Several Die in Canadian Nursing Home of Mystery Illness; Officials Fear Flu Pandemic; Army Chaplain Cleared of Treason Writes Book; California Law Tougher on Paparazzi
Aired October 5, 2005 - 22:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Things look a little different around here, but one thing certainly has not changed. There are far too many stories and really not enough time. Just ahead, a new and potentially damaging storm on the horizon, Tammy.Also, is there a military role in fighting a killer flu outbreak? First, though, allegations of espionage at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue -- Aaron.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we begin tonight with allegations of spying at the White House, which, at any time, would shocking, but, in this day, four years after 9/11, seem especially so, a spy in the White House, if true, the first in modern history. A former Marine with access to top-secret material, not just the stuff the government stamps top secret at every turn, real secrets. CNN's Kelli Arena has been working the story right up to airtime and Ms. Arena joins us tonight from Washington -- Kelli.
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. A former U.S. Marine who has already been arrested for stealing from FBI computers is now being fingered for allegedly stealing classified information from White House computers. As first reported by ABC and confirmed by multiple U.S. government sources for CNN, Leandro Aragoncillo allegedly misused his top-secret clearance to download the information, including a dossier on the Philippine president, which he allegedly passed on to her political opposition. Now, Aragoncillo worked at the White House for three years, from 1999 to 2001, in the vice president's office. But it wasn't until he left to work as an analyst for the FBI that he was nabbed. Last month, federal prosecutors said that Aragoncillo and an accomplice were seeking to reveal classified information to foreign nationals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LESLIE WISER, FBI: ... be an analyst in our own organization and who was a former serviceman who swore to uphold the United States Constitution would conduct these types of activity. The American public should be aware the FBI is ever vigilant against all threats, whether they emanate from beyond our shores or within our own borders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARENA: In a criminal complaint, Aragoncillo was charged with giving the information to Michael Ray Aquino, a former officer with the Philippine secret police who government sources say is expected to be indicted this week. Now, Aragoncillo has not been indicted. CNN is attempting to locate both his and Aquino's lawyer for comment at this time. Officials tell CNN that Aragoncillo has been cooperating with investigators, who are basically trying to determine the scope of his alleged illegal activity. Now, the White House says it is cooperating, but would not comment on the ongoing investigation. Neither would the Justice Department -- back to you.
COOPER: All right, Kelli, thanks very much. With us now, CNN security analyst Richard Falkenrath, former deputy homeland security adviser to the current Bush administration.Richard, thanks for being with us.
RICHARD FALKENRATH, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Happy to be here.
COOPER: Yes. How are surprised are you this could happen in the White House?
FALKENRATH: Well, I'm very surprised. It's the first time it's happened.The White House staff is quite small. There's not too many members of the White House staff who actually have access to the classified Internet system. And he was one of them. And, to my knowledge, this is the first time this has happened in the White House history.
COOPER: How could it happen, though? I mean, was he polygraphed?
FALKENRATH: No. Well, he wouldn't necessarily be polygraphed. Most White House staff are not. There's only certain agencies that routinely polygraph their people.
COOPER: CIA, FBI?
FALKENRATH: Well, the CIA does. I'm not sure that the FBI does. It may for special agents. Right now, he's an analyst. I don't think analysts are routinely polygraphed.To work on the White House staff, you need to go through an FBI background check. And then, also, if you have access to classified information, you need to be issued a security clearance, which involves varying levels of investigation. But once you're issued those documents, your White House pass and your security clearance, the system is basically based on trust. And if you violate that trust, it is relatively easy to get access to the information and get it out of the building.
COOPER: What does it tell you about changes that have been made in the FBI post-9/11 that, I mean, apparently, he was caught once he was working at the FBI in New Jersey.
FALKENRATH: Well, we don't really know how he was caught yet, how long flagrant his violation was, how long this espionage has been going on. Counterintelligence is a longstanding mission of the FBI. There have been penetrations of the FBI before. There have been penetrations of the CIA and of the Department of Defense. And the FBI has successfully nabbed some of those traitors. But, clearly, this one slipped through and they didn't get him until five years after the violations occurred.
COOPER: And is it clear -- I mean, you know, we think of spying for Russia or the Soviet Union, when that was the case. Spying, if that is, in fact, what this man did, for the Philippines seems a surprising thing.
FALKENRATH: Well, I mean, it appears he's got sympathy with the Filipino people or the Filipino nationals. And if that was the limit of the spying, of his espionage, we are lucky. Once you get access to the classified Internet system inside the White House, you have access to an incredible amount of information. And so, I think our hope is that all he did was reveal information about the Philippines, which is very embarrassing, but not enormously injurious to U.S. national interests, as it would be if he revealed things about military secrets or the war on terror or any number of other things.
COOPER: Why wouldn't the White House polygraph people? If they're handling secrets and there's access to classified information, why not polygraph?
FALKENRATH: Well, it is an interesting question that agencies deal with in a different way, different ways. The polygraph itself has got some limitations. It is basically an interrogation tool. And there's a lot of people who work at the White House don't have any access whatsoever to classified information. There are some people who don't hold top-secret clearances at the White House, in fact, quite a number. Not all members of the office of the vice president have top- secret clearances or access to the classified information system. So, I think you'd want to think long and hard about whether you want to polygraph the entirety of the White House staff. Do you want to polygraph every OMB analyst, for example? Do you want to polygraph the White House chief of staff, one of the president's most trusted aides? Harriet Miers, the White House counsel, do you want to polygraph her?That decision is -- no administration has done that. It would be a very radical move for anyone to do that.
COOPER: All right, Richard Falkenrath, thanks very much -- Aaron.
FALKENRATH: You bet.
BROWN: Well, on to the hurricane now and all that the hurricane changed. Somewhere along the way, Katrina's aftermath became a national conversation about the appropriate role of the federal government and federal agencies. Where should money be spent? When should troops go in? Yesterday, at the White House, that conversation shifted from the weather to the flu. It mutated, if you will, just as the virus might. And if it does, the president says he wants more power to use the military to fight an outbreak. A discussion on that point in a moment. First, some background from CNN's Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Worst case, a mutant strain of avian flu that can be passed from person to person hits America's biggest city, New York. The president orders active duty and National Guard troops to seal the island of Manhattan, closing the airports, including Newark, JFK and La Guardia, and shutting the city's numerous bridges and tunnels. It's a scenario not unlike the one depicted in the 1995 movie "Outbreak."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "OUTBREAK")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your town is being quarantined.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN, ACTOR: We got 19 dead, you got 100 more infected. It's spreading like a brushfire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you talking about?
HOFFMAN: If one of them's got it, then 10 of them have got it now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCINTYRE: But how practical is the idea that any city, much less one with as many ways in and out as New York, can be sealed by military force?
MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: How do you possibly limit the flow of people and goods in and out of a city like this? New York needs to have food brought in, it needs to have other things brought in. You need a certain amount of crossing of the perimeter or the city becomes uninhabitable.
MCINTYRE: The reality is these days a quarantine is more likely to attempt to limit movement of infected people by screening passengers at airports, confining sick people to their homes and banning large gatherings of people where the infection can be spread. What the military brings is the same things it brought to hurricane relief -- logistics and manpower, especially medical facilities and the ability to move them quickly and operate without support. Where the issues get thorny is the Hollywood scenario -- combat troops strong arming, possibly shooting desperate victims of a natural disaster.
O'HANLON: It would be an ugly thing if we had to use the military. Nobody in the armed forces would relish the thought of imposing some kind of a martial law-like environment on their own fellow citizens, especially on law-abiding citizens who had done nothing criminal.
MCINTYRE: One problem that needs to be addressed in the federal government's pandemic response plan is protecting first-responders. Usually, they would be vaccinated ahead of time. But since, so far, there is no vaccine for avian flu, that means coming up with other measures to prevent exposure. Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: There are practicalities and legalities and a little bit history at play here. The legal part involves something called the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 -- you remember that -- which bars the regular Army from acting as a police force. We're joined now by James Carafano, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Look, this is not -- I'm not -- I have nothing against the military, OK? But there is something -- and I'm not sure how to articulate it -- creepy about the idea of soldiers in the streets with their M-16s that feels un-American to me.
JAMES CARAFANO, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Well, the scenario of having, you know, soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder keeping people out of a city or Abrams tanks blocking the Brooklyn Bridge, I mean, this is just science fiction. That's not the way you would do a quarantine. It wouldn't work. What you would use the military for is to -- you know, is to actually help people, because if you -- if you had them to stay there, you would have to bring food to them. You would want to bring medical supplies to them. That's kind of things you do.A quarantine, to be effective, has got to have two things, sound public health policy, telling people to do sensible things, and a credible public information campaign. And what happens is, if people know what to do, the odds are, they are going to do the right thing. You know, preventing a disease outbreak, I mean, most of these diseases are either spread by human contact or close proximity. So, you don't have to wall off a city. You just have to tell people, don't go around and hang out with people who are sick. So, the notion that we are going to use the military in some like sci-fi movie is just very, very unrealistic.
BROWN: I hope you're right. But here's what I think people both within the military, frankly, that we talked to today and people outside it on all sides of the political lines worry about is that a slope here, and the slope gets slippery. We use the military for domestic purpose for this today and who knows what we use it for tomorrow. And that puts the generals in an uncomfortable position and I think it puts some citizens in an uncomfortable spot.
CARAFANO: Right. And that's the why the law is written the way it is. And there it isn't a slippery slope. There is really nothing legally that we need to do. First of all, the president has all kinds of authority to use the military force for logistics, for support, for all kinds of things. So, the one area in which there is some limitation, is, is the -- the -- the -- the president is prohibited by law from using the military for domestic law enforcement, except as authorized by Congress in law. And Congress has authorized a number of exceptions in extraordinary circumstances where you can use the military. We have used the military for domestic law enforcement over 275 times in 200 years. So, this isn't new. We don't do it frequently. We shouldn't do it frequently. And, quite frankly, the law enforcement requirement in a medical response, I really think, is going to be fairly minimal. It's not going to be soldiers lined up shoulder to shoulder in gas masks.
BROWN: Yes.
CARAFANO: Like you see in the movies.
BROWN: Did we use them in New Orleans?
CARAFANO: We could have. I mean, the last major one was in 1992 in the Los Angeles riots, where we used federal military forces and we nationalized the federal -- national -- federalized the National Guard and used them as well. That was the last really major one.
BROWN: And, Jim, we make a distinction, because there's one, in fact, between the Reserves and the National Guard.
CARAFANO: Absolutely. We have the active duty. We have Reserves. And we have the National Guard. The Reserves and the active duty are what's called Title 10 forces. They always work for the president. The National Guard can work in any one of three roles. They can work in state- active duty status. They work for the governor. He pays for their time and the use. They can be in a Title 32 status, which means they still work for the governor. They're not subject to Posse Comitatus, but the federal government will pick up the tab for exercises or disaster response.
BROWN: Yes.
CARAFANO: And then, finally, the National Guard can be federalized and work for the federal government.So, the system we have has enormous flexibility. It -- it -- it -- it's -- there -- there aren't any real legal issues here. We are really debating something that simply doesn't need to be debated. The law is perfectly fine the way it is. It protects the civil-military relations we have in this country. It as an enormous amount of flexibility to do all the things we need to do for disasters. The law ain't the problem.
BROWN: Jim, thank you. It's good to see you.
CARAFANO: Thanks for...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Jim Carafano at the Heritage Foundation.It is something the president put on the table the other day. And so it's something to talk about, Anderson.
COOPER: Yes. The notion of quarantining Americans certainly one of concern. Aaron, coming up, a mystery disease strikes and kills in Toronto. We know it is not the avian flu. The question is, what is it? But, first, about a quarter past the hour. Time for the other news of the day, Erica Hill in Atlanta -- Erica.
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello again. We start off with an update for you now on that capsized boat on Sunday at Lake George. It turns out a boat identical to the Ethan Allen failed a stability test today, as safety inspectors attempted to find out why the tour boat capsized on Lake George this weekend. Officials, though, say more analysis is still needed to determine the actual cause of the accident which killed 20 elderly people. The CIA won't be disciplining any officers for intelligence failures that led to September 11 attacks. A classified report before Congress named names. But the agency's director, Porter Goss, says risk is part of intelligence and that singling out people would send the wrong message to junior officers. Former National Security Officer Sandy Berger accused of reckless driving a short time after he was put on probation for taking classified documents. Virginia Police say Berger was driving 88 miles per hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone. And Tom Cruise and his fiancee, actress Katie Holmes, expecting a child. The two began dating in April. And the stars' publicist, who is also Tom Cruise's sister, says the couple are very excited about the new arrival, no word yet, though, on when the child is due and still no word on when they will be tying the knot. But they are, of course, engaged.
COOPER: I thought I had missed something in the month...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: A lot of people get married and then have the baby. But there's not -- I guess there's not a rule about that.HILL: You know, to each their own.
COOPER: Hey. Why not? HILL: Who are we to judge?
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: Right. Well, we wouldn't want to judge, no. Thank you. COOPER: More to come on the program tonight, including the rest of the preparations for the flu outbreak. The question is, are they enough? We will look at that.BROWN: Also, coming up, another bug, not the bird flu, but, as it turns out, just as deadly.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): A killer and a puzzlement.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're doing their best, let's put it that way, to get it under control. But what it really is, I don't know.
BROWN: And despite their best, 16 people have died in less than two weeks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People could die in 24 hours. They literally could wake up feeling OK and be dead by nightfall.
BROWN: Will the same thing happen when the bird flu hits people? Also tonight, accused of treason, drummed out of the military and disgraced, how the chaplain at Guantanamo came to believe the government just might make him disappear. And where does covering celebrities and stalking begin?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is horrible being a celebrity being stalked by paparazzi. BROWN: Yes, it is. But is this stalking? And what's so bad about having your picture taken, anyway? From Hollywood and Guantanamo and around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So, Aaron and I started working together in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. And while other stories may have knocked New Orleans out of the headlines, we have not forgotten it, and we will not.The people who lived through it, the people who survived it deserve answers. They deserve a full accounting of what happened. And that, they have yet to receive. Tonight, some disturbing developments to tell you about what really happened inside the Superdome and the Convention Center in those dark, desperate days after Katrina hit the city. Now, we know people died there. The question is, were people murdered? And were women raped? We asked CNN's Drew Griffin to keep investigating.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their caught between the storm and chaos. Trapped in a city being shrunk by floodwaters, the people of New Orleans fled to the only shelters they knew were still dry. And they came by the thousands. All kinds of reports came out of the Convention Center and Superdome, some of rapes, fueled by a police chief who didn't know.
EDDIE COMPASS, SUPERINTENDENT, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: We have little babies in here. We have little babies getting raped. GRIFFIN: And days later, denials from rank-and-file, who say nobody was raped.
LT. DAVE BENELLI, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: I'm the commander of the sex crimes unit. My unit handles all rapes. We had two reported attempted rapes.
GRIFFIN (on camera): Attempted?
BENELLI: Attempted rapes. And they were handled and the individuals were arrested.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Now CNN is learning the truth may be much more disturbing and painful.
WANDA PEZANT, SEXUAL ASSAULT NURSE EXAMINER: Do I think that people were raped after and during Hurricane Katrina? Absolutely. Have I treated victims from New Orleans that were raped, either during or in the immediate 48 aftermath of Katrina? Yes.
GRIFFIN: Wanda Pezant says, over the last weeks, she has counted them; 18 victims, one as young as 13, have now come forward to this sexual assault nurse examiner to say, in the confusion of Katrina, they were raped. Caught in dark corners in the Superdome, in shelters across Louisiana, victims and predators, she says, were suddenly trapped in the same mess. And the predators saw opportunity.
PEZANT: When the predators are loose in the environment, unsupervised and unchecked by law enforcement, victimization happens.
GRIFFIN: The question for Judy Benitez is how much really did happen. Benitez runs Louisiana's Foundation Against Sexual Assault. Since the hurricane first struck, she says, her 15 crisis centers across the state have been getting calls from rape victims and those who witnessed rapes and either never went to the police or there were no police to go to.
JUDY BENITEZ, LOUISIANA FOUNDATION AGAINST SEXUAL ASSAULT: Some people have taken the view that, because something wasn't reported to the police, that it didn't happen. And that's not really an accurate way to look at things when you're talking about sexual assault. There are a lot of reasons, under normal circumstances, why victims don't report sexual assaults to the police, or they may -- may report them a couple of weeks later.
GRIFFIN: The truth is, says rape counselors, after the hurricane, when people lost jobs, homes and lives, reporting a rape became a lower priority than finding food and shelter.
BENITEZ: It's just one trauma and one tragedy inside another tragedy. I think it is going to be a while before we get anything that resembles true numbers.
GRIFFIN: Benitez is setting up a statewide reporting system in hopes of a more accurate count of post-Katrina sexual assaults.(on camera): But, no matter what the count, there will be no way to make those who committed sexual assaults pay. Here, at the Superdome and across Louisiana, predators may have simply gotten away with it. Too many days have passed. Any evidence to be collected would be unusable. What do you say to those people?
PEZANT: I tell them that I'm their nurse and that we are going to taking care of them -- and we have -- and that I can meet their medical need. I can't meet their legal need.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): It has been more than a month since Katrina hit. Rape victims are now finding new homes, reuniting with families, and finally having the courage to deal when what happened to them during the hurricane. The latest woman to report came forward just this week.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: And, you know, Anderson, under normal circumstances, studies and experts tell us that as few as 5 percent and, at most, 20 percent of rapes are ever reported to anyone. And, as you know, there was nothing normal going on in this city in those days after Katrina hit -- Anderson.
COOPER: And, of course, especially in those immediate days after, I mean, who to report to? If you're at the Convention Center, you know, law enforcement was not inside the Convention Center, except occasional forays inside there.
GRIFFIN: Yes. And police were swamped. They were so busy trying to -- you know, we talked to Dave Benelli -- trying to keep chaos from breaking out. They couldn't be looking everywhere. They couldn't see everywhere. They couldn't, you know, stop this or stop that. When they had a report, they went after it. But, quite frankly, rape is so under-reported that we may just now be getting a handle on what actually happened down here in New Orleans.
