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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
NATO Now Targeting Gadhafi?; Newt Gingrich Faces New Crisis
Aired June 09, 2011 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone.
We begin tonight with breaking news: increasing evidence that NATO is directly attempting to kill Moammar Gadhafi, not just protecting civilians being shelled by Gadhafi forces, not just driving him from power and out of Libya, but trying to kill him.
We got our first inkling after those massive airstrikes Tuesday on Tripoli. They targeted Gadhafi's compound, a location that's been hit again and again. Last night on this program, John Burns of "The New York Times" in Tripoli said he had gotten indirect word that it was hit yet again on information that Gadhafi had returned there. And Burns visited the site of another strike on a desert compound of Gadhafi's which seemed to indicate he was being targeted.
Well, now tonight, we have word directly from a senior military NATO official that NATO is now targeting Gadhafi. The justification for killing Gadhafi, according to this source, falls within the U.N. Security Council mandate for the operation.
Now, here's what U.N. Resolution 1973 on Libya specifically says about protecting civilians.
"Demands the immediate establishment of a cease-fire and a complete end to violence and all attacks against, and abuses of, civilians."
And it goes on to say it authorizes member states that have notified the secretary-general, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangement and acting in cooperation with the secretary-general, to take all necessary measures. That's the key phrase here, all necessary measures, to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in Libya.
So, apparently, NATO believes the efforts to kill Gadhafi are justified because Gadhafi is the commander in chief of a military force which is killing civilians. Now, it's unclear if NATO has just come to this decision to try and kill Gadhafi, but it does appear to be a departure from what at least was earlier the publicly stated mission. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is no question that Libya and the world would be better off with Gadhafi out of power. I, along with many other world leaders, have embraced that goal and will actively pursue it through non-military means. But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, joining us now is CNN national security contributor Fran Townsend, who is breaking tonight's story. She is former homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush and is currently member of the CIA and Department of Homeland Security External Advisory Committee. Also joining us shortly from Tripoli when we get the satellite up, John Burns of "The New York Times," who really got this ball rolling this week on this story, and by phone, retired General and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark, who is a currently a senior fellow at UCLA's Burkle Center for International Relations.
So, Fran, basically, NATO sees it as well within the scope of its mandate to target Gadhafi. I know this is very sensitive stuff, but can you tell us as much as you can about how you got the information?
FRANCES TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it was a sort of interesting cat-and-mouse conversation, Anderson.
What happened was I was speaking to this senior NATO military official and said, hey, from the looks of things, just as you have laid out, looks pretty much like you're targeting him personally.
And he wouldn't really answer the question and said, well, let me say -- let me tell you this. Let me say it this way. If our mission, under the U.N. resolution, is to protect civilians, and Gadhafi is the commander in chief, we take all sorts of measures to knock out their infrastructure, their military capabilities so they can't attack civilians. The commander in chief of the military that's doing these attacks is a legitimate target.
And I asked a second time, are you saying that you're targeting Gadhafi? And he said, I'm saying that I think under the U.N. resolution he's a legitimate target.
Now, this is a single military official in NATO. Is that the NATO position? I don't know. But sure from the looks of it -- there was Leon Panetta's testimony today in his confirmation hearing where he suggested sort of half-handedly, if you will, that Gadhafi was not going to remain in power. And so he tried -- seemed to try and walk that back later in his testimony.
But we have seen a lot of pieces that sure suggest that this is the current -- at least the current view of the authority under the U.N. resolution.
COOPER: And this is a source who would be in a position to know this kind of strategic detail?
TOWNSEND: That's right. That's right. These are -- there's a whole NATO mission, and a whole NATO command structure. And it involves military officers from all of the NATO countries involved.
But this is a -- this is not a small -- a small military operation. They have a whole command structure there. And, yes, this is somebody who would be in a position to...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: And, again, this really started to get into the headlines, or at least on our radar, on Tuesday and we had the video of those dramatic daytime raids, attacks on Gadhafi's compound, a compound that had been hit multiple times.
John Burns, who is joining us now from Tripoli, John, explain how -- what you are seeing on the ground that would lend credence to the idea that NATO is targeting Gadhafi directly. John Burns, are you there?
OK. We will try to get in -- we will try to get in touch with John.
General Clark, you're a former supreme allied commander of NATO. Is -- does -- I mean, is this even legal? Can NATO really target a head of state like this, if in fact they are?
WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: Well, he's not acting as a head of state here. He's part of a military chain of command. As Fran was explaining the logic of this, it's perfectly logical.
The orders to attack civilians emanate from a chain of command. Chain of command has operation centers. It has operations personnel. It has a communications means to convey those orders to the troops. And so if you can attack the troops, you can attack the communications means.
If you can attack the communication means, you can attack the command-and-control. And if you attack the command-and-control, you are attacking the commander. And Gadhafi is el supremo there.
COOPER: And I'm told we now have John Burns with "The New York Times" in Tripoli.
John, from what you have seen on the ground there, what -- what evidence is there that Gadhafi is being directly targeted?
JOHN BURNS, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, I don't think there's any doubt of it at all.
