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CNN Saturday Morning News

Space Shuttle Discovery Crew Prepares for Space Walk; U.S. Navy Ship Deployed to Japan

Aired July 08, 2006 - 08:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now in the news, plot interrupted. We are learning more this morning concerning terror plans to flood New York City tunnels. According to the FBI the foiled plot involved martyrdom and explosives. Three suspects, including the alleged mastermind, are in custody. Five others remain at large. The latest developments are just two minutes away.

Also, a developing story this morning. Amid mounting tensions over North Korea's missile tests, wire services are reporting a new top of the line U.S. warship has been deployed to Japan. The USS Mustin is equipped with sensitive missile tracking radar and a crew of 300. Reports say the guided missile destroyer arrived in Yokosuka, Japan.

Now that is the home port of the navy's 7th fleet. U.S. envoy Christopher Hill, well he's in South Korea, still trying to finesses a deal with North Korea. He says the U.S. will talk one-on-one with North Korea, but only within six-party talks about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

Fighting in Iraq has taken the lives of three more American soldiers this morning. The U.S. military says the three died in the combat in Anbar Province. Now that brings the total number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq war to 2,542.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Betty, a new development in Gaza. The Palestinian prime minister is calling for a halt in fighting on both sides. Israeli soldiers today entered the eastern outskirts of Gaza City and Israeli troops exchanged fire with Palestinians. Meanwhile, Americans visiting Gaza are fleeing as the violence escalates. We'll have a live report from Gaza next hour.

New Jersey's back in business and casinos there are expected to reopen later today. Just hours ago New Jersey lawmakers approved a state budget, ending a three-day government shutdown. The governor got the sales tax increase he wanted, but the state will also give back half the proceeds in property tax relief.

Shuttle astronauts are up and getting ready for a spacewalk this morning. Two astronauts will test a robotic arm. Miles O'Brien will cover the event live, next -- live pictures right now, Betty, from aboard the shuttle.

For complete coverage of breaking news and today's top stories stay with CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK J. MERSHON, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FBI: For most of the year we have been focusing on a group of al Qaeda followers who have targeted the Hudson River tubes that connect New Jersey to lower Manhattan. We believe we intercepted this group early in their plotting and that in fact, the plan has largely been disrupted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: In your security watch we have the latest on an al Qaeda plot to create havoc in lower Manhattan and how U.S. security agencies foiled it. From the CNN Center this is CNN SATURDAY MORNING, July 8, 8:00 a.m. here in Atlanta, 7:00 a.m. in Chicago. Good morning, everybody. I'm Betty Nguyen.

HARRIS: 5:00 a.m. in Los Angeles. Hello, are you there? Good morning everyone. I'm Tony Harris. Thank you for being with us.

NGUYEN: Let's talk now more about a plot to flood New York City's tunnels. That plot has been revealed. Three people in custody. Next, finding five alleged plotters still out there somewhere. CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena reports on the plot and what her sources are saying.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Officials say the plot was in the early stages but well enough along and serious enough to act.

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We don't wait until someone has lit the fuse to step in and prevent something from happening. That would be playing games with people's lives. So we always intervene at the earliest possible opportunity.

ARENA: The attack they say was planned for this fall and called for putting suicide bombers with backpacks full of explosives on trains.

MERSHON: They were about to go to a phase where they would attempt to surveil targets, establish a regiment of attack and acquire the resources necessary to effectuate the attacks.

ARENA: This is the alleged mastermind, Assem Hammoud, 31 years old from Lebanon. He's being held in Beirut.

MERSHON: We know that he is acknowledged pledging a bayat or allegiance to Osama bin Laden and he proclaims himself to be a member of al Qaeda.

ARENA: Lebanese security officials say Hammoud was taken into custody on April 27. The Lebanese government says Hammoud was living a life of quote, "fun and indulgence to hide his extremist views." It also says he was supposed to travel to Pakistan for terror training. The FBI says that in all, eight people are involved. At least two other alleged participants are also in custody but the FBI won't say where. As for the other five, officials say they do not believe they're in the United States.

MERSHON: There are still subjects out there. Mostly known, some only partially identified or unknown and we remain vigilant.

