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CNN Live Today

Al Anbar Province in Iraq a Hotbed of Insurgency; General Richard Myers Says Goodbye; Pentagon Prepares Against Avian Flu

Aired September 30, 2005 - 12:30   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Also today, "New York Times" reporter Judith Miller is out of jail and telling all to a grand jury this hour. Miller is revealing details of conversations she had with the vice president's chief of staff about an undercover CIA operative. The development again throws the spotlight on whether the bush administration played a role in the leak of the agent's identity.
Congressional Democrats are demanding an apology from former education secretary William Bennett. They say his radio remarks linking blacks to crime were "outrageous." Bennett denies being a racist and says his words are being taken out of context. President Bush did call the remarks inappropriate. The view from both sides, coming up next hour on CNN LIVE FROM.

Gas prices are on the rise again. The numbers may be a little different where you live, but AAA reports the average price of a gallon of regular gas is about $2.84 a gallon. That Thursday price is three cents a gallon higher than Wednesday. The increase could be due to concern over hurricane damage to Gulf Coast refineries.

KAGAN: We've been getting some good information from helicopter pilot Kai Simonson. He is with our affiliate YNYW. He is over the scene in the Bronx of this bus accident. Let's bring him in -- Kai?

KAI SIMONSON, YNYW REPORTER: Well, continuing to bring you live pictures from the scene out here. It happened at around 11:15 a.m. this morning, Eastern time, on the southbound side of the Major Deegan Expressway, about ten miles north of midtown Manhattan, here in the Bronx, New York.

You can see here towards the center part of your screen there have been numerous injuries. A school bus apparently carrying 40 or so Catholic students down from Westchester County. They were actually attending a funeral for one of their teachers. They were headed southbound here along the Major Deegan Expressway and somehow, this nasty accident happened. The school bus overturned. You can see the school bus there, toward the center part of your screen.

Now, there have, unfortunately, been numerous injuries. You can see there towards the Jersey wall, up against the Jersey wall. This is where they have actually been setting up patients. They have been boarding them up and then passing them over the wall out to the northbound side of the Major Deegan, put into ambulances and then taken to local hospitals.

Now, as far as the patient count goes, we don't have an exact patient count, but there have been at least 10 to 15 injuries. Fortunately, none of them have been serious. And right now, from -- I'm pretty much just counting the people that they're taking out of here. So that's how I'm coming up with that number.

Now, as far as the people on the bus, we are being told 40 students, two teachers and one principal. Of course, we will continue to keep up to date -- back to you.

KAGAN: Kai Simonson with our affiliate, WNYW. Thank you.

The situation in Iraq remains as bloody as ever for ordinary Iraqis. A car bomb today targeted a busy vegetable market in the city of Hilla. Iraqi officials say the blast killed at least eight people and wounded 49, including many women and children. Hilla's population is mostly Shiite. The attack in Hilla follows yesterday's coordinated bombings in Balad. The death toll there has now risen to at least 102, and more than 100 people were wounded.

The first attack was a car bomb near an Iraqi police station. As a crowd gathered afterward, a suicide car bomber then detonated his vehicle and mortars rained down on the area. A third car bomb appeared to target a mosque. U.S. troops later detained one person.

Iraq's Al Anbar province is that country's version of the wild west. It's a vast frontier that extends from Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Al Anbar is also known as a stronghold for the Iraqi insurgency, which is why the U.S. military is spending a lot of time in this region.

With more on that, here's CNN's Jennifer Eccleston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JENNIFER ECCLESTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This day's front line against western Al Anbar's vibrant insurgency. Qadiseye's tiny population, some several hundred strong, doubling this morning when American soldiers and marines and Iraqi armed forces entered the town for the first time.

UNIDENTFIED MALE: Yes, I think actually we are in 111.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And 112.

ECCLESTON: Every house on every street searched. Families questioned. Are they providing shelter or weapons to the insurgents? Their names checked against a manifest of the area's most wanted.