From what we can see, every time that NATO says that they are hitting a command-and-control facility in Central Baghdad (sic), or at least if not every time, frequently, they're hitting either the command compound of Colonel Gadhafi in the Central -- Central Tripoli, or, as they did 48 hours ago at dusk, the desert encampment to which he has frequently taken his guests, which was also described in a NATO statement as being a command-and-control facility. It just seems to me that, putting two and two together and the evidence we see on the ground, that anywhere that he is, is deemed to be, as indeed, of course, it is in practical effect, a command-and- control facility.
COOPER: Fran, why then would President Obama earlier say, we're not attempting regime change?
TOWNSEND: Well, Anderson, look, this is -- I think it's fair to say this has gone on, this whole military mission, much longer than anyone planned.
Remember, they -- there was question whether it would be extended, and it was, in fact. And I think that there's been a rethinking about how long can we do this, how much violence are we going to countenance from Gadhafi and how are we going to bring this to an end?
I think more and more, as time has passed, there's been a realization that merely protecting civilians isn't enough, if you can't do it forever and as long as he's there. And so I think this has been an evolution in terms of the policy. And it's sort of understandable to me.
COOPER: And, General Clark, in terms of legality, is this legal to be targeting a head of state? You're saying he's not a head of state, he's acting as a military commander. But he is also head of state.
CLARK: Well, I think you have got to be careful not to split hairs on this thing.
I don't think the United States or NATO is saying this is an all- out hit mission on the person of this individual. It's an effort to go after the command-and-control. He just happens, by virtue of his dual authority that he has as the head of state and the head of the armed forces and the one directing the operation, to be in the military chain of command.
That makes him vulnerable. And it's only normal in an operation like this that you look at where the orders are coming from, and you try to knock out the source of the orders. So, it's not a conflict with -- it's not a change in the objective that I see. It's not an escalation.
It's just a natural continuation of the events that were started when he began attacking civilians and NATO intervened. NATO was always going to go after command-and-control. And what's happened over the months -- or weeks -- is, it's gotten sharper and sharper at focusing its intelligence on where that command-and-control is.
So it probably is true that we're walking strikes around the country. Wherever Gadhafi is, that's where he's giving orders from. And he's a legitimate target as a member of the chain of command, no doubt about it. COOPER: And, John, for those who are hoping in NATO or anywhere in the world, hoping that someone in Gadhafi's inner circle takes him out, how does it look from your vantage point in terms of the cohesion of those around Gadhafi?
BURNS: Well, of course, we see nothing of him. We were told the other night by one of his senior officials he's everywhere, but nowhere in particular.
The last time I heard that phrase was Chairman Mao Tse-Tung in China during the Cultural Revolution. From what we hear from dissidents, people in the underground here, who claim to know, he has -- he's moving all the time, moving from hospital to hospital, to museum, to school, to friends at very short notice.
And he has always, so we were told, been very, very weary, of course, about his personal security, even in times of peace, arriving somewhere an hour before the scheduled time or an hour after the scheduled time.
His entourage, so they say -- this is all, you know, hearsay, in effect, but you never know how much authenticity it has -- these people say that he's reduced his entourage to just a handful of people, as few as five or six, of absolute loyalists.
And as we saw with Saddam Hussein, for example, during the run-up to the first Gulf War, when he spent his time driving around Baghdad in a taxi, somebody who behaves like that in a city of 2.5 million people is going to be very difficult to find, unless you have got real-time intelligence from somebody in the entourage.
COOPER: John Burns from Tripoli -- John, thank you, General Clark as well.
Fran Townsend, been a long day for you. I appreciate it. Thanks very much.
Let us know what you think about this. We're on Facebook. You can follow me on Twitter @AndersonCooper. I will also be trying to tweet tonight.
Up next: What triggered the mass exodus from Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign? Fascinating developments today -- a number of top staffers, basically his staff, just up and quit. He says the campaign goes on. We will talk with one of his former top adviser who knows firsthand how Gingrich operates. Is his campaign for president essentially over? Gingrich says no. We will find out.
Later: chilling evidence the Casey Anthony jury saw today, little Caylee's skeletal remains, duct tape wrapped around her nose and mouth -- how it all fits in with the prosecution's theory of how Caylee Anthony was murdered.
First, let's check in with Isha Sesay.
ISHA SESAY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Tonight, the decades-old study that's still being cited by those who think they can prevent children from becoming gay. You will meet Ryan Kendall, who was sent to something called reparative therapy when he was just 14 years old. He says he was told being gay is a choice and says the treatment tore his family apart.
Part three of our special, "The Sissy Boy Experiment: Uncovering the Truth" -- coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: "Raw Politics" now on a day that one headline writer called "Apocalypse Newt" -- 16 members of Newt Gingrich's campaign staff quit in one day. We're not talking about interns here. Newt Gingrich's campaign manager quit. His press secretary quit. His top strategist in the key battleground states of New Hampshire and South Carolina quit, as well as staffers in Iowa, 16 people in all, basically his staff.
