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American Morning
Navy SEALs Rescue American Captain From Somali Pirates; Crew Thanks Captain Phillips for Their Lives; What Went Behind the Daring Rescue Mission of the Navy SEALs; Family and Friends Await Captain's Homecoming; Study Shows More Students Paying Tuition With Credit Cards
Aired April 13, 2009 - 06:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And thanks so much for joining us again on this AMERICAN MORNING. It's Monday. It's April 13. John's back.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, good morning. Welcome to you. It's good to be back this morning. I missed getting up at 2:00 in the morning for the last week.
CHETRY: I'm sure you did.
ROBERTS: Yes. It's been terrible. Every morning when I would wake up at 7:00, I'd say, gosh, if only I'd...
CHETRY: Wake up at 7:00? You sent a couple of e-mails to us at 5:30 in the morning. I said, he's up anyway. He can't help himself.
ROBERTS: You do get up from time to time and -- oh! I'm going to respond to this. It's not an obsession or anything like that.
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: Got a lot to cover this morning. Here's a look at the big stories we'll be breaking down for you in the next 15 minutes here on the Most News in the Morning.
New details on the heroic rescue of a U.S. captain. This morning, Richard Phillips is safe after Navy sharpshooters killed three pirates and captured a fourth. Now, fellow pirates are vowing revenge.
And we're looking at the tense moments leading up to the rescue of Captain Phillips and how mistakes by three Somali pirates gave Navy SEAL snipers the opening they needed.
Also this morning, that rescue, a big cause for celebration in Captain Phillips' hometown where friends and family have been holding an anxious vigil. In a moment, we're going to take you live to Underhill, Vermont.
We begin this morning with the developing news, relief and a warning after the U.S. Navy killed three pirates and saves a U.S. captain. Right now, plans are in the works to get American captain, Richard Phillips, back home. Here he is safe on board the USS Boxer. Just hours earlier, Navy snipers could see the pirates with an AK-47 pointed at the captain's back. That's when on a sudden burst they took out the three hijackers, each with a bullet to the head, ending the five-day long standoff.
CNN's Chris Lawrence is live at the Pentagon for us this morning. Stephanie Elam live in Underhill, Vermont where Phillips' family is celebrating and anxiously awaiting his return.
Let's start with Chris this morning. And, Chris, quite a dramatic end to this operation.
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, John, and it all went down less than 20 miles from the Somali shore. This morning we're going take you inside this rescue from the back deck of the ship where the snipers stood to the White House situation room where President Obama received more than a dozen briefings.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE (voice-over): President Obama authorized lethal force on Friday night. Just 13 hours later, he issued a second order to an additional set of U.S. forces who would join the rescue.
VICE ADMIRAL WILLIAM E. GORTNEY, U.S. NAVY (via telephone): The authorities came directly from the president.
LAWRENCE: The Navy had been using a boat like this to bring supplies to the lifeboat. But as Saturday wore on, the pirates became more agitated. A defense official says shots were fired, and the pirates were demanding ransom.
GORTNEY: And to make their point, they were threatening throughout to kill the captain.
LAWRENCE: Out of fuel, the lifeboat was now being towed 90 feet behind the USS Bainbridge. Early Saturday night Eastern Time, one of the pirates was shuttled to the Bainbridge for medical treatment. He'd been stabbed during the initial scuffle with the Maersk Alabama's crew.
GORTNEY: And we were working with him in the negotiation process.
LAWRENCE: Captain Phillips was tied up in the lifeboat but in one of their last communications, the Bainbridge crew read him a letter from his wife.
GORTNEY: The note said, "Richard, your family loves you. Your family is praying for you."
LAWRENCE: At one point, a Navy SEAL team had parachuted in and took up positions on the back deck of the Bainbridge. As the weather got rougher, negotiations broke down.
GORTNEY: And the sniper's position on the fantail of the Bainbridge observed one of the pirates in the pilot house and two pirates with their head and shoulders exposed. And one of the pirates had an AK-47 leveled at the captain's back.
LAWRENCE: The on-scene commander believed the pirate was about to fire, so the Navy snipers shot first. The defense official says each pirate was shot in the head. Then the special ops team shimmied along a tow rope to the lifeboat, made sure the pirates were dead and took Phillips back to the Navy ships nearby.
RICHARD PHILLIPS, RESCUED MERCHANT CAPTAIN OF THE MAERSK ALABAMA: Thanks, guys. Thank you very much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE: Yes, that was Captain Phillips after a hot shower, a medical checkup and a phone call from President Obama himself -- John.
ROBERTS: All right. Chris Lawrence for us this morning. Chris, thanks so much.
