al qaeda takes responsibility for the christmas day attack and promises more. but president obama promises to stop them. >> we will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable. and now we're seeing al qaeda's new weapon of terror. a stellar year for wall street, but not so good if many street. what should you know about the new year? we'll ask steve forbes. dramatic 9d 11 call from charlie sheen's wife. >> as far as you know, he still has the knife? >> yes. >> what kind of knife is it? >> it's like with a sports blade. >> but what does charlie say? we'll have both sides. >>. and from raging bull to taxi driver. >> are you talking to me? >> a conversation with the great robertdy ne robert de niro, early this tuesday morning, december 29th, robert de niro, early this tuesday morning, december 29th, 2009. captioning funded by cbs i'm harry smith along with dr. debbye turner bell. maggie rodriguez is off this morning. and you're probably wondering what this is. >> i know what it represents. >> this is actually sugar, which is a granular substance not dissimilar from petn which was the stuff that abdulmutallab had with him in his underwear. you've seen the picture by now. you can see how apparently at least allegedly al qaeda operatives sewed this stuff into the underwear. this is lovely how much he had with him. it's a material that's similar to nitroglycerin. so this can be volatile stuff. but this is much more than the 50 grams that richard reed had, the shoe bomber. now, let me show you what happened to a shoe that they rigged up to show what would have happened with an explosion in richard reed. >> and that's almost half of this, a little more than half. >> no, this is half again more than what richard reed -- >> this is almost twice of what that was. >> exactly right. so almost everybody we talked to has said this would have been enough to punch a hole in that air plane and he happened to be sitting in a seat that was over one of the gas tanks. so it is absolutely scary. but let's get to the latest from jim axelrod who is in detroit. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. sense the moment that abdulmutallab has been taken into custody, he's been claiming he was trained by al qaeda. now al qaeda leaders are saying they were behind the attack on flight 253. al qaeda now says that the christmas day attack was payback for u.s. assisted air attacks against the terror group by the yemen any government, promising you we are bringing you slaughter and we have bringing you men who cherish death just like you cherish life. >> they are a threat to all our neighboring countries. >> reporter: abdulmutallab has told investigators he's trained by al qaeda in yemen for attacks on u.s. interests and that al qaeda operative there is made him this underwear that allegedly had the explosive sewn into the band to escape detection. monday president obama reviewed a screening of the terrorist watch systems that cleanly failed in this case as well as a hunt for others who might have helped abdulmutallab. >> we are not rest up we find all who were involved and hold tell accountable. >> reporter: among the subjects for review, how the intelligence community handled warnings from abdulmutallab's father that his son was involved with religious extremists and why those warnings weren't enough to put abdulmutallab on a no d-fly lis. prosecutors will ask for a dna sample and see if they can connect him to other terror plots. >> jim axelrod in detroit, thank you. as you heard, abdulmutallab has close ties to yemen, a small him above rished nation that borders the southern tip of saudi arabia, also the ancestral home of owes bip's family and is now on the front lines in the u.s. war on terror. cbs news correspondent sheila macvicar is in london with more on that. good morning. >> reporter: between morning, harry. in a statement released last night, yemen's government confirmed that abdulmutallab had twice been given student visas to study arabic in the yemen any capital and had been there from august until december. under the black flag are the followers of al qaeda in yemen. it's an increasingly powerful, increasingly dangerous organization. beyond the control of yemen's beleaguered government. yemen is fighting two wars, a civil war in the north and one against al qaeda. increasingly the u.s. has been training troops in count tir terrorism and providing them with weapons. >> for many years now, al qaeda has had a presence in yemen. obviously the internal conflict and its ability there give it a training base and that we've seen just how dangerous this can be. >> reporter: al qaeda first struck a u.s. target in yemen in 2000 with the bombing of the coal. and then a car bomb attack against the u.s. embassy last year. but this is a threat that reaches beyond the region. among those sheltered in yemen, the american born radical preach who are advised hasthahasan, th soldier who killed 13 at ft. hood. al qaeda in yemen have shown it has 9d capital. is this the aftermath of a suicide attack in august. the bomber had arrived from yemen. to evade security screening, the bomber had taken a trip and carried a pound of high explosives plus a december nature tore inside his rectum. al qaeda brag that had it was working on new and even more dangerous ideas. in its statement claiming responsibility for the christmas day attempt, an