Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Trying to Find the Truth in Iraq; 9/11 Suspect Zacarias Moussouai Due in Court Today

Aired April 22, 2005 - 07:00   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 the truth in Iraq this morning. Eleven dead when their helicopter is shot down. Did insurgents murder the lone survivor?
Destruction along tornado alley. A powerful twister knocking down homes. This morning, what the storm chasers saw and heard.

And the believers in Chicago making a holy pilgrimage to a highway underpass.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just came here in hope that God and the Virgin Mary will cure me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Virgin Mary or salt stain? For some, the answer is crystal clear, on this AMERICAN MORNING.

ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Friday. Good morning to you.

O'BRIEN: Likewise. Thank you.

HEMMER: Welcome back. It's been a week since we've been together.

O'BRIEN: I know.

HEMMER: Here we go. Hello, everybody.

A big day today in the 9/11 investigations. Zacarias Moussouai expected to plead guilty today to conspiracy in the attacks of 9/11. He's also being called a 24-hour time bomb, too. We'll find out in a moment as to why.

O'BRIEN: Also this morning, Mark Lunsford, he's in Washington, D.C., crusading to change laws for tracking sexual predators. He is our guest this morning.

HEMMER: Also coming up a bit later this half hour, an amazing picture today in one of the New York papers here. Talk about a guy in a jam. Wait until you see this coming up.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: I know what photograph you're talking about.

HEMMER: Unbelievable.

CAFFERTY: The government is out with a new food pyramid. The country gets fatter, the government comes out with more charts and graphs about what we ought to be eating. This is a little different, though. It's kind of semi-interactive. You enter information about yourself, and then this thing will spit back what your diet ought to consist of. I actually did that, along with my 25-year-old female producer. And we will share the results. They are just riveting stuff, how many beans you ought to have and legumes and stuff. But we'll take a look at this thing.

HEMMER: Sounds good. Thank you, Jack.

I want to start this morning with these disturbing images from a helicopter crash in Iraq on Thursday. Six Americans, three Bulgarian crew members and two security guards are dead, and then the tape appears to show a gruesome scene next.

Here's Aaron Brown this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It happened north of Baghdad. Insurgents taped the aftermath. At least 10 people died, including six American contractors, men who act as bodyguards for diplomats and others. The camera takes us on a grisly tour of the wreckage, of the carnage. The circumstances, though, of what comes next are in question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stand up. Stand up.

BROWN: Unmistakably, an injured man is first interrogated, then helped to his feet.

"Weapons, weapons," they ask. He's unarmed. Then, after the camera zooms in to get a better view, he's ordered to run.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go, go.

BROWN: "Go, go," they say, then they open fire, something they wanted to show, but we don't, and won't. So we stopped the video here.

Still unclear whether the victim being executed was, in fact, a victim of the crash, or was this video of another execution, another atrocity of the war, edited together for additional propaganda.

Aaron Brown, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE) HEMMER: Already this morning, too, a U.S. soldier killed by a roadside bomb in northern Iraq and a suicide car bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque in Baghdad. The latest incidents all part of a rise in the violence in Iraq over the past week.

I want to talk more about that with retired Army general CNN military analyst David Grange with me this morning.

General, welcome back here. I know we can only observe that story and that videotape from half a world away. There's an information warfare on in Iraq, has been for some time. What are you to make of the story we just watched here?

GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Bill, we don't know if it was an actual survivor from the wreck. It would be used as propaganda regardless. That's the way they operate. They would shoot someone like that on the scene or they would stage it. But it looks like it was a -- someone that was non-local and it could very well have been someone that was caught, that survived, and was executed, actually murdered in this case, on scene.

HEMMER: In a broader sense, is the calm after the elections now over?

GRANGE: Well, what you're seeing is it's hard for the insurgents to work right now. They don't move at will anymore. You have a rise in just recently in incidents, finding people in the river, in the stadium, the aircraft being shot down. I don't think that they're a coordinated effort. I just think that they happen to all have occurred in close proximity of time. And they're taking advantage of that with the media.

