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Losing Power in Big Cities Across U.S.; International Diplomats Fail to Agree on Cease-Fire Plan; Hussein Lashes Out in Court
Aired July 26, 2006 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The heat of summer in the big city. From Los Angeles to New York, the story is the same, too much demand and the lights go out.
CNN's Ali Velshi joins us with his take on the power outrage from coast to coast -- Ali.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Kyra, it's no good anywhere. Nobody should be without the ability to have power in the heat of summer. It's awful. And for all the people in California suffering, Queens is a slightly different situation. The borough of New York, it's the second biggest borough.
People live in apartment buildings in many cases. They don't have the use of their elevators and people in New York get around by subway. Some subway lines also weren't working as a result of power failures. So the issue is, what is the problem? Everybody says it's stress on the electricity grid, but really what is the problem?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm tired. I can't wash. I can't cook. I can't iron. I can't anything.
VELSHI (voice-over): Temperatures reached 100 degrees at the height of the blackout, while more than 100,000 people in Queens, New York, balanced the emotions that come from life without air conditioning, fridges, lights and elevators.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's 50 percent complete, sheer anger, where you just want to kill somebody, and the other 50 percent is just complete depression.
VELSHI: Newsflash -- it's hot in the summer. Americans run the A/C and use more electricity, but we pay for every last kilowatt we use. Shouldn't the utility companies set aside enough money to maintain and expand the grid? Are power outages really caused by a strain on the grid, or for some, is that just a euphemism for poor planning?
New York has a good power-transmission system. So what happened? One expert says that Queens had a heart attack.
KATHERINE KENNEDY, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL: Say you have someone who has blocked arteries. He's very sick, not because he doesn't have enough blood, but because he can't circulate the blood through his system where he needs it.
VELSHI (on camera): The blocked arteries in this case are 93,000 miles of this -- rubber-encased copper wire of different sizes that transmits electricity underneath New York's streets. That's enough wire to go around the world at the equator almost four times.
And even though it's protected underneath New York's streets, a lot of this wire is decades old, it's decrepit, it needs to e replaced. And like us, the wire does not like the extreme heat.
(voice-over): The city's electricity utility, Consolidated Edison, says it has backups and redundancies, but they didn't work, maybe because the already strained wires got too hot themselves and failed. Critics say ConEd hasn't maintained the wires properly. ConEd says the root of the problem is still under investigation.
Mayor Mike Bloomberg took a page out of President Bush's post- Katrina playbook. Remember when the president publicly defended FEMA boss Michael Brown?
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And, Brownie, you're going a heck of a job. The FEMA director is working 24...
(APPLAUSE)
VELSHI: Well, he's no Mike Brown, but ConEd boss Kevin Burke is a man under fire.
MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (R), NEW YORK: I think Kevin Burke deserves a thanks from this city. He's worked as hard as he can.
VELSHI: No thanks is what the look on the faces of the folks standing around the mayor seemed to say.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: Hey, Kyra, you know, the power is mostly up, back and working in Queens. In St. Louis, where they've had power outages caused by storms, the power is mainly up. But the fact of the matter is, it's going to take billions of dollars across this country to make sure that the power infrastructure, whether it's underground wires or overhead wires, are safe and they are, you know, replaced on a good schedule.
It's hard to get money for that because it's not like a road or an airport or something where people can actually see how they're going to benefit from it.
PHILLIPS: But Ali, people ...
VELSHI: Americans don't want to pay for something they already thought should have been working or was working.
PHILLIPS: Yes, I mean, the bills are so high though. How many times, especially now are we complaining ...
VELSHI: Kyra, I see your lips moving but I can't hear a thing.
PHILLIPS: You can't hear me? Do you have your IFV plugged in?
VELSHI: I'm going to assume that we've lost our audio.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: Can we get connected again? What do you think happened? Can you hear me yet? All right, what a bummer. I wanted to talk more about the antiquated power grid in southern California.
Jacqui Jeras, I know you are watching all things weather from the Weather Center. But it is a discussion that people are paying so much money for bills, they want to know why am I losing power? Why can't I get my A/C? Why is this happening? And how antiquated is the system?
(WEATHER REPORT)
PHILLIPS: Well, have a Coke and a trial. No, it's not a new ad slogan. Those are just a couple of highlights from Saddam Hussein's day. We're going to fill you in on the rest, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, a meeting with Congress, lunch with the troops. It's been a very busy day for the visiting Iraqi prime minister.
