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CNN NEWSROOM

Airports Ramp Up Ebola Screenings; Mother Pleads for Hostage's Life

Aired October 9, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Continue on, hour two. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin, top of the hour.

The list of airports adding extra Ebola screenings, it's growing as I speak. All of this comes as the death of the Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan sparks more fears about transition of this virus.

In the United States, these are the five of the biggest airports. Right? So, you have Newark, Chicago, O'Hare specifically, Dulles, JFK, and Atlanta. They will begin conducting temperature screenings for people traveling from the affected regions of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.

And, today, the U.K. said it will start enhanced screening at its main ports of entry. You have Heathrow and Gatwick airports and the Eurostar railway terminals.

Here with more on airport screenings are CNN International correspondent Jim Boulden in London and CNN aviation and government regulation correspondent Rene Marsh at Dulles International near D.C.

But, so, Jim, just beginning with you, U.K., as we were saying, going that extra mile using medical personnel in the passenger screenings. Explain that.

JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, exactly.

What they have decided to do is not have the normal people who check your passport when you arrive at the airport here at Heathrow Airport or at Gatwick or in the Eurostar terminal. They decided to have medical personnel to also do the screening. So, they are talking about doing a history. Where have you been? How do you feel?

And they want to know where you're going to go to. They want to be able to track these people, because we know that Ebola doesn't necessarily present right away. It could take days and days and days and days. So, some people might come here feeling OK, but may feel worse later. They want to be able to track you.

And if they feel that there is somebody that has a medical condition, then they want to be able to assess you right away -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Hearing those flights, but I'm hearing you, Jim.

Rene, to you at Dulles. How does what they are doing in the U.K. compare to what the U.S. is doing?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know, Brooke, here, as also at four other major airports, the situation is going to be that customs officers will be on the front lines.

They will be the ones taking the temperatures. They will be the ones observing passengers flying from these three countries to see if by some chance they observe any symptoms. At that point, if a customs officer notices something, that's when CDC, a medical professional, will step in and escort that person to a quarantine unit.

So, it sounds like there in the U.K. the medical professionals will be on the front lines. We do know here the first line of defense is going to be the custom officers -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. Rene Marsh, Jim Boulden, thank you so much.

As we talk about Ebola, which we have been doing, by the way, for months and months, what does it really look like? Let me show you. Let me show you this rare look at the front lines of this fight against this virus. Through a -- this head-mounted camera, right, you will see these doctors and these nurses showing CNN this heart- wrenching battle to keep these Ebola patients alive.

These patients you're about to see, they are in this high-risk zone at one of Liberia's state-run Ebola centers. Liberia has been hit the worst with cases of Ebola. More than 2,000 have died.

And CNN's Nima Elbagir had access into this Ebola ward, and here's what she saw.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Blood splattered and limp, too weak to hold up his head.

A nurse struggles under the weight of a desperately ill patient.

The nurse agreeing to wear a camera to give us a glimpse of the bleak reality he witnesses daily here at this government-run treatment center.

Today, the nurse managed to get this patient to drink water.

It's a small victory.

For the last two months Dr. Soka Moses and his team have worn their protective suits in unbearable heat, walking the high-risk wards to tend to the patients in their care.

DR. SOKA MOSES, JFK EBOLA TREATMENT UNIT: Life is rough, and then you die what else can we do? If we don't do it, who will do it for us? We have to take the risk and cater to the patients, or else our country will be wiped away.

Working here is highly dangerous. We have so many patients in agony, patients are crying in pain. Some patients are dying unconscious. Some patients need help. Some patients cannot move any longer and you see some patients, you cannot do anything for them. They're dying and all you do is you watch them die. Sometimes you pray for them and do the little you're doing and hope something miraculous happens.

ELBAGIR: Dr. Moses got one day's training before going into these wards and says that's typical here in a health care system struggling to cope. You do what you need to here to survive.

The nurse forgets the camera for a moment and begins to hum a hymn to himself, a comfort amidst the grimness.

An ambulance has arrived, bringing more patients. It begins again.

There is no room so the stretcher goes on the floor for now, next to a mattress where another critical patient lies. Here, there are two patients for every bed, more patients. It is unimaginably unrelenting.

But there are the success stories, and that's what sustains the staff.

Around the back of the Ebola ward, patients spot the camera and begin to wave. They are recovering, maybe even going home soon. But for the staff, there is no end in sight.

(on camera): What happens when you go home at the end of the day?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I get prepared for another day.

ELBAGIR (voice-over): And another day and another day, until their prayers are finally answered.

Nima Elbagir, CNN, Monrovia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Nima, thank you so much.

Coming up next, an American mother doing anything she can to save her son's life. ISIS is holding him hostage and threatening to kill him next. She took to social media and sent a tweet meant right here for the leader of ISIS -- what she tweeted and how this attempt at direct contact might help save her son.

Plus, there is now word a passenger from Malaysian Air Flight 17 was found wearing an oxygen mask. But that's not the entire story.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: When it comes to taking out ISIS, there is something many can agree. Ground troops are necessary, but whose troops? The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee says it is going to take American boots to defeat ISIS.

