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American Morning
King Fahd's Funeral; Latest Violence in Iraq
Aired August 02, 2005 - 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: Saudi Arabia buries its largest ruling monarch. Dignitaries from around the world attend a simple ceremony for King Fahd at this hour. We're live from Riyadh.
A first for NASA. The shuttle crew prepares for a dangerous task -- a space walk to fix Discovery's delicate underside. A look at the risks straight ahead.
And will one of the most wanted men in Britain remain in Italy? An extradition fight over a London terror suspect is heating up on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you.
Also ahead, we're going to meet a girl -- I'm dying to meet this girl.
S. O'BRIEN: She's tough.
M. O'BRIEN: A 12-year-old girl, a tough kid. McKenzie Smith is her name. Somebody, you know, she -- somebody tries that old puppy trick on her, right?
S. O'BRIEN: I lost my dog.
M. O'BRIEN: I lost my dog.
S. O'BRIEN: Can you help me, kids?
M. O'BRIEN: You know, she ends up in the car, right?
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, well, he physically threw her in there.
M. O'BRIEN: And she fights him off. This is an amazing story. You know, you'd like to think as a parent that your kid could do that, but, you know, you just don't know.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, we're going to talk to her this morning. We're going to talk to her parents, also, to find out exactly what kind of conversation they had with her that made her really fight for her own life and her little brother, too, who helped out in a big way.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: It's a really good story. That's ahead.
M. O'BRIEN: I'm looking forward to that.
All right, we're going to check the news, though.
Carol Costello with that -- good morning, Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.
Good morning to all of you.
Now in the news, a space walking repair mission is set for tomorrow for the shuttle Discovery. It's the first time NASA will attempt an in-flight repair on the shuttle's exterior. Astronaut Steve Robinson will remove filler material sticking out from between tiles on the shuttle's underbelly. There's concern the material might cause excessive heat during reentry.
President Bush reportedly said intelligent design should be taught in public schools. The president told reporters from several Texas newspapers that he believes intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution. The president, however, declined to share his own personal views. Christian conservatives have called on schools to teach intelligent design, the theory that life is too complex to be explained by evolution alone, implying that a higher power had a role in creation.
John Bolton is beginning his first full day as the newly appointed U.N. ambassador. He'll present his credentials to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan this morning. Annan said he's looking forward to working with Bolton. President Bush appointed Bolton on Monday, bypassing Democrats who had blocked a v.
Dozens of residents have been evacuated because of a wildfire burning in Washington State. The fire has grown to nearly 1,000 acres. It's now threatening more than 140 homes. It's believed to have started in a burning mobile home. It's really dry out there, so that thing could burn for hours, for days.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, it's bad.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, we'll watch it.
Thank you, Carol.
COSTELLO: Sure.
S. O'BRIEN: Well, funeral services are about to get underway in Riyadh for Saudi Arabia's King Fahd.
Senior international correspondent Nic Robertson is at the burial location.
He joins us by phone this morning -- Nic, give us a sense of what it's like there. NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Soledad, this is a huge graveyard, about 20 football fields in size. It is in an urban built up area. It is full with graves, many, many thousands of graves here. There's a helicopter in the sky overhead.
All these graves anonymous. And we are told when King Fahd is buried here, his grave will also be anonymous. The ceremony, we're told, will be very simple. There will be prayers at the mosque, which we understand are beginning to get underway now. He will then be brought here to the graveyard and buried in a very, very simple service.
There is very tight security around here, a lot of troops ringing the cemetery. You can maybe hear the helicopter overhead. But out on the streets of Riyadh today, it appears for many people life is normal. A let's talk quieter on the roads, but otherwise people just going about their business as normal -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: I have to imagine, Nic, certainly because he had been ill, it was not completely unexpected, his death, right?
ROBERTSON: No. People here have been expecting that it would come at some time. Continuity, really, has been the watchword of the al Fahd dynasty. And that's certainly what the people are expecting here. They're not expecting to see any great change in policy, any great change in the way that the country is being led. And that's what people I've talked to say, in part, today, say they find encouraging about this situation, even when one of their kings several decades ago was shot and assassinated, the transfer of power very quick, very smooth.
It's symptomatic...
S. O'BRIEN: We've been looking...
ROBERTSON: ... and emblematic of the al Fahd dynasty -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: We have been looking, Nic, at some of the delegations that have been arriving to take part in the funeral services.
