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Homeland Security Calling on Cargo Industry to Help Develop National Standards; Lott's Criticism of Rumsfeld Just Latest Voice in Rising Clamor

Aired December 17, 2004 - 11:32   ET

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

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


RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Here's a follow-up on a story we've been telling you about. There's a new intelligence law, signed by President Bush. It happened last hour, as you probably saw right here live. Will it impact your every day life? Well, it could, in fact, as far as this is concerned, your driver's license. I popped mine out just to talk about it, because it calls for uniformity among different states. That is a driver's license from Florida, like this one, could end up looking like California's, and Congressmen are saying, this is probably going to slow terrorists. But some civil rights groups have, well, some issues with that, saying it will also create problems for them.
Let's bring in law enforcement analyst Mike Brooks. He's joining us to talk about this. I took mine out, because I guess -- don't most states look like that?

MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: They do. A lot of states. Yours has a hologram. You have to take it around a little bit. But the new bill actually. It says requires federal agencies to establish minimum standards for issuing driver's licenses and birth certificates and required the Department of Homeland Security to establish standards for I.D. used to board airplanes. It also states, however, "states will not be prevented from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants."

But the state of Minnesota is kind of taking the lead in this, if you will. They have one that has a digital watermark. It has little lines on it that can be read under certain light. So is this -- are we moving down this road again?

SANCHEZ: You don't want to have one state where it's easy to fake it, and the rest of them hard, because then, everybody will know, if you want a fake driver's license, go to state whatever.

BROOKS: Exactly, I was a cop for 26 years, and I've seen every kind of fraudulent driver's license you can imagine. In fact, there's an association that deals with I.D.s. They put a book out each year on all the different I.D.s and how they can be fraud. But I tell you...

SANCHEZ: So you think this is something that could work and would be reasonably important in keeping the bad guys out.

BROOKS: It could be, because you need an I.D. for everything, Rick. You get on an airplane, you've got to have a government-issued I.D., mostly your driver's license. You go anyplace else. But what about people that don't have driver's license. My mother, she's 73 years old, never had a driver's license. She had to go down and stand in line at the DMV with everyone else to get a nondriver's I.D., because she still needs some kind of I.D.

SANCHEZ: Let me ask you the tough question, because obviously, there's going to be a lot of people representing immigrants who are going to say, look, what they're doing here is a wedge issue, and they're trying to create something that says, look, we've got enough immigrants in the country and we don't want any more, and that this is less an act to try and stop terrorists than it is to stop people from coming into the country, who may not be doing anything wrong.

BROOKS: That's exactly right. And also some people are saying, if they put one of these smart chip in there, that will keep tracking you wherever I go, these kind of things. In fact, on the way down here, someone was asking me, what about when I check into a hotel? Will they know if I have a criminal record? What kind of information is going to be contained in these I.D.s? that's why the American Civil Liberties Union is concerned about this, but it's odd. Two sides that are taking -- two groups that are usually diametrically, they're opposed taking the same side, gun owner's of America and the ACLU, strange bedfellows, but they also, both of them, are against a national I.D. card.

SANCHEZ: There's the quote you read us a moment ago -- read it again.

BROOKS: However, states will not be prevented from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

SANCHEZ: So in other words, they'll still be able to get them.

BROOKS: Could be. It's a debate that I don't think is going to go away, especially with the new bill.

SANCHEZ: Mike Brooks, thanks, man.

BROOKS: Pleasure to be with you.

SANCHEZ: All right -- Betty.

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Department of Homeland Security is calling on the cargo industry to help develop national standards to protect the nation's cargo supply. While some port officials say such standards are long overdue.

CNN national correspondent Frank Buckley has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty thousand containers enter the U.S. every day and their potential use as platforms of terror keeps the head of Seattle's port awake at night with worry. M.R. DINSMORE, CEO, PORT OF SEATTLE: Here we are three years, three months older from 9/11. We're doing a lot, but I think there's a tremendous amount of additional things we should do to make this nation safer.