COOPER: Drew, appreciate it. Keep it up. Thanks very much. On now to Katrina -- from Katrina to Tammy. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but, tonight, it is clearly heading somewhere tonight. It's a sucker punch of a tropical storm. Let's find out exactly where it is. Jacqui Jeras is at the CNN Weather Center in Atlanta.Jacqui, how bad is it?
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, the big problem is going to be the rain, Anderson, over the next couple of days. We are worried about flash flooding more than anything else.Tammy a tropical storm early this morning, and now has already made landfall, believe it or not. It was very near Jacksonville, Florida. Now it's making its way into southern Georgia, some very heavy rain with these squall lines. They are going to bring in 40- 50-mile-per-hour winds. And rainfall rates could be as heavy as an inch or so per hour, three to five inches of rainfall expected overall, but some locally heavier amounts will be possible in these heavier squalls as they push on through, along with the threat of some isolated tornadoes. The storm system itself, pretty large. Look at the cloud cover, extending all the way through the Carolinas. But the worst of the weather, the strongest of winds, have been offshore all day. So, that's been some good news. It will continue to weaken as it moves across much of Georgia. But it's going to slow down, too. And so, that means it is going to be a very wet Thursday and Friday across the Southeast. But this part of the country, too, by the way, Anderson, could use some of this rain. It's been extremely dry.
COOPER: All right, Jacqui, thanks very much. Just ahead tonight, the mysterious bug that is cutting down people at a terrifying pace and the virus hunters on the trail. And, later, putting some money back in the pockets of soldiers who bought their own armor.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: A deadly mystery in Canada tonight. A mysterious virus HAS killed 16 people at a nursing home in Toronto. Dozens more have been sent to the hospital. Scientists know what it is not. It is not the ordinary flu. It is not bird flu and it is not SARS. But they don't know what it is. In a moment, we will talk with the chief medical officer of Toronto.But, first, CNN's Keith Oppenheim.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Seven Oaks Home for the Aged in suburban Toronto is under attack. The culprit, a virus that still has not been identified. It was just a week and a half ago some of the most vulnerable patients at Seven Oaks began to get very ill.
DR. DAVID MCKEOWN, TORONTO DEPT. OF PUBLIC HEALTH: This outbreak has resulted today in six additional deaths among ill residents.
OPPENHEIM: Toronto public health officials now report the death toll has risen to 16 residents of the nursing home. All had previous medical conditions. Most were in their 80s and 90s. In addition, 72 other people have been infected by the virus. Some are staff at Seven Oaks, some visitors. One woman whose husband is a resident worried about the unknown.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're doing their best -- let's put it that way -- to get it under control, but what it really is, I don't know.
OPPENHEIM: Three different labs in Canada are trying to identify the virus. But, it turns out, in more than half of outbreaks like this, health officials in Ontario are unable to isolate the source of the disease.
DR. BARBARA YAFEE, ASSOCIATE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH: The significant percentage of outbreaks you just will never find the organism. But we're looking for everything we can think of.
OPPENHEIM: Thirty-eight people exposed to the virus have been taken to Toronto hospitals. Officials say the health of some patients deteriorating and most are getting better. A 9-year-old boy wondered what will happen to his grandfather.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope the hospital is safer and that he can eat healthy and not die.
OPPENHEIM: In the meantime, the nursing home has been closed to new patients and is for the most part keeping its doors shut.
AL DOBBINS, SEVEN OAKS RESIDENT: To me, it's been cooped up. You know? I mean, I'm so -- I'm so used to the outside. You know? And all of a sudden, bang.
OPPENHEIM: As dire as all this may seem, health experts here say this is an extreme example of a common occurrence. Across Canada and the U.S., viral outbreaks routinely kill elderly and sick patients with weakened immune systems.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's within the range of our experience in Ontario, but it's definitely at the severe end.
OPPENHEIM: With no new cases reported in the last 24 hours, health experts here believe the mysterious outbreak is being contained. They say it poses no danger to the general public. But for the people who have relatives at Seven Oaks, it may be sometime before they can feel that the threat of contagious illness is behind them. Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Toronto.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Health officials have been warning for years of another flu epidemic that could turn incredibly deadly. But could a different kind of outbreak, a mystery virus, do the same? Dr. David McKeown is medical officer of health in Toronto, and joins us from that city tonight. Why is there no danger to the general public?
DAVID MCKEOWN, ANCHOR, The cases in this outbreak have been confined to one nursing home. We haven't seen any spread into the community. It's a real challenge for the vulnerable, frail, elderly people in that facility, but it doesn't pose a risk to the city as a hole.
BROWN: I guess what I don't understand is viruses travel as viruses travel. Somehow it got into that facility. And I want -- I'm trying to understand how you can be so confident it won't get -- it won't travel somewhere else.
MCKEOWN: Well, viruses are present in any large city all the time. What's different about a nursing home is the vulnerability of the patients who are there. We're dealing with elderly people in their 80s and 90s who have over medical conditions so a virus that a healthy, young adult might shrug off can be a very serious illness for them.
BROWN: I mean, seriously, a reasonably healthy 56-year-old male not likely get sick from this? Or would not likely die from this?
MCKEOWN: Might well have an illness but would not likely die.
BROWN: When we're talking briefly earlier, I said, what is it about Toronto? SARS and now this. Is it that we have become -- and I mean "we" in the media. But I also mean the public at large, become more sensitive to, more aware of viruses that would have otherwise gone unreported and to a certain extent unnoticed except by those who lost loved ones.
MCKEOWN: Well, Toronto is a city that knows more than most about this kind of respiratory outbreak. Our experience in 2003 with SARS taught us some important lessons about this kind of problem. And how to respond to it. Today, we have better surveillance. We have better protocols to control infection and I think we have better team work amongst the different players that come together to respond.
BROWN: But do we also have in this day and age tougher, stronger, meaner more deadly viruses floating around that are mutating faster and becoming more immune to the drugs that we use to treat them?
MCKEOWN: Well, of course, we are very concerned about the specter of the next pandemic, influenza. That's not what we're dealing with here in Toronto. But our preparations for that event are helping us on a day-to-day basis as we confront more common problems.
BROWN: Doctor McKeown, thanks for your time. I hope you're right, that this gets no worse than it already is. It's already bad enough. Nice to talk to you tonight. David McKeown, who's the officer of health in Toronto. Flu is something we've dealt with for a long time. Sometimes dealt with a lot.
COOPER: All of us tend to have a very short memory, especially in television. But for a moment tonight, let's just remember a flu epidemic that has killed millions. It's not unheard of. What might happen tomorrow to us happened before. Here's Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It started in the first months of 1918. Maybe in rural Kansas, maybe in China, maybe France. An influenza virus mutated into deadly form. By autumn, it had spread in hand shakes and through the air through the Americas, Africa, Europe and the battlefields of World War I, infecting eventually one fifth of the world's population. Millions could not fight the virus or secondary infections like pneumonia and died horrible deaths.
JOHN BARRY, AUTHOR, "THE GREAT INFLUENZA": Some of the really terrifying symptoms were that people would bleed not only from their nose or their mouth, but actually, from their eyes and from their ears.
NISSEN: John Barry is the author of "The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Plague in History."
BARRY: People could die in 24 hours. They literally could wake up feeling OK, and be dead by night fall.
NISSEN: The lethal flu spread most quickly wherever people were concentrated in close quarters: soldiers' barracks, troop ships, city tenements in Europe and the U.S.
BARRY: In almost every city in the country, they ran out of coffins. And in Philadelphia, they actually came into a situation where priests were driving horse drawn carriages down the street, calling upon people to bring out the dead.
NISSEN: Influenza was no medieval mystery in 1918.
BARRY: People knew it was a contagious disease and the way to avoid getting it was to avoid other people.
NISSEN: But in the U.S. and elsewhere, government officials kept secret how deadly the new flu strain was, fearful the news would hurt the war effort.
BARRY: The Wilson administration only cared about one thing, winning World War I. They told lies to protect morale, in their words. Initially, they were telling everyone this is just ordinary influenza. It's nothing to be worried about. People who otherwise would have protected themselves, would have stayed home, they were not protected, and they were exposed and they died.
NISSEN: Most of the dead were young adults, ages 20 to 40.
BARRY: The best number for the United States is 675,000 deaths. The overwhelming majority died between mid-September and mid-November.
NISSEN: Worldwide, the cost was literally incalculable.
BARRY: Probably at least 40 million people died. There's a Nobel Prize winner who thinks at least 50 million and possibly as many as 100 million deaths.
NISSEN: More people in a year than the Black Death of the middle ages killed in a century. Could it happen again?
BARRY: Another pandemic, unfortunately, is not only possible; it is inevitable.
NISSEN: Inevitable that another influenza virus will some day somewhere mutate to lethal form, spread among humans.
BARRY: The question is how prepared we are for it. Right now, we are not even close to ready for it.
NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Fifty million people. Extraordinary figure. Still to come on the program tonight, where do you go -- someone once said -- to get your reputation back after the government calls you a traitor? Aaron talks to James Yee ahead. And what do you do when you simply can't resist swallowing a whole alligator? A break first. Grab a sandwich or something. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: For a West Point graduate, Captain James Yee's career path is by no means normal. After serving in the Army, he left it, converted to Islam, studied in Syria, then returned to the Army as a chaplain and was sent to Guantanamo to minister to the Islamic detainees there. Then in 2003, his life took an extraordinary turn. The Army charged him with espionage. He's written a book about his life as a suspected traitor. It's called "For God and Country, Faith and Patriotism Under Fire."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Behind the shield of anonymous sources, the Pentagon made Captain James Yee sound like an American traitor in the war against terror.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When the Islamic chaplain was taken into custody, sources say he was found to be carrying classified information without authority, including maps and drawings of the detention facility, notes from interrogations of detainees, including detainee names, which have never been divulged, and a laptop computer with a modem, which is prohibited at the base.
BROWN: Jim Yee said he was simply an Army chaplain ministering to Islamic detainees at Guantanamo.
CAPT. JAMES YEE, U.S. ARMY: But job was to look at each individual and assist them in any way that I can in order to help improve their ability to do worship, to perform the Islamic rites both of prayers and fasting, whatever it may be.
BROWN: He spent 76 days in the Navy brig, most of it in solitary.
YEE: I was subjected to sensory deprivation, where they actually put goggles, blackened out, on my eyes, couldn't see anything. They put these heavy industrial earmuffs on my ears. I couldn't hear anything. And I knew about this practice or tactic. It's called sensory deprivation. They use it when they transport detainees from Afghanistan to Guantanamo. At that point is when I started to think, I might be -- they might be taking me somewhere where I may disappear.
BROWN: But when it came time for the military to put on a case, there was virtually nothing. Nothing suggesting he was a spy. Nothing suggesting he was a traitor.
YEE: When I heard that I was being charged with those kinds of things and those accusations were being made against me, I actually -- maybe I was being a little naive. But I thought this was all going to be cleared up in a few days and be simply casted as a simple misunderstanding. But, as the longer I stayed in jail, then it started to sink in. And that became frightening a little bit.
BROWN: In the end, there were just embarrassing charges of adultery and possessing pornography. To his parents, he was all trumped up for a reason.
JAMES YEE, CAPTAIN YEE'S FATHER: My son, Jim, is Chinese, and he's a Muslim. That's -- that's profiling. That's religious profiling. And that's ethnic profiling. BROWN: Captain Yee was a 1990 graduate of West Point who left the military and later returned as a chaplain after converting to Islam. His wife is from Syria. They met in Damascus while studying there. Seven months after they were first leveled, the espionage charges were formally dropped.
YEE: I know what I went through, what I suffered through, those 76 days in jail, under conditions to much extent worse than down in Guantanamo, has actually made me a stronger person.
BROWN: Captain Yee received a reprimand on the adultery and pornography charges. And to this day, the military has never disclosed the basis for its accusations of spying, nor has it apologized for what it subjected Jim Yee to. (on camera) Do you love your country any less? Do you think of your country any differently?
YEE: Definitely not, because I know that our country, the basis for our country are principles, and those principles don't change whether people uphold them or not. Those principles stay the same. And the country is really the principles of the diversity, the religious freedom that I was promoting, equality for all people, justice. Those things aren't going to go away. And I believe that -- I hope with my book that I'm going to contribute to those values and principles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Had a good long conversation this afternoon and it was fascinating in a number of ways. And we'll play a longer chunk of it in the hour ahead. Just ahead in this hour, who says there's no such thing as a free lunch? Gas for pennies a gallon? Could it be? We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Coming up, when the price of fame has crumpled fenders. Lindsay Lohan and those pesky paparazzi. But first, about a quarter to the hour. Time once again to check on the headlines with Erica Hill in Atlanta -- Erica.
ERICA HILL, ANCHOR, HEADLINE NEWS: Hey, again, Anderson.The Defense Department about to put some money back into the pockets of soldiers. The Pentagon has just issued new regulations so that soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who use their own money to buy body armor, helmets, and ballistic eye protection are now going to get their money back from Uncle Sam to the tune of $1,100. This next one, a terminal case of biting off more than you can chew. In Florida, in the Everglades, it turned out pretty poorly for a 13-foot Burmese python who tried to make a meal out of a six-foot live alligator and kind of burst at the seams. Lovely. Finally, Christmas coming a little early at the Racetrack gas station in Miami. Lucky customers managed to fill up with premium at about 33 cents a gallon. Most of them left without saying a word. Someone actually put the daily price in with the decimal point in the wrong place, so they were charged .329 cents instead of $3.29. Talk about a good day. You go to fill up your car and you're paying 33 cents a gallon.
COOPER: Yes. I want to take a look at that alligator picture again, because I do not understand what we're looking at.
HILL: I don't really get it either, to be honest with you. And here's the thing. My contacts are really bugging me. So it's kind of a little fuzzy. But...
COOPER: I just want up and looked close at the monitor and it's probably best not to take a look at it.
HILL: That's what I thought.
COOPER: Why don't we move along?
HILL: All right.
COOPER: All right, Erica. Thanks. Coming up, are car accidents part of the price of fame? Or does it just seem that way? When we come back. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So what to do when the fame game meets the blame game? In California, Governor Schwarzenegger just signed a new law to hit paparazzi with stiff penalties if they stalk celebrities too closely. Now, some called it the Lindsay Lohan Law, because it followed a May accident when a photographer crashed into her car. Yesterday, when her car collided with a van, the finger of blame again initially pointed to the paparazzi. The sheriff's office says the real problem was the van's illegal u-turn. CNN's Chris Lawrence reports the flash guns are still popping.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Who hasn't dreamed, just once, of what it would be like to be famous?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wave to your right!
LAWRENCE: Adored by fans. Photographed everywhere. Making millions.
E.L. WOODY, PAPARAZZO: All the stars know there's a price to pay for fame.
LAWRENCE: Paparazzi photographer E.L. Woody says Hollywood stars can't turn the attention on and off at will. (on camera) How do you feel about stars who say, "We don't want this attention? I just want -- I'm an actor. I'm an actress. I don't want all that attention." WOODY: Well, you know, when you choose to become famous, you become famous, and that's part of the deal.
LAWRENCE: What about people who say, "I didn't choose to become famous. I just chose to be an actor"?
WOODY: Well, then they should go to New York and go on the stage. And they won't have a paparazzi even bothering to look at them, let alone take their picture. They came here to Hollywood to be a famous actor or actress.
LAWRENCE (voice-over): Lindsay Lohan did become famous, so on Tuesday, when she crashed her car into this van outside The Ivy restaurant, photographers were everywhere. Her publicist initially blamed paparazzi, then took it back when police said they were not to blame. A few months ago, a paparazzi photographer crashed his car into hers. And Lohan ended up with cuts and bruises. She's not alone. Here's a 911 call from actress Scarlett Johansson.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON, ACTRESS: We had a bunch of paparazzi cars also following us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why? JOHANSSON: I'm Scarlett Johansson, an actor, and they've been following me all the way here. But we've gotten into an accident. Not with the paparazzi, but with a woman behind us."
LAWRENCE: Some stars say the paparazzi have gone too far.
KEN SUNSHINE, CELEBRITY PUBLICIST: It is horrible being a celebrity being stalked by paparazzi.
LAWRENCE: Publicist Ken Sunshine represents stars such as Ben Affleck and Leonardo DiCaprio. Sunshine says his clients are known around the world. But that doesn't mean people have a right to invade every aspect of their lives.
SUNSHINE: Part of the price of fame is getting your photo taken. Give it. I get it. But don't tail them in a car. Don't cut them off on car chases. Don't put cameras within a couple of inches of their face.
LAWRENCE: E.L. Woody says stars who want to be left alone can be. At hundreds of stores and restaurants in Los Angeles. He says they want attention as much as privacy and know how to get it.
WOODY: They know the clubs the paparazzi will be at. The know The Ivy is always a standard for free photographers standing there, waiting to shoot them.
LAWRENCE: And if fame has a price, then so does privacy. No one takes your picture when you're not a star anymore. Chris Lawrence, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, coming up in our next hour, spies who made history and an update on the allegations of spying at the White House today. A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Tiananmen Square, April 1989, it began peacefully. Beijing University students mourning the death of a former government leader that supported the student movement for democracy. But the students' memorial turned into a peoples' protest that lasted nearly six weeks. Wang Dan was one of the student leaders.
WANG DAN, STUDENT PROTESTOR AT TIANANMEN SQUARE: I saw the power of the people in that moment. The really big power of the people. It's the first time in the history of China that people go to the street without an allowance from the government.
ZAHN: The Chinese government imposed marshal law at the end of May, but the protest continued until troops moved in on June 4. It still isn't known how many people were jailed, injured or killed. DAN: Of those people who died, I really feel deep sorrow for them because I was the leader. I led them to go to the square.
ZAHN: Wang Dam was imprisoned twice for his actions and eventually released to exile in the U.S. He's published 17 books and is studying for his Ph.D. at Harvard.
DAN: If I have a chance to go back to China, of course, I still will be involved in political activities or other activities to try to promote human rights and democracy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Spy at the White House; California Wildfire Closes Freeway, Threatens Homes; Rapes Committed in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina; Mysterious Illness in Canada
Aired October 5, 2005 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And good evening, again. I'm Anderson Cooper in New York.
