CBS Evening News Online Edition - 2005-10-07

Channel: malgent

Transcript

Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)

[0:00] Hello, I'm Bob Schaefer and welcome to

[0:02] the CBS Evening News online edition.

[0:05] Just ahead, more on the alleged terror

[0:07] plot that targeted the New York City

[0:09] subway system. Also, a soldier story.

[0:12] We'll look at the remarkable progress

[0:14] being made in the repair of devastating

[0:17] head wounds. And you'll never expect to

[0:19] find lead in a child's lunchbox, but one

[0:22] mother did. That's the Friday Consumer

[0:25] Alert. It's all starting now in the CBS

[0:27] Evening News online edition.

[0:31] Yesterday, it was what officials were

[0:33] calling a detailed terrorist threat

[0:36] against the New York subways. And today,

[0:38] when the nation on hair trigger alert, a

[0:41] phony bomb threat at the Washington

[0:43] Monument caused an evacuation there and

[0:45] brought out fighter planes over

[0:47] Washington. So far, nothing has come of

[0:50] the New York threat, but what to make of

[0:52] it apparently depends on which officials

[0:55] you ask. We're going first tonight to

[0:57] Jim Stewart in Washington. Jim,

[1:00] Bob, the first inkling US officials had

[1:02] about this alleged plot came from an

[1:04] informant to the Defense Intelligence

[1:06] Agency in Baghdad. The man offered

[1:08] names, dates, times, places, and how the

[1:11] attack would take place. And at first,

[1:13] it all sounded plausible.

[1:15] The man said the attackers came from a

[1:17] group called Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaeda

[1:20] affiliated group that has operated on

[1:22] the Kurdish border and was once headed

[1:24] by Abu Msad al- Zakqawi, the man now

[1:27] running the Iraq insurgency. The

[1:29] informant said the attackers, some of

[1:31] whom he referred to as pharmacist, came

[1:33] from Iraq, had been sent for training to

[1:36] the Pakistan Afghan region, and were to

[1:38] join other volunteers already in the

[1:40] United States for suicide attacks on the

[1:43] New York subway. He even offered details

[1:45] about how the attackers would use

[1:47] briefcases and baby strollers to hold

[1:49] the bombs. Based on those conversations,

[1:52] FBI agents arrested three men during

[1:54] raids in Baghdad earlier this week. But

[1:57] allegations about those men have now

[1:59] been resolved. There is no evidence any

[2:01] wouldbe attacker ever came to the United

[2:04] States. And although the informant

[2:05] showed no deception when he was hooked

[2:07] to a polygraph machine, there is no

[2:10] conclusive finding he was telling the

[2:12] truth either. One US official told us

[2:14] flatly he believed the informant was

[2:16] deceptive and untrustworthy. As New York

[2:19] Mayor Michael Bloomberg put it later,

[2:21] truth was in the eye of the beholder.

[2:24] The FBI attached more credibility to a

[2:27] lot of this information than other

[2:29] agencies. That's just a fact of life and

[2:32] you'll never get consensus in the

[2:34] intelligence community, I think, on on

[2:36] any one thing.

[2:38] Still, when all was said and done,

[2:39] intelligence analysts across the board

[2:41] had rarely seen a warning filled with as

[2:43] much specificity as this one, including

[2:45] the date of the purported attack this

[2:47] Sunday, October the 9th. So whether you

[2:49] believe it or not makes no difference,

[2:51] said one New York official, the one

[2:53] thing you can't do is ignore it. Bob,

[2:56] Jim, the one question that I have about

[2:57] all this is while the FBI did seem to

[3:00] take it seriously, the Homeland Security

[3:02] Agency did not. Why? What was the

[3:05] difference between those two federal

[3:06] agencies? Why couldn't they come

[3:08] together on that?

[3:09] >> The best I can get on that, Bob, is that

[3:11] the FBI had some notion that this

[3:14] informant was telling the truth. Other

[3:15] officials believe that he had been

[3:17] deceptive. They had knowledge of prior

[3:19] information he'd given. They just didn't

[3:21] rate it that highly, and none of it,

[3:22] frankly, was checking out. There was too

[3:24] much devil in the details there, Bob.

