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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Bubonic Plague Scare Resolved Quickly; U.N. Weapons Inspectors Pay Surprise Visit to Baghdad Palace

Aired January 15, 2003 - 17:00   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.


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Plague, it killed millions in the Middle Ages. Today the nation got a scare. Who's keeping track of deadly germ samples?

Family business, an alleged al Qaeda financier bin Laden's brother-in-law talks about the world's most wanted man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a really nice guy, really nice man.

BLITZER: Uninvited guests, U.N. weapons inspectors pay a call on a presidential palace.

We're onboard as U.S. Marines prepare to ship out for the Gulf.

Kidnapped right off the street, young girls allegedly sold for sex in America.

And, taking aim at affirmative action.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: It's Wednesday, January 15, 2003. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

President Bush today stepped into the middle of a major affirmative action case announcing he will challenge a University of Michigan program that gives preference to minority students, including Blacks and Hispanics. The case is now before the Supreme Court. The president says he supports racial diversity in every way the law permits but he says there's much wrong with Michigan's policy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, tomorrow my administration will file a brief with the court arguing that the University of Michigan's admissions policies, which award students a significant number of extra points based solely on their race, and establishes numerical targets for incoming minority students are unconstitutional.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: Joining us now with more on this story, our Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider. He's at the CNN Center today in Atlanta.

This is a major decision one would argue an historic decision by the president to intervene before the Supreme Court on this specific case. Tell us why, Bill.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: This is a major decision because the president was under a lot of pressure from conservatives to say essentially what he said today, but also after the Trent Lott affair in December the president's been under pressure to show that he and his party are reaching out to minorities.

I think a lot of minority spokespersons and Democrats and liberals are going to say the president is not putting his money where his mouth is. He is not supporting minorities where they need it.

BLITZER: The implications politically, though, go way beyond that in terms of his reelection presumably if, in fact, that's going to happen two years down the road. What did he announce today?

SCHNEIDER: Well, what he announced today is a policy that actually is consistent with the way most Americans believe. The problem is it's not the way they understand the meaning of affirmative action. Let me explain. People understand affirmative action as meaning outreach helping disadvantaged groups compete, meet the prevailing standards of competition.

What the president was saying is that he is critical of affirmative action programs like the one at the University of Michigan which aren't outreach programs. They're preferences. They're quotas. They say we're going to suspend the prevailing standards of competition and make exceptions for minority groups.

Now that's what most Americans believe that that is a distinction. They don't support preferences. They do support outreach. When you ask Americans do you support affirmative action they say yes because in the popular view affirmative action means outreach. But the president has to make it clear to the American people is that he is opposing a certain kind of affirmative action, namely quotas and preferences.

BLITZER: Bill Schneider in Atlanta thanks very much. Of course, the Supreme Court will have the ultimate say on this important decision that's expected in the months to come.

Here's your chance to weigh in on this story. Our "Web Question of the Day" is this. Should race be used as a factor in college admissions? We'll have the results later in this program. Vote at cnn.com/wolf. While you're there, I'd like to hear from you. Send me your comments. I'll try to read some of them on the air each day at the end of this program. That's also, of course, where you can read my daily online column, cnn.com/wolf.

We now have breaking news on those anthrax tests at the U.S. Postal Service here in Washington. We are now being told what we anticipated, false positive. It was a false alarm, a false positive. Those letters that were discovered there at the postal service did not, repeat did not, have anthrax, another false positive.

Let's move on now. For several long hours today there was a bioterror scare that had the FBI and Texas authorities scrambling. Missing from Texas Tech University dozens of vials containing the bacteria that causes a lethal plague.

This afternoon the FBI said all the vials were accounted for and that there was no, repeat no, danger to the public. Law enforcement sources tell CNN the missing vials, in fact, were destroyed by one of the university's researchers. The incident, however, does raise the question just how secure are the university research and health centers.

Joining us now live with the latest on this story CNN's National Correspondent Susan Candiotti -- Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Wolf, and there are many more questions. For example, why were these vials removed? Why were they destroyed by the researcher, and where and when?

We do know this. According to law enforcement sources they have been talking to a number of people who had close contact with those vials, including the principal investigator of that research project, Dr. Thomas Butler, and here is what else we know.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): The 30 vials were not where they were supposed to be at a Texas Tech University research lab in Lubbock. Tuesday night, a doctor called the FBI. Red flags went up, in less than 24 hours this announcement.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have accounted for all those missing vials and we have determined that there currently no danger to public safety whatsoever.

CANDIOTTI: Law enforcement sources tell CNN the vials of plague, some classified as bubonic plague came from the East Africa country of Tanzania last April. Researchers in Texas were cultivating the samples to develop antibiotics. Authorities say the samples were not armed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These particular bacteria were on (UNINTELLIGIBLE) gel. It was on, if you will, a culture and they were on a small slant, very small test tubes. They were not in dry powdered form and were not, of course, weaponized in the sense that they would be developed to be resistant to certain kind of antibiotics.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: And, of course, there are even more questions. For example, will anyone be charged because of this? We know that the vials were destroyed by a researcher. We know that they are talking to a number of people, including the man who was in charge of this project.

But, the question is was any law broken? If in fact these vials of plague were not being weaponized in any way, can authorities still charge anyone with any kind of antiterrorism or terrorism act, Wolf, back to you?

BLITZER: Thanks very much Susan Candiotti reporting for us on this story.

One of history's worst outbreaks of plague, Europe's Black Death, occurred in the 14th century wiping out, get this, 25 million people in Europe and 13 million people in the Middle East and China within only five years. Bubonic plague is usually transmitted from rodents to humans through the bites of infected fleas.

Joining us now to talk a little bit more about this and the security of research facilities like the one at Texas Tech is Chris Kozlow of the Innovative Emergency Management Group. Chris thanks very much for joining us. We were all scared earlier today. How scared should we have been?

CHRIS KOZLOW, INNOVATIVE EMERGENCY MGT.: Well, I think everybody was scared for the right reasons but I also think that it shows that the homeland security issues that are out there in the country today are working, that people are being made aware.

There are a lot of things out in these research facilities. Some things we don't know about. We're now starting to learn and start to do inventories of what actually is out in the country. So, people got scared but they can also rest assured that there was a mechanism in place to try and locate and see what was going on with this equipment.

BLITZER: How secure are these vials of all sorts of various bacteria, viruses that are at the research labs at the universities?

KOZLOW: Well it's interesting that you bring that up. We've had this occur in this country before. People do research all over the country, if not all over the world. You have a large facility like the one in Texas and you also can have a small medical research facility anywhere in the country.

It's different. In Texas they had surveillance -- they had a security system. They didn't have a surveillance system. Who knows what's going on at a small research facility, but someone can also call up, as Larry Wayne Ayers (ph) did in 1995 and order this stuff over the -- laws have changed but people have done that in the past and they've been able to get their hands on this stuff.

BLITZER: So, does the federal government, state government, local government, who has to be on top of these labs at universities and research centers to make sure a terrorist doesn't get his or her hands on these kinds of deadly material? KOZLOW: Well, it's actually everybody's responsibility. It does start at the local level whoever or wherever the material is located so anybody who's doing research, and I think you'll see some new guidelines come out on how you need to secure this.

Obviously, up at a state and a federal level, CDC, Health and Human Services need to take a look at, and I know that they are, at what is actually around the country. So, they can and so that we don't have an unexplained event take place.

BLITZER: Chris Kozlow thanks very much for that information.

We have much more news coming up, including a shocking story, an alleged sex slave ring busted in the upper Midwestern states of the United States. Police say teen girls were held captive and forced into prostitution, the daring escape that led to their freedom.

Plus, Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, find out what he has to say about the most wanted man on earth.

And, why the U.S. government's top auto safety official is sideswiping sport utility vehicles.

But first, today's "News Quiz".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER (voice-over): Who coined the phrase "affirmative action"? Martin Luther King, Jr., Lyndon Johnson, Jesse Jackson, John Kennedy? The answer coming up?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER (voice-over): Earlier we asked who coined the phrase "affirmative action"? The answer, John Kennedy. He signed an executive order in 1961 instructing federal contractors to take "affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Now to the showdown with Iraq. The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein got some uninvited guests today. Seven carloads of U.N. weapons inspectors drove into the main palace compound in Baghdad. They rummaged through government buildings at one point waiting hours for the keys to several safes, but they did not enter the presidential offices and it's not clear if the Iraqi leader was present during the inspection.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien today said the weapons inspectors "must have the time to do their job" and he made it clear Canada would not join a U.S. led strike against Iraq unless the U.N. Security Council authorizes military action.

Three thousand Royal Marine commandos boarded the helicopter carrier Ocean today ready to join Britain's biggest naval task force in 20 years. A group of warships led by the carrier Arc Royal left port this week bound for the Middle East. The Royal Marines can deploy by helicopter or by landing craft.

Joining tens of thousands of military personnel on the move, U.S. Marines are getting ready to ship out from San Diego. Our National Correspondent Frank Buckley is there and he's aboard one of those warships with a very legendary heritage. Frank, tell us about it.