(on camera): These soldiers didn't know what to expect when they came into this town, but there is expected to be a large number of insurgents, particularly a large number of foreign fighters. So far, we've gone through a number of houses and they've detained one individual. (voice-over): The man can't explain what this suspicious-looking electronic device does that was hidden in his bedroom. His answers differ from those given by his father. So the younger man is taken away, his family eerily calm.

Others in this overwhelmingly Sunni neighborhood are visibly distressed as soldiers rifle through personal belongings. Evidence of insurgent activity could be anywhere.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We are just scared that they may shoot us or something. Our kids are scared.

ECCLESTON: Iyab Allawi (ph) says they've never seen American soldiers before. Her children's faces a mixture of curiosity and fear. Yet everyone cooperates. The searches turn up a number of ammunition belts and guns. Every Iraqi family is allowed to carry one weapon for protection; anything beyond that is confiscated. It's not a major find, but...

SGT. 1ST CLASS STEVEN CLAIR, U.S. ARMY: The more day-to-day fight for us right now is finding caches, finding how they're transporting people and weapons, from the east to the west or the west to the east. And trying to stay on top of it and trying to get one step ahead of them so we can actually, ultimately, catch the individuals that are doing it.

ECCLESTON: Fighting the insurgents suspected or real; one house, one street, one town at a time. The chase up and down the Euphrates River Valley continues for another day.

Jennifer Eccleston, CNN, Qadiseye, Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Other military news for you now. After 40 years in the military, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Richard Myers is saying good-bye. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld hosted a farewell tribute this morning.

Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr joining us live with more on that -- Barbara, hello.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Daryn. Well, military pomp and ceremony this morning at Ft. Myer, Virginia, here in suburban Washington, as General Richard Myers indeed ended a 40-year distinguished career in the United States military, retiring as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There is, indeed, a new chairman, General Peter Pace, the first marine to rise that high level office.

President Bush attended the ceremony and offered some very expected, very kind remarks about General Myers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As my principle military adviser, he brought a calm and reassuring presence, coupled with sound judgment and fresh thinking and unflinching candor. His approach was steady and practical. He had the vision to see the larger strategic picture and the tactical awareness one would expect from an experienced fighter pilot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: But, of course, General Myers leaves office as the war in Iraq goes on. And the final verdict on that situation certainly far from settled. Indeed, in just about half an hour here in the briefing room, we will have a live news conference. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accompanied by General George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, taking questions about the current operations, the strategy, the way ahead in Iraq. Both men, of course, are expected to say that they are going to stick the course and they believe their strategy is working.

But General Casey, we are told, expects to answer the question about those Iraqi security forces. He talked yesterday about this on Capitol Hill. How is it that there were three Iraqi army battalions just a few months ago fully independent, fully capable of operating on their own -- and the current rating system operated by the United States shows there is just one Iraqi army battalion capable of operating on its own. We are told that is a question General Casey wants to answer -- Daryn?

KAGAN: Barbara, beyond the ceremony that we saw today, the pomp and circumstance, how does changing the guard of the Joint Chiefs, how does that affect the military?

STARR: Well, it certainly won't affect it very much, as long as you have the current administration. Because, of course, the chairman of the joint chiefs is essentially the senior military adviser to the president, giving him his best advice about military affairs.

It is kind of a historic oddity right now, though. General Pace, the first marine. And both General Myers retiring and General Pace coming in are combat veterans of Vietnam. They are both, perhaps, the last two Vietnam-era veterans who will serve in this high office. There's really only a handful of them left at this point. Both men often talk in private, as well as in public, how Vietnam shaped their careers, shaped their military experiences.

So it's a bit of the beginning of the end of the chapter, if you will, in military history. Certainly though, the question, the legacy of the Iraq war, still a legacy to be written -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Barbara Starr, live in the Pentagon. Thank you.