al qaeda spokesman warned abdulmutallab's difficult to detect device would be per effected. >> sheila macvicar in london. thank you. in order for abdulmutallab to get on northwest flight 253, there were a lot of missed red frags. he paid almost $3,000 in cash, checked no bags, and airport screeners failed to defects the highly explosive petn and syringe which were on his body. joining us now from grand rapids, michigan, congressman peter hoekstra, ranking republican on the house intelligence committee. good morning, sir. the brits denied this guy a visa, his father advised the embassy in nigeria that his son was going to be trouble. how was it that our system failed to connect all these dots? >> that's one of the questions that we'll have to be investigating over the coming weeks. it's clearly the system failed at three points, it failed in the embassy in nigeria, it failed when we didn't get the information from the brits about this individual and as to why they were not going to on give him a visa, and then finally it failed at the entry point at the airports in nigeria and again so three failure points where you would have expected to catch this guy and we didn't. >> if you could do one thing today to make this system safer, what would you try to enact? >> well, i think what we need to enact and i think the media has done a very, very good job of putting together the mosaic and picture, they filled the vacuum that this administration has created by not sharing information with the american people about this attack on christmas day or about ft. hood. i think what needs to happen right now is that the american people have to understand that this threat is real, it continues, it's been with for us almost 20 years. and we need to be on offense. we need to be forward-leaning. we need to put in the latest technology. these folks are not going to go away. your earlier reports this morning of talking about how al qaeda and the arabian peninsula is evolving and change and wanting to attack, this is the information we need to get to the american people. then we will be able to come the things necessary, the tactics to keep us safe. >> i just -- what is baffling to so many of us, though, is if a name even ends up not on a no-fly list, but even on a watch list, that's only a half million names. technology is very usable, is very shareable. you type this guy's name into a list, a red flag has to go up someplace. >> absolutely. and, again, if you take a look at of -- we would have caulked his father a walk-in, an individual who came in with intelligence, a very credible source, he's talking about his son. he's talking about terrorism. you would have thought that this would have gone right to the top of the list and say, wow, we need to follow-up on this, we need to watch this guy. and we need to make sure he doesn't get into the united states before we do -- unless we do additional screening on him. that didn't happen. >> $40 billion at least spent on these programs over the last couple years. it doesn't feel like maybe we're getting our money's worth. congressman hoekstra, thanks for your time. chris wragge dwi is at the news desk. good morning, everyone. an autopsy is set for today in utah on a woman's burned body found last night about 30 miles from the home of susan powell, the mother who disappeared three weeks ago. now, police say they have no reason at this moment to believe that the body is hers. gordon brown says is he ap-paul that had china executed a british citizen this morning. akmal shaikh was convicted of drug smuggling, china's first execution of a you're pe an in nearly 60 years. and there's news this morning that somali pirates have hijacked two ship, a british chemical tanker with a crew of 26 seized last night in the gulf of adden. also yesterday, a panamanian crater with 19 crew members catched in the indian ocean. a custody battle is heating up over the grandson of former alaska governor sarah palin. palin's daughter, bristol, wants soul custody and child support for one-year-old trip oig. she calls levi johnston's play girl photo, risqué. she once shared custody and he denies avoiding his parental responsibilities. and some people in the mountains of northwestern north carolina have been without electricity since christmas. a massive ice storm brought down power lines last week and customers are without power and heat down from 40,000 at the peak of the storm. temperatures have been in the mid-30s and service as we're told may be restored as early as today. cannot come soon enough for those folks out will. well, dave price is on assignment in iraq this morning entertaining the troops. we'll speak with him shortly, so jackie johnson of our los angeles station is here it is just flat out windy. we have going to be dealing with wind chills right now of about 15-16 degrees with the temperatures in the upper 20s. the winds are howling above 20 miles an hour. today, 34. it will feel more like 24. the 20 tonight under a clear and moonlit sky. it will be cold. that's your latest weather, now over to harry and debbye. up next, wall street is doing great. so why is main street still in the dole drums? we'll ask steve forbes, editor-in-chief of "forbes magazine." and could charlie sheen wind up in jail? we'll hear his wife's dramatic 911 call. if you've taken your sleep aid and you're still fighting to sleep