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CNN Live Today
Closing Arguments Under Way in Zacarias Moussaoui Trial; Hope for Charity; Remembering the Holocaust
Aired April 24, 2006 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: One of the most massive rebuilding efforts in the nation's history, that is what the next mayor of New Orleans will face. Seven months after Hurricane Katrina hit, much of the city remains in ruins, including its premier trauma center.
Medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta revisits Charity Hospital.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Charity Hospital has been a fixture in New Orleans since 1736. And in the medical community, it was known to have one of the best trauma centers in the country. But most people may not have heard of Charity Hospital until Hurricane Katrina hit, when there was too much water, no power, no food, and no help.
I was inside the flooded hospital, where doctors and nurses struggled to keep their patients alive.
(on camera): This is actually an auditorium that we're standing in now. At one time held up to 40 patients all around this place. Several patients still remain here, as well.
(voice-over): Seven months later, the same auditorium is empty. There are no patients here, or anywhere else in the hospital.
DON SMITHBURG, CEO, LSU HEALTHCARE SERVICES: Katrina shutdown Charity Hospital, University Hospital, all of our clinics, and basically care to about a half a million visits a year.
GUPTA: Last year, Louisiana State University, which runs Charity and University Hospitals, declared that both hospitals were too damaged to reopen, and 90 percent of the staff were let go. The others provide minimal medical services out of tents. That has put a huge strain on the four remaining hospitals operating in and around New Orleans.
DR. JAMES MOISES, AM. COLLEGE OF EMERG. PHYSICIANS: E.R. waits for patient who walk into emergency rooms, could be six to 10 hours. We are at the critical point, and we've been there for a few months.
GUPTA: Dr. James Moises worked for charity until a month ago. He resigned so he could speak freely about what's happening at Charity.
MOISES: The reason why we need to reopen Charity Hospital is so that we can address the health care crisis in the city right now.
SMITHBURG: Where we're heading right now is down to the basement of...
GUPTA: LSU health sciences CEO disagrees. He gave CNN an exhaustive tour of Charity Hospital, pointing out the flood damage which shut it down.
SMITHBURG: Where you have some electrical piping and parts of the electrical plant basically just hanging here.
GUPTA: To the untrained eye, this hospital looks salvageable. And according to FEMA estimates, it would only $24 million to repair the damage caused by Katrina.
But a General Accounting Office report says it would costs $258 million, which includes fixing the disrepair that existed even BEFORE Katrina hit. Smithburg agrees with the GAO report.
SMITHBURG: Charity is coming back. It is going to be better than it ever was before. But it might get worse before it gets better.
GUPTA: But Dr. Moises and some other former Charity doctors and nurses believe FEMA's assessment is accurate, and are lobbying hard to have Charity to reopen. Because right now, there's only a shadow of it left.
In November, the remaining staff was reduced to operating out of tents inside New Orleans Convention Center, providing some basic emergency room and outpatient services.
Last month, those tents moved into an abandoned apartment store next to the Superdome. And now, Charity's famous trauma center has opened again, a fraction of what it used to be and 15 miles away. We were there just a few days ago when they were still moving in.
If administrators have their way, this building will not reopen as a hospital. Instead, they hope Charity will be back in about seven years in the form of a new hospital shared with the Veterans Administration. But many wonder if New Orleans can afford to wait that long.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Talking sex education? Ah, don't think this is what they had in mind for the class. We're going to pull back the sheets on the story when LIVE TODAY returns.
Also, rocket fire lights up the night sky. Rival churches become opponents in a war like no other. We're going to tell you why and where, ahead on LIVE TODAY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KAGAN: Will Zacarias Moussaoui get the death penalty or spend the rest of his life in jail? A jury gets a chance to start deliberating that topic later today. Our Jeanne Meserve is at the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia with the latest on that.
Jeanne, good morning.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, good morning.