But you're going to see spikes for some time to come. It doesn't mean that they have a massive offensive; it just means it's a spike in activity where's they can operate.

HEMMER: So you don't think things are getting worse, then, base the on that answer, right?

GRANGE: No, I really don't. I think right now, you have a lot of Iraqi citizens turning in insurgents and terrorists, and it's harder for them to move and hit at will. But where they can hit, they will continue to hit.

You know, if you recall the captured letter from Zarqawi, that went to bin Laden not too long ago. He said that, look, the Americans aren't going to leave. This election, if it happens, we're in a bind. The only thing we can do now is force a split between Shia and Sunni, and so a lot of these Iraqi attacks are on Shia in order to try to make this split, and that's their strategy right now, and where they can get away with it they'll do it.

HEMMER: Thank you, general. David Grange, again, from Oak Brook in Illinois -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: 9/11 suspect Zacarias Moussouai is due in court today. He is expected to plead guilty to conspiracy. But this case and questions about Moussaoui himself are not likely to be over at the end of the day.

Bob Franken is live for us at federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.

Hey, Bob, good morning.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

And given his track record of insults, outrageous behavior in court and inconsistencies, we have to add the word about his plans, maybe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN (voice-over): In the federal courthouse, just nine miles from where a hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon on September 11th, Zacarias Moussouai will plead guilty this afternoon to six charges going out of the attacks, if he keeps his word. He's changed his mind before.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The problem is, in representing Mr. Moussaoui, it's like -- it's essentially a 24-hour time bomb. You don't know when it's going to explode.

FRANKEN: Moussaoui used to be called the 20th hijacker, although never by prosecutors. He was already under arrest on that September 11th, after erratic behavior at a Minnesota flight training school. But officials in Washington refused to allow a search of his laptop computer, in spite of various warnings he had ties to Al Qaeda, and despite the fact he had paid for the instruction with close to $7,000 in cash.

Different theories of his involvement include the possibility he was a potential replacement hijack pilot on 9/11, or that he was preparing to take part in a second wave of attacks.

His defense lawyers continue to object to the finding by Judge Leoni Brincomo (ph), who he's frequently ridiculed, that Moussaoui is now mentally competent to plead guilty to charges that carry the death penalty. Execution could be up to a jury.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a very unusual death penalty, in that Zacarias Moussouai didn't kill anyone. Zacarias Moussaoui was in jail, in fact, when September 11th happened.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: Nevertheless, prosecutors say they want a jury to consider the death penalty here, given the strong feelings about the horror of September 11th -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Bob, what exactly are the options for the court and the lawyers in the death penalty there? FRANKEN: Well, the judge could decide that there's reason for her to decide, she could decide life in prison, or she could decide that she could not decide the death penalty. That has to be done by the jury. The jurors could decide on life in prison. Interestingly, even though they call this "the rocket docket," and it's a conservative area, there has not been a long track record in federal court of juries finding for the death penalty here. So this is really an open question.

O'BRIEN: Bob Franken for us this morning in Virginia. Bob, thanks.

In Spain a trial getting underway in about two hours ago of three Al Qaeda suspects. They are charged with helping to plan the 9/11 terror attacks. Among the suspects, Syrian-born Iman Yarkas (ph). He was said to be the Al Qaeda leader in Spain. Prosecutors say the three set up a meeting of key players in the 9/11 attack, including Mohamad Atta. Atta piloted one of the planes into the World Trade Center. The trial is expected to last just about two months.

HEMMER: From Washington, America's first ever intelligence czar starting his first full day on the job today. John Negroponte sworn in by the president on Thursday, just minutes after the Senate confirmed his appointment to lead the nation's intelligence community. The vote on the former ambassador to Iraq and to the U.N., 98-2. In his new job, Negroponte will coordinate the work of all 15 U.S. spy agencies.

A big job there. Wow.

O'BRIEN: Yes, kind of a big job.

