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American Morning

President Bush Weighs in on CIA Leak Investigation; FEMA Under Fire Again

Aired April 11, 2006 - 08:30   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Suzanne Malveaux at the White House, where President Bush weighs in on the CIA leak investigation. That story coming up next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE We are not criminals. We are not here to live by the government. We pay a lot of taxes to the government.

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SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thousands of immigrants take to the streets. Anyone in Washington listening?

FEMA is under fire again, this time for being grossly overcharged in New Orleans.

Good morning. Welcome, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Miles O'Brien.

We're glad you're with us. The president says there's good reason why he released classified intelligence about Iraq and the run- up to the war. He said the American people had a right to know the truth behind the decision to go to war, but the controversy continues, as there's lots of discussion as to the leak, which outed the CIA operative of Valerie Plame.

Suzanne Malveaux live at the White House with more on all of this.

Good morning, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Good morning, Miles.

Well, now President Bush is weighing in on all of this. He is speaking out about it. It happened first yesterday at Johns Hopkins University before some students in a Q&A session. President Bush making no apologies, taking his critics head on.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): President Bush insists he did not leak classified information to justify his rationale for the Iraq war. Instead, he just declassified it. BUSH: You're not supposed to talk about classified information. And so, I declassified the document.

MALVEAUX: That document was the October 2002 national intelligence estimate, or NIE, which supported Mr. Bush's claim that Iraq was trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Bush cleared a portion of the NIE for public consumption as he is legally authorized to do several months after the U.S. invaded Iraq, but failed to find weapons of mass destruction.

It was part of a top-level campaign to discredit his critics who were accusing him of twisting Iraqi intelligence to justify the war.

BUSH: I decided to declassify the NIE for a reason. I wanted people to see the truth.

MALVEAUX: Court documents in the trial of top Cheney aide Scooter Libby show that the White House was particularly irked by former ambassador Joe Wilson's challenges, that Iraq sought nuclear weapons. So the president's public defense of the war was no longer enough.

BUSH: I thought it was important for people. To get a better sense for why I was say I saying in my speeches. I felt I could do so without jeopardizing ongoing intelligence matters, so I did it.

MALVEAUX: What the president did, the White House maintains, was disclose information that was previously classified. Not leak.

BUSH: There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington.

MALVEAUX: But Democrats say the president is being hypocritical and parsing his words. Political analysts say that strategy failed former president Bill Clinton.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: It depends on what the meaning of the word is is.

MALVEAUX: And ultimately will backfire with Mr. Bush.

DAVID GERGEN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: I think that does not wash with the general public.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: At least one Republican senator, Arlen Specter, has joined Democrats, calling on the president for a fuller explanation -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Let me ask you this, Suzanne, The NIE, the National Intelligence Estimate, did it mention specifically Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame in it, that declassified document?

MALVEAUX: The declassified document specifically talked about the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, not necessarily Joe Wilson, but part of that, of course, was to discredit what Wilson was saying, that there was no case here, that there was a claim that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Africa, which just wasn't true.

M. O'BRIEN: Suzanne Malveaux the White House, thank you.

Suzanne's story first aired in "THE SITUATION ROOM" with Wolf Blitzer. You can catch it weekdays at 4:00 and 7:00 Eastern right here on CNN -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, Congress left Washington deadlocked on immigration, but as Dana Bash reports, Democrats have hit the road, trying to gain some political ground with a group that often supports the GOP.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the shadow of the deadlocked capital, an unmistakable message delivered not just by the sea of protesters, but a Democratic champion for their cause.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: We will never give in!

(SPEAKING IN SPANISH)

BASH: That echoed in rallies across the country, with other high-profile Democrats adding their voices to the red-hot issue, from Hillary Clinton in New York.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: ... that we will have immigration reform.

BASH: To John Kerry at a quieter venue, speaking to undocumented hotel workers in Los Angeles.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: We're not going to be a country that takes millions of families and splits them apart.

BASH (on camera): Last Friday, a broad bipartisan agreement to put millions of illegal immigrants on a path to U.S. citizenship stalled in the U.S. Senate. Democrats pointed the fingers at Republicans, who called that amnesty and wanted to kill the bill.