BUCKLEY: M.R. Dinsmore says the nation's ports are doing a better job of monitoring for radiation and x-raying containers. Other efforts include boarding ships at sea to inspect cargo.

(on camera): But with so many containers coming into the U.S., Customs and border protection inspectors only physically examine the contents of some 6 percent of the containers.

RANDOLPH HALL, USC HOMELAND SECURITY CENTER: Each container contains many cartons. Each carton contains many packages. Does that mean that we open up every carton coming into this country or we open up every box to see what's inside? I think most people would say that's impractical.

BUCKLEY: Homeland security officials say international cooperation, including U.S. inspectors in 32 international ports, has tightened security significantly before containers ever approach U.S. waters.

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: These new defenses begin thousands of miles away before a container is even loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for our shores.

BUCKLEY: But the Port of Seattle's Dinsmore says a network that tracks cargo from its source with cargo that's sealed and monitored is the ideal, and more than three years after 9/11 it should be in place.

DINSMORE: Three years, three months older, we still do not have an implementation of a network at the national level. We're still testing. That's disconcerting.

BUCKLEY: Because, Dinsmore warns, it would take just one container shipped by terrorists to severely damage international trade and potentially cripple the U.S. economy.

Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Trent Lott's criticism of Donald Rumsfeld is just the latest voice in a rising clamor over the defense secretary.

CNN senior White House correspondent John king has this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Defending the defense secretary is, of late, a staple theme at the White House briefing.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think that Secretary Rumsfeld continues to do a great job while we're at war. We're a nation at war.

KING: No leading Republican lawmakers have demanded Rumsfeld's resignation, but a growing number are making clear they don't share the president's confidence in the defense secretary.

At home, in Mississippi, GOP Senator Trent Lott said of Rumsfeld, "I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers. I'm not calling for his resignation," Lott went on to say, "but I think we do need a change at some point."

Secretary Rumsfeld angered critics last week with his answer to a soldier in Kuwait who complained about a lack of armored vehicles in Iraq.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY, U.S. DEFENSE DEPT.: You go to war with the army you have.

KING: Already a Rumsfeld critic, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, fired off a letter to the secretary late Wednesday, noting the Pentagon asked a supplier to speed up production of armored HUMVEES apparently only after the soldier complained.

"Why was this request not placed earlier?" Senator Collins asked. Promising the issue would be a major focus when Congress returns in January.

Earlier this week Senator John McCain said he had no confidence in Rumsfeld. And Republican colleague, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, also took aim.

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL, (R) NEBRASKA: We didn't go into Iraq with enough troops. He's dismissed his general officers, he's dismissed all outside influence.

KING: One key congressional supporter suggest Rumsfeld's style is more an issue with the senators than his performance.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think a lot of those folks want to be paid attention to. They're used to people listening to them at great length. And I think that sometimes the Senate thinks that the secretary has given them short-shrift.

KING: One senior White House official called the complaint, Washington chatter, mostly from long-time Rumsfeld critics. Senior Bush aides also saying showing any displeasure now would be tantamount to embracing Rumsfeld's critics and acknowledging major mistakes in Iraq.

(on camera): So, while the president is well aware of all this Republican grumbling senior aides say he tells them to make clear he thinks the secretary is doing a great job at a difficult time and that he has no second thoughts, at all, about asking him to say on into the second term --

John King, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: We've all been talking about this one. What a disturbing story on the wires this morning. A woman eight months pregnant and found dead. Her unborn child stolen. We have an update on that case.

SANCHEZ: Also a World War II veteran reminisces about his winter at war, making a heroic stand during the Battle of the Bulge. His story, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: An update now on a story we've been tolling. Police in Maryland have arrested a security guard and charged him with torching several new homes in a Washington suburb. This new video of the 21- year-old security guard, Aaron Speed, as he was led away in handcuffs last night. Now Speed is due in federal court this afternoon.