Several homes in the rural southeast of Kansas were damaged or destroyed when a tornado swept through the area last night. A storm chaser captured this pretty amazing video of the twister. There are no reported injuries. The storm also produced hail, heavy rain, and it forced evacuations at the Kansas City Airport. We're going to talk later this morning to the man who caught this tornado on tape. That's in our final hour of AMERICAN MORNING.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HEMMER: In a moment here, accusations of political deception in Texas. How does one candidate show up in two different places, at the same time? They are twin brothers, and now they're at the center of a building controversy. We'll talk about it.

O'BRIEN: Also, more on the reported vision of the Virgin Mary on a highway underpass. Hundreds of faithful flock there, looking for hope in a time of need.

HEMMER: Also, from grieving father to a powerful voice in Washington. Mark Lunsford telling us today about his fight to keep kids safe from sexual predators. All that's next after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: ... and beautiful nine-year-old girl to being an activist for victims in Washington D.C.

How are you holding up?

MARK LUNSFORD, JESSICA LUNSFORD'S FATHER: I think I'm holding up pretty good, you know, and it's only because of the support that I got from my community, and from anybody -- from everybody all around, from all states. I received a lot of support from everyone.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the Jessica Lunsford Act. As we mentioned, the state version is pretty close to becoming law in Florida. There's also a federal version as well. How would those acts make children safer?

LUNSFORD: Well, I mean, it turns a class-3 felony for not registering in the state of Florida, and turns into it a class-2 felony. People that have sex offenders in their home that are not registered and they know about it, it makes them subject to jail time.

It just does a lot of good. And yesterday, it received 40 votes. No one voted against it. So I'm real proud of my senator, Argenziano (ph), and my sheriff, Sheriff Dossey (ph), for that.

O'BRIEN: As I know you are very aware, there are some terrible details emerging about Jessica's final hours. Do you think that, in fact, Jessica would be alive if these acts had been in place?

LUNSFORD: I believe so. Because, I mean, you know, they didn't register, probation officers didn't know that he was a sex offender. There was so much difference between the two, and it just would have made a big difference.

O'BRIEN: You're talking about the suspect, John Couey. Do you think with how busy you've been traveling and helping out victims as well -- I know you were helping the family of Sarah Lunde, the little girl also in Florida who was murdered right. Now a convicted sex offender is charged in her killing as well. Does keeping busy like that sort of help you keep your mind off of your own loss?

LUNSFORD: Well, yes, it does. And I guess the only time I have to deal with my loss is at nighttime. That's when I don't have anything to do but lay there and think about it. But actually, with the Lunde family, we're actually helping each other. It's not just me helping them.

O'BRIEN: Do you think that in fact the federal version of the act you're proposing is going to pass, and with flying colors, as you pointed out, as it's done in Florida?

LUNSFORD: I'd like to think it would, but you know how it works here. I mean, there's probably 1,000 bills introduced to Congress and maybe 300 of them, you know, are passed. But I've met with the chairman and I think he'll give them the hearing that they need. O'BRIEN: One of the Congresspeople in Florida said it will be nice when the day comes when we're not naming bills after murdered children. I got to imagine, obviously, you agree with her.

LUNSFORD: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Mark Lunsford, thanks for talking with us this morning. We certainly appreciate it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: And the best of luck to him. Soledad, thanks .

And the best of luck to him.

Soledad, thanks.

In a moment here, everyone worried about your 401(k), take heart today. Andy tells us about a stunning turnaround on Wall Street. That's next after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: Just when we said it was getting really bad, it got a whole lot better, and fast, too. A stunning rebound on Wall Street. Andy's here letting us know whether or not we can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: I think really it's trying to catch your breath is what's going on on Wall Street. After days of deep losses, a stunning turnabout yesterday on Wall Street. Stocks surged. The Dow up over 200 points, Nasdaq up 2.5 percent. Green lights across the board here for the Dow. The best showing since April of 2003. And of course we still have a ways to go to get back to early March, when we were close to 11,000.

