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Bomb Explodes in Baghdad Mosque; Report on Haditha Completed; House Resolution Rejects Timetable to Pull Out Troops; E.R.'s in Need of Emergency Care; HHS Secretary Accused of Wasteful Spending; Bill Gates to Pare Down Duties at Microsoft

Aired June 16, 2006 - 13:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta.
Same scene, different day. Another suicide attacker strikes a sacred Baghdad mosque.

A powerful seat pulled out from under a Louisiana congressman.

And crisis in America's emergency rooms. When it's a matter of life or death, will you get the help you need? Doctors say E.R.'s are in critical condition.

Suspected thief, suspected murder, right now a hostage taker. Thirty-one-year-old John Lee Cheek in a standoff with police in the New Orleans suburb of River Ridge, Louisiana.

This is what we know so far. Cheek had disappeared after apparently crashing a car into a ditch in this community during a police chase. He is a suspect in the killing of a commander with the St. John Baptist Parish Sheriff's Department. He is holding, we are told from authorities, an elderly hostage.

We're working the story. We hope to get Colonel John Fortunato from Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Department with us on the phone within just a couple minutes. We'll bring you those details.

Two days into a huge security crackdown, one day after the Iraqi government declared the days of the insurgency numbered. This from insurgents, a series of attacks, including a mosque bombing that killed 11 Shiites on Friday prayers.

CNN's Cal Perry has the latest from Baghdad -- Cal.

CAL PERRY, CNN PRODUCER: Good afternoon, Kyra.

Forty-eight hours after Prime Minister Maliki kicked off Operation Together Forward, putting 70,000 security forces on the streets of Baghdad. Today, insurgents hit what is now becoming a familiar target.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PERRY (voice-over): This was the Iraqi capital at midday. Streets deserted with Baghdad in the middle of a security crackdown. A ban on vehicles between 11 a.m. until 3 p.m., around noon prayers, was supposed to thwart attacks on mosques. But it didn't.

At a Shia mosque in northwestern Baghdad, a suicide bomber slips past security and into the mosque itself. The explosion killing at least 11, wounding more than 25 others. It's the second time in 10 weeks that the Buratha mosque has been attacked.

In April, more than 80 people were killed when three suicide bombers got inside the mosque. That attack, one of the bloodiest to date, led Shia politicians to accuse Sunni extremists of trying to drag Iraq into civil war.

After this latest attack, Shia-owned al-Farrah (ph) TV took calls from outraged viewers. "How could this happen?" the viewer cries. "How could he manage to get inside the mosque? Where are the people who are responsible for searching people?"

Another caller predicted dark days ahead. "The fight will not happen this year," he says. "It will happen next year. They want to eliminate us. They want to destroy us."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PERRY: And Kyra, as the tit-for-tat violence continues here in the capital, the question remains, will the prime minister's security plan be able to stop sectarian revenge attacks and bridge what is becoming a growing divide between Sunnis and Shia -- Kyra?

PHILLIPS: Cal, what do residents in Baghdad think about the new prime minister, his security plan and what he's doing, not long in office to this point?

PERRY: Well, it's a very tepid response among Baghdad residents. Security is the ongoing concern. They've been to the polls three times. Sectarian violence has only increased. We've heard from the president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, who condemned today's attack. He said that 1,400 people the month before last were killed in sectarian violence. It's obviously the No. 1 concern. And in an attack like today, it certainly punches holes in the prime minister's security plan -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Cal Perry, thanks for much.

As for Haditha, one of the official reports on the alleged massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines is said to be complete. Let's get to CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr for more -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, hello to you.

The report that is complete is done by Army General Eldon Bargewell. And what this report involves is whether or not there might have been a cover-up of information about the attacks in Haditha, which killed 24 Iraqi civilians last November.

What General Bargewell was looking into was whether the information was reported accurately by the Marines at the time, whether the chain of command had accurate information and whether somebody tried to cover it all up, because, of course, the original story was that the civilians were killed in a roadside attack and what has emerged since then, of course, is many of these people were shot in their homes, many of them women and children. No clear evidence that they were firing at the Marines at the time.

Let's be very clear here. We in the news media do not know what is in the report. That report has gone right to General Peter Chiarelli in Baghdad. He is now looking at it. He will decide what further action to take. He may have for further information. He may get a recommendation from his legal team that charges be filed. He may get a recommendation that nothing be done.

But there is still the much more significant criminal investigation, of course, under way by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the NCIS, into whether crimes were committed here and whether charges should be brought against Marines -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Barbara Starr, thank you so much.

Meanwhile, we've got developing news right now on that standoff that we told you right at the top of the hour. According to authorities, it is over. This is what we can tell you.

