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CNN Sunday Morning

Pressure on Rice to Testify Before 9/11 Commission; Victims' Families Split on 9/11 Commission Hearings

Aired March 28, 2004 - 08:00   ET

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

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


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: From the CNN Center in Atlanta, this is CNN SUNDAY MORNING. It is March 28 this morning, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Catherine Callaway. Thanks for being with us this morning. And here's what's coming up for you this hour.

The physical scar of a brutal past under the nightmare regime of Saddam Hussein. In the new Iraq there is renewed hope for these victims.

And it's called brain fingerprinting. And this rarely used technology may be the last chance to save a Death Row inmate.

The final resting place for a sailor who died aboard a Civil War submarine.

All that's ahead, but first the headlines for this hour.

WHITFIELD: Senior Arab officials tell CNN the Arab League summit will likely take place in Cairo within a month. The meeting set to begin tomorrow in Tunisia, was called off earlier today. Sources say Egyptian officials are contacting the leaders of the 22 countries and regions to hammer out an exact date for the summit.

A violent weekend in Iraq. British officials say two civilians, including a British national, died today in an attack in Mosul. Witnesses say a roadside bomb hit two military Humvees north of Baghdad, wounding three U.S. soldiers. And in Kirkuk a police official said three civilians were injured when a bomb exploded at an intersection there.

In Washington state an Amber Alert is posted for an 11 month-old boy who police say was snatched from a grocery store shopping cart. Authorities are looking for a white man and woman in a white automobile with the Washington license plate of 574-RXA.

A strong earthquake shook eastern Turkey today. The 5.3 magnitude quake comes days after another quake killed 10 people in the region. Today's tremor collapsed buildings, injuring at least a dozen people.

Our top story this hour, the blame game over 9/11. Two days of public hearings this week about the terrorist attacks of September 11, instead have only stirred up more controversy. CNN's Dana bash explains from Crawford, Texas, how the issues are already impacting presidential politics.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The White House insists National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice refuses to publicly testify before the 9/11 commission as a matter of executive privilege, but a Republican member of the commission says by standing on legal principles they're shooting themselves in the foot politically.

JOHN LEHMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: I think the White House is making a political blunder, an important miscalculation of the political impact of this. Condoleezza Rice should testify before our commission.

BASH: Democrats aren't letting it go.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If Condoleezza Rice can find time to do "60 Minutes" on television before the American people, she ought to find 60 minutes to speak to the commission under oath.

BASH: The stepped up pressure for Rice to testify even from within GOP ranks comes as the White House continues to blanket the airwaves to try to stop political hemorrhaging over Richard Clarke's charge the president wasn't aggressive enough in confronting terror threats leading up to 9/11.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Steady leadership in times of change.

BASH: Mr. Bush is building his reelection campaign around his stewardship against terrorism. It has been, aides say, his best political asset.

But a new poll suggests approval of how the president handles terrorism has dropped eight points since last month, from 65 percent to 57 percent.

Republicans say the counter offensive to discredit Clarke as someone who's changed his story must continue.

GLENN BOLGER, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: There's going to be a very small group of voters in the middle who have to kind of weigh both sides and make up their mind on who they trust: Richard Clarke before he wrote his book or Richard Clarke after he wrote his book.

BASH: Democrats called it character assassination and predict it will further hurt, not help, the president.

MICHAEL FELDMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: The ferocity of the attacks against Dick Clarke this week could backfire against the Bush administration, because I think Americans deserve and expect real answers to the underlying charges.

BASH (on camera): Senator Kerry wouldn't say whether he thinks the president did everything possible to prevent the September 11 attacks. For its part, the Bush campaign quickly issued a statement saying the senator's new pressure on Condoleezza Rice to testify at a public hearing means he is now politicizing the commission.

Dana Bash, CNN, Crawford, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: On the campaign trail new polls show a virtual dead heat between President Bush and Senator John Kerry in five states considered crucial in the November election.

