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Pentagon's Top Brass Faces Hard Questions from Senate Armed Services Committee; More Details About What Happened to Jessica Lunsford

Aired June 24, 2005 - 09:30   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: That's kind of fun for those guys, start the day by opening the markets and then go play golf for rest of the day.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Or at least watch it. Yes, not so bad. Life is good.

It's just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. We hope life is good for you. The Reverend Billy Graham will preach his last crusade, we think, starting tonight here in New York.

S. O'BRIEN: He has said it's going to be his last crusade in America.

He's going to see how it goes, and see if he does anything else around the globe. Coming up in just a moment, I talked to the man who's going to be at the Reverend Billy Graham's side, his son, the Reverend Franklin Graham. He is the heir to the ministry. He looks a lot like his dad. He's going to tell us about his dad's message this morning.

M. O'BRIEN: And let's check the headlines. Carol Costello here with that. Hello, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. Good morning, everyone.

Now in the news, hundreds of people near Phoenix, Arizona are being allowed back home despite a massive wildfire. The 46,000-acre blaze is said to have changed direction and is no longer a threat to nearby communities, but officials say high winds are still a concern. Out in Southern California, fire crews have managed to control a 3,000-acre blaze. A major highway there is reopened this morning. The fire could be fully contained by tomorrow.

In Aruba, the first members of a Texas-based team are expected to join in the search for Natalee Holloway. She's been missing three weeks now. The group plans an around the clock land and water search for the Alabama teenager. In the meantime, police have named a fifth suspect in the probe, the father of a young Dutch teen now being held. Still, no one has been formerly charged.

In Camden, New Jersey, a full-scale search is under way this morning for three missing children. The boys, ages 5 to 11 were last seen playing in a backyard on Wednesday night. Police say they're doing everything they can. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. MIKE LYNCH, CAMDEN POLICE DEPT.: What we're doing is breaking the area down into geographical sectors, so that we could go through there and, literally, leave no rock unturned. Our personnel and the resources that are working along with us are searching every swimming pool, every trash can, every vacant property. We are doing everything possible to locate these young missing children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Police are also not ruling out the possibility the boys may have been kidnapped. Two family members are expected to hold a news conference in the next half hour. We'll keep you posted.

Look at these pictures. It's being called some of the worst flooding in a century in parts of China. Unbelievable. More than 500 deaths have been linked to the floods of the past two weeks. Almost one-and-a-half million people have been forced to flee their homes. The International Red Cross is warning of potential health risks from contaminated drinking water, and damaged farms and more rain may be on the way. Remember, you can view more of CNN reports online. Just visit CNN.com, click on to watch for free video, and you check out the most popular stories.

M. O'BRIEN: Some of those images reminded me of the tsunami footage, you know, that rushing water. Here we are on the six-month anniversary.

COSTELLO: It's pretty scary.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, it is scary stuff. Thank you, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Military commanders will be back on Capitol Hill in about an hour. The Pentagon's top brass faced hard questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday.

Senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre joining us from Washington. What's interesting to me Jamie was how the senior military leaders seemed to directly contradict the vice president.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, at least one of them did, and that was General John Abizaid, who is the top commander overall for the U.S. Central Command. He certainly did not endorse the statement by Vice President Dick Cheney that the insurgency was in its last throes.

And we had another reminder just this morning of how deadly this insurgency continues to be. An attack on a Marine convoy in Fallujah last night. We're told, according to sources, that as many as six Marines were killed in that attack by a suicide bomber driving a vehicle next to the convoy. Some women in that attack as well. As you said, this came on the same day that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his top generals were defending the policy in Iraq on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Along with insurgents, U.S. commanders are now battling the growing perception that the U.S. is losing in Iraq.

GEN. GEORGE CASEY, COMMANDER, MULTINATIONAL FORCE: That is what the terrorists and the insurgents would like you to believe.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Any who say that we've lost this war, or that we're losing this war, are wrong. We are not.

MCINTYRE: Flanked by his commanders, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress the worst thing the U.S. could do now is said a deadline to get out of Iraq.

RUMSFELD: It would throw a lifeline to terrorists, who in recent months have suffered significant loses and casualties, been denied havens, and suffered weakened popular support.

MCINTYRE: But Rumsfeld's top commander seemed to break ranks with Vice President Dick Cheney's assessment that the insurgency is in its last throes, testifying there are now more foreign fighters in Iraq than there were six months ago.