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is the Bonhomme Richard. It's an amphibious assault ship. The first Bonhomme Richard during the Revolutionary War was the one commanded by John Paul Jones when he uttered the phrase "I have not yet begun to fight."

The men and women who are aboard this ship possibly headed into a fight if there are hostilities with Iraq. A lot of activity here today here on the hangar deck, also down below on Pier 13 as men, marines sailors head onto the ship.

Up above on the flight deck, on Friday when this ship deploys there will be Harrier jets and helicopters when this ship and six others deploy to the Persian Gulf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BUCKLEY (voice-over): U.S. Marines boarded the USS Bonhomme Richard loaded with gear ready for war if they get the call. They are young but some of them are already veterans of war. Among these men, marines who just returned from a six-month tour of duty off the coast of Africa in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. They just got back a month ago. Now they may be headed into harm's way again.

GUNNERY SGT. RICHARD MUCHECK, USMC: It's hard. I'm not going to lie to the American public and tell them it's not and we live for this stuff because we don't. It's hard on all of us. However, we have sworn oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and it's part of the job. It's what we have to do so we're prepared to do it.

BUCKLEY: The sailors reporting to duty are also on short notice deployment. The men and women of the Bonhomme Richard returned from the Arabian Sea in support of Enduring Freedom just last summer. Seven months later they're headed back out.

CAPT. STAN DEGEUS, USS BONHOMME RICHARD: We did come back in June and we're turning it around fairly quickly. But you know quite frankly, Frank, after 9/11 I think we, all the sailors from the deck lights on up have been prepared for contingency operations.

BUCKLEY: Already it's full speed ahead for those responsible for loading the supplies and vehicles needed for the months ahead. Still to come the LCACs, the military hovercraft, that will give commanders the option of landing troops and recovering them by sea.

But the truly difficult moments may come in the quiet hours of the next few days as marines and sailors contemplate possible battle, and more immediately on Friday they'll have to say goodbye again to their wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, and their children.

ENSIGN LARRY TARVER, U.S. NAVY: My children have been, you know, they know that dad's in the Navy. They're very proud of what I do. They tell all their friends, you know, hey my dad's in the Navy and you know he protects our country and helps keep us free.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BUCKLEY: And, some of the weapons that the marines will be taking with them on this ship, the M-16s right along Pier 13 here, again, on Friday 10,000 marines and sailors leaving from San Diego -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Frank Buckley. Frank thanks very much for that report.

And, we have a late-breaking development on the showdown with Iraq. The United States may actually find itself in a showdown with the United Nations over demand that Iraqi weapons scientists be taken out of the country for questioning.

Our National Security Correspondent David Ensor is joining me now live to tell us about this. First of all, David, I understand the National Security Adviser Dr. Condoleezza Rice, met with the weapons inspectors to make a specific point. Tell us about this.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, Bush administration officials are clearly frustrated and they're pressing U.N. arms inspectors to take a more robust approach. They want the inspectors to order Iraq to produce certain weapon scientists and their families for travel outside the country for interviews.

And that was the message that was delivered yesterday by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice during a low profile trip to New York to meet with U.N. officials, including the Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix.

Now in the past, Blix has expressed doubts that the new interview power given to his team, the right to take scientists out of the country for interviews, is workable. Blix has said the inspectors can not force Iraqi scientists to leave the country to talk and thus far none have said that they are willing to go.

But, Bush administration officials say the owness should be on Iraq, not on the U.N. and not on individual scientists either, that Blix should order not ask the Iraqi government to produce certain scientists for travel and interviews. Administration officials say if Iraq refuses it's further proof that the regime is not cooperating with disarmament, and if it agrees, well that could avert a war and so much the better -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Well, I guess I'm still a little bit confused. This is obviously a very sensitive, complicate story, but the difference between the U.N. and the Bush administration in a nutshell is that the Bush administration says the U.N. weapons inspectors have to take these scientists out of the country for questioning whether or not the Iraqis like it or these scientists themselves like it? Is that a fair explanation?

ENSOR: The difference is that Blix and his people have been asking Iraqi scientists would you like to come out of the country? Would you like to have a meeting without Iraqi government representatives where we could talk about these programs? And so far, the answer has always been no.

Now the Bush administration is saying to the inspectors look don't ask them. Don't ask them individually. Go to the government of Baghdad. Go to President Saddam Hussein and say here's a list. Here's who we want. Deliver them to this place. They're going to be getting on an airplane and flying to Cyprus. We want to talk to them and we want their families out too so that they can speak frankly -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, David Ensor, this looks like another showdown, indeed a showdown between the inspectors and the Bush administration. Thanks very much for that explanation.

They're already under fire for guzzling gas. Now SUVs are getting slammed on safety from the top government official.

Plus, gang busting in Los Angeles, L.A. cracks down to stop bloodshed on the streets.

And, pulled from the flames. The legendary news man David Brinkley rescued from his own home.

But first a look at news making headlines "Around the World."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Israeli-Palestinian tension. Israel soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians during clashes in the West Bank. Israeli forces also sealed or demolished the homes of convicted militants in East Jerusalem and closed two Palestinian universities in response to a suicide bombing this month.

Power play. Government troops loyal to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez seized weapons from the Caracas Police Department leaving the police with only their revolvers. The mayor of Caracas is a Chavez opponent.

A new leader. Former Colonel Lucio Gutierrez took the oath of office as president of Ecuador. He was elected after promising to tackle corruption and poverty.

Embryo scam. A British clinic worker has been sentenced to a year and a half in jail for what's being called a despicable crime that betrayed the trust of vulnerable women. Forty-four-year-old Paul Fielding claimed to provide fertilized eggs to women who were desperate for children, but prosecutors say it was all a scam, and all the women really received was saline solution.

Panda passage. An 11-year-old panda named Gau Gau (ph) left China for a new life in the United States. He's going to set up home at the San Diego Zoo with a female panda. Object, the pitter patter of tiny panda paws.

And that's out look "Around the World."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Checking stories now in our "Justice Files", a player with the Dallas Cowboys is facing some serious legal trouble. Reserve defensive back Dwayne Goodrich was released on bail today after being charged with two counts of manslaughter in connection with a deadly hit-and-run accident.

Police say Goodrich drove his car through an accident scene on a Dallas interstate yesterday at high speed. Two people were killed and two others were injured when the car swerved between two disabled vehicles. Goodrich later turned himself in to police.

Actor Robert Blake's jailhouse deposition was suspended today after a stormy session. Blake was being deposed in a wrongful death lawsuit by his murdered wife's family. His criminal defense attorney called the civil deposition a clown show and refused to let the actor answer questions. Blake is accused of shooting his wife Bonny Lee Bakley to death. The criminal case is separate from the civil lawsuit.

A seven-year-old Ohio girl is in foster care while here parents and grandmother face some shocking charges. The three were arraigned today on accusations of running a fundraising hoax that netted more than $10,000.

The scheme apparently was based on a false claim that the child had leukemia and was dying. Police say the mother shaved the girl's head, gave her sleeping pills, and even arranged counseling sessions to prepare her for death.

Police in Los Angeles are taking a new approach in their battle against the city's gangs. Instead of focusing in on the gangs as a whole, officers will now go after gang members one by one. Here's CNN's Ann McDermott.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANN MCDERMOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is happening night and day in Los Angeles, homicide. There were almost 700 killings here last year making L.A. the USA's murder capital, and the new police chief blames the LAPD.

CHIEF WILLIAM BRATTON, LOS ANGELES POLICE: This department for the last several years has been on the bench. They haven't even been on the field. Well today marks us getting back into the game. MCDERMOTT: And the game is targeting gangs. More than half of all the homicides here are blamed on gang members and there are nearly 100,000 gang members in and around L.A.

Now in the past the problem's been dealt with by a handful of gang officers conducting gang sweeps in gang neighborhoods. But now, the LAPD will focus on individual gang members and involve hundreds of officers whether they work gangs or vice or narcotics or organized crime. And, school police will be involved, along with the FBI and other government agencies, along with the community.

Yes, L.A.'s Mayor Jim Hahn recognizes that poverty in the community has a lot to do with the making of gang members but...

MAYOR JIM HAHN, LOS ANGELES: Jobs is key but if I'm going to be able to convince somebody to bring jobs to a community, I'm going to have to convince them that it's safe.

MCDERMOTT: The work is already underway. The LAPD has just opened its new anti-gang headquarters in south Los Angeles and officers are on the streets going after the gang members one by one hoping to stop at least some before they kill again.

Ann McDermott CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: We have some breaking news now on that very, very shocking case at the Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana where two U.S. pilots are being -- are going through a hearing to determine whether they should be court martialed for that so-called friendly fire incident last April in Afghanistan. Four Canadian soldiers were killed.