AARON BROWN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And I'm Aaron Brown. And ahead in the second hour of NEWSNIGHT tonight, allegations of spying at the White House. Who's the target? What was compromised? What countries are involved?Also the naughty question of whether terrible crimes -- rapes were committed at the Superdome, the Convention Center and shelters in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.And the Bird Flu. We'll hear from one of the few people who actually got it, became terrible ill and obviously survived to tell about it. All that and more in the hour ahead.Anderson?
COOPER: We begin with the story breaking tonight, the basic description of which involves words that may never have been used in the same sentence before. Spy is one of them, White House are two others. Throw in U.S. Marine and naturalized citizen, and you begin to get some idea of just how strange this business is. CNN Justice Department Correspondent Kelli Arena has more.
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CORRESONDENT: A former U.S. Marine, who's already been arrested for stealing from FBI computers, is now being fingered for allegedly stealing classified information from White House computers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a number of very sensitive sources and methods, interception technologies, human agents; and it's possible that by revealing the information, he actually reveals its source. And once the source is revealed, we can lose the source.
ARENA (voice-over): As first reported by ABC and confirmed by multiple U.S. government sources for CNN, Leandro Aragoncillo allegedly misused his top-secret clearance to download the information, including a dossier on the Philippine president, which he allegedly passed on to her political opposition. Aragoncillo worked at the White House for three years, from 1999 through 2001, in the vice president's office. But it wasn't until he left to work as an analyst for the FBI that he was nabbed.Last month federal prosecutors said Aragoncillo and an accomplice were seeking to reveal classified information to foreign nationals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: While it is disheartening to realize that a man, who was hired to be an analyst in our own organization and who was a former serviceman who swore to uphold the United States Constitution, would conduct these types of activities. The American public should be aware that the FBI's ever vigilant against all threats, whether they emanate from beyond our shores or within our own borders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARENA: In a criminal complaint, Aragoncillo was charged with giving the information to Michael Ray Aquino, a former officer with the Philippines Secret Police, who government sources say is expected to be indicted this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have to tell you that our -- our view on matters like this is that there is to be no compromising the secrets of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARENA: Aragoncillo has not been indicted. CNN is attempting to locate both his and Aquino's lawyer for comment.Officials tell CNN that Aragoncillo has been cooperating with investigators who are trying to determine the scope of his alleged illegal activity. The White House says it's cooperating too, but would not comment on the ongoing investigation and neither would the Justice Department.Anderson?
COOPER: Do you know what that means that he's been cooperating, meaning he's cooperating he's confessed? Or he's simply being --
ARENA: Well, he's cooperating providing information that officials have described to us as useful, Anderson.
BROWN: Kelli, in the scheme of things here, does it look like we're talking about a Jonathan Pollard case -- a case where someone spied for an ally -- in this case, Israel; or an Aldridge Ames case, which did enormous damage to the federal government?
ARENA: You know, Aaron, it's very difficult to say at this time, but some of the security experts that I spoke to said it really does depend on exactly which computers he had access to in the White House. And that makes a big difference because some of those computers are hooked into some really sensitive security systems; and if he had access to those and revealed methods and sources, then you're talking big trouble. BROWN: All right. Kelli Arena, thanks very much.Earlier, I discussed the developing story with Ronald Kessler, a former investigative reporter who went on to become a best-selling author of 15 books, including his latest, titled "The Matter of Character Inside the White House with George W. Bush." Kessler's also written books about the FBI, CIA, and several books about spying. I began by asking him if he's surprised that someone is accused of spying inside the White House.
RONALD KESSLER, AUTHOR: It is such a spectacular thing to have somebody actually spy in the White House, that, you know, I was shocked when I heard about it.
COOPER: Is it easier to spy though in the White House? I mean are -- what are the -- what are the kind of security methods do they go through? Do they do background checks -- obviously they do background checks. Do they do polygraphs?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KESSLER (voice-over): They do background checks, but not polygraphs. And I think this case is going to point in that direction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KESSLER: They do have polygraphs at the FBI now, ever since the Robert Hansen case, even though it had been recommended long before that. And way before that, the CIA started doing regular polygraph tests, and they're important not only to detect spying, and they do detect spying, but they're also important as a deterrent because what spy will want to engage in espionage, knowing that they're going to be polygraphed every six months or every year.
COOPER: What is the rationale that the White House has used that -- to not do polygraphs?
KESSLER: I don't think they've every really thought about it. You know, there's always also been this, of course, concern that somehow if some other agency is involved and in deciding whether people should or should not work there, that that would be political interference, but in fact the FBI does that when they do a background check and it's still up to the White House whether that person will be employed. And during the Clinton White House, a lot of times the FBI turned up drug use, and the Clinton White House just didn't care and waived that. So I don't think that that should be a concern. I think this really does show that there should be regular polygraph tests at the White House because the -- the secrets that you can get in the White House are even more spectacular and possibly damaging to the United States' interest than you can get at the CIA or FBI.
COOPER: And is it easier in some way to get secrets to the White House?
KESSLER: There's certainly less security. They don't have quite as rigorous a system. For example, for checking on whether people are getting documents from computers that they shouldn't be getting -- and that's actually the good news in this case because allegedly this Marine later went to work for the FBI and the FBI is the one who caught him trying to get documents out of FBI computers that he shouldn't have been looking for.
COOPER: So, are -- are more secrets discussed in meetings at the White House? Is that fair to say, than --
KESSLER: No.
COOPER: -- than in a place like the FBI where might be you could get classified documents?
KESSLER: That's right. There'd be all kinds of secret initiatives, diplomacy, plans being discussed at meetings at the White House that could involve a wide-range of countries, for example. So, just -- just incredible what this person might have picked up beyond what he was interested in for the Philippines. But apparently, supposedly, he is cooperating. And therefore he is revealing what he may have picked up and what he may have passed along. And I'm sure he's being polygraphed to determine the veracity of what he's saying. So, I think we're going to find out in the end quite a bit about what he may have done.
COOPER: It's important to point out that this is developing story; and given what happened to Captain James Yee, important not to jump to -- to too many conclusions.
BROWN: No, but I always think it's interesting about the polygraph question. I'm not literally not sure how I feel about it. That somehow people think it's OK to polygraph the cleaning people who come in, but if you suggest polygraphing the secretary of state or the chief of staff --
COOPER: They're shocked.
BROWN: Right, they -- they throw a conniption. Yes, --
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: On to James Yee, in 2003 Captain James Yee made news. He spent 76 days in solitary confinement because the Army said he was a spy. He's a graduate of West Point. He converted to Islam. He was working as a chaplain at Guantanamo Bay and started to complain about the way detainees were being treated.The espionage charges were eventually dropped. Earlier this year, Mr. Yee was given an honorable discharge -- even a medal. But he never got an apology and he never got an explanation. We spoke with him earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: What's it like for an Army captain, a West Point graduate, a child of New Jersey to hear the words that say, you're being charged with spying for -- against your country. You could be sentenced to death. What is that moment like?
JAMES YEE, FORMER GUANTANAMO CHAPLAIN: When those -- when I heard that I was going -- I was being charged with those kind of things and those accusations were being made against me, I actually -- maybe I was being a little naive, but I thought this was all going to be cleared up in a few days and be simply casted as a simple misunderstanding. But, as I -- the longer I stayed in jail, then it started to sink in and that became frightening a little bit.
BROWN: Do you want to scream --(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: What are you people, nuts? I'm not a spy.
YEE: I did want to scream that. But being a chaplain down in Guantanamo and seeing how prisoners are treated, there's not much recourse to -- to object. I was fearful that if I was to object or scream out like that, that that might end up into some kind of violent beating on me, with the excuse that I was a resisting arrest or something like that.
BROWN: Did you -- you -- did you ever worry that you might just disappear, that we would never hear of James Yee again?
YEE: You know, I -- I thought about that. When they transferred me from Jacksonville, Florida, brig in Jacksonville, Florida, down to South Carolina, I was subjected to sensory deprivation, where they actually put goggles, blackened out, on my eyes. I couldn't see anything. They put these heavy industrial earmuffs on my ears. I couldn't hear anything. And I knew about this practice or tactic. It was called sensory deprivation. They use it when they transport detainees from Afghanistan to Guantanamo. At that point is when I started to think I might be -- they might be taking me somewhere where I may disappear, just like you said. That definitely was going through my mind and that was -- that was scary.
BROWN: Do you think your life will ever be the same?
YEE: No, it won't be the same. One, I know what I went through, what I suffered through. Those 76 days in jail, under conditions in to much extent, worse than in down in Guantanamo, has actually made me a stronger person.
BROWN: Do you love your country any less? Do you think of your country any differently?
YEE: Definitely not. Because I know that our country -- the basis for our country are principles, and those principles don't change. Whether people uphold them or not, those principles stay the same. And the country is really the principles of diversity, the religious freedom that I was promoting, equality for all people, justice. Those things aren't going to go away.
BROWN: Nice to meet you. Good luck to you.
YEE: It's a pleasure.
BROWN: Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we were -- we were talking about accountability this afternoon in a different context. But at some point it does seem to me that the Army needs to be accountable here. If there are legitimate reasons why this man was put through this, we ought to know that.
COOPER: Right.BROWN: And if there aren't, they at the very least, ought to apologize.
COOPER: Do we live in a country where no one apologizes anymore? I mean, whether it's this or from Katrina, we've yet to hear a public official stand up and say, you know what? This is the mistake that I made and I am personally sorry about it, rather than, you know, taking blanket blame, but not actually specifying the mistakes they made. You just kind of want people to stand up and say, you know what? I made a mistake. I'm sorry about it.BROWN: Jim Yee would, I know that.His ordeal played out in a moment of time when the country was a little crazy, when you think about it. It was the years after -- the couple of years after 9/11. We talked about sleeper cells and dirty bombs and the possibilities of both, which is to say a moment or terror. Some of it was justified, some of it not. Spies, after all, really do exist. They always have in the country and probably always will.Spies and accusations of spying are as old as the first chapter of American history. Every school child knows Benedict Arnold, and every child and adult fears being called a Benedict Arnold. You don't suppose anyone's ever been called a Julius Rosenberg, but Julius Rosenberg and his wife, Ethel, were the most famous spies of their time, they early days of the Cold War.Convicted of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets, they were executed on the 19th of June 1953. To this day, there is a robust debate about their guilt. In more recent days, there's been Aldridge Ames, the CIA agent. In '94 his job was finding Soviet spies. You can imagine, if not remember, the agency's embarrassment when it turned out he was a Soviet spy.Robert Hansen worked at the FBI and worked for the Russian government, too. For 25 years he sold out his country and sold out 100 American operatives. He serves a life sentence.We don't yet know where this new name fits in, small fish or history changer. We only know that he is there again, the beginning of another chapter in the long book of those who have spied and sold out their country.
COOPER: And, of course, the question is why this time if in fact that is what he has done.Here's a look at some of the stories happening "Cross-Country," right now. A mystery virus has killed at least 16 in Canada, sent dozens more to the hospital. Hardest hit, a nursing home in Toronto. Scientists know the killer bug is not Bird Flu, but they do not know what it is -- not yet, at least. Much more on this in a moment.Tropical Storm Tammy spun up out of nowhere this morning. It is already pelting the coast of Florida. Tammy's only packing winds around 50 miles an hour, but it's expected to dump three to five inches of rain in Georgia. Some parts of George, frankly, could use the rain.Still reeling from two hurricanes, the state of Louisiana has run up a one-billion dollar deficit. Spokeswoman for Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, says the state is running out of money to pay policemen, firefighters and emergency workers. We'll talk to a police officer in New Orleans in a moment.And finally, failing a stability test in Lake George, a sister boat to the Ethan Allen, which capsized over this weekend, killing 20 elderly passengers, has failed a stability test. The test used 25- gallon drums, instead of people. The test was stopped early for safety reasons, as the boat became unstable.Coming up tonight, trouble just keeps on coming for New Orleans. Now it is money problems. More on what this could mean for the city's police. We'll talk to the new superintendent.And a report from Asia. Ground Zero for Bird Flu and the girl who was infected, but survived.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: The New Orleans water worries may be nearly over -- at least we all hope they are. But the city's money troubles are just beginning. Finances also are drying up. That is the bad news. I spoke earlier this evening with the New Orleans Acting Superintendent of Police Warren Riley. Now he wanted to address some allegations made about his past record on the force. I started by asking Superintendent Riley if his officers' jobs may now be in jeopardy because of the city's money problems.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARREN RILEY, ACTING SUPERINTENDENT: No, not at this time. I mean, we have no indication that we will be laid off; 3,000 city workers were in fact laid off, but at no point has the mayor mentioned that law enforcement or any public safety officials will be laid off.
COOPER: What about the 249 officers who disappeared during Katrina -- have any investigations begun? Have you, you know, they were talking about tribunals, where each would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Have you started that process? And has anyone been disciplined or what's going on?
RILEY: We started the process. No one's been disciplined at this point. Some officers will be terminated who were not here. But some officers left after the storm with legitimate reasons. And then we have officers who were actually stranded on rooftops and attics who showed up three or four days after being rescued. So, that 249 is a list that is compiled of all officers who were not here or who left after the storm.
COOPER: What do you say --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: What do you say to the officers? Because I mean, I talked to a lot of them, you know, behind the scenes, and they say, look, I don't want to accept these guys back. I mean, they -- you know, the officers who stayed on their job -- and the vast majority of them -- I mean, they were doing that in impossible circumstances, they had a million reasons why they should have left their post, but they didn't. What do you say to the officers who say, look, why should we take these guys back?
RILEY: Well, I think that we've already sent that message to those officers. We're determining who in fact, as it was stated, is a deserter. Some people were absent without leave. Those who where it is determined that they in fact deserted their post, they will have serious consequences.
COOPER: Let me ask you, you've entered now the realm of -- the public realm in a new way with your new position, and with it comes scrutiny and I know you wanted to address some of the things that are floating out there tonight, and we appreciate that. So I wanted to ask you, there had been a lot of talk about suspensions, that you have been suspended at times in your -- in your past on the police force -- how many times have you been suspended from the police force?
RILEY: Yes, I've actually -- there are -- there are some things that need to be cleared up. I have in fact been suspended five times in my career. Now, three of those were for a traffic accident. And we have a policy that if you're involved in a traffic accident, that you're suspended. So, I was in fact suspended three times, minor accidents, no one was ever injured. One time as a rookie police officer I was suspended for not appearing in court -- in municipal court. It was an oversight on my part. And then once for neglect, where it was stated that I was -- I did not write a report on a domestic violence issue back in 1994- 1995. This was a mix-up and it was a procedure that was not in place that I was judged by. So, those are the three things --
COOPER: Well, let me ask you about -- let me ask you about that in particular, because that's the one that's gotten a lot of attention. When you ran for Orleans Parish Sheriff, questions were raised about your behavior. A woman named Sharon Robinson came to you, asking for help. She said her boyfriend, a New Orleans police officer, was abusing her, it was domestic violence. Several months later she wound up dead. The case is still unsolved. Her family says basically you should have done more. You should have filed a report. Do you feel you did your due diligence?
RILEY: Yes, I did in fact do my due diligence. I am the person who actually brought that -- at the time of her death, brought it to our public integrity bureau because I was in public integrity. I was promoted to lieutenant. I think -- I guess maybe three months later, this young lady's body was found in a lake. I notified PIB. The person who she accused of doing that was never ever charged with this crime. He actually received $250,000 in a lawsuit because his name was slandered. I was never investigated for that by the FBI or anyone else and never had a part of it -- a part -- anything to do with it. I did my job appropriately at the time. I was in fact reprimanded for it, but that was basically Superintendent Pennington, who was the chief at the time, basically stated in civil service that it was a mistake.
COOPER: Were you suspended for that, though, for three days?
RILEY: I was for three days, yes.
COOPER: OK, your critics say basically -- and now, you've heard this before and I want to give you the opportunity to address it. They say, look, your department has looting investigations ongoing, desertion investigations, and they ask, given your track record, are you the man to lead this department?
RILEY: Well, I -- there's no one on the job that's more qualified. I've been on for 24 years. I'm not a perfect human being. If you look at my record, I have a master's degree, a bachelor's degree, I've been on 26 years, I've worked in every bureau that this department has and I've been in charge of two of those bureaus, so there's no one that's more qualified. And I admit it, in 24-25 years, have I been perfect? Absolutely not. But I have been a dedicated professional with integrity, yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And he has a very difficult job ahead of him, Superintendent Warren Riley.
(INTERRUPTED BY CNN COVERAGE OF BREAKING NEWS)
COOPER: I have some breaking news to report. I want to show you this video. It is a California -- the latest wildfire -- we've just gotten information about is threatening about 100 homes. It's closed a freeway out in Calimesa, California. According to the Associated Press, the fire has burned at least 1,000 acres of brush east of Los Angeles. It burned to the edge of the 60 freeway. According to a fire department official, quoted by the Associated Press, motorists were actually passing within yards of the flames before authorities closed ten-mile stretch of the road.Airplanes have dropped fire retardant on this area, but as you see only about five percent contained that we are being told at this hour. This fire, out in Riverside County in California. I will continue to watch this, and bring you any updates as warranted.Still to come tonight on NEWSNIGHT, what exactly happened in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina? We've been asking this question -- and in the Convention Center, as well. We've been asking this question now for a month. Still trying to investigate, trying to find out answers, put together the piece in the puzzle. We heard stories of violence and rapes, but were they just rumors? Some new information on rapes. We separate fact from fiction, tonight.And, the Bird Flu. What exactly is it and why are scientists so concerned it could become a pandemic? NEWSNIGHT continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Two places still in the eye of the storm in New Orleans. At first, the Convention Center and the Superdome promised shelter from the storm, literally. They quickly became the center of the storm, the storm of criticism. Not simply symbols of everything that went wrong, but examples of what went wrong, including a flood of rumors that sometimes seemed to be news, reports of rapes. So were they just rumors or were they facts? CNN's Drew Griffin reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They were caught between the storm and chaos, trapped in a city being shrunk by flood waters. The people of New Orleans fled to the only shelters they knew were still dry, and they came by the thousands. All kinds of reports came out of the Convention Center and Superdome, some of rapes, fueled by a police chief who didn't know.
NEW ORLEANS POLICE CHIEF EDDIE COMPASS:
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) babies getting raped.