In campaign stops and on the radio, Bush says that his tax cuts have fueled the sizzling housing market but Kerry takes aim at a weak spot in Bush's economic plan: jobs. He says the top concern among voters far outstrips terrorism or Iraq.

And we have a programming note for you, Bush and Kerry's press secretaries will debate on "INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY." That's coming up at 10 a.m. Eastern time.

WHITFIELD: And that brings us to our e-mail question of the day: is an eight-month presidential campaign too long? E-mail us with your comments at WAM@cnn.com.

There's been plenty of political fall-out from the 9/11 commission hearings over the past week, but for some family members of September 11, the hearings were about a search for answers and perhaps some comfort.

Here's CNN Elaine Quijano.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some days Rosemary Dillard can't bear to step outside.

ROSEMARY DILLARD, 9/11 WIDOW: And I lay there, and I hold his picture and I talk to him because he's all I had.

QUIJANO: Her husband, Eddie, was onboard American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.

This week, Dillard tried to move closer to accepting her husband's death by attending the September 11 commission hearings.

DILLARD: Because the answers to these questions, the answers to how -- how this happened, we have all got to know.

QUIJANO: Abraham Scott knows that pain, too. His wife of 24 years, Janice, was working at the Pentagon that day.

ABRAHAM SCOTT, 9/11 WIDOWER: She was a loving, and kind wife. Honorable mother.

QUIJANO: Scott was also there as U.S. officials past and present testified. But neither he nor Dillard was completely satisfied.

DILLARD: When the questions were answered, they were never answered.

QUIJANO: what the families did appreciate: the apology by former Bush counter terrorism chief Richard Clarke.

DILLARD: Yes. That was the most amazing thing. This man turns around and tells the families, "I'm sorry." You know, your heart just dropped.

SCOTT: That man thought he was sincere. He was, that I've heard of, the first one from that administration or any administration to apologize for what occurred on 9/11.

QUIJANO: And while both are disappointed National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice may not meet publicly with the commission, other victims' family members accept that.

CHERYL MCGUINNESS, 9/11 WIDOW: And I think if she gives her testimony in private behind closed doors, and gives this to the authorities, that I trust the system.

QUIJANO: Ultimately, families hope the commission's work will give them some peace.

DILLARD: I think it will kind of help soften the blow in my heart and I can say, "Eddie, I worked on this. Eddie, I got involved in everything." I can feel good about what I did in my husband's name.

QUIJANO (on camera): Rosemary Dillard knew the flight attendants onboard American Airlines Flight 77. She was their supervisor.

Dillard plans to travel to Madrid to lend support to family members who lost loved ones in the terrorist train bombings there on March 11.

Elaine Quijano, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: In New York City this morning, some soldiers are waking up with their families for the first time in over a year. Yesterday some 110 soldiers returned to Fort Totten, Queens, after a 14-month deployment in Iraq. There were tears and cheers during the happy homecoming as family and friends gathered to welcome the troops home.

Well, the soldiers' return comes during a tense transition period in Iraq, as the country moves from the turbulent times of the Saddam Hussein era toward a working democracy.

And as CNN's Jim Clancy reports, the brutality of those years have left many physical and emotional scars to be healed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kaddam (ph) pours over the statistic of how many young men suffered the same stigma.

Saad (ph) watches television with his two sons and looks back on his ordeal as a living hell.

Twenty-nine-year-old Hussein (ph) hopes to God the bandages he wears today will help him become a normal person.

What all of these men have in common is that they have been the victims of a kind of torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein.

(on camera) All were taken to hospitals like this one, where a part or all of their right ears were surgically removed for refusing to serve in the military.

Today, they're returning to these very same hospitals, hoping to undo the physical and psychological damage.

DR. K.F. ABBAS, IRAQI MINISTER OF HEALTH: Because even if we correct that with the aid of plastic surgery, you can't correct the deep feeling of shame.

