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American Morning

IEDs Taking Deadly Toll on U.S. Troops; Captivating Case

Aired March 14, 2006 - 09:32   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Improvised explosive devices are taking a deadly toll on U.S. troops in Iraq. And now the president is taking a surprising stand in the situation, while the Pentagon works to literally diffuse it.
CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr joining us live with more on all of this.

Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Miles.

Well, while much of the violence in Iraq is now targeted against Iraqi civilians, President Bush focusing on the threat to U.S. troops.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): three years ago when the war in Iraq began, it was a phrase most Americans never heard of, IED, improvised explosive device. Now these roadside bombs are the largest single killer of U.S. troops in Iraq. More than 930 troops have died. More than 9,600 wounded. It is the same kind of device that got so much attention when it wounded ABC news anchor Bob Woodruff.

President Bush made it a centerpiece of his case that there is progress in Iraq.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRES. OF THE UNITED STATES: Today nearly half the IEDs in Iraq are found and disabled before they can be detonated. In the past 18 months we've cut the casualty rate per IED attack in half.

STARR: But Iraqis are suffering, too. In a recent 11-day period, 40 vehicle-borne IEDs caused 290 casualties. And though attacks have spiked in recent weeks, officials offer few details due to security concerns.

GEN. MONTGOMERY MEIGS (RET.), DIR., JOINT IED DEFEAT: There's no silver bullets in this game. It's very difficult work. It involves squads and platoons and companies, a 24-7 being out there, engaged in a very difficult environment.

STARR: Retired General Montgomery Meigs heads a new $3 billion a year Pentagon program to find new ways to win the cat-and-mouse game of IEDs. He also doesn't say much for one major reason, security.

MEIGS: I'd say the enemy is coming up with more lethal combinations.

STARR: Some systems are already in Iraq. The Buffalo Armored Vehicle uses a front claw to unearth roadside bombs. Robots are used to detonate them. But in this lethal game, insurgents are constantly changing tactics, improvising with everything from washing machine timers to garage door openers as detonators, and adjusting to U.S. efforts all the time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: Miles, President Bush said that just one news article about an IED detection technology was so quickly read by insurgents that it was just five days later they posted instructions on the Internet on how to defeat the U.S. effort -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow, that says a lot right there. They are definitely able to stay ahead of the game, aren't they?

Barbara, let's shift gears here just slightly, because we've been talking about this terrible death toll, this grim scene, no less than 70 bodies discovered, apparently sectarian violence over the past 30 hours or so in and around Baghdad. It's going to be difficult, when the question comes up for secretary of defense, joint chiefs, military leaders in general there to deny what we're seeing is the makings of a civil war. What are they saying privately in the halls there?

STARR: Miles, I have to tell you, behind the scenes, there is just simply no question about the level of frustration and concern about what is going on in Iraq. Today should prove to be very interesting in the coming hours. We do expect a press conference scheduled by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and General Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs. General Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, is on Capitol Hill.

Now, they will likely say, technically, there is no civil war in Iraq, but for many Iraqi civilians, of course, that's a distinction to them that is meaningless. With the bodies literally piling up every day in Iraq, what some very sober-minded generals here are saying behind the scenes is they are starting to focus on this drift towards violence. It's not that they expect civil war to suddenly break out overnight, but as this drift towards very serious sectarian violence continues, the frustration, the concern about what to do about it -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Not the place to be in the middle of the crossfire, is it, in a situation like that.

Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thank you very much -- Soledad.

STARR: Sure.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It's a brutal murder that has captivated New Yorkers and gotten national attention as well, the case of a young graduate student, Imette St. Guillen, who disappeared after a night out and was found bound and strangled to death.

AMERICAN MORNING's Kelly Wallace joins us with more on this story.

Kelly, good morning.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Such a tough story, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: It's terrible.

WALLACE: It's terrible. And what we've been looking at is why this story has jumped out and captivated New Yorkers, as you mentioned, also getting nationwide attention. One person I interviewed, a columnist with "The New York Daily News," said, there's a saying among homicide detectives, that most people contribute to their own demise.

Well, in this case, many people believe this is one person who did not.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE (voice-over): Imette St. Guillen of Boston was just about to turn 25, a graduate student in criminal justice who considered New York City home, a woman friends and acquaintances say was smart, outgoing and nice to everyone.

SEAN COOPER, HIGH SCHOOL ACQUAINTANCE: She's one of those people that just knew your name, even if you didn't know her name. That, to me, sets a mark on anybody, you know? It's like that's something to remember.

