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Exodus From Beirut in High Gear; Kofi Annan Condemns Both Sides of Middle East Conflict; Lebanese, Tourists Post Wartime Scenes on Web

Aired July 20, 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: Airstrikes, missiles fired, troops and tanks, families in fear, civilians in the crossfire. With the Mideast fighting now in its ninth day, here's what we know.
Israeli ground troops and Hezbollah guerrillas are fighting again in southern Lebanon. We're told there are casualties. Details when we learn more.

And by the tens of thousands, terrified families are leaving Lebanon by car, by bus or by foot for Syria. The Lebanese government estimates 500,000 people are displaced by the fighting.

And the exodus from Beirut in high gear. A U.S. Navy ship is due in Cyprus in about four hours, carrying about 1,000 American evacuees. More will set sail tomorrow.

Now, CNN has reporters all across the region, and LIVE FROM will have live reports throughout this program.

It's a sight not seen in more than 20 years, U.S. Marines on the ground in Beirut.

CNN's Alessio Vinci is there as well.

Alessio, how's it going?

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra.

The Marines arrived early this morning on a beach here near the shores of Beirut. They came here not as an invading force, of course, but to help out the thousands of Americans who are trying to leave this country under -- under fire. And we understand that their role, of course, is to facilitate the enormous logistical challenges that the U.S. Embassy and the State Department and the military is facing by taking out the estimated between 5,000 8,000 Americans that the State Department hopes to take out of this country by the end of this week.

Of course, we heard a lot of people concerned about some delays, concerned about people perhaps not getting the phone call and enough information about gathering points, perhaps. But, at the same time, it is, as I said, a massive logistical operation that requires the full brunt of the United States operation, organizational skills, and, therefore, the Marines have come here to help out and facilitate this operation -- Kyra. PHILLIPS: Now Alessio, there have been reports of the Israelis hitting various Hezbollah strongholds. Are they, indeed, places that are helping Hezbollah carry out this battle? Others are saying, no, these are civilian areas that are getting hit.

You actually went to one site that was supposed to be a Hezbollah stronghold. Was it, indeed, that?

VINCI: Well, the -- the Israeli military claims that it dropped 23 tons of explosives on one particular building in southern Beirut which the Hezbollah says, actually, was not one of their headquarters but a mosque. So I took the opportunity today to go there, and basically what I saw was a building under construction.

It appeared that, indeed, it was some kind of a religious site, because it was a new building. And you could clearly see that while they were building it, they were making room for large rooms for prayer. The windows were shaped in a way that would fit, if you want, a religious building.

But, also, it was -- clearly, there was a building unfinished. There was a large underground section there, so certainly it could have been transformed into anything at any time.

Now, there was no indication whatsoever that anyone was living or working from there. Again, it was a building under construction which had basically nothing, no electricity, no -- no toilets, no service, absolutely nothing. So it is difficult, really, to imagine how that building could be a Hezbollah command center.

At the same time, of course, you have to understand that that area of Beirut is completely off limits to the Lebanese army, to the Lebanese police, so we were taking there by Hezbollah sentinels, militiamen, basically. And, you know, we sort of assumed that that's the place that the Israelis have targeted with those 23 tons of explosives.

Now, 23 tons of explosives is a huge amount of power. If you imagine that it would be like more than 100 times a 500-pound bomb, which is usually a large shell to be dropped in those areas. So, it is -- you know, it is difficult to imagine that 23 tons of explosives were -- were dropped on that particular site, which was destroyed, but not flattened.

PHILLIPS: Alessio Vinci in Beirut.

Thank you so much.

The USS Nashville is expected to arrive in Cyprus later today. It's carrying about 1,000 Americans out of Lebanon.

CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr is on board, too.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: We're here on board the USS Nashville, where the Navy and the Marine Corps has pulled about 1,000 people, 1,000 American citizens out of Lebanon today. People desperate to get out of the country after being in Beirut and other places in Lebanon where the bombing and the fighting has been so fierce.