I think the big story yesterday On wall Street was simply money managers, investors snapping up bargains after stocks had declined so much. We are in earnings season, companies reporting profits, and those profits have been pretty good.

One really amazing story that continues to amaze, I should say, is Google. Yesterday, that stock was up $6 to $204. You remember, it was at $95.

O'BRIEN: Why didn't we buy a lot of that again?

SERWER: I think jack might have some of this, $95 in August of last year.

HEMMER: Go go Google.

SERWER: And here's the amazing part. It's up $18 this morning in the pre-market. And one investment house saying that the stock, the new target on the stock is $283. Remember, they used to do that back in the day. O'BRIEN: Why didn't we buy a lot of that?

SERWER: And yes, there's no real valuation there. We just think it's a great company, and the stock's going up kind of...

O'BRIEN: How often do you go to Google when you're working every day?

SERWER: I go to Google all the time.

HEMMER: All the time.

SERWER: They're ad revenues are growing like crazy. That's what's driving that company.

HEMMER: Got it. Thank you, Andy.

SERWER: You're welcome.

O'BRIEN: The old beloved food pyramid gone. Nobody actually understood it anyway. It's the Question of the Day.

Good morning.

CAFFERTY: Good morning.

The government released another vague, color-coded warning system this week. This one is aimed at our waistlines. It's called mypyramid. The highly anticipated replacement for the food pyramid is in the end another pyramid. This time, it has vertical triangles instead of horizontal boxes. Six bands represent the different food groups. The government wants us to go to the Web site, mypyramid.gov, where you can get detailed nutritional advice. You plug in your age, sex and amount of daily physical activity and you get your own custom diet plan.

So my producer, Jen Madrov (ph), and I did this. She's obviously female, she's 25, and she exercises more than 60 minutes a day. I'm male, 62, exercise between 30 and 60 minutes a day, probably closer to 30. We got back exactly the same diet recommendations.

SERWER: Whole grains.

CAFFERTY: Which doesn't bode well for you, Jen. You continue eating the same diet as I do, and this is what you'll look like at 62.

Anyway, the question is, how will the government's new food pyramid change the way you eat? Am@CNN.com.

HEMMER: Do we understand that pyramid, by the way?

SERWER: I hope they spent a lot of money coming up with that.

CAFFERTY: Two-and-a-half million bucks.

HEMMER: That'll do it. O'BRIEN: It makes no sense.

SERWER: I like the person climbing it? What does that mean?

O'BRIEN: Is that supposed to be symbolic of getting exercise?

SERWER: Who knows?

HEMMER: I think more people pay attention to Atkins than the food pyramid.

Did you see this photo? "New York Post" today, this is one of these messenger guys that ride up and down the streets of Manhattan every day. Around 40th Street and Madison yesterday, he got sandwiched in between a bus and a truck. He had eight inches to spare, this guy, jammed there for 20 minutes. They had to deflate the tires in the truck, then they had to bring in these giant balloons and separate the two vehicles. Here's some videotape from the scene. Look at the bike.

SERWER: That's a mangled bike, mangled.

HEMMER: He's alive, by the way. They got him out.

SERWER: Is he OK?

HEMMER: Well, they sent him to the hospital.

(CROSSTALK)

HEMMER: Yes, I'll tell you what, that's extraordinary.

O'BRIEN: No broken bones.

SERWER: So they just were able to stop? They found out he was there and then they stopped.

O'BRIEN: Which is amazing, that they stopped, because...

HEMMER: The post put a tape measure on the picture here that's eight inches across, exactly eight inches across.

O'BRIEN: That means he was a wiry guy.

SERWER: Yes, I was going to say, he doesn't need the new food pyramid, right? He's already nice and slim.

HEMMER: That's cute. So he's doing OK.

O'BRIEN: Wow, great picture today.

Well, there's much more ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

Ahead on "90-Second Pop," so are they or aren't they? Rumor has it Ben and Jen, version 2.0, have a big announcement to share.