CLANCY: Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq's military was one of the largest standing armies in the world. Refusal to face sometimes certain death in his wars against his neighbors resulted in a fate worse than death, to be marked a coward.

"I couldn't get work. I couldn't even walk the streets," said Saad (ph).

"Some prisoners even killed themselves," said Hussein (ph), "rather than live with the consequences."

Iraq's health minister says the practice of cutting the ears off war resistors was coldly calculated.

ABBAS: Because by not killing, for example, these patients but by disfiguring them, he would like to -- people to die every day a few times.

CLANCY: Iraq's health ministry is offering victims free surgical treatment to restore their appearance.

Hussein Hadi (ph) underwent the first round of surgery that used cartilage from his rib cage then sculpted like an ear and implanted under his skin.

The process can take a month or as much as a year to complete, depending on the extent of mutilation.

Saad Kadim (ph) started the War Rejecters' Association in Baghdad for an estimated 3,000 victims.

"We can say it was a victory for us," he says. "And for each of those who lost his ear can have it reconstructed with the same instruments that were used to cut it under Saddam Hussein's regime."

Just a month after his surgery, Saad Hasham (ph) says his life has been returned. And he has dreams of opening his own auto repair shop.

Hussein (ph) works in the family satellite television service. He's looking forward to having the surgery in just a few days.

Saddam Hussein is gone. For many Iraqis, it means they can hope again.

Jim Clancy, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: The technology has called brain fingerprinting. It is junk science, or is it a new tool to save innocent people from Death Row? We'll have one man's story straight ahead.

Along with spring comes tornado season. We'll update you on the latest.

And March Madness may be inspiring you, all of you weekend warriors, that is, to get out and dust off the winter cobwebs.

Our "WEEKEND HOUSE CALL" will show you how to keep yourself free from injury.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CALLAWAY: The field narrows as NCAA playoffs continued last night and today. No. 2 ranked Oklahoma State bettered No. 1 ranked St. Joseph by a basket with a score of 64-62.

And the U-Conn. Huskies sent the Alabama Crimson Tide packing, beating them 87-71. Two more games later today. Duke and Xavier, and Georgia Tech and Kansas. That will decide the last two teams that make the Final Four.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CALLAWAY: The jury in the corruption trial of two former Tyco executives will return to deliberations on Monday, but the threat of a mistrial hangs over the jurors, who have complained that they can no longer discuss the evidence in good faith.

The source of the irritation appears to be a lone juror, who is not convinced that Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz stole some $600 million from Tyco.

And turning now to a mind blowing new technology. With brain fingerprinting, scientists hope to get into your heads, check out what the brain contains. Too much information.

And lawmakers for an inmate on Oklahoma's Death Row say that they're trying to get the new evidence admitted into court to prove that their client did not commit the crime.

Here is CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jimmy Ray Slaughter's brain waves are about to be measured for how they react to images of a double murder, one he is convicted of but claims he did not commit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're inside the house. The infant victim was shot. What was printed on the front of the adult victim's T- shirt.

ARENA: If Slaughter's brain registered positive on the visual details of the brutal murders of his ex-wife and infant daughter, the test creator, who recorded this, says that would have proved he was at the crime scene. But it did not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jimmy Ray Slaughter's brain does not contain a record of some of the most salient features of the crime for which he's been convicted and sentenced to death.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is where the computer...

ARENA: Farrell (ph) is promoting brain fingerprinting and was called in by Slaughter's lawyers in a last ditch effort to save his life.

JIMMY RAY SLAUGHTER, CONVICTED OF MURDER: It means that what I've said all along is true.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you say all along?

SLAUGHTER: That I was innocent. I'm sorry.

ARENA: As his execution nears, Slaughter's lawyers are hoping Oklahoma's appeals court will allow a new hearing.

ROBERT JACKSON, SLAUGHTER'S ATTORNEY: I am completely confident that if we are given the opportunity, this technology, brain fingerprinting, will be found to be admissible in the courts in Oklahoma.

