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President Bush Heads to Canada for Key Diplomatic Mission; Investigation into Crash of Chartered Jet Carrying NBC Sports Head Dick Ebersol and His Family
Aired November 30, 2004 - 08:00 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Trying to find common ground on a common continent. President Bush heads to Canada for a key diplomatic mission.
Investigating the plane crash involving Dick Ebersol and his family. Was the decision not to de-ice a critical mistake?
And harnessing botulism to make Botox -- has that dangerous germ slipped out of a harness, on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.
S. O'BRIEN: Good morning.
Welcome, everybody.
Bill Hemmer has the day off today.
Miles O'Brien filling in for him, in fact, all week.
Nice to have you.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
Bill Hemmer is off, but his tie is here. We'll see that in just a moment.
Good morning.
Some of the other stories we're following, members of the 9/11 Commission are going on the offensive to get intelligence reforms unstuck in Congress. We'll look at the strategy and who will be feeling the heat this morning.
S. O'BRIEN: Also, for a while this year, it seemed like hurricane season would never end. Today is the last day in what's been a truly remarkable year. We're going to talk with the director of FEMA about how Florida is coming along in its recovery and whether changes need to be made for the next storm season.
M. O'BRIEN: Jack is here.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Does NASA have like a space shot coming up any time soon when you might have to be like down in Florida at the Cape going...
S. O'BRIEN: All right, boys.
CAFFERTY: ... four, three, two...
S. O'BRIEN: All right, boys.
CAFFERTY: ... there it goes? I mean, I, you know...
S. O'BRIEN: Didn't I do this yesterday?
CAFFERTY: See...
S. O'BRIEN: All right, boys.
M. O'BRIEN: All right.
S. O'BRIEN: Back up.
Hi, Jack -- good morning.
M. O'BRIEN: Hi -- Jack.
CAFFERTY: Coming in the "Cafferty File" -- I should have gone to medical school. Golf with attitude -- they've got a tournament underway at the Kabul Golf Club in Afghanistan; stupid celebrity baby names, names that come from stupid celebrities, I suppose; and an Optimus Club in Pennsylvania that's fresh out of optimism.
S. O'BRIEN: Oh, that's sad.
CAFFERTY: All straight ahead.
I'm going to go check the shuttle schedules and see if we can...
M. O'BRIEN: Any month now.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Jack.
Appreciate it.
Headlines now.
Heidi Collins at our news desk -- good morning.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: It is kind of a day of that's exactly what I said yesterday about sitting over here and not being over there and etc.
Anyway, we want to get straight to the news now this morning.
President Bush is heading to Canada for a two day visit just about an hour from now. The president will try to resolve trade disputes and security issues with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. It's the first time a U.S. president has visited Canada in the last decade.
The soldier at the center of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal is awaiting his first hearing back in the United States. Specialist Charles Graner was flown this past Sunday from Iraq to Fort Hood, Texas. He's expected to face a pretrial hearing there within days. His court martial is tentatively set for January 7th. Graner is said to have fathered a child with another soldier implicated in the scandal. That's PFC Lynndie England.
And there is word this morning the president of the NAACP is stepping down. According to "Baltimore Sun," Kweisi Mfume will announce his resignation today. Mfume gave up his seat in the U.S. House to take over the NAACP back in 1996.
And Title IX, the landmark law barring discrimination in schools, goes before the Supreme Court. The case involves an Alabama high school coach who says he lost his job after repeatedly complaining his girls' basketball team wasn't being treated equally. At issue? Whether Title IX protects whistleblowers who complain about apparent gender bias.
And that's the news for now -- back to you two.
S. O'BRIEN: Heidi, thanks.
Well, the clock is ticking on the 9/11 intelligence reform bill. Several powerful voices will be heard today urging President Bush and Congress to get something done before the current session ends.
Ed Henry is on Capitol Hill for us this morning -- Ed, good morning.
ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
CNN has learned that the 9/11 Commission co-chairs, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, will put some pressure on this afternoon, that they will meet this after with Vice President Cheney. They wanted to meet with President Bush, but as you know, he will be in Canada. The 9/11 Commission co-chairs are really launching a last minute lobbying blitz here. They want to get the White House on board. They want to make sure leaders on Capitol Hill are on board.
They know that time is running out. Congress has to pass this bill next week. Otherwise, it will die and they will have to come back in January and start all over.