CHETRY: And just in this morning, the crew of the Maersk Alabama cheering the safe return of their captain. We heard from them just a short time ago from Mombasa, Kenya. Here's another look. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GORDON VAN HOOK, SR. DIRECTOR, MAERSK LINE LTD.: It's the ship's arrival. It's been a crime scene as you well know. The FBI has been conducting their investigation, their interviews with the crew. And their assessment of the various spaces, trying to gather evidence. And they've had a very successful investigation. They've gotten a lot of good stuff.
We're now moving into the next phase in which we're employing some third party consultants, security team consultants that are going to look at our ship and assess its viability to continue on the current trade routes that it's engaged in.
SHANE MURPHY, MAERSK ALABAMA CHIEF: I just got off the phone with our captain, Richard Phillips, for the first time. And it was an extremely emotional experience for all of us to actually hear his voice and to hear the condition he was in. And he's absolutely elated. And he couldn't be prouder of us for doing what he trained us to do. And that's really when the story unfold, you'll see that's really all we did. We did everything the way we were trained to do and we had the captain.
Ultimately everybody you see here before you today has the captain, Captain Phillips, to thank for their lives and their freedom. But additionally, it was an entire crew-wide effort.
We would like to implore President Obama to use all of his resources and increase the commitment to ending this Somali pirate scourge. Right now, there are ships still being taken right now as we're standing here. And at sea, it's a global community. It doesn't come down to nations. There's a whole world out there at sea that we live together. We look out for each other. America has to be at the forefront of this. It's time for us to step in and put this to end this crisis.
It's a crisis. Wake up. This crew was lucky to be out of it with every one of us alive. We're not going to be that lucky again.
And just for the record, we never had to fight to take our ship back. We never surrendered our ship. We fought to save the captain's shipmates that were still aboard, but we never gave up. That's all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Shane Murphy getting very emotional about it. We spoke to his father in the early days of this hostage crisis. He trains merchant marines and is going out there to defend themselves, and it appears that's what they did in the initial hours.
ROBERTS: You can imagine what they went through. You can imagine also how relieved they are and how happy they are that Captain Phillips managed to survive this ordeal as well.
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: Like you say, continuing problem out there, and you know, what do you do about it? You got the navies of 17 countries running around the Gulf of Aden in that part of the Indian Ocean and these pirates are still operating pretty much with impunity.
CHETRY: That's right. And, you know, the argument made, well, they're not doing anything violent. They haven't used violence in the past.
I mean, as he said, they were lucky to get out of alive. The threat of violence was always there for this crew and for all the others that are taken.
ROBERTS: Yes. And I guess that crew will be heading home soon just as soon as a replacement crew arrives in Mombasa to take over the Maersk Alabama there.
After learning of the news, the best news possible rather, that the dramatic rescue of Captain Phillips had been completed, his family is huddled together this morning behind closed doors at their home in Vermont. We have not heard from them directly yet, but here's what a spokeswoman for the overjoyed family said last night about his first call home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALISON MCCOLL, FAMILY SPOEKSPERSON: She was laughing while she was on the phone with him. She was saying his trademark sense of humor is still very much intact, and he's in great spirits. And if you guys could just -- could have seen her light up when she talked to him, it was really remarkable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Live this morning outside the captain's home in Underhill, Vermont, where the anticipation is building about that very special homecoming, our Stephanie Elam joins us now.
Stephanie, do we know when we might hear from the family members directly, and do we have any idea when Captain Phillips might be coming back?
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We don't know either of those answers yet at this point, John. We're keeping an eye on it, see if we hear any news about that.
The way they put it yesterday is that they really need some time to regroup to get a plan together on how everything is going to happen, when Captain Phillips gets back here. One gentleman I spoke to, a neighbor, said that when he gets back, it might not be a ticker tape parade but more like a snow flurry parade simply because yesterday was simply the chilliest day since we have been up here in Underhill, Vermont. But it was also the warmest day as this great news spread through the small town of Underhill, Vermont in the shadows of Mount Mansfield here.
People very excited to hear that the captain was indeed safe and that he was going to come home. One of the best ways that we saw people sharing their excitement was honking their horns, driving around town. We heard a lot of that yesterday. In fact, after the press briefing yesterday, we also saw the family leaving, the extended family leaving the Phillips' home. And while they said they weren't ready to come before the cameras, they're very happy to show their excitement by honking as they left the driveway, John.
ROBERTS: That will be a tremendous amount of relief there in Underhill this morning. And, Stephanie, we're looking forward to hearing from the family. Give us a heads up just as soon as you hear anything. Thanks, Steph.
CHETRY: All right. Well, here's a look at some of the other stories we're following for you this morning, including some breaking news overseas.
Thailand's prime minister declaring a state of emergency as anti- government protests grow even more intense. This morning in Bangkok, soldiers fired shots hoping to disperse the crowd. Thousands of protesters are demanding that the prime minister step down saying the four-month old government is not democratically elected.
