Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Sunday

Soldier Pleads 'Not Guilty' to Rape/Murder Charges in Iraq; U.S. Backs U.N. Sanctions against North Korea

Aired July 09, 2006 - 17:59   ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: A house of unspeakable crimes. And now five American soldiers are charged with what happened inside.
Trying to find a lost family and finally connecting. But will the crisis with North Korea kill any chances of reunions?

Violence breaks out as protesters clash. Is it racism or patriotism?

This is CNN LIVE SUNDAY. And I'm Carol Lin. Let's get you up to date on today's big headlines.

U.S. authorities want to exhume the body of an Iraqi teenager allegedly raped and killed with her family by U.S. soldiers. Now former soldier Steven Green has pleaded not guilty in the case, and five others are charged with conspiring with him.

A gruesome sectarian attack in Baghdad. Iraqi police say gunmen killed at least 42 Sunni Muslims in western Baghdad overnight. Police say the attackers went door-to-door and checked IDs and shot the Sunnis. Bodied littered the streets by the time the Iraqi and U.S. forces responded.

At least 124 people are confirmed dead in the plane crash in Siberia. We're going to have a complete report from CNN's Matthew Chance in Russia in just eight minutes.

And U.S. envoy Christopher Hill is trying to build support for U.N. sanctions against North Korea. The U.N. Security Council takes up the issue tomorrow.

Now we also might soon know more about why the FBI raided a Louisiana congressman's office. Allegations were flying until President Bush sealed the evidence that the FBI took from Congressman William Jefferson. Now 45 days later, a cooling off period ends and a court can review them to decide whether the FBI searches were constitutional.

Friends and family of Enron founder Kenneth Lay are saying goodbye today at a private memorial service in Colorado. Now lay died of a heart attack in Aspen last week. He was waiting to be sentenced after being convicted of fraud after his company, Enron, collapsed.

And good news for the crew onboard the shuttle Discovery. NASA examined the shuttle's heat shield and says it's safe to fly home as scheduled on July 17th. Hey, Italy is the new World Cup champ. The Italian soccer team won a shootout on penalty kicks over France to win 5-3. Now pandemonium erupted in Rome and across Italy as Italians celebrated their World Cup victory.

Those are the latest headlines. And this is our top story. The shameful details of alleged abuse by U.S. troops in Iraq. The military says five more soldiers have been charged with conspiring to rape and murder a young Iraqi woman.

The story from CNN's Fredricka Whitfield.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Five active duty soldiers are facing charges in connection with the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the murder of three of her family members last March in Mahmoudiya. Four are accused of participating in the rape and murders, while another faces charges for not reporting the incident.

The U.S. military says all five are accused of conspiring with former Private Steven D. Green to commit the attacks. Green was charged with rape and murder in a civilian court last week. Prosecutors say Green raped and killed the young woman whose age has varied from 14 to 25 in different reports, as well as killing three members of her family, including a girl of around 5 years old.

Green has pled not guilty to the charges. Senator Richard Lugar says he's confident the truth will be found.

SEN. RICHARD LUGAR (R), INDIANA: The fact that the military is proceeding with American justice is also a very strong point in our favor.

WHITFIELD: But American justice isn't enough for Iraq's fledgling government. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has called for a review of the immunity status for coalition troops under Iraqi law. However, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department says agreements in place for American soldiers overseas won't change.

NICHOLAS BURNS, UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE: And we obviously want those agreements to be respected.

WHITFIELD: A U.S. defense official says the newly charged soldiers are under watch at their base in Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Now later this hour I'm talking with the lead prosecutor in the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War about this case.

A showdown at the U.N. over North Korea. Tomorrow the Security Council considers imposing sanctions on Pyongyang for test-firing seven missiles last week. Now the U.S., Britain, and France favor sanctions. But Russia and China, who have veto power, do not. A top U.S. envoy is looking for support on the issue.

Christopher Hill talked exclusively with CNN's Sohn Jie-Ae, and she asked him about North Korea's desire for one-on-one talks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SOHN JIE-AE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just to be clear, at this point is Washington not willing to sit down bilaterally with North Korea to resolve the situation? And are you not willing to accept North Korea's invitation to actually go to North Korea?

CHRISTOPHER HILL, ASST. SECY. OF STATE: You know, we are committed to making -- finding a diplomatic solution through a six- party process. There is a good reason for this. It's not a bilateral issue. When North Korea fires off Scud missiles, that's not a U.S.- North Korea bilateral issue. That's a regional issue, it involves all of us.

