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American Morning

President George W. Bush to Survey Damage in New Orleans; Judge John Roberts to Face Senate Judiciary Committee

Aired September 12, 2005 - 08:30   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A city of contrast, the city of New Orleans is. We saw tremendous amount of damage as we drove in on St. Charles Avenue down in from the west, through the heart of the city, went by the convention center last night, amazing how much it has been cleaned up. Clearly a lot of work is under way right now. Those cleanup crews have been very busy. What a task they have ahead of them.
Meanwhile, in the French Quarter, it was an amazing sight. Now think of the French Quarter, what do you think of? Take a look at some pictures, right? Mardi Gras, that's the classic scene. This is the party that really never ends, and these pictures from Mardi Gras just last year are indicative of what you'd expect to see in the French Quarter.

Take a look at what we saw last night. It was truly haunting. Most of the power is out. There are a few hotels with generators. And there are a few bars that are opened just by force of will, I guess, candles burning, and at least enough ice to keep the beer cold and the drinks tasting good. We went to Johnny White's Sports Bar and got a look at the scene there. Quite a few locals there, and also some of the federal and local police officers relieving a little bit of stress after a very long day.

We talked to one of the people there who's been there. He's been a part of this city for 35 years. He says he can't remember a French Quarter this quiet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

"RAILROAD" BILL CRESCENZO, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: I know all they are doing is strongly urging us to leave, but the way I figure, among the first people back are going to be the looters, and I want to be there to protect my home.

M. O'BRIEN: That's reasonable.

CRESCENZO: And it's my home. I got a lot of cleaning and bleaching to do.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, are you already cleaning up?

CRESCENZO: I'm starting to, yes. It's kind of hard to do when you don't have running water and you got to truck the water in on a bicycle, but you do what you can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: That's "Railroad" Bill Crescenzo, who hasn't left, isn't going to leave, wasn't going to take any eviction order. Let me show you one other picture which is perhaps a sign of life here. This is Big Daddy's. Put that picture of one more time. One of the few places with a little bit of juice. They have a generator going. And what does the generator power? Lights, air-conditioning? No. It's the swinging mannequin which is, well, it's symbolic of that particular place, which offers a little bit of racy fare for adult entertainment, let's just say. And the fact is that generator was just running the swing.

So New Orleans, in many respects, is doing its best to get back on its feet. Of course this is -- we focused an awful lot about it New Orleans because this is a major American city, and there are so many people who are affected here. But if you look at the whole region and move to the east here, and go through Biloxi and Gulfport, just tremendous damage there, you know, bomb-like devastation.

Today, the president, after he spent some time seeing the damage here in New Orleans will make his way to Gulfport, Mississippi, a hard-hit area. We're joined now by the mayor, Mayor Brent Warr of Gulfport.

Mr. Mayor, when you see the president, what are you going to show him? What are you going to tell him?

MYR. BRENT WARR, GULFPORT, MISSISSIPPI: Well, I'm excited about seeing him in here today. I hope that we do have the opportunity to do so, and I'm really excited about telling him that St. James Elementary School opened today. It's a big day in Gulfport, and things are beginning to get back to normal. We're very excited about it.

M. O'BRIEN: It's just one school, but it means a lot, doesn't it?

WARR: Yes, sir. It's -- you know, you start with one and follow with many. We have several schools that are beginning to prepare to open. I spoke with our superintendent yesterday, and he said we won't be opening any today, but they will be coming soon. We really only have one school. As far as we know, that we're not going to be open on a quick basis. And thank goodness for the CDs (ph) there over there, giving it everything they have right now to get us open as soon as possible with that one.

M. O'BRIEN: The federal government, no matter which way you look at it, dropped the ball on its response to all of this. And I'm sure you felt that in many poignant ways, and had to recover on your own respects, at least in the initial onslaught. What have you told the administration? If you have the opportunity, what will you tell the president about that?

WARR: Well, you know, to be honest with you, I'm going to thank him. We've had quite a storm down here, and we know on the front end you have to be prepared for several days to take care of yourself, and we did that. We did have, you know, some of the bureaucratic layers we didn't understand best how to handle with this type of a disaster, and to be honest with you, I believe that the federal agencies that are responsible for handling storms like this, they weren't necessarily expecting anything with the damage to be the type of damage that we had. So we all had to learn how to handle this thing together and, to be honest with you, they've done a good job hanging in there with us, showing us what we didn't understand, and we've done a good job, too. You know, the local governments are responsible for taking care of themselves. We have our own public works department, our fire department.

Go ahead, I'm sorry.

M. O'BRIEN: Mr. Mayor, you say that the federal government didn't expect it, but, you know, there are a lot of people that we as taxpayers pay to plan and expect for just these things. Why -- don't you think that's a failing?

