Earthquake Hits Indonesia; President Bush Taking Petraeus' Recommendation to Bring Troops Home
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Which way out? The president's plan to withdraw troops from Iraq ignites debate on both sides.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What General Petraeus is saying is simply does not pass mustard as a betrayal of trust.</s>SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: Legislating a date for withdrawal and we will fail for certain.</s>ROBERTS: We're live this morning with Senator John McCain. Plus, caught in the act. A cop's tantrum caught on tape after a teen installs his own dashboard camera. And crazy 8's. The new weather warning for what could be the hottest year in the last century on the last on this</s>AMERICAN MORNING. ROBERTS: Good morning. Welcome back. And thanks so much for joining us. It is Wednesday, September 12th. A lot of news going on this morning. I'm John Roberts.</s>KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you are with us. We start with some breaking news right now. A 7.9 magnitude earthquake striking near southern Indonesia. The island of Sumatra a tsunami watch issued immediately for the area. Our Rob Marciano is on the scene and is tracking developments. And of course there is typical lag time when an earthquake is reported and whether or not there is any reporting of damages or a tsunami. What is going on Rob?</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Generally speaking, the closer you are as far as the epicenter of the earthquake if a tsunami is coming your way it will get there in a relative hurry. Give you some perspective as to where this earthquake occurred; again a 7.9 magnitude quake centered about 64 miles from Van Koodas (ph), Sumatra which is a fairly large city in Sumatra, Indonesia. I will take you from the Indian Ocean now the entire basin affected, if a tsunami was generated. The big, the if is huge here because it's only a tsunami watch at this point. So we're looking at Indonesia, generally speaking here, up here is where the 04 earthquake happened. This area right through here where you see the red is what the USGH indicates what has happened in the past hour, 7.9. It has a depth of 15 kilometers so just under ten miles. That is relatively shallow. That's a concern. The size of the earthquake is a concern as well. The Inod Australian plates diving and clashing with the other plate and because of that this is a very active area for earthquakes in general. Tsunami watch issued for the entire Indian Ocean basin. They do not know if a tsunami has been generated but history tells us that this size earthquake certainly has the potential to generate a tsunami. Who is going to get it first? Folks here and over here and they'll get it within minutes. So if we start to get reports in this area that folks have been hit with a tsunami, then we know that the earthquake was such that it moved the water and then tsunami will be generated outward as well and if that were to occur, places like Palembang would see an tsunami in about 15 minutes, Australia the north west coast of Australia would see a tsunami I would say 10:29 Eastern Time, Salunka (ph) about 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time if a tsunami was generated. There are no buoys out in the Indian Ocean to sense a tsunami. If this happened on the Pacific side we could say, all right, some of our buoys out there have sensed a tsunami but we can't say that for sure. Until we get reports of a tsunami in the local area, we cannot confirm that a tsunami has been generated but a tsunami watch has in effect for that area. This is a major earthquake a 7/9 , anytime you get one over 6 is big and over 7 is even bigger, closer to 8 is huge and 9.0 was a magnitude back in 2004, we all know what happened after that quake.</s>CHETRY: That's right. Ended up some 230,000 people died as a result of that one. Rob, real quickly. You mentioned that you said this earthquake was relatively shallow. The epicenter. Why is that a concern?</s>MARCIANO: You move the Earth. More shallow it is you'll -- the big concern is did it do this? Or did it do that? And if it does this, just like kicking you your foot in the bathtub that will make the water roll. We really don't know which kind of earthquake it was. We only know the size of it and it's a big one so history tells us we have to be on our guard and the folks who live in that area, the warning signs are does the water move out, you know, more than it normally should? That should tell you to head to for the hills right there. Folks in this area have been on guard since 2004 and there have been a number of scares with earthquakes and folks heading to the hills and just getting out of harm's way. So I suspect that is what is going on right now after feeling the earth shake under your feet.</s>CHETRY: OK, Rob Marciano tracking this for us. A 7.9 magnitude quake hitting off the island coast of Sumatra and the tsunami watch that are still in effect right now. Thank you.</s>ROBERTS: Let's get more on the quake damage with Susan Potter she is a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado. She joins us now on the telephone. Susan, how can you characterize this earthquake for us this morning?</s>VOICE OF SUSAN POTTER, USGS SEISMOLOGIST: It's definitely a larger magnitude quake. Right now I have it at 7.9. That is magnitude is subject to slight adjustment. And, also, the summary before was extremely -- right now it is a shallow quake at 15.6 kilometers.</s>ROBERTS: Is there any way to know, Susan, whether or not as Rob Marciano was saying just a moment ago, that this was a quake that was caused by a slip of the Australian plate underneath that Eurasian plate that Indonesia sits on or if it was a thrust type of earthquake we saw two years ago?</s>POTTER: Right now, I do not have that information. Right now we're getting the data in, locating it and getting the magnitude and the depth. We will be getting that information right as soon as possible. It will be on our Web site as soon as possible.</s>ROBERTS: OK. We'll keep looking for that and Susan we seem to have a bad telephone connection with you so we'll try to get that straightened out and get back to you this moaning. I know the USGS has tremendous amount of important information on this. Susan Potter for us this morning from Golden, Colorado with the US Geological Survey. President Bush is taking his top general's recommendation and he is expected to announce a plan to bring 30,000 troops home from Iraq by next summer. It comes after General David Petraeus told Congress that the presidents troop build up has met its military objectives, quote in large measure. White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux has got the latest on that for us from Washington. Suzanne this really was the plan all along that the surge would last a certain amount of time and the troops would come home but it looks like what is going to happen is that next July, the United States will be exactly where it was seven months ago in Iraq.