This is the River Ridge suburb in Louisiana, in New Orleans. A man suspected in the shooting death of a sheriff's deputy today has surrendered to police in this River Ridge community. He has released, also, that elderly man that he had taken hostage.

Police are telling us that 31-year-old John Lee Cheek, he walked out of the hostage's home after about 20 to 30 minutes of negotiations. As we told you earlier, Cheek is also a suspect in several Texas thefts, in addition to a killing that happened of a sheriff's deputy earlier today.

He disappeared after apparently crashing a car into a ditch in this community during a police chase. That's when the standoff ensued. We're now being told that it's over. We'll try and get the colonel from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Department on the phone to get a just a couple more details as that wraps up.

Meanwhile, the fight for Iraq is being fought in Washington, too. Two congressional resolutions in two days. The latest in the House a short while ago, rejecting a time table for pulling out U.S. troops. Let's get more details now from CNN's Andrea Koppel. She's on the Hill.

Hi, Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra.

Well, as expected, that Republican resolution sailed through the House by a vote of 256-153. The Republican leadership effectively and very creatively framing the debate as being about support for American troops in Iraq and elsewhere. And also making clear that the war in Iraq is linked to the war on terror. They also portrayed those who didn't support the resolution and weren't planning on supporting it as being soft on terrorism and as defeatists.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PATRICK MCHENRY (R), NORTH CAROLINA: They're advocating a policy called cut and run. They're advocating a policy of waving the white flag to our enemies. It is a policy, Mr. Speaker -- make no mistake about it -- that the left in this country are advocating. But we are fighting a war. We are fighting a war against Islamic extremists that hate the very fiber of our being as Americans.

REP. JOHN MURTHA (D), PENNSYLVANIA: When I hear somebody standing here sanctimoniously saying we're going to fight this out, we're not fighting at all. The troops are doing the fighting. The families are doing the sacrificing. A small proportion of families in this country are doing the sacrificing. And that's why I get so upset when they stand here sanctimoniously saying we're fighting this thing. It's the troops who are doing the fighting, not the members of Congress who are doing the fighting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: A lot of emotional, heated exchanges. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, of course, being one of the most vocal Democratic critics of the war. He was one of 149 Democrats to vote against this resolution. Three Republicans did not support it, as well as one independent.

Kyra, you can bet that sound bites from both sides of the aisle are going to end up in attack ads, campaign ads as we head into the November midterms, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So how will this play in the upcoming congressional elections?

KOPPEL: It really depends. You know that Republicans are planning on using those who voted against the war -- excuse me, voted against this resolution as being folks who don't support the American troops.

So you -- as things stand right now, the American public is pretty evenly split in its support. You just look at the polling, and they're saying that many of them are losing confidence in the president's policy on Iraq. We have to see whether or not the arguments that were laid out over the last day and a half by the Republicans and the handful of Democrats who supported it, whether or not that changed any minds, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Andrea Koppel on the Hill, thanks so much.

No ways, no means, no fair? Well, the House voted unanimously today to remove William Jefferson of Louisiana from the all-important ways and means committee, at least until he's out from under a bribery investigation. Hours earlier, Jefferson's fellow Democrats came to the same conclusion over his vehement protests.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. WILLIAM JEFFERSON (D), LOUISIANA: I simply ask the members of the caucus to put themselves in my shoes. Imagine themselves standing where I was standing and to ask whether it would be deemed by them to be fair. In a case where a member has had allegations, nonetheless serious allegations, made against him by third parties and perhaps by some in the press, whether that is going to be the rule by which we operate here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: The feds are investigating whether Jefferson accepted bribes involving business interests in Africa. He denies wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crime.

Condition? Extremely critical. Can anything be done to resuscitate America's emergency rooms before they bleed out? We're going to talk with an E.R. expert on the problems and possible solutions, straight ahead on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: We're now able to confirm after the SWAT team rolled in on this suburb in River Ridge in Louisiana, actually a suburb in New Orleans. Thirty-one-year-old John Lee Cheek, it looks like the negotiations worked. He walked out of this home where he was holding an elderly man hostage. We're told that that elderly man is OK.

Cheek had disappeared after apparently crashing a car into a ditch in this community during a police chase. He's a suspect in the killing of a commander with the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff's Office.

Here is a picture of him right now. Now he is in police custody. We'll find out more about this suspected murder, in addition to a number of thefts that Cheek was wanted for in Texas. But it looks like the standoff is -- is finished. He has surrendered to police. We'll keep you updated with more details.