WARR: Well, you know, we do that here as well. You know, we have a good civil defense department here, and we've been through a lot hurricanes, and we thought we knew what we were doing, what we were expecting, and, man, when that thing came through here, it was totally devastating. That Sanford-Simpson scale, they say it right, complete and total destruction when you get to this level of a storm, and that's what we got.

We could have been staged better. To be honest with you, after Hurricane Dennis, I made a list of things that we needed to do for the next hurricane. That list was no more effective than had we been preparing for six months for this thing. It just caught everybody off guard.

And you know, the truth of the matter is, it could of been handled better on the local and the federal level, but if we want to blame somebody, blame Katrina, because that's the only person, the only thing that really did the destruction. Nobody came in here wanting to do a poor job.

M. O'BRIEN: Mr. Mayor, I talked a little while ago to the mayor of Charleston. I spoke with the mayor of Charleston, South Carolina, Joseph Riley, and he had some interesting tales to tell about Hugo and how bureaucratic the response was then. So in many respects, this is not a new problem. And his point is this, what really should be done is so set up a strike team, a military-oriented strike team, sort of preloaded with all of the orders necessary to do this, so all of this just happens as if it were a military response to some sort of enemy attack. Do you think that's a good idea?

WARR: I really do. Mayor Riley is a fine fellow. I've talked with him on the phone a few days ago. He actually sent us some of his law-enforcement officers, because we were really struggling right after the storm, and he's absolutely right. We need somebody that can jump on this thing very, very aggressively from day one. Of course you got to remember, when there are thousands of trees down on every highway, it's hard to get to a community. That's what happened. FEMA and MEMA (ph) and the rest of the organizations, they literally had to cut their way in here with chainsaws.

You know, the truth of the matter is, is if everybody that came in to help us had the ability to make a decision and give a clear honest answer, and say do this or do that, or don't do this and don't do that, that's really all we need. We just need someone to give us an answer on the guidelines that the government sets forward. And I believe we're getting that now. And I think that the president made a strong move and a smart move last week with the direction that he took on FEMA, and I believe that we're going to come out of this -- you know, we're already opening schools. We'll come out of this thing better than we were before.

M. O'BRIEN: Mayor Brent Warr, city of Gulfport, Mississippi, thanks for your time -- Soledad.

WARR: Thanks so much.

M. O'BRIEN: Miles, thanks.

S. O'BRIEN: In other news, at noon today, Judge John Roberts, the nominee for chief justice of the United States will face the Senate Judiciary Committee for his first of three days of confirmation hearings. CNN's senior legal analyst Jeff Toobin is in Washington this morning for that.

Good morning to you, Jeff. Nice to see you.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: Hey, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: We certainly heard the Democrats complaining, not that unusual, but is there any indication that all of those complaints can somehow keep this from going forward?

TOOBIN: Absolutely none, Soledad. I mean, I think barring John Roberts advocating a reversal of the Bill of Rights, he is not going to be defeated. There is no grounds for opposition to him. There is not even one Democratic senator at the moment on the record against him. But that doesn't mean the hearings won't be interesting. I mean, we will learn a lot about the man who will be the 17th chief justice.

S. O'BRIEN: What are we going to learn about him?

TOOBIN: Well, I think a lot about his judicial philosophy. There is kind of a myth out there that nominees say nothing in these confirmation hearings. That's not true. They'll say a lot. For example, John Roberts will not say whether he is for or against the right to choose abortion as a constitutionally protected right, but he will say whether he believes there is a right to privacy protected by the Constitution, which is a pretty good indicator. We'll learn about his philosophy involving racial discrimination, sexual discrimination, the power of the federal government. I mean, there will be a lot will learn here, not everything, but we will know him a lot better at the end of the week than we do now.

S. O'BRIEN: You'll get that, but he certainly is not going to be changing the balance of the court in any way.

TOOBIN: And I think that's one reason why his confirmation will be relatively uncontroversial. He is replacing Chief Justice Rehnquist, very conservative judge. He is likely to be very conservative. So the balance will not be very effective. And I think in the opening statements today from the Democrats, I think you'll hear a lot of laying down of markers of them saying, OK, well you get a pass President Bush on replacing Chief Justice Rehnquist, but in replacing Justice O'Connor, the swing vote, we're going to be a lot tougher on that nominee.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, I was going to ask you that. You know, do you think that they'd be more aggressive because he's going to be the chief justice?