And the recession appearing to take a toll on people with diabetes. Doctors reporting a drop in appointments with their diabetic patients. Many of those patients are winding up in emergency rooms because they're cutting back on insulin and blood sugar testing after losing income or their health insurance.
And should all drugs be legal? We're going to talk to one professor from Harvard who says yes, even things like heroin should be decriminalized. You don't want to miss it ahead on the "Most News in the Morning."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Brand- new developments after Navy SEALs shoot and killed three pirates holding American Captain Richard Phillips hostage. The pirates now vowing revenge saying that they'll get back at America for taking out three of their own. So how did it all go down?
Those Navy SEALs parachuted from an aircraft into the Indian Ocean around dusk on Saturday and set up on the USS Bainbridge. They seized their chance yesterday after two of the pirates exposed their heads and shoulders above the lifeboat. A third pirate could be seen pointing an AK-47 at Captain Phillips' back. That's when Navy SEAL snipers were cleared to fire and pick off all three kidnappers with Captain Phillips just feet away and he completely unharmed.
Joining us now is Dick Couch. He is a retired Navy SEAL and has led rescue missions of his own. He's also the author of several novels and books including "The Sheriff of Ramadi." He is live for us in Washington this morning.
Dick, thanks for being with us. Walk us through, and I know that you may not have intimate details of what happened there but certainly you know the operations. Walk us through how those final moments would have gone down in terms of the sniper teams on the fantail of the USS Bainbridge, getting ready to take the shot, getting the orders and then taking out those three hijackers.
DICK COUCH, RETIRED U.S. NAVY SEAL: Well, this was an operation that fortunately had a great resolution. I think job one was getting those shooters to the Bainbridge which took parachuting into the sea with their equipment setting up, getting in position. I think we have to credit the on-scene commander who had to make that decision for those shooters to do their job.
These guys are very well trained. They have a lot of experience and there has to be a lot of communication between the shooters and the people making the decision that all three had shots, that they could make their shots successfully. They had to communicate that to the on-scene commander and not only was it professionalism on their part but credit that on-scene commander with making a timely decision.
ROBERTS: Now, the ship had about a 100 foot towline back to the lifeboat as it was pulling it through the Indian Ocean there. And the waves apparently were starting to come up so the lifeboat would have been bobbing a little bit. We understand, too, that one of the hijackers was shot through a window. How difficult would it be to get an accurate shot off?
COUCH: Well, that's -- these are technically very proficient shooters. And again, they know their capabilities and their limitations and the communication is critical. All three of those shooters saying that they have good confidence in their target and communicating that. Obviously, it's not a great distance because they're used to shooting at far greater distances than that. But the movement, obviously, was a factor there. But given that short a distance, they were able to acquire their targets and make those shots.
ROBERTS: Would these sniper teams have been, you know, on station watching that boat 24 hours a day?
COUCH: I would think that they were in place. They're probably rotating, you know, a sniper team on the gun or one guy off the gun while they waited for their opportunity. And I think that certainly they, as tensions rise and fall, they were in a higher state of readiness towards the end there. I'm sure that they were locked, dialed in, waiting for that shot and waiting for permission to make that shot.
ROBERTS: You know, I was talking about this over the weekend with friends, Phillips' attempt to escape on Friday. How valuable was that to the SEAL teams who were trying to assess the situation and trying to figure out how to proceed?
COUCH: I'm not sure. There was a lot of eyes on that boat, what was happening. I'm sure that they were observing these pirates to know are they -- do they have any level expertise. How do they handle their weapons? What's their demeanor?
I'm sure that information was being gathered all along so that they knew they would rather talk their way out of this. When it became obvious that that couldn't happen, then they were released to make those shots. So I'm sure they had as much information as they could. I'm sure they would have rather resolved it more peacefully but that didn't come about.
ROBERTS: All right. Dick Couch, former Navy SEAL, thanks for joining us this morning. It's good to talk to you.
COUCH: My pleasure, John.
ROBERTS: Thanks, Dick.
CHETRY: Well, still ahead, drug nation. All this week, we're looking at how addiction here at home is fueling violence across the border and we're asking the question, would legalizing even hard drugs like heroin and cocaine change how we're dealing with the problem and actually make things better?
Well, we're going to talk to one Harvard professor who says that's the solution and a former DEA agent who says no way.
And we're also following a dangerous line of storms right now tearing across the southeast. You see it there outlined in red. We are watching for damaging hail and strong winds.
Our Rob Marciano keeping an eye on things at the weather center. We'll check in with him as well.
It's 17 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Twenty minutes past the hour. Time to fast forward through some of the stories on tap for the rest of the day.
At 10:00 a.m. Eastern, President Obama and the first family will host some 30,000 kids for the traditional White House Easter egg roll happening on the South Lawn.
