CNN's "American Morning" host Soledad O'Brien said Tuesday that Hurricane Katrina evacuees housed at the Superdome were worse off than beheading victims in Baghdad.

The normally mild-mannered newswoman offered the overwrought observation while speaking at Redbook Magazine's "Movers and Shakers" awards luncheon in New York.

According to the New York Daily News, O'Brien blurted out:

"It is a sad thing to watch military veterans cry as they tell you the beheadings in Baghdad were less horrific than what they saw as 30,000 people marched from the Superdome through a shopping mall and onto buses to who knows where."

Ms. O'Brien didn't identify the veterans who told her that Katrina victims would have been better off being beheaded.