I want you to hear what Congressman Buck McKeon said on CNN's "ERIN BURNETT."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HOWARD "BUCK" MCKEON (R), CALIFORNIA: Two months into this air attack, it's obviously not working. This strategy is not working. ISIL continues to get stronger on a day-by-day basis. Kobani is about to fall. That's right on the border with Turkey.

Turkey is a member of NATO. This could draw into a much, much bigger war. The longer we wait, the harder it's going to get. Our military commanders, chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dempsey, Chairman of the Army General Odierno, General Austin, the area commander, have all laid out scenarios where we need more troops. If we don't put boots on the ground, we can't form the coalition and we can't retake ground that needs to be taken and held.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Right now, we have been covering the city right on Turkish Syrian border, Kobani. I can tell you that ISIS fighters are inside. They control at least a third of the city that straddles that border.

But Turkey's foreign minister says that it was not -- quote -- "realistic" to expect his country to conduct a military ground operation on its own.

So, let me bring in Jim Sciutto. He's our chief national security correspondent.

And, Jim Sciutto, we know the man heading the U.S.-led fight against ISIS, retired General John Allen, he's meeting with members of this fight, including the Arab League secretary-general. What are they discussing? You and I talked about how the president was at the Pentagon this time yesterday.

Is it drastic changes in strategy? Getting additional support? What's going on?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: No drastic changes in strategy. The Pentagon, the administration appears happy with how things are going and they say it's meeting the goals as defined.

I think there's been some, if not redefinition of those goals, clarification of what those goals are, one of them being that the U.S. is not in the business and coalition not in the business of protecting towns like Kobani, warning that Kobani and other cities in Syria may fall. If they do, U.S. officials telling me that's frankly not part of the war plan, that it's more about putting pressure on ISIS from the air, that that is not what they're trying to accomplish there.

Different story in Iraq. But I think the key now to this trip to the Middle East for someone like Allen and you also have Brett McGurk, the president's point man on Iraq talking to the Turks, et cetera, is trying to figure out how you can get Turkey involved. It's a NATO ally, as Buck McKeon mentioned, and at this point still disagreement between the U.S. and Turkey and others about what Turkey can and will be able to do.

BALDWIN: So then there's the other part of this story which we discussed, which is how ISIS is trying to recruit Westerners, right, to radicalize themselves and come join the fight. We showed this picture of this masked ISIS militant. FBI wants the public's help in identifying them, hoping someone will recognize him. Here he is again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're here in the 17th Division military base just outside the city of al-Raqqa. And we're here with the soldiers of Bashar. You can see them now digging their own graves in the very place where they were stationed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Jim, the FBI says they have gotten a lot of tips. What do we know beyond that?

SCIUTTO: Hundreds of tips, we're told. It's not entirely unprecedented for the FBI to go out to the public. They did it with the Boston bomber.

But I think the fact that they are doing this now shows how seriously they are tracking Westerners who are involved in ISIS. This is a real concern. They have been trying to identify him for a number of weeks since that video first aired. They have not been able to. Now they are going out to the public. It shows that seriousness and it shows the difficulty of tracking these folks down, but it also shows that really they are dedicating a lot of resources to this, because as you and I have talked about many times, Brooke, a real worry is, what do these fighters do if they attempt to return home?

That's a real concern of intelligence officials.

BALDWIN: Jim Sciutto, thank you very much.

And as far as ISIS is concerned, their M.O. seems to be behead one hostage and show the next. And knowing her son is likely the next here, this Indiana mother has resorted to tweeting his captors directly. Let me show you her tweet.

She writes: "I'm trying to get in touch with the Islamic State about my son's fate. I'm an old woman and Abdul-Rahman, formerly known as Peter Kassig, is my only child. My husband and I are on our own with no help from the government. We would like to talk to you. How can we reach you?"

All of this playing out over social media.

Let me bring in Robi Ludwig. She's a psychotherapist and author of "'Till Death Do Us Part."

Welcome. Nice to have you on.

Just reading the succession of tweets, talking about being an older mother, government not helping, she's desperate. Can you blame her?

ROBI LUDWIG, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Yes. You can hear her desperation.

This is her only child. As a mother, you want to do whatever you can to protect your child. And I'm sure she's having so many mixed emotions right now, feeling hopeless that anything she does will have any positive impact, hopeful that perhaps this plea might help.

I'm sure she feels like time has stopped for her and is in a state of disbelief because this is almost like a movie. It's beyond what is normal and beyond what is a part of most people's reality. So, it's traumatic for her.

BALDWIN: It is not surreal. Sadly, it's real. And I'm also wondering, just for a mother back here seeming so disconnected seeing what has happened to these other men in these videos and now realizing this could become her son's fate.

LUDWIG: Right.

Well, at least she can tell herself she's done everything she can do to try to protect her son. So, that is the good side, and also that this is not her fault. You know, she raised a son who felt passionate about his work and he just landed in a place that was very, very dangerous. There's nothing she could do to protect him really.