(voice-over): Meanwhile, Republicans, who have been divided on this issue, united to blame the Democrats, accusing them of punting on a solution to play election year politics, especially in light of these long-planned rallies, where the focus was on slamming the GOP for passing a hardline House bill last year, which would make illegal immigrants felons and impose new penalties on anyone that helps them.

Anger over the House bill motivated Elmer Arias to round up 30 busloads of friends and come to the Washington mall. He voted for George W. Bush, and regrets it.

ELMER ARIAS, SALVADOREAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: I was believing on him. But, you know, what they're doing right now, I don't think any Spanish is going to vote for a Republican anymore. BASH: It's that kind of outrage at the GOP that has Bush allies so worried.

GROVER NORQUIST, AMERICAN FOR TAX REFORM: If the Republican Party maintains its competitive position with the Hispanic vote, 40 percent and more, it will govern America for 50 years. If it falls to a low percentage of the his Hispanic vote, then it won't.

BASH: At immigration rallies only weeks ago, many protesters waved Mexican flags weeks, which infuriated even immigrant supporters, who thought it looked anti-American. Senior Democrats worried there could be a backlash, but this time, organizers got the message. They worked hard to hand out American flags. And at the D.C. rally, recited the words every American knows by hard.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With liberty and justice for all!

BASH: Dana Bash, CNN, Capitol Hill.

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S. O'BRIEN: Dana's report first aired on "ANDERSON COOPER 360." You can catch that weeknights at 10:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

M. O'BRIEN: Your tax money at waste. That's what it looks like in New Orleans. New charges now that FEMA is failing to get a good deal on trailers, and tarps and the clean up. Actually it's much more than not getting a good deal.

CNN's Sean Callebs has the story.

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SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everyone in New Orleans now knows the definition of a blue roof, but what they probably don't know is FEMA paid contractors some $175 for each square 100 feet to put protective tarps in place. But those contractors subcontracted the work out, then those contractors did the same thing, so did the next, and the next and the next.

So in the end, in some cases, crews doing the actual work were paid just $2 per square.

SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D), LOUISIANA: There's been extraordinary waste, extraordinary inefficiencies.

CALLEBS: Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu is on a congressional committee investigating allegations of waste and abuse in government contracts. Leaders say the findings are eye opening.

REP. BOBBY JINDAL (R), LOUISIANA: What's even more appalling is local roofers are saying for $175 per foot, we'd give you a permanent roof.

CALLEBS: FEMA admits there were and with the way some contracts were handled, but didn't return CNN's calls seeking details. Lawmakers say the waste continues. Without taking bids, FEMA awarded contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars to four national companies to pick up debris. Lawmakers say they were paid as much as $27 a cubic yard to remove the mess. Local parish leaders say the work had been done for about a fourth of the cost.

And then there's the issue of trailers, more than 20,000 still sitting idly in Arkansas and other locations and FEMA paid about $76,000 for each travel trailer used for a year and a half. Some congressional leaders say residents would have been better off just receiving the cash.

JINDAL: Even if you said, we'll just give you half if you don't take the trailer, I guarantee you, a vast of majority of people would say, we'll take half, and we'll be better off than if you'd given us an $80,000 trailer for 18 months.

CALLEBS: Congressional members wanted more answers from FEMA, but all representatives of the Emergency Management Agency left the meeting before it was over. Unconsciable, says Senator Vitter.

SEN. DAVID VITTER (R), LOUISIANA: To me, that says almost everything you need to know about the attitude problem that we've experience from, unfortunately, the very beginning.

CALLEBS (on camera): Congressional members are demanding changes in the way FEMA works. Knowing the U.S. will get hit hard again by a punishing hurricane, they say there is no reason taxpayers should get hammered again by government waste.

Sean Callebs, CNN, in New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Gas prices going to be higher than ever this summer, I'm sorry to tell you that.

Carol Costello has some new information for us.