According to one, they all said they simply could not convince Gingrich to run a focused campaign.
Now, we have certainly seen how unfocused the campaign has been from the get-go. His operation has been hamstrung mainly by big himself. First of all, there was confusion when his campaign was announced. Then the trouble really began when the former House speaker on "Meet the Press" attacked Republican Congressman Paul Ryan's plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "MEET THE PRESS")
NEWT GINGRICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think right- wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering. I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate. I think we need a national conversation to get to a better Medicare system with more choices for seniors.
DAVID GREGORY, MODERATOR, "MEET THE PRESS": But not what Paul Ryan is suggesting, which is completely changing Medicare?
GINGRICH: I think that that is too big a jump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, he later denied that he was actually talking about Congressman Ryan, even though he clearly was. Then he tried to backtrack from his comments on Ryan's plan. And then he said that any campaign ads using his own words should be considered fraudulent.
The next weekend, on "Face the Nation," he had to answer questions about his six-figure, interest-free, revolving line of credit at the jewelry store in New York, Tiffany's.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "FACE THE NATION")
BOB SCHIEFFER, HOST, "FACE THE NATION": It's very odd to me that someone would run up a half-million-dollars bill at a jewelry store.
GINGRICH: Well, go -- go talk to Tiffany's. All I'm telling you is, we are very frugal. We in fact live within our budget. We owe nothing.
SCHIEFFER: What did you buy?
GINGRICH: We owe nothing. Well, it is my private life.
SCHIEFFER: Well, I understand.
GINGRICH: I understand. I'm just suggesting to you...
SCHIEFFER: I mean, you're running for president.
GINGRICH: Right.
SCHIEFFER: You're going to be the guy in charge of the Treasury Department.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, after that, he went on a two-week cruise to the Greek Islands, while other candidates were in New Hampshire and Iowa. That apparently was the last straw as far as the departing staffers were concerned.
Mr. Gingrich, though, vows to go on, putting up a statement on Facebook saying he will be rebooting the campaign on Sunday.
Joining me now is Rich Galen, who once was a Gingrich spokesman, and chief political analyst Gloria Borger.
Rich, how does he even have people to put up a statement on Facebook? I mean, 16 staffers, that's a lot of people.
RICH GALEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: That is a lot of people. It's probably just about everybody.
I was laughing this afternoon.
COOPER: Yes.
GALEN: It's not a funny situation for those of who have known him. But we were saying, who is going to order the car and driver to get him from the airport to the Republican Jewish Coalition speech on Sunday?
But here's the -- I think big issue here is whether or not there is a campaign anymore. And I think that, no matter what Newt puts on Facebook, the answer is no. It may take three or four days to sort of wind down to the -- to zero.
COOPER: Because there's a Republican debate that CNN is doing on Monday. And I think he says he's still going to that.
GALEN: As of this afternoon, he was still planning to go.
But -- but, look, one of the problems he had, I think, Anderson, was that, when he went off on this cruise, for the first three or four days, nobody even missed him. I mean, nobody was saying, hey, where's Gingrich? Why -- nobody cared. I mean, he just wasn't -- he wasn't out, but that didn't matter to anybody, until it became obvious that he was on vacation.
But the -- but I think, at the base of all this, was the discipline that many of us who have known Newt and liked him and worked for him for 30 years thought may be missing, and the kind of skill set you need to do the things he did to bring Republicans into majority in the Congress are a completely different set of skills than what you need when you're running for president. And I think that's been glaringly obvious.
COOPER: Gloria, there are some who are raising the question like, was he really running or is he -- even back then -- was he really running for president, or was this just an attempt to keep his name recognition up, to keep him viable...
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.
COOPER: ... to keep his -- you know, the moneymaking ventures, to keep his speaking fees and all that still -- still high?
BORGER: You know, he was really running for president, and still is. And you can tell because he hired a terrific professional staff.
And in trying to piece this together today, Anderson, it's very clear to me that this was a staff that was essentially trying to do an intervention with their own presidential candidate in a conference call on Wednesday, and then in a meeting today, saying, you know, if you want to be president of the United States, the discipline that Rich talked about, you have got to have that. You have got to help us raise money. We need money.
You spoke about the missteps he had at the beginning of this campaign. The money was drying up. You have got to come up with a singular strategy, a vision for the campaign. And, most of all, they said, you have to allow us to control your schedule. We know how to run presidential campaigns.
And I'm told that there was an awful lot of friction in the campaign between the people running the campaign and Newt Gingrich's wife, Callista. And they didn't want him to go on this cruise in the Greek Isles. And there was a sense that, you know, we're -- we need to control the candidate's schedule. No one else should.
And so that was another problem, too. And I think, as a group, they decided at some point their professional reputations were on the line as well. And they said, we can't do it.
COOPER: Rich, do you think this was a serious campaign in his mind?
GALEN: Oh, I don't think there's any question about it.
BORGER: Yes.
COOPER: Let me make two points.
One, this story broke about 3:00 this afternoon. The first call I got about 3:01 was from Gloria Borger, who has been dogging this thing for the last seven hours without taking a breath.