We now, for the first time, are getting the cockpit voice recording from that incident, or at least part of that. This recording and videotape were released in connection with this hearing that's going on right now. I want our viewers to listen to it now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man from (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Check my sparkle. Check my sparkle, see if it looks good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 5-1 Boss man. Home fire needs details on sapphire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, I've got some men on a road and it looks like a piece of artillery firing at us. I'm rolling in in self defense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) copy. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIBIGLE) laser armed and check you're not in mark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm in the southwest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Show them on a bridge?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bomb is away cranking left.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm fine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Laser is on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man, boss man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 5-1.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man, disengage, friendlies Kandahar.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy, disengaging south.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 5-1, boss man out, copy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy, can you confirm that they were shooting at us?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 5-1 boss man, you're cleared self defense. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) works out (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Kandahar.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One is coming back left (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 5-1 boss man, scram out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man, copy, 5-1 scramming.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why don't you come back south?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 51. Boss man, I need coordinates when able and need to know how many rounds were fired

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You had one bomb dropped in the vicinity of 3124 north, 0.78 6543.522. That's an estimate if you had our general vicinity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 51. Repeat east coordinate. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not so sure it's that accurate. I don't have an accurate coordinate right now. Do you want me to go back and get you one?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man, negative.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go back through.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, shoot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were definitely shooting at you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sure seemed like they were tracking around and everything and trying to lead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we had our lights on and it wasn't helping, I don't think. I had a group of guys on a road around a gun, and it did not look organized like it would be our guys.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seemed like it was right on a bridge. That's kind of where I was at.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not quite.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope that was the right thing to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Me, too.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 51, Boss man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they need type bomb dropped result, and type of sapphire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was a single GBU-12 dropped. It was a direct hit on the artillery piece that was firing. As far as the sapphire, multiple rounds, looked like a MLRS, two copy 252.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five, one, what do you have on that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd say the same. It was sort of continuous fire. And it appeared to be leading us as we were flying by. And then as we came back around...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you top out too on the sapphire?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Negative. They were burning out before here. I would estimate the top was approximately 10,000 feet. And just to let you know, we split an ASMIT (ph); sending 51 to the south and 52 went to the Northeast. And one of the guns turned back around to the east, firing at 52 as well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man, copy.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BLITZER: All right, so there it is. You hear on this audiotape, this videotape from the Defense Department, the actual incident, the controversial incident involving two Illinois Air National Guard pilots flying over Afghanistan last April. They dropped a 500-pound bomb on what they thought was enemy positions. They said they were coming under artillery fire.

We heard one of the pilots suggest that there was an MLRS, a multiple launch rocket system that appeared to be attacking them. They say they got the right guys. Major Harry Schmidt and Major Bill Umbach now going through a hearing at Barksdale Air Force Base to determine whether this friendly fire incident in which four Canadian soldiers were killed should warrant court-martial behavior, court martial against these two pilots.

I want to bring in our correspondent Ed Lavendera who's covering this story in a moment.

But in the meantime, we're getting another breaking story right now involving the John Lee Malvo case in Washington, the sniper case, the question whether the 17-year-old could be tried as an adult. I think Patti Davis is standing by.

Patti, are you there? Oh, Jeanne Meserve actually is going to be standing by, but we are told that John Lee Malvo has been determined to be qualified -- eligible to be tried as an adult by the court by the judge in this particular case. John Lee Malvo, only 17-years-old, will be tried as an adult by the court, by the judge in this particular case. John Lee Malvo only 17-years-old will be tried as an adult, meaning he will be eligible for the death sentence in the state of Virginia where he is being tried.

We're going to have more on that in a moment. Jeanne Meserve is going to be coming out of the courthouse and brief us on precisely the judge's decision.

But let's go to Ed Lavendera. He's at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. This was very dramatic. Audio and video we heard of the actual incident, this so-called friendly fire incident.

Ed, and it's obviously going to have an impact one way or another whether these two Illinois Air National Guard pilots will be tried, will go before a court-martial. Give us the latest.

LAVANDERA: Well, Wolf, this tape just now being released by military officials here at Barksdale Air Force Base. Several times throughout the hearing today, several clips from what you just saw have been played before the investigating officer and the attorneys in the room.

And what has happened here, as these videotapes have been played, which you've been -- who you've been hearing from, now you're starting to hear from, are the authorities that are down on the ground determining just where all the different allied forces are stationed throughout the area, just the command structure and the information structure as to what was happening that night. If you see the video images, you'll notice that the screen is splitting in four quadrants. So what you see on the left is what Major Bill Umbach is seeing. The top part of the screens is the heads-up display that you -- that each of the pilots would be able to see inside their F-16 fighter jet. And then below that, on the bottom half of the screen, you see the target pod for each of the pilots.

The left is what Umbach sees and from the right is what Major Harry Schmidt would be seeing. He is the pilot who dropped the 500- pound laser-guided bomb on the Canadian army troops that were conducting a live-fire exercise.

And if you notice, several of the issues that are coming up here and the defense attorneys for these two pilots will be bringing up, specifically talking about the time issue. They'll say many times here, and they have said before, that these are split-second decisions that these pilots had to make. If you count between the time where Harry Schmidt says that he is rolling in self-defense -- or asks the -- actually, let me backtrack a little bit more, Wolf.

If you go back and you hear the very beginning of the tape, he asked if he could fire 20-millimeter rounds in the area. That is a warning shot to -- he asked for permission to fire a warning shot. That is essentially what that is. He was denied that permission by one of the voices that you hear.

Whenever you hear the words "Boss man" on the tape that is coming from an AWACS plane a surveillance plane that is flying even higher above the scene than the fighter jets. So they're asking for permission to fire those rounds in there. The AWACS jet is denying that request, saying, let's -- as you heard them say, let's find out if there are friendlies in the area.

The pilot continued to see the rounds being fired from the ground and that is when Harry Schmidt declares self-defense. There is not a whole lot of time that passes by. And that is what the defense attorneys for these pilots are saying, that they have to be able to make these split-second decisions -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Ed Lavendera covering this hearing for us at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. We'll continue to monitor that story.

Very ominously we heard from one of those pilots say, "I hope that was the right thing to do," after the incident was over. A direct hit by that 500-pound bomb unbeknownst to him, on Canadian forces also in Afghanistan. Four of those Canadian soldiers killed in the process.

Let's get back to the sniper story. John Lee Malvo, the 17-year- old, has been before a judge for the past couple days to determine whether or not he should stand trial as an adult or as a juvenile. Our Jeanne Meserve is covering this procedure for us. Tell us the latest, Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the judge, Charles Maxfield, has made a ruling. He says there is probable cause. He has certified this case to a grand jury of the circuit court. That means that John Lee Malvo, age 17, will now enter the adult court system. A grand jury will now consider this, and possibly produce an indictment.

Lawyers for Malvo made heated arguments at the end saying that their client should not be sent forward in the justice system. They objected to the fact that his mother was not in the courtroom. They also said that none of the evidence presented in this courtroom actually place Malvo at any of the four crime scenes that were discussed. And they argued that the crimes under consideration did not constitute terrorism. One of the two counts of murder here is under Virginia's new Anti-Terrorism Statute.

However, the prosecutor, Robert Horan, made a very heated argument as well. He read all the communications that have been introduced in this courtroom over the last several days, with their threats against children, with their demands for money. He said clearly this was an attempt to intimidate the government. Also, he had presented extensive evidence primarily revolving around ballistics; things that were found at the crime scenes, taken to the labs, analyses were done. When a rifle was recovered from the car in which Malvo was arrested, it was a match to that ballistic evidence.

And according to the experts who testified here, the fingerprint of John Lee Malvo was on that weapon. So Robert Horan said probable cause should be found and he said if this case doesn't fit the Anti- Terrorism Statute, he doubted that any case ever would. And so John Lee Malvo moves on through the justice system. He now will be eligible for the death penalty in the adult system. Back to you.

BLITZER: Jeanne Meserve, thanks for hustling out of that courtroom for us. Thanks very much.

Outrage in the Midwest. Young girls sold for sex. It's happening here in the United States. That story coming up. Also, he says he's Osama bin Laden's best friend. Hear what this man says about the terror mastermind. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to CNN. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Coming up, a shocking story about sex slaves here in the United States.

(NEWSBREAK)

BLITZER: Police in Detroit are investigating an alleged sex slave operation in which kidnapped young women were forced to work as prostitutes. Jason Carroll is in Detroit with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the home police raided Monday night in East Detroit. What they found inside, detectives described as a sex slave prostitution ring. Several women and girls had been allegedly kidnapped and housed her, the youngest, 13, the oldest, 21. Neighbors didn't have a clue what police say was really happening in the home.

ROBERT KIMBROUGH, NEIGHBOR: We didn't know what was going on, like I say, after we seen the cops. And I say, well, that's close to home.

CARROLL (on camera): Right across the street.

KIMBROUGH: Right across the street.

CARROLL (voice-over): Here's what authorities say happened.

(on camera): Police cracked the case thanks to a 17-year-old girl who was kidnapped from Cleveland, Ohio, last Thursday and forced to perform sexual acts here at the home. All allegedly organized by the group's ringleader, Henry Davis. When Davis decided to take some of the girls shopping, his 17-year-old victim found an opportunity to escape.

