Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Sunday Morning

Latest in Investigation Into Downed Helicopters; Key Taliban Commander Killed in Afghanistan

Aired February 04, 2007 - 08:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL, MULTINATIONAL FORCE SPOKESMAN: It does appear that they were all the result of some kind of anti Iraqi ground fire that did bring us (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR, CNN SUNDAY MORNING: The latest in the investigation as to four U.S. helicopters downed in Iraq over the past two weeks. CNN's Arwa Damon is in Baghdad with a live report. She is coming up in just about eight minutes.

MELISSA LONG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From Afghanistan this morning reports that a key Taliban commander is dead, killed by a NATO air strike, according to NATO a precision attack was launched on the Taliban leader in an area that had been over run by the Taliban on Friday.

HOLMES: An Amber Alert this morning for a Pennsylvania toddler. Police are searching for 23-month-old Ina Page. Reporting missing from her bed in a Braddock, Pennsylvania yesterday morning. Below freezing weather. is adding to the urgency in this search.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All those birds have been killed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LONG: Health officials in Britain hope this mass slaughter will end an outbreak of avian flu at a turkey farm south of London. The question now is how the dreaded h5n1 virus infected the flock inside a sealed building. Authorities have quarantined the property, but say the public is not at risk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last year he weighed 265 pounds; he decided to make himself suffer for eating the wrong things. So before every meal he downed a shot of hot sauce.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LONG: So what happened to his waistline? The answer just might amaze you. We'll get the low down on "House Call" with Sanjay Gupta. Our doctor coming up in about 30 minutes.

HOLMES: That is a pretty good punishment a shot of hot sauce. From the CNN Center in Atlanta this is CNN SUNDAY MORNING. Good morning to you all, I'm T.J. Holmes.

LONG: Good morning, I'm Melissa Long in this morning for Betty. It is February 4th. Want to show you some live pictures right there from Lansing, Michigan, and Boston, Massachusetts. Bean Town on the right.

HOLMES: Yes, winter weather hitting areas in the north this weekend. Today's forecast just minutes away. But first we do want to tell you about the latest on the aftermath of those deadly storms in Florida. Forecasters now say a tornado battered the area with winds around 165 miles per hour. Twenty people were killed all of them in Lake County. Officials had feared even more bodies might be found.

Florida Senator Bill Nelson says at least 1500 homes were badly damaged or destroyed. President Bush designated four Florida counties as federal disaster areas so they're now eligible for millions of dollars in aid. For the very latest from Florida now, we want to Lady Lake with CNN's Susan Roesgen is standing by for us. Good morning Susan.

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning T.J. we're really seeing a lot of activity now at the Lady Lake Church of God, what was the Lady Lake Church of God. But as the pastor says, a church is not the building it's the people. The people have come out today for the first church service since the tornado came through. Right behind me here on the ground a group of guys just came. That was, with a little bit of blue tarp that you see, the carport of the church at the front entrance where people came in. And then just to the right of that, the white piece that you see there, that is actually the steeple. The steeple toppled down onto this church when the tornado came through very early Friday morning.

Now, the pastor says that in the past his church had been used as a shelter. It was built, he says, to withstand 150-mile-an-hour winds. The National Weather Service now says that the wind that came through with the tornado early Friday was at least 165 miles an hour. So this is the rubble of the Lady Lake Church of God, but the pastor this morning at 10:45 here local time plans to preach from right in the middle of the rubble. Then behind me you can see they've set up folding chairs for the congregation, about 200 people in the congregation. They expect more people from the community as well.

That big tent in the distance, right behind the folding chairs, if you look up, there's a big colorful tent. I guess, T.J., you could say this is sort of an ecumenical service because those are Seventh- day Adventist who come down from the area, they're serving food to folks in the neighborhood. I just got a cup of hot coffee from those folks. They say they always come out whenever there's a need in this community. Yesterday a Mormon Church group was here helping to clear the debris. So really a lot of people have come together here T.J. for the first church service at a devastated church in this area where the pastor is going to talking I think to a very appreciative congregation this morning and to other people as well as Florida Governor Charlie Christian will be here to see what the pastor has to say.

HOLMES: In the midst of all that, still a lot to be thankful for. Don't need the building to have church service this morning. Susan thank you so much.