This morning, Lee Hamilton warned that if Congress does not get the job done, there will be dire consequences.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEE HAMILTON (D), FORMER VICE-CHAIRMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION: You go back to the drawing board, you start all over again in the next Congress, the 109th Congress, it'll be months, six months, eight months, a year, before a new bill can come forward. All of the time, the terrorists will be planning another attack and we will be less secure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now, this is a remarkable situation, where the president says he's on board. Republican and Democrat leaders on Capitol Hill say they support this legislation, as well. But two powerful Republicans thus far have stopped it, Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner says this bill must include some tough immigration provisions. Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter has said that he's concerned that a new national director, a director of national intelligence could add new bureaucracy that blocks critical intelligence from getting to military troops in the field.
But White House Spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday that the president believes that this is good legislation, he wants to get it passed and, in fact, that the president, later this week, will be sending a letter to congressional leaders saying get the job done.
Here's Scott McClellan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: The president would never sign legislation that would harm our troops or hurt our troops in any way. And the president believes that this is an important legislation that will further strengthen our intelligence operations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now, this issue has also split the 9/11 families. There will be one press conference this morning at 10:00 a.m. with a group of 9/11 families that say this legislation is good enough in its current form, it should be passed immediately. There will be another press conference, though, at 11:00 a.m. where a second group of 9/11 families will say that Mr. Sensenbrenner's immigration provisions are critical and that the legislation should not pass without them -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Ed Henry for us on Capitol Hill.
Thanks, Ed.
Appreciate it -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: A body believed to be that of 14-year-old-son of NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol found amid the wreckage of a plane that crashed Sunday with Ebersol and two of his sons on board.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK YOUNG, MONTROSE COUNTY CORONER: We're 99.9 percent sure it's Teddy Ebersol. It matches his physical description and he, of course, is the missing person. We're working on getting dental records flown in overnight so we can make a positive identification tomorrow morning.
He was ejected and then the aircraft landed on top of him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
M. O'BRIEN: The pilot and flight attendant also killed.
NTSB Chair Ellen Engleman Conners joins me from Washington now, where the plane's cockpit voice recorder is being analyzed.
Ms. Engleman Conners, good to have you with us.
ELLEN ENGLEMAN CONNERS, NTSB CHAIRWOMAN: Good morning.
M. O'BRIEN: What can you tell us about what you've discovered on the cockpit voice recorder so far?
ENGLEMAN: Well, actually, it will be in transit this morning. We should receive the CVR or cockpit voice recorder this afternoon. It has been recovered from the wreckage. There was extensive fire damage following the accident, so we're very hopeful that we'll be able to recover data, but we won't know until it's in the laboratory.
M. O'BRIEN: And no flight data recorders on this particular aircraft, correct?
ENGLEMAN: That is correct.
M. O'BRIEN: All right.
I want to take viewers back for just a moment to a crash that occurred in January 2002. It didn't get a lot of attention here in the United States. It happened in Manchester, England, involving the same model of aircraft on takeoff in a situation where icing was present. The pilots in that case, Georgia-based Corporate Aircraft, elected not to have the aircraft de-iced before taking off, almost an identical scenario.
Are there parallels, don't you think, in this case in Colorado?
ENGLEMAN: It's very unusual to have an identical scenario, but this one comes very close. We received the report from our British counterparts several months ago and are studying it. One of the key factors is the fact that these are hard wing aircraft, meaning they're very susceptible to buildup of debris, frost or ice. And, of course, FAA regulations and pilots' handbook indicate that you must have a clear wing when you're taking off in these conditions. So that will be a focus of our investigation.
M. O'BRIEN: And let's help people understand, really, no amount of ice is acceptable for takeoff. A slight, slight amount of ice can reduce the air foil properties of a wing and undermine performance such that it can't fly?
ENGLEMAN: That's exactly correct. However, our investigation will be very thorough. We're going to review whether there was a fuel imbalance, engine failure, structural failure, whether there was a problem with the air speed indicator or some other aspects of the flight itself, as well as human factors.
So while frost or ice may be a factor, we're going to look at every possibility to determine the probable cause.
M. O'BRIEN: Crashes like this, for whatever reason, tend to happen in spurts. We've seen a series of charter crashes in the past, in recent months. And the common denominator which seems to come back in each case is a crew training or pilot error issue.
Are there some issues that the NTSB is going to look into that it might be recommending to the FAA to train the way these crews of these air charter aircraft are trained?
ENGLEMAN: Maintenance and training have always been key facets of our investigations and are a critical part of a safety profile. We've made many recommendations involving maintenance and training, and this will be part of our investigation.
If we find that an emergency safety recommendation needs to be made, we will issue it. We'll continue to focus on all aspects of the pilot's record, the operator, the actual maintenance of this plane and the conditions of the flight.
