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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Pat Tillman Killed in Iraq; Interview With Bob Woodward

Aired April 23, 2004 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The ultimate sacrifice from Arizona to Afghanistan. He gave up pro football and millions of dollars to fight terrorism.

PAT TILLMAN, ARIZONA CARDINALS, U.S. ARMY: I really haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that. And so I have a great deal of respect for those who have.

BLITZER: Now, he's given his life.

Deadly foe. As coalition casualties mount, a Shi'ite sermon warns of suicide bombings. But the U.S. has a warning of its own.

PAUL BREMER, U.S. CIVILIAN ADMINISTRATOR IN IRAQ: Major hostilities could resume on short notice.

BLITZER: "Plan of Attack." His new book on the run-up to the war has rocked the Capitol. They have their own versions. Who is right? I'll speak with author Bob Woodward.

Nazi doctors. Their medicine was not meant for healing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Being in Auschwitz they gave me shots. They gave me shots, you know, and they send me to block ten.

BLITZER: A new look at Holocaust horrors.

ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS for Friday, April 23, 2004.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: We begin with a developing story. A statement today by the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is causing some distress over at the White House.

In an interview with an Israeli television station, the Israeli prime minister said he is no longer bound by a promise he once made to President Bush not to harm the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. CNN's Elaine Quijano is over at the White House. She's following this story -- Elaine

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Wolf. That statement certainly getting the attention of the White House. Two senior administration officials saying that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice actually phoned the chief of staff for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and said quite plainly the United States will oppose any Israeli effort to target Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The White House telling that Israeli government that it considered a, quote, "a pledge a pledge." Now the sources say that the prime minister raised that pledge during a meeting last week at the White House with the president. A U.S. official says President Bush reiterate his opposition to such an action. This official saying that the prime minister's remarks on Israeli television prompted that call or got the White House's attention.

This already adding to the complicated situation for the president as the administration had hoped at this time to be jump starting the so-called road map to peace -- Wolf.

BLITZER: CNN's Elaine Quijano with an important story over at the White House. Thanks, Elaine, very much.

Now to a very sad story, a story of war and tragedy. He had fame and fortune, but he gave it all up to serve his country. Former Arizona Cardinal Pat Tillman quit the NFL To join the hunt for Osama bin Laden. He was serving with the U.S. Army Special Forces when he was killed on patrol in Afghanistan.

We have two reports. CNN's Sean Callebs will tell us about the man and his motivation. But we begin with our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well Sergeant Pat Tillman was a member of the 75th Army Ranger Regiment, among the elite troops hunting for Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

He lost his life when his patrol was ambushed on Thursday night near a small town southwest of the coast, along the that region, the town of Sperah, right along the border region where his patrol came under attack.

According to the Pentagon, there was a fire fight, two Americans were wounded in that fire fight, an Afghan militia fighting along with the U.S. was also killed with Sergeant Tillman.

His brother Kevin, we are told, is in the same battalion. And, in fact, he enlisted with his brother. That's why he went into Special Forces. And at this point we can confirm they were both in the same battalion, although they weren't apparently patrolling together.

Sergeant Tillman remains will be brought back to the United States. And the Army is making no further statement at this time -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon. Thanks, Jamie, very much. The White House says Pat Tillman made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror and it's calling him an inspiration. For more on this young man with a clear-cut mission, let's turn to CNN's Sean Callebs -- Sean.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, no shortage of superlatives talking about Pat Tillman. He walked away from celebrity and all its trappings to serve his country. Tillman didn't seek headlines but now the entire nation is talking about this pro safety turned Special Forces.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CALLEBS (voice-over): Pat Tillman's extraordinary athletic talent brought him to the sport's highest level, his heart and passion for the flag led him to Iraq and then Afghanistan.

This is Tillman in an NFL tribute the day after the September 11 attacks.

TILLMAN: You know, my great-grandfather was at Pearl Harbor and a lot of my family has given up and has gone fought in wars. I really haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that. And so I have a great deal of respect for those that have.

CALLEBS: Tillman gave up this uniform for this uniform. He served as an Army Ranger in the 75th Regiment. Offered the chance to come in as an officer, Tillman, 27, and his younger brother Kevin both joined as Specialist making $18,000 a year.

His teammates are calling the man who walked away from a $3.6 million pro contract a hero.

ANTHONY EDWARDS, FORMER TEAMMATE: In this life, there's a lot of people that are loaded on money, that wasn't Pat. It never was him.

CALLEBS: Tillman died in the dirt in Afghanistan, in a gun battle. It wasn't his first tour of duty.

SCOTT BORDOW, "EAST VALLEY TRIBUNE":: He had just been married a couple years ago to his high school sweetheart. They wanted to start a family. But he felt a great sense of duty and obligation to country. And he was more than ready to go back to the Middle east.his family.

CALLEBS: He didn't have a cakewalk to the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL. He excelled despite the odds. Long before he made it here, he came to college as a walk-on. He graduated in three and a half years with a 3.84 grade point average.

Tillman was one of the last players taken in the 1998 NFL Draft. Without question, he left a lasting impression on those who knew him best.