But as CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena tells us, Speed insists he is innocent.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON SPEED, ARSON SUSPECT: They've got the wrong man.

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That was 21-year- old Aaron Speed, arrested in connection with the fires that swept through a high priced housing development in suburban Washington.

SPEED: They've humiliated me. They humiliated my family. OK? Everything that I'm doing, I'm doing willingly to prove to them I am innocent.

ARENA: Authorities searched the home of his parents, where Speed and his family were staying.

GEORGE COCHRAN, NEIGHBOR: Cars and vans here until midnight. And they were in and out of the house. They were back in the shed with flashlights. And said they -- something about fire on Sunday.

ARENA: Prosecutors charged Speed with arson in the fires that damaged 26 homes, 10 destroyed, causing an estimated $10 million in damage. Authorities would not go into a possible motive, but do say Speed is cooperating and they say others may have been involved.

Speed worked for Security Services of America. That's the company that was hired to guard the housing development. A company spokeswoman had no comment.

(on camera): Speed is scheduled to appear in federal court later today. The maximum penalty for arson is 20 years in prison.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: Well, as we approach another Christmas with American troops in harm's way overseas, an American hero looks back.

SANCHEZ: Yes, this is a soldier who fought and was captured more than 50 years ago in the Battle of the Bulge. Yep, it wasn't just a movie, folks. His story when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Lance Corporal Espinoza (ph). I'd like to say hi to my mom dad, my brother Edwin (ph), Alexis (ph) and my little sister Gabby.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lance Corporal John Caperno (ph). I'd like to say hi to mom, dad, Joe and Lauren (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) from Japan. I want to wish everybody back home a merry Christmas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Paul Brackett (ph) from Preslow (ph), Illinois. Just wanted to wish everybody back home happy holidays.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi. I'm captain Billy Clark from Waco, Texas. I'd like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and happy new year. And go Texas Longhorns.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: That's right, buck 'em (ph) horns he says.

SANCHEZ: Did I do that right?

NGUYEN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Thank you very much.

Sixty years ago, a moment when many thought that Adolf Hitler might beat the Allied forces.

NGUYEN: And Germany's last major offense offensive in World War II claimed tens of thousands of lives. It took place in southeastern Belgium, during one of Europe's coldest and snowiest winters.

SANCHEZ: Yes, this is the great heroes of the Battle of the Bulge. As we mentioned, it's more than a movie, and they're now in their 80s. These guys still remember.

Here's CNN's Brian Todd with their story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After 58 years of marriage, Lyle Bouck and his wife, Lucy, are still helping each other down the front walk.

LUCY BOUCK, WIFE OF LYLE: I didn't think we'd live that long. TODD: At one point, Lyle didn't even think he'd make it to the altar.

LYLE BOUCK, BATTLE OF THE BULGE VETERAN: Maybe even at this point I can't measure some of it.

TODD: But he certainly can remember 60 years back as a young, whipsmart lieutenant, commanding a U.S. army intelligence and reconnaissance platoon. 18 elite soldiers, the eyes and ears of a fragmented allied force pushing through Belgium toward the German border. By mid-December of 1944, they had just about reached the border, but there's a huge gap in the front lines and Bouck's platoon is ordered to plug an isolated stretch of it on a hill.

BOUCK: We weren't trained to occupy a defensive position in the front lines. We were trained to patrol and get information about the enemy.

TODD: But the enemy finds them. December 16th, a huge column of German paratroopers gets wind of Bouck's platoon dug in on the hill. The Germans throw a total of 700 men in three waves at Lyle Bouck and 17 other Americans.

ALEX KERSHAW, AUTHOR, "THE LONGEST WINTER": They were told to hold at all costs. Basically that meant until you get killed or taken prisoner.

TODD: But by day's end, hundreds of Germans are dead. Some Americans are badly wounded, but not one can killed, and they're only captured when they run out of ammunition. As he's interrogated inside a house nearby, Lyle Bouck watches a clock stroke midnight. At that moment, he turns 21 years old and thinks of what an aunt had told him years earlier.