WALLACE: New Yorkers have gotten to know her. Her killing has been the lead story in most of the city's newspapers, and on the local news.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... start weighing evidence against bouncer Darryl LittleJohn.

WALLACE: But in a city where there have been more than 100 murders so far this year, why has that one resonated?

Michael Daly, who's written about the case for "The New York Daily News," says part of the interest has been the mystery, how she disappeared from outside a Manhattan bar and was found strangled to death, raped and bound in a remote part of Brooklyn. Another part of the intrigue, says Daly, the irony.

MICHAEL DALY, "N.Y. DAILY NEWS": She studies criminology, and she is studying the exact thing that happened to her, and that in trying to find her killer, they were using a lot of the same techniques she had studied.

WALLACE: There's another twist. Daly says he believes one of St. Guillen's goals was to improve life behind bars. The man New York City police say is the prime suspect in her murder, Darryl LittleJohn, was in and out of prison, doing hard time, since he was a teenager.

DALY: I mean, I think part of what she felt from what I understand is the prison makes monsters. I mean, it breaks people down, and there are certain monsters who need to be locked away, but prison does make monsters.

WALLACE: At her college in Manhattan, students continue to sign condolence books which will be sent to her family.

"I never knew you, but I feel as if I lost a good friend," said one.

In one of her graduate classes, her chair sits empty. The professor says everyone is missing her.

PROF. RICHARD CULP, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: The most common response, when the topic comes up, is people close their eyes and shake their head.

WALLACE: Because it's so hard to comprehend, says Michael Daly.

DALY: I mean her mother once said that wherever she goes, you know she lit up the room, wherever she went, and I think she met a guy that, like, darkened the room wherever he went, and I think that grabs people.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And what also grabs people, the fact that St. Guillen had a very, very bright future ahead of her, Soledad. Her professor said he talked to her about what she hoped to do one day. She talked about working in a federal law enforcement agency, maybe like the FBI, or continuing her academic career, getting a doctorate in criminal justice.

S. O'BRIEN: I think many people always want to know why the media picks, or maybe the stories pick us, as opposed to we pick them, to focus on. And I think the media has gotten a lot of -- well, as we know, over the last -- for years that sort of white women often are profiled and their stories make the front pages, and other people -- I'm sure many other people died that same day, were murdered that same day.

WALLACE: Yes, I don't know for sure about that. What I was saying earlier we do know that two Chinese women were killed earlier in the month of March, and their families have been speaking out a little bit, saying why so much attention on this case and not on their own families? You know, as we were saying, there are so many factors that go into it. Race is certainly sometimes one. Also class and the background. I mean, she's from a middle class background, graduate student with a promising future. And also this question of what happened to her, could that happen to me? Could that happen now is could that happen to our kids? So it's almost when you sort of think of a crime that's senseless to the victim and to the public, that there's no sense that you could protect yourself. Those are the ones that sort of develop that iconic status seems. S. O'BRIEN: It's a sad, sad story, isn't it?

WALLACE: It sure is.

S. O'BRIEN: Kelly, thank you.

WALLACE: Sure.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, the late Pope John Paul II could become a saint, needs a couple of miracles, though, of course to make that happen. One miracle is now being investigated. We're going to tell you about that coming up.

M. O'BRIEN: And a new plan for business class could be just the thing to save the nation's struggling airlines. Andy Serwer with your business next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MARKET REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: "CNN LIVE TODAY is up next. Daryn Kagan standing by for that.

Good morning, Daryn.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, Miles.

Coming up at the top of the hour, we are live in Gray County, Texas for more on those fierce and deadly wildfires that have burned nearly 700,000 acres.

And later, you know, the big dance, the NCAA, it's coming up. Whether you have faithfully filled out your brackets or whether this whole thing makes your eyes glaze over, doesn't matter. We have John Feinstein with us, and he's going to tell us the incredible stories behind some of the schools that some people say have no business being there, and some particular players that will definitely catch your attention and your heart. That is coming up at top of the hour.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Daryn. We'll be watching -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Pope John Paul II, is he on the road to sainthood? If so, the miraculous cure of a French nun could be half the ticket to get there. CNN's faith and values correspondent Delia Gallagher is just back from Rome. We're going to talk to her, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Under Roman Catholic church law, it takes two proven miracles for somebody to be named a saint. Now an inquiry is under way into what some Catholics say is Pope John Paul II's cure of a nun with Parkinson's Disease. CNN's Faith and Values correspondent Delia Gallagher is with us this morning. Good morning.

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN FAITH AND VALUES CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: Tell us about the French nun who had Parkinson's and was cured.