Plus, Paula Abdul tells the world why she's been acting so strangely lately. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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 April 22, 2005 - 07:00   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 the truth in Iraq this morning. Eleven dead when their helicopter is shot down. Did insurgents murder the lone survivor?
Destruction along tornado alley. A powerful twister knocking down homes. This morning, what the storm chasers saw and heard.

And the believers in Chicago making a holy pilgrimage to a highway underpass.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just came here in hope that God and the Virgin Mary will cure me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Virgin Mary or salt stain? For some, the answer is crystal clear, on this AMERICAN MORNING.

ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Friday. Good morning to you.

O'BRIEN: Likewise. Thank you.

HEMMER: Welcome back. It's been a week since we've been together.

O'BRIEN: I know.

HEMMER: Here we go. Hello, everybody.

A big day today in the 9/11 investigations. Zacarias Moussouai expected to plead guilty today to conspiracy in the attacks of 9/11. He's also being called a 24-hour time bomb, too. We'll find out in a moment as to why.

O'BRIEN: Also this morning, Mark Lunsford, he's in Washington, D.C., crusading to change laws for tracking sexual predators. He is our guest this morning.

HEMMER: Also coming up a bit later this half hour, an amazing picture today in one of the New York papers here. Talk about a guy in a jam. Wait until you see this coming up.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: I know what photograph you're talking about.

HEMMER: Unbelievable.

CAFFERTY: The government is out with a new food pyramid. The country gets fatter, the government comes out with more charts and graphs about what we ought to be eating. This is a little different, though. It's kind of semi-interactive. You enter information about yourself, and then this thing will spit back what your diet ought to consist of. I actually did that, along with my 25-year-old female producer. And we will share the results. They are just riveting stuff, how many beans you ought to have and legumes and stuff. But we'll take a look at this thing.

HEMMER: Sounds good. Thank you, Jack.

I want to start this morning with these disturbing images from a helicopter crash in Iraq on Thursday. Six Americans, three Bulgarian crew members and two security guards are dead, and then the tape appears to show a gruesome scene next.

Here's Aaron Brown this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It happened north of Baghdad. Insurgents taped the aftermath. At least 10 people died, including six American contractors, men who act as bodyguards for diplomats and others. The camera takes us on a grisly tour of the wreckage, of the carnage. The circumstances, though, of what comes next are in question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stand up. Stand up.

BROWN: Unmistakably, an injured man is first interrogated, then helped to his feet.

"Weapons, weapons," they ask. He's unarmed. Then, after the camera zooms in to get a better view, he's ordered to run.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go, go.

BROWN: "Go, go," they say, then they open fire, something they wanted to show, but we don't, and won't. So we stopped the video here.

Still unclear whether the victim being executed was, in fact, a victim of the crash, or was this video of another execution, another atrocity of the war, edited together for additional propaganda.

Aaron Brown, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE) HEMMER: Already this morning, too, a U.S. soldier killed by a roadside bomb in northern Iraq and a suicide car bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque in Baghdad. The latest incidents all part of a rise in the violence in Iraq over the past week.

I want to talk more about that with retired Army general CNN military analyst David Grange with me this morning.

General, welcome back here. I know we can only observe that story and that videotape from half a world away. There's an information warfare on in Iraq, has been for some time. What are you to make of the story we just watched here?

GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Bill, we don't know if it was an actual survivor from the wreck. It would be used as propaganda regardless. That's the way they operate. They would shoot someone like that on the scene or they would stage it. But it looks like it was a -- someone that was non-local and it could very well have been someone that was caught, that survived, and was executed, actually murdered in this case, on scene.

HEMMER: In a broader sense, is the calm after the elections now over?

GRANGE: Well, what you're seeing is it's hard for the insurgents to work right now. They don't move at will anymore. You have a rise in just recently in incidents, finding people in the river, in the stadium, the aircraft being shot down. I don't think that they're a coordinated effort. I just think that they happen to all have occurred in close proximity of time. And they're taking advantage of that with the media.

