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Eastern Seaboard Soaked with Rain; Iraqi Plans Met with Skepticism; Andrea Yates Retrial Begins; Warren Buffett to Make Sizeable Donation to Gates Foundation; Doctors Baffled by Mysterious Illness

Aired June 26, 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, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta.
Mudslides, boat rescues, washed out roads. The Eastern Seaboard underwater after days of downpours.

Doctors and nurses can't believe what they're seeing. People tormented by mysterious threads growing deep under their skin. But is it all in their heads?

Plus giving billions to a billionaire. Are the rich getting richer? It's not what you think. Business magnets (ph) Warren Buffet and Bill Gates talk live on their plans for the dough.

LIVE FROM starts right now.

Nightmare doesn't even begin to describe what we're seeing along the Eastern Seaboard. High waters from days of downpour forced Amtrak and commuter trains to shut down for a few hours this morning, causing headaches from the nation's capital all the way to Philadelphia.

Many roads in Delaware are washed out or in some cases caked in mud. Homes and businesses are flooded. And that's the least of it. In the words of one official, it's going to be a challenging week.

Trees are down everywhere, even at the White House. There's so much water in D.C. that city leaders are urging people to avoid the downtown area. Of course, that's exactly where CNN's Bob Franken went to explore what it looks like.

Pretty much looks like a new lake, doesn't it, Bob?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The -- Kyra, it is -- how shall I describe it in delicate terms? The area is a mess. You can see in back of me what has become Lake Washington. It is actually the 12th Street underpass, which comes in from the Beltway, feeds people into Washington. Those who tried overnight got stranded, as a matter of fact. The early part of the day saw water just about up to the top of cars.

Happily nobody was injured. Tow trucks were moving in and out throughout the day. The evaporation has taken care of some of it.

But of course, we're expecting even more problems, expecting more severe weather. As a matter of fact, we've gotten a rash of flash flood warnings that have been issued for the next 12 to 14 hours.

The problem is it's been raining like this for the last several days and like this, I mean record amounts in some areas, saturated the ground, and we have seen the inevitable result.

We have also seen quite a bit of damage, quite a bit of problem on many of the freeways. Transportation has been disrupted. Some of the rail service between suburban Maryland and suburban, Virginia, has been completely blocked up. As a matter of fact, that is still a problem. The metro system, the subway system in Washington is now back in operation. Some of the stops had been closed for quite awhile.

It resulted also in the inevitable power outages. About 20,000 homes are without power. Some people who were trapped had to be recovered. There were mudslides in parts of suburban Virginia.

Further out, there were huge amounts of rain, over 10 inches in places like Seaford, Delaware, and Fredericksburg, Maryland, both of them on the eastern shore. There were some people who had to be evacuated there. But again we have heard no reports of injuries or worse.

As I said this is a situation that continues to deteriorate as the weather does. At the moment, as you can see, it's clear, but as I said we're expecting some more rain, which is certainly going to cause more problems -- Kyra,

PHILLIPS: All right, now, Bob, let's be honest here. City officials, city leaders are saying stay home, don't get out on the roads. But this is Washington, D.C. Are the people, are they paying attention to those orders?

FRANKEN: Yes, sure, they love to -- they love to stay at home. This is a city where the problem sometimes is you have to see if you can tell the difference.

Now we do have some of the museums that are shut down. The Internal Revenue Service is shut down. I know that that will be bothersome to you. The National Archives was a bit of a problem with some water, although none of the precious documents that were involved, none of the precious documents there were affected by the flooding water.

This is the story that really got harrowing overnight. As a matter of fact, we have the story of one person who came in to attend a person's wedding, a friend's wedding in Virginia, and he suddenly was encountering the very dangerous waters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM SHEEHY, OMAHA, NEBRASKA: They evacuated the hotel immediately, and a lot of people were very upset. I was lucky. In my truck was just at the edge of the waters. It was starting to rise so I ran down, grabbed the keys and got it up on the high ground. But a lot of people weren't that lucky, and they had the cars in the parking garage that were completely totaled. Other cars in the parking lot that were just literally picked up and swept away in a matter of seconds. And you can imagine the people outside all milling around and extremely upset.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: Yes, extremely upset, yes, I think I would be if I was facing that kind of problem. Came to Washington for a simple wedding and encountered this. And this may continue, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Bob Franken. We'll keep checking in. Thanks, Bob.