ARENA: Brain fingerprinting was admitted in court once before, last year, by a judge in Iowa.

State prosecutors refer to it as "junk science," claiming there was no track record establishing reliability.

(on camera) The FBI says more research needs to be done.

Yet even critics say the technology shows some promise.

SLAUGHTER: I would just like to put my life back together.

ARENA: As for Jimmy Ray Slaughter, it could be his only hope.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: The Civil War submarine the Hunley is making news 140 years later. We'll tell you about a sailor's final resting place.

And we'd love to get your thought on the length of the presidential campaign. Is it too, too long; too, too short, or just right? Is there a wolf in here?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CALLAWAY: In Washington, the Smithsonian annual kite festival kicks off the National Cherry Blossom celebration.

Rain delayed yesterday's kite flying event for a couple of hours, and a lack of wind made it a little difficult to get off the ground.

The kite festival on the national mall is the first of 16 public events over the next two weeks tied to the blossoming of the capitol's famous cherry trees. The blossoms are just now starting to pop out but should peek about April 3, but it depends on who you ask, because it's supposed to be between now and April 2. They keep moving it. I don't know.

WHITFIELD: As long as it's peak blossoming at the time of the run, you know? The actually Cherry Blossom Festival. So often, you know, it just doesn't time out right.

But it's beautiful.

CALLAWAY: I have been up there a couple of times when they're all in bloom and it's lovely.

(WEATHER REPORT)

WHITFIELD: Well, the storm is indirectly being blamed for fire at a movie theater in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. Lightning had knocked out the power in the downtown area when the storm moved through last night. And when it was restored about 30 minutes later, a surge is suspected of sparking that blaze.

No injuries were reported. The theater was badly damaged.

CALLAWAY: We have an update now on a top story this morning.

A search is underway in Washington state at this hour for an 11 1/2-month-old baby. An Amber Alert went out yesterday after the boy was reportedly snatched from a shopping cart in an Ellensburg supermarket.

In other news this morning, Egypt now offering to host the Arab League summit. That summit was supposed to begin tomorrow in Tunisia. The newly scheduled meetings expected to take place in Cairo within a month.

All right. Let's go back to our question of the day. Is the presidential campaign over an 8-month period just too long?

We've got some e-mails that are already starting to come in.

One saying from Kelly Pinkney (sic), "The length of time should be kept to a minimum, especially after coming out of primaries. The country needs a rest. Let's go with five months. That's plenty of time for one side to bring up the faults of the other."

That from Larry. I'm sorry, not Kelly, out of Michigan City, Indiana.

CALLAWAY: Keep sending your e-mail. We'll keep reading them on the air this morning.

WHITFIELD: All right. The Civil War wreckage of the Confederate submarine the Hunley has recovered -- was recovered several years ago. Incredibly, the remains of the crew were still inside.

Now final farewells are being said at the Virginia state capitol. For that story here is Greg McQuaid (ph) of affiliate WTDR in Richmond.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GREG MCQUAID, WTDR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): History at the state capitol.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are bringing home family today to be honored by this state.

MCQUAID: One hundred and forty years after the end of the Civil War, the remains of a Confederate sailor are one step closer to his final resting place.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the last time we're going to be able to do anything like this.

MCQUAID: Fredericksburg native Frank Collins died onboard the CSS Hunley when it sank off the coast of South Carolina back in 1863.

Collins' remains, along with fellow crewmembers, were pulled from the ocean's floor in 2000. On this day, members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans escort Collins' casket, where it is lying in state at the capitol.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is the saddest, proudest, most awe- inspiring duty that you can carry, out is to say the final good-byes from a nation to another mother's son.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: The Hunley held a crew of eight. All of them will be buried April 17 at a funeral ceremony in Charleston. CALLAWAY: Stay with us. Coming up, Sanjay Gupta will have HOUSE CALL for you. And also at the top of the hour we'll have some answers for you on why gas prices are so high.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired March 28, 2004 - 08:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: From the CNN Center in Atlanta, this is CNN SUNDAY MORNING. It is March 28 this morning, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Catherine Callaway. Thanks for being with us this morning. And here's what's coming up for you this hour.