Could you tell us a little bit about the delegations and also the American delegation, as well?
ROBERTSON: I haven't seen the American delegation yet. I do know that President Hamid Karzai has arrived, the sense, rather, the Indonesian premier arrived. President Chirac is expected here. Prince Charles from Britain is expected to arrive, many leaders, King Abdullah from Jordan, Bashar al-Assad from Syria all expected to arrive here, and begin the service, the ceremony, if you will, in the mosque and then come here to the grave site, which is about three or four miles away.
Strikingly, very plain, very ordinary, in a residential area. Not the sort of place in the West where one would expect a king to be buried -- Soledad. S. O'BRIEN: Yes, you know, and that kind of, I think, leads us to the interesting question of why, for a king, a tradition of such a simple funeral and such a minimalist funeral? One would expect gold and huge, you know, processions everywhere for a king who ruled for such a long time.
ROBERTSON: There are several reasons. Certainly religious observances among Sunni Muslims -- and the king and the majority of Saudis are Sunnis -- tend to dictate, particularly the line of Islam that they follow, tend to dictate the very simple service. A lot of other people would explain it through the culture, heritage and tradition. This is a desert kingdom where, before the oil wells hit this country, it was very simple and that's the same traditions that they say they're following today, that when somebody was buried because of the heat, because of the conditions, there would be -- when somebody would die, because of the heat, because of the conditions, they would be buried very quickly, in a very simple service and life moves on. And the grave site here is a testament to that. You could not come here and expect to find a loved one's grave. There are many, many thousands of graves, all very simple, all identical and all anonymous -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Nic, how long does this funeral take?
ROBERTSON: Well, we're expecting the procession to arrive from the grand mosque within the next hour. It's not clear how long those prayers will be. We've been told they will be simple and that they will be quick. And we've also been told that the service here at the grave site would be very quick.
I'm looking at the grave now. There are perhaps two dozen rocks piled up by the grave site; two, maybe three barrow lands of gravel, which will then be mounded upon the earth above the grave; and three shovels sticking out of a pile of soil. It could not be a simpler picture, if you will -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Well, simple but certainly well attended, as we take a look at some of the pictures of some of the dignitaries who have been arriving for the funeral of King Fahd. The monarch ruled for nearly a quarter century.
Nic Robertson was joining us by phone with an update at the start of that funeral.
Thanks, Nic -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: A U.S. military convoy and Iraqi police forces are the targets of multiple attacks in Iraq this morning.
Aneesh Raman live now in Baghdad -- Aneesh, what's the latest on the violence there?
ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, good morning.
As you say, a familiar attack on a familiar target. A suicide car bomb detonating alongside a U.S. military convoy here in the capital city, just a few hours ago. Upwards of 30 people were wounded. This explosion so big it essentially destroyed some 15 vehicles that were next to it. It also severely damaged a U.S. military Humvee.
A similar attack to the north of Baghdad in the town of Ba'qubah. There, a car bomb left and Iraqi police officer killed, as well as an Iraqi child.
And Miles, to give us a sense of the varied violence that Iraq confronts on a daily basis, here in the capital city, starting early this morning, around 7:00 a.m. local, in just about an hour-and-a- half, three separate incidents of gun -- of drive-by shootings left at least eight people dead.
This is the daily fabric of life, if you will, for Iraqis, what they wake up to seemingly every day -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: And amid all this violence, Aneesh, they're trying to draft a constitution.
How are things going?
RAMAN: Well, the pressure is now on. The clock is ticking. They had until yesterday, the national assembly, to push back that August 15 deadline. They chose not to. So now the question isn't whether or not they'll meet the deadline -- they have no choice -- but instead how they will resolve the hugely contentious issues that remain -- federalism, the role of Islam, women's rights.
Will they, with any specificity, deal with those issues in the constitution or, instead, as some are suggesting, will they push those aside and let the five year government set to come into power at the end of this year deal with those issues in the form of amendments? That's what we're waiting to see. But intense negotiations, intense pressure all around for them to get this all done in just a matter, now, of two weeks -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Aneesh Raman in Baghdad.
Thank you.
