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Assistance for Lebanese Fleeing their Homes; Lebanese Cities Turn To Ghost Towns; Three New Orleans Hospital Workers Accused of Mercy Killings

Aired July 18, 2006 - 14:29   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Tony Harris has an eye on the CNN international desk on the Web and on various Mideast television stations.
What's everyone saying, Tony?

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: About four, five, up to nine different Arabic language stations. The international desk right behind me, people -- teams of journalists, interpreters, everyone working really hard. Hezbollah TV, upper left-hand corner, banned in the United States. Israeli TV there in the upper right-hand corner. Lower left- hand corner Al-Arabiya and LBC is the only Christian-based television outlet in Lebanon right now.

So there's just a little sampling of what we're following here at the international desk, the international desk following developments. George Joseph there. Lee Sodd (ph) you'll see in just a moment who are following developments by the moment.

There they are at one of the monitors now -- by the moment here and Shema (ph) as well following developments as they happen moment to moment, minute by minute, here at the international desk.

And, Kyra, you got a moment for a couple of e-mails?

PHILLIPS: Absolutely, fire away.

OK, here's what we're doing. Our friends at CNN.com are doing a great job of asking everyone who is watching the coverage, not only in the line of fire, in the Middle East, in Lebanon or in Israel, but also people here in the United States who are responding to the coverage of the events as they unfold to send in their thoughts in an e-mail. And some have even sent along an e-mail and picture. We've got a couple to share with you.

This is from Andy who writes, "I'm worried about my family. I live in Florida. I have been trying to call my wife and my three children. They traveled to Lebanon for a vacation. The U.S. embassy told them they would contact them. It has been three days and no one has tried to reach them yet. All the phone lines are down and it's really hard for me to get through to my family. Please help us."

And, Kyra, I think we've established over the last 20 minutes or so on your show that help is on the way. And we have this e-mail from Vicki from Kentucky, she's writing, "I'm an American who lives in Beirut. I left Beirut for my summer vacation in Kentucky with my three children June 30th. I thank God I was out when this attack started. I'm worried about my family in Lebanon with whom I have kept in contact with by phone and e-mail. I pray they stay safe and are away from harm."

And if you've got a second, I've got one more to share with you. This is from Dawn from Fairfield, New Jersey. She writes, "I have a good friend, her husband and 7-month-old twin sons awaiting evacuation from Lebanon. They are in a village 20 miles outside of Beirut. Her sons are running out of specialized baby formula. I have been in contact with her by e-mail. They are waiting for a response from the embassy within the next 48 hours or so. All I can do right now is pray." And that is from Dawn from Fairfield. New Jersey.

So once again, Kyra, just getting in a number of e-mails. The address YOURVIEWS@CNN.com for people in the line of fire and also for folks responding to our coverage of the events as they unfold in the Middle East.

PHILLIPS: And also, I know, Tony, we're trying to connect these people with help as these e-mails are coming in, trying to connect them to other phone numbers and organizations as well, because we know the embassies are getting overwhelmed with calls at this point.

HARRIS: And you have to take your patience with you. When you call the State Department to try to get help and you try to register online, remember, bring some patience with you because the lines are flooded, as you would imagine, and it's taking a bit of time, 20 minutes or so when I tried yesterday. I haven't tried today but 20 minutes -- 25 minutes, actually, to get someone on the line. So take your patience along, and eventually someone will be there to help you.

PHILLIPS: Tony Harris, thanks so much.

HARRIS: You're welcome.

PHILLIPS: Well, schools turn into bomb shelters now as kids in Lebanon get a grim lesson in war. Thousands of families across Beirut have fled their homes, and unlike western evacuees, well, many have nowhere to go.

David Holdridge is with the relief group Mercy Corps. He joins me now on the phone from Beirut. David, give us a feel for where you are exactly, and what you're doing to help those that live there right now at this moment.