(LAUGHTER)
GALEN: That's number one.
Number two is, yes, I think he -- I think he was taking this seriously, as well as he could. But, as Gloria pointed out, these are professional campaign people who wanted to run a professional campaign, and they were being prevented from doing it, both because the money wasn't there, was not ever going to be there after that really bad start, and, as Gloria pointed out, there appeared -- look, we have all dealt with candidates' spouses.
That's part of the game. You just know that you're going to have to deal with the candidate's spouse, male or female. But, in this case, it appears that -- that Speaker Gingrich may have been a little more, maybe a lot more, solicitous toward his wife's desires and her intervention in the campaign than most candidates -- most candidates are.
COOPER: He could have taken a vacation in the United States even and at least made it appear as if he was still kind of doing a publicity tour or something.
GALEN: Yes, Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire would have been perfect.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: He could have gotten a bus like Sarah Palin.
BORGER: Right. But -- right. After you have had such a rocky start, OK, you can't just then disappear and say, I'm going to go do some thinking and I'm going to go do some writing.
You have to do some retail politicking in the states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Not only that, you have to do some fund-raising with big donors who are going to help you get your campaign bus together.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Just very briefly, Gloria, do you think -- what does this mean for Rick Perry in Texas? Because I'm told a number of his staffers who have left have connections to Perry.
BORGER: Very, very close connections to Rick Perry. So, it may be Rick Perry's gain if it's Newt Gingrich's loss. I mean, a couple of his top staffers used to work for Rick Perry. And, of course, the first -- you put one and one together, sometimes, you get two. There are questions about whether Rick Perry is going to run.
COOPER: Right.
BORGER: I don't think you can draw a direct line between these people quitting and whether Rick Perry gets in.
COOPER: Right.
BORGER: But I do believe that, if he does get in, you could see some of these people can run his campaign.
GALEN: But, Anderson, that happens all the time. And, as you know, in American politics, as candidates fall off, usually later on in the go, the other campaigns pick up -- pick off the best staffers from the campaigns that don't exist anymore.
The best example is Ari Fleischer, who was Elizabeth Dole's press secretary. When that campaign folded, Karen Hughes hired him to be George W. Bush's press secretary. And it was a pretty successful relationship.
COOPER: Yes.
Rich Galen, good to have you on, Gloria Borger as well.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: As we mentioned, Newt Gingrich will be, as of now, at the Republican primary debate on Monday.
Hope you will be joining us for that live from New Hampshire at 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. We will be live at 10:00 p.m. on 360 from New Hampshire as well.
Up next: a stunning day in the Casey Anthony murder trial. Several photos of the remains of her daughter Caylee were shown in court, along with photos of the duct tape that was found wrapped around little Caylee's mouth and nose. Now, remember the defense theory that she drowned in a pool -- why there would be duct tape around her mouth, unexplainable.
Also, Casey's brother goes back on the stand. And wait until you hear what he says Casey told him about that fake nanny who she said was named Zanny, the nanny that Casey made up and lied about.
Later, part three of our investigation on the "Sissy Boy Experiment," research dating back to the 1970s still being cited by those who think they can prevent kids from becoming gay or make them not gay. Ryan Kendall was sent to what some are calling reparative therapy when he was just 14 years old.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought there was some legitimacy to this idea that I was an evil sinner who was going to burn in hell. And for years, I thought that God hated me because I was gay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: We will show you what this reparative therapy entailed, and we will talk to the doctor who he says treated him -- coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: "Crime & Punishment" tonight: an emotional day in the Casey Anthony murder trial, a really difficult day. Anthony was visibly upset as several graphic photos the skeletal remains of her daughter, Caylee, were displayed in the courtroom. Some people in the courtroom didn't believe the tears were real -- for you to decide.
She avoided looking at the screen when a picture of her was shown to the jury.
The trial ended today 90 minutes early because Casey Anthony said she was ill. Among the photos introduced into evidence were those showing Caylee's skull with her mouth and nose covered in duct tape. We have obviously -- not showing you the details of that. They're pixelated here. The jury show them un-pixelated, of course.
Caylee's remains were found in a wooded area near the Anthony family home back in December of 2008.
And Gary Tuchman was in the courtroom today. He has the latest developments from Orlando, Florida.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Casey Anthony spent much of the day tearful and emotional -- or appearing to be tearful and emotional -- this day much different than any other day of this trial.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did the office of the medical examiner, with you present, ultimately recover a skull from this area?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it did.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is the skull shown in this photograph?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it is.
TUCHMAN: This was the day the disturbing, devastating, and horrifying images of Caylee Anthony's remains were displayed to the jury. We are blurring the photos because of their graphic nature, this one showing little Caylee's skull, this one showing a closeup of her skull with duct tape on her nose and mouth areas, this one showing a medical examiner picking up her skull to take it to the lab.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we have -- this is Orange County utility in the emergency dispatch. We found a human skull.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
TUCHMAN: This was a 911 call when Caylee's remains were found in these woods in Orlando, nearly half-a-year after she disappeared.
