Senator Kerry Thinking About Sending Own Fact-Finding Team to Iraq; Martha Stewart Has Date With Her Probation Officer
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: An important meeting for Martha Stewart today. Much of her future could depend on it. And the wind, the crew and the vessel now all under scrutiny today as investigators search for the cause of the passenger ferry disaster. Also, gunfire and death in Haiti. U.S. forces get a taste of what it's like to be caught in the middle of a violent political upheaval. Those stories ahead on this</s>AMERICAN MORNING. ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.</s>O'BRIEN: Good morning. Welcome, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien. Bill Hemmer has the day off. Miles O'Brien is sitting in for him, so it's nice to have you.</s>MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It's great to be here.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much.</s>M. O'BRIEN: You look great.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. I'm keeping you. Fill in as long as you want. No, I'm just kidding you. Other stories that we're following this morning, as Iraqi leaders begin navigating the tricky waters of democracy, former Defense Secretary William Cohen is going to help us understand what each side wants from the other side. Also, Senator John Kerry is thinking about sending his own fact finding team into Iraq. We'll find out exactly what the goal is there.</s>M. O'BRIEN: Also, it's no surprise Senator Kerry and President Bush are trading some political punches already. But we'll also hear about the TV ads supported the candidates and why they are under attack.</s>S. O'BRIEN: And Jack Cafferty is with us this morning -- hello.</s>JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you. Coming up in the Cafferty File, Soledad, in about 20 minutes, politically correct language causing a big problem at the "Los Angeles Times." And if you've ever wanted to disguise your location while making a cell phone call, we're going to tell you how to do it so you can fool the boss next time you tell him that you'll be a little late.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Interesting.</s>M. O'BRIEN: I might be taking some notes on that one.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Exactly.</s>CAFFERTY: A lot of people will be interested in that.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about that in the commercial break.</s>CAFFERTY: Surely.</s>S. O'BRIEN: All right, Jack, thanks.</s>M. O'BRIEN: All right, let's check the news. More missile attacks in Baghdad to tell you about. A rocket hit a house near a police patrol station in central Baghdad today. Four were injured, including two children and a police officer. A rocket attack last night damaged a hotel near the site where the Iraqi Governing Council signed the interim constitution this morning. We'll have more on all that, coming up. Senator John Kerry says he might travel to Iraq before the presidential election on November 2, but he says he would prefer to have a group of congressional colleagues assess the situation there and help him to formulate his Iraq policy.</s>SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I haven't ruled it out. I'm just not, it's not on the front burner right now and I'd prefer for the moment to get some assessments. If I find from those assessments that there may be a real reason to go further, I could follow up on it. I haven't ruled out the potential of any foreign travel at this point.</s>M. O'BRIEN: Senator Kerry said that if he made the trip, he wouldn't want it to be politicized during the campaign. Democrats and Republicans are on the attack in what Senator John McCain of Arizona says could become the nastiest presidential campaign yet. Over the weekend, President Bush's supporters depicted Senator John Kerry as an extreme liberal who flip-flops on the issues. Senator Kerry's campaign criticized the president as, and we quote now, "a divider, not the uniter." Senator McCain says all this could affect turnout.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: This is the most polarized political situation that I have ever seen. And, yes, I'm afraid it's going to be nasty and I don't think it's going to be confined to either side. And I think it will lower voter turnout.</s>M. O'BRIEN: We'll have more on the campaign in the next half hour. Attorney General John Ashcroft remains hospitalized this morning, as doctors wait for test results and continue to evaluate his condition. The 61-year-old attorney general was admitted to a Washington hospital last week suffering from gallstone pancreatitis. The inflammation of his pancreas is being treated with antibiotics and painkillers, according to a spokesman at the Justice Department. The longest sled dog race in the world under way in Anchorage, Alaska. The 1,100 mile Iditarod trail sled dog race began yesterday. It usually takes nine to 10 days to complete the race from Anchorage to Nome. Eighty-seven teams competing this year. That's a record. The purse is more than $700,000. That's a lot of dog chow, isn't it?