TOOBIN: Well, you know, the chief justice has a great deal of symbolic power and some practical power, but in terms of voting, the chief justice has no greater power than any other justice. And what really matters is the nine votes and how they shake out. And Justice O'Connor, as we've said so many times, was the deciding vote in Bush V. Gore, in affirmative action, in many abortion cases, so her replacement really could affect the balance in the actual results of Supreme Court decisions in the way that Chief Justice Rehnquist replacement really can't.

S. O'BRIEN: At the end of the week, what do you think we're going to be talking about? Do you think there will be any big surprise?

TOOBIN: Well, I don't think there will be any big surprises, but I think we'll be saying, well, it looks like the court is going in this direction or that direction. And John Roberts is similar to the chief justice in this way, and not in those ways, or he really is as conservative as everyone expected. I think that's what we'll be talking about. I don't think we'll be talking about a close vote on his confirmation.

S. O'BRIEN: We'll see. Jeff Toobin, thanks.

Today's hearings, we should mention, begins at noon Eastern. You want to stay with CNN for live coverage as those opening statements get statements get under way.

It's time to get another check of the headlines this morning with Carol Costello.

Hey, Carol. Good morning.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad. Good morning to all of you.

Now in the news, President Bush is getting a closer look at recovery efforts in New Orleans. The president arrived there Sunday. He's being briefed this morning onboard the USS Iwo Jima, which is docked near downtown New Orleans. The president is expected to take a ground tour of New Orleans' French Quarter later today with the Louisiana governor, Kathleen Blanco.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is suggesting the U.S. could pull some of its funding from Iraq to help Katrina evacuees. Speaking with CNN Sunday, Mr. Talabani said Iraq would not suffer unduly if the U.S. diverts more resources towards its own Gulf Coast. Mr. Talabani said Iraq's economy is improving, strengthened by boost in oil production. President Bush is set to meet with Mr. Talabani tomorrow.

Northwest Airlines and its mechanics union have one final day to work out a new compromise. The airline says it will start hiring permanent replacement workers starting tomorrow. Negotiations between Northwest and the Mechanics Union collapsed on Sunday. More than 4,400 workers have been on strike since August 20th.

And 200 National Guardsmen are on alert in North Carolina this morning, ready to respond to Hurricane Ophelia. The storm now looming off the East Coast has already pushed some 12-foot waves near that coast. There are concerns about flooding. North Carolina's governor has declared a state of emergency.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: You want to stay with CNN for complete coverage of Hurricane Ophelia. CNN, of course, is your hurricane headquarters.

Coming up, is the government wasting millions of dollars during the Katrina cleanup? Andy tells us why the government is awarding private contracts without competitive bidding.

Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Business news now. Companies with ties to the Bush administration are clenching some of the first contracts to rebuild the Gulf Coast. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business." Controversial, I' going to imagine?

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: I think this is under the department of "nice work if can you get it." Sixty-billion dollars, Soledad, so far allocated to relief and cleanup after the hurricane. Already some of it is being meted out, and in no-bid contracts, some of it going to some familiar faces. Two major clients of lobbyist Joe Albaugh, if he's a familiar name. He was President Bush's former campaign manager in 2000. Also the former head of FEMA and the college roommate of the current head of FEMA, Mike Brown. Albaugh works as a lobbyist for Kellogg, Brown and Root. Yes, that is a subsidiary of Halliburton. They have already gotten $500 million of no-bid contracts. He is also doing work for a company called Shaw Group out of Baton Rouge. They've gotten $200 million of contracts.

S. O'BRIEN: Now aren't these contracts, there's no cap on how much profit the company can make? And these are the same contracts that could overturn that law that stipulates you'd have to pay people a certain minimum wage? SERWER: They suspended that, right, the prevailing wage law. And that's true, they could make a whole lot of money on these contracts. You can understand this, because the contracts need to be meted out very quickly. On the other hand, you know, gee, this really looks like there's such close ties to the administration in many cases.

S. O'BRIEN: You would imagine a lot of people could get in there quickly with they're offering.

SERWER: Yes, indeed. And on the other hand, there are only so many companies that can do this, like Flora (ph), Bechtel, but, you know, it's really, Dick Cheney, the vice president, still receives pay from Halliburton, $194,000 last year, according to tax returns.

Let's talk about the markets, Soledad. Yesterday really a banner week for investors. The markets recovered very nicely. As we got to understand the full scope of the damage, stocks recovered. Futures were flat this morning, a big tech merger to tell but, though. Oracle is buying Seagal (ph) Systems for $5.8 billion. Those two companies used to be fierce rivals.

SERWER: Yes, they did. All right, Andy, thanks.

Let's get right back to Miles in New Orleans.

Hey, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Soledad.