CNN's Suzanne Malveaux joins me now with an update -- Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well Kyra, of course, it was day two of the fanfare of Maliki's visit, a historic visit. The centerpiece, of course, his speech before the joint meeting of Congress, received very warmly by this group. His speech interrupted at least 20 times or so by applause. There was a controversy before that speech, however. There were some Democrats who were threatening to boycott his talks. We understand that three actually did. They were upset that he did not denounce Hezbollah's recent actions, it's role in the Middle East crisis.
That controversy somewhat diffused before his talk when the Iraqi foreign minister met with Republican and Democratic leadership, assuring them that privately the Iraqi government did condemn Hezbollah's acts at a recent Arab summit. Now the speech was briefly interrupted by a heckler, a woman who was wearing a pink shirt that read troops home now, but Maliki kept to the script, essentially thanking the United States for its sacrifice in liberating Iraq and also trying to convince those lawmakers, many who are skeptical about the success of Iraq's mission, that he will not allow his country to fall into civil war.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NURI AL-MALIKI, IRAQI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We faced tyranny and oppression under the former regime and we now face a different kind of terror. We did not bow then and we will not bow now. (END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: And afterward there's was an event. President Bush as well as Prime Minister Maliki meeting with U.S. troops and their families, specifically to talk about, to acknowledge the sacrifice of those families and their troops, to give a united and optimistic picture of the future.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I told the Iraqi people we stand with you. And that no matter how tough it gets, we will complete this mission. We owe it to those who served in combat. We owe it to those who have lost a limb. We owe it to those who have lost a life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: And Kyra, you are hearing the president acknowledge those difficulties, those challenges. Maliki as well. It's really part of a strategy here to buy some time for the Iraqi leader to actually try to get Americans and Iraqis to be more patient and say look give him some time here. There are difficult challenges but we believe in this man. We certainly hope that he will be able to tackle the situation on the ground. Kyra?
PHILLIPS: Suzanne Malveaux at the White House, thank you.
Well if he goes down it won't be without a fight. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein returned to a Baghdad courtroom today and lashed out at just about everyone and everything around him. His lawyer, the judge and especially the U.S. CNN's Arwa Damon has more.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SADDAM HUSSEIN, FMR. LEADER OF IRAQ (through translator): I am Saddam Hussein.
ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For a man who was on a hunger strike for two and a half weeks, Saddam Hussein appeared his own defiant self in court. Saying the Americans brought him against his will.
HUSSEIN: They took me to the hospital for three days and then they brought me here.
DAMON: Taking advantage of the spotlight.
HUSSEIN: I call on Iraqis to stand together and to forgive, but against the enemy I call upon them to fight.
DAMON: And aggravating the judge.
RAOUF ABDEL-RAHMAN, CHIEF JUDGE (through translator): If you insight to kill Americans and as you said you have your own supporters, if what you are saying is true then why don't they attack American armies?
DAMON: Hussein starts to respond but the judge shuts off his microphone, cutting off the former all powerful dictator with one push of a button. Saddam Hussein's court appointed defense lawyer, his voice distorted to conceal his identity, argued for the former dictator's life.
Five hours into the proceedings, it seemed whatever energy Hussein had mustered at the beginning was fading. He visibly struggled to stay awake, declining his right to make his own closing arguments after the judge told him to stick to the case and not politics.
(on camera): In a sign that Saddam Hussein may have accepted his potential fate, he reminded the judge that he was a military man. If sentenced to die, he said, it should be in front of a firing squad, not hanging like ordinary criminals. Arwa Damon, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Not guilty by reason of insanity the verdict in the retrial of Andrea Yates. She was charged with drowning three of her five children. Jurors deliberated 13 hours over three days. Going over a month's worth of evidence and testimony and asking to re-hear parts of it. Prosecutors had argue Yates knew what she was doing was wrong and her lawyer said that she was delusional and suffering from severe postpartum depression. Yates will be committed to a state mental institution.
A new chapter in the battle over abortion. The Senate has joined the House and passed a bill that would make it a federal crime for anyone other than a parent to take a minor to another state to end a pregnancy. For now Senate opponents have invoked a procedural motion to keep the bill off the president's desk. Supporters say the measure protects a parents right to know. Opponents argue it cuts off an escape route for pregnant teens who come from abusive homes.