(voice-over): Once inside this Footlocker store, she found help from Dorian McConnell, a security guard.

DORIAN MCCONNELL, SECURITY GUARD: She just broke loose from the crowd and ran over to me, and like literally just ran behind me and grabbed me and was asking for help. She was like, "Please, help me. Don't let me leave with them."

CARROLL: McConnell told Davis and his group to leave, then brought the 17-year-old to police. Their investigation revealed what police claim was a working prostitution ring in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois. Detectives had been trying to solve the case since last September when a girl claiming she had been abducted in Detroit came to police.

Detectives now believe the operation was now based in Chicago, Davis' home. His new temporary home, the Fifth Precinct in Detroit where he's being held on charges ranging from criminal sexual conduct to kidnapping.

CNN has been unable to reach Davis or an attorney representing him. Davis will get a chance to answer the charges when he's arraigned later this week.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: A 17-year-old boy was also arrested in connection with the prostitution ring, but he was later released. Detectives say there is a possibility he could be arrested at a later point. They also say, we can expect more arrests, and they expect more victims to come forward as this case continues to develop -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jason Carroll in Detroit. Jason, thanks very much.

Let's get a little more insight into this shocking story. I'm joined by Avery Friegman. He's in Cleveland. He's the attorney for the girl who escaped and tipped off the police.

First of all, Avery, how is she doing?

AVERY FRIEGMAN, ALLEGED VICTIM'S ATTORNEY: I've got to tell you, Wolf, it's been a tough day. But we had medical people looking at her this morning, and we have psychiatric and therapy people looking at her this afternoon. So under the circumstances, she's doing all right.

BLITZER: And what is she saying? How exactly did she get involved in this?

FRIEGMAN: Well, this is an unbelievable story that could happen to any teenager. We'll call her Pamela -- was waiting for the bus after her job finished at the mall. And she was approached by another young woman who wanted to sell her jewelry and enticed her into an SUV where two men came out, abducted her, pulled her in and took her Thursday night from Cleveland to Chicago. She was subjected to both physical and sexual abuse. And then they went to Detroit, where this incident kind of broke open.

BLITZER: And then she managed, though, to escape. How did she do it?

FRIEGMAN: This is extraordinary. I don't know if it's bravery or in instinct. But what we know, Wolf, is that she took the chance, because she knew if it didn't work, she would be dead. But she took the chance, and the guard, Mr. McConnell, understood, called the police, and now we have the head of this ring locked up. And I think other victims are going to be coming forward.

BLITZER: How big of a ring do we believe this was? How many women, how many young girls were involved?

FRIEGMAN: When the bust took place, and police arrived at the scene, at least according to the 17-year-old, there were 40 people in this house, a substantial number of young women between the ages of 13 and 17, as well as the customers. So it's a pretty big size operation. And we only know the beginning of it right now.

BLITZER: A shocking story. It's amazing these kinds of things still can happen in the United States of America. Avery Freigman, good luck to you.

FRIEGMAN: Thank you.

BLITZER: Good luck to the young woman you're representing and all the others involved in this horrendous story as well.

FRIEGMAN: Thank you very much, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let's move on now to the war on terror. Despite a continuing worldwide search by the United States and its allies, the exact whereabouts of Osama bin Laden remain a mystery. Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law recently turned up, though, on television.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMAL KHALIFA, BIN LADEN'S BROTHER-IN-LAW: Osama is a very normal person, very humble and a very simple person. Osama also is really polite, quiet person. He force you to respect him from his attitude. He is not a person who is aggressive. He is not a person who is thinking to hurt any person, even by words. He is really selecting his words very careful when he's talking. He's really a nice guy, a very nice guy.

Osama always -- actually, he's my best friend. He is my -- more than my brothers. I love him very much, up to now. Yes, I do not agree about what he is doing, but still, he is a friend, OK. And even if I have -- really, I say that many times -- I'm saying it, if I have any power to stop him, I will do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: CNN Jakarta bureau chief, Maria Ressa has been looking into the story. She's joining us now live from Indonesia.

Maria, first of all, tell us about this brother-in-law, supposedly the brother-in-law. What do we know about him? Is he really what he says he is?

MARIA RESSA, CNN JAKARTA BUREAU CHIEF: Well, we've seen him name on hundreds of intelligence documents. He is allegedly the man who was sent by Osama bin Laden to the Philippines in 1988. He is...

BLITZER: Maria, let me interrupt, Maria. We're getting some distortions in the audio. We're going to try to fix that and get back to you, but stand by. We'll get back to you as soon as we can fix that little technical glitch.

In a moment, why tomorrow's shuttle launch is poised to make history. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The space shuttle Columbia is set for blastoff tomorrow from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Setting this mission apart from the previous ones, Israel's first astronaut and that means tight security. Our space correspondent, Miles O'Brien, as always is, is live form the space center -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Wolf. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that on any day the space shuttle would be a target for terrorists, but in this case, with an Israeli astronaut strapping aboard, security particularly tight. Take a look at the Hilton Hotel down in Cocoa Beach, about 20 miles from here. Sharp shooters on the roof, SWAT teams in evidence, mounted police officers on the beach, bomb-sniffing dogs, tremendous amount of security. It looks like an embassy overseas.

Three hundred Israelis part of Ilan Ramon's party are in this hotel. It's obviously a focal point for security, as is the shuttle, on this, the eve of Ilan Ramon's flight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Ilan Ramon says he is uncomfortable in the spotlight.

ILAN RAMON, ISRAELI ASTRONAUT: I also feel kind of regret that I'm in the center of -- or in the focus because I think that my crewmates are the great people I have ever met.

O'BRIEN: But none of his six shuttle crewmates is the first astronaut from Israel. The son of a Holocaust survivor, Ilan Ramon was born in the Promised Land and grew up to fly fighter planes in the vaunted Israeli Air Force, but he never dreamed he would get a chance to fly this fast, this high.

RAMON: I believe that nobody at that time could have dreamed about sending an Israeli astronaut to space. So I feel very, very grateful and lucky.

O'BRIEN (on camera): The mission aboard the orbiter, Columbia, is a 24/7 science marathon. Working in a 2,000-cubic foot lab attached to the cargo hold, the crew will study fires, moss grow, human prostate cancer cells and how rats adapt to weightlessness. In addition, they will be their own guinea pigs, measuring their own bone loss and how their immune systems fair. They'll also be looking out the window studying dust storms to see how they may impact global warming. In all, there are more than 59 experiments.

WILLIAM MCCOOL, PILOT: Your very much bang for the buck in the sense that we're packing so much science into one 16-day mission. A lot of it is applicable in the long-term; admittedly, you're not going to see results tomorrow. A lot of it is results tomorrowish kind of science.

O'BRIEN (voice-over): But before the science can begin, NASA has some here and now concerns. Already attempting target for terrorists, a space shuttle on the launch pad with an Israeli strapped inside is a security nightmare.

MICHAEL REIN, U.S. AIR FORCE: We believe that we have a security plan in place that will protect the shuttle from any threat, whether it be land, air or sea.

O'BRIEN: The post-9/11 regimen remains in place. A huge no-fly zone around the launch pad, patrolled by fighters, enhanced radars, surface-to-air missiles and the launch time kept secret until the day before. NASA always breathing a collective sigh of relief when the shuttle reaches orbit even more so this time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Now, it appears that the weather will not be a problem. We know the launch time now, 10:39 Eastern time. We, of course, are planning live coverage. The weather is 95 percent go. So what we'll be watching is the shuttle, number one, to make sure there are no mechanical problems with it, and also, should anyone or anything stray into that huge no-fly zone, in that exclusion zone off in the Atlantic Ocean. Wolf, it'll be a tense launch, countdown. It's always tense, but even more so this time -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Good luck to everybody, including Ilan Ramon. Thanks very much, Miles O'Brien for that report.

Time is running out for your turn to weigh in on our "Web Question of The Day." Should race be used as a factor in college admissions? Log onto cnn.com/wolf to vote. We'll have the results immediately when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: To get some more information on that story about those vials of bubonic plague we reported about earlier this hour, our national correspondent, Susan Candiotti, once again standing by in Miami -- Susan.

CANDIOTTI: Thank you, Wolf. According to law enforcement sources, I and Kelli Arena, our Justice Department correspondent, have been able to confirm the person who destroyed the vials. And in fact, it is the name that I mentioned in my report at 5:00. He is Dr. Thomas Butler, and he is head of the Texas Tech University Internal Medicine and chief of their Infectious Disease Control Division.

According to the university, he has been doing this kind of research into the plague for more than 25 years and they say he is internationally recognized. Remember, he destroyed about 30 vials of plague, including bubonic plague. We do not know a motive. We do not know for sure whether the FBI has any information about where or how this was destroyed. Back to you, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Susan Candiotti, thank you very much.

And that's all the time we have this hour. Lou Dobbs though standing by to pick up all the news.