M. O'BRIEN: The co-pilot survived and as I understand it is not in a position to communicate with investigators. But others can attest to the fact that this particular aircraft was not de-iced.
Just help people understand whose decision that is prior to takeoff on whether a plane is de-iced.
ENGLEMAN: Well, the pilot is responsible for his aircraft and so one of the aspects we're going to look at is whether the cockpit voice recorder gives us any information. But also we'll look at the past performance, the aspect of the structural integrity of the aircraft, the engines.
Once again, this is where NTSB isn't quite "CSI." We don't get it done in 28 minutes. It's a little more Sherlock Holmes. We'll determine a thorough investigation and it'll take us about a year.
M. O'BRIEN: And almost always they come up with a conclusion.
Ellen Engleman Conners, thanks for joining us.
We appreciate your time.
ENGLEMAN: Thank you.
M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, work time apparently turns to party time for those 911 workers in one town. We'll tell you what the camera captured and show you, as well, when the workers thought nobody was looking.
M. O'BRIEN: Also, sentencing underway today in the Scott Peterson trial. What will be the role of Laci's family?
S. O'BRIEN: And the most expensive hurricane season ever is officially over. But the recovery is not. We're going to find out from the head of FEMA what lessons were learned.
Stay with us.
You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: There is good news this morning for Floridians. The 2004 hurricane season is history. In just a moment, we're going to talk with FEMA Director Mike Brown about the damage that was done.
But first, here's CNN's John Zarrella on the storm season like no other.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The skies have cleared, for now. A hurricane season that all others in the future will be measured by is finally and mercifully over.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I'll tell you, don't mess with Mother Nature, that's for sure. By golly.
ZARRELLA: Between August 13 and September 25, four hurricanes slammed Florida and doled out their misery across a wide swathe of the eastern United States. But it was the people of Florida who took it on the chin.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire rescue.
ZARRELLA: Communities from the Panhandle to south Florida were left in ruins.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a red hat lady. I belong to the red hats, so I found my red hat.
ZARRELLA: Many people, like Mary Sue Davis, were hit more than once -- first Frances, then Jeanne.
MARY SUE DAVIS, STUART, FLORIDA HOMEOWNER: And when I walked out yesterday, the door, I thought I'd never come back and even see walls again.
ZARRELLA: Charlie, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne were a collective test of how much the people of Florida could endure. By the numbers, state officials say nine and a half million people were evacuated. The storms were directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of 117 Floridians. Storm victims received 78 1/2 million pounds of ice.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. You need any more, T.T.?
ZARRELLA: Fourteen million MREs and 9.8 million gallons of water. Eight and a half million utility customers lost power. While the numbers are still not complete, it's believed the four storms caused more than $40 billion in damage. For hurricane forecasters and researchers, this mean season is one to be analyzed and dissected and written about for decades. For the people who lived through it, it is a season they would rather just forget.
John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: Michael Brown is the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
He's with us from Washington, D.C. this morning.
Nice to see you, sir.
Thanks for being with us.
As we saw in John's package...
MICHAEL BROWN, FEMA DIRECTOR: My pleasure.
S. O'BRIEN: Thank you.
The most costly season.
How is the recovery going?
BROWN: It's going incredibly well. Watching that segment, the introduction to your segment, it brings back a lot of memories of the absolute devastation, the heat, humidity, how people were suffering down there. But we're really on the road to recovery right now. I think President Bush and the entire country will be very pleased with how we're really moving forward in Florida now to get people's lives put back together.
S. O'BRIEN: You know, we heard from John Zarrella by the numbers. Let's do our own numbers, as well -- 1.8 million people lost power after Hurricane Charlie; 3.4 after Hurricane Frances; 443,000 after Ivan; 2.8 million after Jeanne.
How many of those folks still don't have power at this time?
BROWN: As far as we know right now, everyone has power. But at one point, as your figures show, we had upwards of 10 million people without power. So power is being restored. Power is back up. The problem we have right now is just housing. We are finding more and more people, even as late as today, finding more people that need housing because they thought their homes were OK, but now the mold is coming in or the repairs aren't quite as good as they should have been and storms are now dumping water into those homes.
We're continuing to house people, even after Thanksgiving.
S. O'BRIEN: Is that -- are those issues that you raised, those are the main reasons for the delays, as opposed to just the sheer volume of complaints? People still phoning in essentially what they think is wrong?
BROWN: Well, in fact, we're going to allow people to continue to phone in and to register for until probably at least mid-December. We're finding people who, when they saw what was going on, they just packed up and they moved to Indiana or they went home to grandparents or someone. And they're just now coming back into the state.