GRIFFIN: And days later, denials from rank and file, who say nobody was raped.
DAVE BENELLI, LIEUTENANT: I'm the commander of the sex crimes unit. My unit handles all rapes. We had two reported attempted rapes.
GRIFFIN: Attempted?
BENELLI: Attempted rapes. And they were handled, and the individuals were arrested.
GRIFFIN: Now CNN is learning the truth, maybe much more disturbing and painful.
WANDA PEZANT, SEXUAL ASSAULT NURSE EXAMINER: Do I think that people were raped after and during Hurricane Katrina? Absolutely. Have I treated victims from New Orleans that were raped either during or in the immediate 48 aftermath of Katrina? Yes.
GRIFFIN: Wanda Pezant says over the last weeks she has counted them; 18 victims. One as young as 13, have now come forward to this sexual assault nurse examiner, to say in the confusion of Katrina, they were raped. Caught in dark corners in the Superdome, in shelters across Louisiana; victims and predators, she says, were suddenly trapped in the same mess and the predators saw opportunity.
PEZANT: When predators are loose in the environment, unsupervised and unchecked by law enforcement, victimization happens.
GRIFFIN: The question for Judy Benitez is how much really did happen. Benitez runs Louisiana's Foundation against Sexual Assault. Since the hurricane first struck, she says her 15 crisis centers across the state have been getting calls from rape victims and those who witnessed rapes and either never went to the police or there were no police to go to.
JUDY BENITEZ: Some people have taken the view that because something wasn't reported to the police, that it didn't happen. And that's not really an accurate way to look at things when you're talking about sexual assault. There are a lot of reasons, under normal circumstances, why victims don't report sexual assaults to the police; or they may report them a couple of weeks later.GRIFFIN: The truth is, says rape counselors, after the hurricane, when people lost jobs, homes and lives, reporting a rape became a lower priority than finding food and shelter.
BENITEZ: It's just one trauma and one tragedy inside another tragedy. I think it's going to be awhile before we get anything that resembles true numbers.
GRIFFIN: Benitez is setting up a statewide reporting system, in hopes of a more accurate count of post-Katrina sexual assaults.(on camera): But no matter what the count, there will be no way to make those who committed sexual assaults pay. Here, at the Superdome and across Louisiana, predators may have simply gotten away with it. Too many days have passed. Any evidence to be collected would be unusable. What do you say to those people?
BENITEZ: I tell them that I'm their nurse and that we're going to take care of them, and we have. And that I can meet their medical need; I can't meet their legal need.
GRIFFIN: It has been more than a month since Katrina hit. Rape victims are now finding new homes, reuniting with their families. And finally having the courage to deal with what happened to them during the hurricane.The latest woman to report came forward just this week.Drew Griffin, CNN, New Orleans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AARON BROWN, HOST: Still to come on this edition of NEWSNIGHT, a killer virus baffles public health experts and worries the people of Toronto and beyond.And better known and much more feared, the bird flu could kill millions. Can anything be done to stop it? We'll take a break. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Welcome back. Talked through the resets (ph) and the stories we are following right now.Some breaking news out of northern Riverside County in California to tell you about. A new fast-moving wildfire scorching at least 1,000 acres of brush. It is threatening about 100 homes right now and is burning to the edge of the freeway.This is a live picture that you see - that fire line - it is moving fast.At one point actually it had come close to the highway, Highway 60. Motorists actually getting very close indeed to it until they - authorities shut down that part of the highway.We'll continue to watch this, though, throughout the hour and bring you any updates.At the White House a former Marine now accused of stealing classified information and passing it on to a former officer in the Philippines secret police. The man at the center of it worked at the White House from 1999 until 2001. He's reportedly now cooperating with investigators.And a billion dollars, that is how far into the red Katrina and Rita have driven the state of Louisiana. A spokeswoman for the governor says the state is running out of money to pay policemen, firefighters, and emergency workers.And you've heard of pop-up thunderstorms - Tammy is like that. The tropical storm seemed to come out of nowhere. It is now soaking the East Coast of Florida. Tammy is only packing winds around 50 miles an hour, but it is expected to dump three to five inches of rain on parts of Florida and Georgia as it moves inland.
BROWN: I've had enough storms for one year.
COOPER: When I heard that I was like I just cannot deal with any more.
BROWN: No, that's enough. Enough already.
COOPER: Yeah.
BROWN: We'll go on to the flu and we'll probably get to that point with the flu, too. It's that time of year again for flu shots. The fears of the new epidemic.The scare this year is the bird flu, which is a real concern, and it may be a close relative of the flu epidemic, pandemic, that killed up to 100 million people in 1918, and we'll get to that in a moment.But first, a mystery virus has already killed - it's killed 16 people at a nursing home in Toronto. So far the scientists there say they only know what it's not.That it's not the bird flu, it's not SARS. So what is it?Here's CNN's Keith Oppenheim.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN (voice over): The Seven Oaks Home for the Aged in suburban Toronto is under attack. The culprit: a virus that still has not been identified.It was just a week and a half ago some of the most vulnerable patients at Seven Oaks began to get very ill.
DR. DAVID MCKEOWN, TORONTO DEPT. OF PUBLIC HEALTH: This outbreak has resulted today in six additional deaths among ill residents.
OPPENHEIM: Toronto public health officials now report the death toll has risen to 16 residents of the nursing home. All had previous medical conditions, most were in their 80s and 90s.In addition, 72 other people have been infected by the virus. Some are staff at Seven Oaks, some visitors.One woman whose husband is a resident worried about the unknown.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're doing their best, let's put it that way, to get it under control, but what it really is I don't know.OPPENHEIM: Three different labs in Canada are trying to identify the virus, but it turns out in more than half of outbreaks like this, health officials in Ontario are unable to isolate the source of the disease.
DR. BARBARA YAFFE, ASSOC. MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH: A significant percentage of cases - of outbreaks - just never will find the organism, but we're looking for everything we can think of.
OPPENHEIM: Thirty-eight people exposed to the virus have been taken to Toronto hospitals. Officials here say the health of some patients is deteriorating, but most are getting better.A 9-year-old boy wondered what will happen to his grandfather.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope the hospital's safer and that he can be healthy and not die.
OPPENHEIM: In the meantime, the nursing home has been closed to new patients and is for the most part keeping its doors shut.
AL DOBBINS, SEVEN OAKS RESIDENT: To me, it's been cooped up, you know, I mean I'm so - I'm so used to the outside, you know? And all of a sudden, bang.
OPPENHEIM: As dire as all this may seem, health experts here say this is all an extreme example of a common occurrence. Across Canada, and the U.S., viral outbreaks routinely kill elderly and sick patients with weakened immune systems.
MCKEOWN: It's within the range of our experience in Ontario, but it's definitely at the severe end.
OPPENHEIM: With no new cases reported in the last 24 hours, health experts here believe the mysterious outbreak is being contained. They say it poses no danger to the general public.But for the people who have relatives at Seven Oaks, it may be some time before they can feel that the threat of contagious illness is behind them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OPPENHEIM (on camera): Joining you live now in Toronto and Aaron keep in mind it was two years ago that the SARS outbreaks, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, came to Toronto, and that led to 44 deaths here.The difference between what happened with the SARS outbreak a couple of years ago and this incident is that SARS went from hospital to hospital, generally affecting health care workers.In this case, you have one long-care facility, just a single place that has been affected, so its very different, very contained.But having said that, with just one facility effected, it's the worst of its kind in terms of just one place getting a hit like this now with a total of 16 deaths. And there's still a possibility there could be more.Back to you.BROWN: Keith, thank you. Keith Oppenheim. We talked with a doctor up in Toronto earlier and he said he felt very confident that they had contained it, that it wouldn't spread beyond.But viruses do spread.
COOPER: Yeah. And mutate, which of course is the greatest concern. The mystery of the bird flu isn't exactly what it is, but rather what it's going to become.Scientists fear that this horrible disease, which actually drowns its victims in their own fluids if you can imagine that, may actually mutate into a form that can pass easily between humans.Right now it can pass between species, but not necessarily so easily between humans.Possibly if that happens it would be transformed into a pandemic that could kill millions of people and travel to our shores very quickly. The bird flu kills right now about half of those who are infected within seven to ten days.And that means there are a number of people who have actually gone through all the symptoms of the disease and lived to tell about it.CNN's senior Asia correspondent Mike Chinoy met up with one survivor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE CHINOY, SENIOR ASIA CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hyung An (ph) returns to the hospital where she almost died last year. She's greeted by the doctor who saved her life.It's a routine visit now, but with Hyung An, nothing is really routine. She's one of only six people in Vietnam known to have caught the avian influenza virus and survived.I had a little pet duck, she tells me. It died. I buried it, but had to dig it up and bury it some place else. The next day, I got sick. Three days after that, with a raging fever, Hyung An was moved to the hospital for tropical diseases in Ho Chi Minh City where the bird flu diagnosis was confirmed.It was so hard to breathe, she says, my chest hurt so much. I thought I was going to die.She'd never been that sick before, says Hyung An's mother, Tang Chao (ph). When we heard it was avian flu, we didn't think she'd survive. We started making plans for her funeral.Dr. Chan Zin Yen (ph) shows me Hyung An's x-rays from the most critical days. Her lungs, almost completely blocked from the fast- acting infection.Dr. Yen suspects Hyung An survived because she was diagnosed early and got anti-viral drugs fast.Today he says she's okay. Hyung An's mother worries though because her daughter still tires easily, doesn't eat much, and isn't doing well at school.Even so, the family knows Hyung An had a narrow escape.It was so frightening, says Tang Chao. When she recovered we thought we were the luckiest people ever.Today Hyung An is just like any other 10-year-old girl, but she says she's never going to have a pet duck again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHINOY (on camera): Now Anderson, the key to Hyung An's survival, the doctor's told me when I was in Vietnam, was early diagnosis and quick treatment with anti-viral drugs. In fact, health experts say that the modeling they've done says that essentially within 21 days of a cluster that indicates human-to- human transmission, that's the critical time for getting everybody in that area treated with anti-viral medications.And that raises a very big problem in this part of the world in backward, developing countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, where surveillance is really a problem.And there is a lot of concern that in those remote villages, if you have these outbreaks that there won't be the time to get all the data, and experts say that if that's the case, without the surveillance, you can just throw all those anti-viral drugs into the sea, there won't be enough time for them to be effective at all.
COOPER: I was talking to Barack Obama earlier tonight - Mike, thanks for that - Aaron, and he was saying one of the keys is for the U.S. to start monitoring better what is happening in Vietnam and these places like that so that we get at least an early warning system a little bit on that. We've got these fire pictures just that we have been following out of California. This in Riverside County in Calimesa, California.
BROWN: This is just east of Los Angeles, it's fire season - we went through this last weekend in the San Fernando Valley - in the western part of the valley in Chatsworth, in the Burbank area.And now this is east of the valley. We don't know the degree to which homes may be threatened. It's a big, wide area, out there in Southern California, and it gets hit like this and they say about five percent contained, and just to our eye and no more than that, it's gotten a little bit worse in the last 40 minutes or say.
COOPER: Yeah, it seems to be spreading. The Associated Press - about 100 homes are threatened right now. At least 1,000 acres of brush has burned, and it's getting very close to a highway.Earlier it was close to the 60 Freeway; I'm not sure if that's the freeway it's close to right now.But they've closed off, obviously, that portion of the highway.
BROWN: So we keep an eye on it. And while we do, still to come tonight, we go back to the flu. Is the United States ready to deal with it? We'll talk with one U.S. senator who's concerned about what hasn't been done so far.And we told you a lot tonight about the bird flu. How could it become the world's next pandemic? We'll have more when we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: We told you a lot tonight about the bird flu, how it could become the world's next pandemic, perhaps killing millions.Now on top of all that, here in the U.S. the federal government doesn't have enough vaccines to treat such an outbreak.Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has been urging the Bush administration to do more to prepare for and respond to the bird flu. I spoke with him earlier tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Senator Obama, if avian flu hit our shores today, are we ready for it?
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D) ILLINOIS: We are not ready for it. You know, if you look at the last pandemic we had on U.S. soil, that was the Spanish flu that took place in 1918, 1919; you had literally millions of deaths.And unfortunately this is one of these situations where if you had a flu that mutated, that was brand new, had human-to-human transmission, you could see a million deaths; you could see ten million people hospitalized.We don't have the infrastructure or the capacity to deal with that.
COOPER: You know, there's some people, though, who are going to hear this and say look, this is just like cable news hype, you know, remember the killer bees? When I was a kid everyone was worried about killer bees coming to our shores and we weren't prepared for it.Why do you think this is real, this is different?
OBAMA: We know that every several decades, you get these kinds of pandemics that sweep through the populations. We don't know that this particular bird flu will show up next year and we won't be ready, but we know that some time in the next decade or two there is going to be a pandemic and we've got to put the infrastructure now to be prepared for it.
COOPER: And what we know about this bird flu, which is ominous enough, is number one there is a new strain, number two it jumps from - between species.The only thing yet we don't have evidence of is, is it easily transmissible from human to human. But if that happens, that's really the final step.
OBAMA: There are a couple of things that we've got to do. Number one, we've got to have good surveillance mechanisms set up not just in this country but internationally, and I already allocated about $35 million to start cooperating with other countries on that process.Number two; we've got to have a stockpile of anti-viral drugs that cut down the fatalities so that even if you contract the disease you don't die from it.Other countries like Great Britain have 25 to 40 percent of their population covered with their stockpiles. Right now we only have enough stockpiles for about 2 percent of our population, so we've got to ramp that up.And then we've got to put together an infrastructure to develop the kinds of vaccines and figure out how do we actually distribute those in local areas.
COOPER: To create a vaccine you have to have an actual sample of the mutation. You're not going to have a sample of the mutation until this thing actually hits, and then when it does hit, it's going to take at least four to six months, say authorities, to actually develop enough of vaccine to get to people.So if this thing suddenly develops, I mean, there's very little to stop it from coming here.
OBAMA: Well, here's what's already happened. The NIH/CDC, they've been working on a vaccine based on projections of how the current avian flu might mutate. And the problem is, is that although it appears that it might be effective in providing some protection, you need much higher doses and we don't have the production capacity for the vaccine that's currently being developed.We can probably produce about 450,000 of these vaccines. We know that there is going to be some sort of pandemic in our life times. We don't know whether this will be the big one.And I hope the people realize that if we have a sense of urgency about this, and this particular bird flu doesn't end up being a pandemic our money is not wasted. We've got to set up the kinds of infrastructure that's required regardless of what happens with this particular strain of flu in order that we're prepared when an actual pandemic hits.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Senator Barack Obama earlier tonight."Morning Papers" are next. Stay with us. And later, we might have actually figured out what this is. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Christopher Broaches (ph) and I am a perfumer.We're going to do a blend that you think you're comfortable with.The name of the gallery is "CB I Hate Perfume."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I noticed that your eye starts to water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Perfume is not necessarily all about what might be considered pretty. Scent is really about life.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like I can smell the scent; then you get the chocolate (ph) covering, too, or something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have 400 accords (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Umm, God, that smells really good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Accords are essentially the words that compose the story of a fragrance.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It really - it really does smell like what it is if you don't look it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The unnatural collection is probably one of the more oddball. Because it does have things like "doll head."Soccer ball, ink - there's a gun smoke smell. Rubber cement. Skunk is something that I'm very fond of, which may seem insane to a lot of people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My God, that's smell exactly like what it says.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a brilliant roast beef. It smells exactly like Sunday lunch.The accords range from $25 for 15 milliliters to about $280. The custom fragrances basically start at $200 and can range up to $5,000.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You want to know
(UNINTELLIGIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People will come in here and they'll be smelling through the accords and they'll pick something up and go "oohh" and then immediately look embarrassed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) fortunately.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not offended by that. No one can tell you that you're wrong if you don't like the way something smells.That's really one reason that I choose to do the kind of work that I do in the way that I do it. Because scent is ultimately I think such a unique experience for everyone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: OK, time to check "Morning Papers" from around the country and around the world.First I just want to say I'm a little miffed I didn't get the memo that it was no tie Wednesday.The "Daily News" leads with this important news story: "Cruise Your Daddy" - Tom and Katie are expecting. At first I thought this was Kate Moss.But she's the one that does cocaine, right? And this is Katie Holmes, who has been - who is happier than I've ever been in my life all the time. Any way, they're going to be a couple. Well, they are a couple - they're going to be parents.The "Washington Post" leads more stately. This is a great story. Senate Supports Interrogation Limits by a 90 to 9 Vote. This is - limits how detainees are treated at Guantanamo and elsewhere. Ninety to nine. They're going to get that on the highway bill.Conservatives Confront Bush Aide. This is over Harriet Miers. Ed Gillespie in defending the president told this group of Republicans this has a whiff of sexism and a whiff of elitism. Since the Democrats won't fight for any of this, the only thing we can get out of politics these days is Republicans fighting among themselves.Wings soar the lead in "The Detroit News." Didn't we miss it for a year? But it's back.If you're in Chicago tomorrow or just care a lot, the "Chicago Sun-Times" says the weather will be perky.When we come back we'll revisit the parable of the python and the alligator. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: All right, this is the scene from Riverside, California east of Los Angeles tonight.Fire burning - 100 or so homes threatened by it, about 5 percent contained. This is the season for that, and unless the weather cooperates, we're going to see a lot of pictures like this over the next month or so. They need the marine layer (ph) to come in from the ocean to make the weather more humid and put the fires out.
COOPER: Hard to tell if it's getting worse or not. It sort of looks that way by the pictures, but of course these could just be tighter shots that we're getting. Hard to get a sense of sort of the overall scope, but we do know about 100 homes said to be threatened right now.Earlier tonight we did a story on a python that ate the alligator, or tried to, at least, and I asked a simple question: I thought how does a python eat an alligator exactly?Never expected our clever writers to look it up. Turns out alligators and pythons are fighting for the same patch of the Everglades. They are, if you will, the reptile equivalent of the Hatfield's and the McCoy's, or the Lindsey Lohans and the paparazzi.Ever see a Hatfield try to swallow a McCoy? This is what it looks like.You didn't get the memo about no tie Wednesday?
BROWN: I didn't.
COOPER: It's no shoe Thursday, so get ready.