There's a plan on the table but it's not set in stone, so says the White House. That's cutting U.S. troop levels in Iraq. The plan is from General George Casey, the top U.S. military commander in the war zone. It calls for pulling out thousands of U.S. troops as early as September and, according to the "New York Times" thousands more would leave by the end of next year. But just a few hours ago President Bush said it all depends.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In terms of our troop presence there, that decision will be made by General Casey, as well as the sovereign government of Iraq, based upon conditions on the ground. And one of the things that General Casey assured me of is that whatever recommendation he makes it will be aimed toward achieving victory. And that's what we want.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: One of CNN's military analysts has an inside track on this story. Major General Don Sheppard personally met with General Casey on Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD, U.S. ARMY: Basically what the general is saying is when the Iraqi security forces get strong enough, and he's very confident that they're coming up to speed very quickly. He made the point that they are -- we have three times many divisions, brigades and battalions that are trained as this time last year, and about 80 percent of those are capable of taking up -- taking the lead in operations.

Additionally, one of the provinces in Muthana (ph) in the south, the governor has certified that he is ready to assume security responsibilities. General Casey said that basically what -- what that will mean is as the governors certify, then the minister of the interior and the minister of defense and the prime minister will agree with that, and they will assume responsibility for that province, and we will withdraw. Still maintaining the right of passage, the right to conduct counterterrorism operations with coordination and then maintaining quick reaction capabilities to support them if they get in trouble. (END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Some Democrats say the Republicans are simply using the planned troop cuts to bolster support ahead of the midterm elections.

Amnesty in Iraq. The prime minister is pushing a reconciliation plan. But could it mean insurgents who killed American troops will walk? CNN's Arwa Damon has that story from Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It wasn't the kind of message the Iraqi government needed on the day it unveiled its plan to bring peace and stability. A group linked to al Qaeda claiming on a web site that it killed four Russian diplomats, beheading three and shooting the fourth.

As Russian officials sought to verify the claim, the Iraqi people mulled over their government's best effort to date for bringing stability to the country: the long-awaited national reconciliation plan presented to parliament promising Iraqis have heard before.

NURI AL-MALIKI, IRAQI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): As for the terrorists and the supporters of the previous regime our fight will continue against them, will continue unimpeded. The security forces must not interfere in political affairs, and the militias will have to disband.

DAMON: But there were few details about how the government plans to make that happen. There was an emphasis placed on training and equipping Iraqi forces, but there was not a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal. There was a two-pronged approach to dealing with insurgent and sectarian violence. There was not a specific plan on how to carry it out.

HAIDER AL-AUBAIDI, IRAQI PARLIAMENT MEMBER: We have to carry the gun in one hand to fight the hard-core terrorists, and on the other hand, we have to hold in our hands the olive branch in order that we include everybody, every Iraqi in the political process.

DAMON: That olive branch is the controversial release of some 2,500 detainees from Iraqi prisons, an amnesty to insurgents who have not committed war crimes: crimes against humanity, crimes against Iraqis or acts of violence.

But Sunday's violence highlighted just how important implementation will be to any plan that can truly bring peace. Scores of Iraqis were killed and dozens more wounded in attacks across the country. And on Baghdad streets where Iraqis live the daily cycle of violence, the plan met with hope at best.

MOHD JAWD, IRAQI CIVILIAN (through translator): It's a good effort but we hope the government of Nuri al-Maliki will ignore the past and turn a new page for all Iraqis, whether they were Ba'athists or intelligence or security forces. DAMON: Skepticism by others.

ADEL, IRAQI CIVILIAN (through translator): The only thing this plan shows is the weakness of the government. It's as if it is playing its last card and wants to distract people from what's really going on in Iraq.

DAMON (on camera): The government's next step is getting all political parties to agree on just how to implement this plan, but perhaps the greatest challenge of all still lies ahead: convincing the Iraqi people to believe in them.

Arwa Damon, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Now back in Washington, words of caution and criticism for the Iraqi reconciliation plan. Lawmakers are still trying to sort out all the details. But some of them are already troubled by what they've seen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R-NE), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: The talk about amnesty, blanket unconditional for everyone. I think is premature. And this is going to be a difficult issue, because I think Maliki does need some options here and flexibility.

SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D-CA), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Mr. Maliki is asking to leave showing us the door and on the way out, by the way, saying that he's going to grant amnesty to the people who hurt our troops, and we're going to have to pay compensation. This thing is a mess.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: A mother back in court. Same case, same question: was Andrea Yates insane when she drowned her five children one by one in the bathtub? The oldest was Noah. He was seven years old, the youngest, Mary, just six months. Opening statements underway in her retrial. Court TV's Beth Karas is following developments at the courthouse in Houston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH KARAS, COURT TV REPORTER: Andrea Yates is back in court more than four years after she was convicted of murdering three of her five children. At that time, the jury rejected her insanity defense and sentenced her to life in prison. That conviction was reversed on appeal last year, and she's being retried for the same three murders. She's again asserting an insanity defense.

Her attorneys have to prove that Andrea Yates was insane on June 20, 2001, when she filled her bathtub with water and then systematically, one by one, drowned each of her five children, four boys and one girl ages six months to seven years. Legal experts on both sides agree that she suffers from mental illness: major depression, postpartum depression. She's had delusions, hallucinations, suicide attempts, but they disagree on the severity of it and how it's affected her judgment.

The issue for the jury is whether, because of severe mental illness, she did not know that killing her children was wrong. The state says there's ample evidence she knew it was wrong. And they point to her confession, where she says she waited for her husband to go to work before killing her children because she knew that he was going to stop her from doing it.

She also called 911 right after killing them, and she said she knew she was going to be punish for what she did.

But the defense is going to present what they say is extensive evidence of her medical history: her mental illnesses, her hospitalizations, how she was overwhelmed with her duties of motherhood. She was home schooling the children, and she was obsessed with being a good mother. She did not think she was a good enough mother. She thought she was saving her children from eternal damnation by killing them.

The defense will present experts who will say she was insane at the time. The state will have experts who say she was sane at the time. If the jury convicts her, she faces life in prison again, and she could still be charged with the other two deaths of the other two children.

In Houston for CNN, I'm Beth Karas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Billionaires are known for accumulating wealth, not giving it away. But Warren Buffett isn't your typical billionaire. His net worth is about to shrink dramatically, for a good cause.

CNN senior correspondent Allan Chernoff in New York, where Buffett is making it official this hour -- Allan.

ALLEN GATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, you know, those Buffett kids, they really did not play their cards right. They should have listened to Dad when he set down that 12 midnight curfew.

Actually, they knew that their dad would be giving away the bulk of that wealth, but what they didn't know was that he'd be giving it to Bill Gates, or more specifically, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Now the kids, three of them will be getting a few billion for their own foundations, but Warren Buffett made it very clear this morning that he does not believe in giving wealth down the generations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WARREN BUFFET, INVESTOR: I am not an enthusiast for dynastic wealth, particularly when the alternative is six billion people have gotten much poorer hands in life than we have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHERNOFF: Warren Buffett says it's relatively easy for him to make money. The hard part, he says, giving it away. And he also says that Bill and Melinda Gates clearly are much better at giving away money than he could ever possibly be. And that's why he wants to give so much to the Gates Foundation. The foundation is devoted to improving education, access to computers and also fighting deadly diseases like AIDS.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELINDA GATES, CO-FOUNDER, BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION: Today our only real tools are prevention and some antiretrovirals. And that simply is not enough. So whether it takes us 15 years, 20 years, 25 years to get an AIDS vaccine, it is what will break the back of the disease.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHERNOFF: The great irony here is that Warren Buffett, considered probably the best investor in the country, doesn't put his money into technology stocks. And here he is, giving the vast majority of his wealth to the greatest technology businessman in this country. So Kyra, really just a spectacular announcement and some irony, as well.

PHILLIPS: Well, we'll sure take it live once those gentlemen step up to the podium. Allan Chernoff, thanks so much.

Straight ahead it's a bizarre and painful illness, string-like fibers growing under the skin. Or is it? Medical debate and some very frustrated patients when LIVE FROM returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Now live via broadband, we actually weren't expecting to see this until next week. But right now you're seeing the body of the Texas soldier that was captured and killed by insurgents in Iraq. These are the remains of Private First Class Kristian Menchaca coming into the South Padre Island Airport.

We are expecting to hear more about a funeral mass that's supposed to take place for Menchaca. A prayer service was conducted on Friday night.