DAVID HOLDRIDGE, MERCY CORPS: Sure. Maybe the best way, I'll just take you through my day this morning. I went down -- I live in the center of Beirut, and we went down to the southern suburbs, the Shia suburbs of Beirut, to a place called Borja Brojney (ph) which normally has about 350,000 people.

I arrived down there, and it was dead, and it's usually a dynamic, vital place. Poor suburb, but nevertheless vital, dynamic, mostly Shia. I went down there, it was basically like a ghost town down there. There was virtually nothing stirring whatsoever.

I met a friend there, Mir Mohammed (ph), and we talked about the situation there, and he said basically from a town of 350,000 there's maybe 50,000 left in that southern Beirut area. And I asked him where they'd gone, and he said they had gone up to the mountains east of there to Shia villages. Most villages have 5,000, 6,000 people in them.

So I followed them up there and I drove up into the mountains to go to those villages, and basically every single building, construction site, was filled with families, schools, clinics, hospitals. And every family in that town, which was, say, a one- family apartment, had four to five families in those apartments.

And they were basically sleeping on the floors of the schools, and the government was trying to get basic food staples to them. So that is what's happening in south Beirut, and that is as fresh as today.

PHILLIPS: Now, David, these people that you are helping, you know, those that live there and are living through all this violence, what's your sense with how they feel about the ongoing battle? Are these people that are sensitive to Hezbollah? Are these people that are anti-Hezbollah? How do they feel about the Lebanese government, and this struggle between the parliament and also the Hezbollah faction of it?

HOLDRIDGE: OK, basically, among most, among most Lebanese, regardless of their confession, there is a sense -- and it's aggravated each day they sleep on the cement floor and they eat you know, basics in the school room in their family.

There is a sense of what, I think, we call tail wagging the dog, that this -- what incited this response from Israel was not a government of Lebanon initiative. It was a group, an extremist group, that caused this pain on all Lebanese people in the first instance. And I think that there's -- while the rhetoric may be more muted among the Shia population, there's definitely that sense.

The second sense is, though, that it is undue and disproportionate punishment from Israel, for a whole nation of four million people, for what a group in the south did that the government of Lebanon has never been strong enough to control.

And that's especially felt because of the nature of the sealing off of Lebanon, that the ports are closed, that the roads across the mountains are closed, and that basically supplies are drying up.

So it's both those sentiments, and it's changing the bounds of them to some extent of whether you're in the south or the north, in the Shia areas or in the Christian areas, but both of those sentiments are voiced on a continuous basis.

PHILLIPS: So do you think the Lebanese government is able to get supplies to those that have no other choice but to stay? And if not, I know that's where you come in and you're constantly helping with shelter and food, and supplies. If it's not enough, what is needed, and can people donate to your organization or get involved with Mercy Corps directly?

HOLDRIDGE: Well, the answer to your second question, absolutely, they can donate to Mercy Corps. They just go to our Web site and there's all the instructions and how they can help us provide relief assistance to these displaced persons.

We can reach people, Kyra, to answer to your question. We can reach people that are in those hills, east of southern Beirut, and who are in the primary schools in the center of Beirut proper, and so that we can do, but we can do it for only so long, because it's all local purchase.

We're not getting anything in from overseas or the ports and we're not getting anything in across the borders. So that's OK for week one. By week three, we're not going to be able to find any more assistance to those people.

Number two, as far as helping the people who arguably have suffered the most -- and that's people south of Litani River -- down in the far south of Lebanon, it's very hard to get stuff down. There are convoys going down there, but they have to be escorted by the government of Lebanon army and it's dicey going down there.

I mean, there's a line, you know, that's basically where the fighting is going on, where the missiles are being launched and where the airstrikes are coming, and a preponderance of them. So that's very limited access.

What I would call for the United States and others, I would call for definitely opening up humanitarian assistance, corridors into the ports or at least some of the ports. Juni (ph) Port used to be in '81 and '82 a humanitarian corridor, and definitely, basically urging that the road south from Syria in the north there not be taken out so that convoys, truck convoys can come down those coastal roads from the north. That's critical.