BROWN: They'll never know. Good to have you with us tonight, we'll see you tomorrow.
COOPER: Good night.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 5, 2005 - 22:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Things look a little different around here, but one thing certainly has not changed. There are far too many stories and really not enough time. Just ahead, a new and potentially damaging storm on the horizon, Tammy.Also, is there a military role in fighting a killer flu outbreak? First, though, allegations of espionage at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue -- Aaron.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we begin tonight with allegations of spying at the White House, which, at any time, would shocking, but, in this day, four years after 9/11, seem especially so, a spy in the White House, if true, the first in modern history. A former Marine with access to top-secret material, not just the stuff the government stamps top secret at every turn, real secrets. CNN's Kelli Arena has been working the story right up to airtime and Ms. Arena joins us tonight from Washington -- Kelli.
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. A former U.S. Marine who has already been arrested for stealing from FBI computers is now being fingered for allegedly stealing classified information from White House computers. As first reported by ABC and confirmed by multiple U.S. government sources for CNN, Leandro Aragoncillo allegedly misused his top-secret clearance to download the information, including a dossier on the Philippine president, which he allegedly passed on to her political opposition. Now, Aragoncillo worked at the White House for three years, from 1999 to 2001, in the vice president's office. But it wasn't until he left to work as an analyst for the FBI that he was nabbed. Last month, federal prosecutors said that Aragoncillo and an accomplice were seeking to reveal classified information to foreign nationals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LESLIE WISER, FBI: ... be an analyst in our own organization and who was a former serviceman who swore to uphold the United States Constitution would conduct these types of activity. The American public should be aware the FBI is ever vigilant against all threats, whether they emanate from beyond our shores or within our own borders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARENA: In a criminal complaint, Aragoncillo was charged with giving the information to Michael Ray Aquino, a former officer with the Philippine secret police who government sources say is expected to be indicted this week. Now, Aragoncillo has not been indicted. CNN is attempting to locate both his and Aquino's lawyer for comment at this time. Officials tell CNN that Aragoncillo has been cooperating with investigators, who are basically trying to determine the scope of his alleged illegal activity. Now, the White House says it is cooperating, but would not comment on the ongoing investigation. Neither would the Justice Department -- back to you.
COOPER: All right, Kelli, thanks very much. With us now, CNN security analyst Richard Falkenrath, former deputy homeland security adviser to the current Bush administration.Richard, thanks for being with us.
RICHARD FALKENRATH, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Happy to be here.
COOPER: Yes. How are surprised are you this could happen in the White House?
FALKENRATH: Well, I'm very surprised. It's the first time it's happened.The White House staff is quite small. There's not too many members of the White House staff who actually have access to the classified Internet system. And he was one of them. And, to my knowledge, this is the first time this has happened in the White House history.
COOPER: How could it happen, though? I mean, was he polygraphed?
FALKENRATH: No. Well, he wouldn't necessarily be polygraphed. Most White House staff are not. There's only certain agencies that routinely polygraph their people.
COOPER: CIA, FBI?
FALKENRATH: Well, the CIA does. I'm not sure that the FBI does. It may for special agents. Right now, he's an analyst. I don't think analysts are routinely polygraphed.To work on the White House staff, you need to go through an FBI background check. And then, also, if you have access to classified information, you need to be issued a security clearance, which involves varying levels of investigation. But once you're issued those documents, your White House pass and your security clearance, the system is basically based on trust. And if you violate that trust, it is relatively easy to get access to the information and get it out of the building.
COOPER: What does it tell you about changes that have been made in the FBI post-9/11 that, I mean, apparently, he was caught once he was working at the FBI in New Jersey.
FALKENRATH: Well, we don't really know how he was caught yet, how long flagrant his violation was, how long this espionage has been going on. Counterintelligence is a longstanding mission of the FBI. There have been penetrations of the FBI before. There have been penetrations of the CIA and of the Department of Defense. And the FBI has successfully nabbed some of those traitors. But, clearly, this one slipped through and they didn't get him until five years after the violations occurred.
COOPER: And is it clear -- I mean, you know, we think of spying for Russia or the Soviet Union, when that was the case. Spying, if that is, in fact, what this man did, for the Philippines seems a surprising thing.
FALKENRATH: Well, I mean, it appears he's got sympathy with the Filipino people or the Filipino nationals. And if that was the limit of the spying, of his espionage, we are lucky. Once you get access to the classified Internet system inside the White House, you have access to an incredible amount of information. And so, I think our hope is that all he did was reveal information about the Philippines, which is very embarrassing, but not enormously injurious to U.S. national interests, as it would be if he revealed things about military secrets or the war on terror or any number of other things.
COOPER: Why wouldn't the White House polygraph people? If they're handling secrets and there's access to classified information, why not polygraph?
FALKENRATH: Well, it is an interesting question that agencies deal with in a different way, different ways. The polygraph itself has got some limitations. It is basically an interrogation tool. And there's a lot of people who work at the White House don't have any access whatsoever to classified information. There are some people who don't hold top-secret clearances at the White House, in fact, quite a number. Not all members of the office of the vice president have top- secret clearances or access to the classified information system. So, I think you'd want to think long and hard about whether you want to polygraph the entirety of the White House staff. Do you want to polygraph every OMB analyst, for example? Do you want to polygraph the White House chief of staff, one of the president's most trusted aides? Harriet Miers, the White House counsel, do you want to polygraph her?That decision is -- no administration has done that. It would be a very radical move for anyone to do that.
COOPER: All right, Richard Falkenrath, thanks very much -- Aaron.
FALKENRATH: You bet.
BROWN: Well, on to the hurricane now and all that the hurricane changed. Somewhere along the way, Katrina's aftermath became a national conversation about the appropriate role of the federal government and federal agencies. Where should money be spent? When should troops go in? Yesterday, at the White House, that conversation shifted from the weather to the flu. It mutated, if you will, just as the virus might. And if it does, the president says he wants more power to use the military to fight an outbreak. A discussion on that point in a moment. First, some background from CNN's Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Worst case, a mutant strain of avian flu that can be passed from person to person hits America's biggest city, New York. The president orders active duty and National Guard troops to seal the island of Manhattan, closing the airports, including Newark, JFK and La Guardia, and shutting the city's numerous bridges and tunnels. It's a scenario not unlike the one depicted in the 1995 movie "Outbreak."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "OUTBREAK")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your town is being quarantined.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN, ACTOR: We got 19 dead, you got 100 more infected. It's spreading like a brushfire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you talking about?
HOFFMAN: If one of them's got it, then 10 of them have got it now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCINTYRE: But how practical is the idea that any city, much less one with as many ways in and out as New York, can be sealed by military force?
MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: How do you possibly limit the flow of people and goods in and out of a city like this? New York needs to have food brought in, it needs to have other things brought in. You need a certain amount of crossing of the perimeter or the city becomes uninhabitable.
MCINTYRE: The reality is these days a quarantine is more likely to attempt to limit movement of infected people by screening passengers at airports, confining sick people to their homes and banning large gatherings of people where the infection can be spread. What the military brings is the same things it brought to hurricane relief -- logistics and manpower, especially medical facilities and the ability to move them quickly and operate without support. Where the issues get thorny is the Hollywood scenario -- combat troops strong arming, possibly shooting desperate victims of a natural disaster.
O'HANLON: It would be an ugly thing if we had to use the military. Nobody in the armed forces would relish the thought of imposing some kind of a martial law-like environment on their own fellow citizens, especially on law-abiding citizens who had done nothing criminal.
MCINTYRE: One problem that needs to be addressed in the federal government's pandemic response plan is protecting first-responders. Usually, they would be vaccinated ahead of time. But since, so far, there is no vaccine for avian flu, that means coming up with other measures to prevent exposure. Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: There are practicalities and legalities and a little bit history at play here. The legal part involves something called the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 -- you remember that -- which bars the regular Army from acting as a police force. We're joined now by James Carafano, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Look, this is not -- I'm not -- I have nothing against the military, OK? But there is something -- and I'm not sure how to articulate it -- creepy about the idea of soldiers in the streets with their M-16s that feels un-American to me.
JAMES CARAFANO, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Well, the scenario of having, you know, soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder keeping people out of a city or Abrams tanks blocking the Brooklyn Bridge, I mean, this is just science fiction. That's not the way you would do a quarantine. It wouldn't work. What you would use the military for is to -- you know, is to actually help people, because if you -- if you had them to stay there, you would have to bring food to them. You would want to bring medical supplies to them. That's kind of things you do.A quarantine, to be effective, has got to have two things, sound public health policy, telling people to do sensible things, and a credible public information campaign. And what happens is, if people know what to do, the odds are, they are going to do the right thing. You know, preventing a disease outbreak, I mean, most of these diseases are either spread by human contact or close proximity. So, you don't have to wall off a city. You just have to tell people, don't go around and hang out with people who are sick. So, the notion that we are going to use the military in some like sci-fi movie is just very, very unrealistic.
BROWN: I hope you're right. But here's what I think people both within the military, frankly, that we talked to today and people outside it on all sides of the political lines worry about is that a slope here, and the slope gets slippery. We use the military for domestic purpose for this today and who knows what we use it for tomorrow. And that puts the generals in an uncomfortable position and I think it puts some citizens in an uncomfortable spot.
CARAFANO: Right. And that's the why the law is written the way it is. And there it isn't a slippery slope. There is really nothing legally that we need to do. First of all, the president has all kinds of authority to use the military force for logistics, for support, for all kinds of things. So, the one area in which there is some limitation, is, is the -- the -- the -- the president is prohibited by law from using the military for domestic law enforcement, except as authorized by Congress in law. And Congress has authorized a number of exceptions in extraordinary circumstances where you can use the military. We have used the military for domestic law enforcement over 275 times in 200 years. So, this isn't new. We don't do it frequently. We shouldn't do it frequently. And, quite frankly, the law enforcement requirement in a medical response, I really think, is going to be fairly minimal. It's not going to be soldiers lined up shoulder to shoulder in gas masks.
BROWN: Yes.
CARAFANO: Like you see in the movies.
BROWN: Did we use them in New Orleans?
CARAFANO: We could have. I mean, the last major one was in 1992 in the Los Angeles riots, where we used federal military forces and we nationalized the federal -- national -- federalized the National Guard and used them as well. That was the last really major one.
BROWN: And, Jim, we make a distinction, because there's one, in fact, between the Reserves and the National Guard.
CARAFANO: Absolutely. We have the active duty. We have Reserves. And we have the National Guard. The Reserves and the active duty are what's called Title 10 forces. They always work for the president. The National Guard can work in any one of three roles. They can work in state- active duty status. They work for the governor. He pays for their time and the use. They can be in a Title 32 status, which means they still work for the governor. They're not subject to Posse Comitatus, but the federal government will pick up the tab for exercises or disaster response.
BROWN: Yes.
CARAFANO: And then, finally, the National Guard can be federalized and work for the federal government.So, the system we have has enormous flexibility. It -- it -- it -- it's -- there -- there aren't any real legal issues here. We are really debating something that simply doesn't need to be debated. The law is perfectly fine the way it is. It protects the civil-military relations we have in this country. It as an enormous amount of flexibility to do all the things we need to do for disasters. The law ain't the problem.
BROWN: Jim, thank you. It's good to see you.
CARAFANO: Thanks for...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Jim Carafano at the Heritage Foundation.It is something the president put on the table the other day. And so it's something to talk about, Anderson.
COOPER: Yes. The notion of quarantining Americans certainly one of concern. Aaron, coming up, a mystery disease strikes and kills in Toronto. We know it is not the avian flu. The question is, what is it? But, first, about a quarter past the hour. Time for the other news of the day, Erica Hill in Atlanta -- Erica.
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello again. We start off with an update for you now on that capsized boat on Sunday at Lake George. It turns out a boat identical to the Ethan Allen failed a stability test today, as safety inspectors attempted to find out why the tour boat capsized on Lake George this weekend. Officials, though, say more analysis is still needed to determine the actual cause of the accident which killed 20 elderly people. The CIA won't be disciplining any officers for intelligence failures that led to September 11 attacks. A classified report before Congress named names. But the agency's director, Porter Goss, says risk is part of intelligence and that singling out people would send the wrong message to junior officers. Former National Security Officer Sandy Berger accused of reckless driving a short time after he was put on probation for taking classified documents. Virginia Police say Berger was driving 88 miles per hour in a 55-mile-an-hour zone. And Tom Cruise and his fiancee, actress Katie Holmes, expecting a child. The two began dating in April. And the stars' publicist, who is also Tom Cruise's sister, says the couple are very excited about the new arrival, no word yet, though, on when the child is due and still no word on when they will be tying the knot. But they are, of course, engaged.
COOPER: I thought I had missed something in the month...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: A lot of people get married and then have the baby. But there's not -- I guess there's not a rule about that.HILL: You know, to each their own.
COOPER: Hey. Why not? HILL: Who are we to judge?
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: Right. Well, we wouldn't want to judge, no. Thank you. COOPER: More to come on the program tonight, including the rest of the preparations for the flu outbreak. The question is, are they enough? We will look at that.BROWN: Also, coming up, another bug, not the bird flu, but, as it turns out, just as deadly.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): A killer and a puzzlement.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're doing their best, let's put it that way, to get it under control. But what it really is, I don't know.
BROWN: And despite their best, 16 people have died in less than two weeks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People could die in 24 hours. They literally could wake up feeling OK and be dead by nightfall.
BROWN: Will the same thing happen when the bird flu hits people? Also tonight, accused of treason, drummed out of the military and disgraced, how the chaplain at Guantanamo came to believe the government just might make him disappear. And where does covering celebrities and stalking begin?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is horrible being a celebrity being stalked by paparazzi. BROWN: Yes, it is. But is this stalking? And what's so bad about having your picture taken, anyway? From Hollywood and Guantanamo and around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So, Aaron and I started working together in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. And while other stories may have knocked New Orleans out of the headlines, we have not forgotten it, and we will not.The people who lived through it, the people who survived it deserve answers. They deserve a full accounting of what happened. And that, they have yet to receive. Tonight, some disturbing developments to tell you about what really happened inside the Superdome and the Convention Center in those dark, desperate days after Katrina hit the city. Now, we know people died there. The question is, were people murdered? And were women raped? We asked CNN's Drew Griffin to keep investigating.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their caught between the storm and chaos. Trapped in a city being shrunk by floodwaters, the people of New Orleans fled to the only shelters they knew were still dry. And they came by the thousands. All kinds of reports came out of the Convention Center and Superdome, some of rapes, fueled by a police chief who didn't know.
EDDIE COMPASS, SUPERINTENDENT, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: We have little babies in here. We have little babies getting raped. GRIFFIN: And days later, denials from rank-and-file, who say nobody was raped.
LT. DAVE BENELLI, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: I'm the commander of the sex crimes unit. My unit handles all rapes. We had two reported attempted rapes.
GRIFFIN (on camera): Attempted?
BENELLI: Attempted rapes. And they were handled and the individuals were arrested.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Now CNN is learning the truth may be much more disturbing and painful.
WANDA PEZANT, SEXUAL ASSAULT NURSE EXAMINER: Do I think that people were raped after and during Hurricane Katrina? Absolutely. Have I treated victims from New Orleans that were raped, either during or in the immediate 48 aftermath of Katrina? Yes.
GRIFFIN: Wanda Pezant says, over the last weeks, she has counted them; 18 victims, one as young as 13, have now come forward to this sexual assault nurse examiner to say, in the confusion of Katrina, they were raped. Caught in dark corners in the Superdome, in shelters across Louisiana, victims and predators, she says, were suddenly trapped in the same mess. And the predators saw opportunity.
PEZANT: When the predators are loose in the environment, unsupervised and unchecked by law enforcement, victimization happens.
GRIFFIN: The question for Judy Benitez is how much really did happen. Benitez runs Louisiana's Foundation Against Sexual Assault. Since the hurricane first struck, she says, her 15 crisis centers across the state have been getting calls from rape victims and those who witnessed rapes and either never went to the police or there were no police to go to.
JUDY BENITEZ, LOUISIANA FOUNDATION AGAINST SEXUAL ASSAULT: Some people have taken the view that, because something wasn't reported to the police, that it didn't happen. And that's not really an accurate way to look at things when you're talking about sexual assault. There are a lot of reasons, under normal circumstances, why victims don't report sexual assaults to the police, or they may -- may report them a couple of weeks later.
GRIFFIN: The truth is, says rape counselors, after the hurricane, when people lost jobs, homes and lives, reporting a rape became a lower priority than finding food and shelter.
BENITEZ: It's just one trauma and one tragedy inside another tragedy. I think it is going to be a while before we get anything that resembles true numbers.
GRIFFIN: Benitez is setting up a statewide reporting system in hopes of a more accurate count of post-Katrina sexual assaults.(on camera): But, no matter what the count, there will be no way to make those who committed sexual assaults pay. Here, at the Superdome and across Louisiana, predators may have simply gotten away with it. Too many days have passed. Any evidence to be collected would be unusable. What do you say to those people?
PEZANT: I tell them that I'm their nurse and that we are going to taking care of them -- and we have -- and that I can meet their medical need. I can't meet their legal need.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): It has been more than a month since Katrina hit. Rape victims are now finding new homes, reuniting with families, and finally having the courage to deal when what happened to them during the hurricane. The latest woman to report came forward just this week.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: And, you know, Anderson, under normal circumstances, studies and experts tell us that as few as 5 percent and, at most, 20 percent of rapes are ever reported to anyone. And, as you know, there was nothing normal going on in this city in those days after Katrina hit -- Anderson.
COOPER: And, of course, especially in those immediate days after, I mean, who to report to? If you're at the Convention Center, you know, law enforcement was not inside the Convention Center, except occasional forays inside there.
GRIFFIN: Yes. And police were swamped. They were so busy trying to -- you know, we talked to Dave Benelli -- trying to keep chaos from breaking out. They couldn't be looking everywhere. They couldn't see everywhere. They couldn't, you know, stop this or stop that. When they had a report, they went after it. But, quite frankly, rape is so under-reported that we may just now be getting a handle on what actually happened down here in New Orleans.
COOPER: Drew, appreciate it. Keep it up. Thanks very much. On now to Katrina -- from Katrina to Tammy. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but, tonight, it is clearly heading somewhere tonight. It's a sucker punch of a tropical storm. Let's find out exactly where it is. Jacqui Jeras is at the CNN Weather Center in Atlanta.Jacqui, how bad is it?