The physical scar of a brutal past under the nightmare regime of Saddam Hussein. In the new Iraq there is renewed hope for these victims.

And it's called brain fingerprinting. And this rarely used technology may be the last chance to save a Death Row inmate.

The final resting place for a sailor who died aboard a Civil War submarine.

All that's ahead, but first the headlines for this hour.

WHITFIELD: Senior Arab officials tell CNN the Arab League summit will likely take place in Cairo within a month. The meeting set to begin tomorrow in Tunisia, was called off earlier today. Sources say Egyptian officials are contacting the leaders of the 22 countries and regions to hammer out an exact date for the summit.

A violent weekend in Iraq. British officials say two civilians, including a British national, died today in an attack in Mosul. Witnesses say a roadside bomb hit two military Humvees north of Baghdad, wounding three U.S. soldiers. And in Kirkuk a police official said three civilians were injured when a bomb exploded at an intersection there.

In Washington state an Amber Alert is posted for an 11 month-old boy who police say was snatched from a grocery store shopping cart. Authorities are looking for a white man and woman in a white automobile with the Washington license plate of 574-RXA.

A strong earthquake shook eastern Turkey today. The 5.3 magnitude quake comes days after another quake killed 10 people in the region. Today's tremor collapsed buildings, injuring at least a dozen people.

Our top story this hour, the blame game over 9/11. Two days of public hearings this week about the terrorist attacks of September 11, instead have only stirred up more controversy. CNN's Dana bash explains from Crawford, Texas, how the issues are already impacting presidential politics.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The White House insists National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice refuses to publicly testify before the 9/11 commission as a matter of executive privilege, but a Republican member of the commission says by standing on legal principles they're shooting themselves in the foot politically.

JOHN LEHMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: I think the White House is making a political blunder, an important miscalculation of the political impact of this. Condoleezza Rice should testify before our commission.

BASH: Democrats aren't letting it go.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If Condoleezza Rice can find time to do "60 Minutes" on television before the American people, she ought to find 60 minutes to speak to the commission under oath.

BASH: The stepped up pressure for Rice to testify even from within GOP ranks comes as the White House continues to blanket the airwaves to try to stop political hemorrhaging over Richard Clarke's charge the president wasn't aggressive enough in confronting terror threats leading up to 9/11.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Steady leadership in times of change.

BASH: Mr. Bush is building his reelection campaign around his stewardship against terrorism. It has been, aides say, his best political asset.

But a new poll suggests approval of how the president handles terrorism has dropped eight points since last month, from 65 percent to 57 percent.

Republicans say the counter offensive to discredit Clarke as someone who's changed his story must continue.

GLENN BOLGER, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: There's going to be a very small group of voters in the middle who have to kind of weigh both sides and make up their mind on who they trust: Richard Clarke before he wrote his book or Richard Clarke after he wrote his book.

BASH: Democrats called it character assassination and predict it will further hurt, not help, the president.

MICHAEL FELDMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: The ferocity of the attacks against Dick Clarke this week could backfire against the Bush administration, because I think Americans deserve and expect real answers to the underlying charges.

BASH (on camera): Senator Kerry wouldn't say whether he thinks the president did everything possible to prevent the September 11 attacks. For its part, the Bush campaign quickly issued a statement saying the senator's new pressure on Condoleezza Rice to testify at a public hearing means he is now politicizing the commission.

Dana Bash, CNN, Crawford, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: On the campaign trail new polls show a virtual dead heat between President Bush and Senator John Kerry in five states considered crucial in the November election.