We're going to head out to California. When it comes to battling the wildfires there, there can often be a determining factors in whether firefighters succeed or fail. So what is the driving force behind the seasonal Santa Ana winds, and what makes them so menacing?

Bill Nye the science guy has the answer -- he usually does -- and he is joining us, up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: A reminder here for you. CNN closely watching a major wildfire now spreading across northern Los Angeles County. Fire crews jumped on this one almost immediately after it was spotted early Wednesday. At the time it was a relatively small brush fire. But in 48 hours, it has grown to a 20,000-acre beast, and it now presents a serious threat to life and property. There are a lot of factors involved in a wild fire like this. But a big culprit appears to be the seasonal Santa Ana Winds.

This weather phenomenon is synonymous with fire season in Southern California. And to help explain why, we've invited Bill Nye, everyone's favorite Science Guy to join us from L.A.

Bill, good morning.

BILL NYE, "THE SCIENCE GUY": Good morning.

KAGAN: Do you realize we invited you on to talk about a bunch of hot air basically?

NYE: Yes, hot air filled with particulate matter. Now here at the CNN studios, which is a big old building on Sunset Boulevard, there's a lot of smoke. And you can smell it. It's very much in the air, even though it's miles and miles away from this fire, and what causes these Santa Ana conditions, strangely enough, is cold air.

KAGAN: Really?

NYE: In what people like to call the Great Basin, which other people might call Nevada, and so this cold air falls downhill, and it rushes through these very high canyons. These peaks will be at least 5,000 feet high. Some of them are up around 8,000 feet. And so, as the cold air flows downhill just like the spout of a pitcher, it gets compressed, because it gets to a lower altitude. And then even though it has the same amount of moisture in it, its relative humidity, that is, the amount of moisture it can hold, goes up. Now, have you ever pumped up a bicycle tire?

KAGAN: I have done this.

NYE: And the end of the bike pump gets warm?

KAGAN: Yes.

NYE: That's not from friction so much as you take the moving molecules and squeeze them together, and that moving energy is compressed. And it gets hot. It gets warm. And so this air becomes very, very warm and very, very dry. You know, most of the year on the coast, in Malibu, it would be...

KAGAN: Where you're hanging out all the time, Bill, with the movie stars.

NYE: Sure, I am. But it'll be 60 degrees Fahrenheit or something, and then in someplace like Palm Springs, It will be 100 degrees. Well, at this time of year, the whole thing reverses. Malibu will become very warm. It will get in the 90s Fahrenheit and so on, because these winds become so dry. Now this year there's been a lot of rain.

As a Los Angeles person, let me just add in. We're used to the winds coming off the ocean and heading inland. The Santa Anas, they reverse direction; nature goes backwards.

NYE: Well, nature, yes. So the land gets warm. Cold air squeezes warm air up, and then the sea breeze happens. The wind comes from the ocean and gets pulled in by the rising warm air. But in this case, the sloshing cold air from the Great Basin will create this condition. This is a great word, katabatic conditions, and that means...

KAGAN: Katabatic.

NYE: It's from a Greek word, means to fall downhill basically, so this wind falling downhill becomes very, very warm and very, very dry, and it desiccates. It dries out the vegetation. Now this year we had a lot of rain, so there's a lot of vegetation. And furthermore, these are desert plants, so they are accustomed to retaining moisture as best they can, and they do this through oils. The nominal word would be creosote, creosote plants, and so this stuff burns like crazy. Now you might ask as a taxpayer and voter, why we allow people to build homes so close to these areas that get so dry and usually have a fire every year.

KAGAN: Well, they're beautiful areas and people in California an expanding place. You've got to put people somewhere.

NYE: You've got to put people somewhere, so this is what happens.

Now these fires, by the way, are almost always started by humans. No one knows what caused this fire. There were some thunderstorms, but that was several days before this started. It's usually somebody smoking. There was a famous time where a electrical pole got knocked over in a car wreck and that started a fire, but no one knows what started this one, but it's a big serious thing.