Today is the 15th anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. On this date in 1990, Saddam Hussein's forces rolled into Kuwait. Seven months later, a U.S.-led coalition ousted the Iraqis, but not before the Iraqis looted the country of Kuwait. Iraq's new government has recently agreed to help search for hundreds of Kuwaitis still missing -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: President Bush coming out in defense of Baltimore Orioles' slugger Rafael Palmeiro. Palmeiro is under a 10-game suspension now after a steroid test came back positive. President Bush says he believes Palmeiro, who testified on Capitol Hill, you'll recall.
This must be some video from that. That happened last March. And he said he never used the drugs period. Well, now Palmeiro is saying he never knowingly took steroids.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAFAEL PALMEIRO, BALTIMORE ORIOLES: I am here to make it very clear that I have never intentionally used steroids, never, ever, period.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
S. O'BRIEN: Palmeiro is the seventh player to fail a steroids test under a new, tougher drug policy that was adopted by major league baseball back in March.
That brings us to Chad Myers and a look at the weather this morning -- you know, Chad, Carol was saying she's shocked.
Am I a cynic or am I -- I don't know. I mean I'm sorry to hear it, but he didn't know?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: He didn't know.
S. O'BRIEN: Or he had no idea?
MYERS: Right. It was in his, I don't know, iced tea?
S. O'BRIEN: I don't know.
MYERS: I don't know.
S. O'BRIEN: Uh-huh?
MYERS: I don't get it.
Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Good morning.
MYERS: Good morning.
Good morning, Soledad.
Good morning, New Orleans.
(WEATHER REPORT)
M. O'BRIEN: Hey, Chad, I wonder, could there be any steroids in the rain perhaps?
S. O'BRIEN: Oh.
MYERS: I wouldn't think so, you know...
M. O'BRIEN: That could be it.
MYERS: ... because it's not anabolic.
M. O'BRIEN: OK.
All right, thank you.
MYERS: All right.
M. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Chad.
MYERS: Right.
M. O'BRIEN: Still to come, we'll meet a brave young girl who managed to fight off a would be kidnapper. She'll be right here?
S. O'BRIEN: Yes.
M. O'BRIEN: Is she coming in?
S. O'BRIEN: Um-hmm.
M. O'BRIEN: I didn't know she was coming in. She said she was going to be here...
S. O'BRIEN: Oh, yes, with her family.
M. O'BRIEN: I'm going to shake her hand, this young lady.
S. O'BRIEN: Oh.
M. O'BRIEN: That is a brave young lady.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, she sure is.
Also ahead this morning, the crisis in Niger. We're going to take you inside one relief camp, where the need was so great and the workers were completely overwhelmed.
M. O'BRIEN: And more on the funeral of the Saudi Arabian King Fahd. How will America's relationship with the kingdom change after his death? What will happen to the kingdom in general?
That's next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: Live pictures now coming to us from Riyadh as the funeral of King Fahd continues there. You're looking inside the Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh. The call for prayers soon. A very simple ceremony, in royal terms, and ultimately King Fahd will be buried in an unmarked grave. His body will be wrapped in a white shroud, prayers after that and the body will be then taken to the cemetery in old Riyadh for the burial, as we say, in an unmarked grave. It's kind of remarkable.
One of our top stories tomorrow is this and -- today.
And Ted Kattouf is a former deputy chief of mission in Saudi Arabia. And we want to talk about what this funeral means ultimately for the kingdom and for U.S. relations with the kingdom.
Ambassador, good to have you with us.
TED KATTOUF, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF SAUDI ARABIA MISSION: My pleasure.
M. O'BRIEN: I am perhaps more interested in the next secession, because Abdullah has been running the country now for upwards of 10 years. The Saudi monarchy seems to be teetering, isn't it?
KATTOUF: I would not say it's teetering, but it's facing a potential crisis down the road, Miles. Essentially, it was decided long ago that now King Abdullah and now Crown Prince Sultan would follow in this very line of secession. And it's all worked very smoothly.
But King Abdullah now, in consultation with the family, has to name a fellow in the batter up slot and that could be a problem.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, and there is nobody in the on deck circle, so to speak, to continue with your baseball analogy, and that could present some real problems down the road. I mean, there isn't a lot of groomed leadership that comes to mind.
Or is there?