Also, in some of the rural counties, we're finding people who are just now kind of getting their lives back together and they're just now getting registered.
So we're going to continue to take care of those people as long as it takes.
President Bush's commitment was that FEMA will be there as long as we need to be, and whether that's six more months or six more years, we're going to stay down there and help folks.
S. O'BRIEN: What's the price tag? We've heard $40 billion as one estimate.
Do you think that's about right?
BROWN: I mean, it very easily could be that. I mean I -- for FEMA alone, we've already spent $4 billion just up to date taking care of local governments, some of the state government expenses, about $2 billion taking care of individuals. Those numbers will continue to grow. We still have bridges to build. We still have highways to repair. We still have schools to rebuild. So I think that number of $40 billion will be pretty much on the mark.
S. O'BRIEN: After Hurricane Frances, some $28 million went to the folks in Miami-Dade County, which was barely touched at all. It actually has some law makers calling for an investigation into FEMA and why that money was approved and sent on.
What's the status of that?
BROWN: Well, I'd certainly welcome that investigation, because FEMA absolutely treats individual, each case individually. So anyone who received money in Miami-Dade County deserved that money and received that money rightfully under the law. If someone suffered damage because of water damage or power outages, they're entitled to apply for the aid that FEMA provides. We send an inspector out to that home. We verify that there was damage and then we pay them what they're qualified to receive under our programs.
S. O'BRIEN: Michael Brown is the director of FEMA.
Nice to have you, sir.
Thanks for coming on our program.
BROWN: Thank you, Soledad. S. O'BRIEN: You can log onto cnn.com/hurricanes for a comprehensive look at the 2004 hurricane season. You can also sign up for e-mail alerts of all types of dangerous weather -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Still ahead, for the second time in as many years, President Bush shakes up his economic team. A big step forward or acknowledgement of failure? The question is on the docket this morning. "Political Jab," coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: Jack's back with more e-mail.
CAFFERTY: The Oil For Food Program, Miles. The scandal continues to grow. Investigations into allegations of kickbacks to France and Russia and even to Saddam Hussein himself. And now comes word that the secretary general's kid, Kofi Annan's son, a guy named Kojo, was taking payments from a Swiss company that held a lucrative Oil For Food contract. All of this adding to the growing aroma coming from over there on the East River about a half a mile from here.
So the question we're posing, for want of something better to do, is whether or not it's time for Kofi Annan to step down as the head of the U.N.
Peter in Houston writes: "Sixty-four billion dollars and you're surprised at the scandal. Wars have been fought for less."
Sixty-four billion is the amount of oil, Iraqi oil that was supposedly pumped out of that country and was to have been exchanged for humanitarian needs.
"Wars have been fought for less. Corruption, Christ had one for 30 silver coins. Shocked? Only if you're the police chief of Casablanca circa 1942."
Debra writes from Wake Forest, North Carolina: "That depends. Does the U.N. use the delay rule, as in Tom DeLay? In that case, the U.N. needs to wait for a felony indictment and then decide whether Kofi Annan should step aside."
I love this. Kerry in Toledo, Ohio: "You and your ilk (TV personalities, not journalists -- you folks are nowhere near journalism)..."
M. O'BRIEN: Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
CAFFERTY: ... "have a lot of raw nerve faking outrage over this abuse of power while Enron, Halliburton and the rest get away with all they have done. Where is your fake outrage for their dirty deeds?"
And Paul in Hellertown, Pennsylvania, in a nod to my good friend Miles, "Dear Jack, who of us would ever hold a job for more than two weeks if we were forced to resign every time one of our kids committed an indiscretion? Besides, at least Mr. Annan remembers to wear his own tie every day." M. O'BRIEN: Let the record show I didn't bring it up. That's all I want to say.
CAFFERTY: Mercifully.
M. O'BRIEN: All right.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Good.
M. O'BRIEN: Into the second week, the election crisis in Ukraine continues. "The Tonight Show's" Jay Leno offered his take on the presidential voting controversy there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO," COURTESY NBC)
JAY LENO, HOST: Over in the Ukraine, you know, they're having terrible problems with the elections over there. And Ukrainian officials now have declared a winner in their presidential elections. But now the European Union says no, the results are illegitimate. See, the giveaway was when the new president, Viktor Yanukovych, thanked his brother Jeb Yanukovych.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
S. O'BRIEN: It's hard to make that funny.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes, he did it.
S. O'BRIEN: It's kind of (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
M. O'BRIEN: I don't know how you translate chads, but that's for another joke, I guess.
All right.
S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, the next phase of the Scott Peterson trial, the sentencing. Why observers expect an emotional confrontation.