PHILLIPS: David Holdridge, Mercy Corps regional program director there in the Middle East, helping those that live in Lebanon, appreciate your efforts. David, we'll stay in touch with you. Thank you so much.

Our Nic Robertson is in the southern suburbs of Beirut. A Hezbollah security team took him on a very rare tour of the damage there. We're going to check in with him straight ahead.

And tensions in the Middle East impacting prices at the pump. Here's the latest numbers from Wall Street.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, imagine your city or town becoming a war zone or a ghost town in a matter of days. It's a reality for thousands of people in Lebanon. Our Ben Wedeman went to Beirut's southern suburbs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Smoke rises from the ruins of what was, until recently, this southern Beirut suburb of Hara del Harek (ph), pounded by repeated Israeli airstrikes. Few people punch through the rubble to retrieve their belongings.

Israel bombed this area because it is a Hezbollah stronghold, but it was also home to tens of thousands of people. Now it's a ghost town, abandoned. The mundane trappings of daily life look absurdly out of place in this devastation.

The tens of thousands who fled the bombing in Beirut and the south have been put up in government schools. Most of the refugees are Shiites, many supporters of Hezbollah, and almost every refugee I spoke to backed the group, like Najili Husseini (ph), whose hate for Israel runs deep.

"From birth," she says, "we teach our children Israel wants to fight us and kill us." Like this Zahara Zel-Zelli (ph), a mother of five from south Lebanon, who says she would be happy to blow herself up to kill Israelis.

Homelessness and destruction don't seem to have shaken the faith of Hezbollah's rank and file, but others feel caught in the middle. "Not one drop of blood should be shed, not even Israeli blood," says Raja Minsi (ph), who fled with her family of eight from Beirut's southern suburbs. "We don't want this war. Let the leaders solve this crisis because the people are paying the price." And a high price at that.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Beirut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Carnage and chaos in Kufa, Iraq. A minivan pulled up to day laborers gathered near a Shiite shrine, and the driver lured some of them on board, then he blew the van up. Almost 60 people were killed, well over 100 hurt. That crowd turned angry, accusing police of not protecting them and throwing rocks at the officers who responded. Police fired into the air to keep order.

A Jordanian blamed for brutally murdering two U.S. soldiers in Iraq is killed in fighting with Iraqi security forces. That word from Iraq's security adviser. U.S. Army Privates Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker were kidnapped south of Baghdad last month. Their bodies were found mutilated several days later. At least one had been beheaded.

Bombings, shootings, various forms of butchery, well, all are taking a higher toll in Iraq. A new U.N. report says more than 14,000 Iraqi civilians -- men, women and children -- have been killed in the first half of 2006, almost 6,000 in the past two months.

The report says in some cases civilians were the target of sectarian violence. In other cases, the killing was indiscriminate. By Iraq's count, 50,000 civilians have been killed since that war started in 2003.

Flashback to last summer, waters were rising, living conditions deteriorating, murder allegedly afoot at a New Orleans hospital in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Details straight ahead on LIVE FROM. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, a fight for survival in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but in one corner of New Orleans, three healthcare workers stand accused of killing some of the very people they were supposed to save. A dramatic development in a story that CNN's Drew Griffin broke last fall. Breaking developments now out of Baton Rouge where Drew joins me live.

Drew, what do you have?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Somewhat stunning. Two nurses and one doctor arrested overnight, handcuffed literally in their homes, brought into jail where they were booked, and then released on $100,000 bond.

They are Dr. Anna Pou, who we have mentioned before. She was a doctor at New Orleans Memorial hospital, and also nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry. Dr. Pou's attorney says it didn't happen, his client is innocent. He's going to defend this vigorously. Cheri Landry's attorney made a statement and says his client will enter a plea of not guilty.