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





Inspectors Pay Surprise Visit to Baghdad Palace>


Aired January 15, 2003 - 17:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Plague, it killed millions in the Middle Ages. Today the nation got a scare. Who's keeping track of deadly germ samples?

Family business, an alleged al Qaeda financier bin Laden's brother-in-law talks about the world's most wanted man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a really nice guy, really nice man.

BLITZER: Uninvited guests, U.N. weapons inspectors pay a call on a presidential palace.

We're onboard as U.S. Marines prepare to ship out for the Gulf.

Kidnapped right off the street, young girls allegedly sold for sex in America.

And, taking aim at affirmative action.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: It's Wednesday, January 15, 2003. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

President Bush today stepped into the middle of a major affirmative action case announcing he will challenge a University of Michigan program that gives preference to minority students, including Blacks and Hispanics. The case is now before the Supreme Court. The president says he supports racial diversity in every way the law permits but he says there's much wrong with Michigan's policy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, tomorrow my administration will file a brief with the court arguing that the University of Michigan's admissions policies, which award students a significant number of extra points based solely on their race, and establishes numerical targets for incoming minority students are unconstitutional.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: Joining us now with more on this story, our Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider. He's at the CNN Center today in Atlanta.

This is a major decision one would argue an historic decision by the president to intervene before the Supreme Court on this specific case. Tell us why, Bill.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: This is a major decision because the president was under a lot of pressure from conservatives to say essentially what he said today, but also after the Trent Lott affair in December the president's been under pressure to show that he and his party are reaching out to minorities.

I think a lot of minority spokespersons and Democrats and liberals are going to say the president is not putting his money where his mouth is. He is not supporting minorities where they need it.

BLITZER: The implications politically, though, go way beyond that in terms of his reelection presumably if, in fact, that's going to happen two years down the road. What did he announce today?

SCHNEIDER: Well, what he announced today is a policy that actually is consistent with the way most Americans believe. The problem is it's not the way they understand the meaning of affirmative action. Let me explain. People understand affirmative action as meaning outreach helping disadvantaged groups compete, meet the prevailing standards of competition.

What the president was saying is that he is critical of affirmative action programs like the one at the University of Michigan which aren't outreach programs. They're preferences. They're quotas. They say we're going to suspend the prevailing standards of competition and make exceptions for minority groups.

Now that's what most Americans believe that that is a distinction. They don't support preferences. They do support outreach. When you ask Americans do you support affirmative action they say yes because in the popular view affirmative action means outreach. But the president has to make it clear to the American people is that he is opposing a certain kind of affirmative action, namely quotas and preferences.

BLITZER: Bill Schneider in Atlanta thanks very much. Of course, the Supreme Court will have the ultimate say on this important decision that's expected in the months to come.

Here's your chance to weigh in on this story. Our "Web Question of the Day" is this. Should race be used as a factor in college admissions? We'll have the results later in this program. Vote at cnn.com/wolf. While you're there, I'd like to hear from you. Send me your comments. I'll try to read some of them on the air each day at the end of this program. That's also, of course, where you can read my daily online column, cnn.com/wolf.

We now have breaking news on those anthrax tests at the U.S. Postal Service here in Washington. We are now being told what we anticipated, false positive. It was a false alarm, a false positive. Those letters that were discovered there at the postal service did not, repeat did not, have anthrax, another false positive.

Let's move on now. For several long hours today there was a bioterror scare that had the FBI and Texas authorities scrambling. Missing from Texas Tech University dozens of vials containing the bacteria that causes a lethal plague.

This afternoon the FBI said all the vials were accounted for and that there was no, repeat no, danger to the public. Law enforcement sources tell CNN the missing vials, in fact, were destroyed by one of the university's researchers. The incident, however, does raise the question just how secure are the university research and health centers.

Joining us now live with the latest on this story CNN's National Correspondent Susan Candiotti -- Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Wolf, and there are many more questions. For example, why were these vials removed? Why were they destroyed by the researcher, and where and when?

We do know this. According to law enforcement sources they have been talking to a number of people who had close contact with those vials, including the principal investigator of that research project, Dr. Thomas Butler, and here is what else we know.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): The 30 vials were not where they were supposed to be at a Texas Tech University research lab in Lubbock. Tuesday night, a doctor called the FBI. Red flags went up, in less than 24 hours this announcement.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have accounted for all those missing vials and we have determined that there currently no danger to public safety whatsoever.

CANDIOTTI: Law enforcement sources tell CNN the vials of plague, some classified as bubonic plague came from the East Africa country of Tanzania last April. Researchers in Texas were cultivating the samples to develop antibiotics. Authorities say the samples were not armed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These particular bacteria were on (UNINTELLIGIBLE) gel. It was on, if you will, a culture and they were on a small slant, very small test tubes. They were not in dry powdered form and were not, of course, weaponized in the sense that they would be developed to be resistant to certain kind of antibiotics.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: And, of course, there are even more questions. For example, will anyone be charged because of this? We know that the vials were destroyed by a researcher. We know that they are talking to a number of people, including the man who was in charge of this project.

But, the question is was any law broken? If in fact these vials of plague were not being weaponized in any way, can authorities still charge anyone with any kind of antiterrorism or terrorism act, Wolf, back to you?

BLITZER: Thanks very much Susan Candiotti reporting for us on this story.

One of history's worst outbreaks of plague, Europe's Black Death, occurred in the 14th century wiping out, get this, 25 million people in Europe and 13 million people in the Middle East and China within only five years. Bubonic plague is usually transmitted from rodents to humans through the bites of infected fleas.

Joining us now to talk a little bit more about this and the security of research facilities like the one at Texas Tech is Chris Kozlow of the Innovative Emergency Management Group. Chris thanks very much for joining us. We were all scared earlier today. How scared should we have been?

CHRIS KOZLOW, INNOVATIVE EMERGENCY MGT.: Well, I think everybody was scared for the right reasons but I also think that it shows that the homeland security issues that are out there in the country today are working, that people are being made aware.

There are a lot of things out in these research facilities. Some things we don't know about. We're now starting to learn and start to do inventories of what actually is out in the country. So, people got scared but they can also rest assured that there was a mechanism in place to try and locate and see what was going on with this equipment.

BLITZER: How secure are these vials of all sorts of various bacteria, viruses that are at the research labs at the universities?

KOZLOW: Well it's interesting that you bring that up. We've had this occur in this country before. People do research all over the country, if not all over the world. You have a large facility like the one in Texas and you also can have a small medical research facility anywhere in the country.

It's different. In Texas they had surveillance -- they had a security system. They didn't have a surveillance system. Who knows what's going on at a small research facility, but someone can also call up, as Larry Wayne Ayers (ph) did in 1995 and order this stuff over the -- laws have changed but people have done that in the past and they've been able to get their hands on this stuff.

BLITZER: So, does the federal government, state government, local government, who has to be on top of these labs at universities and research centers to make sure a terrorist doesn't get his or her hands on these kinds of deadly material? KOZLOW: Well, it's actually everybody's responsibility. It does start at the local level whoever or wherever the material is located so anybody who's doing research, and I think you'll see some new guidelines come out on how you need to secure this.

Obviously, up at a state and a federal level, CDC, Health and Human Services need to take a look at, and I know that they are, at what is actually around the country. So, they can and so that we don't have an unexplained event take place.

BLITZER: Chris Kozlow thanks very much for that information.

We have much more news coming up, including a shocking story, an alleged sex slave ring busted in the upper Midwestern states of the United States. Police say teen girls were held captive and forced into prostitution, the daring escape that led to their freedom.

Plus, Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, find out what he has to say about the most wanted man on earth.

And, why the U.S. government's top auto safety official is sideswiping sport utility vehicles.

But first, today's "News Quiz".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER (voice-over): Who coined the phrase "affirmative action"? Martin Luther King, Jr., Lyndon Johnson, Jesse Jackson, John Kennedy? The answer coming up?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER (voice-over): Earlier we asked who coined the phrase "affirmative action"? The answer, John Kennedy. He signed an executive order in 1961 instructing federal contractors to take "affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Now to the showdown with Iraq. The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein got some uninvited guests today. Seven carloads of U.N. weapons inspectors drove into the main palace compound in Baghdad. They rummaged through government buildings at one point waiting hours for the keys to several safes, but they did not enter the presidential offices and it's not clear if the Iraqi leader was present during the inspection.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien today said the weapons inspectors "must have the time to do their job" and he made it clear Canada would not join a U.S. led strike against Iraq unless the U.N. Security Council authorizes military action.

Three thousand Royal Marine commandos boarded the helicopter carrier Ocean today ready to join Britain's biggest naval task force in 20 years. A group of warships led by the carrier Arc Royal left port this week bound for the Middle East. The Royal Marines can deploy by helicopter or by landing craft.

Joining tens of thousands of military personnel on the move, U.S. Marines are getting ready to ship out from San Diego. Our National Correspondent Frank Buckley is there and he's aboard one of those warships with a very legendary heritage. Frank, tell us about it.