Plus, on the clock and on cocaine. Shocking allegations are leveled at 911 workers in one town.
That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired November 30, 2004 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Trying to find common ground on a common continent. President Bush heads to Canada for a key diplomatic mission.
Investigating the plane crash involving Dick Ebersol and his family. Was the decision not to de-ice a critical mistake?
And harnessing botulism to make Botox -- has that dangerous germ slipped out of a harness, on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.
S. O'BRIEN: Good morning.
Welcome, everybody.
Bill Hemmer has the day off today.
Miles O'Brien filling in for him, in fact, all week.
Nice to have you.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
Bill Hemmer is off, but his tie is here. We'll see that in just a moment.
Good morning.
Some of the other stories we're following, members of the 9/11 Commission are going on the offensive to get intelligence reforms unstuck in Congress. We'll look at the strategy and who will be feeling the heat this morning.
S. O'BRIEN: Also, for a while this year, it seemed like hurricane season would never end. Today is the last day in what's been a truly remarkable year. We're going to talk with the director of FEMA about how Florida is coming along in its recovery and whether changes need to be made for the next storm season.
M. O'BRIEN: Jack is here.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Does NASA have like a space shot coming up any time soon when you might have to be like down in Florida at the Cape going...
S. O'BRIEN: All right, boys.
CAFFERTY: ... four, three, two...
S. O'BRIEN: All right, boys.
CAFFERTY: ... there it goes? I mean, I, you know...
S. O'BRIEN: Didn't I do this yesterday?
CAFFERTY: See...
S. O'BRIEN: All right, boys.
M. O'BRIEN: All right.
S. O'BRIEN: Back up.
Hi, Jack -- good morning.
M. O'BRIEN: Hi -- Jack.
CAFFERTY: Coming in the "Cafferty File" -- I should have gone to medical school. Golf with attitude -- they've got a tournament underway at the Kabul Golf Club in Afghanistan; stupid celebrity baby names, names that come from stupid celebrities, I suppose; and an Optimus Club in Pennsylvania that's fresh out of optimism.
S. O'BRIEN: Oh, that's sad.
CAFFERTY: All straight ahead.
I'm going to go check the shuttle schedules and see if we can...
M. O'BRIEN: Any month now.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Jack.
Appreciate it.
Headlines now.
Heidi Collins at our news desk -- good morning.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: It is kind of a day of that's exactly what I said yesterday about sitting over here and not being over there and etc.
Anyway, we want to get straight to the news now this morning.
President Bush is heading to Canada for a two day visit just about an hour from now. The president will try to resolve trade disputes and security issues with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. It's the first time a U.S. president has visited Canada in the last decade.
The soldier at the center of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal is awaiting his first hearing back in the United States. Specialist Charles Graner was flown this past Sunday from Iraq to Fort Hood, Texas. He's expected to face a pretrial hearing there within days. His court martial is tentatively set for January 7th. Graner is said to have fathered a child with another soldier implicated in the scandal. That's PFC Lynndie England.
And there is word this morning the president of the NAACP is stepping down. According to "Baltimore Sun," Kweisi Mfume will announce his resignation today. Mfume gave up his seat in the U.S. House to take over the NAACP back in 1996.
And Title IX, the landmark law barring discrimination in schools, goes before the Supreme Court. The case involves an Alabama high school coach who says he lost his job after repeatedly complaining his girls' basketball team wasn't being treated equally. At issue? Whether Title IX protects whistleblowers who complain about apparent gender bias.
And that's the news for now -- back to you two.
S. O'BRIEN: Heidi, thanks.
Well, the clock is ticking on the 9/11 intelligence reform bill. Several powerful voices will be heard today urging President Bush and Congress to get something done before the current session ends.
Ed Henry is on Capitol Hill for us this morning -- Ed, good morning.
ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
CNN has learned that the 9/11 Commission co-chairs, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, will put some pressure on this afternoon, that they will meet this after with Vice President Cheney. They wanted to meet with President Bush, but as you know, he will be in Canada. The 9/11 Commission co-chairs are really launching a last minute lobbying blitz here. They want to get the White House on board. They want to make sure leaders on Capitol Hill are on board.
They know that time is running out. Congress has to pass this bill next week. Otherwise, it will die and they will have to come back in January and start all over.