Now as a matter of communication, are we able to get to the North Korean? Are we able to have direct talks with them? Of course we are. What we're not ready to do is put aside the six-party process, put aside these other countries or escort these other countries out of the room while we then have bilateral negotiations with the North Koreans.

SOHN: Is North Korea getting ready to test another missile?

HILL: Well, what we know is they have pulled these Scuds is they've pulled them out of storage facilities, and fired them off. So it's entirely likely they could pull out additional scuds and fire them off. I am not sure why they would do that, but I am not sure why they did the first salvo, either. So it's possible but I don't think we have any information on it.

SOHN: If they, would that change things?

HILL: I think it would just be further indication that they are simply not listening to anybody.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Now President Bush has been burning up the phone lines talking to world leaders about the best way to deal with North Korea. And he has also made sure the American people know where he stands. So joining us live now from the White House is CNN's Kathleen Koch -- Kathleen.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, President Bush has spoken out several times over the last week since those missile launches on July 4th, condemning them very, very strongly. But the White House was silent today over North Korea's latest explanation for those missile launches which it described as quote "routine military exercises aimed at improving its ability to defend itself."

Also no response to an implied threat from North Korea's ambassador to Australia who, in an article in a Melbourne newspaper, warns that North Korea would have quote "no option" but to take quote "stronger physical actions of other forms should any country take issue with those exercises."

And of course, plenty of countries do, Japan, the United States, among them. Japan, as you mentioned, circulating this strongly worded resolution in the U.N. Security Council that would impose sanctions against North Korea. And U.S. officials are upbeat about the chances of that resolution in the one -- particularly with China now sending its own delegation to North Korea today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BURNS: I think you'll see over the course of the next couple of days, when we get the results of this Chinese delegation to Pyongyang, I think you'll then see us want to move ahead in New York at the Security Council. We hope that China and Russia are going to support this resolution.

This resolution essentially backs up and substantiates everything that we, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States, have been trying to do to send a strong signal to the North Koreans that the time has come to return to the negotiating table.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: Despite President Bush's refusal to engage in direct talks with North Korea, there is increasing pressure on the part of some critics, and many of them Democrats, to begin to do just that. Many of them on the Sunday talk shows today pointing out that the current policy of isolationism when it comes to North Korea seems only to have allowed the country to strengthen its nuclear capabilities -- Carol.

LIN: Kathleen, thank you so much.

Now we want to move on to one of our big stories, especially that broke on our program last night. A tragedy in Russia as recovery teams are sifting through what's left of an airliner that crashed early today in Siberia. One hundred twenty-four people were killed and many of them were children.

CNN's Matthew Chance has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Recorded on amateur video, the fiery aftermath of Russia's latest air catastrophe. The ill-fated Airbus A310 aircraft was carrying more than 200 people from Moscow to Irkutsk. Many of the passengers were children on a school trip.

Emergency workers were quick on the scene and described the chaos.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We saw the plane burning. Petrol tanks were exploding. The plane crashed into private garages and damaged them. Something was exploding in the garages. It must have been petrol. The plane itself was on fire. A lot of people with burns were running around, but we concentrated on those lying on the ground.

CHANCE: It seems to have been an uneventful flight until the aircraft touched down in Irkutsk, five time zones from Moscow. On the runway, the Siberian Airlines aircraft failed to stop, overshooting the tarmac, plowing into a concrete fence and a building at a terrific speed before bursting into flames. Incredibly, dozens survived the inferno, including six children and three crewmembers. Most are now hospitalized with severe burns.

A few passengers like Margarita Svetlova (ph) were able to throw themselves from the aircraft and escape the horror. "I was so scared," she says, "I heard the people screaming and saw how they burned, so I just ran and jumped out."

Siberian Airlines has a relatively good reputation in Russia but it's had more than its fair share of tragedies, too. In 2001, one of its airliners was accidentally shot down by a missile over Ukraine, killing all 78 on board. Three years later, in 2004, another Sibir aircraft was blown up by a suspected Chechen suicide bomber.

Investigators in the latest crash say the black box flight recorders have already been retrieved and they soon hope to know what caused the catastrophe this time.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: On the ground with Iraqi civilians, the violence is so bad that families hire people to go to morgues and hospitals to find family members. It is a story you will only see on CNN.

Also, five more soldiers charged with the rape and murder of an Iraqi civilian. Could they face the death penalty?