One of the popular settings for television dramas. But the reality in many emergency hospital rooms is more like a horror movie. Here's one shocking statistic. In 2003, more than 500,000 ambulances were turned away from the U.S. E.R.'s. Patients who do make it through aren't guaranteed that doctors can treat them, and there might not even be beds to hold them.

If conditions are already code blue, well, imagine a large-scale disaster or a flu pandemic. The prognosis is even grimmer.

Dr. Arthur Kellermann chairs the Department of Emergency Medicine at Emory University. He joins me from Washington.

Doctor, you were actually on the Hill talking about these reports, testifying before Congress. What is your biggest concern at this point? Is it getting worse?

DR. ARTHUR KELLERMANN, CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE, EMORY UNIVERSITY: It is absolutely getting worse. My biggest concern is that the system just doesn't have the capacity. We are barely handling the day-to-day, night to night emergencies, much less the capacity we need to handle a disaster, a mass casualty event or a terrorist strike.

PHILLIPS: So let me ask you, in 2003, we just gave the statistic. More than half a million ambulances were turned away from emergency rooms. How many people die because they can't get the care? Have you been able to tally those numbers?

KELLERMANN: We've not. We were asked that when we released the Institute of Medicine report on the future of emergency care in the U.S. health system. There's no measurement system in place to be able to come up with that number. But we know that this is not a good thing.

No doctor, no emergency nurse diverts an ambulance casualty. We do it when emergency departments are so overcrowded and so packed with patients that the next inbound ambulance will not only receive poor care for that patient but could destabilize the situation for everyone else.

But the fact of the matter is what was once an unacceptable act, diverting an inbound ambulance, is all too commonplace in American cities. That's an unacceptable situation.

PHILLIPS: Well, why have emergency visits increased?

KELLERMANN: There are a number of reasons. Our population is older. It's somewhat sicker. We've had an enormous problem with people lacking health insurance who don't have access to health care in other settings and often get sick and end up in the emergency room.

We've also shrunk the number of in-patient beds in this country. Hospitals have tried to save money the way the airline industries tried to save money, by filling every seat. It doesn't work when you need a bed in an intensive care unit.

PHILLIPS: All right. So you've got your emergency visits on the rise. Yet emergency rooms are even closing down. Why is that happening?

KELLERMANN: It's a matter of economics. We value emergency care so much in this country. It's the only health care to which Americans have a legal right. We value it so little that Congress has never authorized funding for that unfunded mandate. It's created an enormous mismatch between the demand for emergency care and the resources provided to supply it.

PHILLIPS: So you've got a huge amount of people that don't have insurance, and the emergency room is basically their primary care doctor, which I know leads to the overcrowding. Why can -- why is it that those people cannot afford the insurance? Is it because their employer isn't giving them good insurance? Is it because the insurance company needs to do something and lower the price for lower income people? What do you see as the problem?

KELLERMANN: Well, first of all, I want to clarify one point. Crowding in emergency departments is not due to non-urgent visits. It's due to the most severe, ill and injured patients who can't be moved upstairs because all the in-patient beds and critical care beds are full.

The fact that so many Americans lack health insurance is due, in part, because many employers can no longer afford or choose not to offer health insurance, and many people, the majority of the uninsured, in fact, work. Simply can't afford even the minimal co- pays or the minimum premiums that they have.

So it's a really, really serious problem in this country, and it's destabilizing emergency care at the community level. And that affects everyone's access to care, insured and uninsured alike.

PHILLIPS: So we know that the money can come from somewhere. Where do you want it to come from? Are you going to Congress and saying, "Look, you've got to reimburse these emergency rooms. You've got to give them more money because we can't keep up with the demand here"?

KELLERMANN: You know, one of the great illusions is we can't afford to do this. We spend more money per person in the United States on health care than any country on earth. But, in fact, it's a matter of spending on the right thing.

For example, of the billions of dollars spent on homeland security disaster preparedness to date, only four percent of that money has gone to emergency medical services. Despite the fact that, in most disasters and terrorist strikes, people get hurt.

We need to recognize that adequate treatment of the casualties of a disaster, a hurricane, an earthquake, a terrorist strike, is a critical need. And yet only four percent of homeland security money has gone to first responders who are on the front line of the health care system.

PHILLIPS: So I'm seeing two possible solutions here. Getting Congress to allocate money to reimburse, right?

KELLERMANN: Right.

PHILLIPS: And also saying to homeland security, "Hey, you've got the money. Give emergency services more cash."

KELLERMANN: Let me quote Proverbs. There's a saying there that says where there is no vision, the people parish. The Institute of Medicine envisions an emergency care system that's coordinated, regionalized and accountable to the public. We need to make that vision a reality in the United States.

PHILLIPS: Dr. Arthur Kellermann, thank you so much for your time. We'll stay on top of the story. Keep us posted, will you?