KATTOUF: Well, basically the way the system has worked is that generally the king comes from among the eldest sons, but it has to be somebody that the family agrees has the qualities to rule and has the right experience to rule. And after the long time minister of defense, Sultan, the new crown prince, there his full brother, Nayef, the minister of interior, a rather tough man, a top -- the top cop, if you will. A little bit of a J. Edgar Hoover figure -- a controversial guy. And that could be controversial.
M. O'BRIEN: Well, whoever it is has a tough challenge ahead. You have a country there that has tremendous economic disparities. The monarchy has had difficulty coming to terms with the fundamentalism that lies within their own borders there. And by the same token, has a close relationship with the United States, which poses its own internal problems.
Really, the kingdom is, as you -- it's really at a crossroads. It's a bit of a mess, isn't it?
KATTOUF: It is as a crossroads. You have a very aged leadership. Crown Prince Abdullah is over 80. Crown -- I'm sorry, King Abdullah is over 80. Crown Prince Sultan close to 80. Nayef well into his 70s. And there's a whole generation of grandsons of the founder of the kingdom who want their day in the sun. Some of these guys are in their 70s. And that inter-generational passing of the leadership is going to prove very, very tricky.
M. O'BRIEN: It seems as if the seeds are being planted for ultimately toppling of the House of Saud.
Is that quite possible?
KATTOUF: Well, certainly it's possible. But I don't think right now it's probable. These princes know that if they don't hang together, then surely they will hang separately. And for that reason, despite fissures in the family, despite differences, including between some of the top princes, I expect them to cooperate for the good of the family and the good of the kingdom.
M. O'BRIEN: As we look at live pictures once again from Riyadh, as the funeral procession continues.
Let's remind our viewers we're talking about a country that controls one quarter, fully one quarter of the known oil reserves in the world. And so whatever happens here affects you every time you drive your SUV. And that is -- it's difficult to overstate what this means to the United States, ambassador, right?
KATTOUF: Right. We take for granted that, you know, the oil is going to be there at the pump. And the fact of the matter is, is that there's only one country in the world today that can pump out any significant amount of extra oil, and that's Saudi Arabia. And Osama bin Laden and his ilk with like nothing better than to disrupt that oil supply. And we're depending on that leadership in Saudi Arabia not only to keep the country stable, but to protect their ports, to protect their oil fields, to protect their pumping stations. And if something goes wrong there, the whole world is in trouble.
M. O'BRIEN: A sobering note to leave at.
Ted Kattouf is former deputy chief of mission in Saudi Arabia.
Thank you very much.
KATTOUF: Thank you, Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Well, still to come this morning, a 12-year-old girl who fought off a would be kidnapper. She's going to tell us about the story of how she escaped.
That's up next on AMERICAN MORNING.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: A man tried to abduct 12-year-old Mickenzie Smith in Utah last week. Well, she fought. And her little brother Kaidan helped out, as well.
This morning, Mickenzie and Kaidan, and mom Laurie, all with us.
Nice to see you. Your story is so remarkable and I've got to tell you, you're only 12 years old, which I'm sure to you is old, but to us is very, very young.
So walk me through what happened.
You were coming back from piano practice and a guy stops you and starts to engage you in conversation.
What did he say?
MICKENZIE SMITH, FOUGHT ATTACKER: Yes. He started talking about how to feed a horse and then he wanted -- then he went on to asking us if we would help him find a lost dog that he was looking for.
S. O'BRIEN: How long were you talking to him for?
M. SMITH: He just kept talking and kept talking. And we tried to leave a couple of times and he would just walk where we were going.
S. O'BRIEN: So he was sort of following you?
M. SMITH: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Did you -- was there anything at that point, besides the fact that he kept sort of going with you, that seemed a little bit weird?
M. SMITH: Some of the things he was saying were inaccurate. Like he said his cell phone was dead, but I had heard it ringing earlier.
S. O'BRIEN: Did you think that you were in some kind of trouble or did you -- at what point did you say I've got to get out of here, really?
M. SMITH: I just had this feeling inside that something wasn't right. And so I -- I mean I tried to leave, but he wouldn't let me and it just kept getting worse and worse.
S. O'BRIEN: He grabbed you, didn't he?
M. SMITH: Uh-huh.
S. O'BRIEN: And he tried to throw you in the car?
M. SMITH: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: What did you do?
M. SMITH: He had opened the back two doors of his four door truck and his door. And he had left those open. And he took me and he tried to throw me into the truck. And so I put my feet on the sides of the door.