Also a town full of Bernie Madoff victims getting a day in court. Fairfield, Connecticut claims it lost tens of millions of dollars in employee pensions in Madoff's Ponzi scheme. A judge will decide whether to lift the freeze on assets of investors who allegedly served as feeder funds for the scam.
And at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, a lifeline from the tax man. IRS commissioner saying that in a speech to be delivered at the National Press Club highlighting the agency's new plan to help taxpayers in financial distress. It allows IRS employees to adjust or even defer tax payments for people having trouble paying their taxes -- John.
ROBERTS: Well, that's nice, isn't it?
CHETRY: How about it?
ROBERTS: That's a little Easter present there.
CHETRY: There you go.
ROBERTS: Only three days now until tax deadline, too, make sure you get your return in or file for an extension.
We're also watching extreme weather this morning. Potential trouble in the Southeast. Our Rob Marciano tracking it all from the weather center in Atlanta.
How bad is it looking, Rob?
(WEATHER REPORT)
CHETRY: Well, ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, the dramatic rescue of Captain Richard Phillips held hostage by Somali pirates for five days. We're going to talk to Joseph Murphy. He's the father of one of the hostages who first spoke to CNN when this whole crisis started.
Murphy teaches a course on how to fend off pirate attacks. We're going to get his thoughts on how this whole thing ended.
Also as the cost of college education rises, more students are turning to the lender of last resort -- their credit cards.
Twenty-three minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROBERTS: Well, the top videos right now on CNN.com, some terrifying images from a zoo in Berlin. A woman attacked by a polar bear after jumping into their compound during feeding time.
CHETRY: Look at this. This is unbelievable. She's trying to hold on and these bears are literally pulling her back into the water.
ROBERTS: What part of "not a good idea" did she not understand about?
CHETRY: Yes. And she was trying to see Knute.
ROBERTS: Well, he wasn't there apparently at the time. That is actually the compound where Knute, the famous polar bear, lives, but he was not participating in this attack. The other polar bears, don't know if they were actually hungry and trying to eat her or just saying what are you doing in our cage? Get out.
She was -- she's suffered some pretty severe lacerations, but other than that appears to be fine, and we're hopeful learned a lesson from all of that.
What could be better than a few giant sausages racing through the streets of Milwaukee? The famous Klement sausages took to the streets last week in the annual run to Miller Park to kick off the Milwaukee Brewers baseball season. Nothing like a bunch of sausages hightailing it down the street.
And from bangers to head-banging in Karachi, Pakistan, in a country often overshadowed by terrorism. These teen metalheads say they represent the real Pakistan.
Their underground shows usually happen on Saturday night. They typically involve lots of screaming guitars and sometimes get a little bit of breakdancing. Don't see any of that here. May not know that breakdancing and heavy metal don't necessarily go together.
All right. It's 27 minutes after the hour.
Faced with the rising cost of education, college students are relying on plastic now more than ever. Christine Romans "Minding Your Business" and she joins us now.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: This is a new survey from Sallie Mae. It's, you know, the student loan company -- you know, the government student loan company. And I have to tell you when I was in college, I had one credit card.
ROBERTS: None. Zero.
CHETRY: One.
ROBERTS: I don't know if credit cards existed when I went to college.
ROMANS: Oh, John, please. But look, on average, kids are carrying 4.6 credit cards now and they're using them to pay for college. I mean, since the credit freeze, more and more kids are racking up tuition debt. In fact, 30 percent of kids are putting tuition on their credit cards. They can do that, but that means you're paying more for college because only 17 percent of kids are paying off these bills every month. That means you're putting tuition, living expenses, the gamut on these credit cards and wracking them up.
CHETRY: The interest rate is ridiculous.
ROMANS: And the fees, oh my gosh. So 2008, $3,173 was the average bill of an undergraduate. Just a bill sitting there not being paid. Look at how that compares from 1998 to 2004, really wracking up a lot of debt.
The average balance topping $3,000 and most kids saying they are not paying the bill off every month. Thirty percent charging tuition on credit cards. It's just incredible, the cost of it.
You have to have the education to get ahead. Education costs more and more, using credit cards to do it. Looking at it as the sort of the lender of last resort, many people are so a lot of folks are thinking these numbers are going to continue to rise this year.
ROBERTS: Yes. Pretty tough there for a lot of folks.
ROMANS: Yes, it really is. And I think a lot of kids don't know how to -- you know, I think that there needs to be a little bit more financial education, too, maybe I mean...
CHETRY: It's true. Christine, thanks so much.
Twenty-eight minutes after the hour now. Some of the developing stories we're going to breaking down for you in the next 15 minutes. American ship captain, Richard Phillips, is safe in the U.S. this morning, in U.S. hands rather. He was held hostage at gunpoint by Somali pirates. Navy SEAL snipers rescued him yesterday. They killed three of his kidnappers. The fourth one was captured.