KAGAN: Well, hopefully they'll get to the bottom of it, and even more importantly, put it out very soon.

Bill, you always have a way of explaining things. And as always, we really appreciate it.

NYE: Well, thank you, Daryn. Good morning -- good afternoon.

KAGAN: Both.

Bill Nye "The Science Guy" from Los Angeles, thank you.

Just ahead, a potential health threat from Asia that could cause millions of fatalities in the U.S. You don't believe it? The federal government does. We'll tell you why and what their doing about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Some health news for you now. You might not have given much thought to avian flu, bird flu, which showed up in the past decade in parts of Asia. But the U.S. government is certainly paying attention. The Senate yesterday tacked on $4 billion to the Pentagon's budget specifically to head off a human outbreak of the disease in the U.S.

Our Brian Todd tells us why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What began as a simple outbreak among farm birds in Hong Kong eight years ago now has top health officials speaking ominously about what they say could be the next global pandemic.

DICK THOMPSON, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: The best case scenario, the most mild pandemic, would cause an excess two million to 7.4 million deaths. But the numbers certainly go much higher.

TODD: We spoke to officials at the World Health Organization, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to gauge their concerns about a strain called H5N1, also known as avian flu, or simply, bird flu. Human cases are reported in four countries: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia. More than half who get it, die. The World Health Organization says the human toll now stands at 116.

Most human cases have stemmed from direct contact with sick animals. But experts say humans pass the flu to each other from contact with nose or throat secretions. So far, people with avian flu cannot easily infect other humans. But if this strain mutates, that could change.

THOMPSON: What we worry about is that this virus will infect a human or another animal that has a circulating strain of the normal human influenza virus, and that these two viruses will mix and out of that will come a virus that has this human characteristic of jumping from human to human, but also the avian characteristic of being very lethal.

TODD: There is no confirmed cure for avian flu, and no vaccine as of yet, although the U.S. government has purchased a vaccine in development. For now, antiviral medications on the market can combat avian flu, but those have been proven very effective thus far. Once a vaccine is made, Health and Human Services officials hope to stockpile enough of that for 20 million people, and enough antivirals for another 20 million.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Let's go ahead and take a look at other stories making news coast to coast.

In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a man has been arraigned on a murder charge in connection with the killing a police officer. Authorities say the deadly shooting happened outside of a hospital last night. A second officer and a medical technician were wounded. Police were taking the 38-year-old suspect to the hospital for a sobriety test when he allegedly grabbed one officer's gun.

In Paso County, Florida, authorities say a 27-year-old Guatemalan man said he illegally enrolls as a high school student because he wanted to learn English. School officials say he was a good student, he never caused any problems. He is charged with forgery and he is jailed, facing deportation.

Rodney King, the man who videotaped police beating -- who was in the videotape, ultimately led to the 1992 riots, is in trouble again. The 40-year-old King is now accused of threatening to kill his ex- girlfriend and her daughter. We excuse that video there. Authorities say the woman had been involved in an earlier fight with King's live- in girlfriend.

His comments about African Americans, abortion and crime rates are causing an uproar, but is Bill Bennett standing by his words and his message? Coming up on LIVE FROM with Kyra Phillips, two African- American commentators give us their views on the controversy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Here's a little San Francisco treat for you. The Icer Air 2005 event made the city by the bay a winter wonderland for daredevils and a like-minded audience. Skiing in San Francisco. It took more than 200 tons of manmade snow to fill -- to make Fillmore Street into a ski slope. About 15,000 people showed up for the festivities. A lot of fun. And they have the hills, they just needed the snow.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

KAGAN: And that's going to wrap up my three hours here on CNN LIVE TODAY. A lot more ahead on CNN's "LIVE FROM" with Kyra Phillips, which starts right now.

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