But you're going to see spikes for some time to come. It doesn't mean that they have a massive offensive; it just means it's a spike in activity where's they can operate.

HEMMER: So you don't think things are getting worse, then, base the on that answer, right?

GRANGE: No, I really don't. I think right now, you have a lot of Iraqi citizens turning in insurgents and terrorists, and it's harder for them to move and hit at will. But where they can hit, they will continue to hit.

You know, if you recall the captured letter from Zarqawi, that went to bin Laden not too long ago. He said that, look, the Americans aren't going to leave. This election, if it happens, we're in a bind. The only thing we can do now is force a split between Shia and Sunni, and so a lot of these Iraqi attacks are on Shia in order to try to make this split, and that's their strategy right now, and where they can get away with it they'll do it.

HEMMER: Thank you, general. David Grange, again, from Oak Brook in Illinois -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: 9/11 suspect Zacarias Moussouai is due in court today. He is expected to plead guilty to conspiracy. But this case and questions about Moussaoui himself are not likely to be over at the end of the day.

Bob Franken is live for us at federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.

Hey, Bob, good morning.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

And given his track record of insults, outrageous behavior in court and inconsistencies, we have to add the word about his plans, maybe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN (voice-over): In the federal courthouse, just nine miles from where a hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon on September 11th, Zacarias Moussouai will plead guilty this afternoon to six charges going out of the attacks, if he keeps his word. He's changed his mind before.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The problem is, in representing Mr. Moussaoui, it's like -- it's essentially a 24-hour time bomb. You don't know when it's going to explode.

FRANKEN: Moussaoui used to be called the 20th hijacker, although never by prosecutors. He was already under arrest on that September 11th, after erratic behavior at a Minnesota flight training school. But officials in Washington refused to allow a search of his laptop computer, in spite of various warnings he had ties to Al Qaeda, and despite the fact he had paid for the instruction with close to $7,000 in cash.

Different theories of his involvement include the possibility he was a potential replacement hijack pilot on 9/11, or that he was preparing to take part in a second wave of attacks.

His defense lawyers continue to object to the finding by Judge Leoni Brincomo (ph), who he's frequently ridiculed, that Moussaoui is now mentally competent to plead guilty to charges that carry the death penalty. Execution could be up to a jury.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a very unusual death penalty, in that Zacarias Moussouai didn't kill anyone. Zacarias Moussaoui was in jail, in fact, when September 11th happened.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: Nevertheless, prosecutors say they want a jury to consider the death penalty here, given the strong feelings about the horror of September 11th -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Bob, what exactly are the options for the court and the lawyers in the death penalty there? FRANKEN: Well, the judge could decide that there's reason for her to decide, she could decide life in prison, or she could decide that she could not decide the death penalty. That has to be done by the jury. The jurors could decide on life in prison. Interestingly, even though they call this "the rocket docket," and it's a conservative area, there has not been a long track record in federal court of juries finding for the death penalty here. So this is really an open question.

O'BRIEN: Bob Franken for us this morning in Virginia. Bob, thanks.

In Spain a trial getting underway in about two hours ago of three Al Qaeda suspects. They are charged with helping to plan the 9/11 terror attacks. Among the suspects, Syrian-born Iman Yarkas (ph). He was said to be the Al Qaeda leader in Spain. Prosecutors say the three set up a meeting of key players in the 9/11 attack, including Mohamad Atta. Atta piloted one of the planes into the World Trade Center. The trial is expected to last just about two months.

HEMMER: From Washington, America's first ever intelligence czar starting his first full day on the job today. John Negroponte sworn in by the president on Thursday, just minutes after the Senate confirmed his appointment to lead the nation's intelligence community. The vote on the former ambassador to Iraq and to the U.N., 98-2. In his new job, Negroponte will coordinate the work of all 15 U.S. spy agencies.

A big job there. Wow.

O'BRIEN: Yes, kind of a big job.