In campaign stops and on the radio, Bush says that his tax cuts have fueled the sizzling housing market but Kerry takes aim at a weak spot in Bush's economic plan: jobs. He says the top concern among voters far outstrips terrorism or Iraq.

And we have a programming note for you, Bush and Kerry's press secretaries will debate on "INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY." That's coming up at 10 a.m. Eastern time.

WHITFIELD: And that brings us to our e-mail question of the day: is an eight-month presidential campaign too long? E-mail us with your comments at WAM@cnn.com.

There's been plenty of political fall-out from the 9/11 commission hearings over the past week, but for some family members of September 11, the hearings were about a search for answers and perhaps some comfort.

Here's CNN Elaine Quijano.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some days Rosemary Dillard can't bear to step outside.

ROSEMARY DILLARD, 9/11 WIDOW: And I lay there, and I hold his picture and I talk to him because he's all I had.

QUIJANO: Her husband, Eddie, was onboard American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.

This week, Dillard tried to move closer to accepting her husband's death by attending the September 11 commission hearings.

DILLARD: Because the answers to these questions, the answers to how -- how this happened, we have all got to know.

QUIJANO: Abraham Scott knows that pain, too. His wife of 24 years, Janice, was working at the Pentagon that day.

ABRAHAM SCOTT, 9/11 WIDOWER: She was a loving, and kind wife. Honorable mother.

QUIJANO: Scott was also there as U.S. officials past and present testified. But neither he nor Dillard was completely satisfied.

DILLARD: When the questions were answered, they were never answered.

QUIJANO: what the families did appreciate: the apology by former Bush counter terrorism chief Richard Clarke.

DILLARD: Yes. That was the most amazing thing. This man turns around and tells the families, "I'm sorry." You know, your heart just dropped.

SCOTT: That man thought he was sincere. He was, that I've heard of, the first one from that administration or any administration to apologize for what occurred on 9/11.

QUIJANO: And while both are disappointed National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice may not meet publicly with the commission, other victims' family members accept that.

CHERYL MCGUINNESS, 9/11 WIDOW: And I think if she gives her testimony in private behind closed doors, and gives this to the authorities, that I trust the system.

QUIJANO: Ultimately, families hope the commission's work will give them some peace.

DILLARD: I think it will kind of help soften the blow in my heart and I can say, "Eddie, I worked on this. Eddie, I got involved in everything." I can feel good about what I did in my husband's name.

QUIJANO (on camera): Rosemary Dillard knew the flight attendants onboard American Airlines Flight 77. She was their supervisor.

Dillard plans to travel to Madrid to lend support to family members who lost loved ones in the terrorist train bombings there on March 11.

Elaine Quijano, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: In New York City this morning, some soldiers are waking up with their families for the first time in over a year. Yesterday some 110 soldiers returned to Fort Totten, Queens, after a 14-month deployment in Iraq. There were tears and cheers during the happy homecoming as family and friends gathered to welcome the troops home.

Well, the soldiers' return comes during a tense transition period in Iraq, as the country moves from the turbulent times of the Saddam Hussein era toward a working democracy.

And as CNN's Jim Clancy reports, the brutality of those years have left many physical and emotional scars to be healed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kaddam (ph) pours over the statistic of how many young men suffered the same stigma.

Saad (ph) watches television with his two sons and looks back on his ordeal as a living hell.

Twenty-nine-year-old Hussein (ph) hopes to God the bandages he wears today will help him become a normal person.

What all of these men have in common is that they have been the victims of a kind of torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein.

(on camera) All were taken to hospitals like this one, where a part or all of their right ears were surgically removed for refusing to serve in the military.

Today, they're returning to these very same hospitals, hoping to undo the physical and psychological damage.

DR. K.F. ABBAS, IRAQI MINISTER OF HEALTH: Because even if we correct that with the aid of plastic surgery, you can't correct the deep feeling of shame.