Breaking news also this morning out of Bangkok where Thai soldiers are clashing with protesters blocking roads in the capital. Seventy people reported injured. The demonstrations come just a day after Thailand's ousted prime minister called for a revolution.
And the average price of gas down a bit this morning to $2.05 a gallon. That's half the record high we hit last summer. Prices are nearly a dime though over what they were three weeks ago. New Jersey has the cheapest gas in the nation, $1.87 a gallon.
And right now, the latest developments on the end of this five- day hostage crisis in the Indian Ocean. American ship captain, Richard Phillips, is free and he's in good health this morning, resting comfortably on a U.S. warship. He was rescued Sunday.
Navy SEAL snipers killing three Somali pirates who took him hostage. A fourth kidnapper is in U.S. custody and he could spend the rest of his life in a U.S. prison. Somali pirates already holding more than a dozen ships and 200 hostages still are now vowing to retaliate.
Shane Murphy was second in command on board the Maersk Alabama when Captain Phillips was kidnapped. His father, Joseph, knows a thing or two about the pirates who confronted his son's ship. In fact, he teaches a course on anti-piracy tactics at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
Jason Carroll brought us inside the lifeboat. He's been covering the story since this hostage crisis unfolded, and he joins us live now from outside of the academy in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts this morning.
Good morning, Jason. Shane Murphy is speaking out this morning. He had some powerful words about this emotional ordeal.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, speaking to those who know Shane, they say he's just like his father, Joe Murphy. He is not one to hold his tongue, and that's exactly what we're seeing now. So, you can imagine a lot of folks here at the Maritime Academy anxiously awaiting the homecoming of both Shane Murphy and Captain Richard Phillips.
As for Shane right now, he is still on board the Maersk Alabama in Kenya. He has been speaking to reporters about his ordeal, specifically about how he was able to defend himself from those pirates.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHANE MURPHY, MAERSK ALABAMA CHIEF MATE: We never had to fight to take our ship back. We never surrendered our ship. We fought to save the captured shipmates that were still aboard. But we never gave up. That's all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: So you can see Shane got a little emotional there in Africa. Lots of gratitude towards -- of course turned himself over to the pirates. So he could try and help his crew. Many thanks coming also from Joe Murphy, Shane's father. Listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAPT. JOSEPH MURPHY, SON ON MAERSK ALABAMA: I would like thank Captain Phillips and his family for his courage and his personal sacrifice. He has made a tremendous sacrifice for his crew. Just incredible courage. We're very, very thankful. He's done everything that he could possibly do and he has saved our son.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: So what's happening right now again? Everyone here waiting for the homecoming, we're hearing what is basically going on is that the crew there in Kenya is waiting for the relief crew to head over there and relieve them. Once that happens, they'll be able to take off to their home towns. We're hearing that Shane's wife and his two children will possibly meet Shane at JFK in New York City maybe some time tomorrow, then the whole family will fly back to Providence for the homecoming here -- Kiran.
CHETRY: No doubt, it will be quite a celebration, Jason. And again, thanks for bringing us all of the first-and information and the look inside the lifeboat and what that training course entails as well. Thanks, Jason.
ROBERTS: The drug violence in Mexico doesn't affect you? Natalie's family thought that, too. She was a straight "A" student and a cheerleader until heroin took over her life. In our special series, "Drug Nation," a look at how cheap Mexican heroin is luring a whole new class of kids.
And given the heartache that families have lost loved ones to illegal drugs, why would anyone want hard drugs legalized? It might be surprised at what you're about to hear. It's 33 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
ROBERTS: Thirty-six minutes after the hour now.
President Obama traveling to Mexico this week with the violence at the border at the top priority. So all this week in our "Drug Nation" series, we'll be taking a look at how the nation's addiction to drugs is fuelling the problem across the border. When you think of a heroin addict you probably think of a junkie in the street using needles, but we found the face of the heroin addict has changed and it changed pretty dramatically.
The Mexican drug wars have made heroin even cheaper, even cheaper than beer in some cases which is making the face of the new heroin user, younger and maybe even disturbingly familiar. Carol Costello is in Washington. She has been looking into this for us. And she joins us this morning. This is pretty disturbing who is using heroin these days, Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is disturbing. It is also disturbing just how cheap this drug is, John, what five bucks for a hit of heroin? Remember when Hillary Clinton said it was in part our insatiable appetite for illegal drugs fueling that's fueling the Mexican drug trade. Well, she's right.
The appetite for illegal drugs like heroin is hitting middle America's children hard, and before you say not my kid, please listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL (voice-over): It's easy to close your eyes. If you believe drug-related violence in Mexico could never affect you, not if you live on the East Coast of the United States in a safe middle-class neighborhood. But it does.