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, the big problem is going to be the rain, Anderson, over the next couple of days. We are worried about flash flooding more than anything else.Tammy a tropical storm early this morning, and now has already made landfall, believe it or not. It was very near Jacksonville, Florida. Now it's making its way into southern Georgia, some very heavy rain with these squall lines. They are going to bring in 40- 50-mile-per-hour winds. And rainfall rates could be as heavy as an inch or so per hour, three to five inches of rainfall expected overall, but some locally heavier amounts will be possible in these heavier squalls as they push on through, along with the threat of some isolated tornadoes. The storm system itself, pretty large. Look at the cloud cover, extending all the way through the Carolinas. But the worst of the weather, the strongest of winds, have been offshore all day. So, that's been some good news. It will continue to weaken as it moves across much of Georgia. But it's going to slow down, too. And so, that means it is going to be a very wet Thursday and Friday across the Southeast. But this part of the country, too, by the way, Anderson, could use some of this rain. It's been extremely dry.
COOPER: All right, Jacqui, thanks very much. Just ahead tonight, the mysterious bug that is cutting down people at a terrifying pace and the virus hunters on the trail. And, later, putting some money back in the pockets of soldiers who bought their own armor.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: A deadly mystery in Canada tonight. A mysterious virus HAS killed 16 people at a nursing home in Toronto. Dozens more have been sent to the hospital. Scientists know what it is not. It is not the ordinary flu. It is not bird flu and it is not SARS. But they don't know what it is. In a moment, we will talk with the chief medical officer of Toronto.But, first, CNN's Keith Oppenheim.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Seven Oaks Home for the Aged in suburban Toronto is under attack. The culprit, a virus that still has not been identified. It was just a week and a half ago some of the most vulnerable patients at Seven Oaks began to get very ill.
DR. DAVID MCKEOWN, TORONTO DEPT. OF PUBLIC HEALTH: This outbreak has resulted today in six additional deaths among ill residents.
OPPENHEIM: Toronto public health officials now report the death toll has risen to 16 residents of the nursing home. All had previous medical conditions. Most were in their 80s and 90s. In addition, 72 other people have been infected by the virus. Some are staff at Seven Oaks, some visitors. One woman whose husband is a resident worried about the unknown.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're doing their best -- let's put it that way -- to get it under control, but what it really is, I don't know.
OPPENHEIM: Three different labs in Canada are trying to identify the virus. But, it turns out, in more than half of outbreaks like this, health officials in Ontario are unable to isolate the source of the disease.
DR. BARBARA YAFEE, ASSOCIATE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH: The significant percentage of outbreaks you just will never find the organism. But we're looking for everything we can think of.
OPPENHEIM: Thirty-eight people exposed to the virus have been taken to Toronto hospitals. Officials say the health of some patients deteriorating and most are getting better. A 9-year-old boy wondered what will happen to his grandfather.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope the hospital is safer and that he can eat healthy and not die.
OPPENHEIM: In the meantime, the nursing home has been closed to new patients and is for the most part keeping its doors shut.
AL DOBBINS, SEVEN OAKS RESIDENT: To me, it's been cooped up. You know? I mean, I'm so -- I'm so used to the outside. You know? And all of a sudden, bang.
OPPENHEIM: As dire as all this may seem, health experts here say this is an extreme example of a common occurrence. Across Canada and the U.S., viral outbreaks routinely kill elderly and sick patients with weakened immune systems.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's within the range of our experience in Ontario, but it's definitely at the severe end.
OPPENHEIM: With no new cases reported in the last 24 hours, health experts here believe the mysterious outbreak is being contained. They say it poses no danger to the general public. But for the people who have relatives at Seven Oaks, it may be sometime before they can feel that the threat of contagious illness is behind them. Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Toronto.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Health officials have been warning for years of another flu epidemic that could turn incredibly deadly. But could a different kind of outbreak, a mystery virus, do the same? Dr. David McKeown is medical officer of health in Toronto, and joins us from that city tonight. Why is there no danger to the general public?
DAVID MCKEOWN, ANCHOR, The cases in this outbreak have been confined to one nursing home. We haven't seen any spread into the community. It's a real challenge for the vulnerable, frail, elderly people in that facility, but it doesn't pose a risk to the city as a hole.
BROWN: I guess what I don't understand is viruses travel as viruses travel. Somehow it got into that facility. And I want -- I'm trying to understand how you can be so confident it won't get -- it won't travel somewhere else.
MCKEOWN: Well, viruses are present in any large city all the time. What's different about a nursing home is the vulnerability of the patients who are there. We're dealing with elderly people in their 80s and 90s who have over medical conditions so a virus that a healthy, young adult might shrug off can be a very serious illness for them.
BROWN: I mean, seriously, a reasonably healthy 56-year-old male not likely get sick from this? Or would not likely die from this?
MCKEOWN: Might well have an illness but would not likely die.
BROWN: When we're talking briefly earlier, I said, what is it about Toronto? SARS and now this. Is it that we have become -- and I mean "we" in the media. But I also mean the public at large, become more sensitive to, more aware of viruses that would have otherwise gone unreported and to a certain extent unnoticed except by those who lost loved ones.
MCKEOWN: Well, Toronto is a city that knows more than most about this kind of respiratory outbreak. Our experience in 2003 with SARS taught us some important lessons about this kind of problem. And how to respond to it. Today, we have better surveillance. We have better protocols to control infection and I think we have better team work amongst the different players that come together to respond.
BROWN: But do we also have in this day and age tougher, stronger, meaner more deadly viruses floating around that are mutating faster and becoming more immune to the drugs that we use to treat them?
MCKEOWN: Well, of course, we are very concerned about the specter of the next pandemic, influenza. That's not what we're dealing with here in Toronto. But our preparations for that event are helping us on a day-to-day basis as we confront more common problems.
BROWN: Doctor McKeown, thanks for your time. I hope you're right, that this gets no worse than it already is. It's already bad enough. Nice to talk to you tonight. David McKeown, who's the officer of health in Toronto. Flu is something we've dealt with for a long time. Sometimes dealt with a lot.
COOPER: All of us tend to have a very short memory, especially in television. But for a moment tonight, let's just remember a flu epidemic that has killed millions. It's not unheard of. What might happen tomorrow to us happened before. Here's Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It started in the first months of 1918. Maybe in rural Kansas, maybe in China, maybe France. An influenza virus mutated into deadly form. By autumn, it had spread in hand shakes and through the air through the Americas, Africa, Europe and the battlefields of World War I, infecting eventually one fifth of the world's population. Millions could not fight the virus or secondary infections like pneumonia and died horrible deaths.
JOHN BARRY, AUTHOR, "THE GREAT INFLUENZA": Some of the really terrifying symptoms were that people would bleed not only from their nose or their mouth, but actually, from their eyes and from their ears.
NISSEN: John Barry is the author of "The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Plague in History."
BARRY: People could die in 24 hours. They literally could wake up feeling OK, and be dead by night fall.
NISSEN: The lethal flu spread most quickly wherever people were concentrated in close quarters: soldiers' barracks, troop ships, city tenements in Europe and the U.S.
BARRY: In almost every city in the country, they ran out of coffins. And in Philadelphia, they actually came into a situation where priests were driving horse drawn carriages down the street, calling upon people to bring out the dead.
NISSEN: Influenza was no medieval mystery in 1918.
BARRY: People knew it was a contagious disease and the way to avoid getting it was to avoid other people.
NISSEN: But in the U.S. and elsewhere, government officials kept secret how deadly the new flu strain was, fearful the news would hurt the war effort.
BARRY: The Wilson administration only cared about one thing, winning World War I. They told lies to protect morale, in their words. Initially, they were telling everyone this is just ordinary influenza. It's nothing to be worried about. People who otherwise would have protected themselves, would have stayed home, they were not protected, and they were exposed and they died.
NISSEN: Most of the dead were young adults, ages 20 to 40.
BARRY: The best number for the United States is 675,000 deaths. The overwhelming majority died between mid-September and mid-November.
NISSEN: Worldwide, the cost was literally incalculable.
BARRY: Probably at least 40 million people died. There's a Nobel Prize winner who thinks at least 50 million and possibly as many as 100 million deaths.
NISSEN: More people in a year than the Black Death of the middle ages killed in a century. Could it happen again?
BARRY: Another pandemic, unfortunately, is not only possible; it is inevitable.
NISSEN: Inevitable that another influenza virus will some day somewhere mutate to lethal form, spread among humans.
BARRY: The question is how prepared we are for it. Right now, we are not even close to ready for it.
NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Fifty million people. Extraordinary figure. Still to come on the program tonight, where do you go -- someone once said -- to get your reputation back after the government calls you a traitor? Aaron talks to James Yee ahead. And what do you do when you simply can't resist swallowing a whole alligator? A break first. Grab a sandwich or something. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: For a West Point graduate, Captain James Yee's career path is by no means normal. After serving in the Army, he left it, converted to Islam, studied in Syria, then returned to the Army as a chaplain and was sent to Guantanamo to minister to the Islamic detainees there. Then in 2003, his life took an extraordinary turn. The Army charged him with espionage. He's written a book about his life as a suspected traitor. It's called "For God and Country, Faith and Patriotism Under Fire."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Behind the shield of anonymous sources, the Pentagon made Captain James Yee sound like an American traitor in the war against terror.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When the Islamic chaplain was taken into custody, sources say he was found to be carrying classified information without authority, including maps and drawings of the detention facility, notes from interrogations of detainees, including detainee names, which have never been divulged, and a laptop computer with a modem, which is prohibited at the base.
BROWN: Jim Yee said he was simply an Army chaplain ministering to Islamic detainees at Guantanamo.
CAPT. JAMES YEE, U.S. ARMY: But job was to look at each individual and assist them in any way that I can in order to help improve their ability to do worship, to perform the Islamic rites both of prayers and fasting, whatever it may be.
BROWN: He spent 76 days in the Navy brig, most of it in solitary.
YEE: I was subjected to sensory deprivation, where they actually put goggles, blackened out, on my eyes, couldn't see anything. They put these heavy industrial earmuffs on my ears. I couldn't hear anything. And I knew about this practice or tactic. It's called sensory deprivation. They use it when they transport detainees from Afghanistan to Guantanamo. At that point is when I started to think, I might be -- they might be taking me somewhere where I may disappear.
BROWN: But when it came time for the military to put on a case, there was virtually nothing. Nothing suggesting he was a spy. Nothing suggesting he was a traitor.
YEE: When I heard that I was being charged with those kinds of things and those accusations were being made against me, I actually -- maybe I was being a little naive. But I thought this was all going to be cleared up in a few days and be simply casted as a simple misunderstanding. But, as the longer I stayed in jail, then it started to sink in. And that became frightening a little bit.
BROWN: In the end, there were just embarrassing charges of adultery and possessing pornography. To his parents, he was all trumped up for a reason.
JAMES YEE, CAPTAIN YEE'S FATHER: My son, Jim, is Chinese, and he's a Muslim. That's -- that's profiling. That's religious profiling. And that's ethnic profiling. BROWN: Captain Yee was a 1990 graduate of West Point who left the military and later returned as a chaplain after converting to Islam. His wife is from Syria. They met in Damascus while studying there. Seven months after they were first leveled, the espionage charges were formally dropped.
YEE: I know what I went through, what I suffered through, those 76 days in jail, under conditions to much extent worse than down in Guantanamo, has actually made me a stronger person.
BROWN: Captain Yee received a reprimand on the adultery and pornography charges. And to this day, the military has never disclosed the basis for its accusations of spying, nor has it apologized for what it subjected Jim Yee to. (on camera) Do you love your country any less? Do you think of your country any differently?
YEE: Definitely not, because I know that our country, the basis for our country are principles, and those principles don't change whether people uphold them or not. Those principles stay the same. And the country is really the principles of the diversity, the religious freedom that I was promoting, equality for all people, justice. Those things aren't going to go away. And I believe that -- I hope with my book that I'm going to contribute to those values and principles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Had a good long conversation this afternoon and it was fascinating in a number of ways. And we'll play a longer chunk of it in the hour ahead. Just ahead in this hour, who says there's no such thing as a free lunch? Gas for pennies a gallon? Could it be? We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Coming up, when the price of fame has crumpled fenders. Lindsay Lohan and those pesky paparazzi. But first, about a quarter to the hour. Time once again to check on the headlines with Erica Hill in Atlanta -- Erica.
ERICA HILL, ANCHOR, HEADLINE NEWS: Hey, again, Anderson.The Defense Department about to put some money back into the pockets of soldiers. The Pentagon has just issued new regulations so that soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who use their own money to buy body armor, helmets, and ballistic eye protection are now going to get their money back from Uncle Sam to the tune of $1,100. This next one, a terminal case of biting off more than you can chew. In Florida, in the Everglades, it turned out pretty poorly for a 13-foot Burmese python who tried to make a meal out of a six-foot live alligator and kind of burst at the seams. Lovely. Finally, Christmas coming a little early at the Racetrack gas station in Miami. Lucky customers managed to fill up with premium at about 33 cents a gallon. Most of them left without saying a word. Someone actually put the daily price in with the decimal point in the wrong place, so they were charged .329 cents instead of $3.29. Talk about a good day. You go to fill up your car and you're paying 33 cents a gallon.
COOPER: Yes. I want to take a look at that alligator picture again, because I do not understand what we're looking at.
HILL: I don't really get it either, to be honest with you. And here's the thing. My contacts are really bugging me. So it's kind of a little fuzzy. But...
COOPER: I just want up and looked close at the monitor and it's probably best not to take a look at it.
HILL: That's what I thought.
COOPER: Why don't we move along?
HILL: All right.
COOPER: All right, Erica. Thanks. Coming up, are car accidents part of the price of fame? Or does it just seem that way? When we come back. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So what to do when the fame game meets the blame game? In California, Governor Schwarzenegger just signed a new law to hit paparazzi with stiff penalties if they stalk celebrities too closely. Now, some called it the Lindsay Lohan Law, because it followed a May accident when a photographer crashed into her car. Yesterday, when her car collided with a van, the finger of blame again initially pointed to the paparazzi. The sheriff's office says the real problem was the van's illegal u-turn. CNN's Chris Lawrence reports the flash guns are still popping.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Who hasn't dreamed, just once, of what it would be like to be famous?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wave to your right!
LAWRENCE: Adored by fans. Photographed everywhere. Making millions.
E.L. WOODY, PAPARAZZO: All the stars know there's a price to pay for fame.
LAWRENCE: Paparazzi photographer E.L. Woody says Hollywood stars can't turn the attention on and off at will. (on camera) How do you feel about stars who say, "We don't want this attention? I just want -- I'm an actor. I'm an actress. I don't want all that attention." WOODY: Well, you know, when you choose to become famous, you become famous, and that's part of the deal.
LAWRENCE: What about people who say, "I didn't choose to become famous. I just chose to be an actor"?
WOODY: Well, then they should go to New York and go on the stage. And they won't have a paparazzi even bothering to look at them, let alone take their picture. They came here to Hollywood to be a famous actor or actress.
LAWRENCE (voice-over): Lindsay Lohan did become famous, so on Tuesday, when she crashed her car into this van outside The Ivy restaurant, photographers were everywhere. Her publicist initially blamed paparazzi, then took it back when police said they were not to blame. A few months ago, a paparazzi photographer crashed his car into hers. And Lohan ended up with cuts and bruises. She's not alone. Here's a 911 call from actress Scarlett Johansson.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON, ACTRESS: We had a bunch of paparazzi cars also following us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why? JOHANSSON: I'm Scarlett Johansson, an actor, and they've been following me all the way here. But we've gotten into an accident. Not with the paparazzi, but with a woman behind us."
LAWRENCE: Some stars say the paparazzi have gone too far.
KEN SUNSHINE, CELEBRITY PUBLICIST: It is horrible being a celebrity being stalked by paparazzi.
LAWRENCE: Publicist Ken Sunshine represents stars such as Ben Affleck and Leonardo DiCaprio. Sunshine says his clients are known around the world. But that doesn't mean people have a right to invade every aspect of their lives.
SUNSHINE: Part of the price of fame is getting your photo taken. Give it. I get it. But don't tail them in a car. Don't cut them off on car chases. Don't put cameras within a couple of inches of their face.
LAWRENCE: E.L. Woody says stars who want to be left alone can be. At hundreds of stores and restaurants in Los Angeles. He says they want attention as much as privacy and know how to get it.
WOODY: They know the clubs the paparazzi will be at. The know The Ivy is always a standard for free photographers standing there, waiting to shoot them.
LAWRENCE: And if fame has a price, then so does privacy. No one takes your picture when you're not a star anymore. Chris Lawrence, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, coming up in our next hour, spies who made history and an update on the allegations of spying at the White House today. A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Tiananmen Square, April 1989, it began peacefully. Beijing University students mourning the death of a former government leader that supported the student movement for democracy. But the students' memorial turned into a peoples' protest that lasted nearly six weeks. Wang Dan was one of the student leaders.
WANG DAN, STUDENT PROTESTOR AT TIANANMEN SQUARE: I saw the power of the people in that moment. The really big power of the people. It's the first time in the history of China that people go to the street without an allowance from the government.
ZAHN: The Chinese government imposed marshal law at the end of May, but the protest continued until troops moved in on June 4. It still isn't known how many people were jailed, injured or killed. DAN: Of those people who died, I really feel deep sorrow for them because I was the leader. I led them to go to the square.
ZAHN: Wang Dam was imprisoned twice for his actions and eventually released to exile in the U.S. He's published 17 books and is studying for his Ph.D. at Harvard.
DAN: If I have a chance to go back to China, of course, I still will be involved in political activities or other activities to try to promote human rights and democracy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Spy at the White House; California Wildfire Closes Freeway, Threatens Homes; Rapes Committed in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina; Mysterious Illness in Canada
Aired October 5, 2005 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And good evening, again. I'm Anderson Cooper in New York.