You can see here on the Nashville it's really now wall-to-wall people. There are elderly people. There are young people. The troops on board the ship are just delighted.

They are trying to make these people feel like they are back in America. They tell us their whole idea here is, as long as these people have to be guests of the U.S. military, they want these people to feel like they are at home.

So, they are taking extraordinary measures on this ship to open it up to their visitors. The cots behind me, the tents, there are movies for the children, games going on. And as you might expect, a lot of little kids very happy to be running around outside, running up and down the ship, visiting with the Marines, visiting with the sailors.

Many of these people, of course, though, are just exhausted after surviving so many days in Beirut under very difficult conditions. And many of the people, those of Lebanese descent, Lebanese-Americans, tell us their greatest concern now is for their Lebanese family members that they have left behind in Beirut. That they are very concerned about what will happen to their relatives.

Barbara Starr, CNN, on board the USS Nashville, sailing off the coast of Lebanon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, cease-fire, says Kofi Annan. Not yet, says the Bush administration. The two sides collide today at U.N. headquarters when the secretary-general meets the U.S. secretary of state.

Let's bring in our senior U.N. correspondent, Richard Roth -- Richard.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. U.N. CORRESPONDENT: That meeting, of course, occurring hours after a very significant briefing by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the full Security Council, which has yet to take any formal action following the outbreak of the violence in the Middle East.

Secretary-General Annan saying the diplomacy has not worked and there are too many obstacles at this point from both sides and other factors to get it going. Annan says what should first happen is an immediate cessation of hostilities.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: What is most urgently needed is an immediate cessation of hostilities for three vital reasons.

First, to prevent further loss of innocent life and the infliction of further suffering.

Second, to allow full humanitarian access to those in need.

And, third, to give diplomacy a chance to work out, a practical package of actions that would provide a lasting solution to the current crisis.

I repeat, hostilities must stop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Israel objected to the fact that Annan did not use the word "terrorists" or "terror" in the speech, and that Iran and Syria were not referred to.

The United States has a problem with the sequence of events. John Bolton, the United States ambassador, says, how, in effect, can you negotiate a peace deal with a militant group like Hezbollah?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: How do you hold a terrorist group accountable? Who runs the terrorist group? Who makes the commitment that the terrorist group will abide by a cease-fire?

What does a terrorist group think a cease-fire is? These are -- these are -- you can use the word "cessation of hostilities" or "truce" or "cease-fire." Nobody has yet explained how a terrorist group in a democratic state come to a mutual cease-fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Lebanon's foreign ministry official here said that Israel is destroying Lebanon, nothing is going to be achieved by what Israel is doing. If anything, it will just rally support further for Hezbollah -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Also, Bolton bringing up once again the resolution about disarming, the Lebanese government disarming Hezbollah. I mean, that was supposed to happen in 2004.

ROTH: The Lebanese and the Arab groups here say there haven't been that many incidents. Israel and the United States dispute that. They put that in the resolutions, but they did not put in the means, the mechanism to how to enforce that so that Hezbollah would indeed disarm, and that remains a major lobbying point for the United States and Israel. And it may be getting through to other countries, though tensions and patience will wear out as the Israel assault continues here.

PHILLIPS: Richard Roth, thanks so much.

Well, dispatches from the front, many are from our correspondents. Others are from people living through the fighting and posting their stories on the Web.

Our technology correspondent, Daniel Sieberg, here with another sampling.

Yesterday we were talking about the blogs. We were talking about camera phones. It's amazing the technology you can see on the Internet.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: It is. And it's so easy to use and it's so easy to post up there. And we need to preface everything we're going to show you and talk about with sort of a cyber caveat.

We here at CNN can't independently authenticate any of the video or the sites that we're going to show you, the blogs. Nonetheless, it provides an amazing window into what's going on with the average, everyday citizen, if you will, during this conflict.