Diplomacy and disagreement an update on the U.S. efforts to end the Middle East conflict. A report from Rome straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Fighting in the Middle East, disagreement in Rome. International talks to end the violence come up short of an agreement on how to achieve a cease-fire.
Our John King has the latest now from the Italian capital.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The fundamental challenge of the emergency Rome summit was to try craft a cease-fire to stop the hostilities, now 15 days and running, between Israel and Hezbollah. So the fundamental disappointment tonight is the failure to reach such a plan, many complaining that it was the U.S. that simply would not to bulge, would not agree to call for a cease-fire first and the political negotiations over the difficult questions, like should Hezbollah disarm? What should happen to the political composition within Lebanon?
The United States saying it would not agree to that, that Hezbollah disarming had to be part of the deal up front. After the contentious meeting here in Rome, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying a cease-fire would be no good on paper if Hezbollah still had its rockets and could resume the violence down the road.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: Unfortunately, this is a region that has had too many broken cease-fires, too many spasms of violence followed then by other spasms of violence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Many of the participants here saying don't call this summit a failure. How could you expect a cease-fire deal to be negotiated in just one day? But that certainly was the goal as they came here. And as he left the talks to return to Beirut, the prime minister of Lebanon was devastated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FOUAD SINIORA, LEBANESE PRIME MINISTER: The more we delay the cease-fire, the more we are going to witness more are being killed, more destruction and more aggression against the civilians in Lebanon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: There was some progress in the talks. Saudi Arabia, among others, making generous promises for the reconstruction of Lebanon, also for new humanitarian aid. Also, Italy and France among those who volunteered to participate in an international stabilization force if such a force is created and ultimately goes into Southern Lebanon.
The U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan saying the Security Council will get to work immediately on trying to develop the rules for such a force and trying to recruit more volunteers. But again, a critical element for any force to go into Lebanon would be a cease-fire agreement. They came to Rome in hopes of negotiating one. They left still promising to keep trying.
John King, CNN, Rome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, it's been a deadly day for Israeli troops. Eight were killed and 22 wounded in fierce battles against Hezbollah fighters in Southern Lebanon. The Israeli military says that more troops are on their way to the area, and Jordanian military planes are the first to land at Beirut International Airport since it was bombed when the conflict began. They're delivering medical supplies. One brought a field hospital that officials hope will head to Southern Lebanon. Twenty-four years ago, it was Ariel Sharon who masterminded Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Today there are more concerns about the former Israeli prime minister's health. He was rushed to intensive care in Tel Aviv, after doctors found bacteria in his blood. He's undergoing a form of kidney dialysis and receiving antibiotics. Sharon has been in a coma since suffering a massive stroke in January. Earlier this week, doctors discovered problems with his kidney function and changes in his brain tissue.
Time now to check in with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "THE SITUATION ROOM" is on location in Jerusalem this week. Wolf, tell us what's coming up at the top of the hour.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We have a special edition of "THE SITUATION ROOM" coming up, Kyra.
It's happening right now, a very, very bloody day for Israeli troops, as you just point out, on the battlefront. For Israel, the bloodiest day yet. We're going to take you live to the front lines on both sides of the border, where the death toll is mounting.
And I'll take you to the Israel Defense Forces' headquarters and ask one of Israel's top generals when will the fighting stop?
Plus, was it failed diplomacy? The secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, coming up empty-handed today in Rome. Is the U.S. facilitating or blocking calls for any immediate cease-fire?
Also, U.N. observers killed by Israeli fire. Was it an accident in the fog of war, or as Kofi Annan is suggesting, a deliberate killing? We're going to take you behind the scenes to take a look at how the tragedy unfolded.
And Saddam Hussein makes a very, very special request. He says, in effect, just shoot me.
All that, Kyra, coming up right at the top of the hour.
PHILLIPS: Wolf Blitzer, look forward to it.
Well, the closing bell and a wrap of the day's action on Wall Street straight ahead. Ali Velshi standing by.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Talk about a bad hair day. Well, make that numerous bad hair days. Nevertheless, this woman has police in Montgomery County, Maryland, about to flip their wigs. They say she is a part of ring of thieves who steel wallets from older women. While some suspects rack up credit card charges, the wig lady disguises herself to resemble the victim and then goes to their bank to withdraw money. And investigators say she's drained more than $200,000 from bank accounts in the area. All we're saying that, if she's caught, well, there will be hell toupee.
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