[3:26] With the latest Marine deaths in Iraq,

[3:28] the total number of American service

[3:30] members killed in the war is now at

[3:32] least 1,945.

[3:36] Almost 15,000 more have been wounded,

[3:40] some so severely that for them, this war

[3:42] will never be over. Which brings us to

[3:45] the remarkable story of a young hero,

[3:47] Paul Statzer, and some miracle workers

[3:50] at Walter Reed Army Hospital. This is a

[3:53] difficult story to watch in some places,

[3:56] but if you do, and I don't say this very

[3:58] often, you'll be glad you did. Here's

[4:00] David Martin with our inside story.

[4:04] >> Does that bring anything back to you?

[4:06] >> Sergeant Paul Statzer is wearing that

[4:08] helmet and eye patch because of what

[4:09] happened last March in Iraq. In a moment

[4:12] captured in photographs, his unit was

[4:15] checking out a crater left by a roadside

[4:17] bomb when another one went off. You

[4:20] can't see him, but Statzer is inside

[4:22] that cloud of smoke and shrapnel.

[4:25] >> Some of which is still in his body.

[4:27] >> You mind if I

[4:28] >> That's That's metal.

[4:29] >> Yeah.

[4:30] >> There's like three big pieces of it.

[4:32] >> And you wear that uh that helmet for

[4:35] >> because I cried. I don't have a pad. I

[4:38] don't have a skull here. So,

[4:40] >> you don't have a skull?

[4:41] >> No. Do

[4:42] >> you mind if we ask you to take off your

[4:43] helmet?

[4:44] >> No, I'm not.

[4:49] Wow, you lost a lot.

[4:52] >> Including part of the frontal lobe of

[4:54] his brain and his left eye.

[4:56] >> If you're shocked by his appearance,

[4:58] you'll be stunned to know Paul Statzer

[5:00] is going to be all right.

[5:03] >> So, they what are they going to put in

[5:04] there?

[5:04] >> A cranial plasty. A piece of plastic

[5:08] that fits in there.

[5:09] >> A piece of plastic designed by Dr.

[5:11] Steven Rouse is being molded by a

[5:13] computer-controlled laser to make an

[5:15] exact fit with Statzer's skull.

[5:18] >> Now, how much of his head is he really

[5:20] missing?

[5:21] >> I think this this shows it very clearly.

[5:23] It's a it's a very large uh opening in

[5:27] the side of his head.

[5:28] >> That's him.

[5:28] >> That's him.

[5:30] >> That's like half his head.

[5:31] >> Yes, sir. It is.

[5:33] >> Using that plastic plate, surgeons will

[5:35] rebuild Statzer's skull and give him an

[5:37] artificial eye. Apart from scars left by

[5:40] shrapnel, he should look like he did

[5:42] before.

[5:43] >> And to the patients, that makes a

[5:45] phenomenal difference. They they feel

[5:46] like they have their own face back. They

[5:48] don't.

[5:48] >> If you think Rouse is just saying that

[5:50] to buck up statur spirits,

[5:52] >> check out Sergeant Scott Thorne.

[5:54] >> That's a significant wound. It's quite

[5:57] uh disfiguring.

[5:58] >> Here he is 3 days after surgeons

[6:00] installed the plastic plate Rouse

[6:02] crafted for him.

[6:04] >> And the uh the previous injury is just

[6:06] gone. Two months later, Thorne threw out

[6:09] the opening pitch at a Major League

[6:10] Baseball game. Rouse has treated 10

[6:13] soldiers with severe head wounds, and he

[6:15] says eight of them will have pretty

[6:17] normal lives.

[6:18] >> Being able to go back to exactly what

[6:20] you were doing before probably is not an

[6:22] option for most of them. Being able to

[6:25] go back to a fully successful, rewarding

[6:27] life is.

[6:29] >> Stasser should have no trouble going

[6:31] back to his civilian job tending bar.

[6:33] Yeah, I'm I'm a little slow on certain

[6:35] things, but not that bad.

[6:37] >> But is he really the same person?

[6:40] >> Ask his father

[6:41] >> when you look at him now.