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is the Bonhomme Richard. It's an amphibious assault ship. The first Bonhomme Richard during the Revolutionary War was the one commanded by John Paul Jones when he uttered the phrase "I have not yet begun to fight."

The men and women who are aboard this ship possibly headed into a fight if there are hostilities with Iraq. A lot of activity here today here on the hangar deck, also down below on Pier 13 as men, marines sailors head onto the ship.

Up above on the flight deck, on Friday when this ship deploys there will be Harrier jets and helicopters when this ship and six others deploy to the Persian Gulf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BUCKLEY (voice-over): U.S. Marines boarded the USS Bonhomme Richard loaded with gear ready for war if they get the call. They are young but some of them are already veterans of war. Among these men, marines who just returned from a six-month tour of duty off the coast of Africa in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. They just got back a month ago. Now they may be headed into harm's way again.

GUNNERY SGT. RICHARD MUCHECK, USMC: It's hard. I'm not going to lie to the American public and tell them it's not and we live for this stuff because we don't. It's hard on all of us. However, we have sworn oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and it's part of the job. It's what we have to do so we're prepared to do it.

BUCKLEY: The sailors reporting to duty are also on short notice deployment. The men and women of the Bonhomme Richard returned from the Arabian Sea in support of Enduring Freedom just last summer. Seven months later they're headed back out.

CAPT. STAN DEGEUS, USS BONHOMME RICHARD: We did come back in June and we're turning it around fairly quickly. But you know quite frankly, Frank, after 9/11 I think we, all the sailors from the deck lights on up have been prepared for contingency operations.

BUCKLEY: Already it's full speed ahead for those responsible for loading the supplies and vehicles needed for the months ahead. Still to come the LCACs, the military hovercraft, that will give commanders the option of landing troops and recovering them by sea.

But the truly difficult moments may come in the quiet hours of the next few days as marines and sailors contemplate possible battle, and more immediately on Friday they'll have to say goodbye again to their wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, and their children.

ENSIGN LARRY TARVER, U.S. NAVY: My children have been, you know, they know that dad's in the Navy. They're very proud of what I do. They tell all their friends, you know, hey my dad's in the Navy and you know he protects our country and helps keep us free.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BUCKLEY: And, some of the weapons that the marines will be taking with them on this ship, the M-16s right along Pier 13 here, again, on Friday 10,000 marines and sailors leaving from San Diego -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Frank Buckley. Frank thanks very much for that report.

And, we have a late-breaking development on the showdown with Iraq. The United States may actually find itself in a showdown with the United Nations over demand that Iraqi weapons scientists be taken out of the country for questioning.

Our National Security Correspondent David Ensor is joining me now live to tell us about this. First of all, David, I understand the National Security Adviser Dr. Condoleezza Rice, met with the weapons inspectors to make a specific point. Tell us about this.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, Bush administration officials are clearly frustrated and they're pressing U.N. arms inspectors to take a more robust approach. They want the inspectors to order Iraq to produce certain weapon scientists and their families for travel outside the country for interviews.

And that was the message that was delivered yesterday by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice during a low profile trip to New York to meet with U.N. officials, including the Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix.

Now in the past, Blix has expressed doubts that the new interview power given to his team, the right to take scientists out of the country for interviews, is workable. Blix has said the inspectors can not force Iraqi scientists to leave the country to talk and thus far none have said that they are willing to go.

But, Bush administration officials say the owness should be on Iraq, not on the U.N. and not on individual scientists either, that Blix should order not ask the Iraqi government to produce certain scientists for travel and interviews. Administration officials say if Iraq refuses it's further proof that the regime is not cooperating with disarmament, and if it agrees, well that could avert a war and so much the better -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Well, I guess I'm still a little bit confused. This is obviously a very sensitive, complicate story, but the difference between the U.N. and the Bush administration in a nutshell is that the Bush administration says the U.N. weapons inspectors have to take these scientists out of the country for questioning whether or not the Iraqis like it or these scientists themselves like it? Is that a fair explanation?

ENSOR: The difference is that Blix and his people have been asking Iraqi scientists would you like to come out of the country? Would you like to have a meeting without Iraqi government representatives where we could talk about these programs? And so far, the answer has always been no.

Now the Bush administration is saying to the inspectors look don't ask them. Don't ask them individually. Go to the government of Baghdad. Go to President Saddam Hussein and say here's a list. Here's who we want. Deliver them to this place. They're going to be getting on an airplane and flying to Cyprus. We want to talk to them and we want their families out too so that they can speak frankly -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, David Ensor, this looks like another showdown, indeed a showdown between the inspectors and the Bush administration. Thanks very much for that explanation.

They're already under fire for guzzling gas. Now SUVs are getting slammed on safety from the top government official.

Plus, gang busting in Los Angeles, L.A. cracks down to stop bloodshed on the streets.

And, pulled from the flames. The legendary news man David Brinkley rescued from his own home.

But first a look at news making headlines "Around the World."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Israeli-Palestinian tension. Israel soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians during clashes in the West Bank. Israeli forces also sealed or demolished the homes of convicted militants in East Jerusalem and closed two Palestinian universities in response to a suicide bombing this month.

Power play. Government troops loyal to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez seized weapons from the Caracas Police Department leaving the police with only their revolvers. The mayor of Caracas is a Chavez opponent.

A new leader. Former Colonel Lucio Gutierrez took the oath of office as president of Ecuador. He was elected after promising to tackle corruption and poverty.

Embryo scam. A British clinic worker has been sentenced to a year and a half in jail for what's being called a despicable crime that betrayed the trust of vulnerable women. Forty-four-year-old Paul Fielding claimed to provide fertilized eggs to women who were desperate for children, but prosecutors say it was all a scam, and all the women really received was saline solution.

Panda passage. An 11-year-old panda named Gau Gau (ph) left China for a new life in the United States. He's going to set up home at the San Diego Zoo with a female panda. Object, the pitter patter of tiny panda paws.

And that's out look "Around the World."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Checking stories now in our "Justice Files", a player with the Dallas Cowboys is facing some serious legal trouble. Reserve defensive back Dwayne Goodrich was released on bail today after being charged with two counts of manslaughter in connection with a deadly hit-and-run accident.

Police say Goodrich drove his car through an accident scene on a Dallas interstate yesterday at high speed. Two people were killed and two others were injured when the car swerved between two disabled vehicles. Goodrich later turned himself in to police.

Actor Robert Blake's jailhouse deposition was suspended today after a stormy session. Blake was being deposed in a wrongful death lawsuit by his murdered wife's family. His criminal defense attorney called the civil deposition a clown show and refused to let the actor answer questions. Blake is accused of shooting his wife Bonny Lee Bakley to death. The criminal case is separate from the civil lawsuit.

A seven-year-old Ohio girl is in foster care while here parents and grandmother face some shocking charges. The three were arraigned today on accusations of running a fundraising hoax that netted more than $10,000.

The scheme apparently was based on a false claim that the child had leukemia and was dying. Police say the mother shaved the girl's head, gave her sleeping pills, and even arranged counseling sessions to prepare her for death.

Police in Los Angeles are taking a new approach in their battle against the city's gangs. Instead of focusing in on the gangs as a whole, officers will now go after gang members one by one. Here's CNN's Ann McDermott.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANN MCDERMOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is happening night and day in Los Angeles, homicide. There were almost 700 killings here last year making L.A. the USA's murder capital, and the new police chief blames the LAPD.

CHIEF WILLIAM BRATTON, LOS ANGELES POLICE: This department for the last several years has been on the bench. They haven't even been on the field. Well today marks us getting back into the game. MCDERMOTT: And the game is targeting gangs. More than half of all the homicides here are blamed on gang members and there are nearly 100,000 gang members in and around L.A.

Now in the past the problem's been dealt with by a handful of gang officers conducting gang sweeps in gang neighborhoods. But now, the LAPD will focus on individual gang members and involve hundreds of officers whether they work gangs or vice or narcotics or organized crime. And, school police will be involved, along with the FBI and other government agencies, along with the community.

Yes, L.A.'s Mayor Jim Hahn recognizes that poverty in the community has a lot to do with the making of gang members but...

MAYOR JIM HAHN, LOS ANGELES: Jobs is key but if I'm going to be able to convince somebody to bring jobs to a community, I'm going to have to convince them that it's safe.

MCDERMOTT: The work is already underway. The LAPD has just opened its new anti-gang headquarters in south Los Angeles and officers are on the streets going after the gang members one by one hoping to stop at least some before they kill again.

Ann McDermott CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: We have some breaking news now on that very, very shocking case at the Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana where two U.S. pilots are being -- are going through a hearing to determine whether they should be court martialed for that so-called friendly fire incident last April in Afghanistan. Four Canadian soldiers were killed.