But the problem here is just like families who have people who have been murdered, they imagine the final moments of their child's life. It goes through their mind and that's what makes the grieving process so painful. She's not there yet, but I'm sure those scenarios are playing out in her mind.

BALDWIN: Horrendous. Absolutely horrendous. Robi, thank you so much, Robi Ludwig.

LUDWIG: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up, the man who headed the Marine Corps has some pretty strong words about President Obama's strategy against ISIS and he apparently recently said -- quote -- "It doesn't have a snowball chance in hell of succeeding." He will join me live on set to explain what he thinks the president should do.

Plus, a major announcement about Malaysian Air Flight 17. That was the plane that was shot out over Ukraine. There is word one of the passengers on board was actually found wearing an oxygen mask. What does that mean? We will talk to an aviation expert coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The Dutch foreign minister has made a startling revelation about one passenger on board that Malaysian Air Flight 17 plane that crashed in Ukraine. I want you to hear what he said last night on a Dutch talk show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FRANS TIMMERMANS, DUTCH FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): No, they did not see the missile coming, but you know that someone was found with an oxygen mask over his mouth? So he had time to do that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: You heard him. Just to reiterate, he said one victim found wearing an oxygen mask. Dutch prosecutors have confirmed what he revealed and that would mean it's possible that at least one passenger had the time and the wherewithal to react to a loss of cabin pressure with those oxygen masks dropping down.

It's believed this plane was hit by a missile launched from this area controlled by pro-Russian separatists. It's also been thought that all 298 people on board died instantly. So this changes that. The talk show host was pressing that fact with the Dutch foreign minister who in July got a lot of heat for this comment he made before the U.N. Security Council.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIMMERMANS (through translator): How horrible it must have been the final moments of their lives, when they knew the plane was going down? Did they lock hands with their loved ones? Did they hold their children close to their hearts? Did they look each other in the eyes one final time in a wordless goodbye?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: David Soucie, our CNN safety aviation analyst, to talk about this.

When you heard that this man was found wearing this oxygen mask, what did you think?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, when I just learned that and I did learn it just Wednesday, I hadn't heard this before either, and I have been scouring the reports -- it's not been reporting to the family or anyone else until he decided to state that.

But what it does state to me is that unless it had been tampered with on the scene, which I don't think that that's a very good probability, but the fact is if that there was oxygen masks donned and that it was put onto the passenger, then it does suspect to me that there was some people who survived the initial impact of that missile.

BALDWIN: So then, David, how long between the point presumably when this missile hit this Malaysian aircraft and the time it crashed in Eastern Ukraine, how much time do you think they would have had and for someone to have thought to grab the mask and put it on him or herself?

SOUCIE: Well, the mask being donned can happen almost instant instantaneously. As soon as that missile hit, the oxygen mask would have automatically changed -- or dropped because of the altitude cabin -- the cabin altitude change. Now, understand, though, you're at 40,000 feet. It's 40 below zero. You're traveling at 40 miles an hour. If you did survive the original impact and then the aircraft broke up, you would not survive that type of environment for very long. It would have only been a minute or two at the most.

By the time the aircraft hit the ground, it wasn't as if they suffered all of the way down, as though he was implying on his first statement back in July, which was overly dramatic and certainly unnecessary, causing a lot of additional pain for the family members.

BALDWIN: Yes, just back to a point you made a minute ago that you don't think the oxygen masks or the body would have been tampered with, but correct me. I remember when we covered this for weeks and weeks, this whole crash site, David, was in the middle of a war zone and in fact there are still people and bodies missing, that some of these items were stolen, iPhones, items out of suitcases.

You don't think it's possible that a mask could have been placed on a body once it hit the ground?

SOUCIE: Yes, of course it's possible. But I just can't see the logic in it. Most of the people that were there were trying to take things away. They wouldn't -- I wouldn't imagine why they would have put an oxygen mask on a person that had already deceased.

Certainly, it's within the realm of responsibility, but I don't see any real logic behind where they would put it on. I would say lean more towards the probability that it was on the individual at the time of the accident, at the time of the missile.

BALDWIN: OK. David Soucie, thank you so much in Denver for me. I appreciate it.

And now back to airstrikes. Airstrikes, but no U.S. boots on the ground, right? That's been President Obama's ISIS strategy thus far to try and destroy and dismantle this terrorist group. My next guest says that strategy -- quote -- "doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell" of succeeding. He's the former leader of the Marine Corps. We will talk to him about that comment and ask him to explain next.

Plus, police respond to a call about a possible burglary and end up pepper-spraying a teenager in his own home. He's black. His foster family is white and police say that led to some confusion, but others say, no, it was excessive force. Hear both sides coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You are watching CNN, bottom of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

This increasing number of high-profile voices now are chiming in on the president's strategy against ISIS. Their words at times can be pretty harsh, blasting the president's foreign policy for setting the stage for ISIS, slamming his no-ground-troops pledge. And among the highest-profile critics, you have former members of Obama's own administration, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ex-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and, most recently here, Obama's foreign Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta, and former President Jimmy Carter.