LONG: Now it is bitterly cold, and there's a lot of ice. A trail of traffic troubles from the Great Lakes into New England; in Michigan they have whiteout conditions that are blamed for huge traffic pileups yesterday. In New Hampshire, one person was killed in a chain reaction crash. As many as 100 vehicles slammed into each other after a car spun out of control. Let's find out a little bit more about that deep- freeze, find out whether or not we're gong to have a warm up of the conditions.

HOLMES: Possibly. Bonnie anything?

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know not for a while. Actually I think tomorrow will be even be colder than today. Monday morning is going to be brutal for those of you that have to wait outside for a bus or a train. Let's look across the country. These are current temperatures. Right now it is negative 11 in Minneapolis, the high today? Negative 3. It's a dangerous situation because temperatures, even though many of them are negative numbers right now they feel so much worse. Look at these wind chill factors in Duluth, negative 45, in Minneapolis negative 28, even in Des Moines it is negative 19 and Chicago, lots of excitement in that city today, but it feels like it is negative 24.

What does this mean? It means that if these temperatures are going to stay like this at least for the morning, you need to stay inside. If you have to venture outside for any reason, make sure every part of you is covered, your fingertips, your ear lobes, your nose. You can get frostbite so quickly when the weather is like this. We're looking at this bitter blast of arctic air because of the strong wind that is coming in. It's actually going to be cold all the way down through the south; many places across the southeast will be feeling the cold, not as dangerous as it will be to the north.

Speaking of the south, as we go to Florida, all eyes on the Super Bowl forecast. For the first time ever, we may see rain for the Super Bowl. Here is the forecast; we will see temperatures in the upper 60s, breezy conditions and showers. Why the rain? Well a couple of reasons, a stationary front to the south over Cuba, that combined with another front dropping down right now over northern Florida, we also have high pressure building into the southeast. That's why we'll see clear skies across much of the southeast today.

But with this front coming down and the high dropping down and the front to the south, we're getting a strong pressure gradient. We'll see breezy conditions with the winds coming in off the water that will enhance the moisture today in Miami. Just like we saw yesterday. In fact, right now we're looking at rain; it is coming down heavy and hard across south more Florida. Let's hope by the time the Super Bowl kicks off tonight we get that rain chance dwindling down. At least the morning will be wet.

T.J., Melissa.

HOLMES: We sure do hope, Bonnie. Thank you. We'll be checking in with you plenty this morning, thank you so much.

LONG: A day after the bloody attack on a Baghdad market, another round of violence. New information from the military this morning about four U.S. helicopters lost in Iraq over the past couple of weeks. For more on this story, we check in with CNN's Arwa Damon, who is live from Baghdad.

Arwa.

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Melissa. It has been a very devastating day here in the capital. Before we get to the details of the violence Major General William Caldwell the spokesman for multinational courses here in Iraq just announced in a recent press conference that the four helicopters that crashed over the last few weeks in and around the capital were caused by some sort of ground fire. This does raise concerns amongst the U.S. military in terms of the insurgents' ability to shoot down their aircrafts.

Meanwhile, Iraq's ministry of interior announcing one of the bloodiest weeks we've seen this year, a 1,000 Iraqis dead in violence in just seven days. That number though does include gunmen that were also killed in combat.

Now today in the capital, just in the morning, at least 14 Iraqis were killed, dozens more wounded, in a number of attacks ranging from small arms fire to mortars to roadside bombs. Meanwhile, in the heart of Baghdad, in that marketplace that was hit by the suicide bomber yesterday, residents are trying to clear out the rubble, trying to salvage whatever they can and recover from what is the deadliest attack to have hit Iraq since the end of the war.

Melissa.

LONG: Live from Baghdad, Arwa. Thank you.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Elaine Quijano live at the White House. Despite outright opposition from members of his own party to his troop increase plan, President Bush is holding firm to his decision. I'll have details, coming up.

HOLMES: And, also coming up, making history before they even step onto the field. A live report on today's historic Super Bowl that is coming your way in about ten minutes.

LONG: And the next generation of anti-wrinkle injections. In 20 minutes, "House Call" tell you about the latest version that does not require touchups.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's really a buyer beware situation with these products because they go through a different process of approval than drugs do. (END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: What role is Iran playing in Iraq? Tune in at 1:00 Eastern today for "This Week at War" hosted by John Roberts.

LONG: The political battle over the war in Iraq heading for a showdown. The Senate is expected to begin a debate this week on a resolution opposing President Bush's troop increase. The president is standing by the plan. Our White House correspondent Elaine Quijano now joins us live from Washington.