This morning, Lee Hamilton warned that if Congress does not get the job done, there will be dire consequences.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEE HAMILTON (D), FORMER VICE-CHAIRMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION: You go back to the drawing board, you start all over again in the next Congress, the 109th Congress, it'll be months, six months, eight months, a year, before a new bill can come forward. All of the time, the terrorists will be planning another attack and we will be less secure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now, this is a remarkable situation, where the president says he's on board. Republican and Democrat leaders on Capitol Hill say they support this legislation, as well. But two powerful Republicans thus far have stopped it, Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner says this bill must include some tough immigration provisions. Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter has said that he's concerned that a new national director, a director of national intelligence could add new bureaucracy that blocks critical intelligence from getting to military troops in the field.
But White House Spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday that the president believes that this is good legislation, he wants to get it passed and, in fact, that the president, later this week, will be sending a letter to congressional leaders saying get the job done.
Here's Scott McClellan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: The president would never sign legislation that would harm our troops or hurt our troops in any way. And the president believes that this is an important legislation that will further strengthen our intelligence operations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now, this issue has also split the 9/11 families. There will be one press conference this morning at 10:00 a.m. with a group of 9/11 families that say this legislation is good enough in its current form, it should be passed immediately. There will be another press conference, though, at 11:00 a.m. where a second group of 9/11 families will say that Mr. Sensenbrenner's immigration provisions are critical and that the legislation should not pass without them -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Ed Henry for us on Capitol Hill.
Thanks, Ed.
Appreciate it -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: A body believed to be that of 14-year-old-son of NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol found amid the wreckage of a plane that crashed Sunday with Ebersol and two of his sons on board.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK YOUNG, MONTROSE COUNTY CORONER: We're 99.9 percent sure it's Teddy Ebersol. It matches his physical description and he, of course, is the missing person. We're working on getting dental records flown in overnight so we can make a positive identification tomorrow morning.
He was ejected and then the aircraft landed on top of him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
M. O'BRIEN: The pilot and flight attendant also killed.
NTSB Chair Ellen Engleman Conners joins me from Washington now, where the plane's cockpit voice recorder is being analyzed.
Ms. Engleman Conners, good to have you with us.
ELLEN ENGLEMAN CONNERS, NTSB CHAIRWOMAN: Good morning.
M. O'BRIEN: What can you tell us about what you've discovered on the cockpit voice recorder so far?
ENGLEMAN: Well, actually, it will be in transit this morning. We should receive the CVR or cockpit voice recorder this afternoon. It has been recovered from the wreckage. There was extensive fire damage following the accident, so we're very hopeful that we'll be able to recover data, but we won't know until it's in the laboratory.
M. O'BRIEN: And no flight data recorders on this particular aircraft, correct?
ENGLEMAN: That is correct.
M. O'BRIEN: All right.
I want to take viewers back for just a moment to a crash that occurred in January 2002. It didn't get a lot of attention here in the United States. It happened in Manchester, England, involving the same model of aircraft on takeoff in a situation where icing was present. The pilots in that case, Georgia-based Corporate Aircraft, elected not to have the aircraft de-iced before taking off, almost an identical scenario.
Are there parallels, don't you think, in this case in Colorado?
ENGLEMAN: It's very unusual to have an identical scenario, but this one comes very close. We received the report from our British counterparts several months ago and are studying it. One of the key factors is the fact that these are hard wing aircraft, meaning they're very susceptible to buildup of debris, frost or ice. And, of course, FAA regulations and pilots' handbook indicate that you must have a clear wing when you're taking off in these conditions. So that will be a focus of our investigation.
M. O'BRIEN: And let's help people understand, really, no amount of ice is acceptable for takeoff. A slight, slight amount of ice can reduce the air foil properties of a wing and undermine performance such that it can't fly?
ENGLEMAN: That's exactly correct. However, our investigation will be very thorough. We're going to review whether there was a fuel imbalance, engine failure, structural failure, whether there was a problem with the air speed indicator or some other aspects of the flight itself, as well as human factors.
So while frost or ice may be a factor, we're going to look at every possibility to determine the probable cause.
M. O'BRIEN: Crashes like this, for whatever reason, tend to happen in spurts. We've seen a series of charter crashes in the past, in recent months. And the common denominator which seems to come back in each case is a crew training or pilot error issue.
Are there some issues that the NTSB is going to look into that it might be recommending to the FAA to train the way these crews of these air charter aircraft are trained?
ENGLEMAN: Maintenance and training have always been key facets of our investigations and are a critical part of a safety profile. We've made many recommendations involving maintenance and training, and this will be part of our investigation.
If we find that an emergency safety recommendation needs to be made, we will issue it. We'll continue to focus on all aspects of the pilot's record, the operator, the actual maintenance of this plane and the conditions of the flight.
M. O'BRIEN: The co-pilot survived and as I understand it is not in a position to communicate with investigators. But others can attest to the fact that this particular aircraft was not de-iced.