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, COMMANDER, CENTRAL COMMAND: In terms of the overall strength of the insurgency, I would say it's about the same as it was.

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: So you wouldn't agree with the statement that it's in its last throes?

ABIZAID: I don't know that I would make any comment about that, other than to say there's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency.

MCINTYRE: And Abizaid expressed deep concern about slipping support for the war at home.

ABIZAID: I've never seen the lack of confidence greater. When my soldiers say to me, and ask me the question whether or not they've got support from the American people or not, that worries me. And they're starting to do that.

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld drew the ire of some senators. West Virginia's Robert Byrd accused him of sneering.

SEN. ROBERT BYRD (D), WEST VIRGINIA: The people out there want us to ask questions. So get off your high horse when you come up here.

MCINTYRE: But the most contentious exchange was with long-time adversary Senator Ted Kennedy.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: We are in serious trouble in Iraq, and this war has been consistently and grossly mismanaged. And we are now in a seemingly intractable quagmire. Our troops are dying, and there really is no end in sight.

RUMSFELD: There isn't a person at this table who agrees with you that we're in a quagmire and that there's no end in sight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: In an exclusive interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Vice President Dick Cheney stood by his comment that the insurgency was in the last throes. But he said he didn't mean by that, that he had an idea specifically when the insurgency would end. He did say that he thought the installation of a new Iraqi government, combined with continued build-up of Iraqi forces, would spell an end to the insurgency eventually -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Jamie, the White House announcing this morning the president will have a primetime speech on Tuesday, 8:00 p.m. Eastern at the home of the 82nd Airborne. What do you suppose that speech is going to be about?

MCINTYRE: Well, clearly, the idea is to build support for what's going on in Iraq. One of the things you took away from this hearing yesterday, all day yesterday, was the growing sense by some members of Congress, including some Republicans, that support for the effort is eroding. And, clearly, the White House feels a need at this point to restate what its goals are, to lay out the strategy is for getting out of Iraq and to try to shore up some of that sagging support.

Jamie McIntyre, at the Pentagon, thank you very much -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: A disturbing story to revisit this morning. We're learning more about what happened to Jessica Lunsford. Convicted child molester John Couey admits he sexually assaulted and murdered the little girl last February. And some of the awful details have been made public.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: We're learning more about 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford's final days, about how close she was to being found alive, and about the savage way in which died.

In his confession, released by prosecutors yesterday, convicted molester John Couey admitted keeping Jessica in a closet in his room for three days, while investigators searched just outside. Couey confessed Jessica was alive when police questioned neighbors, even when police knocked on his own door. He said, quote, "for some reason, they came to our house but didn't come in and search, but I wish they would have, because they would have found her. But they didn't."

Neighbors say they are stunned Couey's home was not searched.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did this happen, you know? And they had dogs out here, and they had a posse out here and everything. It's hard to figure it out, you know.

S. O'BRIEN: Couey says he cooked Jessica a hamburger and let her watch TV through a crack in the closet door. He also admitted sexually assaulting her. He seemed surprised that she never tried to escape. "It don't make no sense why she didn't try to get away," he told investigators. "I mean, she had plenty of opportunities to do so." Jessica's father was incensed.

LUNSFORD: If he was so willing to leave Jessi alone and free to go as she wanted to, then why did he tie her up and put her in a hole?

S. O'BRIEN: Couey confessed to doing just that, tying her hands with stereo wire, putting her in a trash bag and burying the little girl alive with a toy stuffed dolphin.

Couey said, "I had planned on letting her go, but I don't why I got scared. I guess I didn't want to go to prison. But I'll go anyway. I deserve it."

Jessica's father is pressing Congress for tougher laws against convicted child molesters, like the one who confessed to killing his daughter.

LUNSFORD: We need to keep them safe and we need to keep these people behind bars. And we need to make some changes. And I need the chairmen on the Senate side to help. Let this be a bipartisan subject. And to make these changes as quickly as we can.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: The state is seeking the death penalty in this case. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: This weekend in New York City, the Reverend Billy Graham is hosting what may be his last crusade. Graham is 86 years old and in failing health, and over the years, he's hosted hundreds of revivals and preached the gospel to more than 200 million people around the world.

Reverend Franklin Graham is Billy Graham's son. He's also the heir to the Graham ministry. Joins us this morning. You're also the guy who's going to be standing there this weekend near your dad to keep an eye on him and to be able to step in if he needs any kind of assistance.