in the middle of the night, why would you go one more round using it ? you don't need a rematch-- but a re-think-- with lunesta. lunesta is different. it keys 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recovery, what's ahead in 2010? we want to ask steve forbes, coe of forbes incorporated and co-author of how capitalism will safe us. steve, good morning. >> good to be here. >> what is the most important driving factor in pushing the stock market back to a legal of recovery. >> some. >> the most important happened in march when the lows were reached and congress changed a bank regulation on how banks skral their capital. before it looked like the whole system was going to go down. most of the losses were book losses, not actual cash losses. and that was changed in march and anticipate and everyone realized the world's not coming to an end, the markets started to recover. so we've had a very good recovery especially considering what happened in the year before. however, before we get too giddy with the champagne, we have to put it into context. when you take especially the lousy value of the dollar, most other markets away the world have done better than us. but, hey, take the nice gains. >> let's take what we'll get, right? on the other hand, we're still looking at 10 plus percent unemployment, you see the rise in the stock market and there's a sense of relief for people with 401(k)s and everything else and retirement investments, but on the other hand, there's not a recovery on main street. is this a pre-cursor or will we ever see better times again in so much of the rest of the economy? >> i think we will. we'll get a recovery next year. it's not going to be the kind of real bounce back you normally get of a territory kind of fall we had late last year and early this year, but again you'll take what you will, you'll take what you can get. but the three things to watch out for, one is the dollar. the weak dollar is a real dampner on business investment. we have to get rid of that weak dollar. number two, big issue on taxes. tax cuts of 2003 expire at the end of the year. big debate coming up on that. and then there's an issue out of our immediate hands and that is the middle east. israel, iran, that's probably going come to a climax this year. >> because it can drive up oil prices. >> all sorts of negative consequences. >> let's go back to the economy itself because the economy that collapsed was based 70% on consumer spending. that's not a sustainable economic model. is there something else out there that can replace what didn't work before? >> well, the consumer side went on a binge in part because the federal reserve's weak dollar policy meant it was printing too much money which extorted economic activity. if the fed gets a stable dollar again, which is quite capable of doing, we've done it beforing this is not new, you'll start to see more traditional business investment, expanding existing businesses, inventories still very low, starting new businesses. there's a lot of innovation waiting to come just as we had in the early '90s. >> so happy days are almost here. >> just make a few pots pot changes. maybe washington taking a vacation a 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( sneezing ) ( moaning ) get over your cold faster. now try new throat-soothing liqui-loz and great-tasting zavors. now try new throat-soothing liqui-loz dave price is not here today, he is in iraq at camp victory in baghdad. >> he's entertaining the troops, his sixth time traveling overseas with a group called stars for stripes. good morning, dave. >> reporter: good morning to you, debbye. good morning, harry. i have got all my buddies and entertainers from los angeles who traveled with me, some of them for years now. and a great bunch of soldiers behind me from all over the country. we just did a quick hand raising exercise. we have people here from at least 21 states, some of them on their second and third deployment. a bunch of heros. so give yourselves a round of applause this morning as we say hello back home. it's so great to be back here, harry and debbye. >> so, dave, you do this every year. this is your sixth trip overseas over the holidays. what is it like to be there for the holidays? >> reporter: well, you know, everyone talks about the fact and wonders you leave your family right away the holidays and as you come here year after year and see some of the same faces that you saw in afghanistan here in iraq or vice versa, these men and women become your families. and through them, we have a great way to celebrate the holidays together. some of them wishing their loved ones -- you've been married how long? >> a little over a year, sir. >> reporter: and you will spind another year or so here, right, before you get home? >> yes, sir. >> reporter: so half the amount of time he's been married, he's been here in iraq. so to help these men and women say hello to all their friends and family means the world to all of us. and that's why we come here each and every year. so let's say happy new year to everyone at home. c1 it is 7:25. eyewitness news has weather and traffic with marty and sharon. >> let's look at the forecast. winds have been howling all night long. we will have steady winds all day. knock the 34 back to 24 degrees. that is the wind chill. let's go to sharon gibala in traffic control. we are followi