</s>SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John, you're absolutely right. Part of this was really inevitable. Military planners have been saying they can't sustain this military surge beyond April of next year so the president, by making this announcement, this was going to happen anyway. What is different is perhaps its happening a little bit sooner than people expected. What you're seeing is the president and the administration really trying to get some political capital out of this. You'll hear the president talking about they made at least enough progress to pull out those additional troops and now you will have essentially the pre-surge level that was back in December. You're also going to hear the president as well really trying, when we talk about giving the space for the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki some breathing space to make his government work, you can hear the president also try to get some breathing space from Congress at least six months or so to make the case here that the Maliki government essentially will at least accomplish more on the reconciliation portion of this if he's just given more time.</s>ROBERTS: So the question is it doesn't look like Democrats have peeled off enough for Republicans to give them the votes to actually do something about troop levels in Iraq, but are the Republicans that were kind of sitting on the fence here satisfied enough from Petraeus that they may not go over to the Democratic side if something doesn't happen soon?</s>MALVEAUX: So far, they are. But, you know, that could change. We're going to see next week, new legislation from several different senators who are actually going to be moving forward to say, OK, perhaps we'll take a look at those recommendations, the Iraq study group will make that into law. It is still unclear whether or not the administration is going to hang on to those Republicans and it is actually long-term John that the president wants to do is really give some political cover for whoever his successor is to convince them that this is a long-term project keeping U.S. troops in Iraq.</s>ROBERTS: It looks like now whoever succeeds President Bush will inherit the Iraq war. Suzanne Malveaux for us from the White House this morning, Suzanne thanks.</s>CHETRY: And so there has been reaction coming from Capitol Hill. Senate got a chance to speak to General Petraeus, grilled him yesterday in those hearings. And our congressional correspondent Dana Bash has just talked with Senator Barack Obama about this. Dana joins us now from the hill. Hi Dana.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there. Well Senator Obama certainly is like most Democrats and is making clear that he does not think that this change in policy is really a change in policy. But we'll get to that in a minute Kiran. I think what is most interesting here, Suzanne was talking about this a little bit, has been the Republican reaction. Some Republicans have been saying that they do welcome an idea, at least a narrative now, about talking about troop withdrawal. But in yesterdays hearing with General Petraeus, many Senate Republicans were quite skeptical about the fact that this really is a change in plan. They say, wait a minute. What we're talking about is reducing the extra troops, the extra 30,000 troops that are in Iraq as part of this military surge, not doing that until the summer. Some Republicans said to the general, you know, what our constitutes are looking for is a light at the end of the tunnel and that is precisely the message that we're hearing from Democrats. Listen to the house speaker who walked out of the White House, stood on the driveway and made clear what she thought about this plan.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D) HOUSE SPEAKER: So the president added 30,000 troops and now he's saying a year and a half later, nearly two years later, we'll be back to where we started from. I mean, please. It's an insult to the intelligence of the American people that that is a new direction in Iraq.</s>BASH: So that is the message that we are going to hear loud and clear. We are told from several Democratic sources, Kiran, today and through the next couple of days as they try to combat the big mega phone the president has as he addresses the nation on Thursday night.</s>CHETRY: All right. So we hear from Nancy Pelosi that the Democratic establishment not happy. Do they have the votes to really change that?</s>BASH: That is really the big question. The answer right now is no. When it comes to the fundamental plan the Democrats have been pushing which is a hard and fast deadline for troop withdrawal. You mentioned that I spoke with Senator Barack Obama just a short while ago. He obviously is running for president and he is an example of the problem that Democrats are going to have because they are pushing for behind the scenes now some kind of compromise with Republicans maybe shorter that hard and fast deadline. I asked Senator Obama about that. Listen to what he said.</s>SENATOR BARACK OBAMA, (D) ILLINOIS: We're going to have to evaluate what is available but it appears clear to me that the president is not going to compromise short of the Congress forcing him to accept a shorter timetable. Absent that, we're essentially engaged in a bunch of symbolic action there.</s>BASH: So there you hear Senator Obama pretty weary about the idea of compromising on this Democratic ideal for a deadline for troop withdrawal, but the hard, cold reality for Democrats is that despite the Republicans skepticism Kiran, they still do not seem to have the Republican votes in the Senate to pass that. That's why they are now looking for a compromise.</s>CHETRY: Dana Bash on Capitol Hill for us thanks. By the way, CNN will be carrying President Bush's Prime Time address it is at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow.</s>ROBERTS: New this morning out of Russia, news agency are reporting that President Vladimir Putin has dissolved the government, it is a major political shake up ahead of parliamentary elections in less than three months and a presidential vote next year. He has had uphill battle since kicking off his campaign. Now John McCain is launching the no surrender bus tour and he will join us live from the campaign trail, in the Causblosa (ph), Iowa area. There he is in front of the "No Surrender" bus. John McCain coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.