CLANCY: Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq's military was one of the largest standing armies in the world. Refusal to face sometimes certain death in his wars against his neighbors resulted in a fate worse than death, to be marked a coward.

"I couldn't get work. I couldn't even walk the streets," said Saad (ph).

"Some prisoners even killed themselves," said Hussein (ph), "rather than live with the consequences."

Iraq's health minister says the practice of cutting the ears off war resistors was coldly calculated.

ABBAS: Because by not killing, for example, these patients but by disfiguring them, he would like to -- people to die every day a few times.

CLANCY: Iraq's health ministry is offering victims free surgical treatment to restore their appearance.

Hussein Hadi (ph) underwent the first round of surgery that used cartilage from his rib cage then sculpted like an ear and implanted under his skin.

The process can take a month or as much as a year to complete, depending on the extent of mutilation.

Saad Kadim (ph) started the War Rejecters' Association in Baghdad for an estimated 3,000 victims.

"We can say it was a victory for us," he says. "And for each of those who lost his ear can have it reconstructed with the same instruments that were used to cut it under Saddam Hussein's regime."

Just a month after his surgery, Saad Hasham (ph) says his life has been returned. And he has dreams of opening his own auto repair shop.

Hussein (ph) works in the family satellite television service. He's looking forward to having the surgery in just a few days.

Saddam Hussein is gone. For many Iraqis, it means they can hope again.

Jim Clancy, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: The technology has called brain fingerprinting. It is junk science, or is it a new tool to save innocent people from Death Row? We'll have one man's story straight ahead.

Along with spring comes tornado season. We'll update you on the latest.

And March Madness may be inspiring you, all of you weekend warriors, that is, to get out and dust off the winter cobwebs.

Our "WEEKEND HOUSE CALL" will show you how to keep yourself free from injury.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CALLAWAY: The field narrows as NCAA playoffs continued last night and today. No. 2 ranked Oklahoma State bettered No. 1 ranked St. Joseph by a basket with a score of 64-62.

And the U-Conn. Huskies sent the Alabama Crimson Tide packing, beating them 87-71. Two more games later today. Duke and Xavier, and Georgia Tech and Kansas. That will decide the last two teams that make the Final Four.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CALLAWAY: The jury in the corruption trial of two former Tyco executives will return to deliberations on Monday, but the threat of a mistrial hangs over the jurors, who have complained that they can no longer discuss the evidence in good faith.

The source of the irritation appears to be a lone juror, who is not convinced that Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz stole some $600 million from Tyco.

And turning now to a mind blowing new technology. With brain fingerprinting, scientists hope to get into your heads, check out what the brain contains. Too much information.

And lawmakers for an inmate on Oklahoma's Death Row say that they're trying to get the new evidence admitted into court to prove that their client did not commit the crime.

Here is CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jimmy Ray Slaughter's brain waves are about to be measured for how they react to images of a double murder, one he is convicted of but claims he did not commit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're inside the house. The infant victim was shot. What was printed on the front of the adult victim's T- shirt.

ARENA: If Slaughter's brain registered positive on the visual details of the brutal murders of his ex-wife and infant daughter, the test creator, who recorded this, says that would have proved he was at the crime scene. But it did not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jimmy Ray Slaughter's brain does not contain a record of some of the most salient features of the crime for which he's been convicted and sentenced to death.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is where the computer...

ARENA: Farrell (ph) is promoting brain fingerprinting and was called in by Slaughter's lawyers in a last ditch effort to save his life.

JIMMY RAY SLAUGHTER, CONVICTED OF MURDER: It means that what I've said all along is true.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you say all along?

SLAUGHTER: That I was innocent. I'm sorry.

ARENA: As his execution nears, Slaughter's lawyers are hoping Oklahoma's appeals court will allow a new hearing.

ROBERT JACKSON, SLAUGHTER'S ATTORNEY: I am completely confident that if we are given the opportunity, this technology, brain fingerprinting, will be found to be admissible in the courts in Oklahoma.