Coming up we're going to talk to a member of a Coast Guard search-and-rescue team. They've already been responsible for 124 lives saved, lives rescued over the past week or so. They're headed out today into some of the areas still submerged by Katrina here in New Orleans. We'll talk to them about what their strategy is, ahead in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: The city of New Orleans is waking up, to the extent that there are people here. We are ready for another day. And part of that day involves a lot of activity trying to get this city back on its feet. But even before then, search and rescue is still part of the picture here. Other people that are still trapped. Are there dead bodies to be recovered? That is a big focus of attention in the days that lie ahead here in the city of New Orleans.

We heard from the head of the military operation here, General Russel Honore, that that early projection of 10,000 dead is not going to come true, and that is good news. In the meantime, groups like the Coast Guard's Great Lakes Search and Rescue team, numbering about 44 people in that squad, have, so far, rescued alive 126 people. I said 124 before the break. They actually picked up two others yesterday. A team is getting ready to go out again this morning, try to do more of the same. Joining us now to talk about this, what they're trying to do, here in the city of New Orleans is Master Chief Patrick O'Kelly, who is heading up the unit. Master Chief, give us a sense of the kind of obstacles, the difficulties your teams encounter as they try to perform these search and rescue missions?

MASTER CHIEF PATRICK O'KELLY, U.S. COAST GUARD: Well, some of the biggest obstacles, of course, Miles, are the environments they're working in. The waters -- the water is are receiving. The toxicity level's got to be going up. The smell is just -- it's indescribable. My guys are going out with more PPE gear than -- when I say, PPE, Personal Protective Equipment, such as waders, gloves, gas masks over their face. And they've got to use a lot of Vicks under their nose just to take the smell.

M. O'BRIEN: So this combination -- and we can only imagine the kinds of smells you're talking about. The combination of smells makes it very difficult to do your job. And are you concerned about the health of your teams?

O'KELLY: I'm absolutely concerned about the health of my team. Actually, yesterday, we had one guy go in the water up to his neck. We did immediate decon (ph) on him, and we're keeping an eye on him now. Our medical people are saying that he's fine, but it's always a concern because there's everything in that water, you got to figure from fecal matter to chemical plants to natural gas to household chemicals. I mean, it's just a -- it's a toxic soup and nobody knows what that's going to do with a body.

M. O'BRIEN: Now, you picked up two people yesterday, still alive. What are the conditions you're finding people in right now?

O'KELLY: They're deplorable. I mean, it's indescribable. Unless you're actually there, you don't know what's going on. There's bodies out in the street that are -- I mean, animals are chewing on carcasses. My guys are seeing some stuff that they will remember for the rest of their lives, without a doubt.

M. O'BRIEN: Are these people that you're finding that are trapped or are they people who would prefer not to be rescued at this point, people who are holdouts?

O'KELLY: Probably the best rescue we've had so far is -- we had one of the buildings in downtown, we pulled 18 folks out. And the thing was amazing is some of them were in wheelchairs. So if we didn't go up there -- and this was a multi-level building -- if we didn't go up there and find them, they had no way to ask for help, anyway.

M. O'BRIEN: So is it your feeling that there are quite a few other stories like that out there? Maybe not 18 people in a big building, but there are quite a few people who are still inside their homes waiting for somebody like to you come get them?

O'KELLY: Well, I would hope that's the case. But, unfortunately, we're past -- I mean, we're two weeks into this, since Katrina hit. And I mean, a human being can only last so long without sustenance. And I think in a few days -- I mean, I'm not a professional as far as how long people can survive or what they have, but in this extreme heat and these extreme conditions, I don't think a rescue operation's going to go on a lot longer.

M. O'BRIEN: What is your sense, then, of what the death toll will ultimately be? Do you have any idea?

O'KELLY: I have no idea. I know my guys have found a lot of dead bodies and some pretty appalling conditions. And I'd hate to speculate. I hope -- I pray to God that it's not the 10,000.

M. O'BRIEN: And emotionally, how are you and your team doing through all this?

O'KELLY: It's really tough. Probably the first one -- the first day that we went out, I had two of my young guys go out. And they went to a retirement home. And what appeared to be the caretakers of that retirement home left those people in there. They went to the first floor, they found the elderly folks that were just left there. That's hard to swallow for a 19-year-old kid.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Patrick O'Kelly, master chief of the United States Coast Guard and with the Great Lakes Search and Rescue Team. Keep up the good work under very difficult circumstances.

O'KELLY: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, we'll tell you about the president's day. He is currently on the amphibious assault ship, the Iwo Jima, which is just behind me here on river, Mississippi River. Shortly, he'll get a briefing from local officials, then he'll be on his way to see for the first time on the ground the heart of city of New Orleans post-Katrina. We'll keep you posted on that, as AMERICAN MORNING continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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