BOUCK: If you live to be 21, you're going to have a good life. I guess it was significant.

TODD: Bouck and his men don't realize they'd been among the first Americans to confront the German's final massive counterattack of the war, the Battle of the Bulge.

KERSHAW: Had they not stood and held the Germans and halted their attack or, rather, postponed it for a crucial 24 hours, the Battle of the Bulge would have been a great German victory.

TODD: Instead, the allies regroup, subdue the Germans and push to Berlin. Bouck and his men spend four months in freezing, disease- infested prison camps and are near death when they're liberated by their own army division.

(on camera): After he was liberated, Lyle Bouck was too weak physically to file a combat report and not of the mind to do it. This 21-year-old hero simply didn't think he had done anything extraordinary.

BOUCK: We were in those foxholes and we -- what we did was to defend ourselves. And to try to live through it.

TODD: (voice-over) Bouck says he still has no idea why those German paratroopers didn't kill him and his men after their capture. Alex Kershaw, whose new book "The Longest Winter" recounts this story, does have an idea.

KERSHAW: The paratroopers said and others have said since, we had too much respect for you. We put ourselves in your position and imagined what we would have done. 18 guys, massively outnumbered. You fought like lions.

BOUCK: 60 years later, an old lion can laugh about it. Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

SANCHEZ: Well, speaking of money, one industry cashing in this time of year: video games. Boy, if you got teenage kids, you'll know it. We'll have a special series on this next week. CNN technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg is going have a preview.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Video games: they're no longer just for kids. It's grown into a multibillion dollar industry full of excitement and controversy. All next week on CNN LIVE TODAY, we'll peek inside virtual worlds, profile some intriguing characters and examine the debate over violence in games. That's coming up on LIVE TODAY.

(WEATHER REPORT)

NGUYEN: Well, that does it for us. I'm Betty Nguyen for Daryn Kagan today.

SANCHEZ: And I'm Rick Sanchez. Thanks so much for being with us. Have a wonderful weekend. But let's send things over now to Wolf, see what he's got on top.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired December 17, 2004 - 11:32   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Here's a follow-up on a story we've been telling you about. There's a new intelligence law, signed by President Bush. It happened last hour, as you probably saw right here live. Will it impact your every day life? Well, it could, in fact, as far as this is concerned, your driver's license. I popped mine out just to talk about it, because it calls for uniformity among different states. That is a driver's license from Florida, like this one, could end up looking like California's, and Congressmen are saying, this is probably going to slow terrorists. But some civil rights groups have, well, some issues with that, saying it will also create problems for them.
Let's bring in law enforcement analyst Mike Brooks. He's joining us to talk about this. I took mine out, because I guess -- don't most states look like that?

MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: They do. A lot of states. Yours has a hologram. You have to take it around a little bit. But the new bill actually. It says requires federal agencies to establish minimum standards for issuing driver's licenses and birth certificates and required the Department of Homeland Security to establish standards for I.D. used to board airplanes. It also states, however, "states will not be prevented from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants."

But the state of Minnesota is kind of taking the lead in this, if you will. They have one that has a digital watermark. It has little lines on it that can be read under certain light. So is this -- are we moving down this road again?

SANCHEZ: You don't want to have one state where it's easy to fake it, and the rest of them hard, because then, everybody will know, if you want a fake driver's license, go to state whatever.

BROOKS: Exactly, I was a cop for 26 years, and I've seen every kind of fraudulent driver's license you can imagine. In fact, there's an association that deals with I.D.s. They put a book out each year on all the different I.D.s and how they can be fraud. But I tell you...

SANCHEZ: So you think this is something that could work and would be reasonably important in keeping the bad guys out.

BROOKS: It could be, because you need an I.D. for everything, Rick. You get on an airplane, you've got to have a government-issued I.D., mostly your driver's license. You go anyplace else. But what about people that don't have driver's license. My mother, she's 73 years old, never had a driver's license. She had to go down and stand in line at the DMV with everyone else to get a nondriver's I.D., because she still needs some kind of I.D.

