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American Morning

Katrina Six Months Later; Bush First-Time Visit; Deadly Violence; Saddam Hussein on Trial

Aired March 01, 2006 - 06:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Soledad O'Brien.
President Bush makes a surprise stop in Afghanistan overnight, his first trip ever to that country. Meantime, thousands of protesters are already awaiting the president's next stop in India. We've got a live report just ahead.

And explosions to tell you about in Baghdad, at least 20 people are dead following Tuesday's deadly violence, the worst since the U.S. invasion.

Good morning. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to a split edition of AMERICAN MORNING. Miles is still on the Gulf Coast where he continues to take a closer look at the area six months after Hurricane Katrina struck.

Hey, Miles, good morning.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad, from Pass Christian, Mississippi. This is a town so hard hit by Hurricane Katrina. In many cases, people here feel they are a bit overshadowed by events that have occurred in New Orleans. We're here today to try to rectify that a little bit. A town of about 6,800 people, fully 90 percent of the homes here damaged or completely destroyed. Perhaps as many as 1,500 people are back.

I'm standing in a place they call The Village, about 70 tents erected by Navy Seabees housing upwards of 80 people right now. The question is, where are these people going to go in the next couple of weeks when it is, we're told, these tents will be folded up and this Village will cease to exist. Many of these people still waiting on those trailers we've been telling you about so often.

The damage, as we say, here is still very extensive, lots of debris to pick up. And in most cases, people have not come to terms one way or another with their insurance companies and so you don't see a lot of evidence of rebuilding here. People here, in many respects, in limbo.

Having said all of that, this past Sunday, the last Sunday before Lent, the last Sunday of the carnival season, just as you saw in New Orleans yesterday, a Mardi Gras parade. A short, but sweet one here; but nonetheless, an attempt here to show that things can get back to normal.

In 1959, Hurricane Camille roared through here, Soledad, causing a tremendous amount of damage. Pass Christian came back then. The hope is this morning it will come back again, but it is a long road ahead.

We'll be talking to people who live inside these tents, the people who run it, the police chief and we'll talk to the governor of Mississippi, see how his state is faring now six months since Hurricane Katrina roared through here. Back with more of that in just a moment -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: OK. All right, Miles, thanks, look forward to that.

Other news this morning, President Bush, as we mentioned, in Afghanistan for the first time. He's there right now. It's his first visit to a war zone since spending Thanksgiving in Iraq back in 2003. After a short visit in Afghanistan, the president is going to fly to New Delhi in India.

And that is where we find White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux.

Hey, Suzanne, good morning to you.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning.

Of course it was widely expected, but still a surprise, nevertheless. We got details only after the president landed on the ground. But make no mistake, this is a very critical time for both leaders. For Afghan President Hamid Karzai, he has seen security deteriorate in his country over the last year or so. And for President Bush, of course he wants to express solidarity and support. At the same time, pull U.S. troops, at least some U.S. troops, out of that area this year.

Now both leaders were asked a number of questions, but of course this is on the ground where al Qaeda used to operate quite confidently before September 11. It's where the Taliban fell. It's also where President Bush got the question why is it the U.S. has not been able to capture Osama bin Laden?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am confident he will be brought to justice. What's happening is is that we've got U.S. forces on the hunt for not only bin Laden, but anybody who plots and plans with bin Laden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Now of course President Bush just spending five hours on the ground in that country before he heads here to India. His first stop, of course, New Delhi, where he's going to be meeting with the Prime Minister Singh to talk about nuclear energy, a partnership they're hoping with India to establish. The very controversial proposal, however, may not actually be worked out during this trip. Both leaders saying that perhaps that will happen later on down the road.

Should also let you know, Soledad, that already protesters are coming out in New Delhi, tens of thousands, some chanting death to Bush, waiting for his arrival. Now this is a country that is fairly friendly to this administration when you take a look at the polls, perhaps a greater approval than the United States. But it also has a very large Muslim population, a population that clearly does not like this president or his policies -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, and amazing to see those protests turn out.

Suzanne Malveaux in New Delhi for us this morning.

Suzanne, thanks.

And, obviously, we'll continue to check in with Suzanne throughout the morning.

Developing story to get to out of Baghdad this morning, a massive car bomb tore through a crowd near a theater there, at least 23 people are dead, many more are injured.

Let's get right to Arwa Damon. She joins us live from Baghdad this morning.

What's happening now?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

As you say, the most recent attack happening in the neighborhood of New Baghdad, in eastern Baghdad. At least 23 people killed and 58 wounded in that attack, that car bomb that went off close to a movie theater there.