We've just heard the closing arguments. The prosecution was the first at bat. David Raskin took about 40 minutes to present his case. He talked a lot about the victims and their families. He recounted some of the words, some of the sights, some of the sounds that this jury has heard over the previous few weeks, very jarring, disturbing testimony. And he talked about Zacarias Moussaoui's reaction to that, how he rejoiced in their pain, how he belittled some of the witnesses, saying they were disgusting and pathetic. He talked also about how Moussaoui expressed absolutely no remorse for 9/11, about how he wished it had happened again on the 12th, the 13th, the 14th, the 15th and so on, how he was willing to kill Americans any time at any place.
He dismissed some of the mitigating factors that had been raised by the defense as nonsense. For instance, the fact that Moussaoui had a difficult childhood. He also said that their allegations that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia had not been proven.
He said, "Your decision in this case is not a close call. There is no place on this good Earth for Zacarias Moussaoui. Enough is enough. It is time to put an end to this. It is time to sentence Zacarias Moussaoui to death."
After a short break it was time for the defense, for them to have this -- their turn. Jerry Zircon was the attorney that went to bat. He said to the jury that it was easy to be alienated by Moussaoui and his attitude in the courtroom. He said Mr. Moussaoui is so unphased by his trial, the only thing he seems to be missing is a beach umbrella and a pina colada. He portrayed Mr. Moussaoui as the terrorist who couldn't shoot straight, someone who was not taken seriously by his al Qaeda compatriots, somebody who had such a small part in the plot that he had not even been held for extensive questioning as other members of al Qaeda have. Mr. Zircon said that he was a sacrificial lamb in this process. He said that he would rot in prison, that there had been no absolutely evidence presented that he would do any damage while he was there. He said, Mr. Moussaoui himself wants death. Quote, "Death is what he wants." He said, "He is baiting you. He came here to die, and you are his last chance."
He argued that in fact paranoid schizophrenia had been established in front of this jury. He said, also, that in response to all of the very disturbing victim testimony, "His death would not make those people better."
And finally, he quoted from a children's book, saying, "This would be our legacy to our children. We should not let the terrorists win." The prosecution now having its chance to rebut. Back to you, Daryn. KAGAN: Jeanne Meserve, live from Alexandria, Virginia. Thank you.
In world news, evacuations this morning at the U.S. embassy in Nepal. The State Department orders all non-emergency staff to leave. They U.S. ambassador also urges all American citizens to get out Nepal. This comes in the middle of massive pro-democracy protests and gun battles between security forces and rebels who have attacked government buildings. For three weeks now, demonstrators have protested the king's absolute rule.
It's time to stop, think and remember. Holocaust Remembrance Day, that's tomorrow. Six million Jews killed by the Nazis.
Our Kyung Lah has the story of two men who were there when the horror finally ended. This caution: her report has powerful images that some viewers may find difficult to watch.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Emaciated bodies rotting in the open. Prisoners packed into sheds, others buried in mass graves. This is what Colonel Willis Scudder saw as a young army commander when he and two soldiers liberated Ohrdruf, the first Nazi camp liberated by Americans.
COL. WILLIS SCUDDER, U.S. ARMY (RET.): It was a difficult sight to see, to know that those were -- had been human beings.
LAH: The survivors linger in the colonel's memory 60 years later.
SCUDDER: These people didn't seem to be walking. They seemed to be gliding. They wanted to come touch us, which they did. They didn't know who we were. We didn't know who they were, either. And we weren't prepared for something of this sort. It was beyond our ken to even understand that people could be treated this way.
LAH: The Ohrdruf camp stunned General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who called journalists there to capture these images to show the reality of the Holocaust. Americans then learned about the murder of six million Jews, a quarter million Roma people and 12,000 homosexuals by the Nazis.
SCUDDER: What it did was to give me a view of mankind and civilization to know that the veneer of civilization is very thin, and you can scratch it and you find an uncivilized person or individual.
MARTIN WEISS, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: My mother, my three younger sisters, a lot of aunts, a lot of cousins.