The first site we're going to talk about is You Tube. This is a site where everybody around the world can post video to -- it's very easy -- and share it with others. And the first video we want to show is you pretty dramatic.

It's a fairly visceral reaction from a couple of guys who are apparently in Bekaa. You can see they turn around there with their camera. They hear an explosion, and they react in probably the same way a lot of us would. In fact, we had to edit out some of their comments simply because they were that excited about it.

They see the smoke rising there. They've posted this video on the site.

At the end it's interesting, because one of them remarks, "Why did they hit over there?" So we thought that was kind of interesting.

The next video, very dramatic flash in the night sky. You can see the explosion there in the background. This apparently in Beirut. I'll pause now so you can hear the shock wave.

Some amazing video there on You Tube. And the person who posted this video went on to say, "This video brings back haunting memories from the '82 invasion of Beirut. I was then only 4 years old, but the lasting impacts of these blasts has never left me."

The last one we want to show you is a video that was pretty interesting just from the beginning. You can see there it says, "Bombings view from my window."

So, first of all, it's amazing this person had the wherewithal to grab their video camera and capture what happened. You can see there at the top they say the Katyusha rockets landed near them in Israel. You can see the smokes coming up there, and they posted this video online.

And all of these, Kyra, are just a sampling of what's up there. They are getting a lot of traffic. And it's something that I would say is fairly new to this type of a conflict, the ability to get this video very quickly up to a lot of people. PHILLIPS: Yes. Anything stand out to you? I mean, I know you're monitoring so many different sites and various technology on the Internet, but anything unique to you? I mean, you're the one that always watches this stuff for us.

SIEBERG: Yes. Well, certainly because of yesterday, we were talking about a lot of people who have these cell phone cameras, and because it's so easy to go out there and capture video very quickly, and in a fairly small file, and there's broadband access everywhere -- in other words, high-speed Internet access -- that it's so easy to get it up on to these video sites in a very short amount of time.

PHILLIPS: All right. We'll keep tracking it. Thanks, Daniel.

SIEBERG: You bet. All right.

PHILLIPS: Well, sex offenders use the Internet as hunting ground, but Congress is about to put up some barriers. We're going to explain. "America's Most Wanted" host -- that's a tongue twister.

Sorry, John.

John Walsh joins me live when LIVE FROM returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: CNN's Carol Lin with a developing story in southern Lebanon -- Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. Actually, in Beirut. It's a suburb just south of Beirut.

You're looking at some of the television networks out of the region that we're monitoring. There were flares seen on Israeli television and reports of at least three air raids as we watch Al Arabiya, the Arab network.

One of our folks on the international desk said that they saw an explosion, and you could hear jet planes flying by. So as soon as we get more information on this latest strike, a suburb just south of Beirut, in Lebanon.

PHILLIPS: All right, Carol. Thanks so much. Let us know when you have something more.

Well, almost 25 years ago, 6-year-old Adam Walsh was kidnapped from a south Florida mall and brutally killed. His death became his driving force.

You know Adam's father, John Walsh, the host of "America's Most Wanted." He's been lobbying Congress hard to crack down on sex offenders. Now his work is about to pay off with the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act.

It's about to be passed by Congress.

So, what do you think, John? A matter of minutes, a couple hours? Will it happen today?

JOHN WALSH, HOST, "AMERICA'S MOST WANTED": Well, today is a long day. It hasn't happened yet.

It's before the Senate. And I just left Harry Reid's office. He's now become a co-sponsor. And Chairman Frist has been a real champion of this bill in the Senate. Orrin Hatch from Utah introduced it.

It's been really bipartisan.

We have Arlen Specter, the chairman of the Judiciary, who is trying to move it forward. We have Joe Biden who has done a great job. Senator Ted Kennedy has dropped some things and added some wonderful things to the bill. And I saw Patrick Leahy yesterday.