DOREEN CIAPPA, MOTHER: It makes me angry that they don't see a young life that they're destroying.
COSTELLO: Doreen and Victor Ciappa's eyes are open wide. Last May, their 18-year-old daughter Natalie survived an overdose on a drug they told police they had never seen before.
CIAPPA: I started screaming, actually. Because I had showed him the packets because they said we can't do anything if we don't know what it is. We had found these little empty packets. I had spent hours on the Internet trying to figure out what they were.
COSTELLO: Those little white packets turned out to be heroin, much of it smuggled through Mexico and marketed to teenagers. No need to shoot up anymore. You can smoke it or snort it and it's cheap.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unfortunately today, a bag of heroin can be cheaper than a six pack of beer.
COSTELLO: Unlike a generation ago, this heroin is very pure, upwards of 70 percent. Teenagers are getting hooked faster and overdosing more.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Try heroin once, and you may not have the opportunity to try it again.
COSTELLO: Law enforcement officials say heroin use has spiked in the northeast, more than half of heroin arrests nationwide happen here. And twice as many heroin users seek treatment than all other regions combined. On Long Island, it's luring middle-class kids like Natalie.
CIAPPA: She was really something else.
COSTELLO: A straight "A" student, a cheerleader. Kids like her can be attracted to this cheaper heroin because they don't think it's as dangerous as the heroin you shoot into your veins.
DET. LT. PETER DONOHUE, NASSAU CITY POLICE DEPT.: I think we skipped a generation in education. The young kids don't see the perils with heroin.
COSTELLO: After that first overdose back in May, Natalie promised her parents she would stop, but she didn't, and weeks later, she died.
CIAPPA: This is today's heroin addict. This is what they look like. They look like everybody's kid.
COSTELLO: The Ciappas are on a mission to save those other kids. They helped pass long island's Natalie's law, requiring officials to post information about heroin arrests on the web so other parents can learn from their painful lesson.
VICTOR CIAPPA, FATHER: She had everything to live for and I just never wondered because I never thought it was an issue. I never thought a kid like that would ever dabble with something as scary as heroin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: The Ciappas say Natalie was introduced to this drug by a drug-dealing boyfriend. He has now been convicted of dealing drugs to someone else. And yes, Natalie's parents will be at his sentencing hearing, testifying against him. They believe the dealers and suppliers killed their daughter by introducing her to this very addictive drug. John.
ROBERTS: You feel so terrible for the parents, what Natalie's mother said that she wished these drug suppliers knew what they were doing to young kids so that they would feel bad about it. They don't care, and that's something the parents have got to get, they do not care what they're doing to kids these days.
COSTELLO: They don't care. And the other thing the Ciappas say that parents need to get, you need to look for signs that your children may be hooked on something, maybe they're spending more time in their room, their personalities change.
ROBERTS: Yes.
COSTELLO: Their grades drop. These things, you have to pay attention to so you can get your kids the help he or she needs.
ROBERTS: Parental involvement, big part of the solution here. Carol Costello for us this morning. Carol, thanks so much. Kiran.
CHETRY: The question is how do Americans kick their addiction to drugs? We're talking to one Harvard professor who says that legalizing everything, not just marijuana, but everything, including heroin, would solve the problem.
Also former DEA agent who says that will only make things worse. The focus has to be on treating addiction. We're going have a debate coming up next on this. Forty-one minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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CHETRY: Well, before the break, we saw the devastating impact heroin had on one family, taking the life of a promising 18-year-old. She was straight "A" student but she was able to buy a bag of heroin for less than the cost of a six pack of beer.
One of our next guest says that heroin and all drugs should be as legal as beer. Jeff Miron is an economist at Harvard University. He wrote a commentary on CNN.com advocating for drug legalization. It was viewed by thousands of people. He's live in Boston today. Also, Bob Stutman, a former DEA agent who revamped federal policy on crack cocaine during his time at the agency. He's against legalization, in Omaha, Nebraska this morning. And thanks to both of you for being with us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning, Kiran.
CHETRY: I want to start with you, Jeff, you saw that heart breaking piece about what heroin did to a young girl and the family. And there's plenty of people out there saying that drugs like heroin are incredibly dangerous, why would we make it easier and legal and easier for these kids to get?
JEFF MIRON, DIRECTOR OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Well, the main fact is that prohibition, the policy pursued hasn't prevented kids from getting access to heroin including very, very cheap heroin. All the tens of billions of dollars we spend every year to try to raise heroin prices and other drug prices in fact have been unsuccessful. Heroin prices have fallen dramatically and as your story pointed out is now incredibly cheap.
And at the same time we are getting all the ancillary costs of drug prohibition such as the violence in Mexico that spills over into the United States. So we're not accomplishing the goal of keeping people away from heroin and we're having enormous costs in addition. So I don't claim that legalization is a solution. Some people will misuse drugs just even if it's legal just as some people misuse alcohol, but the magnitude of negative things would be vastly reduced if it were legal.