Several homes in the rural southeast of Kansas were damaged or destroyed when a tornado swept through the area last night. A storm chaser captured this pretty amazing video of the twister. There are no reported injuries. The storm also produced hail, heavy rain, and it forced evacuations at the Kansas City Airport. We're going to talk later this morning to the man who caught this tornado on tape. That's in our final hour of AMERICAN MORNING.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HEMMER: In a moment here, accusations of political deception in Texas. How does one candidate show up in two different places, at the same time? They are twin brothers, and now they're at the center of a building controversy. We'll talk about it.

O'BRIEN: Also, more on the reported vision of the Virgin Mary on a highway underpass. Hundreds of faithful flock there, looking for hope in a time of need.

HEMMER: Also, from grieving father to a powerful voice in Washington. Mark Lunsford telling us today about his fight to keep kids safe from sexual predators. All that's next after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: ... and beautiful nine-year-old girl to being an activist for victims in Washington D.C.

How are you holding up?

MARK LUNSFORD, JESSICA LUNSFORD'S FATHER: I think I'm holding up pretty good, you know, and it's only because of the support that I got from my community, and from anybody -- from everybody all around, from all states. I received a lot of support from everyone.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the Jessica Lunsford Act. As we mentioned, the state version is pretty close to becoming law in Florida. There's also a federal version as well. How would those acts make children safer?

LUNSFORD: Well, I mean, it turns a class-3 felony for not registering in the state of Florida, and turns into it a class-2 felony. People that have sex offenders in their home that are not registered and they know about it, it makes them subject to jail time.

It just does a lot of good. And yesterday, it received 40 votes. No one voted against it. So I'm real proud of my senator, Argenziano (ph), and my sheriff, Sheriff Dossey (ph), for that.

O'BRIEN: As I know you are very aware, there are some terrible details emerging about Jessica's final hours. Do you think that, in fact, Jessica would be alive if these acts had been in place?

LUNSFORD: I believe so. Because, I mean, you know, they didn't register, probation officers didn't know that he was a sex offender. There was so much difference between the two, and it just would have made a big difference.

O'BRIEN: You're talking about the suspect, John Couey. Do you think with how busy you've been traveling and helping out victims as well -- I know you were helping the family of Sarah Lunde, the little girl also in Florida who was murdered right. Now a convicted sex offender is charged in her killing as well. Does keeping busy like that sort of help you keep your mind off of your own loss?

LUNSFORD: Well, yes, it does. And I guess the only time I have to deal with my loss is at nighttime. That's when I don't have anything to do but lay there and think about it. But actually, with the Lunde family, we're actually helping each other. It's not just me helping them.

O'BRIEN: Do you think that in fact the federal version of the act you're proposing is going to pass, and with flying colors, as you pointed out, as it's done in Florida?

LUNSFORD: I'd like to think it would, but you know how it works here. I mean, there's probably 1,000 bills introduced to Congress and maybe 300 of them, you know, are passed. But I've met with the chairman and I think he'll give them the hearing that they need. O'BRIEN: One of the Congresspeople in Florida said it will be nice when the day comes when we're not naming bills after murdered children. I got to imagine, obviously, you agree with her.

LUNSFORD: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Mark Lunsford, thanks for talking with us this morning. We certainly appreciate it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: And the best of luck to him. Soledad, thanks .

And the best of luck to him.

Soledad, thanks.

In a moment here, everyone worried about your 401(k), take heart today. Andy tells us about a stunning turnaround on Wall Street. That's next after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: Just when we said it was getting really bad, it got a whole lot better, and fast, too. A stunning rebound on Wall Street. Andy's here letting us know whether or not we can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: I think really it's trying to catch your breath is what's going on on Wall Street. After days of deep losses, a stunning turnabout yesterday on Wall Street. Stocks surged. The Dow up over 200 points, Nasdaq up 2.5 percent. Green lights across the board here for the Dow. The best showing since April of 2003. And of course we still have a ways to go to get back to early March, when we were close to 11,000.