</s>S. O'BRIEN: Yes, it is.</s>M. O'BRIEN: Yes.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Time to check on the weather now.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Martha Stewart has a date with her probation officer today. The meeting is part of a pre-sentencing phase after her conviction on Friday for conspiracy, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators. Deborah Feyerick is outside the federal courthouse in New York for us this morning -- Deb, good morning.</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Good morning, Soledad. Well, Martha Stewart once again making the trek down here to federal court. Last week, her lawyer thought it was going to be because the jury was still out. However, today she is scheduled to meet with her probation officer. If Friday is any indication, Martha Stewart is not going to let this take her down.</s>FEYERICK (voice-over): If the jury was expecting a reaction, Martha Stewart didn't give them the satisfaction. As the verdict was read, she betrayed no emotion. Even leaving court now a convicted felon, she remained poised and in control. Jury member Chappell Hartridge saying...</s>CHAPPELL HARTRIDGE, JUROR: Well, she committed a crime. She got convicted.</s>FEYERICK: Stewart's stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, was also found guilty of lying about Stewart's sale of a biotech stock just one day before the government announced it was not approving an ImClone drug. He swept past cameras, his mother inside telling reporters her son had lost everything. Lawyers for both Bacanovic and Stewart will appeal.</s>ROBERT MORVILLO, MARTHA STEWART'S ATTORNEY: We are disappointed at the outcome. We look at this as having lost the first round. We look at this as an opportunity for us to go to the next rounds and to explain to the court of appeals what we think went wrong in this case.</s>FEYERICK: Prosecutors called the verdict a warning to others in corporate America.</s>DAVID KELLEY, U.S. ATTORNEY: We will not and frankly cannot tolerate dishonesty and corruption in any sort of official proceeding.</s>FEYERICK: Juror Hartridge said among the strongest evidence, the message left by Stewart's broker the day Stewart sold ImClone, the message her assistant testified Stewart later tried to change.</s>HARTRIDGE: The fact that she said that Martha tried to delete that message. That message was probably the foundation of the case.</s>FEYERICK: This morning, Martha Stewart does meet with her probation officer. She will have filled out a very detailed questionnaire. The questionnaire will be used by the judge in terms of deciding what kind of sentence Martha Stewart will get. Of course, it will consider all the good work Martha Stewart has done, the company that she built, what her financial worth is, all of those things the judge will review. Again, it's not expected to take long and the only reason that it was taking place today, the judge said, was because the verdict came out at about three on Friday. The judge thinking that she would give Martha Stewart a little break -- Soledad.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Deb, there is this civil suit involving insider trading from the SEC. What's the status of that? Where does that stand right now?</s>FEYERICK: That is very much full steam ahead right now. As a matter of fact, the SEC had a representative in the court during the entire course of the trial. And a source close to the SEC had said that just because the judge dropped the securities fraud charge against Martha Stewart, that would not affect the insider trading case that they're planning on bringing against her. Interestingly, Soledad, her lawyer, Rob Morvillo, wanted to argue that Stewart was not guilty of insider trading, otherwise, the government would have charged her with that. But the judge did not allow that. The judge saying we're going to remain on point, we're going to consider just the false statement, the obstruction of justice and the perjury charges -- Soledad.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Deb Feyerick for us this morning downtown. Deb, thanks. The fifth week of testimony begins today in the manslaughter trial of former NBA star Jayson Williams. Williams is charged in the shooting death of a limo driver at his New Jersey home in February of 2002. Last week, a former New Jersey Nets teammate testified that he recalled Williams pulling the trigger of a shotgun that he was holding. Williams' defense maintains that the shooting was, in fact, accidental. The medical examiner has testified that the limo driver, Gus Christofi, died due to loss of blood within just minutes of being shot -- Miles.