A Storm Brewing in the Tropics
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, a storm brewing in the tropics, and look where she seems to be headed. Big Bertha.If you're a Democrat and you don't like Obama or you're a Republican and you don't like McCain, there's Ralph Nader and Bob Barr. Tonight, I've got them both. What will George Bush's role be at the GOP convention? Duet or solo? As in, so low that nobody can hear him? A quote from the McCain camp. A new number for you -- 62,000. That's how many Americans lost jobs last month.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd just like to know what he's going to do with the economy.</s>SANCHEZ: Our nation's Secretary of Commerce joins us to answer your questions and mine.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoever gets into office, they better be wise enough to have a lavender seat (ph) on the health care team because nurses runs the hospital and they know what is best with your patient.</s>SANCHEZ: No kidding. You want to fix health care? Ask nurses. I do, in LOFTV. And a firestorm we began last week when I posed this question.</s>SANCHEZ: Did Wesley Clark pull a swift boat on John McCain?</s>SANCHEZ: And we're on. The news starts now. Hello again, everybody. I'm Rick Sanchez. Let's get started with this. I'm going to be telling you about Bertha getting bigger and getting stronger. This is why she's suddenly a story we all should know about. Also, how many Americans are now out of work? Wait until you hear the latest numbers. And these two mavericks say they can fix this country better than Barack Obama or John McCain. I've got them both tonight. You'll hear from them. But first, I want to show you these pics that have been coming in over the weekend. Amazing, what's been going on in Colombia. Look at these pictures. This is from the outside first. Now, that's one of the Colombian soldiers who had also been taken hostage many years ago. There she is. That's Ingrid Betancourt. By the way, at this point in this video, she doesn't know that she's about to be rescued, has no idea. She thinks that she's just being transferred from one place to another as she has been so many times in the past. Now, let's go inside the helicopter. Roger, we'll show them the -- OK, now this is the moment she's told you've just been rescued. You're heading out of this country and you are no longer a hostage. That's the jubilance. That's the celebration. Three Americans on board -- former soldiers, there tonight in Texas. We are hearing that they are going to give a news conference tomorrow. We'll have it for you here on CNN. Also, we're hearing that Ingrid Betancourt has seen doctors in Paris and that they have declared her A-OK. Now, to the guy who probably knows -- probably knows as much about this story as anybody. Karl Penhaul is based in Colombia, has followed this story for years. I asked him to break this new video, parts of which I just showed you down for us. Here's what he did.</s>KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): FARC rebels toting assault rifles watch in a drug plantation in eastern Colombia. The time on the video says 1:22 p.m. Fifteen of the rebels' most valuable hostages wait nearby, including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three American defense contractors. The rebels believe a helicopter that has just landed is a humanitarian mission to ferry their captives to another guerrilla camp. They have no idea this is the final phase of a daring operation by Colombian military intelligence months in the planning. It's now 1:24 according to the video. One military intelligence officer posing as a cameraman asks a question of this FARC commander known as Cesar. Cesar seems relaxed but declines to answer. Like the other hostages American Keith Stansell is handcuffed, readied for the flight. 1:27 Stansell utters the word gringos or Americans and shows the plastic cuffs to the man he thinks is a bona fide cameraman. Lieutenant Raimundo Malagon, held hostage for 10 years, seems agitated. "I'm Lieutenant Malagon of the glorious Colombian Army and I've been held in chains for ten years" he says. A minute later, the hostages walk the final yards to the waiting chopper. The audio is cut as we see Ingrid Betancourt preparing to board. She looks haggard after more than six years as a hostage. A last shot of the guerrilla captors and minutes later this. Pure joy. Betancourt is in tears, the hostages have just been told they are free. At a press conference to show the dramatic video, military commanders described how secret agents were trained for weeks in acting techniques to pull off their role as aid workers. They flew into the rebel camp unarmed, not a single shot was fired. "It was 100 percent Colombian operation, no foreigners took part in the planning or the execution," he says. But he conceded a U.S. surveillance plane watched over the operation and said the rescue helicopter was equipped with a device to send an SOS signal to the Americans if the mission hit problems. Asked about reports that a large ransom had been paid to win the hostages release, the defense minister was adamant. "All that information is absolutely false. There is no truth in that. I can say we did not pay a single cent. But even if it did cost us $20 million to get these hostages back, it would have been cheap," he says. The Colombian government acknowledges it does pay FARC informants and deserters. A source close to military intelligence with knowledge of this operation tells CNN the Army was able to persuade three senior FARC couriers switch sides. One of them gave bogus orders to rebel commanders to hand over the hostages.</s>PENHAUL (on camera): The full details of such secretive military operations are rarely revealed. But the key fact, 15 long-suffering hostages are now home free. Karl Penhaul, CNN, Bogota.</s>SANCHEZ: By the way, I'm just being told now by my producer that we're going to have pictures coming in in just a little bit of the three American hostages. We do expect tomorrow 4:00 p.m. Eastern, 1:00 Pacific, they will hold a news conference. You'll see it on "THE SITUATION ROOM," the first public comments from those three American hostages rescued along with Ingrid Betancourt in Colombia. Big storm apparently getting bigger. Forecast call for tropical storm Bertha to grow even stronger. Right now, Bertha is churning through the middle of the Atlantic. All right. This is that cone of possibilities or probabilities. Meteorologists will tell you it's important because what it does is it takes all the different models of what this thing might do and it combines them into a clearer picture for us. Let's go to somebody right now who basically has a handle on this, can probably give us a sense of what's going on with this. Chad Myers, the cone looks ominous. What's this thing doing right now?</s>CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: The cone actually at day four and five will really begin to turn to the right and move away from the United States. And here are the models you talked about. We call these the spaghetti plots because they're all different colors and they all come in all different sizes as well. The satellite back here is where tropical storm Bertha was. Still almost 1,000 miles from the British Virgin Islands. But all of the forecasts -- and this is -- don't worry about that line right there. That's the straight line towards direction right now. But all of the models begin to turn this to the north and if that happens, where does it go? It does not go to the Atlantic coast. It goes much farther to the east. In fact, it goes very close to Bermuda. But as a hurricane, this will be probably the first hurricane of the Atlantic season so far. 80 miles per hour, maybe more. If it doesn't turn and sometimes they don't. We will keep an eye on it for you for sure.</s>SANCHEZ: Who better than you to do that for us, Chad. We thank you, man. Coming up, this.</s>RALPH NADER, INDEPENDENT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: These are the things that Americans want. These are the necessities of the American people. Law and order for the rich and powerful is a very high polling issue.</s>SANCHEZ (on camera): But, Ralph, you've been going after this guy. I mean, recently you said that he's trying to talk white. Do you regret that?</s>SANCHEZ: Ralph Nader on why you should vote for him and not Barack Obama. Bob Barr on why you should vote for him and not John McCain. And these guys are serious and they want you to take them serious. I'm talking to both of them tonight. Oh, and I'm also going to be getting serious with one of the Bush administration's top dogs on what we've been calling issue number one. There he is. When is the economy getting better? Your questions tonight for the Secretary of Commerce, the honorable Carlos Gutierrez. We'll be right back.