Hello, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's so hard to predict the price of gas is going to be. If you ask one analyst, they'll say something else. Another analyst, they'll say something different, but let's concentrate on what we know. We use the Lundberg Survey here at CNN. They say the average price for a gallon of gas now stands at $2.67.

Now, compare that to Labor Day of 2005, oh, it was $3.05. You remember that, don't you? I was really curious about this, because it fell quickly after hitting $3.05. So I wondered if Americans carried through with their threat to just stop driving and stop using gas. According to both AAA And the Lundberg Survey, Americans did stop driving for, oh, about maybe a second. But, we did learn how to outsmart the system. We got rid of our gas guzzlers, and we're now driving smaller cars, which in the long run will help keep prices down. So see, at least we did that.

Another tidbit from AAA, it says gas prices will rise between 10 to 20 cents over a couple of months, and then they'll start to slowly decline during The Memorial Day, which is traditional.

But keep in mind, all of this could go out the window if anything at all happens in the Middle East, real or imagined, to disrupt the oil supply. And then who knows how high the gas prices go?

Another helpful hint, we found this really cool Web site. It's called fuelcostcalculator.com. And let's put it up, because this is really cool. If you're planning to drive on your next vacation, let's say you're from St. Louis, you just put your city in there, St. Louis. And then you put your destination city, so let's say you're going to Orlando because you're brining the kids to Disney World, and you're driving, because you're crazy, and you're driving a 2005 Honda Accord. It will costs you $175.95 round trip, 66 gallons of gas, and it's 1,982 miles. We'll figure this all out for you, so that's pretty cool.

I did have a question for Andy, because, Andy, the government released its figures predicting what the cost of a gallon of gas will be during the summer. It even released predictions of what the price of gas will be in the year 2007, and I didn't quite understand how it could figure that out.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Well, I hate to be chuckling, but it's almost laughable to be able to try to do that, Carol. Of course, you know, the government would be to be in the business of predicting the next Hurricane Katrina or a nuclear standoff in Iran. Supply and demand is so tight right now, there is really no way of predicting not only what the price of gas will be in 2007, but what it will be this summer. So a major grain of salt there, I would say.

COSTELLO: Okay. Thank you for clearing that up. I feel better now.

SERWER: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: It's got to depend on if there's going to be a hurricane season and, you know, as Carol said, what happens in the Middle East. I mean, that's just two of a long list of what could impact gas prices.

SERWER: We could probably save ourselves some money and get rid of that department at the Department of Energy. I mean, we'd still -- you don't really need it. It's just guessing, it really is.

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S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, we've got the story of a family left homeless twice. First, by Hurricane Katrina and now by a tornado. Where do they turn now? We chat with them this morning. And sort of an ironic twist. A black politician charged with discrimination against white voters. We'll tell you about the controversy in Mississippi.

Those stories just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

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S. O'BRIEN: Talk about a double whammy. Hurricane Katrina forced this family to escape New Orleans, and now Tess Robinson and her family are homeless again after recent tornadoes destroyed their home in Georgia. Tess Robinson joins us this morning from Marietta, Georgia, along with her daughter Barcardi Green and her son Bernell Green.

Thanks for talking with us. Certainly appreciate your time. Bernell, it's really no exaggeration, I think, that you saved your family. Let me kind of fill everybody in on what you did. You woke everybody up, because you're watching the weather reports 2:00 in the morning on Saturday night. And you realized that the tornado's coming your way. You wake up everybody up, get everybody out of the house. You must feel very good at least -- I mean, as destroyed as the house is around you, you got to feel good about what you did for your family. Right, Bernell?

BERNELL GREEN, 15 YEARS OLD: Yes. I do.

S. O'BRIEN: Are you still shaking from it a little bit?

BERNELL GREEN: A little bit.

S. O'BRIEN: Tess, let me ask you a question. How are you holding up? You've had, as we mentioned, just a string of bad luck. I mean, first you escaped out of -- someone's cell phone going off there. I like the music you put on the ringer there. A string of bad luck. First you have Hurricane Katrina, which destroys your house in New Orleans, and then you move in with your aunt and now this house, your aunt's house, is also destroyed. Just how tough has the last seven months been for you?