We now, for the first time, are getting the cockpit voice recording from that incident, or at least part of that. This recording and videotape were released in connection with this hearing that's going on right now. I want our viewers to listen to it now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man from (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Check my sparkle. Check my sparkle, see if it looks good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 5-1 Boss man. Home fire needs details on sapphire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, I've got some men on a road and it looks like a piece of artillery firing at us. I'm rolling in in self defense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) copy. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIBIGLE) laser armed and check you're not in mark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm in the southwest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Show them on a bridge?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bomb is away cranking left.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm fine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Laser is on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man, boss man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 5-1.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man, disengage, friendlies Kandahar.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy, disengaging south.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 5-1, boss man out, copy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy, can you confirm that they were shooting at us?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 5-1 boss man, you're cleared self defense. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) works out (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Kandahar.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One is coming back left (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 5-1 boss man, scram out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man, copy, 5-1 scramming.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why don't you come back south?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 51. Boss man, I need coordinates when able and need to know how many rounds were fired

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You had one bomb dropped in the vicinity of 3124 north, 0.78 6543.522. That's an estimate if you had our general vicinity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 51. Repeat east coordinate. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not so sure it's that accurate. I don't have an accurate coordinate right now. Do you want me to go back and get you one?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man, negative.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go back through.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, shoot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were definitely shooting at you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sure seemed like they were tracking around and everything and trying to lead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we had our lights on and it wasn't helping, I don't think. I had a group of guys on a road around a gun, and it did not look organized like it would be our guys.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seemed like it was right on a bridge. That's kind of where I was at.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not quite.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope that was the right thing to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Me, too.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy 51, Boss man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they need type bomb dropped result, and type of sapphire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was a single GBU-12 dropped. It was a direct hit on the artillery piece that was firing. As far as the sapphire, multiple rounds, looked like a MLRS, two copy 252.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five, one, what do you have on that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd say the same. It was sort of continuous fire. And it appeared to be leading us as we were flying by. And then as we came back around...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you top out too on the sapphire?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Negative. They were burning out before here. I would estimate the top was approximately 10,000 feet. And just to let you know, we split an ASMIT (ph); sending 51 to the south and 52 went to the Northeast. And one of the guns turned back around to the east, firing at 52 as well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss man, copy.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BLITZER: All right, so there it is. You hear on this audiotape, this videotape from the Defense Department, the actual incident, the controversial incident involving two Illinois Air National Guard pilots flying over Afghanistan last April. They dropped a 500-pound bomb on what they thought was enemy positions. They said they were coming under artillery fire.

We heard one of the pilots suggest that there was an MLRS, a multiple launch rocket system that appeared to be attacking them. They say they got the right guys. Major Harry Schmidt and Major Bill Umbach now going through a hearing at Barksdale Air Force Base to determine whether this friendly fire incident in which four Canadian soldiers were killed should warrant court-martial behavior, court martial against these two pilots.

I want to bring in our correspondent Ed Lavendera who's covering this story in a moment.

But in the meantime, we're getting another breaking story right now involving the John Lee Malvo case in Washington, the sniper case, the question whether the 17-year-old could be tried as an adult. I think Patti Davis is standing by.

Patti, are you there? Oh, Jeanne Meserve actually is going to be standing by, but we are told that John Lee Malvo has been determined to be qualified -- eligible to be tried as an adult by the court by the judge in this particular case. John Lee Malvo, only 17-years-old, will be tried as an adult by the court, by the judge in this particular case. John Lee Malvo only 17-years-old will be tried as an adult, meaning he will be eligible for the death sentence in the state of Virginia where he is being tried.

We're going to have more on that in a moment. Jeanne Meserve is going to be coming out of the courthouse and brief us on precisely the judge's decision.

But let's go to Ed Lavendera. He's at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. This was very dramatic. Audio and video we heard of the actual incident, this so-called friendly fire incident.

Ed, and it's obviously going to have an impact one way or another whether these two Illinois Air National Guard pilots will be tried, will go before a court-martial. Give us the latest.

LAVANDERA: Well, Wolf, this tape just now being released by military officials here at Barksdale Air Force Base. Several times throughout the hearing today, several clips from what you just saw have been played before the investigating officer and the attorneys in the room.

And what has happened here, as these videotapes have been played, which you've been -- who you've been hearing from, now you're starting to hear from, are the authorities that are down on the ground determining just where all the different allied forces are stationed throughout the area, just the command structure and the information structure as to what was happening that night. If you see the video images, you'll notice that the screen is splitting in four quadrants. So what you see on the left is what Major Bill Umbach is seeing. The top part of the screens is the heads-up display that you -- that each of the pilots would be able to see inside their F-16 fighter jet. And then below that, on the bottom half of the screen, you see the target pod for each of the pilots.

The left is what Umbach sees and from the right is what Major Harry Schmidt would be seeing. He is the pilot who dropped the 500- pound laser-guided bomb on the Canadian army troops that were conducting a live-fire exercise.

And if you notice, several of the issues that are coming up here and the defense attorneys for these two pilots will be bringing up, specifically talking about the time issue. They'll say many times here, and they have said before, that these are split-second decisions that these pilots had to make. If you count between the time where Harry Schmidt says that he is rolling in self-defense -- or asks the -- actually, let me backtrack a little bit more, Wolf.

If you go back and you hear the very beginning of the tape, he asked if he could fire 20-millimeter rounds in the area. That is a warning shot to -- he asked for permission to fire a warning shot. That is essentially what that is. He was denied that permission by one of the voices that you hear.

Whenever you hear the words "Boss man" on the tape that is coming from an AWACS plane a surveillance plane that is flying even higher above the scene than the fighter jets. So they're asking for permission to fire those rounds in there. The AWACS jet is denying that request, saying, let's -- as you heard them say, let's find out if there are friendlies in the area.

The pilot continued to see the rounds being fired from the ground and that is when Harry Schmidt declares self-defense. There is not a whole lot of time that passes by. And that is what the defense attorneys for these pilots are saying, that they have to be able to make these split-second decisions -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Ed Lavendera covering this hearing for us at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. We'll continue to monitor that story.

Very ominously we heard from one of those pilots say, "I hope that was the right thing to do," after the incident was over. A direct hit by that 500-pound bomb unbeknownst to him, on Canadian forces also in Afghanistan. Four of those Canadian soldiers killed in the process.

Let's get back to the sniper story. John Lee Malvo, the 17-year- old, has been before a judge for the past couple days to determine whether or not he should stand trial as an adult or as a juvenile. Our Jeanne Meserve is covering this procedure for us. Tell us the latest, Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the judge, Charles Maxfield, has made a ruling. He says there is probable cause. He has certified this case to a grand jury of the circuit court. That means that John Lee Malvo, age 17, will now enter the adult court system. A grand jury will now consider this, and possibly produce an indictment.

Lawyers for Malvo made heated arguments at the end saying that their client should not be sent forward in the justice system. They objected to the fact that his mother was not in the courtroom. They also said that none of the evidence presented in this courtroom actually place Malvo at any of the four crime scenes that were discussed. And they argued that the crimes under consideration did not constitute terrorism. One of the two counts of murder here is under Virginia's new Anti-Terrorism Statute.

However, the prosecutor, Robert Horan, made a very heated argument as well. He read all the communications that have been introduced in this courtroom over the last several days, with their threats against children, with their demands for money. He said clearly this was an attempt to intimidate the government. Also, he had presented extensive evidence primarily revolving around ballistics; things that were found at the crime scenes, taken to the labs, analyses were done. When a rifle was recovered from the car in which Malvo was arrested, it was a match to that ballistic evidence.

And according to the experts who testified here, the fingerprint of John Lee Malvo was on that weapon. So Robert Horan said probable cause should be found and he said if this case doesn't fit the Anti- Terrorism Statute, he doubted that any case ever would. And so John Lee Malvo moves on through the justice system. He now will be eligible for the death penalty in the adult system. Back to you.

BLITZER: Jeanne Meserve, thanks for hustling out of that courtroom for us. Thanks very much.

Outrage in the Midwest. Young girls sold for sex. It's happening here in the United States. That story coming up. Also, he says he's Osama bin Laden's best friend. Hear what this man says about the terror mastermind. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to CNN. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Coming up, a shocking story about sex slaves here in the United States.

(NEWSBREAK)

BLITZER: Police in Detroit are investigating an alleged sex slave operation in which kidnapped young women were forced to work as prostitutes. Jason Carroll is in Detroit with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the home police raided Monday night in East Detroit. What they found inside, detectives described as a sex slave prostitution ring. Several women and girls had been allegedly kidnapped and housed her, the youngest, 13, the oldest, 21. Neighbors didn't have a clue what police say was really happening in the home.

ROBERT KIMBROUGH, NEIGHBOR: We didn't know what was going on, like I say, after we seen the cops. And I say, well, that's close to home.

CARROLL (on camera): Right across the street.

KIMBROUGH: Right across the street.

CARROLL (voice-over): Here's what authorities say happened.

(on camera): Police cracked the case thanks to a 17-year-old girl who was kidnapped from Cleveland, Ohio, last Thursday and forced to perform sexual acts here at the home. All allegedly organized by the group's ringleader, Henry Davis. When Davis decided to take some of the girls shopping, his 17-year-old victim found an opportunity to escape.