Just help people understand whose decision that is prior to takeoff on whether a plane is de-iced.
ENGLEMAN: Well, the pilot is responsible for his aircraft and so one of the aspects we're going to look at is whether the cockpit voice recorder gives us any information. But also we'll look at the past performance, the aspect of the structural integrity of the aircraft, the engines.
Once again, this is where NTSB isn't quite "CSI." We don't get it done in 28 minutes. It's a little more Sherlock Holmes. We'll determine a thorough investigation and it'll take us about a year.
M. O'BRIEN: And almost always they come up with a conclusion.
Ellen Engleman Conners, thanks for joining us.
We appreciate your time.
ENGLEMAN: Thank you.
M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, work time apparently turns to party time for those 911 workers in one town. We'll tell you what the camera captured and show you, as well, when the workers thought nobody was looking.
M. O'BRIEN: Also, sentencing underway today in the Scott Peterson trial. What will be the role of Laci's family?
S. O'BRIEN: And the most expensive hurricane season ever is officially over. But the recovery is not. We're going to find out from the head of FEMA what lessons were learned.
Stay with us.
You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: There is good news this morning for Floridians. The 2004 hurricane season is history. In just a moment, we're going to talk with FEMA Director Mike Brown about the damage that was done.
But first, here's CNN's John Zarrella on the storm season like no other.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The skies have cleared, for now. A hurricane season that all others in the future will be measured by is finally and mercifully over.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I'll tell you, don't mess with Mother Nature, that's for sure. By golly.
ZARRELLA: Between August 13 and September 25, four hurricanes slammed Florida and doled out their misery across a wide swathe of the eastern United States. But it was the people of Florida who took it on the chin.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire rescue.
ZARRELLA: Communities from the Panhandle to south Florida were left in ruins.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a red hat lady. I belong to the red hats, so I found my red hat.
ZARRELLA: Many people, like Mary Sue Davis, were hit more than once -- first Frances, then Jeanne.
MARY SUE DAVIS, STUART, FLORIDA HOMEOWNER: And when I walked out yesterday, the door, I thought I'd never come back and even see walls again.
ZARRELLA: Charlie, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne were a collective test of how much the people of Florida could endure. By the numbers, state officials say nine and a half million people were evacuated. The storms were directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of 117 Floridians. Storm victims received 78 1/2 million pounds of ice.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. You need any more, T.T.?
ZARRELLA: Fourteen million MREs and 9.8 million gallons of water. Eight and a half million utility customers lost power. While the numbers are still not complete, it's believed the four storms caused more than $40 billion in damage. For hurricane forecasters and researchers, this mean season is one to be analyzed and dissected and written about for decades. For the people who lived through it, it is a season they would rather just forget.
John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: Michael Brown is the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
He's with us from Washington, D.C. this morning.
Nice to see you, sir.
Thanks for being with us.
As we saw in John's package...
MICHAEL BROWN, FEMA DIRECTOR: My pleasure.
S. O'BRIEN: Thank you.
The most costly season.
How is the recovery going?
BROWN: It's going incredibly well. Watching that segment, the introduction to your segment, it brings back a lot of memories of the absolute devastation, the heat, humidity, how people were suffering down there. But we're really on the road to recovery right now. I think President Bush and the entire country will be very pleased with how we're really moving forward in Florida now to get people's lives put back together.
S. O'BRIEN: You know, we heard from John Zarrella by the numbers. Let's do our own numbers, as well -- 1.8 million people lost power after Hurricane Charlie; 3.4 after Hurricane Frances; 443,000 after Ivan; 2.8 million after Jeanne.
How many of those folks still don't have power at this time?
BROWN: As far as we know right now, everyone has power. But at one point, as your figures show, we had upwards of 10 million people without power. So power is being restored. Power is back up. The problem we have right now is just housing. We are finding more and more people, even as late as today, finding more people that need housing because they thought their homes were OK, but now the mold is coming in or the repairs aren't quite as good as they should have been and storms are now dumping water into those homes.
We're continuing to house people, even after Thanksgiving.
S. O'BRIEN: Is that -- are those issues that you raised, those are the main reasons for the delays, as opposed to just the sheer volume of complaints? People still phoning in essentially what they think is wrong?
BROWN: Well, in fact, we're going to allow people to continue to phone in and to register for until probably at least mid-December. We're finding people who, when they saw what was going on, they just packed up and they moved to Indiana or they went home to grandparents or someone. And they're just now coming back into the state.
Also, in some of the rural counties, we're finding people who are just now kind of getting their lives back together and they're just now getting registered.