Casey Anthony is now claiming her daughter actually accidentally drowned in the pool at her house, and that she lied about it and kept her death secret because of family turmoil.
But listen to what the jury heard today from a sheriff's deputy who examined the little girl's skull.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are we looking at in 196 in evidence?
DEPUTY JENNIFER WELCH, CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATOR: This is a close-up photograph of the duct tape that was on the front of the skull.
TUCHMAN: The prosecution is trying to show the jury that the duct tape on Caylee's face was likely used to suffocate the little girl.
And if she drowned, why would there be tape at all? The defense, though, will attempt to convince the jury that the man who discovered the body, a meter reader, did some tampering with the body and brought it to the scene, in an attempt to gain fame and fortune.
JOSE BAEZ, CASEY'S ATTORNEY: If there is a body or remains that have been tampered with, that would affect everyone's ability to do their job, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
TUCHMAN: But in addition to Caylee's clothes that were found at the scene, other remains were found in bags near the skull. And the prosecution is expected to link those bags to Casey Anthony.
They also called Casey's brother, Lee, to the stand, focusing on what they say were the lies she told him.
LEE ANTHONY, CASEY'S BROTHER: Zanny held Casey down and told her that she was taking Caylee from her.
TUCHMAN: The Zanny he's referring to was supposedly a nanny who Casey was blaming for kidnapping little Caylee. But there was no Zanny the nanny. Casey now admits she was a complete fabrication.
Listen to Casey talk about her to Lee while she was in jail.
L. ANTHONY: If I were to be looking for the nanny's place...
CASEY ANTHONY, ON TRIAL FOR MURDER: Uh-huh.
L. ANTHONY: ... would it be advantageous of me to look in areas that are familiar to another friend that she may have?
CASEY ANTHONY: That would be pretty much on the money.
L. ANTHONY: You didn't give me last time this nanny had used a few different phone calls to contact you. Am I right with all that?
CASEY ANTHONY: Yes, those are three of the area codes, yes.
TUCHMAN: Those lies could prove troublesome for Casey's defense. But no more so than the crime scene photos.
(on camera) It appeared to us in court that Casey Anthony never looked at any of the graphic images of her daughter. But she did hear the very graphic descriptions. And she did not look good.
(voice-over) More than 90 minutes before court was scheduled to end for the day...
BELVIN PERRY, JUDGE: OK, ladies and gentlemen of the media, Miss Anthony is ill. We are recessing for the day. Neither the state or the defense has any comments concerning her illness, nor do they want to be interviewed.
TUCHMAN: And with that, this emotional day was over.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Let's get more on the case. I spoke earlier with Gary and Dr. Drew Pinsky, host of "Dr. Drew" on HLN, who is also closely following the trial.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Gary, some of the pictures of the crime scene photos that were shown in court today were incredibly, I mean, dramatic, and I think for me the picture in which you actually see the duct tape and the amount of duct tape that was placed on -- on this little girl, what kind of an impact did it have in a court?
TUCHMAN: It was very hard to look at, Anderson. I actually didn't want to look at the monitors. I found it very upsetting. I'm still very upset that I saw these pictures. It's emotionally very difficult, but I had to do it for my job. But that was the key picture.
COOPER: It's hard to kind of get a sense of what we're actually looking at. There's a shot where you see somebody's feet pointing down at the ground. Do you recall what some of the images actually are of?
TUCHMAN: Right. That shot where you see the feet on the ground, that was the medical examiner, who was actually picking up this poor little girl's skull and taking it to the laboratory.
The key reason the prosecutors showed the skull today was to show that the body was no longer in tact. Body parts were actually in bags, four bags that were found near the skull. The reason the bags are important evidence is because, as this trial goes on, the prosecutors will show that one of these bags had a picture of Winnie the Pooh on it. Another bag had Disney on it. And they will try to link these bags to Casey Anthony's house.
And the other evidence that we said before, the tape, the duct tape on the mouth of the skull that was still here. Why would duct tape be on the mouth of this poor little girl's skull if she drowned in a swimming pool?
COOPER: And the picture that we're looking at right there, Gary, I don't know if we can put that picture back up -- is that duct tape on a skull? Or is that just -- what is that?
TUCHMAN: What we saw in the court was a huge amount of duct tape where her mouth and nose would have been. And it's been months since her body was put there, and the duct tape was still there. And like I said, it kept the mandible, the lower jaw attached to the skull. The medical examiner says he's never seen that before, that after that much deterioration of the skull of the body, that jaw would fall off the skull, and it didn't because of the tape that is put there.
COOPER: Some of the things that Casey Anthony's brother said today, she told him a story about Zanny the nanny that was very different than the story she told the police about this -- this alleged nanny. What do you make of -- just lie after lie, and then lies that aren't consistent with other lies?
DR. DREW PINSKY, HLN HOST: Yes, the lies are absolutely outlandish. And you have to remember, Lee is hearing this lie and imagine how crazy Casey's life has to be already that he accepts that story as something possible. It sounds -- it's so outlandish.