But, Kyra, I've just been handed an affidavit from the attorney general's office here in Baton Rouge. They're expecting a press conference in here within the half-hour, and it describes the evidence against this, mostly from witnesses inside the hotel, medical staff of both LifeCare, which operates a long-term facility inside Memorial Hospital, and a Tenet Healthcare facility.

And it goes through what exactly happened, according to the A.G.'s office, on September 1st. This was the Thursday after the hurricane, the whole hospital surrounded by water, the staff running out of patience, not being evacuated, being threatened from the community, they felt, by gunfire.

And at that point, we're led to believe by this affidavit that Dr. Pou took the initiative that they made a decision that the LifeCare patients were not going to make it, that, quote, "they were going to be given a lethal dose."

And Dr. Pou, according to this affidavit, reported that "the remaining LifeCare staff needed to evacuate, that LifeCare patients were now in our care." That's in quote, Kyra, and you've done everything you can. And after that, it says that "Dr. Pou, along with nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry, euthanized patients, killed them, using lethal doses of morphine and burset (ph).

Not much is known about the patients, Kyra. They are only listed by their initials, but we have figured out the ages, roughly between 51 and 83 years old. Just four patients are listed in this, and we just have their dates of birth, again, 51 to 83 years old.

And according to this affidavit, again, it's said that forensic pathologists reviewed the records and the test results on these four cases and found that, in all four cases, it appeared a lethal amount of morphine was administered.

So this is some 10 months after this investigation began, we now have charges being filed. We're expecting a news conference here from Charles Foti, the attorney general of the state of Louisiana, and we expect to get a Foti statement very soon -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: And, Drew, just quickly, too, because I know you've done a number of pieces on this, you've been investigating it for months. Those that were arrested, did you ever get a chance to talk to any of them and get their side of the story? I'm trying to remember what interviews you did get. Did you talk with any of these three and did they say what their reasoning was behind their actions?

GRIFFIN: Kyra, the nurses named were a surprise to us. We didn't even hear their names until this morning, but Dr. Anna Pou has been talking with CNN early and often up until the point that the allegation of euthanasia was made on our air back in October. That's when she hired an attorney, and stopped talking to us.

But all the while, she was telling us about the chaotic situation inside that hospital, how bad the conditions were. She told a local news station here in Baton Rouge that they did everything they could for those patients, and I don't have the exact quote with me, but she was describing just how bad the conditions were.

And I know from talking to Anna Pou's attorney that part of this defense is going to be the defense that, hey, nobody was coming to rescue or help these people, and these doctors and these staff thought they were in real danger, did not know what to do, and had some patients that literally could not be evacuated for one reason or another.

Whether or not that will play in court we'll see, but that is part of the defense coming forward and, again, Rick Simmons, who is the attorney for Dr. Anna Pou, saying his client is innocent, and he will vigorously contest these charges.

PHILLIPS: Our Drew Griffin, who broke this story from the very beginning. Drew, thanks so much. More details about the arrest and the investigation at the top of the hour. CNN will bring you live coverage of the Louisiana attorney general's news conference scheduled for 3:00 p.m. Eastern.

Now let's get back to the Mideast crisis. Maura Harty, assistant secretary of state speaking now. Let's listen in.

MAURA HARTY, ASST. SECY. FOR CONSULAR AFFAIRS: A number of you have asked, "What about the people in southern Lebanon?" And just before coming in here, in conversation with the ambassador, I learned that, yes, we have of course been doing what we've said we've been doing: keeping in touch with Americans wherever they might be. But beginning tomorrow, there will be the beginning of an operation to help bus American citizens who are desirous of traveling up from southern Lebanon so that they can be bussed right to the port and escorted onto one of the ships that is leaving.

I really need your help in urging Americans to do what I have said so very many times over the last several days, and that is: An American citizen has not yet registered with us -- or I would go as far as to say if, having heard this news now that we are reaching out to people in southern Lebanon to begin to bring them forward, I would ask them to call one of the two following phone numbers.

