paul Tagliabue wants to retire at the end of July, and Florida Governor Jeb Bush says he's been approached about the job by the brother of the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Bush says that he plans to serve out his term, which ends in January. He doesn't expect the league to wait that long.

Another name in the hopper, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

We're already seeing a shift in car buying patterns because of high gas prices. And if a new survey is any indication, the shift to more fuel-efficient vehicles is going to speed up.

Susan Lisovicz with more from the New York Stock Exchange.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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