[Blitzer:] We have very sad news to report right now. Jody Powell, Jody Powell, the former White House press secretary to President Jimmy Carter, has died. We're getting information, died of a heart attack, this according to the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Let's bring back James Carville. You and I knew Jody Powell very well over many years. I remember covering the Carter administration. He was an excellent White House press secretary.
[Carville:] He was, and the thing about Jody was everybody in Washington knows who is like a good guy and who is not, and I don't know of anybody that didn't think that Jody was a good guy, and, you know, we lost Mike Defer, you know, who was one of Reagan's top aides, thought to be a universally good guy and sometimes in Washington people see Democrats and Republicans and people in Washington see good guys and not so good guys and Jody was clearly a good guy. Just lovely people in every sense of the word.
[Blitzer:] I remember covering him when I covered the Jimmy Carter White House, especially during the time of the Camp David accord, the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. I traveled with President Carter in Egypt for the final round of negotiations leading up to the Israeli- Egyptian peace treaty back in 1979 and Jody Powell was very helpful to all of us. He was sort of the perfect kind of White House press secretary, the intermediate between the press corps.
[Carville:] Right.
[Blitzer:] Which all of us were members of and the government which he also had to obviously represent.
[Carville:] And he was unique in that he was really part of the inner circle. I mean, when he was a press secretary, he had obviously a very close relationship with president Carter, so if you were a press person, and I want here in Washington at the time, but not always sometimes is the press secretary who is a person, you know, who is on the outside of what's going on. In Jody's case he was probably as inside a press secretary in terms of policy as anybody in a long time.
[Blitzer:] Deepest condolences. He was born on September 30th, 1943. He was a young man.
[Carville:] Yes, he was.
[Blitzer:] Thanks very much.
[Carville:] Thank you.
[Blitzer:] Jody Powell, unfortunately, we have to report has died, the former White House press secretary under President Jimmy Carter, an all-around good guy. Some are warning of a new threat to U.S. forces in Afghanistan, those pictures seen around the world of private American security contractors assigned to the U.S. embassy holding drunken, naked parties. Could those images lead to more American military deaths? Our foreign affairs correspondent Jill Dougherty is joining us now with more. Jill, what exactly are you hearing?
[Jill Dougherty, Cnn Foreign Affairs Correspondent:] Well, Wolf, you know, the State Department says it made a mistake trusting its troubled contractor to supervise guards at the embassy in Kabul, and today it said it's moving closer to pulling the plug on that contract.
[Michael Thibault, Commission On Wartime Contracting:] We've heard this morning about brothels. We've heard about human trafficking with this company. We've heard about lurid parties.
[Dougherty:] The State Department under fire for renewing contracts with a private security company guarding the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Critics say the State Department should have known about obscene behavior by the company's guards after years of being told about mismanagement by Armor Group North America.
[Unidentified Male:] This is repugnant and demands swift and appropriate action.
[Dougherty:] A member of the commission set up by Congress to oversee contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq charges of misbehavior in Kabul may have deadly results.
[Dov Zakheim, Commission On Wartime Contracting:] Those Afghans who are there are going to tell their relatives, who are going to tell their tribes, who are going to be the latest recruits of the Taliban, who are going to shoot our kids in Afghanistan.
[Dougherty:] Testifying one of the 20 guard whistleblowers, a company project supervisor who described what he saw at a raucous guard party.
[Terry Pearson, Former Contractor In Kabul:] Some of them for the best were naked. Some were standing there urinating on the ground and unfortunately and sickly on each other.
[Dougherty:] Pictures from guard drinking parties, one commission says, are all over the internet. Some internet, some link to sex sites, as damaging to the U.S. image as infamous photo of Abu Ghraib prison.
[Unidentified Male:] I've seen the pictures, you've seen the pictures. It's a no-brainer. That conduct is appalling and should have been stopped immediately.
[Dougherty:] But the State Department says, embassy security was never in jeopardy. Even as it repeatedly warned the company to correct problems like shortages of guards and equipment. The watchdog group the whistleblowers turned to says it's not just the party photos that are obscene.
[Danielle Brian, Project On Government Oversight:] What is truly obscene is that Armor Group knowingly underperformed in its mission in order to maximize profits, endangering the diplomats and its own employees.
[Dougherty:] The parent company claims it's taking firm and swift actions.
[Samuel Brinkley, Wackenhut Services, Inc:] I am not hear to defend the indefensive.
[Dougherty:] And a broader question, one that Hillary Clinton is asking, should private companies, instead of the military or government employees, be providing security in war zones? Wolf?
[Blitzer:] It's a good question. It needs a strong answer. I know they're working on it. Jill, thank you. Cell phones give off radiation, some more than others. Are there any serious health risks? Celebrations to welcome the release from prison of the man who famously threw his shoes at President Bush. Stay with us for the latest right here in THE SITUATION ROOM.