KELLERMANN: I will, thank you.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Doctor.

Only for use in emergencies. That's the rule for the taxpayer funded airplane leased to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But one Bush cabinet member is getting a little flack for frequent flying. That story, straight ahead on LIVE FROM.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: What constitutes an emergency for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services? Medicare speeches? Apparently.

Some in Washington are wondering in light of the frequent use by the HHS secretary of a CDC jet. We get the latest from Samantha Hayes (ph) of CNN affiliate KSL in Salt Lake City.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAMANTHA HAYES (ph), KLS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Family brought Michael Leavitt to town this time, a Father's Day celebration and the chance to visit with grandchildren. And his trip may have gone unnoticed, but Secretary Leavitt's use of a leased jet is catching national attention. He defended his position to Eyewitness News.

MICHAEL LEAVITT, HHS SECRETARY: That's an important tool of it, but the good news is we've had 39 million people sign up for Medicare, and the country is better off in terms of avian flu. That's the important thing. That's what the president has asked me to do.

HAYES (ph): The secretary is a frequent flyer. You would expect that from the man in charge of implementing Medicare drug benefits and preparing for a possible pandemic. That's what he was doing on a March visit to Salt Lake City and dozens of other cities since January.

LEAVITT: The nature of our success is, are we finding them and fixing them and finishing them rapidly? We are. The system gets better every day.

HAYES (ph): Congress is taking a close look at how he flew to all those cities on a leased jet reportedly reserved for the CDC to use in emergencies. Democrats say Leavitt's trips did not qualify as emergencies and believe the $740,000 cost to taxpayers was wasteful.

LEAVITT: I'm just working hard to do my job.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, Congress did sign off on Leavitt's use of the plane. But he was expected to coordinate with the CDC. And the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" reports the CDC was forced to find another plane during two emergencies because Leavitt was using the main one.

Well, Bill Gates is stepping back from the company he co-founded. A Harvard drop-out in 1975, you'll remember. Gates made the announcement at Microsoft headquarters yesterday. But he talked about succession plans last year with our Susan Lisovicz. She joins me live from the New York Stock Exchange to tell us about that one-on-one interview, what he said then and what he's doing now.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, I made the pilgrimage to Redmond, Washington. You have to do it when you're business correspondent.

This has really been years in the making, Kyra. Bill Gates handed over the title of chief executive officer to Steve Ballmer six years ago. Now he's ready to begin withdrawing from all of his day to day duties at Microsoft over the next two years, although he'll stay on as the company's chairman.

When I interviewed him last year at Microsoft's headquarters, I asked him about his future with the company.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL GATES, CO-FOUNDER, MICROSOFT: I'm not going to be, you know the chief software architect when I get to be, you know, 60 or anything like that. There's a point at which somebody else ought to take on the challenge. Microsoft is my life's work. And so software is what I know best. I always want to have some connection. But, you know, there will be a day where someone else will get to do what I do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LISOVICZ: And the person who will assume Gates' position as chief software architect is Ray Ozzie, now Microsoft's chief technical officer. Gates says he'll now be able to focus even more of his attention on his charity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, something he also talked about in the interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GATES: What I learn more about the urgency, the needs, the diseases that are epidemic in the developing world, including AIDS and malaria and many other things, I decided I really owed it to the world at large to take those resources and make sure that doctors who could use medical advances were making the world more equitable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LISOVICZ: The foundation is now the world's biggest philanthropic organization, with assets totaling more than $29 billion. Just the day before my interview with Gates, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth, primarily in recognition of his efforts to improve heath and reduce poverty around the world -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, that's great when you see someone with that much money giving back. And the Gates Foundation takes on so many different charities. I remember interviewing the head of CARE, Susan. And I know he gives millions of dollars to CARE. What else has he taken on?

LISOVICZ: You know, it's interesting. Because he does have not only this enormous wealth, but he has an entrepreneurial genius. Obviously we've seen it at work for the last several decades, and he's very much at work with his foundation.

Last year the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation earmarked, for instance, $258 million for development of a malaria vaccine to fight a disease that kills 2,000 African children every day. That exemplifies the kind of entrepreneurial approach he brings to charity work, identifying specific problems, then designing a strategy, mixing science and money to seek solutions. And that's different from the traditional model of philanthropy, waiting if for drugs to become available.

The Gates foundation has also poured, by the way, $1 billion into the U.S. public school system in an effort to lower the high school dropout rate. Gates has said that he is discouraged by the poor math and science skills he's been -- we've all been seeing in recent years.

PHILLIPS: How is Microsoft's stock reacting to the news?

(STOCK REPORT)

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