ARENA: The plot was first revealed in a New York newspaper and that infuriated officials who say the disclosure jeopardized the investigation. But there is another view, the story of an apparent law enforcement success came out on the anniversary of the London subway attacks, and suggests the political motivation for leaking.

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: If this was a genuine plot there's nothing wrong with that, but we do have to keep in mind the Department of Homeland Security particularly is under a lot of pressure to show some results.

ARENA (on camera): The investigation is ongoing. The FBI says at least six countries are actively involved. Sources tell CNN those include Iraq, Canada, and Pakistan.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: And you want to stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable information about your safety and your security.

HARRIS: Well amid the North Korean missile standoff the U.S. reportedly dispatches a new top of the line guided missile destroyer to Japan. Wire services report, say, that the USS Mustin has arrived at the navy's seventh fleet home port.

It's equipped with sensitive missile tracking radar. In South Korea today protests over North Korea's missile program. Demonstrators marked a large cardboard rocket with an X across the picture of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il. They burned a North Korean flag before police stopped them.

U.S. envoy Christopher Hill is in South Korea. He says the U.S. will talk one on one with North Korea but only within six-party talks about North Korea's nuclear weapons.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER HILL, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: It was clear that this was quite a provocation. They tried to -- it was really frankly a barrage of missiles and I think no one is offering them any concessions. What we're doing is telling them that they need to return to the process. We'll make sure that we are really speaking with one voice. I think it's very important that all of us, China, all of the participants in the six-party process that we speak with one voice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Pyongyang says more missile tests are coming. So what's ahead? Joseph Cirincione is one of America's best-known weapons experts. He's with the Center for American Progress and joins us live from Washington. Joseph good to see you.

CIRINCIONE: Good morning, pleasure to be here.

HARRIS: Let's take this apart. So, you're going to send the Mustin to join the navy's seventh fleet. You have capabilities with marines in Japan. Some army in Japan. There are exercises that happen periodically in the island over Quito just to sort of keep an eye on Russia. My sense is that you have more than enough capability in that area already so why send the Mustin?

CIRINCIONE: I think this is largely a symbolic move and in part a little to test that ship's radar systems. Although we've spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the last two decades on anti- missile systems, none of the systems we have work very well and we do not have the capability to intercept a missile launched from North Korea. So the missile cruiser that we're talking about here would have to be practically on the beach of North Korea in order to have a shot at intercepting it.

Of course, that's operationally impossible. Its radar could detect additional launches but frankly we already have sufficient surveillance equipment either in space or nearby to do that detection. I think of this as a symbolic move.

HARRIS: OK, symbolic also political. And if it's symbolic what is it designed to symbolize?

CIRINCIONE: Well the general effort and I think this is correct, I think the administration is doing the right thing here, is to increase the pressure on North Korea to coordinate international condemnation of these tests to encourage Japan and South Korea in particular, to cut off certain economic assistances.

Just today South Korea announced it was suspended food aid, a somewhat controversial move. And at the same time try to coax North Korea back to the bargaining table. If you do this right, if you send out the right signals of determination and force but also a willingness to settle this peacefully, I think we have a good chance of getting the talks restarted by the end of this month.

HARRIS: Hey Joseph, the launch of the TD-2 rocket, do you agree with most of what I've heard that it was a failure?

CIRINCIONE: Oh there's no question it was a failure. We have very good surveillance.

HARRIS: OK, now well let me stop you there. And here's the reason that I ask that question because I've heard some speculation that this is essentially a rocket where you're stacking one rocket on top of the other so you have to fire it in stages. And that the North Koreans only fueled the first stage, so it worked ostensibly exactly the way the North Koreans wanted it to work. That they never intended for the second stage to fire because they didn't fuel it.

CIRINCIONE: I've heard that theory. Here's why that doesn't make any sense. They know the first stage works. The first stage is basically their Nodong missile, it goes about a thousand kilometers. The trick in getting a long-rage missile is staging. To be able to successfully separate the second stage from the first. And here's the real key, do you have a third stage? Can you do it again to actually get a satellite into orbit or deliver a warhead thousands of miles away?

The problem appears to have occurred in the first stage in their effort to -- here is my speculation. In their effort to increase the distance this missile could travel, they stretched it out, they thinned out the walls of the first stage and those walls probably ruptured because, that they -- in other words they torqued the stress, ruptured the wall. It blew up prematurely, 40 seconds into flight. That would still be the boost stage of the first stage of this rocket.