So it's really a bipartisan bill. If it passes the Senate tonight, which I hope it will, because they go home for the weekend, Chairman Sensenbrenner, who has been a champion of it in the House -- it was actually written by my Florida congressman, Mark Foley -- Chairman Sensenbrenner says they'll pass it on Monday or Tuesday at the latest, and President Bush says he will sign it on the Rose Garden on a very bittersweet day for my wife and I, the 25th anniversary of Adam's abduction and murder on Thursday.

So, this is a huge piece of comprehensive child protection legislation, and I say it's about time.

PHILLIPS: Why do you think it's taken so long?

WALSH: Well, the House version was very tough. The House version had DNA testing for every convicted rapist and child molester. Their DNA would be taken, entered into DNA banks, probably solve thousands of crimes, unsolved crimes, even get innocent people out of jail. In Florida, we passed DNA and got eight people out of jail that were innocent of child molestation.

It had a very serious component involving the U.S. Marshals and the FBI and other federal agencies. It would set a template for a sex offender registry in every single state monitored by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

PHILLIPS: What about those sex offenders, though, that don't register? I mean, John, how many times have we talked about this? I mean, so many sex offenders just don't do what they are supposed to do.

WALSH: Absolutely. And now with the Senate concurring finally and getting this through, and hopefully Chairman Frist and Harry Reid running it through tonight, that we will have a federal law.

So, of the 550,000 convicted sex offenders -- and you and I have talked about this before -- 150,000 are noncompliance. They will be hunted down now, not just by a one-man local sheriff's department or a one-man police department in a small community. The U.S. Marshals and other federal agencies will hunt them down. They will serve really, really long sentences, and we will finally dial with repeat offenders, repeat offender rapists of our women and molesters of our children.

It's a really tough bill, and I really think it will -- it will tighten the loopholes and it will make these people known to that soccer mom who wants to know if there's a convicted child molester living next door.

PHILLIPS: In addition to that, I want to talk about repeat offenders, John, because how many times, over and over again, are we talking about these sexual predators that commit that type of crime? They spend some time in jail, they are back on the streets, they do it again. They're back in jail, then they're back on the streets again, and then usually they end up finally killing one of these kids.

You know, we're following the case of Couey and Lunsford. This is someone that was convicted of sexual abuse in the past. Now we see what's happening with regard to what happened to Jessica Lunsford.

Will this act affect repeat offenders and make it harder for them to get back on the streets to commit crimes again against children?

WALSH: Oh, absolutely. You and I have talked about the fact that the psychiatric community for years has said we should study these guys. Yes, I believe that.

Is it genetic, is it because of their backgrounds? I don't know. But everybody knows that they are serious repeat offenders.

You look at this creep right there that you just showed a picture of. John Couey had been arrested 22 times. And Mark Lunsford, Jessica Lunsford's father, who has worked hard on this bill, and so has Ed Smart and even Elizabeth Smart -- I was with them yesterday -- have walked the halls of Capitol Hill.

Mark Lunsford said to me, "How could a guy who's been arrested and convicted 22 times, John, 22 times, noncompliance with his probation, didn't adhere to the sex offender law in Florida, how could he stay 150 yards from my house, take my daughter in the middle of the night, murder her and bury her alive?"

Well, this will prevent guys like John Couey from going state to state, jumping bond, jumping bail. There's repeat offender statutes in here. There's even a federal statute that says if you kill a child under 16 years old, you could face the death penalty.

It's about time.

PHILLIPS: It just -- it's so hard to understand the issue of why this takes so much time. If you go back to Marc Klaas and what happened to his daughter -- and he became a tremendous advocate just like you -- Richard Allen Davis, he had a rap sheet, you know, probably just as long as Couey's. And then you fast-forward all these years and you see the same thing happen again.

You start to wonder, when will we finally see some type of law in effect that will keep these guys off the streets?

WALSH: Well, this has been the problem for years. And Marc Klaas has worked hard on this, as well as many other parents.

The problem is, this is a country of 50 little countries. And about 80 percent of the crimes against women like you, serial rapists and children, these guys are tried under state law and they jump the system. They get paroled here.