You know, somebody sent me a document with some of the interrogation report on it that the police had taken against Casey. And when you read the lies after lies and the absolute conviction with which she lies, I was literally walking down the stairway at my house, and I couldn't get to the bottom of the stairs until I read all 30 pages. The lies are so outlandish and so incredible, and with such conviction that you almost can't look away from what this woman has done.
The fact that she has been such a liar, and there's overwhelming evidence of the fact that she was a horrible parent, that is what is really causing people to speculate that she is capable of just awful things.
Now, today you see her right there alongside of me, reacting to these pictures and reacting to some of the testimony in the courtroom. Most of the people that I talked to that were actually in the courtroom today didn't buy it. They just believe that she was being coached by her attorneys to do this. The public opinion is so profoundly against Casey, and have already judged her as guilty, mostly based on these outlandish, crazy, and persistent lies.
COOPER: But I mean, does somebody believe -- if you lie just that consistently in your life, what is that -- what it that a sign of? Because her defense is saying, look, this is -- this is a reaction to, you know, early abuse that they allege she suffered at the hands of her father.
PINSKY: That's right. They're going to allege that she's not a bad person; she's a sick person. And yet I've not heard any evidence of the kind of abuse that I would anticipate for somebody to be this characterologically impaired.
In fact, Anderson, I have a little theory about Zanny the nanny myself. Zanny is a sort of street colloquialism for Xanax. And there's some discussion about her having used Xanax to kind of put the child to sleep when she became problematic so she could go out in party. And then maybe when she ran out of money, couldn't afford the more expensive compound, Xanax, she then turned to chloroform. So you hear a lot of talk about chloroform in this case, and chloroform is a dangerous drug that can, again, easily go too far -- too far.
COOPER: Gary, you were in court today. You saw Casey Anthony before she left court due to illness. I mean, did it seem like she was really sick? What actually happened?
TUCHMAN: Well, this is really interesting. The judge announced -- he goes, "Casey Anthony is ill. So we're canceling court the rest of the day."
And I'm thinking to myself, "Judge, this is a court of law. Why don't you say allegedly ill, because we don't know for sure that she was ill because of what Dr. Drew has just said. Her credibility is shot.
That being said, I've watched her a lot in court today. She did not sob once today. It's hard to tell if she was actually crying. She was wiping away tears, but I really didn't see the tears. Nevertheless, she did not look good. And like I said, I mean, all of us in court were just emotionally horrified at what we were seeing.
So was she upset about her little girl? Was she upset about herself, that she may be a step closer of being convicted of murder? Was she trying to show this to the jury, that she could be upset? Or was it a combination of all three? We don't know for sure, and we will really never know if she truly was ill. We will just say she was allegedly ill.
COOPER: All right. Gary Tuchman, appreciate.
Dr. Drew, thank you so much.
PINSKY: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, still ahead on the program tonight, part three of our 360 investigation, "The Sissy Boy Experiment: Uncovering the Truth." Decades-old research that's actually still being embraced by those who think they can prevent kids from becoming gay or change them.
Kids like Ryan Kendall, who was sent to something called reparative therapy when he was just 14 years old. He says he was told being gay was a choice and a sin. He says the treatment tore his family apart.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN KENDALL TREATED WITH REPARATIVE THERAPY: I don't get that decade of my life back. I don't get those opportunities back. And I don't get my family back. And I will live with the damage that these individuals did for the rest of my life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: We'll also talk to a doctor who continues to do this kind of treatment.
Also ahead, the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal. New information about whether the congressman plans to step down. What a new poll says and what Weiner's wife reportedly wants him to do.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Check in with Isha Sesay and see what she's following with a "360 News & Business Bulletin."
Is she there? Actually not. We'll do the sissy boy experiment instead.
For the last two nights we've been airing an investigation called "The Sissy Boy Experiment, Uncovering the Truth." And now moves to the present, tonight in part three.
Over the last two nights, we've shown you what happened more than three decades ago to a little boy named Kirk Andrew Murphy who got enrolled in a government-funded study aimed at making effeminate boys more masculine. He was just 5 years old. It was the early 1970s, and his treatment was called a success by the man who ran the study.
But Kirk's siblings told us their brother was deeply damaged by the experimental treatment he received and struggled with being gay all his life. When he was 38 years old, Kirk Murphy hung himself.
The research that was done on Kirk lives on, however. It's still being cited by those who think they can prevent kids from becoming gay. And some kids, like Kirk, whose parents don't want them to be gay, are being sent to something called reparative therapy. Ryan Kendall was a man who was sent to reparative therapy when he was a teenager.
Here's Randi Kaye with part three of our investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Growing up, Ryan Kendall had a secret, a secret he shared in the pages of his diary. But when Ryan was just 13m his mother read his diary and discovered Ryan was gay. It was the beginning of the most painful years of his life.
KENDALL: I didn't question the world I had grown up in. I thought there was some legitimacy to this idea that I was an evil sinner who was going to burn in hell. And for years, I thought that God hated me, because I was gay.
KAYE: Ryan says his parents were determined to change their son. As Ryan tells it, his parents signed him up for what's called reparative therapy with the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, otherwise known as NARTH.