ARENA: Brain fingerprinting was admitted in court once before, last year, by a judge in Iowa.

State prosecutors refer to it as "junk science," claiming there was no track record establishing reliability.

(on camera) The FBI says more research needs to be done.

Yet even critics say the technology shows some promise.

SLAUGHTER: I would just like to put my life back together.

ARENA: As for Jimmy Ray Slaughter, it could be his only hope.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: The Civil War submarine the Hunley is making news 140 years later. We'll tell you about a sailor's final resting place.

And we'd love to get your thought on the length of the presidential campaign. Is it too, too long; too, too short, or just right? Is there a wolf in here?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CALLAWAY: In Washington, the Smithsonian annual kite festival kicks off the National Cherry Blossom celebration.

Rain delayed yesterday's kite flying event for a couple of hours, and a lack of wind made it a little difficult to get off the ground.

The kite festival on the national mall is the first of 16 public events over the next two weeks tied to the blossoming of the capitol's famous cherry trees. The blossoms are just now starting to pop out but should peek about April 3, but it depends on who you ask, because it's supposed to be between now and April 2. They keep moving it. I don't know.

WHITFIELD: As long as it's peak blossoming at the time of the run, you know? The actually Cherry Blossom Festival. So often, you know, it just doesn't time out right.

But it's beautiful.

CALLAWAY: I have been up there a couple of times when they're all in bloom and it's lovely.

(WEATHER REPORT)

WHITFIELD: Well, the storm is indirectly being blamed for fire at a movie theater in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. Lightning had knocked out the power in the downtown area when the storm moved through last night. And when it was restored about 30 minutes later, a surge is suspected of sparking that blaze.

No injuries were reported. The theater was badly damaged.

CALLAWAY: We have an update now on a top story this morning.

A search is underway in Washington state at this hour for an 11 1/2-month-old baby. An Amber Alert went out yesterday after the boy was reportedly snatched from a shopping cart in an Ellensburg supermarket.

In other news this morning, Egypt now offering to host the Arab League summit. That summit was supposed to begin tomorrow in Tunisia. The newly scheduled meetings expected to take place in Cairo within a month.

All right. Let's go back to our question of the day. Is the presidential campaign over an 8-month period just too long?

We've got some e-mails that are already starting to come in.

One saying from Kelly Pinkney (sic), "The length of time should be kept to a minimum, especially after coming out of primaries. The country needs a rest. Let's go with five months. That's plenty of time for one side to bring up the faults of the other."

That from Larry. I'm sorry, not Kelly, out of Michigan City, Indiana.

CALLAWAY: Keep sending your e-mail. We'll keep reading them on the air this morning.

WHITFIELD: All right. The Civil War wreckage of the Confederate submarine the Hunley has recovered -- was recovered several years ago. Incredibly, the remains of the crew were still inside.

Now final farewells are being said at the Virginia state capitol. For that story here is Greg McQuaid (ph) of affiliate WTDR in Richmond.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GREG MCQUAID, WTDR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): History at the state capitol.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are bringing home family today to be honored by this state.

MCQUAID: One hundred and forty years after the end of the Civil War, the remains of a Confederate sailor are one step closer to his final resting place.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the last time we're going to be able to do anything like this.

MCQUAID: Fredericksburg native Frank Collins died onboard the CSS Hunley when it sank off the coast of South Carolina back in 1863.

Collins' remains, along with fellow crewmembers, were pulled from the ocean's floor in 2000. On this day, members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans escort Collins' casket, where it is lying in state at the capitol.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is the saddest, proudest, most awe- inspiring duty that you can carry, out is to say the final good-byes from a nation to another mother's son.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: The Hunley held a crew of eight. All of them will be buried April 17 at a funeral ceremony in Charleston. CALLAWAY: Stay with us. Coming up, Sanjay Gupta will have HOUSE CALL for you. And also at the top of the hour we'll have some answers for you on why gas prices are so high.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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