TESS ROBINSON, DISPLACED TWICE: It's just devastating. It's like reliving a nightmare constantly. Actually, this house was provided to us by Jeff Duran (ph). He let us live at this house. So this is not my aunt's house. Right now, we're staying with my aunt. But we're trying to find somewhere that we can go because my aunt's house is not that big and it's only a place where we go temporarily.

But, yes, like I said, the owner let us live here and it was just -- it's just devastating because to go back to New Orleans and have to clean up there and try to get started there, get everything started there -- and basically we can't do anything. So now with the tree on top of us, I was in my bed and less than 30 seconds, I got out of my bed and we all came and gathered here and the tree came down on top of the house.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Now, back to New Orleans, where you're working on your house. You have a trailer, I read, but no key to the trailer. Is that right? No key?

ROBINSON: Nobody -- no key.

S. O'BRIEN: That's absurd. So you can't get into your...

ROBINSON: ... our own trailer. FEMA -- right. FEMA says they don't know where the key is and who has it. We called them yesterday to tell them about the tornado hitting this house and us being displaced again, and they told us they would call us back. Still haven't heard from them. No one called us back.

S. O'BRIEN: So this house -- Barcardi, am I right to say that this is a loss? I mean, it looks like it from what we can see. I mean, it looks like it's gone. Is that right?

BARCARDI GREEN, 18 YEARS OLD: Right. It's gone. Its not livable.

S. O'BRIEN: So what's the plan, then? I mean, you know? How are you going to pull it all together? You got kids to take care of?

ROBINSON: Right now, we don't know. I mean, we really don't know. We don't know what we're going to do -- how we're going to even go about trying to start over. I can't really go to family members because so many of my family members were displaced because of Katrina.

S. O'BRIEN: Have you told talked to the Red Cross or any of the local charities?

ROBINSON: Red Cross put us into a hotel for two days. They told us come back yesterday. We went back and they told us they can't do anything else. And they gave us a list of referrals and told us to call someone else.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh my goodness.

ROBINSON: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: I mean, as terrible as all of it is -- and maybe, I guess, the silver lining is, of course, that you escaped twice with your life.

ROBINSON: Right. And we're alive. And that's the blessing at my myself.

S. O'BRIEN: Is it hard to think of that, though, when you're standing in all that rubble?

ROBINSON: I -- it's fate. I have to live by fate. I know that God has us alive for a reason and I know that in spite of everything, as long as we're alive and we're together, we're blessed. We're blessed.

S. O'BRIEN: I admire your ability to hold it together. Because I tell you, you have had a tough row to hoe, so to speak. ROBINSON: Definitely.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, good work to all of you guys -- luck to all of you guys. And...

ROBINSON: Well, thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: And thanks for talking with us. Bernell, good work in saving your family from what clearly is just a devastated house. And thank you for talking with us and sharing your story.

BARCARDI GREEN: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: We'll check back in again with you to see exactly what happens.

ROBINSON: OK, thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Because I don't know what the next step is going to be for you.

ROBINSON: I don't know either. I'm not sure.

BARCARDI GREEN: We're trying to get back and get the house together in New Orleans, but with FEMA and the insurance company not helping us, it's kind of hard.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, you're between a rock and a hard place.

BARCARDI GREEN: Yes. That's our main focus is to try to get the house in New Orleans rebuilt, but we can't right now. And we didn't have anywhere to go, so it's hard.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh my goodness. All right, well, we'll check in with you again. We'll keep up with your story and update folks, as well, on your situation.

That is tough. All right. Miles?

M. O'BRIEN: They seem to have a great attitude, though, you know? That's a tough situation.

In a moment, top stories, including defense lawyers say DNA tests do not link Duke lacrosse players to a woman accused of accusing them of rape.

And the end of an era. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon permanently removed from power.

Then, will the immigration issue lead to a mass migration of votes come November?

The arraignment for accused killer Neil Entwistle. Coming up, we'll have a live report on that.

And crisis in California. Rivers running high. Levees pushed to the limit. And more rain on the way. Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.

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