The guy that -- that Joseph Duncan, that coward that killed the whole family in Coeur d'Alene and took beautiful Shasta Groene, he was wanted in two states for violating the sex offender laws, the registry in those two states, and even got caught in Minnesota and was bonded out. Nobody knew that he was wanted, and he went on to Coeur d'Alene to murder that whole family and take Shasta Groene.

That won't happen again. We now have a federal law. We have a law that every one of the 50 states, whether they want to comply with the sex offender registry, whether they want to take DNA or they don't, whether they want to give stiff penalties to these guys, this has been, I think, probably the toughest piece of child protection legislation in 25 years. Certainly the toughest one I've worked on, and I've been walking those halls for 25 years.

It's going to change the way we do business with sex offenders.

PHILLIPS: Well, and I know Adam's spirit is with you all the way.

The Senate debate happening right now.

John, as soon as we find out what happens, I hope you'll talk with us again.

WALSH: I will. I'm honored to.

Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Thanks so much, John.

Five years, five invitations, five rejections. Today, though, for the first time, President George Bush addressed the annual convention of the NAACP. He declined all those other invitations, in part, because the group has been extremely critical of him and his policies.

Today, he tried to mend fences. He said he regrets that Republicans don't have a better relationship with African-Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I understand that many African-Americans distrust my political party. I consider it a tragedy that the party of Abraham Lincoln let go of its historic ties with the African-American community. For too long, my party wrote off the African-American vote, and many African-Americans wrote off the Republican Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIPS: Well, the president received his biggest applause when he said he plans to sign a renewal of the Voting Rights Act as soon as it reaches his desk.

What's it like to be held by Hezbollah? I'll talk to someone who has been there, former hostage negotiator to hostage. Terry Waite talks about his ordeal and its relevance to the current conflict straight ahead on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, here's what we know right now about the conflict in the Middle East.

The U.N. secretary-general is repeating his call for a cease-fire while condemning Hezbollah and Israel for the fighting. The U.S. calls the cease-fire proposal simplistic.

More heavy fighting on the Israeli-Lebanese border, and more Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon. The suburbs of southern Beirut were hit just a few minutes ago. Hezbollah destroyed an Israeli tank and armored bulldozer, but Israeli generals say they've destroyed about half of Hezbollah's fighting capacity.

Thousands of Lebanese civilians, meanwhile, are risking all to find safety in Syria. Americans and other non-Lebanese are boarding ships in Beirut.

CNN's Carol Lin has an eye on the CNN International Desk and various Mideast television stations, as well as all your e-mails and pictures coming into us here at CNN.

Carol, what do you have?

LIN: Kyra, boy do we have a story for you. A man named Hussein Saab in Bell Gardens, California, a world away from the fighting, but his family is in southern Lebanon. He joins me on the telephone right now -- Hussein.

HUSSEIN SAAB, FAMILY STRANDED IN SOUTHERN LEBANON: Yes, ma'am.

LIN: All right, your wife, your three children, including a 5- month-old baby, are in a small village by the name of Yarun (ph)? Is that correct?

SAAB: Yes, like one mile away from the border.

LIN: In Lebanon, close to -- close to the Israeli border, is that right?

SAAB: Yes. They are like one mile away from the border.

LIN: When was the last time you heard from them?

SAAB: I spoke to them like two days ago. And I haven't heard much from them. The last time I spoke to them, they were, like, crying hysterically. And the bombs, like, were falling everywhere.

And we are concerned about their safety. I don't know what happened to them. And I'm just going crazy here.

LIN: I'm sure you must be, Hussein. And we'll try to get any word to you, if we ever hear. But -- but give us an idea, why were they there?

SAAB: They were visiting, like, some family members when all started happening. And there was no way we could get to Beirut, because all the roads, like, were destroyed. Like, bombs were falling everywhere. And it was, like, extremely dangerous.