And to the victor go the spoils. We've got live reaction from Berlin on the World Cup final. You're watching CNN LIVE SUNDAY. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHANNON COOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, I'm Shannon Cook. She lost weight and regained her diva status. I'll have the skinny on this soprano when CNN LIVE SUNDAY returns in 30 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Checking some of the popular stories this hour on cnn.com. You might say home alone and lucky to be alive. A 4-year-old boy fell out of an 11-story window and he survived. Now he has a cracked skull and a broken leg. His mother wasn't even home. She was charged with child endangerment.

And surfers are also tracking the story of an 89-year-old man who drove his car into a crowd at a Connecticut festival. Twenty-seven people were injured in chaos.

And also making the list on dot-com, today's brutal attacks on Sunni Muslims in Iraq. Shiite gunmen killed 42 unarmed Sunnis in their own neighborhood in Baghdad, including women and children. You can click onto cnn.com for more details.

LIN: Escalating sectarian attacks in Iraq are creating a climate of fear. No one can escape. CNN's senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, has this report that you will only see on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): By night, bodies are pulled from the Tigris River in Baghdad. Most have their hands bound and have been shot execution style, in the head. In the safety of daylight, Mohammed Jasir Mohammed (ph) searches for two brothers missing for 22 days. Two other relatives have already washed up here. He is a Shia and blames Sunnis for their killings. He is close to tears.

"What do we do," he says. "Just wait here to get the bodies and then give them a proper burial."

Across Baghdad, helplessness in the face of fear is pervasive. A spate of sectarian violence over the weekend resulting in more than 70 brutal killings is only the latest in months of Sunni-on-Shia and Shia-on-Sunni violence since the attack on an important Shia shrine in February.

ASHRAF JEHANGIR QAZI, U.N. SECY. GEN. REPRESENTATIVE: Issues have now come to almost define the political process, and that's an extremely dangerous development. There has been a low-grade ethnic cleansing.

ROBERTSON: The U.N. says at least 150,000 people have fled their homes. But millions more are living in fear. This Baghdad Sunni who wants his identity hidden is so afraid of random sectarian attack, even at home, he is selling his house and plans to leave Iraq.

"They target scientists, intellectuals, people with money, Sunnis, Shias, whatever is written on your I.D., you're a target," he says. "Who targets who is not known, but it's fear of the unknown that destroys you," he adds.

Some people are so afraid they've stopped venturing beyond their sectarian enclaves. Shia Hadji Zubeir's (ph) car parts store is 15 minutes' walk through his own neighborhood from his house. Even then, he says, he prays before going out to work.

"Inside my shop I'm not safe," he says. "I get worried when someone comes in. Are they coming to buy something or kill me?"

Once a confluence of cultures, Baghdad is turning into sectarian islands of fear. (on camera): In an indication of just how bad fears have become, one international official told me of reports among his staff that a 15-year-old girl had been beheaded and a dog's head sewn on her body in its place; and of a young child who had had his hands drilled and bolted together before being killed. Whether or not the reports are accurate, the staff took them as fact. It seems in this climate of fear, no act is so barbaric it can't be believed.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: The Israeli soldier who died in Gaza on July 6th was killed by friendly fire. That is what the Israeli army is saying today after an initial military investigation. The soldier's death is the only Israeli casualty so far in this latest offensive at Gaza.

And British newspapers report that for the first time Britain will publish the country's terror alert status. It's changing to a new five-tiered warning system that is similar to the one used right here in the United States, but without color codes.

And in Spain today, the pope stresses the importance of the traditional family. In an open air Mass before hundreds of thousands, Pope Benedict XVI said marriage must be between a man and a woman. Now, many see the pope's visit as a mini showdown with Spain's socialist government which recently legalized gay marriage.

Now for the lighter side of the global headlines this weekend, let's go to Shannon Cook -- Shannon.

COOK: Hey, Carol. I've got all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff. I want to start off in Poland where politics are about to take a really unusual turn because a set of identical twins are poised to take power there.

This is what happened. The current prime minister up and resigned this week, paving the way for this man coming up here, here he is, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, to take his place. Now, if he is sworn in, as is expected, he'll serve along side his twin brother, who is also the president, Lech Kaczynski.

Now, the twins are pretty well-known in Poland. They actually came to fame as child actors when they starred in a hit movie back in 1962, and very luckily the polls have figured out how to tell the two apart. Lech has two extra moles on his face and he wears a wedding band.