AARON BROWN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And I'm Aaron Brown. And ahead in the second hour of NEWSNIGHT tonight, allegations of spying at the White House. Who's the target? What was compromised? What countries are involved?Also the naughty question of whether terrible crimes -- rapes were committed at the Superdome, the Convention Center and shelters in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.And the Bird Flu. We'll hear from one of the few people who actually got it, became terrible ill and obviously survived to tell about it. All that and more in the hour ahead.Anderson?
COOPER: We begin with the story breaking tonight, the basic description of which involves words that may never have been used in the same sentence before. Spy is one of them, White House are two others. Throw in U.S. Marine and naturalized citizen, and you begin to get some idea of just how strange this business is. CNN Justice Department Correspondent Kelli Arena has more.
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CORRESONDENT: A former U.S. Marine, who's already been arrested for stealing from FBI computers, is now being fingered for allegedly stealing classified information from White House computers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a number of very sensitive sources and methods, interception technologies, human agents; and it's possible that by revealing the information, he actually reveals its source. And once the source is revealed, we can lose the source.
ARENA (voice-over): As first reported by ABC and confirmed by multiple U.S. government sources for CNN, Leandro Aragoncillo allegedly misused his top-secret clearance to download the information, including a dossier on the Philippine president, which he allegedly passed on to her political opposition. Aragoncillo worked at the White House for three years, from 1999 through 2001, in the vice president's office. But it wasn't until he left to work as an analyst for the FBI that he was nabbed.Last month federal prosecutors said Aragoncillo and an accomplice were seeking to reveal classified information to foreign nationals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: While it is disheartening to realize that a man, who was hired to be an analyst in our own organization and who was a former serviceman who swore to uphold the United States Constitution, would conduct these types of activities. The American public should be aware that the FBI's ever vigilant against all threats, whether they emanate from beyond our shores or within our own borders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARENA: In a criminal complaint, Aragoncillo was charged with giving the information to Michael Ray Aquino, a former officer with the Philippines Secret Police, who government sources say is expected to be indicted this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have to tell you that our -- our view on matters like this is that there is to be no compromising the secrets of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARENA: Aragoncillo has not been indicted. CNN is attempting to locate both his and Aquino's lawyer for comment.Officials tell CNN that Aragoncillo has been cooperating with investigators who are trying to determine the scope of his alleged illegal activity. The White House says it's cooperating too, but would not comment on the ongoing investigation and neither would the Justice Department.Anderson?
COOPER: Do you know what that means that he's been cooperating, meaning he's cooperating he's confessed? Or he's simply being --
ARENA: Well, he's cooperating providing information that officials have described to us as useful, Anderson.
BROWN: Kelli, in the scheme of things here, does it look like we're talking about a Jonathan Pollard case -- a case where someone spied for an ally -- in this case, Israel; or an Aldridge Ames case, which did enormous damage to the federal government?
ARENA: You know, Aaron, it's very difficult to say at this time, but some of the security experts that I spoke to said it really does depend on exactly which computers he had access to in the White House. And that makes a big difference because some of those computers are hooked into some really sensitive security systems; and if he had access to those and revealed methods and sources, then you're talking big trouble. BROWN: All right. Kelli Arena, thanks very much.Earlier, I discussed the developing story with Ronald Kessler, a former investigative reporter who went on to become a best-selling author of 15 books, including his latest, titled "The Matter of Character Inside the White House with George W. Bush." Kessler's also written books about the FBI, CIA, and several books about spying. I began by asking him if he's surprised that someone is accused of spying inside the White House.
RONALD KESSLER, AUTHOR: It is such a spectacular thing to have somebody actually spy in the White House, that, you know, I was shocked when I heard about it.
COOPER: Is it easier to spy though in the White House? I mean are -- what are the -- what are the kind of security methods do they go through? Do they do background checks -- obviously they do background checks. Do they do polygraphs?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KESSLER (voice-over): They do background checks, but not polygraphs. And I think this case is going to point in that direction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KESSLER: They do have polygraphs at the FBI now, ever since the Robert Hansen case, even though it had been recommended long before that. And way before that, the CIA started doing regular polygraph tests, and they're important not only to detect spying, and they do detect spying, but they're also important as a deterrent because what spy will want to engage in espionage, knowing that they're going to be polygraphed every six months or every year.
COOPER: What is the rationale that the White House has used that -- to not do polygraphs?
KESSLER: I don't think they've every really thought about it. You know, there's always also been this, of course, concern that somehow if some other agency is involved and in deciding whether people should or should not work there, that that would be political interference, but in fact the FBI does that when they do a background check and it's still up to the White House whether that person will be employed. And during the Clinton White House, a lot of times the FBI turned up drug use, and the Clinton White House just didn't care and waived that. So I don't think that that should be a concern. I think this really does show that there should be regular polygraph tests at the White House because the -- the secrets that you can get in the White House are even more spectacular and possibly damaging to the United States' interest than you can get at the CIA or FBI.
COOPER: And is it easier in some way to get secrets to the White House?
KESSLER: There's certainly less security. They don't have quite as rigorous a system. For example, for checking on whether people are getting documents from computers that they shouldn't be getting -- and that's actually the good news in this case because allegedly this Marine later went to work for the FBI and the FBI is the one who caught him trying to get documents out of FBI computers that he shouldn't have been looking for.
COOPER: So, are -- are more secrets discussed in meetings at the White House? Is that fair to say, than --
KESSLER: No.
COOPER: -- than in a place like the FBI where might be you could get classified documents?
KESSLER: That's right. There'd be all kinds of secret initiatives, diplomacy, plans being discussed at meetings at the White House that could involve a wide-range of countries, for example. So, just -- just incredible what this person might have picked up beyond what he was interested in for the Philippines. But apparently, supposedly, he is cooperating. And therefore he is revealing what he may have picked up and what he may have passed along. And I'm sure he's being polygraphed to determine the veracity of what he's saying. So, I think we're going to find out in the end quite a bit about what he may have done.
COOPER: It's important to point out that this is developing story; and given what happened to Captain James Yee, important not to jump to -- to too many conclusions.
BROWN: No, but I always think it's interesting about the polygraph question. I'm not literally not sure how I feel about it. That somehow people think it's OK to polygraph the cleaning people who come in, but if you suggest polygraphing the secretary of state or the chief of staff --
COOPER: They're shocked.
BROWN: Right, they -- they throw a conniption. Yes, --
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: On to James Yee, in 2003 Captain James Yee made news. He spent 76 days in solitary confinement because the Army said he was a spy. He's a graduate of West Point. He converted to Islam. He was working as a chaplain at Guantanamo Bay and started to complain about the way detainees were being treated.The espionage charges were eventually dropped. Earlier this year, Mr. Yee was given an honorable discharge -- even a medal. But he never got an apology and he never got an explanation. We spoke with him earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: What's it like for an Army captain, a West Point graduate, a child of New Jersey to hear the words that say, you're being charged with spying for -- against your country. You could be sentenced to death. What is that moment like?
JAMES YEE, FORMER GUANTANAMO CHAPLAIN: When those -- when I heard that I was going -- I was being charged with those kind of things and those accusations were being made against me, I actually -- maybe I was being a little naive, but I thought this was all going to be cleared up in a few days and be simply casted as a simple misunderstanding. But, as I -- the longer I stayed in jail, then it started to sink in and that became frightening a little bit.
BROWN: Do you want to scream --(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: What are you people, nuts? I'm not a spy.
YEE: I did want to scream that. But being a chaplain down in Guantanamo and seeing how prisoners are treated, there's not much recourse to -- to object. I was fearful that if I was to object or scream out like that, that that might end up into some kind of violent beating on me, with the excuse that I was a resisting arrest or something like that.
BROWN: Did you -- you -- did you ever worry that you might just disappear, that we would never hear of James Yee again?
YEE: You know, I -- I thought about that. When they transferred me from Jacksonville, Florida, brig in Jacksonville, Florida, down to South Carolina, I was subjected to sensory deprivation, where they actually put goggles, blackened out, on my eyes. I couldn't see anything. They put these heavy industrial earmuffs on my ears. I couldn't hear anything. And I knew about this practice or tactic. It was called sensory deprivation. They use it when they transport detainees from Afghanistan to Guantanamo. At that point is when I started to think I might be -- they might be taking me somewhere where I may disappear, just like you said. That definitely was going through my mind and that was -- that was scary.
BROWN: Do you think your life will ever be the same?
YEE: No, it won't be the same. One, I know what I went through, what I suffered through. Those 76 days in jail, under conditions in to much extent, worse than in down in Guantanamo, has actually made me a stronger person.
BROWN: Do you love your country any less? Do you think of your country any differently?
YEE: Definitely not. Because I know that our country -- the basis for our country are principles, and those principles don't change. Whether people uphold them or not, those principles stay the same. And the country is really the principles of diversity, the religious freedom that I was promoting, equality for all people, justice. Those things aren't going to go away.
BROWN: Nice to meet you. Good luck to you.
YEE: It's a pleasure.
BROWN: Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we were -- we were talking about accountability this afternoon in a different context. But at some point it does seem to me that the Army needs to be accountable here. If there are legitimate reasons why this man was put through this, we ought to know that.
COOPER: Right.BROWN: And if there aren't, they at the very least, ought to apologize.
COOPER: Do we live in a country where no one apologizes anymore? I mean, whether it's this or from Katrina, we've yet to hear a public official stand up and say, you know what? This is the mistake that I made and I am personally sorry about it, rather than, you know, taking blanket blame, but not actually specifying the mistakes they made. You just kind of want people to stand up and say, you know what? I made a mistake. I'm sorry about it.BROWN: Jim Yee would, I know that.His ordeal played out in a moment of time when the country was a little crazy, when you think about it. It was the years after -- the couple of years after 9/11. We talked about sleeper cells and dirty bombs and the possibilities of both, which is to say a moment or terror. Some of it was justified, some of it not. Spies, after all, really do exist. They always have in the country and probably always will.Spies and accusations of spying are as old as the first chapter of American history. Every school child knows Benedict Arnold, and every child and adult fears being called a Benedict Arnold. You don't suppose anyone's ever been called a Julius Rosenberg, but Julius Rosenberg and his wife, Ethel, were the most famous spies of their time, they early days of the Cold War.Convicted of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets, they were executed on the 19th of June 1953. To this day, there is a robust debate about their guilt. In more recent days, there's been Aldridge Ames, the CIA agent. In '94 his job was finding Soviet spies. You can imagine, if not remember, the agency's embarrassment when it turned out he was a Soviet spy.Robert Hansen worked at the FBI and worked for the Russian government, too. For 25 years he sold out his country and sold out 100 American operatives. He serves a life sentence.We don't yet know where this new name fits in, small fish or history changer. We only know that he is there again, the beginning of another chapter in the long book of those who have spied and sold out their country.
COOPER: And, of course, the question is why this time if in fact that is what he has done.Here's a look at some of the stories happening "Cross-Country," right now. A mystery virus has killed at least 16 in Canada, sent dozens more to the hospital. Hardest hit, a nursing home in Toronto. Scientists know the killer bug is not Bird Flu, but they do not know what it is -- not yet, at least. Much more on this in a moment.Tropical Storm Tammy spun up out of nowhere this morning. It is already pelting the coast of Florida. Tammy's only packing winds around 50 miles an hour, but it's expected to dump three to five inches of rain in Georgia. Some parts of George, frankly, could use the rain.Still reeling from two hurricanes, the state of Louisiana has run up a one-billion dollar deficit. Spokeswoman for Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, says the state is running out of money to pay policemen, firefighters and emergency workers. We'll talk to a police officer in New Orleans in a moment.And finally, failing a stability test in Lake George, a sister boat to the Ethan Allen, which capsized over this weekend, killing 20 elderly passengers, has failed a stability test. The test used 25- gallon drums, instead of people. The test was stopped early for safety reasons, as the boat became unstable.Coming up tonight, trouble just keeps on coming for New Orleans. Now it is money problems. More on what this could mean for the city's police. We'll talk to the new superintendent.And a report from Asia. Ground Zero for Bird Flu and the girl who was infected, but survived.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: The New Orleans water worries may be nearly over -- at least we all hope they are. But the city's money troubles are just beginning. Finances also are drying up. That is the bad news. I spoke earlier this evening with the New Orleans Acting Superintendent of Police Warren Riley. Now he wanted to address some allegations made about his past record on the force. I started by asking Superintendent Riley if his officers' jobs may now be in jeopardy because of the city's money problems.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARREN RILEY, ACTING SUPERINTENDENT: No, not at this time. I mean, we have no indication that we will be laid off; 3,000 city workers were in fact laid off, but at no point has the mayor mentioned that law enforcement or any public safety officials will be laid off.
COOPER: What about the 249 officers who disappeared during Katrina -- have any investigations begun? Have you, you know, they were talking about tribunals, where each would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Have you started that process? And has anyone been disciplined or what's going on?
RILEY: We started the process. No one's been disciplined at this point. Some officers will be terminated who were not here. But some officers left after the storm with legitimate reasons. And then we have officers who were actually stranded on rooftops and attics who showed up three or four days after being rescued. So, that 249 is a list that is compiled of all officers who were not here or who left after the storm.
COOPER: What do you say --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: What do you say to the officers? Because I mean, I talked to a lot of them, you know, behind the scenes, and they say, look, I don't want to accept these guys back. I mean, they -- you know, the officers who stayed on their job -- and the vast majority of them -- I mean, they were doing that in impossible circumstances, they had a million reasons why they should have left their post, but they didn't. What do you say to the officers who say, look, why should we take these guys back?
RILEY: Well, I think that we've already sent that message to those officers. We're determining who in fact, as it was stated, is a deserter. Some people were absent without leave. Those who where it is determined that they in fact deserted their post, they will have serious consequences.
COOPER: Let me ask you, you've entered now the realm of -- the public realm in a new way with your new position, and with it comes scrutiny and I know you wanted to address some of the things that are floating out there tonight, and we appreciate that. So I wanted to ask you, there had been a lot of talk about suspensions, that you have been suspended at times in your -- in your past on the police force -- how many times have you been suspended from the police force?
RILEY: Yes, I've actually -- there are -- there are some things that need to be cleared up. I have in fact been suspended five times in my career. Now, three of those were for a traffic accident. And we have a policy that if you're involved in a traffic accident, that you're suspended. So, I was in fact suspended three times, minor accidents, no one was ever injured. One time as a rookie police officer I was suspended for not appearing in court -- in municipal court. It was an oversight on my part. And then once for neglect, where it was stated that I was -- I did not write a report on a domestic violence issue back in 1994- 1995. This was a mix-up and it was a procedure that was not in place that I was judged by. So, those are the three things --
COOPER: Well, let me ask you about -- let me ask you about that in particular, because that's the one that's gotten a lot of attention. When you ran for Orleans Parish Sheriff, questions were raised about your behavior. A woman named Sharon Robinson came to you, asking for help. She said her boyfriend, a New Orleans police officer, was abusing her, it was domestic violence. Several months later she wound up dead. The case is still unsolved. Her family says basically you should have done more. You should have filed a report. Do you feel you did your due diligence?
RILEY: Yes, I did in fact do my due diligence. I am the person who actually brought that -- at the time of her death, brought it to our public integrity bureau because I was in public integrity. I was promoted to lieutenant. I think -- I guess maybe three months later, this young lady's body was found in a lake. I notified PIB. The person who she accused of doing that was never ever charged with this crime. He actually received $250,000 in a lawsuit because his name was slandered. I was never investigated for that by the FBI or anyone else and never had a part of it -- a part -- anything to do with it. I did my job appropriately at the time. I was in fact reprimanded for it, but that was basically Superintendent Pennington, who was the chief at the time, basically stated in civil service that it was a mistake.
COOPER: Were you suspended for that, though, for three days?
RILEY: I was for three days, yes.
COOPER: OK, your critics say basically -- and now, you've heard this before and I want to give you the opportunity to address it. They say, look, your department has looting investigations ongoing, desertion investigations, and they ask, given your track record, are you the man to lead this department?
RILEY: Well, I -- there's no one on the job that's more qualified. I've been on for 24 years. I'm not a perfect human being. If you look at my record, I have a master's degree, a bachelor's degree, I've been on 26 years, I've worked in every bureau that this department has and I've been in charge of two of those bureaus, so there's no one that's more qualified. And I admit it, in 24-25 years, have I been perfect? Absolutely not. But I have been a dedicated professional with integrity, yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And he has a very difficult job ahead of him, Superintendent Warren Riley.
(INTERRUPTED BY CNN COVERAGE OF BREAKING NEWS)
COOPER: I have some breaking news to report. I want to show you this video. It is a California -- the latest wildfire -- we've just gotten information about is threatening about 100 homes. It's closed a freeway out in Calimesa, California. According to the Associated Press, the fire has burned at least 1,000 acres of brush east of Los Angeles. It burned to the edge of the 60 freeway. According to a fire department official, quoted by the Associated Press, motorists were actually passing within yards of the flames before authorities closed ten-mile stretch of the road.Airplanes have dropped fire retardant on this area, but as you see only about five percent contained that we are being told at this hour. This fire, out in Riverside County in California. I will continue to watch this, and bring you any updates as warranted.Still to come tonight on NEWSNIGHT, what exactly happened in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina? We've been asking this question -- and in the Convention Center, as well. We've been asking this question now for a month. Still trying to investigate, trying to find out answers, put together the piece in the puzzle. We heard stories of violence and rapes, but were they just rumors? Some new information on rapes. We separate fact from fiction, tonight.And, the Bird Flu. What exactly is it and why are scientists so concerned it could become a pandemic? NEWSNIGHT continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Two places still in the eye of the storm in New Orleans. At first, the Convention Center and the Superdome promised shelter from the storm, literally. They quickly became the center of the storm, the storm of criticism. Not simply symbols of everything that went wrong, but examples of what went wrong, including a flood of rumors that sometimes seemed to be news, reports of rapes. So were they just rumors or were they facts? CNN's Drew Griffin reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They were caught between the storm and chaos, trapped in a city being shrunk by flood waters. The people of New Orleans fled to the only shelters they knew were still dry, and they came by the thousands. All kinds of reports came out of the Convention Center and Superdome, some of rapes, fueled by a police chief who didn't know.
NEW ORLEANS POLICE CHIEF EDDIE COMPASS:
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) babies getting raped.
GRIFFIN: And days later, denials from rank and file, who say nobody was raped.