</s>M. O'BRIEN: Recovery teams are getting back to work this morning at the site of Saturday's water taxi accident in the Baltimore Inner Harbor. Twenty-two of the 25 people who were on the boat were rescued. But one of those rescued, a 60-year-old woman, died later at a hospital. Three others are missing. Earlier, I spoke with the National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman, Ellen Engleman Conner. I asked her for an update on the recovery efforts.</s>ELLEN ENGLEMAN CONNER, NTSB CHAIRMAN: The recovery efforts were stopped last night around 6:00 due to weather. We anticipate, based on what we've been informed from the Baltimore Fire Department and others working on the recovery, that they'll reassume this morning around 9:00, again, weather permitting.</s>M. O'BRIEN: All right. And as far as the investigation right now, obviously very early in the game right now. Just give us a sense of what you're looking at, what areas are of most importance.</s>ENGLEMAN: Well, we look at four main areas -- human factors, operations, the engineering and the survival factors. Those are part of our regular investigation. However, in this accident, we're really focusing additionally on weather. We're focusing on the operations of the vessel, the safety education program that would have been given to passengers. We're going to look at the captain's discretion and the decisions that he made and the owner/operator's decisions to operate under such weather conditions. We're looking at the vessel itself to ensure hull integrity, systems that were in place, if steering and propulsion were mechanically sound. Once again, the NTSB will thoroughly investigate all factors. But there is a focus on the safety education, the use of PFDs and the weather.</s>M. O'BRIEN: All right, well, let's talk about the weather for just a moment. Anybody who's spent some time on the water knows that storms can kick up very quickly. Do you know, however, if there were any sort of small craft warnings issued prior to this accident?</s>ENGLEMAN: I believe that there was a small craft advisory that was issued. We also know that there was communication between the owner/operator and all of their vessels on the water, as well as a specific communication to this captain. The vessels were in the process of trying to return to a safe place, to appear where they could be more safely.</s>M. O'BRIEN: All right. But it is a short journey. Did this mission, did this taxi run begin under a small craft advisory?</s>ENGLEMAN: I don't have that information yet. That's certainly part of our investigation. We're putting together what I call a weather calendar, where we will track the weather and the knowledge about the weather, any advice or advisories about the weather, alongside the actual actions of the captain and the owner/operator, as well as other vessels out there. So you'll see concurrent time lines put together so we can track this as close to minute by minute as possible.</s>M. O'BRIEN: All right. And was it equipped with a radio, though, where the captain on board would have been able to know if there was a small craft warning in the middle of a run?</s>ENGLEMAN: There was a radio involved and the captain did have communication with the owner/operator. So, once again, we're putting the time line together and that will definitely be a focus of the investigation. What decisions were made when, where was the craft, what were the weather conditions at the time, what was the situation, that'll be all part of the full investigation.</s>M. O'BRIEN: A final thought here for those of us who have seen pontoon boats, more frequently on more protected lakes. Is this vessel inherently, perhaps, unsafe in an area where you can get big swells like this and strong winds so quickly?</s>ENGLEMAN: Well, the use of pontoons is used -- and a variety of types of pontoons, whether they be houseboats or traffic taxis such as this -- are used widely in harbors and on rivers and lakes, etc. This boat was certificated by the Coast Guard and fell under the appropriate Coast Guard regulations for use in this particular body of water.</s>M. O'BRIEN: The chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Ellen Engleman Connors. I spoke to her earlier this morning. Seven remain hospitalized this morning, two in critical condition.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Terrible, that accident there.</s>M. O'BRIEN: We'll watch that story closely.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, Iraq has an interim constitution, but why did the deal almost fall apart? We've got some answers to those questions coming up next.</s>M. O'BRIEN: Protests turn violent when gunfire erupts near the presidential palace in Haiti.</s>S. O'BRIEN: And the gloves come off. The nominating conventions are months away, but Kerry versus Bush is well under way. We'll explain ahead, as AMERICAN MORNING continues.