He looks great to me. His spirit seems well and he seems pretty strong. Are you concerned, though? Because I would imagine that preaching for 35 minutes to a massive crowd three days in a row takes a lot out of you.

REV. FRANKLIN GRAHAM, SON OF REV. BILLY GRAHAM: It does a lot of -- but I saw last year. The first night, he was not as strong as I thought he should have. The second night he got stronger. The third night even stronger. I think it will build. I think as he preaches, he really -- it strengthens him. The message that preaches, Soledad, is the same message that he will -- that he preached when he was here in 1957.

The simple truth of God's love -- and God the so loved the world that he gave his begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And he gives every night people an opportunity to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. After all these years, it's still the same message. And he stays right on target every time.

S. O'BRIEN: A focus on the gospel is what he told me. But he also said that there was a time 20 years ago when he would have tackled the hot button issues.

GRAHAM: Well, he did to a certain extent. As a minister of the gospel for myself, for him, sometimes there are moral issues that come up that face this nation. And we should speak out and we should have an opinion as it relates to what God's standards are. And as a minister, we have to say, this is what God says. Here's God's standards that we need to remind people. And that's important.

S. O'BRIEN: That sometimes, though, the things that can get a little controversial, as you know. And I remember there was a time after 9/11 where you were quoted as saying, Islam is a very, you know -- terrible now, you can pull up everybody said ever and go back to them. But you're quoted as saying this: Islam is a very evil and wicked religion. And then years later, three or four years later or so, you said that you actually thought that Muslims and Christians could live together peacefully and that this would please God. That does mean you're backing away from the...

GRAHAM: No. I hope that we can live in peace. I have a hospital in southern Sudan. The Islamic government has bombed it now on seven separate occasions, where their bombers come over and drop bombs on a hospital.

S. O'BRIEN: Does that make the religion evil?

GRAHAM: No. But what I'm saying is, there is -- the planes that flew into the buildings here on 9/11 were men who, in the name of their religion, flew into these buildings and killed over 3,000 American people. We were attacked on that day. I have many Muslim friends. I have been working in the Muslim world now for many years.

And I want the Muslims to know that God loves them and that Jesus Christ is God's son. I don't believe in Islam. I believe in Jesus Christ. I'm not on a war or a campaign against Muslims. I want to reach out to Muslims and love them. But I disagree with them. And they disagree with they. But I do not hate them. I love them and I want to reach out to them.

S. O'BRIEN: You have taken over your dad's ministry. And when he passes -- and he talks about his own death a fair amount, actually, and he says he's ready to go. You will really take it over. It will be, you know, essentially you'll be leading the whole thing. What do you think about that? Is it awesome responsibility? I mean, he's got big shoes to fill.

GRAHAM: Well, it -- I've been doing this now the last ten years, as far as running his organization. He asked me ten years ago to take over. And five years ago, he finally said my hands are off of it. You run with it. But I've been doing (INAUDIBLE) the last 30 years, where we do relief work, working war areas and famine areas around the world. But I also preach.

So when my father retires or when he is no longer with us, my life is not changing. I'm going to continue to preach, I'm going to continue to work in these Third World countries. We're still going to respond to crises like the tsunami or whatever. And we're going to be there.

But do it in the name of Lord Jesus Christ. I believe, as a minister, when we see people hurting alongside life's road, you cannot pass by. I believe we have an obligation to stop and to help them, to love them and try to get them up to their feet again. But as a minister, I want them to know that there is a God who loves them and cares for them. And that Jesus Christ is God's son. So everything I do in this world, I want to take that beautiful message of God's love to the entire world.

S. O'BRIEN: Reverend Franklin Graham, nice to see you.

GRAHAM: Thank you, ma'am.

S. O'BRIEN: Good luck this weekend. I hope your enjoy. I hope your dad holds up well through the whole thing.

GRAHAM: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: You can see more on the life and influence of Billy Graham on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN's "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Oil hits an all-time record again. We'll have that and some other stories after a break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: I'm going to call it the Serwer effect. Andy Serwer just a few days ago said, when oil gets past $60, you watch out. Sure enough.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Yes, all right. I'm going to take credit for it, but don't blame me, OK?