[6:42] >> Oh, yeah.

[6:43] >> What do you see?

[6:44] >> Oh, I see the grace of God. Okay. You

[6:47] know, he's alive. You know, they never

[6:49] they never really thought that he'd

[6:51] survive.

[6:52] >> But is he the boy?

[6:53] >> Oh, he's sent off the water.

[6:54] >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's he's a s kid. He's

[6:56] going to have some problems, but that

[6:58] but that's part of sacrifice for our

[7:00] country.

[7:01] >> David Martin, CBS News. Walter Reed Army

[7:03] Medical Center. You see kids everywhere

[7:06] carrying those cute little vinyl lunch

[7:08] boxes to school. Well, it turns out some

[7:10] of them may be harmful because they are

[7:12] lined with lead, but there's a dispute

[7:15] over the danger. Sandra Hughes tonight

[7:18] with our Friday consumer alert.

[7:21] When 5-year-old Henry Smith sat down for

[7:24] his lunch at Berkeley's Montever

[7:26] Preschool, his mom was certain he was

[7:28] getting a healthy meal until she did a

[7:30] home test and found his Spider-Man

[7:32] lunchbox had lead in it. I was kind of

[7:35] angry and I was a little bit scared. I

[7:38] put the fruit just directly in here to

[7:40] avoid more packaging. So, there's this,

[7:42] you know, this wonderful organic fruit

[7:43] that my son's taking to school every day

[7:45] sitting on lead based PVC. Julie Silus

[7:49] daughter Ariana is Henry's classmate.

[7:51] >> I can't believe there might be lead in

[7:54] my kids lunchbox after all that we know

[7:56] about lead.

[7:56] >> The two moms found out about potential

[7:58] lead in children's soft vinyl lunch

[8:00] boxes after a local group called the

[8:03] Center for Environmental Health did

[8:05] independent testing on the popular new

[8:07] lunch totes with faces of superheroes

[8:10] and pretty princesses. The group says

[8:12] two in 10 turned up positive for lead.

[8:15] This one's the highest one. And this

[8:17] Angela Anaconda has 90 times the the

[8:21] federal limit for lead in paint on toys.

[8:25] What's a concerned parent to do? Well,

[8:28] home lead testing kits like this cost

[8:30] about $8 and are pretty easy to use.

[8:33] Just crush the kit until a yellow

[8:35] substance appears. Swab the outside and

[8:39] the inside of the lunchbox.

[8:42] Pink or red mean lead. If no color

[8:46] appears, no lead is present. This

[8:48] lunchbox has lead in it. The Consumer

[8:51] Product Safety Commission, a federal

[8:52] agency which regulates lead, says the

[8:55] home test can be unreliable. Recently,

[8:58] they did their own testing of vinyl

[9:00] lunch boxes. They would not reveal how

[9:02] many lunch boxes they tested, but admit

[9:05] they did find levels of lead in some. We

[9:08] found consistently less than one

[9:10] microgram of accessible lead uh in these

[9:12] vinyl lunch boxes and that's not a toxic

[9:15] level in indeed it's a very low level.

[9:17] >> The Center for Environmental Health

[9:19] counters that when it comes to children,

[9:21] no amount of lead should be in a kid's

[9:23] lunchbox.

[9:24] >> What will happen is that lead will be

[9:26] added to all the other lead that they're

[9:28] exposed to. And because lead causes uh

[9:31] brain damage and learning disabilities,

[9:33] this is an exposure that can be stopped

[9:35] very easily. At this point, a cautious

[9:37] parent might just want to brown bag it.

[9:40] Sandra Hughes, CBS News, Berkeley,

[9:42] California.

[9:42] >> More stories are just a click away, but

[9:44] don't forget to join me on television

[9:46] for the on air edition of the CBS

[9:48] Evening News. On Monday's broadcast, the

[9:50] war in Iraq is one of the most pressing

[9:53] issues of the day. But how do Americans

[9:55] really feel about it? To find out,

[9:57] Sharon Alons is taking a two-week CBS

[10:00] News road tour that we're calling the

[10:03] homeront. for cbsnews.com.