SANCHEZ: Let me ask you the tough question, because obviously, there's going to be a lot of people representing immigrants who are going to say, look, what they're doing here is a wedge issue, and they're trying to create something that says, look, we've got enough immigrants in the country and we don't want any more, and that this is less an act to try and stop terrorists than it is to stop people from coming into the country, who may not be doing anything wrong.

BROOKS: That's exactly right. And also some people are saying, if they put one of these smart chip in there, that will keep tracking you wherever I go, these kind of things. In fact, on the way down here, someone was asking me, what about when I check into a hotel? Will they know if I have a criminal record? What kind of information is going to be contained in these I.D.s? that's why the American Civil Liberties Union is concerned about this, but it's odd. Two sides that are taking -- two groups that are usually diametrically, they're opposed taking the same side, gun owner's of America and the ACLU, strange bedfellows, but they also, both of them, are against a national I.D. card.

SANCHEZ: There's the quote you read us a moment ago -- read it again.

BROOKS: However, states will not be prevented from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

SANCHEZ: So in other words, they'll still be able to get them.

BROOKS: Could be. It's a debate that I don't think is going to go away, especially with the new bill.

SANCHEZ: Mike Brooks, thanks, man.

BROOKS: Pleasure to be with you.

SANCHEZ: All right -- Betty.

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Department of Homeland Security is calling on the cargo industry to help develop national standards to protect the nation's cargo supply. While some port officials say such standards are long overdue.

CNN national correspondent Frank Buckley has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty thousand containers enter the U.S. every day and their potential use as platforms of terror keeps the head of Seattle's port awake at night with worry. M.R. DINSMORE, CEO, PORT OF SEATTLE: Here we are three years, three months older from 9/11. We're doing a lot, but I think there's a tremendous amount of additional things we should do to make this nation safer.

BUCKLEY: M.R. Dinsmore says the nation's ports are doing a better job of monitoring for radiation and x-raying containers. Other efforts include boarding ships at sea to inspect cargo.

(on camera): But with so many containers coming into the U.S., Customs and border protection inspectors only physically examine the contents of some 6 percent of the containers.

RANDOLPH HALL, USC HOMELAND SECURITY CENTER: Each container contains many cartons. Each carton contains many packages. Does that mean that we open up every carton coming into this country or we open up every box to see what's inside? I think most people would say that's impractical.

BUCKLEY: Homeland security officials say international cooperation, including U.S. inspectors in 32 international ports, has tightened security significantly before containers ever approach U.S. waters.

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: These new defenses begin thousands of miles away before a container is even loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for our shores.

BUCKLEY: But the Port of Seattle's Dinsmore says a network that tracks cargo from its source with cargo that's sealed and monitored is the ideal, and more than three years after 9/11 it should be in place.

DINSMORE: Three years, three months older, we still do not have an implementation of a network at the national level. We're still testing. That's disconcerting.

BUCKLEY: Because, Dinsmore warns, it would take just one container shipped by terrorists to severely damage international trade and potentially cripple the U.S. economy.

Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Trent Lott's criticism of Donald Rumsfeld is just the latest voice in a rising clamor over the defense secretary.

CNN senior White House correspondent John king has this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Defending the defense secretary is, of late, a staple theme at the White House briefing.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think that Secretary Rumsfeld continues to do a great job while we're at war. We're a nation at war.

KING: No leading Republican lawmakers have demanded Rumsfeld's resignation, but a growing number are making clear they don't share the president's confidence in the defense secretary.

At home, in Mississippi, GOP Senator Trent Lott said of Rumsfeld, "I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers. I'm not calling for his resignation," Lott went on to say, "but I think we do need a change at some point."

Secretary Rumsfeld angered critics last week with his answer to a soldier in Kuwait who complained about a lack of armored vehicles in Iraq.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY, U.S. DEFENSE DEPT.: You go to war with the army you have.