CHETRY: Bob, we talk about some stats from the office of national drug control policy. They estimate that we spend more than half a trillion dollars a year on substance abuse. We're spending all this money and we don't seem to be making a significant dent in anything. So what would be the solution if legalization isn't?
BOB STUTMAN, SPENT 25 YEARS AS A DEA AGENT: Well, the present system is certainly broken and needs to be fixed in both ways. What the professor is advocating is that we instead of using dynamite to raze a building on a construction site, we a-bomb the city. Look drugs are not illegal, drugs are not bad because they're illegal. Drugs are illegal because they are bad. They cause death, they cause overdose, they cause dependence.
Anyone who has an alcoholic in their family knows that alcohol affects entire parts of the family. If we want to take that Natalie's story and multiply it by five times, that's what we will end up with if we legalize drugs. We need to make a lot of changes. But the one change we don't need to make is give any drug to any person at any age who wants it for any reason.
The United States cannot afford to end up with about - best estimates about 50 million drug addicts and alcoholics running around this country with us supporting them.
CHETRY: Well, part of the commentary that Jeff wrote is from our CNN.com site is "prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitrations or advertising so they resort to violence instead."
You know, an argument we've been hearing a lot about when it comes to violence on the Mexican boarder, but do you believe, Jeff, that putting aside the human toll in terms of addiction, that legalization would stop the drug violence that we've been dealing with right now in Mexico and in our border towns?
MIRON: Yes, I do. I think the evidence is very clear. The best example is alcohol prohibition. We saw lots of violence in the alcohol trade in the 14 years when it was prohibited in the U.S. in the '20s and early '30s, and then violence stopped almost immediately as soon as it was legalized. As Mr. Stutman said, ware not going to eliminate all negatives of drugs by legalizing but he's exaggerating enormously to say that we will have this huge increase. There's not a shred of evidence to suggest anything like that.
CHETRY: Hold on, this is a shred of evidence. The DEA said they tried legalization in Alaska. This experiment in the 1970s led to the state's teens using marijuana at more than twice the rate of other use nationally. So when they tried to say let's make pot legal, they double - the kids were using it twice as much.
MIRON: They didn't legalize. They decriminalized, that's one episode, we've had 13 or 14 states in the U.S. We've had many countries that have substantially lowered their penalties and there's absolutely no correlation between use rates and whether these drugs are prohibited and how hard we try to enforce the prohibition. So the evidence just doesn't support these claims that there would be a dramatic increase in use.
CHETRY: And Bob, I want to let you weigh in on this.
STUTMAN: Sure.
CHETRY: You say that addicts should get treatment. That treatment should be the emphasis not criminalization, you mean, not locking them up. How do you make that work?
STUTMAN: Kiran, first, two things. Professor Miron may go to Harvard but he's dead wrong on this issue. Virtually every study and every person I've debated for the past 20 years said you legalize, you will at least double, some studies say five to ten times as much. You give drugs to kids, they'll use them, period.
Anybody that thinks that's not true has never met a kid or a drug addict. Secondly, we clearly have too much emphasis on criminalization in this country. I don't believe we should be throwing drug addicts in prison. I think we ought to have a drug court system where we mandate treatment for those who need it. I think we need to have treatment available for anybody who wants it.
And maybe, most importantly of all, as your lead in piece said, we've lost a whole generation by not educating them about the effects of drugs. We need to educate kids so they never start. It is a heck of a lot easier to stop a kid from using drugs than to ever get them off drugs once they start. CHETRY: Well, we are going to have to leave it there but you guys both have very different points of view and very interesting points of view. We want to hear more from you. Hopefully we can get you guys to host a couple of comments for us in a blog on cnn.com/amfix. Jeffrey Miron as well as Bob Stutman, thanks to both of you.
And the conversation will continue online. Both of our guests are going to be blogging for us. Again, you can check it out at cnn.com/amfix. We also would like you to weight in. We'd like to see what you think about this. Our series continues tomorrow, drug nation. We know that American demand has been fueling the drug violence in Mexico, but get this Mexican marijuana is also costing you $181 billion a year in health care costs. More on that tomorrow.
ROBERTS: Provocative conversation this morning.
A dramatic naval operation in the high seas saving the life of a captain held hostage by Somali pirates. A closer look at the rescue and whether it will serve as a warning to other pirates with the commander of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. It's 51 minutes now after the hour.
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ROBERTS: Live picture now from New Orleans, where it's 72 degrees and rainy. Looking at the New Orleans Arena on the left and the Superdome on the right. It is not going to be a nice day there at all. Some thunderstorms in New Orleans and some of them potentially severe but even more severe thunderstorms moving through other Gulf Coast states today.