All right. Well, the show's not over till the fat lady slims -- what? Just ask opera Deborah Voigt. She lost a ton of weight after undergoing stomach surgery. And she got her job back. In 2004 Voigt was dropped from a production at London's Royal Opera House reportedly because she was overweight. Apparently she wouldn't fit into the dress they wanted her to wear. But now 135 pounds lighter, here you see her looking a little slimmer, the slimmer soprano has been re- hired for the job. Congratulations. And flower power takes hold in Indonesia. Visitors to the botanical gardens in West Java caught a rare glimpse of this giant beauty you see here. It's a flower called the Titan Arum. And it's difficult to catch in full bloom. It is kind of temperamental. It only blooms once every four years. And its blossoms only stay open for about 24 to 48 hours.

So, Carol, you have got to keep your eyes open as you are walking past it or you may not actually see it.

LIN: And your nose closed. This is the really stinky one?

COOK: It's a stinky, stinky flower. It's actually called the corpse flower because it gives off this horrible rotting, pungent aroma to try and attract all kinds of bugs and interesting things. So as you can see, you know, people not wanting to get too close to this flower.

LIN: Yes, right. Perhaps the picture will tell it best. All right. Thanks very much, Shannon.

COOK: Thank you.

LIN: Well, rescuers feared the worst as this teenager was pulled under water and then it happened. The rest of this water rescue is on the way.

And believe it or not, this is Hollywood and it's no movie. But police don't know who started the fight at this immigration protest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: You have got to check this story out. Tempers flared and punches flew last night in Hollywood, all when a well-known anti- immigration group took to the streets.

This report from Carter Evans of CNN affiliate KCAL.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARTER EVANS, KCAL REPORTER (voice-over): At first it's hard to tell who these people are protesting against, police, you can see the fight break out right here, or Minutemen.

CARLOS ALVAREZ, PROTESTER: These Minutemen have targeted Latino neighborhoods. And that's why we are responding, because it's a very obvious racist attack.

JIM GILCHRIST, MINUTEMAN FOUNDER: The Minuteman Project is a multi-ethnic immigration law enforcement group.

EVANS (on camera): Are the minute men racist?

GILCHRIST: No.

EVANS: Jim Gilchrist founded the Minutemen. They have a permit to rally here in Hollywood today and also to march down Hollywood Boulevard. But every step of the way they are met with counter protesters.

They wanted to march along side and protest the Minutemen but because they did not have a permit, police stopped them at every intersection.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know why you guys were not allowed to march?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because they beat our (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, because they had permits and you guys didn't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, but the sidewalk, you do not...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're on the sidewalk. We're on the sidewalk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do not need a permit to walk on the sidewalk.

EVANS: But police simply wouldn't allow it. They did not want anymore clashes, so the Minutemen march down Hollywood Boulevard undeterred.

DANIELLE FINN, CAUGHT IN TRAFFIC: I'm kind of torn. I like immigrants to have certain human rights, but also I don't think we can give them blanket immunity on anything.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Well, police say an officer was injured in the fray and several people were arrested.

Well, more charges announced in the slaying of an Iraqi family and the rape of an Iraqi girl. We are going to examine the legal issues and whether the death penalty applies in this case straight ahead.

Now lost and found and now seeking reunion, ahead the story of two brothers separated during Korea's communist regime.

And the Italians celebrate another World Cup title at the expense of the French. We're live from Berlin when CNN LIVE SUNDAY continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Turning 60 and still sexy. Straight ahead you're going to hear from actress and fitness guru Suzanne Somers on looking good well into your golden years.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: "Now in the News," five more American soldiers stand accused in the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the members of her family. Four are charged with conspiring to commit the crimes and a fifth is charged for not reporting the alleged offenses. Former Army Private First Class Steven Green has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Religious profiling taken to deadly extremes. Iraqi Emergency Police say gunmen went on a rampage in a predominantly Sunni section of western Baghdad today, killing at least 42 unarmed people. The gunmen apparently asked for ID cards before shooting the victims.

And Russian ministry officials say 124 people died on board this crashed jetliner last night in Siberia. The plane was trying to land on a rain-slicker runway when it plunged into a nearby building.

Now the North Korea missile crisis. U.S. envoy Christopher Hill is in Tokyo trying to find support for sanctions against Pyongyang. Japan wants international sanctions, but North Korean neighbors China and Russia are resisting.

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