Now this street that the incident happened on is kind of the heart of the New Baghdad neighborhood. It's the main drag. It's always crowded. There are street vendors, shops, cafes, movie theaters, mosques, the kind of places that most people in the rest of the world wouldn't really think about going to twice. But here in Baghdad, we have, once again, an example of just how dangerous and challenging it can be for Iraqis to go about their daily lives.

Now also bearing in mind that this is the second time in 24 hours that that main drag has been targeted. Earlier in the day, an IED detonated close to a bus station in central Baghdad. Three Iraqis were killed and seven were wounded in that attack.

And since the bombing of the Al-Askariya Mosque a week ago, in the capital alone, at least 350 Iraqis have been killed in a variety of attacks. Now that number is likely to be higher, given that there are a number of incidences that are not always reported to the authorities. And given the violence over the last few days, pretty much any notion that the situation in Iraq is under control is pretty much dissolved -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes. And those pictures behind you that we're showing at the same time, Arwa, really, I think, reinforce that as well.

Arwa Damon has our update for us from Baghdad this morning, thank you.

The Saddam Hussein trial taken a new, probably more serious, tone. Today more hard evidence is being introduced that prosecutors say will link Saddam Hussein directly to 140 murders in 1982.

Let's get right to Aneesh Raman. He's live for us on the phone from Baghdad.

Hey, Aneesh, good morning.

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Soledad, good morning.

As you mentioned, a new tone to the courtroom. It is much more somber. The defendants, especially Saddam Hussein, have been quiet in court, interrupting, in rare instances, the judge as these proceedings go forward.

A number of documents being presented by the prosecution, death sentences, execution orders, some signed by Saddam Hussein himself. Another document deciding what to do in terms of the execution of a number of 12 to 17 year olds who the government, Saddam's government, believed were involved in the failed assassination attempt on the leader in July 1982.

Now because of these documents, and because of the fact that they very directly link these defendants to the crimes at hand, we have seen, as I said, a much more somber tone. All defendants have their own lawyers in court. The chief lawyer for Saddam Hussein, who walked out after 10 minutes yesterday, has not returned.

Currently, we are in a lunch recess. The prosecution, just before, rested, in terms of documents that it wanted to present. This new chief judge rarely has lunch recesses like this, so presumably the five-judge panel now deciding what comes next, whether they adjourn and draft what's called a formal charging document or whether they bring some more witnesses that we expect to hear from in the days ahead -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: And then of course we heard from Saddam Hussein himself. He made some kind of strange comments about unity in Iraq. What did he say?

RAMAN: Yes, exactly. He came -- it came amid a speech where at the beginning he was talking about the legality of the prosecution and that it was biased. But he went on to say that our interests, speaking of the Iraqi people, are to be united. Religions, nationality, creeds, we should all be united. But he said united against the invasion.

Of course, given all that has happened outside of this courtroom in the past week, the words unity coming from Saddam Hussein do seem a bit odd. And we do know that he has had a seven-hour meeting with his chief lawyer, that took place day before yesterday, and so was made aware of the situation that Iraq faces now -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: I think it's fair to say yet another strange day in this trial.

Aneesh Raman joining us by phone this morning.

Aneesh, thanks a lot for the update there.

Weather now eight minutes past the hour. Chad has got that.

Hey, Chad, good morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Soledad.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: And what time do you think it's going to start -- Chad?

MYERS: I don't think the snow starts until late tomorrow morning, so we're good all day today, we're good all night tonight. And then as the moisture picks up, it's very dry out there. You're probably using some Chapstick this morning to keep your lips from cracking in the northeast. Literally, the relative humidity inside your home is about 5 percent, so it's a dry day out there. It's going to take awhile for the moisture to get down far enough to snow.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, thank you -- Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's go to California now. You see these torrential rains in southern California, a virtual landslide. Take a look at some of these pictures. Happened near Los Angeles. The ground basically gave way. This is a parking lot at the Northrop Grumman facility in Azusa, California. Created this massive sinkhole. That's not particularly unusual in California, we're sorry to say. Nobody was injured. But officials say the ground is still oversaturated, and that means that the ground is going to continue to slide.

New concerns this morning over that controversial U.S. port deal that we've been talking about. This time they are over the Dubai- owned company's stance on Israel. We'll update you on that -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad, live from Pass Christian, Mississippi. We'll bring you up to date on the effort to cleanup here, still several million cubic yards of debris. Debris is a big issue here. We'll also take you inside, well they don't call it a tent city, they call it The Village, about 70 tents here where people are living, waiting for trailers. Come March 15, these tents will be folded up. Where will the people go? We'll try to find out coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: As Chad promised, it's going to be a beautiful but a little bit chilly here in New York City.