Also, in central Georgia, if you're in Mississippi, Alabama or central, southern Georgia and even parts of Florida, watch out for hail and high winds today. Not good weather at all. Last week, the weather was terrible, too. So I don't know what is going on in there.
CHETRY: We will be so happy to finally someday usher in summer.
ROBERTS: How about let's start with spring and then we'll work on summer in the future. We'll start with spring.
CHETRY: Well, they are dancing in the streets of Argentina this morning, celebrating Angel Cabrera's victory in the masters on Sunday. Cabrera captured golf's coveted green jacket by winning a two-hole playoff against American Kenny Perry and Chad Campbell. It was Cabrera's second victory in America. He won the 2007 U.S. open. So, congrats.
And also a daring rescue operation by Navy SEALs, saving the life of an American ship captain, setting off celebrations from here to Africa. A closer look at just how this stunning military maneuver was pulled off from the high seas. Also, this morning, pirates saying they're vowing revenge after three of their cohorts were shot dead by Navy SEALS. Was the successful rescue a game-changer in dealing with piracy? We're going to break down the threat. 55 minutes after the hour.
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ROBERTS: Three minutes down to the top of the hour. We want to get more for you now on the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips. Yesterday, Navy SEALs fired three shots, taking out three pirates who are holding him hostage. Vie Admiral William Gortney is the head of U.S. Naval force Central Command, also the commander of the 5th Fleet. He joins us now from Bahrain with more on this.
Admiral, it's great to talk to you this morning. Can you tell us how the whole thing went down? We understand that these Navy sharpshooters, the SEAL team just used one shot apiece to take out these pirates. Can you sort of walk us through what happened yesterday?
VICE ADM. WILLIAM GORTNEY, CMDR. U.S. NAVAL FORCES CENTRAL COMMAND: Well, yes, it's been ongoing hostage negotiation attempt to keep the event as low a level violence as possible to ensure the safe return of the captain. The activity we had got to the point where the lifeboat was out of fuel. One of their pirates had left the life boat, needed medical attention and jumped on to one of our rigid inflatable boats. So they were down to one. They're tired. The sea state was picking up. They agreed for us to tow them into some little better waters as the ship was bouncing around. It was very intense.
The on-team commander could see that the pirates -- the three remaining pirates were very, very intense. One of them held his AK-47 in the back of the captain. We were always concerned about the imminent danger to the captain and because of the tensions and the imminent danger, at one point, not as well as uncomfortable as the pirates were, they exposed themselves where there was an opportunity, and because of imminent danger to the captain, the on-scene commander saw that one of the pirates still held that AK-47, was very, very concerned for the captain's life and he ordered the shots to be taken. Three shots were fired, and all were fatal.
ROBERTS: Wow.
GORTNEY: It was a phenomenal shot, 75 feet away. The small boat was moving up and down a couple of feet and two to three foot state and it was at night. Just remarkable marksmanship.
ROBERTS: So Admiral, looking ahead, pushing the story forward now, what do you expect is going to be the upshot of this operation? We're hearing threats from pirates to say, OK, America, you've changed the rules here now. We are going after Americans and we're going to take our revenge. Do you expect that they could actually do that or is that just bluster and hollow threats?
GORTNEY: Well, we would hope that pirates will conclude that they should not attack U.S. flagships or any of the ships out there in the future. And we think that the shipping company should conclude that they should consider very strongly following the measures we suggested that they adopt and embarking security detachments which includes embarking security detachments. And we believe armed security detachments. And we would hope also that the tribal elders in Somalia will persuade their young men to look for the livelihoods, recognizing unfortunately that the lack of opportunities in Somalia is what drives young men to piracy in the first place.
ROBERTS: So, let me just get you straight there, Admiral. You think that these ships should have armed personnel on board, armed security teams to fend off potential hijackings, to fend off piracy?
GORTNEY: Well, you need two things to have a successful piracy attack. You need pirates that are seeking monetary gain, and you also need a ship that's able to get pirated. We don't have much of an influence. We're trying to influence the pirates to disincentivize being a pirate. But when it comes to the last -- the second part of that, it comes down to the shipping industry itself.
Our statistics do bear out that they are the last line of defense, and they are the most effective contributor to an unsuccessful attack. And using speed, maneuver, good lookouts, something as simple as putting barbed wire around low approaches on the boats themselves. Just last week, two vessels were unsuccessfully attacked because the ship had put barbed wire around the ship on the closest avenues of approach.
And ultimately, an armed security detachment to protect their property, as they do protect their property on the beach.
ROBERTS: Vice Admiral William Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval forces for the Central Command, it's good to talk to you this morning, sir. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day.
GORTNEY: Absolutely, John.
ROBERTS: All right, appreciate it.