Now finally greeted by military and his family. We are seeing the remains of Private First Class Kristian Menchaca. A special unit, we're being told, from Fort Campbell was assigned to greet the plane along, with the 101st Screaming Eagles military funeral detachment.

As you know, Menchaca was one of two soldiers who disappeared in Iraq during that insurgent attack that we had talked about for weeks. The military confirmed last Thursday that the mutilated bodies of Menchaca and Private First Class Thomas Tucker of Madras, Oregon, were recovered.

Now finally the body of Kristian Menchaca will be laid to rest in his hometown. We'll continue, of course, to follow this funeral service and any other special type of prayer service in honor of this young man who lost his life in Iraq.

Let's get straight now to B Control, Tony Harris with details on a developing story -- Tony.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And Kyra, we're going to stay in Iraq and another story of more loss of life. News of a new attack in Iraq. This is according to the Associated Press.

Nearly 30 people in the mostly Shiite town of Hilla have been killed in a bomb attack at a crowded market. We're still gathering details of this attack, which even as it stands right now, ranks as one of the deadliest attack since the killing of al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Again, Kyra at least 20 dead in Hilla, Iraq, which is, as you can see from the map here, south of Baghdad. We'll continue to following the developments in this story.

PHILLIPS: All right, Tony, thank you.

Well, the nation's capital plans an ambitious attempt to test thousands of people for the virus that causes AIDS. The campaign will urge HIV test for every resident of the city between the ages of 14 and 84, nearly 400,000 men women and children. Planners want to use an oral swab that gives results in less than half an hour. A larger effort, National HIV Testing Day, also takes place this week.

Well, infection or self-mutilation? That's a question that a lot of doctors are asking as people across the country are reporting strange and pretty creepy symptoms. It's a story that you have to see to believe.

CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kind of bluish.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's kind of a semicircle, and the top is kind of reddish.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It sounds lying something from "The X-Files".

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The very first one was kind of a creamy white.

COHEN: People claim they have strings, not hairs, but strings growing out of their skin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's all a system. They're all connected together.

CAROL ARLEDGE, MORGELLON'S PATIENT: They're just these awful little black things that intertwine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is this black spot back here.

COHEN: Doctors and nurses can't believe what they're seeing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're blue. They're red. They sometimes move, which is really bizarre.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This didn't seem like anything I had ever seen that was coming out of a human body.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a mystery. It really is.

COHEN: The mystery starts here in west Texas.

ARLEDGE: Good lord.

COHEN: Rancher Carol Arledge was one of the first people to see white fibers and black specks popping out of her skin. She went to her dermatologist.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And she said, "I can't believe you did this to yourself."

And I was like "I didn't." And I said, "Well, do you want me to come back if it doesn't get better?"

She said, "No, if it doesn't get better you need to find a psychiatrist."

COHEN: So did Carol Arledge do this to herself? She says no.

GINGER SAVELY, NURSE PRACTITIONER: You've still got some -- a little bit of active lesions there.

COHEN: And did Marny Winky (ph) scratch these sores into her own face? She also says no. Carol, Marny (ph) and thousands of others from various parts of the country complain of similar ailments. They say it feels like something is crawling beneath their skin and that they're sick and exhausted. The patients call it Morgellons Disease. On web sites, people post pictures they say prove it's a real illness. Now, even the Centers for Disease Control is looking into it.

SAVELY: These lesions on your head, just so I can clarify this.

COHEN: Nurse practitioner Ginger Savely was one of the first person to treat Morgellons patients.

SAVELY: It's not from you gouging or scratching?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no.

(on camera) You know that all of this sounds kind of crazy.

SAVELY: Yes. But I know what I see with my own eyes.

COHEN (voice-over): She works with Doctor Raphael Stricker (ph), who says it reminds him of another disease he treated as a young physician.

DR. RAPHAEL STRICKER, TREATS MORGELLONS PATIENTS: I was in New York at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic when we started seeing all these gay men and drug users with these weird infections, and nobody had a clue what it was.

COHEN: The mystery of Morgellons soon caught the attention of a Tulsa, Oklahoma, researcher, Dr. Randy Wymore. His search began here.

DR. RANDY WYMORE, OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY: There's a lovely red.

COHEN: He wondered, could the fibers in the skin simply have rubbed off of people's clothing?