(voice-over): Once inside this Footlocker store, she found help from Dorian McConnell, a security guard.

DORIAN MCCONNELL, SECURITY GUARD: She just broke loose from the crowd and ran over to me, and like literally just ran behind me and grabbed me and was asking for help. She was like, "Please, help me. Don't let me leave with them."

CARROLL: McConnell told Davis and his group to leave, then brought the 17-year-old to police. Their investigation revealed what police claim was a working prostitution ring in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois. Detectives had been trying to solve the case since last September when a girl claiming she had been abducted in Detroit came to police.

Detectives now believe the operation was now based in Chicago, Davis' home. His new temporary home, the Fifth Precinct in Detroit where he's being held on charges ranging from criminal sexual conduct to kidnapping.

CNN has been unable to reach Davis or an attorney representing him. Davis will get a chance to answer the charges when he's arraigned later this week.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: A 17-year-old boy was also arrested in connection with the prostitution ring, but he was later released. Detectives say there is a possibility he could be arrested at a later point. They also say, we can expect more arrests, and they expect more victims to come forward as this case continues to develop -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jason Carroll in Detroit. Jason, thanks very much.

Let's get a little more insight into this shocking story. I'm joined by Avery Friegman. He's in Cleveland. He's the attorney for the girl who escaped and tipped off the police.

First of all, Avery, how is she doing?

AVERY FRIEGMAN, ALLEGED VICTIM'S ATTORNEY: I've got to tell you, Wolf, it's been a tough day. But we had medical people looking at her this morning, and we have psychiatric and therapy people looking at her this afternoon. So under the circumstances, she's doing all right.

BLITZER: And what is she saying? How exactly did she get involved in this?

FRIEGMAN: Well, this is an unbelievable story that could happen to any teenager. We'll call her Pamela -- was waiting for the bus after her job finished at the mall. And she was approached by another young woman who wanted to sell her jewelry and enticed her into an SUV where two men came out, abducted her, pulled her in and took her Thursday night from Cleveland to Chicago. She was subjected to both physical and sexual abuse. And then they went to Detroit, where this incident kind of broke open.

BLITZER: And then she managed, though, to escape. How did she do it?

FRIEGMAN: This is extraordinary. I don't know if it's bravery or in instinct. But what we know, Wolf, is that she took the chance, because she knew if it didn't work, she would be dead. But she took the chance, and the guard, Mr. McConnell, understood, called the police, and now we have the head of this ring locked up. And I think other victims are going to be coming forward.

BLITZER: How big of a ring do we believe this was? How many women, how many young girls were involved?

FRIEGMAN: When the bust took place, and police arrived at the scene, at least according to the 17-year-old, there were 40 people in this house, a substantial number of young women between the ages of 13 and 17, as well as the customers. So it's a pretty big size operation. And we only know the beginning of it right now.

BLITZER: A shocking story. It's amazing these kinds of things still can happen in the United States of America. Avery Freigman, good luck to you.

FRIEGMAN: Thank you.

BLITZER: Good luck to the young woman you're representing and all the others involved in this horrendous story as well.

FRIEGMAN: Thank you very much, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let's move on now to the war on terror. Despite a continuing worldwide search by the United States and its allies, the exact whereabouts of Osama bin Laden remain a mystery. Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law recently turned up, though, on television.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMAL KHALIFA, BIN LADEN'S BROTHER-IN-LAW: Osama is a very normal person, very humble and a very simple person. Osama also is really polite, quiet person. He force you to respect him from his attitude. He is not a person who is aggressive. He is not a person who is thinking to hurt any person, even by words. He is really selecting his words very careful when he's talking. He's really a nice guy, a very nice guy.

Osama always -- actually, he's my best friend. He is my -- more than my brothers. I love him very much, up to now. Yes, I do not agree about what he is doing, but still, he is a friend, OK. And even if I have -- really, I say that many times -- I'm saying it, if I have any power to stop him, I will do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: CNN Jakarta bureau chief, Maria Ressa has been looking into the story. She's joining us now live from Indonesia.

Maria, first of all, tell us about this brother-in-law, supposedly the brother-in-law. What do we know about him? Is he really what he says he is?

MARIA RESSA, CNN JAKARTA BUREAU CHIEF: Well, we've seen him name on hundreds of intelligence documents. He is allegedly the man who was sent by Osama bin Laden to the Philippines in 1988. He is...

BLITZER: Maria, let me interrupt, Maria. We're getting some distortions in the audio. We're going to try to fix that and get back to you, but stand by. We'll get back to you as soon as we can fix that little technical glitch.

In a moment, why tomorrow's shuttle launch is poised to make history. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The space shuttle Columbia is set for blastoff tomorrow from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Setting this mission apart from the previous ones, Israel's first astronaut and that means tight security. Our space correspondent, Miles O'Brien, as always is, is live form the space center -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Wolf. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that on any day the space shuttle would be a target for terrorists, but in this case, with an Israeli astronaut strapping aboard, security particularly tight. Take a look at the Hilton Hotel down in Cocoa Beach, about 20 miles from here. Sharp shooters on the roof, SWAT teams in evidence, mounted police officers on the beach, bomb-sniffing dogs, tremendous amount of security. It looks like an embassy overseas.

Three hundred Israelis part of Ilan Ramon's party are in this hotel. It's obviously a focal point for security, as is the shuttle, on this, the eve of Ilan Ramon's flight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Ilan Ramon says he is uncomfortable in the spotlight.

ILAN RAMON, ISRAELI ASTRONAUT: I also feel kind of regret that I'm in the center of -- or in the focus because I think that my crewmates are the great people I have ever met.

O'BRIEN: But none of his six shuttle crewmates is the first astronaut from Israel. The son of a Holocaust survivor, Ilan Ramon was born in the Promised Land and grew up to fly fighter planes in the vaunted Israeli Air Force, but he never dreamed he would get a chance to fly this fast, this high.

RAMON: I believe that nobody at that time could have dreamed about sending an Israeli astronaut to space. So I feel very, very grateful and lucky.

O'BRIEN (on camera): The mission aboard the orbiter, Columbia, is a 24/7 science marathon. Working in a 2,000-cubic foot lab attached to the cargo hold, the crew will study fires, moss grow, human prostate cancer cells and how rats adapt to weightlessness. In addition, they will be their own guinea pigs, measuring their own bone loss and how their immune systems fair. They'll also be looking out the window studying dust storms to see how they may impact global warming. In all, there are more than 59 experiments.

WILLIAM MCCOOL, PILOT: Your very much bang for the buck in the sense that we're packing so much science into one 16-day mission. A lot of it is applicable in the long-term; admittedly, you're not going to see results tomorrow. A lot of it is results tomorrowish kind of science.

O'BRIEN (voice-over): But before the science can begin, NASA has some here and now concerns. Already attempting target for terrorists, a space shuttle on the launch pad with an Israeli strapped inside is a security nightmare.

MICHAEL REIN, U.S. AIR FORCE: We believe that we have a security plan in place that will protect the shuttle from any threat, whether it be land, air or sea.

O'BRIEN: The post-9/11 regimen remains in place. A huge no-fly zone around the launch pad, patrolled by fighters, enhanced radars, surface-to-air missiles and the launch time kept secret until the day before. NASA always breathing a collective sigh of relief when the shuttle reaches orbit even more so this time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Now, it appears that the weather will not be a problem. We know the launch time now, 10:39 Eastern time. We, of course, are planning live coverage. The weather is 95 percent go. So what we'll be watching is the shuttle, number one, to make sure there are no mechanical problems with it, and also, should anyone or anything stray into that huge no-fly zone, in that exclusion zone off in the Atlantic Ocean. Wolf, it'll be a tense launch, countdown. It's always tense, but even more so this time -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Good luck to everybody, including Ilan Ramon. Thanks very much, Miles O'Brien for that report.

Time is running out for your turn to weigh in on our "Web Question of The Day." Should race be used as a factor in college admissions? Log onto cnn.com/wolf to vote. We'll have the results immediately when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: To get some more information on that story about those vials of bubonic plague we reported about earlier this hour, our national correspondent, Susan Candiotti, once again standing by in Miami -- Susan.

CANDIOTTI: Thank you, Wolf. According to law enforcement sources, I and Kelli Arena, our Justice Department correspondent, have been able to confirm the person who destroyed the vials. And in fact, it is the name that I mentioned in my report at 5:00. He is Dr. Thomas Butler, and he is head of the Texas Tech University Internal Medicine and chief of their Infectious Disease Control Division.

According to the university, he has been doing this kind of research into the plague for more than 25 years and they say he is internationally recognized. Remember, he destroyed about 30 vials of plague, including bubonic plague. We do not know a motive. We do not know for sure whether the FBI has any information about where or how this was destroyed. Back to you, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Susan Candiotti, thank you very much.

And that's all the time we have this hour. Lou Dobbs though standing by to pick up all the news.

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