KING: Already a Rumsfeld critic, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, fired off a letter to the secretary late Wednesday, noting the Pentagon asked a supplier to speed up production of armored HUMVEES apparently only after the soldier complained.

"Why was this request not placed earlier?" Senator Collins asked. Promising the issue would be a major focus when Congress returns in January.

Earlier this week Senator John McCain said he had no confidence in Rumsfeld. And Republican colleague, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, also took aim.

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL, (R) NEBRASKA: We didn't go into Iraq with enough troops. He's dismissed his general officers, he's dismissed all outside influence.

KING: One key congressional supporter suggest Rumsfeld's style is more an issue with the senators than his performance.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think a lot of those folks want to be paid attention to. They're used to people listening to them at great length. And I think that sometimes the Senate thinks that the secretary has given them short-shrift.

KING: One senior White House official called the complaint, Washington chatter, mostly from long-time Rumsfeld critics. Senior Bush aides also saying showing any displeasure now would be tantamount to embracing Rumsfeld's critics and acknowledging major mistakes in Iraq.

(on camera): So, while the president is well aware of all this Republican grumbling senior aides say he tells them to make clear he thinks the secretary is doing a great job at a difficult time and that he has no second thoughts, at all, about asking him to say on into the second term --

John King, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: We've all been talking about this one. What a disturbing story on the wires this morning. A woman eight months pregnant and found dead. Her unborn child stolen. We have an update on that case.

SANCHEZ: Also a World War II veteran reminisces about his winter at war, making a heroic stand during the Battle of the Bulge. His story, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: An update now on a story we've been tolling. Police in Maryland have arrested a security guard and charged him with torching several new homes in a Washington suburb. This new video of the 21- year-old security guard, Aaron Speed, as he was led away in handcuffs last night. Now Speed is due in federal court this afternoon.

But as CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena tells us, Speed insists he is innocent.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON SPEED, ARSON SUSPECT: They've got the wrong man.

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That was 21-year- old Aaron Speed, arrested in connection with the fires that swept through a high priced housing development in suburban Washington.

SPEED: They've humiliated me. They humiliated my family. OK? Everything that I'm doing, I'm doing willingly to prove to them I am innocent.

ARENA: Authorities searched the home of his parents, where Speed and his family were staying.

GEORGE COCHRAN, NEIGHBOR: Cars and vans here until midnight. And they were in and out of the house. They were back in the shed with flashlights. And said they -- something about fire on Sunday.

ARENA: Prosecutors charged Speed with arson in the fires that damaged 26 homes, 10 destroyed, causing an estimated $10 million in damage. Authorities would not go into a possible motive, but do say Speed is cooperating and they say others may have been involved.

Speed worked for Security Services of America. That's the company that was hired to guard the housing development. A company spokeswoman had no comment.

(on camera): Speed is scheduled to appear in federal court later today. The maximum penalty for arson is 20 years in prison.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: Well, as we approach another Christmas with American troops in harm's way overseas, an American hero looks back.

SANCHEZ: Yes, this is a soldier who fought and was captured more than 50 years ago in the Battle of the Bulge. Yep, it wasn't just a movie, folks. His story when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Lance Corporal Espinoza (ph). I'd like to say hi to my mom dad, my brother Edwin (ph), Alexis (ph) and my little sister Gabby.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lance Corporal John Caperno (ph). I'd like to say hi to mom, dad, Joe and Lauren (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) from Japan. I want to wish everybody back home a merry Christmas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Paul Brackett (ph) from Preslow (ph), Illinois. Just wanted to wish everybody back home happy holidays.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi. I'm captain Billy Clark from Waco, Texas. I'd like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and happy new year. And go Texas Longhorns.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: That's right, buck 'em (ph) horns he says.

SANCHEZ: Did I do that right?

NGUYEN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Thank you very much.

Sixty years ago, a moment when many thought that Adolf Hitler might beat the Allied forces.