Here in the U.S., if it's a family member calling on behalf of American citizen traveler, we would urge them to call 1-888- 407-4747 so that we can be made aware of someone that perhaps we have yet to be made aware of.

If they're calling from outside the United States, please call 202-501-4444, with the appropriate international code, so that we can make sure that we are communicating with people who might want to avail themselves of the opportunity to leave.

I won't go into much more detail about the places where they will be gathering, but there will be two separate spots with buses, again, taking people north with the intention of then moving them right on to the port and right out on one of the ships I previously described to you.

In Cyprus, our intention is to minimize, to the greatest degree possible, the time people actually spend in Cyprus. We would like very much to be able to have people disembark from a boat and go either to the international airport or on one of our charter flights, which we have also arranged.

Lots of different options there, keeping in mind, of course, that some people might not, in fact, want to go to the United States. They may, in fact, choose to avail themselves of commercial air options and go somewhere else.

So we will, of course, facilitate those things. And we have got a lot of people on the ground waiting to help them.

I think, with that as a starter, I'll turn it over to the general and then we'll take your questions.

BRIG. GEN. MICHAEL BARBERO, U.S. ARMY: Good afternoon. My name is Brigadier General Mike Barbero. I'm the deputy director for regional operations on the Joint Staff. And I'll just give you a brief overview of U.S. military operations in support of the Department of State in our joint efforts to assist Americans in Lebanon with the authorized departure from that area.

On July 16th, two CH-53 helicopters from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit inserted a survey and assessment team into the American Embassy Beirut to begin planning for the departure of American citizens from Lebanon in a secure and orderly manner. Planning has been ongoing and assets are moving into place. The commander of Task Force 59, Brigadier General Carl Jensen, and members of his staff are operating from Akrotiri, and he is serving as the on- scene commander, directing military assistance.

Over the past two days, helicopters from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit have assisted over 68 American citizens in departing Lebanon. And I said over, because that number continues to grow as we turn these helicopters back and forth. And those helicopters, as I said, are continuing these transportation flights today.

The USS Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group and the 24th MEU have been directed to assist with the evacuation of American citizens from Lebanon. There are six CH-53s working from Cyprus to Lebanon, and they are able to accommodate in total about 300 passengers per day.

The United States Transportation Command is working to contract commercial sealift as another method to evacuate American citizens.

The passenger vessel Orient Queen is under contract to transport American citizens, and it is at dockside in Beirut as we speak.

This vessel can accommodate approximately 700 to 900 passengers at one time. And a second ship has been contracted, which should start tomorrow. And it can handle between 1,000 to 1,200 passengers.

These operations are taking place in a war zone. They involve passage through a strict blockade, and are limited by the capacity of ports and the degraded infrastructure in Lebanon.

Some U.S. Navy vessels have arrived in the area. And we expect to have more than nine U.S. Navy ships assembled within the next few days, along with coalition presence of ships from the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy.

We appreciate the cooperation that we are receiving from our friends and allies. And with that, I think we'll take your questions.

QUESTION: Madam Secretary, could I get a little clarification about the ships?

I'm a little confused. You spoke of some 740 people coming out, and then another group.

HARTY: I'm sorry. Let's just go through the numbers again.

QUESTION: And what's the second ship?

HARTY: Dusk -- through dusk on Tuesday -- I guess today's Tuesday -- approximately 350 American citizens got out.

And one thing I neglected to mention, and perhaps should have, is that there have been other Americans who have departed over borders to Syria. And we are trying to work on those numbers for you now.

But some haven't needed our help. Some have simply gone their own ways and left from there.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE).

HARTY: Those are numbers that we've captured already.

Tomorrow, we expect to see 240 people leave by air and two ships coming in, as the general and I have both explained; one, the Orient Queen, capacity, 800; one, the Sanjak (ph). Yes.

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