KENDALL: Every day I would hear, this is a choice. This can be fixed.
KAYE (on camera): And did you believe that?
KENDALL: I never believed that. I know I'm gay just like I know I'm gay like I know short and I'm half Hispanic. And I've never thought that those facts would change. It's part of my core fundamental identity. So the parallel would be sending me to tall camp and saying, "If you try really hard, one day you can be 6 foot 1."
KAYE (voice-over): Ryan says he was treated by Joseph Nicolosi, a clinical psychologist who today is still associated with NARTH.
KENDALL: The constraint refrain was the religious one, that this is an abomination, that this is a sickness that can be fixed, that you don't want to be an effeminate man, so you want to butch up. That this is something that makes God cry, that this is something your family doesn't want for you.
KAYE: At his office outside Los Angeles, we asked Nicolosi if he remembered treating Ryan Kendall about 14 years ago.
JOSEPH NICOLOSI, PSYCHOLOGIST: I'm not familiar with the name at all.
KAYE (on camera): His parents have provided bills from your office. There have been checks written to your office but no record?
NICOLOSI: No.
KAYE: He says that your therapy was quite harmful. He said that he was told 1 percent of the world is gay.
NICOLOSI: Two percent.
KAYE: He said that you told him to "butch up," quote unquote.
NICOLOSI: Never, that's not our language.
KAYE: And that, when he was sobbing, he was told that it was wrong to be a homosexual.
NICOLOSI: Absolutely not. Absolutely. We do not do that kind of work.
When a client begins a session, how can I help you? What do you want to work on today? I have to be seen as an ally, a helper, a good father figure, a good male image. This is what's curative. I have to be the man who accepts you for who you are.
KAYE: When somebody says, people like yourself, others are trying to get the gay out of people?
NICOLOSI: That's a terrible way of phrasing it. I would rather say we are trying to bring out the heterosexuality in you.
KENDALL: I still struggle.
KAYE (voice-over): At 14, Ryan says he had no interest in changing. Or continuing therapy with Nicolosi.
(on camera): Did Nicolosi understand that you were there against your will?
KENDALL: Absolutely. Nicolosi knew that I wasn't a willing participant, but this is what he does. He takes in gay kids whose families want them to be straight, and he goes to work on them.
KAYE (voice-over): Nicolosi told us that's not true.
(on camera) And you put the child's interests before the parent's even?
NICOLOSI: Absolutely. Absolutely.
KAYE: He says he's kept hundreds of children from growing up to be gay. One of the researchers he points to is this man, George Rekers, a big believer that homosexuality can be prevented. Nicolosi even cites Rekers' work in his book, "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality."
He uses Rekers' therapy as evidence with "effeminate boy" as evidence that therapy can keep children from growing up to be gay. He writes that "growth into a heterosexual identity is indeed possible."
NICOLOSI: George Rekers has done pioneering work in this for many, many years.
KAYE: What Nicolosi didn't know until our interview was that the young boy he cites as a success story, whose real name is Kirk Murphy, struggled with being gay his entire life. He committed suicide in 2003, when he was 38 years old.
Kirk's family says the torment brought on by the therapy is why Kirk took his own life. But Rekers argues there's no way to prove his therapy had anything to do with Kirk's suicide decades later. NICOLOSI: George Rekers has done a lot of research. He's done a lifetime of research. If there is somebody who committed suicide, that's tragic. But we have to look at the body of literature. That's what we're relying on.
KAYE: Nicolosi claims science supports the idea that people are not born gay.
NICOLOSI: We say that homosexuality is an adaptation to an emotional breach with the parents, primarily parents of the same sex, or for the boy, it's an emotional breach, a failure to bond with the father.
WAYNE BESEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TRUTH WINS OUT: Dr. Joseph Nicolosi simply makes things up when it comes to science.
KAYE: Wayne Besen is an advocate for gay equality with the organization Truth Wins Out.
BESEN: He says a person who is a gay man is a distant father and isn't good at sports. I, for example, was an all-city basketball player in high school and am incredibly close to my father.
KAYE: The American Psychiatric Association opposes reparative therapy. The group's position statement says "the potential risks are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior."
Nicolosi says his therapy isn't harmful, and he only treats people who want to change.
(on camera) Does it concern you that there may be a psychological impact on some of these kids?
NICOLOSI: Well, there's much more push from society to be not homosexual, not to be gay. That's for sure.
KAYE: You're saying they feel more pressure out there than in here?
NICOLOSI: Absolutely.
BESEN: Every day I deal with people who have been harmed, who are survivors of these creeps that try to say they can pray away the gay and change people's (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And I can tell you, it's incredibly destructive. It harms people in a very deep level.
RYAN: Ryan is now back in school. He says the only way he was able to escape therapy with Nicolosi was by surrendering himself to the Department of Human Services in Colorado Springs and legally separating from his family.
But he'd been through more than a year of therapy by then and had already slipped into a deep depression and thoughts of suicide.