NGUYEN: And Germany's last major offense offensive in World War II claimed tens of thousands of lives. It took place in southeastern Belgium, during one of Europe's coldest and snowiest winters.

SANCHEZ: Yes, this is the great heroes of the Battle of the Bulge. As we mentioned, it's more than a movie, and they're now in their 80s. These guys still remember.

Here's CNN's Brian Todd with their story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After 58 years of marriage, Lyle Bouck and his wife, Lucy, are still helping each other down the front walk.

LUCY BOUCK, WIFE OF LYLE: I didn't think we'd live that long. TODD: At one point, Lyle didn't even think he'd make it to the altar.

LYLE BOUCK, BATTLE OF THE BULGE VETERAN: Maybe even at this point I can't measure some of it.

TODD: But he certainly can remember 60 years back as a young, whipsmart lieutenant, commanding a U.S. army intelligence and reconnaissance platoon. 18 elite soldiers, the eyes and ears of a fragmented allied force pushing through Belgium toward the German border. By mid-December of 1944, they had just about reached the border, but there's a huge gap in the front lines and Bouck's platoon is ordered to plug an isolated stretch of it on a hill.

BOUCK: We weren't trained to occupy a defensive position in the front lines. We were trained to patrol and get information about the enemy.

TODD: But the enemy finds them. December 16th, a huge column of German paratroopers gets wind of Bouck's platoon dug in on the hill. The Germans throw a total of 700 men in three waves at Lyle Bouck and 17 other Americans.

ALEX KERSHAW, AUTHOR, "THE LONGEST WINTER": They were told to hold at all costs. Basically that meant until you get killed or taken prisoner.

TODD: But by day's end, hundreds of Germans are dead. Some Americans are badly wounded, but not one can killed, and they're only captured when they run out of ammunition. As he's interrogated inside a house nearby, Lyle Bouck watches a clock stroke midnight. At that moment, he turns 21 years old and thinks of what an aunt had told him years earlier.

BOUCK: If you live to be 21, you're going to have a good life. I guess it was significant.

TODD: Bouck and his men don't realize they'd been among the first Americans to confront the German's final massive counterattack of the war, the Battle of the Bulge.

KERSHAW: Had they not stood and held the Germans and halted their attack or, rather, postponed it for a crucial 24 hours, the Battle of the Bulge would have been a great German victory.

TODD: Instead, the allies regroup, subdue the Germans and push to Berlin. Bouck and his men spend four months in freezing, disease- infested prison camps and are near death when they're liberated by their own army division.

(on camera): After he was liberated, Lyle Bouck was too weak physically to file a combat report and not of the mind to do it. This 21-year-old hero simply didn't think he had done anything extraordinary.

BOUCK: We were in those foxholes and we -- what we did was to defend ourselves. And to try to live through it.

TODD: (voice-over) Bouck says he still has no idea why those German paratroopers didn't kill him and his men after their capture. Alex Kershaw, whose new book "The Longest Winter" recounts this story, does have an idea.

KERSHAW: The paratroopers said and others have said since, we had too much respect for you. We put ourselves in your position and imagined what we would have done. 18 guys, massively outnumbered. You fought like lions.

BOUCK: 60 years later, an old lion can laugh about it. Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

SANCHEZ: Well, speaking of money, one industry cashing in this time of year: video games. Boy, if you got teenage kids, you'll know it. We'll have a special series on this next week. CNN technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg is going have a preview.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Video games: they're no longer just for kids. It's grown into a multibillion dollar industry full of excitement and controversy. All next week on CNN LIVE TODAY, we'll peek inside virtual worlds, profile some intriguing characters and examine the debate over violence in games. That's coming up on LIVE TODAY.

(WEATHER REPORT)

NGUYEN: Well, that does it for us. I'm Betty Nguyen for Daryn Kagan today.

SANCHEZ: And I'm Rick Sanchez. Thanks so much for being with us. Have a wonderful weekend. But let's send things over now to Wolf, see what he's got on top.

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