I think the big story yesterday On wall Street was simply money managers, investors snapping up bargains after stocks had declined so much. We are in earnings season, companies reporting profits, and those profits have been pretty good.

One really amazing story that continues to amaze, I should say, is Google. Yesterday, that stock was up $6 to $204. You remember, it was at $95.

O'BRIEN: Why didn't we buy a lot of that again?

SERWER: I think jack might have some of this, $95 in August of last year.

HEMMER: Go go Google.

SERWER: And here's the amazing part. It's up $18 this morning in the pre-market. And one investment house saying that the stock, the new target on the stock is $283. Remember, they used to do that back in the day. O'BRIEN: Why didn't we buy a lot of that?

SERWER: And yes, there's no real valuation there. We just think it's a great company, and the stock's going up kind of...

O'BRIEN: How often do you go to Google when you're working every day?

SERWER: I go to Google all the time.

HEMMER: All the time.

SERWER: They're ad revenues are growing like crazy. That's what's driving that company.

HEMMER: Got it. Thank you, Andy.

SERWER: You're welcome.

O'BRIEN: The old beloved food pyramid gone. Nobody actually understood it anyway. It's the Question of the Day.

Good morning.

CAFFERTY: Good morning.

The government released another vague, color-coded warning system this week. This one is aimed at our waistlines. It's called mypyramid. The highly anticipated replacement for the food pyramid is in the end another pyramid. This time, it has vertical triangles instead of horizontal boxes. Six bands represent the different food groups. The government wants us to go to the Web site, mypyramid.gov, where you can get detailed nutritional advice. You plug in your age, sex and amount of daily physical activity and you get your own custom diet plan.

So my producer, Jen Madrov (ph), and I did this. She's obviously female, she's 25, and she exercises more than 60 minutes a day. I'm male, 62, exercise between 30 and 60 minutes a day, probably closer to 30. We got back exactly the same diet recommendations.

SERWER: Whole grains.

CAFFERTY: Which doesn't bode well for you, Jen. You continue eating the same diet as I do, and this is what you'll look like at 62.

Anyway, the question is, how will the government's new food pyramid change the way you eat? Am@CNN.com.

HEMMER: Do we understand that pyramid, by the way?

SERWER: I hope they spent a lot of money coming up with that.

CAFFERTY: Two-and-a-half million bucks.

HEMMER: That'll do it. O'BRIEN: It makes no sense.

SERWER: I like the person climbing it? What does that mean?

O'BRIEN: Is that supposed to be symbolic of getting exercise?

SERWER: Who knows?

HEMMER: I think more people pay attention to Atkins than the food pyramid.

Did you see this photo? "New York Post" today, this is one of these messenger guys that ride up and down the streets of Manhattan every day. Around 40th Street and Madison yesterday, he got sandwiched in between a bus and a truck. He had eight inches to spare, this guy, jammed there for 20 minutes. They had to deflate the tires in the truck, then they had to bring in these giant balloons and separate the two vehicles. Here's some videotape from the scene. Look at the bike.

SERWER: That's a mangled bike, mangled.

HEMMER: He's alive, by the way. They got him out.

SERWER: Is he OK?

HEMMER: Well, they sent him to the hospital.

(CROSSTALK)

HEMMER: Yes, I'll tell you what, that's extraordinary.

O'BRIEN: No broken bones.

SERWER: So they just were able to stop? They found out he was there and then they stopped.

O'BRIEN: Which is amazing, that they stopped, because...

HEMMER: The post put a tape measure on the picture here that's eight inches across, exactly eight inches across.

O'BRIEN: That means he was a wiry guy.

SERWER: Yes, I was going to say, he doesn't need the new food pyramid, right? He's already nice and slim.

HEMMER: That's cute. So he's doing OK.

O'BRIEN: Wow, great picture today.

Well, there's much more ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

Ahead on "90-Second Pop," so are they or aren't they? Rumor has it Ben and Jen, version 2.0, have a big announcement to share.

Plus, Paula Abdul tells the world why she's been acting so strangely lately. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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