M. O'BRIEN: No, no, no, I'm not blaming you.

SERWER: OK. All right. Miles, sad to say oil again is touching $60, trading in international markets, and that's sending stocks lower on Wall Street at this hour. Let's check out the Big Board. We are down 30 points on the Dow as you can see here. One stock moving south also is Alcoa. It's announcing that it's laying off 6,500 workers, world's largest aluminum maker. Let's talk a little bit about ATMs, Miles. You would think that fees on ATMs, which are everywhere, doughnut shops, the track, car washes, everywhere, would be going down because of their ubiquity. Not so. The average ATM fee now up to $1.35, up from $1.29 last year. Total fees, $4 billion. That's up from $2.5 billion seven years ago. The reason fees are going up is because so many people are using credit cards and debit cards, they're actually using ATMs less, so banks are raising prices.

M. O'BRIEN: Interesting, because you can use it at the point of purchase.

SERWER: That's right.

M. O'BRIEN: Changes the equation quite a bit.

All right, I need some mud on my SUV really badly.

SERWER: I was going to ask you what you're doing this weekend. If you're thinking about four-wheeling, that's great. If you want to pretend that you're four-wheeling, we have sprayonmud.com, and this is for those who like to think they're going out and want to pretend they're going out, but aren't really going out into the wild. And you can actually buy this and spray mud. Sprayonmud.com to go there.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, SUVs for owners in Manhattan who want mud, there you go.

All right, so tomorrow 1:00 p.m., I'm trying to think of what to do with my time.

SERWER: At 1:00 p.m. tomorrow, I suggest that you watch a tidy little business program on CNN called "IN THE MONEY." We'll be there. Attendance is mandatory. If this sounds like someone else speaking, maybe it is. But also it's Sunday at 3:00. Thank you very much for brining that up.

There we go!

M. O'BRIEN: There you go.

SERWER: It's the "IN THE MONEY" promo.

M. O'BRIEN: All times are eastern.

SERWER: Yes, tidy program. Soledad remembers we call it a tidy program.

S. O'BRIEN: Absolutely.

SERWER: Yes, there we go.

M. O'BRIEN: We're a little not so tidy with time right now. Let's go to Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: And right to our "Extra Effort" this morning, when you think of Afghanistan under the Taliban and you have the image of women covered head to toe by the traditional burka. But in the new Afghanistan, another picture is emerging, and a group of American businesswomen is making the extra effort to help Afghan women take charge of their lives and careers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN (voice-over): They call it a style road trip, a trip for women who've only recently been allowed to express any style at all. They came from Afghanistan to New York to learn about the fashion industry. Sponsoring the road trip, a group of American volunteers, the Business Council for Peace, or B-Peace for short. They hope to provide the Ahghanis with the skills and contacts to develop their own fashion business. The idea is that Afghani women can help restore their country decimated by decades of war.

GWENDY FELDMAN, B-PEACE: I do believe that if these women have greater economic power that they will be a bigger force for peace in their country.

S. O'BRIEN: When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996, women were forced to cover themselves completely and were banned from the workplace. But things loosened up a bit when the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance overthrew the Taliban in 2001. And B-Peace soon saw an opportunity to act, first by conducting training sessions for Afghan women in Kabul, then by bringing them to New York.

FELDMAN: They want this training. They want the relationships with people outside of Afghanistan.

S. O'BRIEN: On the style road trip, B-Peace offered workshops in using this inexpensive knitting kit, which has helped transformed womens' businesses in other war-torn countries like Rwanda. What linked the American and Afghani was both their sense of entrepreneurial spirit and their eye for fashion.

FELDMAN: Afghan women are like women all over the world. You know, we all want to look beautiful.

S. O'BRIEN: For the Afghan women, the three-week road trip promised to transform how they do business.

SURIA, AFGHAN BUSINESSWOMAN (through translator): I have learned how to present my work and about the production process, and I'm going to take all of this to the women back in Afghanistan.

S. O'BRIEN: Ranigna, who fled Afghanistan for the United States as a child, returned to help rebuild her homeland two years ago. She said the B-Peace efforts have made a big impression on the Afghani women.

RANGINA, AFGHAN BUSINESSWOMAN: It's nice for the women of Afghanistan to see the commitment and devotion and the non-stop work of these women towards this cause. B-Peace will follow the Afghan women for three years and hope their budding businesses will restore a battered nation.

SURIA (through translator): I'm learning a lot, and I hope there will come a time when I can provide help for the women of the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: For more on B-Peace and its work in Afghanistan, you check out their Web site. It's bpeace.org -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Monday on AMERICAN MORNING, the future of Gitmo. CNN military analyst Major General Don Shepherd is getting a tour of the prison camp this weekend. He'll give us an insider's view and tell us what he thinks should happen with that facility. That's Monday, 7:00 Eastern, right here on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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