HARRIS: Would you allow them to test again? Knowing that that might be the strategy if you knew they were about to launch. Would you knock it off the pad?

CIRINCIONE: Well they're testing because they don't know if their capability works. That's why you test. They're still in the ...

HARRIS: If you're the U.S. and you know they're about to test this thing again, to try to get the kind of capability you're describing here, would you knock it off the pad?

CIRINCIONE: No, I would not. Obviously knocking off a test even a test missile is an act of war. You're launching an attack on another country. I'm not that concerned about the North Korean ballistic missile capability. It appears to be very primitive. Very rudimentary. It remains a theoretical capability. There's no reason to hyperventilate about this or get ourselves in a panic about it. I think you can buy them out of this program. You don't have to threaten them away.

HARRIS: So one on one talks with North Korea but within six- party talks. That framework. What does that mean?

CIRINCIONE: Well that's exactly what we did last year. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to her credit, recognized last year that the strategy of this administration on North Korea had failed. That the program had gotten more advanced over the last five years.

That the strategy of trying to coerce them into submission or hopes of overthrowing the regime wasn't going to work. So she suddenly changed it. Started real negotiations with the North Koreans. Direct bilateral talks, we've already been doing this.

We did it up at the U.N. where the North Koreans were allowed to come into this country. And we did it at the edges of the six-party frame work. So while we all gathered around the six-party table we also did one on ones. It showed immediate results.

In September we negotiated a deal, for the first time North Korea in writing agreed to give up their nuclear program. We were showing great progress. Unfortunately we took our eye off the ball. We didn't stay with it. The deal fell apart. Now's our chance to recoup that loss.

HARRIS: Everyone here is going to get angry with me but I have to ask this next question.

CIRINCIONE: Sure.

HARRIS: You know, we told them not to launch, don't launch, consequences if you launch, don't launch, they launched. Take a look at the response from China, they are essentially going to get away with this and tell me why I'm wrong about that?

CIRINCIONE: China does not want them to launch either. They don't want any disruption in their area. They want to have peace and quiet and stability so they can continue their economic growth. But they're not going to coerce North Korea to the point where that regime collapses. They fear that more than anything. They don't want millions of refugees flooding into their ...

HARRIS: They are going to get away with it?

CIRINCIONE: Get away with it?

HARRIS: They're going to get away with it.

CIRINCIONE: They did the launch ...

HARRIS: A lot of bluster, the U.N. talks, but ...

CIRINCIONE: But get away with what? The test failed.

HARRIS: They're going to get away with launching a test that we told them not to do or there would be consequences.

CIRINCIONE: Well, that's the trouble when you act like that. When you tell them not to do something there are consequences. You have to be able to back that up. There's not much more you can do to an impoverished nation under a ruthless dictator like Kim Jong-Il.

They don't export much, they don't import much. Your leverage is very little. The only thing you've got is this negotiating leverage. Now is the time to play that. I think you can buy these guys off. I think we could make a deal with them that would cost us less than one week's operation in Iraq. We just have to be willing to do it.

HARRIS: See I think that's an honest assessment, an honest lay of the land. I really do. Joseph we appreciate it.

CIRINCIONE: My pleasure, thanks for having me on.

HARRIS: And we are asking you what you think this morning, should the U.S. sit down in direct talks with North Korea. E-mail us, weekends@CNN.com and we will read your comments throughout the morning.

NGUYEN: I think you have people fired up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a magnificent view Pavel and I had as the shuttle approached directly below the space station and then it did that back flip, if you will, as you described just a fantastic view to see such a grand vehicle outside our window.

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NGUYEN: Fantastic view. Boy that's an understatement. Can you imagine the views that they are getting from up in space. Yesterday it was a docking. Now they are walking. The Discovery mission is well under way with another highlight. That calls for our space correspondent Miles O'Brien. He's getting ready and he's going to walk us through this spacewalk in about four minutes plus.

HARRIS: Aaarrrh -- pirates.

That was better than mine.

NGUYEN: I know, I practiced.

HARRIS: "Pirates of the Caribbean" hits theaters. Jack Sparrow and the buccaneers are back. Now imagine all of this without the music in the background. Pretty lame ah?