GALLAGHER: She is a nun currently living in France in a convent. According to the Vatican, she was prayed for by her group of nuns there in the convent, about two months after John Paul II died last year, so in June. She had a rapidly deteriorating Parkinson's and they prayed this prayer called the Novena -- nine days of a special prayer. On the ninth day, her symptoms disappeared. There's no medical explanation, according to the doctors who have looked at her in France.

S. O'BRIEN: The doctors are confirming this?

GALLAGHER: Oh, absolutely. I mean, the Vatican requires that medical doctors, independent of them, sort of document first, A, that she had the disease, in the first place, and B, that it disappeared instantaneously, basically it has to happen. And so that documentation is now with the Polish priest who is in charge of the whole sainthood process for John Paul II.

S. O'BRIEN: And his job is really to gather up -- because, I mean, I'm sure all these claims of miracles are beginning to just flow into him.

GALLAGHER: Well, they are. They have a Web site, and people write in and sort of talk about all the miracles that are attributed to John Paul II after his death. There's a distinction....

S. O'BRIEN: So you can't have a miracle before?

GALLAGHER: Well, there have been those as well. Many people said that there were miracles from being touched by the pope, for example. But the miracle that's needed to make him a saint, the two miracles needed, have to occur after he dies.

S. O'BRIEN: So could this be miracle number one, the French nun? I mean, does it have that kind of weight?

GALLAGHER: They say -- they say -- I just was there and I talked to this Polish priest and he said this is the miracle that he is going to put forward. It has to be approved by the cardinals and by a group of cardinals at the Vatican.

S. O'BRIEN: But maybe the...

GALLAGHER: But he is going to put it forward.

S. O'BRIEN: ... best case so far. GALLAGHER: He thinks that's the best case. Because, you know, there are a number of people who say, well, my son was saved from alcoholism. I was converted. There are all kinds of different types of miracles.

S. O'BRIEN: Harder to prove.

GALLAGHER: Harder to prove, and they don't really accept those. They look for the medical miracles. For example, tumors. He said they got a lot about tumors that went into recession, but they don't take that because they say, you know, sometimes eight, ten years need to pass to see scientifically if that comes back. So he said that he felt this Parkinson's Disease was such a drastic example. And, of course, it was the disease that John Paul II suffered from himself.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, ironically enough, I mean, of course.

GALLAGHER: Yes. He went through about 100 sort of very serious cases of medical miracles, he said.

S. O'BRIEN: So cases that he thinks. I mean, if you count the French nun case as maybe potentially number one, maybe 100 others that could be a solid number, too?

GALLAGHER: Sure, yes. He's got to go and find number two, now, as well. And he's a lawyer. The interesting thing about him is he's actually an annulment lawyer. He has a kind of makeshift office. You know, he does annulments there at the Vatican when marriages are dissolved. And so he's a lawyer for that, and he still does that. He says 50 percent of the time his work for the sainthood process is unpaid, and he has two secretaries there and a makeshift office. It's really a sight to see. And so he does this voluntarily, trying to put this whole thing together. It's a huge amount of work.

S. O'BRIEN: I was going to say, has it been -- I mean, how many people are writing in to say that since his death, they have had miracles that they attribute to Pope John Paul II?

GALLAGHER: Well, he says he has thousands. But, again, there are different types of miracles, and those are only the ones that have sort of arrived to him at the Vatican,because it takes awhile to get there. And on this Web site, people write in just e-mails and say what they think has happened to them from praying to John Paul II.

But for him to say that it's a miracle, he has to have medical documentation, he has to go and investigate himself, and then it has to be approved by the Vatican. So it's a very long process.

S. O'BRIEN: Do you think the pope's going to be named a saint?

GALLAGHER: Oh, yes. And when I was there, I was talking to even cardinals who consider him already a saint.

S. O'BRIEN: It's a done deal.

GALLAGHER: Yes. S. O'BRIEN: All right, Delia, thank you very much. Program note. Delia's going to have more on the sainthood process in a two- hour special, "CNN PRESENTS," looking at the last days of Pope John Paul II. That airs on April 1st, the anniversary, of course, of the pope's death.

Got a quick break, and we're back in just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: The time has flown by, hasn't it?

S. O'BRIEN: Parting is such sweet sorrow.

M. O'BRIEN: You can't even say it with a straight face!

S. O'BRIEN: No, I cannot. But we are out of time. Let's get right to Daryn Kagan.

M. O'BRIEN: Daryn, please, take it! Take it, will ya?

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