WYMORE: Here's a nice blue material that probably will have some loose fibers that can be pulled off with Scotch tape.

COHEN (on camera): When you took all of these clothing fibers and put them underneath the microscope, did it look like the fibers underneath the skin of the Morgellons patients?

WYMORE: Nope. Not at all. Totally different.

COHEN (voice-over): Satisfied the fibers weren't textiles, Dr. Wymore consulted with colleagues at Oklahoma State University.

DR. STEVE EDDY, OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY: I didn't know what to think at first. I, of course, did a little research.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will admit that at first I was a little skeptical.

COHEN: Doctors Ronda Casey (ph) and Steve Eddy agreed to see Morgellons patient.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is definitely not a hair. That's a blue thing there. I need to get that. I need forceps and a slide.

COHEN: We were there one day when they brought in four patients...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: See if I can get the little purple looking things.

COHEN: ... extracted fibers from under their skin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got it. COHEN: ... made slides and looked at them under a microscope.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's red.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually, it's red and blue.

COHEN: And this is what they saw: black, red and blue fibers lurking under the skin. Now they've seen about 25 patients, and the OSU doctors are convinced Morgellons are real. But the medical establishment says they are wrong.

DR. NOAH SCHEINFELD, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Morgellons is not real.

COHEN: Dr. Noah Scheinfeld is assistant professor of dermatology at Columbia University.

(on camera) So this is all in their heads?

SCHEINFELD: It's all in their heads. This is somebody who's picking at themselves, and people can pick at themselves for all kinds of reasons.

COHEN (voice-over): But how does he explain the fibers? Dr. Scheinfeld says once the patients create a sore, they shove fibers into it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is absolutely nothing on the surface there.

COHEN: But the OSU doctors say that's impossible. They say they found most of the fibers away from the sores under unbroken, smooth skin.

Still, no matter who you believe, there was one question no one here could answer for us.

(on camera) You've looked at these fibers under the microscope. What do you think they are?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have absolutely no clue.

COHEN: But Dr. Vitali Sitovsky (ph) thinks he might know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We take this piece of skin and then we extract genes from them.

COHEN: This biologist at SUNY Stonybrook says he found a gene that only exists in plants inside the skin of the Morgellons patients. Many of the people who claim to have Morgellons have spent time working in the soil.

(on camera) Do you think in a couple of years you might be eating your words? Maybe research will show you're wrong?

SCHEINFELD: In this case, I don't think so. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would challenge any of these physicians who think that we are just feeding into the delusions to come and examine a group of these patients and see what I've seen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: OK, why not take these strings to an outside lab or two or three and get some other opinions on what exactly they are?

COHEN: Right. That would seem the logical thing to do, would be to do that. There's one word -- the one-word answer as to why that hasn't been done, and that answer is money. It takes money to do the full battery of tests that would be required to even get close to figuring out what these fibers are.

Most doctors think this isn't real. They think it's in the patient's head, so they say why in the world would we spend money on this? And the doctors who believe in this, they haven't been at this point been successful in convincing anybody to give them the money to do those kind of tests.

PHILLIPS: All right. So for the patients that are going in and the doctors that believe them, are they giving them any type of treatment? Do they know how to treat it?

COHEN: They tried a whole bunch of different things. They've antiparasitics, antifungals, antibiotics. They've had a little bit of success with antibiotics to fight the fibers you're seeing now but really not a whole lot. They've only worked for some people, not for others. And for those that have -- where it's worked, it's worked temporarily.

PHILLIPS: So for the doctors that are saying no, they're faking this, they're doing it to themselves, aren't they from all over the country? It's not like they're just in one area.

COHEN: Right, the patients are from all over the place. And they don't know each other, so you might think, well, gosh, how could they all fake the same symptoms?

And again a one-word answer the doctors who are cynics would say, the Internet. You can go on the Internet and find out what the alleged symptoms are for this alleged disease. And you could just fake it, and you could just go to a doctor and say them. Or you could create sores and stuff in fibers that look like the ones on the Internet. So the doctors who are kind of the naysayers here, they think the Internet plays a huge role in this.

PHILLIPS: All right. Keep up updated.

COHEN: OK. Sure.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Elizabeth.

Well, they're the richest mean in the world and safe to say the most generous. We're going to go live to New York, where Warren Buffett is about to make a major announcement when LIVE FROM continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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