Elaine.

QUIJANO: Good morning to you Melissa. That's right. The White House has really been trying to prevent Republicans from abandoning President Bush over his new Iraq plan for more troops. For the administration, it was clearly a political blow earlier this past week when a prominent Republican Senator John Warner, joined with Democrats on that resolution opposing a troop increase. Now, Senator Warner is, of course a prominent Republican, the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and that bipartisan resolution, while non- binding would be intended to send President Bush a clear message, expressing outright opposition to his idea for sending more forces into Iraq.

Despite that opposition, though, the president has remained firm in his decision. He argues that more U.S. troops are needed to bolster the Iraqi forces and give the Iraqi government a chance to assert control in Baghdad.

Now, yesterday, in a rare appearance at the House Democrats annual retreat, the president made only a brief mention of that troop increase plan in his public comments, but he did acknowledge skepticism over whether Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki can reach a political solution in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's benchmarks that they have got to achieve, and I have made it clear to the Iraqi government, just like I've made it clear to the American people, our commitment is not open-ended.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUIJANO: Now, as for that Iraq resolution in the Senate, unclear if it will actually reach the floor for debate tomorrow. Some Republicans have threatened to block debate unless Democrats allow votes on GOP alternatives. Melissa the idea there really is to have multiple votes to take the focus off that one resolution.

Melissa.

LONG: The president also planning to send a lofty budget before the Democrat controlled Congress, including something like $145 billion for are Iraq and Afghanistan?

QUIJANO: That's right and that is over the course of the next couple of years. In fact, the president tomorrow will be turning in his budget. CNN has learned that over the next couple of years, when you take into account the next couple of years, it's more like $240 billion that the White House will be requesting in additional funding and that is for operations not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan as well.

Already Democrats, of course have made very clear that they plan to closely scrutinize the president's war budget requests. In fact, minutes after President Bush left that House Democratic Retreat yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeated something that she had said many times before, and that is that the president no longer, she said, has a blank check when it comes to Iraq.

Melissa.

LONG: Elaine Quijano live from the White House this morning. Elaine thank you.

HOLMES: Now I want to take a live look at Dolphins Stadium. You know what is happening a little later. That's where the Super Bowl is happening. The count down is on, ten hours away from the game. We'll take you to Miami for more on the big game in just a moment. But first we will have a preview of today's "House Call."

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks T.J.

Well you have been talking about it all morning, cold weather is gripping most of the country. What you might not know is that those chilly temperatures could be causing people to gain weight. We've got the science and the tips to beat that science coming up on "House Call" at 8:30.

Plus, could hot sauce be the key to losing weight and why air pollution could be more dangerous than we thought. All of that, coming up, make sure to tune in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It has been called one of the hottest workouts but you have to take your exercise sitting down. Creator Josh Crosby says indo-row is all about teamwork.

JOSH CROSBY, INDO-ROW.COM: Train with a group and you're going to get better. You're going to make gains. But there's no impact. You burn tons of calories, you build muscle, you build long, lean muscles, which seems to be the trend these days, not bulky anymore. It's just a lot of fun.

COSTELLO: Crosby is passionate about rowing. He's on the U.S. National Rowing team and a third generation rower; he ends each class at the Fourth Club L.A. with a little competitive racing. KEELY WILLIAMS, INDO-ROW PARTICIPANT: And the fact he puts you in teams as you are rowing like you are really rowing in a boat, that's just an extra-added motivation.

DR. ARSH LALEZARY, INDO-ROW PARTICIPANT: My favorite part is when he makes us go all out. When he builds it up to 50 percent strength, 75 percent, and then a 100 percent when you're doing it and giving it everything you've got.

AUDREY ADLER, INDO-ROW PARTICIPANT: I'm an endurance athlete, a competitive athlete. This has taken me to a whole new level.

COSTELLO: Crosby says, besides working every major muscle group in your body, rowers can burn 400 to 900 calories in a 50-minute class.