KENDALL: What they did hurt me. It tore apart my family. It led me to periods of homelessness, to drug abuse, to spending a decade of my life wanting to kill myself. And it led to so much pain and struggle.
And I want them to know that what they do hurts people. It hurts children. It has no basis in fact. And they need to stop.
NICOLOSI: This is unfair to have these accusations put to me like this. I'm not familiar with the case. All I can do is speak in generalities, and we would never do that to any client.
KENDALL: What happened to me is not something that goes away. I don't get that decade of my life back. I don't get those opportunities back. And I don't get my family back. And I will live with the damage that these individuals did for the rest of my life.
KAYE: Now 28, Ryan has plans to become a lawyer one day, to advocate for children, because, he says, no one was there to stand up for him.
Randi Kaye, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And we'll have more on this story tomorrow night.
Still ahead, new calls for Congressman Anthony Weiner to resign, but his pregnant wife apparently is not one of the people who thinks he should step down.
Also ahead, saying goodbye to the Queen of Mean's best friend. Millions of reasons for tonight's "RidicuList."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: A lot more we're following tonight. Isha Sesay joins was a "360 News & Business Bulletin" -- period.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: A lot more we're following tonight. Isha Sesay joins us with a "360 News & Business Bulletin" -- Isha.
ISHA SESAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, a monster wildfire in eastern Arizona is threatening power transmission lines which supply electricity to nearly 400,000 people. And the Willow Fire is just half a mile from the border with New Mexico in some places. About 600 square miles are scorched. That's roughly the size of Chicago and New York combined.
A Democratic source says Congressman Anthony Weiner has no plans to resign, and that his wife wants him to stay in Congress. A new Marist poll shows a majority of constituents support the idea. Fifty-six percent say they want Weiner to remain on the job.
Jury deliberations begin tomorrow in the retrial of disgraced former Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich. He's facing 20 corruption- related charges, but denies trying to sell President Obama's old Senate seat. This jury will try to do what the previous one could not: reach a decision on all of the charges.
On Wall Street, stocks snapped a six-day losing streak, the Dow adding 75 points to close at 12,124, while the NASDAQ and the S&P each rose 9 points.
And Anderson, across the pond, newlywed Will and Kate attended a children's charity benefit in London tonight. It was the first official royal event for Katherine, Duchess of Cambridge. I have to tell you, looking at those photos, these royals really know how to scrub up.
COOPER: To what?
SESAY: The royals really know how to scrub up and look good.
COOPER: Scrub up? Haven't heard that term.
SESAY: That's what they say about you; you scrub up well.
COOPER: Really?
SESAY: Yes, you do.
COOPER: Well, thank you, I guess. Does that mean bathe or like just dress up?
SESAY: It means dress up. It means, you know, put yourself together.
COOPER: I thought it meant, like, scrubbing.
SESAY: Put yourself together.
COOPER: OK, yes. Well, I try.
SESAY: We're going to work on that.
COOPER: All right. Thanks, Isha.
Tonight's nominee for the "RidicuList," kind of a blast from the past. Billionaire hotel magnate Leona Helmsley makes the list. And yes, I know she's dead. But today we were reminded just how ridiculous she was in life.
Today, we learned that Helmsley's beloved lap dog named Trouble died. Probably the richest dog in the world is dead.
Now, if you don't remember Trouble, you need to get your priorities straight. I know, I know, you've got a lot to focus on. You're busy pretending not to Google Anthony's wiener or Khloe Kardashian's nipple on "FOX & Friends," but look, we're talking about a Maltese who inherited $12 million when lovely Leona Helmsley died. Twelve million dollars. That's a lot of money for any heiress to inherit, let alone one who after the will was read promptly licked herself and fell asleep. Now, before you start screaming at the TV in outrage -- yes, I'm talking to you, Wolf Blitzer -- I should remind you that a judge reduced Trouble's inheritance from $12 million to $2 million, on the grounds that Leona Helmsley, who famously went to prison after declaring that only the little people pay taxes, was mentally unstable. Yes, well, in equally shocking news, I'm white.
At this point, I know what you're thinking: how could an elderly Maltese get by on a measly $2 million? I mean, I work with people who spend more than that on an eyebrow pencil. And yes, I'm still talking about you, Wolf Blitzer.
But somehow, Trouble was able to tighten her collar and get by. She lived in a Helmsley hotel in Florida, ate gourmet meals on fine china, and had a bodyguard. What do you think that bodyguard is going to put on his resume? "I gave round-the-clock protection to a Maltese."
Trouble got more money in Helmsley's will than some of her grandchildren, who were cut out of her will altogether for, as she put it, reasons known to them. It's kind of like my 20-year feud with Nancy Grace. She knows what she did.
One curious footnote to the saga of Trouble: news of her death, said to be of natural causes, only surfaced today. But officials with the Helmsley estate say she actually died this past December.
Well, if you ask me, I think Trouble fell in love with her bodyguard, faked her own death, and now they're living large in Grand Canyon with the rest of her cash and buckets and buckets of Kibbles 'n' Bits.
As for Leona, she may be six feet under, but tonight she lives again on the "RidicuList." We'll be right back.