And I'm concerned for my infant son. He's, like, 5 months old. They have no milk. I mean, they can't get no food. They can't, like, really get out of the house to get any food.

No water. No electricity.

My concern is, like, how the U.S. government, like, help them to safety, because there is, like, no roads out -- out of the village.

LIN: Right.

SAAB: They are, like, isolated.

LIN: Have you called the U.S. Embassy?

SAAB: I did call them, like, more than 30 times. I even send them e-mails every day, like five or six of them.

LIN: What did they say to you?

SAAB: They haven't responded to me.

LIN: Nothing? Not a phone back?

SAAB: Nothing. Not even calling me back.

LIN: They haven't taken your phone calls?

SAAB: Nothing.

LIN: And nothing by e-mail?

SAAB: And nothing by e-mail. I been doing this, like, since last Thursday. And it's been a week. And I haven't heard from them yet. So I don't know -- my family's -- like, the last time I talked to them, they feel, like, left out.

They don't know what to do. They were crying and asking me, "What should we do?"

LIN: So at least you had phone contact with them. Is that right, Hussein?

SAAB: I lost phone contact like two days ago, and I'm really worried. I don't know what happened to them right now.

LIN: Hussein...

SAAB: And they're very, like -- they're really close to the border.

LIN: Uh-huh.

SAAB: And I could hear the shelling nearby. Like, it was crazy, the last time I talked to them. They were crying. My little kids, my -- my infant son. And he needs milk. I mean, I don't know how -- I mean, I could get like all this, to them. How can I reach them? I don't know.

LIN: Do you have any other family there? Hussein, do you have any other family there who might be even able to travel to the village to see what's going on?

SAAB: Nobody can reach the village. Every car that goes on the street, being hit by the Israelis, and just -- I don't know what to do. There is, like, all the U.S. citizens there. My wife told me, like last, it was like -- over 50 U.S. citizens in the village.

LIN: Fifty other Americans stranded in that village as well?

SAAB: Yes, more than 50, trust me. I know. It was like more than 50.

LIN: Hussein, knowing your wife, what do you think she's going to do?

SAAB: She can't do anything. She's by herself. There is, like, no adults in the house. I mean, she's by herself with three kids.

LIN: Hussein, I...

SAAB: There is nothing she can do. I mean, she can't, like, walk, like, from village to village to reach Beirut, because all the American effort is being done in Beirut. And they're forgetting about all these Americans stranded by the border. I mean, nobody, like, is asking about them.

LIN: Hussein, I know that we are hearing from other family members around the United States who are also in contact with family that's outside of Beirut. They're having the same problems as you are right now. I don't know if you can take comfort in that. But if we have people in the region, we have your telephone number, I promise you we will get any word possible to you about your wife and your three kids.

SAAB: I mean, thank you very much. I mean, it's -- I mean, the only way out for them is, like, if they fly, like, some helicopters to the area or the Israelis will provide, like, a safe corridor for the Red Cross.

LIN: I understand. I know you would do anything, Hussein, to get word to them. Good luck. We will try to stay in touch. And if, again, we hear anything, we'll let you know.

SAAB: Thank you. Please let the government help us. Thanks.

LIN: Hussein Ali (ph).

SAAB: We thank everyone at CNN for your efforts. Really appreciate it. Thanks.

LIN: You're welcome. Kyra, it is a heartbreaking story.

PHILLIPS: It's tough, sure it is. I know. And there's so much confusion over there, and whether it's Americans or dual citizenship or those that are from the area, it gets very confusing. And it's tough, and there are so many different assets coming into the area. You know, we can do -- we're definitely pushing this forward, and trying to stay in communication with all of those who call us for help or any kind of information.

LIN: And focusing on the aid agencies that are getting ready and beginning to go into the region.

PHILLIPS: Sure.

LIN: So we can only hope those with experience, like Doctors Without Borders and agencies like that used to going into a war zone, can get to those people who need that help.

PHILLIPS: We'll stay on top of it. Thanks so much, Carol.

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