Lots to get to this morning. Let's get right to Carol. She's in the newsroom.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Really bad forum.

S. O'BRIEN: What's that?

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It wasn't me, but whatever it was, I'll just take it away.

Good morning -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, whoever you were, thank you.

Let's get right to Carol in the newsroom with an update for us on the top stories.

Hey, Carol, good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Good morning to all of you.

It's another bloody day in Iraq, at least 26 killed this morning after a car bomb and a roadside explosion ripped through different parts of Baghdad.

In the meantime, the Saddam Hussein trial is back on. His defense team ended a boycott Tuesday against the chief judge. The prosecutors plan to bring several former regime officials to the witness stand today.

President Bush is in Afghanistan for his first-ever visit there. He held a news conference with the Afghan President Hamid Karzai. That happened just about a half-hour ago. President Bush's stop there was unannounced.

He heads next to India, though, where tens of thousands of protesters, most of them Muslim, are rallying in the streets. They are expressing anger over U.S. policies, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The U.S. Senate could vote on the Patriot Act as early as today. It was temporarily extended because lawmakers wanted more time to hammer out a compromise between law enforcement and civil rights. Now set to expire March 10, if it is not passed by Congress.

New concerns about that controversial port deal, seems the parent company of DP World honors an Arab boycott of Israel. Lawmakers have opened hearings on the agreement. The Dubai-based company is under the microscope as part of a 45-day security review.

And a showdown between Northwest Airlines and thousands of its pilots and flight attendants. A bankruptcy judge is set to rule today on an airline request to scrap contracts and cut pay and benefits. If a deal is not reached, Northwest pilots could strike. Did you hear about this, Howard Stern under fire? CBS, his old employer, is suing Stern, his agent and Sirius Radio. The lawsuit lists multiple contract breaches. CBS also claims Stern used radio time to promote his move to Sirius. Stern calls the lawsuit a personal vendetta and says CBS is trying to bully him.

And it does beg the question, if CBS was so concerned that Howard Stern was promoting Sirius on his air, why didn't they just pull him off the air -- Chad?

MYERS: Well, because...

COSTELLO: Money?

MYERS: ... Les Moonves says that he was letting him talk the whole time so that he could file this lawsuit. I don't know.

Hey, Carol, we didn't win the Mega Millions last night, so we're both at work this morning.

COSTELLO: Drat.

MYERS: Yes, well, I expected that.

(WEATHER REPORT)

Back to you guys.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Chad, thank you very much.

Let's talk business news. Let's talk freebies, because we love...

CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's always a good thing, right?

S. O'BRIEN: We love freebies. This one is from Microsoft here...

LEE: Microsoft, that's right.

S. O'BRIEN: What is it?

LEE: And the idea is to compete with Craigslist. Most people are familiar with that, the online community where you can buy, sell, barter, pretty much find whatever you want. Microsoft started testing its own version called Windows Live Expo yesterday. There's also an Office Live version for businesses. And this segment is going to serve...

S. O'BRIEN: They're going to change that name, right? Windows Live Expo versus Craigslist, it's just...

LEE: Well this is classic Microsoft. You know they let another company come out with an idea, and then Microsoft sort of comes in behind them and does it better, traditionally. We'll see if this is better. They are letting people search not just by city, which is the way Craigslist works, but actually by zip code. And you can even search for some things across the whole country. So basically trying to capitalize on the Craigslist idea. Of course they want you online to add revenue (ph), so that's really why they're doing this.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, Craigslist has been hugely successful.

LEE: Absolutely.

S. O'BRIEN: And has been around for a really long time.

LEE: It has. It has. So that's Microsoft's idea.

Turning to airlines, JetBlue says it wants to raise prices by an average of $10 for a one-way ticket, which is $110 on average. We predicted this would happen earlier in the week when Delta said it would cut some routes on Song. That's JetBlue's big competitor on the eastern corridor.

JetBlue recently reported its first quarterly loss since it was a publicly traded company, since it's been publicly traded for six years. And high fuel prices really kind of crimping JetBlue a little bit. It's going to be interesting to see whether price hikes like this can stick, once Delta, once some of the other airlines come out of bankruptcy and once they start to boost capacity. A lot of them have gotten their labor under control, so...

S. O'BRIEN: But their prices are pretty low, and 10 bucks is not exactly something to scream about at this point.

LEE: It is not. And you know a lot of the JetBlue story is the value, the quality you get. You know you get those television seats in the back, you get those leather seats. I'll tell you, I fly JetBlue whenever I can. I think it's well worth it. It's night and day when you...