NGUYEN: Oh yes, definitely.

HARRIS: That's why you call in Hans Zimmer. You'll meet him here on CNN SATURDAY MORNING, 9:00 a.m. eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Does a 3,000- year-old spa in Italy hold the key to the fountain of youth? Dr. Nicholas Fortunati (ph) thinks so. He's the director of one of the many spas in Italy's Tuscany region that claim their warm, sulfuric waters have anti-aging and healing properties.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you achieve a special sensation, a special feeling of well-being here.

COSTELLO: He says the hydrogen sulfate is good for your heart and that you can drink the waters to purify your liver. But some doctors are skeptical.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think there's really science or medical evidence or fact that the composition of the water does anything particularly healing for us. But I think the whole idea of a hot spring is not so much dipping your toes in a magical water and getting better, but I think it's the investment in yourself to come to a hot springs to be healthy.

COSTELLO: Dr. Drew recommends his patients use the Colorado Glenwood Hot Springs for swimming and exercise.

Carol Costello, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: So we know it's not every day that you can see a spacewalk but that is just what you're going to be seeing in about an hour from now if all goes as planned. CNN space correspondent Miles O'Brien is watching today's spacewalk preparations and he joins us with the latest. Miles you have got to get so excited for these walks. I mean they're really thrilling.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Yes and this is going to be a particularly thrilling spacewalk Betty, because they are going to be extended as much as six stories above or which ever direction you like, because there is no up or down in space, from the orbiter. And in that process going to be testing out an extension to the robotic arm of the space shuttle. Live pictures from space.

It's a night time pass, not much to see there as you look at the cargo bay of the space shuttle Discovery, about the size of a school bus. Take a look at some pictures of Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum getting suited up just a little while ago, in their extravehicular mobility units. Actually that looks like Pippi Longstocking, doesn't it? No, that's actually, oh I'm sorry, that's not her, that's Lisa Nowak. She's a Discovery crew mate. Look at the way that braided hair works in space.

In any case, the spacewalkers are getting suited up in their spacesuits complete with their $250,000 custom-made gloves. 15 layers of protection. There you see them getting rigged up in the quest air lock. They will be coming out of the air lock on the international space station.

And there you see on the right, that's Mike Fossum getting attended to by the pilot Mark Kelly. And there is Piers Sellers over there. He looks like he's already ready there. They will spend about six and a half hours in the void doing some work. Let's take a look at some animation, give you a sense.

This is the normal length of the robotic arm goes to about there and this is the 50-foot extension. Doubles the length of that robotic arm. Why would you want to do that? Well it would give the shuttle astronauts an opportunity to make a repair on the belly of the Discovery even if they were nowhere near the international space station. This is all in the post-Columbia world.

What if you got to orbit and you weren't going to the space station, say to go fix the Hubble Space Telescope, and you had a problem with your heat shield and it was on the belly, what would you do? And so they're going to test out this notion. The big question in everybody's mind is how stable a work platform this would be. You can imagine a hundred foot long pole. Obviously this wouldn't work with gravity. But with the two of them bouncing around on the end of it, could they do any useful work? That's a big question.

Now there may be some relevance to this specific mission. Take a look at these pictures of the belly of Discovery. I want to call your attention to this one on the left. Don't worry about that one. They are calling that the tadpole. That is in a place that is not of great concern and also isn't sticking out too much. But in the middle rear section of Discovery, right inside that circle, is a piece of gap filler that is sticking out.

Remember gap fillers from the mission a year ago, they are little pieces of fiber. I'll show you a piece of it in a second, sticking out between the heat resistant tiles. And getting to it. If they decided they wanted to pull it out because it might cause some concern for heating on re-entry. Getting to it won't be easy. Let's listen to John Shannon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN SHANNON, MISSION MANAGEMENT TEAM: If it works well, great, we'll factor that in. If it doesn't work well we have another option where you actually undock the vehicle and flip it around and you have access to the entire underside. That is operationally complex and takes a lot of time and we wouldn't want to do it. But if it's required through the analysis then that's what we'll go do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: OK I'm told I'm out of time. I'm going to take it back to you Betty.