LAH: Martin Weiss says Nazis murdered most of his family in the most infamous death camp, Auschwitz.
WEISS: We smelt bodies burning. You know, you could smell it. And we found out what it was all about. LAH: The Americans arrived just days before he thought he would die.
WEISS: I remember looking at him, just like they were ten foot tall because it was skip, jump up and down from the Jeep and they were full of life. And the fact that they were Americans, it was the kind of feeling that you can't describe.
LAH: That feeling is what draws wise to volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
STEVE LUCKERT, CURATOR, U.S. HOLOCAUST MUSEUM: I think it's important for everyone to understand about the liberation of the camps, about the reality of those camps, to know something about what human beings experienced during this darkest of times.
LAH: Survivor and liberator urged the public to pause because history is rendered meaningless unless it's remembered.
Kyung Lah, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: "To you." Singing to Snuffy, the world's first cloned dog. A big happy first birthday. He's the fellow with the pointed hat there. Big celebration took place today in Seoul, South Korea, for the Afghan hound, but along with the party's big legal concerns for the leader of the cloning team. He is under investigation for possible fraud and ethics violations.
(MARKET REPORT)
KAGAN: Yes, this is Easter celebration. Fireworks, rockets, looking like war. It's not war, it's religion. This spectacular display is part of Greek Orthodox Easter celebrations. Every year, parishioners from two churches on the Greek island of Chios fire thousands of homemade rockets. The goal: they are trying to hit the rival church's bell tower. You might imagine here, a few homes in the line of fire get damaged. Fortunately, officials say there were no injuries this year. The rocket battle is a tradition that dates back to the early 19th century. Happy Easter.
They didn't do their homework, so an unusual punishment. Teacher reportedly heard it a group of eighth-graders into a school's media room, shut the curtains and forced them to watch a porn movie. Yes, porn. Malaysia's education minister is really mad about this. He promises to sack the educator if he has, indeed, forced students to watch naked actors going at it in the sack.
(WEATHER REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: The war in Iraq comes home in a personal way. Two new documentaries debut due in New York's Tribeca Film Festival. One is getting attention because of the subject matter. The other, because of the unlikely filmmakers.
Here now is CNN's Mary Snow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Iraq War from the front lines. "The War Tapes" documents the real life experiences of the New Hampshire National Guard unit. Members were given digital video cameras.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) the oil, man. It's not worth it. I walk everywhere in the U.S. I recycle everything, dammit.
PETER SCARLET, TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL: Filmmakers have taken advantage of this incredible new digital equipment we now have, and have been able to go places and see things that filmmakers couldn't go before.
SNOW: Film critics say it tells the story of the restricted area where's media cameras can't go.
RICHARD SCHICKEL, "TIME" MAGAZINE FILM CRITIC: This kind of thing is the sort of answer to the military's attempts to kind of censor the imagery coming out of a current war zone.
SNOW: But the battlefield was not the only place dealing with the Iraq war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want to see my home? Want to me my home? My home is right there. You understand, that's my home.
SNOW: "When I Came Home" is a documentary that looks at Iraq War veterans who've return to find themselves homeless.
DAN LOHAUS, DIRECTOR: I hope people walk out angry. You know, when I tell people I'm working on a film about homeless Iraq war vets, they go, what, from this war? You mean the last one, not this one. Yes, this war.
SNOW: Director Dan Lohaus hopes his film will shed light on what he says is a growing problem.
LOHAUS: I think this is just one more piece of this war that we're finding out about.
SNOW: Critics say mass appeal is difficult.
SCHICKEL: I think these are very tough sells to the general movie-going public.
SNOW: It may be a tough sell, but organizers of the Tribeca Film Festival say they expect the trend to continue.
Mary Snow, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: You can join Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM" this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. The prime time edition is 7:00 p.m. Eastern.
I'm Daryn Kagan. International news is up next. Stay tuned for YOUR WORLD TODAY, and then I'll be back with you in about 20 minutes with the latest headlines from here in the U.S.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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