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, when I flew out to -- I -- down south to Mississippi the other day, they all said, listen, the pilot and the flight attendants clean the plane, so if you could help us out. And literally they are like we save costs on having you know people come in and clean.

LEE: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Pilot is going to clean it up, the flight attendants are going to be doing the cleaning, so, you know, help us out.

LEE: They do. They just need to curb the jokes a little bit.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes...

LEE: But that's another story.

S. O'BRIEN: That's a whole other segment, isn't it?

LEE: Exactly.

S. O'BRIEN: Carrie, thank you very much.

LEE: OK.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get right back to Miles. He's in Pass Christian this morning.

Hey, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: You don't like the jokes?

S. O'BRIEN: On JetBlue, no. Do you tell jokes when you're flying your little plane around?

M. O'BRIEN: No.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, you do. Why did I ask?

M. O'BRIEN: I -- yes...

S. O'BRIEN: I take it back.

M. O'BRIEN: Naturally. Naturally. I give a bonus to my passengers if they take their own trash out of the plane, but that's my kids.

S. O'BRIEN: The kids.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

Coming up, we're going to tell you a little bit more about Pass Christian. We're going to take you to a place, a church that was pretty much decimated. They're calling it now, somewhat jokingly, the Plywood Cathedral. And you'll meet two women, one who lost her home entirely and is moving on. She says it took her five months to cry. We'll tell you what it was that spurred it on. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Two million cubic yards of debris just in Pass Christian, Mississippi, just one of the problems facing this small town of about 6,800 people. About 1,500 have returned. It's a tremendous amount of damage here. As a matter of fact, 90 percent of the homes were damaged or destroyed and many of them were just swept off their foundations.

Having said all of that, this is a town that is used to rebounding from hurricanes. In 1969, it was Camille. This time it's Katrina. But at this point, no one is certain what Pass Christian is going to be like once the dust settles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): At Trinity Church in Pass Christian, they are still standing and singing and celebrating together. On the last Sunday of carnival season, there was even a waft of joy in the air.

REV. CHRIS COLBY, TRINITY CHURCH: So stick around, have a bite to eat and then go on down to the parade.

M. O'BRIEN: It was time for this battered beach town's Mardi Gras parade. It was short, but sweet, and another small sign that Pass would be back again.

COLBY: Hey, Ed, good morning.

ED, KATRINA SURVIVOR: Thank you.

COLBY: In the house?

ED: Not in, but we have windows and doors now. That's a big step.

COLBY: It is.

M. O'BRIEN: Pastor Chris Colby is fond of calling his church the Plywood Cathedral. And that, too, is an improvement.

COLBY: When I got back on the 1st of September, it was just the frame and the roof and about two-thirds of the floor.

M. O'BRIEN: Katrina took no prisoners when it swept over this town of 6,500 near Gulfport. Of 2,000 homes here, 1,200 were destroyed. In many cases, swept off their foundations.

LIZ HANSON, KATRINA SURVIVOR: You see this was my backyard.

M. O'BRIEN: This is all that's left of Liz Hanson's home, the place where she raised her children. There was practically nothing left. It was five months before she shed a tear.

(on camera): What finally brought you to tears?

HANSON: I guess just letting go, just accepting it.

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): The tears came like a torrent, wouldn't go away for weeks, and then they were gone and suddenly the air was clear.

HANSON: I'm at a stage where I'm happy to be alive and just ready to go with whatever comes my way, you know.

M. O'BRIEN (on camera): Yes.

HANSON: I just can't take it with you. I just want to live my life and be happy.

GWENDOLYN CANON, KATRINA SURVIVOR: The water came on the porch up to the doorstep right here.

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): For her good friend, artist Gwendolyn Canon, the story has a different twist. CANON: This is what it looked like. Here's a painting I did.

M. O'BRIEN: Her home and her work are in tact, but the fabric of her life in the Pass is in tatters.

CANON: Everything has changed. There is not one thing or one hair on anybody that's been here that isn't changed. Everything has changed completely.

M. O'BRIEN: Or has it? The Mardi Gras parade rolled past the Plywood Cathedral as always this year and sparked some glimmers of optimism.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It'll be slow, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are slow to come back, but I think it will eventually get back to the way it was.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Of course it will take some time for it to come back to the way it was. I'm standing in the place they call The Village, and this is where about 70 or 80 people are living right now in tents built by the Navy Seabees. And the problem here is a problem which is reflected all throughout the state of Mississippi, about 70,000 homes destroyed. About half that many FEMA trailers are in the state right now.

Coming up, we're going to take you inside this tent city, The Village, and we'll tell you what life is like here. And we'll tell you what these people are going to do and the prospects they face when these tents are supposed to be folded up on March 15. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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