So we're going to continue to take care of those people as long as it takes.
President Bush's commitment was that FEMA will be there as long as we need to be, and whether that's six more months or six more years, we're going to stay down there and help folks.
S. O'BRIEN: What's the price tag? We've heard $40 billion as one estimate.
Do you think that's about right?
BROWN: I mean, it very easily could be that. I mean I -- for FEMA alone, we've already spent $4 billion just up to date taking care of local governments, some of the state government expenses, about $2 billion taking care of individuals. Those numbers will continue to grow. We still have bridges to build. We still have highways to repair. We still have schools to rebuild. So I think that number of $40 billion will be pretty much on the mark.
S. O'BRIEN: After Hurricane Frances, some $28 million went to the folks in Miami-Dade County, which was barely touched at all. It actually has some law makers calling for an investigation into FEMA and why that money was approved and sent on.
What's the status of that?
BROWN: Well, I'd certainly welcome that investigation, because FEMA absolutely treats individual, each case individually. So anyone who received money in Miami-Dade County deserved that money and received that money rightfully under the law. If someone suffered damage because of water damage or power outages, they're entitled to apply for the aid that FEMA provides. We send an inspector out to that home. We verify that there was damage and then we pay them what they're qualified to receive under our programs.
S. O'BRIEN: Michael Brown is the director of FEMA.
Nice to have you, sir.
Thanks for coming on our program.
BROWN: Thank you, Soledad. S. O'BRIEN: You can log onto cnn.com/hurricanes for a comprehensive look at the 2004 hurricane season. You can also sign up for e-mail alerts of all types of dangerous weather -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Still ahead, for the second time in as many years, President Bush shakes up his economic team. A big step forward or acknowledgement of failure? The question is on the docket this morning. "Political Jab," coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: Jack's back with more e-mail.
CAFFERTY: The Oil For Food Program, Miles. The scandal continues to grow. Investigations into allegations of kickbacks to France and Russia and even to Saddam Hussein himself. And now comes word that the secretary general's kid, Kofi Annan's son, a guy named Kojo, was taking payments from a Swiss company that held a lucrative Oil For Food contract. All of this adding to the growing aroma coming from over there on the East River about a half a mile from here.
So the question we're posing, for want of something better to do, is whether or not it's time for Kofi Annan to step down as the head of the U.N.
Peter in Houston writes: "Sixty-four billion dollars and you're surprised at the scandal. Wars have been fought for less."
Sixty-four billion is the amount of oil, Iraqi oil that was supposedly pumped out of that country and was to have been exchanged for humanitarian needs.
"Wars have been fought for less. Corruption, Christ had one for 30 silver coins. Shocked? Only if you're the police chief of Casablanca circa 1942."
Debra writes from Wake Forest, North Carolina: "That depends. Does the U.N. use the delay rule, as in Tom DeLay? In that case, the U.N. needs to wait for a felony indictment and then decide whether Kofi Annan should step aside."
I love this. Kerry in Toledo, Ohio: "You and your ilk (TV personalities, not journalists -- you folks are nowhere near journalism)..."
M. O'BRIEN: Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
CAFFERTY: ... "have a lot of raw nerve faking outrage over this abuse of power while Enron, Halliburton and the rest get away with all they have done. Where is your fake outrage for their dirty deeds?"
And Paul in Hellertown, Pennsylvania, in a nod to my good friend Miles, "Dear Jack, who of us would ever hold a job for more than two weeks if we were forced to resign every time one of our kids committed an indiscretion? Besides, at least Mr. Annan remembers to wear his own tie every day." M. O'BRIEN: Let the record show I didn't bring it up. That's all I want to say.
CAFFERTY: Mercifully.
M. O'BRIEN: All right.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Good.
M. O'BRIEN: Into the second week, the election crisis in Ukraine continues. "The Tonight Show's" Jay Leno offered his take on the presidential voting controversy there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO," COURTESY NBC)
JAY LENO, HOST: Over in the Ukraine, you know, they're having terrible problems with the elections over there. And Ukrainian officials now have declared a winner in their presidential elections. But now the European Union says no, the results are illegitimate. See, the giveaway was when the new president, Viktor Yanukovych, thanked his brother Jeb Yanukovych.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
S. O'BRIEN: It's hard to make that funny.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes, he did it.
S. O'BRIEN: It's kind of (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
M. O'BRIEN: I don't know how you translate chads, but that's for another joke, I guess.
All right.
S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, the next phase of the Scott Peterson trial, the sentencing. Why observers expect an emotional confrontation.
Plus, on the clock and on cocaine. Shocking allegations are leveled at 911 workers in one town.
That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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