NGUYEN: Yes we have a lot to talk about this morning in light of North Korea and developments there. But thank you for that, it's an important spacewalk. We will be watching and coming back to you live in a little bit. Thank you, Miles.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Want to get more on this developing story on the fact that a new top of the line U.S. guided missile destroyer is headed to Japan. In fact it may already be there. We have on the phone with us is Major General Tom Wilkerson, he is with the U.S. Naval Institute, to talk about the situation. Good morning to you.

MAJ. GEN. TOM WILKERSON, U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE: Good morning Betty, it's nice to be with you.

NGUYEN: Nice to be with you as well this morning. Very interesting topic, lots of developments dealing with North Korea and its firing of missiles last week. This USS Mustin which was deployed to Japan today, which may have already arrived there. Tell us the capabilities behind this ship.

WILKERSON: Sure, the Mustin's an Arleigh Burke Class Aegis destroyer and they started coming on line in 1991. The Mustin is what they call a flight 2-A member o the burke class. And all that means for your listeners is that it's been upgraded at least twice and the improvements include it's a multi-mission ship, so the improvements include an additional lance helicopter for any submarine warfare.

New software for the aegis system which is the heart of the computer running weapons control system. New missile set-ups for both surface to air. The kind that would be used against missiles such as those that North Korea attempted to fire and things of that nature. So it's a first line vessel.

NGUYEN: Now was this a deployment that was already scheduled or is this obviously in effect a way to deal with what North Korea has done by launching those missiles last week?

WILKERSON: Well, I think in most instances you'll be able to tell when there are -- and let me use the words right, a redeployment. And that's when a vessel is already on a cycle and in fact is in one geographic area and then sent to another. In the instance of the Mustin, I think this is part of a standard upgrading deployment, because it takes a while to get there.

And if the idea is that it's going to get there tomorrow, especially when there was no advanced notification that the North Koreans might just be doing what they are, then that kind of a deployment for an extended period just doesn't happen on the snap of a dime unless there is a declaration and a crisis. And usually the secretary of defense, secretary of the navy will get directly involved.

NGUYEN: Well, I think you hit the nail right on the head, because let's look at this a little bit deeper if you would. Usually when something like this is deployed with this type of capabilities, they usually don't tell you where it's going, correct?

WILKERSON: Not only that, they don't tell you when it's going. And in many instances the only way you might know is if you have and CNN or other newscasters and embedded journalists that's with the fleet where it is and actually know what ship types are there, but you won't know which ones are coming or going.

NGUYEN: And the fact that 300 sailors will remain on permanent assignment in the region what does that tell you?

WILKERSON: Exactly, Betty. Because that takes family movements to Yokosuka which is the home of the seventh fleet. That takes advance preparation to make sure that all is taken care of logistically. And there's another, unless it's a reinforcement, then it also takes advance preparation for those units that will be returning to other home basis by staying in Yokosuka.

NGUYEN: How strategic and how important is it for this ship to be in Japan?

WILKERSON: It's not the only Aegis system in the region. And there's another one on the way. I believe it's the Shiloh, but I'm not quite sure of the name.

But those systems have been deployed in and around the Sea of Japan as part of the seventh fleet for quite a while. And the reason is there are obvious surface to air capabilities, some of which were demonstrated in both the first and the second Gulf War. These are really multi mission, top of the line combat ships without any comparable adversaries anywhere in the world.

NGUYEN: And aside from this, what the U.S. is doing to assist, how well is Japan itself equipped to handle this situation should North Korea fire yet more missiles?

WILKERSON: Well, I think handling the situation, what they're really looking at is the potential for one of the missiles to over fly Japanese airspace. And obviously that's an act of war.

The other side of that is if it happens to get close enough to Japanese airspace, or intrude and the Japanese forces are able to take it out, that's a large statement of Japanese and U.S. capability.

And I do believe the Japanese self-defense force itself has several Aegis type destroyers or cruisers that are part of their fleet. So they are quite well equipped in defenses in addition to what the U.S. seventh fleet brings.

NGUYEN: Major General Tom Wilkerson with the U.S. Naval Institute, we appreciate your time and your insight this morning. Thank you so much for that.

WILKERSON: Great to be with you, Betty. Take care.

NGUYEN: Sure. And there is much more to come on this topic and much of the other news of the day. So you want to stay with CNN for that.

Right now, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll be joined by "HOUSE CALL," which is already in progress.

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