S. O'BRIEN: You started fighting already? M. SMITH: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: We want to get back to that in a moment, because at this moment, your brother takes off and he runs for help.
Kaidan, where did you go? How far did you have to run?
KAIDAN SMITH, SISTER FOUGHT ATTACKER: I only had to run like 80 feet.
S. O'BRIEN: Not too far.
K. SMITH: No.
S. O'BRIEN: And what were you doing? Were you screaming for help?
K. SMITH: No, I was just running as fast as I could.
S. O'BRIEN: You got to a house and you pounded on the door.
What happened?
K. SMITH: I didn't pound on the door.
S. O'BRIEN: What did you do?
K. SMITH: I just went up on the porch and he saw a cloud of dust and he saw me. And the guy didn't hear any of this, because he had his hearing aids. And I ran up to the side and I saw my sister running back.
S. O'BRIEN: OK. So by the time you went for help, your sister was already starting to get free.
That brings us back to Mickenzie.
Mom, we'll get to you in a moment, because we've got to unravel this story.
Mickenzie, he actually -- even though you were able to kind of slam the car door shut and keep yourself from being thrown in the first time, he eventually was able to toss you in the back.
M. SMITH: Yes. He took me (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
S. O'BRIEN: This is the part that surprises me to no end. Instead of sitting there -- and you must have been terrified -- you start hitting him.
M. SMITH: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: What was going through your mind? What were you thinking about?
M. SMITH: I was thinking about my family and the thought that I would never see them again was really scary.
S. O'BRIEN: Were you terrified?
M. SMITH: I was terrified. And just, I was -- I just had to get out. I knew.
S. O'BRIEN: He had locked the -- I guess he had child locks and he kind of locked you in.
M. SMITH: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Were you hitting him on the head? Were you hitting him while he was driving?
M. SMITH: Yes. While he was driving, I hid -- tried to open the doors and they wouldn't budge. And I started pounding on the windows. And I was screaming and crying. And I turned to him and started yelling in his ear and pounding on his head and on his arm and his shoulder.
S. O'BRIEN: What was he doing?
M. SMITH: He just sat there and drove.
S. O'BRIEN: So eventually he stopped?
M. SMITH: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: And what happened?
M. SMITH: He told me to get out and I told him to open my door and he told me that I would have to get out -- to crawl over him and open the door and hop out his side. So that's what I did.
S. O'BRIEN: And then you ran for home?
M. SMITH: Yes. I ran to the house that Kaidan had gone to.
S. O'BRIEN: Laurie, you know, I guess in a way you hear this story. It must break your heart. And I mean I can see your tears are coming welling up in your eyes, but also, I mean, thank god she's sitting here and she's fine, because often we do these stories and they have a much different ending.
LAURIE SMITH, DAUGHTER FOUGHT ATTACKER: Right.
S. O'BRIEN: Had you had a discussion as a family about what to do in a case like this?
L. SMITH: We had talked earlier. The Elizabeth Smart case has brought a lot of attention to our state and that's really close to home to us. So we had talked a little bit about stranger danger, what to do. And we had told them you should kick, you should scream, yell "You're not my mom!," "You're not my dad!," do whatever you can.
We also have a family password so that if someone was to come pick them up, say, your parents have been hurt, I need to take you to them, we have a family password.
S. O'BRIEN: You had sort of walked through it, which must be tough to do.
So when you hear, at the end of the day, and we should mention there's a suspect in custody. She did, and Kaidan also, did everything exactly right and you hear her tell this story, you know, relate what's got to be horrible to hear, I mean you must be feeling pretty proud of your little girl.
L. SMITH: We're proud of them both that they did all that they could to avoid that situation and that they didn't give in to him. We're just very blessed and we're grateful to our heavenly father that we have our children with us this day, because it could have had a bad ending.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, thank god.
Well, good work. You're tough. Miles has been dying to meet you because he's been talking about you all morning, how proud he is of you.
Thanks for coming in and sharing your story.
We certainly appreciate it.
M. SMITH: Thank you.
S. O'BRIEN: And you, too.
That's got to be hard to hear your daughter recount that.
We really are grateful to have you guys.
L. SMITH: Thank you.
S. O'BRIEN: A short break and we're back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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