DAVE BENELLI, LIEUTENANT: I'm the commander of the sex crimes unit. My unit handles all rapes. We had two reported attempted rapes.
GRIFFIN: Attempted?
BENELLI: Attempted rapes. And they were handled, and the individuals were arrested.
GRIFFIN: Now CNN is learning the truth, maybe much more disturbing and painful.
WANDA PEZANT, SEXUAL ASSAULT NURSE EXAMINER: Do I think that people were raped after and during Hurricane Katrina? Absolutely. Have I treated victims from New Orleans that were raped either during or in the immediate 48 aftermath of Katrina? Yes.
GRIFFIN: Wanda Pezant says over the last weeks she has counted them; 18 victims. One as young as 13, have now come forward to this sexual assault nurse examiner, to say in the confusion of Katrina, they were raped. Caught in dark corners in the Superdome, in shelters across Louisiana; victims and predators, she says, were suddenly trapped in the same mess and the predators saw opportunity.
PEZANT: When predators are loose in the environment, unsupervised and unchecked by law enforcement, victimization happens.
GRIFFIN: The question for Judy Benitez is how much really did happen. Benitez runs Louisiana's Foundation against Sexual Assault. Since the hurricane first struck, she says her 15 crisis centers across the state have been getting calls from rape victims and those who witnessed rapes and either never went to the police or there were no police to go to.
JUDY BENITEZ: Some people have taken the view that because something wasn't reported to the police, that it didn't happen. And that's not really an accurate way to look at things when you're talking about sexual assault. There are a lot of reasons, under normal circumstances, why victims don't report sexual assaults to the police; or they may report them a couple of weeks later.GRIFFIN: The truth is, says rape counselors, after the hurricane, when people lost jobs, homes and lives, reporting a rape became a lower priority than finding food and shelter.
BENITEZ: It's just one trauma and one tragedy inside another tragedy. I think it's going to be awhile before we get anything that resembles true numbers.
GRIFFIN: Benitez is setting up a statewide reporting system, in hopes of a more accurate count of post-Katrina sexual assaults.(on camera): But no matter what the count, there will be no way to make those who committed sexual assaults pay. Here, at the Superdome and across Louisiana, predators may have simply gotten away with it. Too many days have passed. Any evidence to be collected would be unusable. What do you say to those people?
BENITEZ: I tell them that I'm their nurse and that we're going to take care of them, and we have. And that I can meet their medical need; I can't meet their legal need.
GRIFFIN: It has been more than a month since Katrina hit. Rape victims are now finding new homes, reuniting with their families. And finally having the courage to deal with what happened to them during the hurricane.The latest woman to report came forward just this week.Drew Griffin, CNN, New Orleans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AARON BROWN, HOST: Still to come on this edition of NEWSNIGHT, a killer virus baffles public health experts and worries the people of Toronto and beyond.And better known and much more feared, the bird flu could kill millions. Can anything be done to stop it? We'll take a break. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Welcome back. Talked through the resets (ph) and the stories we are following right now.Some breaking news out of northern Riverside County in California to tell you about. A new fast-moving wildfire scorching at least 1,000 acres of brush. It is threatening about 100 homes right now and is burning to the edge of the freeway.This is a live picture that you see - that fire line - it is moving fast.At one point actually it had come close to the highway, Highway 60. Motorists actually getting very close indeed to it until they - authorities shut down that part of the highway.We'll continue to watch this, though, throughout the hour and bring you any updates.At the White House a former Marine now accused of stealing classified information and passing it on to a former officer in the Philippines secret police. The man at the center of it worked at the White House from 1999 until 2001. He's reportedly now cooperating with investigators.And a billion dollars, that is how far into the red Katrina and Rita have driven the state of Louisiana. A spokeswoman for the governor says the state is running out of money to pay policemen, firefighters, and emergency workers.And you've heard of pop-up thunderstorms - Tammy is like that. The tropical storm seemed to come out of nowhere. It is now soaking the East Coast of Florida. Tammy is only packing winds around 50 miles an hour, but it is expected to dump three to five inches of rain on parts of Florida and Georgia as it moves inland.
BROWN: I've had enough storms for one year.
COOPER: When I heard that I was like I just cannot deal with any more.
BROWN: No, that's enough. Enough already.
COOPER: Yeah.
BROWN: We'll go on to the flu and we'll probably get to that point with the flu, too. It's that time of year again for flu shots. The fears of the new epidemic.The scare this year is the bird flu, which is a real concern, and it may be a close relative of the flu epidemic, pandemic, that killed up to 100 million people in 1918, and we'll get to that in a moment.But first, a mystery virus has already killed - it's killed 16 people at a nursing home in Toronto. So far the scientists there say they only know what it's not.That it's not the bird flu, it's not SARS. So what is it?Here's CNN's Keith Oppenheim.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN (voice over): The Seven Oaks Home for the Aged in suburban Toronto is under attack. The culprit: a virus that still has not been identified.It was just a week and a half ago some of the most vulnerable patients at Seven Oaks began to get very ill.
DR. DAVID MCKEOWN, TORONTO DEPT. OF PUBLIC HEALTH: This outbreak has resulted today in six additional deaths among ill residents.
OPPENHEIM: Toronto public health officials now report the death toll has risen to 16 residents of the nursing home. All had previous medical conditions, most were in their 80s and 90s.In addition, 72 other people have been infected by the virus. Some are staff at Seven Oaks, some visitors.One woman whose husband is a resident worried about the unknown.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're doing their best, let's put it that way, to get it under control, but what it really is I don't know.OPPENHEIM: Three different labs in Canada are trying to identify the virus, but it turns out in more than half of outbreaks like this, health officials in Ontario are unable to isolate the source of the disease.
DR. BARBARA YAFFE, ASSOC. MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH: A significant percentage of cases - of outbreaks - just never will find the organism, but we're looking for everything we can think of.
OPPENHEIM: Thirty-eight people exposed to the virus have been taken to Toronto hospitals. Officials here say the health of some patients is deteriorating, but most are getting better.A 9-year-old boy wondered what will happen to his grandfather.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope the hospital's safer and that he can be healthy and not die.
OPPENHEIM: In the meantime, the nursing home has been closed to new patients and is for the most part keeping its doors shut.
AL DOBBINS, SEVEN OAKS RESIDENT: To me, it's been cooped up, you know, I mean I'm so - I'm so used to the outside, you know? And all of a sudden, bang.
OPPENHEIM: As dire as all this may seem, health experts here say this is all an extreme example of a common occurrence. Across Canada, and the U.S., viral outbreaks routinely kill elderly and sick patients with weakened immune systems.
MCKEOWN: It's within the range of our experience in Ontario, but it's definitely at the severe end.
OPPENHEIM: With no new cases reported in the last 24 hours, health experts here believe the mysterious outbreak is being contained. They say it poses no danger to the general public.But for the people who have relatives at Seven Oaks, it may be some time before they can feel that the threat of contagious illness is behind them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OPPENHEIM (on camera): Joining you live now in Toronto and Aaron keep in mind it was two years ago that the SARS outbreaks, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, came to Toronto, and that led to 44 deaths here.The difference between what happened with the SARS outbreak a couple of years ago and this incident is that SARS went from hospital to hospital, generally affecting health care workers.In this case, you have one long-care facility, just a single place that has been affected, so its very different, very contained.But having said that, with just one facility effected, it's the worst of its kind in terms of just one place getting a hit like this now with a total of 16 deaths. And there's still a possibility there could be more.Back to you.BROWN: Keith, thank you. Keith Oppenheim. We talked with a doctor up in Toronto earlier and he said he felt very confident that they had contained it, that it wouldn't spread beyond.But viruses do spread.
COOPER: Yeah. And mutate, which of course is the greatest concern. The mystery of the bird flu isn't exactly what it is, but rather what it's going to become.Scientists fear that this horrible disease, which actually drowns its victims in their own fluids if you can imagine that, may actually mutate into a form that can pass easily between humans.Right now it can pass between species, but not necessarily so easily between humans.Possibly if that happens it would be transformed into a pandemic that could kill millions of people and travel to our shores very quickly. The bird flu kills right now about half of those who are infected within seven to ten days.And that means there are a number of people who have actually gone through all the symptoms of the disease and lived to tell about it.CNN's senior Asia correspondent Mike Chinoy met up with one survivor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE CHINOY, SENIOR ASIA CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hyung An (ph) returns to the hospital where she almost died last year. She's greeted by the doctor who saved her life.It's a routine visit now, but with Hyung An, nothing is really routine. She's one of only six people in Vietnam known to have caught the avian influenza virus and survived.I had a little pet duck, she tells me. It died. I buried it, but had to dig it up and bury it some place else. The next day, I got sick. Three days after that, with a raging fever, Hyung An was moved to the hospital for tropical diseases in Ho Chi Minh City where the bird flu diagnosis was confirmed.It was so hard to breathe, she says, my chest hurt so much. I thought I was going to die.She'd never been that sick before, says Hyung An's mother, Tang Chao (ph). When we heard it was avian flu, we didn't think she'd survive. We started making plans for her funeral.Dr. Chan Zin Yen (ph) shows me Hyung An's x-rays from the most critical days. Her lungs, almost completely blocked from the fast- acting infection.Dr. Yen suspects Hyung An survived because she was diagnosed early and got anti-viral drugs fast.Today he says she's okay. Hyung An's mother worries though because her daughter still tires easily, doesn't eat much, and isn't doing well at school.Even so, the family knows Hyung An had a narrow escape.It was so frightening, says Tang Chao. When she recovered we thought we were the luckiest people ever.Today Hyung An is just like any other 10-year-old girl, but she says she's never going to have a pet duck again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHINOY (on camera): Now Anderson, the key to Hyung An's survival, the doctor's told me when I was in Vietnam, was early diagnosis and quick treatment with anti-viral drugs. In fact, health experts say that the modeling they've done says that essentially within 21 days of a cluster that indicates human-to- human transmission, that's the critical time for getting everybody in that area treated with anti-viral medications.And that raises a very big problem in this part of the world in backward, developing countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, where surveillance is really a problem.And there is a lot of concern that in those remote villages, if you have these outbreaks that there won't be the time to get all the data, and experts say that if that's the case, without the surveillance, you can just throw all those anti-viral drugs into the sea, there won't be enough time for them to be effective at all.
COOPER: I was talking to Barack Obama earlier tonight - Mike, thanks for that - Aaron, and he was saying one of the keys is for the U.S. to start monitoring better what is happening in Vietnam and these places like that so that we get at least an early warning system a little bit on that. We've got these fire pictures just that we have been following out of California. This in Riverside County in Calimesa, California.
BROWN: This is just east of Los Angeles, it's fire season - we went through this last weekend in the San Fernando Valley - in the western part of the valley in Chatsworth, in the Burbank area.And now this is east of the valley. We don't know the degree to which homes may be threatened. It's a big, wide area, out there in Southern California, and it gets hit like this and they say about five percent contained, and just to our eye and no more than that, it's gotten a little bit worse in the last 40 minutes or say.
COOPER: Yeah, it seems to be spreading. The Associated Press - about 100 homes are threatened right now. At least 1,000 acres of brush has burned, and it's getting very close to a highway.Earlier it was close to the 60 Freeway; I'm not sure if that's the freeway it's close to right now.But they've closed off, obviously, that portion of the highway.
BROWN: So we keep an eye on it. And while we do, still to come tonight, we go back to the flu. Is the United States ready to deal with it? We'll talk with one U.S. senator who's concerned about what hasn't been done so far.And we told you a lot tonight about the bird flu. How could it become the world's next pandemic? We'll have more when we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: We told you a lot tonight about the bird flu, how it could become the world's next pandemic, perhaps killing millions.Now on top of all that, here in the U.S. the federal government doesn't have enough vaccines to treat such an outbreak.Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has been urging the Bush administration to do more to prepare for and respond to the bird flu. I spoke with him earlier tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Senator Obama, if avian flu hit our shores today, are we ready for it?
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D) ILLINOIS: We are not ready for it. You know, if you look at the last pandemic we had on U.S. soil, that was the Spanish flu that took place in 1918, 1919; you had literally millions of deaths.And unfortunately this is one of these situations where if you had a flu that mutated, that was brand new, had human-to-human transmission, you could see a million deaths; you could see ten million people hospitalized.We don't have the infrastructure or the capacity to deal with that.
COOPER: You know, there's some people, though, who are going to hear this and say look, this is just like cable news hype, you know, remember the killer bees? When I was a kid everyone was worried about killer bees coming to our shores and we weren't prepared for it.Why do you think this is real, this is different?
OBAMA: We know that every several decades, you get these kinds of pandemics that sweep through the populations. We don't know that this particular bird flu will show up next year and we won't be ready, but we know that some time in the next decade or two there is going to be a pandemic and we've got to put the infrastructure now to be prepared for it.
COOPER: And what we know about this bird flu, which is ominous enough, is number one there is a new strain, number two it jumps from - between species.The only thing yet we don't have evidence of is, is it easily transmissible from human to human. But if that happens, that's really the final step.
OBAMA: There are a couple of things that we've got to do. Number one, we've got to have good surveillance mechanisms set up not just in this country but internationally, and I already allocated about $35 million to start cooperating with other countries on that process.Number two; we've got to have a stockpile of anti-viral drugs that cut down the fatalities so that even if you contract the disease you don't die from it.Other countries like Great Britain have 25 to 40 percent of their population covered with their stockpiles. Right now we only have enough stockpiles for about 2 percent of our population, so we've got to ramp that up.And then we've got to put together an infrastructure to develop the kinds of vaccines and figure out how do we actually distribute those in local areas.
COOPER: To create a vaccine you have to have an actual sample of the mutation. You're not going to have a sample of the mutation until this thing actually hits, and then when it does hit, it's going to take at least four to six months, say authorities, to actually develop enough of vaccine to get to people.So if this thing suddenly develops, I mean, there's very little to stop it from coming here.
OBAMA: Well, here's what's already happened. The NIH/CDC, they've been working on a vaccine based on projections of how the current avian flu might mutate. And the problem is, is that although it appears that it might be effective in providing some protection, you need much higher doses and we don't have the production capacity for the vaccine that's currently being developed.We can probably produce about 450,000 of these vaccines. We know that there is going to be some sort of pandemic in our life times. We don't know whether this will be the big one.And I hope the people realize that if we have a sense of urgency about this, and this particular bird flu doesn't end up being a pandemic our money is not wasted. We've got to set up the kinds of infrastructure that's required regardless of what happens with this particular strain of flu in order that we're prepared when an actual pandemic hits.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Senator Barack Obama earlier tonight."Morning Papers" are next. Stay with us. And later, we might have actually figured out what this is. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Christopher Broaches (ph) and I am a perfumer.We're going to do a blend that you think you're comfortable with.The name of the gallery is "CB I Hate Perfume."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I noticed that your eye starts to water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Perfume is not necessarily all about what might be considered pretty. Scent is really about life.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like I can smell the scent; then you get the chocolate (ph) covering, too, or something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have 400 accords (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Umm, God, that smells really good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Accords are essentially the words that compose the story of a fragrance.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It really - it really does smell like what it is if you don't look it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The unnatural collection is probably one of the more oddball. Because it does have things like "doll head."Soccer ball, ink - there's a gun smoke smell. Rubber cement. Skunk is something that I'm very fond of, which may seem insane to a lot of people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My God, that's smell exactly like what it says.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a brilliant roast beef. It smells exactly like Sunday lunch.The accords range from $25 for 15 milliliters to about $280. The custom fragrances basically start at $200 and can range up to $5,000.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You want to know
(UNINTELLIGIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People will come in here and they'll be smelling through the accords and they'll pick something up and go "oohh" and then immediately look embarrassed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) fortunately.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not offended by that. No one can tell you that you're wrong if you don't like the way something smells.That's really one reason that I choose to do the kind of work that I do in the way that I do it. Because scent is ultimately I think such a unique experience for everyone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: OK, time to check "Morning Papers" from around the country and around the world.First I just want to say I'm a little miffed I didn't get the memo that it was no tie Wednesday.The "Daily News" leads with this important news story: "Cruise Your Daddy" - Tom and Katie are expecting. At first I thought this was Kate Moss.But she's the one that does cocaine, right? And this is Katie Holmes, who has been - who is happier than I've ever been in my life all the time. Any way, they're going to be a couple. Well, they are a couple - they're going to be parents.The "Washington Post" leads more stately. This is a great story. Senate Supports Interrogation Limits by a 90 to 9 Vote. This is - limits how detainees are treated at Guantanamo and elsewhere. Ninety to nine. They're going to get that on the highway bill.Conservatives Confront Bush Aide. This is over Harriet Miers. Ed Gillespie in defending the president told this group of Republicans this has a whiff of sexism and a whiff of elitism. Since the Democrats won't fight for any of this, the only thing we can get out of politics these days is Republicans fighting among themselves.Wings soar the lead in "The Detroit News." Didn't we miss it for a year? But it's back.If you're in Chicago tomorrow or just care a lot, the "Chicago Sun-Times" says the weather will be perky.When we come back we'll revisit the parable of the python and the alligator. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: All right, this is the scene from Riverside, California east of Los Angeles tonight.Fire burning - 100 or so homes threatened by it, about 5 percent contained. This is the season for that, and unless the weather cooperates, we're going to see a lot of pictures like this over the next month or so. They need the marine layer (ph) to come in from the ocean to make the weather more humid and put the fires out.
COOPER: Hard to tell if it's getting worse or not. It sort of looks that way by the pictures, but of course these could just be tighter shots that we're getting. Hard to get a sense of sort of the overall scope, but we do know about 100 homes said to be threatened right now.Earlier tonight we did a story on a python that ate the alligator, or tried to, at least, and I asked a simple question: I thought how does a python eat an alligator exactly?Never expected our clever writers to look it up. Turns out alligators and pythons are fighting for the same patch of the Everglades. They are, if you will, the reptile equivalent of the Hatfield's and the McCoy's, or the Lindsey Lohans and the paparazzi.Ever see a Hatfield try to swallow a McCoy? This is what it looks like.You didn't get the memo about no tie Wednesday?
BROWN: I didn't.
COOPER: It's no shoe Thursday, so get ready.
BROWN: They'll never know. Good to have you with us tonight, we'll see you tomorrow.
COOPER: Good night.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