Carol Costello, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) With 82nd Airborne Division. Out here in Kantza (ph), Iraq. I'm from Chicago, Illinois. Glad to give a shout out to my family in Chicago. I'd like to say, go Bears!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Lieutenant Wilson from Delta Company 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry regimen. I'm from North Carolina. I just want to say, go Colts!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Well, everybody is into the game, no matter where you are. Of course we are just about ten hours and counting until kickoff, this Super Bowl already making history. The game hasn't even started. But not making history for what we're going to see on the field but what the men patrolling the sidelines, which they are. They're making history. CNN's Larry Smith has the details for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM RHODEN, "THE NEW YORK TIMES:" People better get used to it, that you celebrate but from this point on, there's going to be some variation of this, black quarterbacks, black vice presidents, maybe a couple of owners. Because we've been doing this for a long time so I think you should celebrate but don't get carried away in, like, this is kind of it. This is really just the beginning.

LARRY SMITH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Six of the 32 head coaches in the National Football League are African-American. But in a league where roughly 70 percent of the players are black, it's clear the NFL has further to go.

DR. HARRY EDWARDS, SPORTS SOCIOLOGIST: I don't think the NFL is going to be color blind until American society is color blind. The reality is we're going to be color conscious, but that's not real, the situation that should be of priority concern. The situation that should be of priority concern is equal opportunity and equal access, and then let the chips fall where they may.

SMITH: To help ensure that equal access, the NFL instituted the Rooney Rule in 2003. It was named for Steelers owner Dan Rooney and requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate when a head coaching position becomes available.

HARRY CARSON, FRITZ POLLARD ALLIANCE: Each candidate that they brought in of minority persuasion got the experience of interview even if they didn't get the job. They knew what to look for the next go- around.

ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: The great thing about the Rooney Rule is that it's worked and that people are seeing the value of going into a much more sophisticated, open, diverse process and considering more candidates. And I think what that happens you find better people.

SMITH: In 1996, Tony Dungy became just the third black head coach in the modern era when he took over at Tampa Bay. Dungy, in turn, hired a college assistant coach to his staff. His name was Lovie Smith.

TONY DUNGY, COLTS HEAD COACH: I was looking for, number one, really good teachers. Number two; I was looking for guys who were going to be committed, for the long term. It was going to be a tough job turning the mental frame of mind around in Tampa. And, number three; I wanted to get some good young African-American coaches in the league that hadn't had that opportunity before. And Lovie fit the bill in all three ways.

SMITH: Now the two friends will face each other, and only one will go home happy, despite making history.

EDWARDS: These coaches don't want to be the greatest black coach that ever coached in a Super Bowl or won a Super Bowl. They know it's going to come down to what kind of a day they have as a coach on February the 4th. And that's the yardstick they want to be measured by.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SMITH: While the Rooney Rule has led to a record number of minority head coaching hires, there's no mandate for the front office openings. In fact, just last month, the New York Giants named Jerry Reese as just the third African-American general manager in the history of the NFL -- T.J.

HOLMES: All right. Larry let's talk about this game a little bit. One of our producers here was upset that there hasn't been any trash talking, any off the field incidents, no scandal, no nothing. But that has a lot to do with these coaches. SMITH: It really does. That's one thing -- the media is like wow, we were saying this morning, it's been such a quiet week. It's been uneventful. Yes, Dungy and Smith these guys very well respected and their teams really -- they really mirror their image in terms of no nonsense, very businesslike. They have fun, but at the same time they said is there's no need for curfews even because they were going to police themselves. They understand that this is a business trip.

HOLMES: Larry we have to give you a hard time. We were supposed to have you live a few minutes ago. You didn't get to us, you a little late; you're not a late guy normally. That has to do with security, right? It's so tight around there.

SMITH: Security is very tight. There's almost an hour backup now. I just barely got in front of that. That was a major delay in getting here. A young lady picked me up in a golf cart and whisked me over here to our compound right here, so it was very sweet of her to do that. But again it's just a sign of the times. After 9/11, we see this at every major sporting event. Security is extremely tight. It's necessary. We're just happy that I was able to get here to talk to you.

HOLMES: All right. We sure glad you made it, too. We know it's not your fault. Enjoy the game. Hope you're enjoying Miami. See you soon, Larry.

SMITH: Take care.

HOLMES: Well coming up slimming secret maybe? Arthritis elixir? Ahead in five minutes on today's "House Call," why medical scientists are now studying hot sauce? Yes, hot sauce.

Also, it's winter in Missouri. So why are these strangely dressed folks taking a plunge? At the top of the hour, how special athletes inspired this bone-chilling swim.

And the Scooter Libby trial putting a lot of high profile journalists in an unusual spotlight. Coming up at 10:00 Eastern "Reliable Sources" looks at its possible impact.

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