MICHAEL BIDWILL, VICE PRESIDENT, ARIZONA CARDINALS: The Cardinals and the National Football League were privileged to have Pat Tillman in its family. And we're all weaker today following this loss.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLEBS: Tillman announced he was going into the Army right after he returned from his honeymoon back in 2002. In this day of cash crazy sports salaries, an interesting note: Tillman made the decision to join the service without talking to his agent -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Sean Callebs, thanks very much for that report. And our deepest condolences to the Tillman family.

A member of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division was killed in Iraq today when suspected insurgents used an explosive device to attack a convoy rolling through Samarra. Earlier, there was another deadly attack on coalition forces. Let's go to our battle lines report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Karbala, insurgents ambush a Bulgarian convoy near Karbala's city hall. The attack started a gun battle that left a military truck in flames. A sergeant shot during the fight later died in the military hospital, the sixth Bulgarian soldier to be killed in Iraq.

Najaf, radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr leads Friday prayers and uses the occasion to threaten the U.S.-led coalition. Speaking to thousands of worshipers, Sadr warns that if Najaf or Karbala are attacked his followers will respond with suicide bombers.

Said, Sadr, quote, "We will all be time bombs in the face of the enemy."

Basra, authorities say they made arrest in connection with this week's deadly attacks in the Basra area. Reports now put the death toll in those attacks at least 74. Officials say the suspects are believed to have links to the al Qaeda terror network.

Fallujah, U.S. Marines continue their siege, occasionally responding to gunfire with insurgents. Coalition officials warn all- out fighting may resume within days, unless insurgents live up to an agreement to turn in their arms. So far, authorities say the response has not been encouraging.

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY: There were a couple of weapons turned in today, far less than yesterday.

BLITZER: Baghdad, the Iraq Red Crescent Society sets up a tent city for refugees from Fallujah. The camp is located in Baghdad's Hudra (ph) district . So far only a few dozen tents have been set up but more may be needed with just over 30 families already signing up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And we'll have much more coming up on the shaky cease- fire in Fallujah. I'll speak with one of the few journalist embedded with U.S. Marines right now in the city. Questions raised about the president's inner circle, their relationships and the events leading up to the war in Iraq. We'll hear directly and live from Bob Woodward, the author of the controversial book "Plan of Attack." He'll be coming up here next.

Strong criticism of Democratic candidate John Kerry comes out swinging against the president on Iraq.

Plus this...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand (UNINTELLIGIBLE) word he said. We don't want to kill him, but let's make him that he would not -- how do you say it -- that he not be productive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Torture disguised as medicine. New information about the horrific experiments Nazi doctors performed during the Holocaust.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back, all this week it's been hard to escape the buzz about a hot new book that hit bookstores only a few days ago. Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack" traces the Bush administration's steps toward war in Iraq. The author is joining us now to talk about the fallout and the implications. Thanks very much, Bob, for joining us. Congratulations, No. 1 best seller. Didn't take very long.

BOB WOODWARD, AUTHOR, "PLAN OF ATTACK": People are interested in Bush and Iraq. They should be because it's a window into who he is.

BLITZER: The bottom line, the White House, the Republican party, the Bush-Cheney campaign, they believe this book is favorable towards the president.

WOODWARD: Because it shows he has no doubt. He's very determined. But at the same time if you look at it and I think it's on the Kerry website as recommended reading.

BLITZER: As well.

WOODWARD: There are lots of points where -- like when Colin Powell warned him. You are going to own this country. That's what the news has been for the last year really. You are going to own it, if you break it. And the consequences of that ownership had not been fully -- were not fully examined before the war.

BLITZER: If you read your book, you have to come around to the conclusion, assuming people believe you, that when the president said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he honestly believed that.

WOODWARD: Yes, I think he did.

BLITZER: He wasn't lying to the American people based on all of your reporting.

WOODWARD: Yes. Absolutely. When George Tenet the CIA director after they give President Bush a briefing on a Saturday in the Oval Office and Bush is skeptical, wait a minute, Joe Public isn't going to buy that...

BLITZER: Because the intelligence was sort of...

WOODWARD: Very fuzzy. You know about intelligence. It always is (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And you always get little pieces and fragments.

And George Tenet the CIA director said, "don't worry, it's a slam dunk." I think arguably and some people have read it and have said, wait a minute, the president then should have said, doesn't pass the smell test with me, George Tenet said it's a slam dunk. Let's get somebody in here to really look at this, start from square one, because it's the critical issue in the decision to go to war. Some people are going to think he didn't go far enough with this skepticism. A lot of people are going to look at it and say he was the skeptical one but he was reassured by his CIA director and his vice president.

BLITZER: Do you get any indication whatsoever, you interviewed him for at least three and a half hours or so, do you get any indication whatsoever he's kicking himself for not telling George Tenet, slam dunk, let's do a little bit more checking?

WOODWARD: Well, you would hope he would given that we haven't found weapons of mass destruction, but he doesn't -- as you know, he's a no doubt person. He does not -- if he thinks he makes mistakes, he doesn't acknowledge it. And it's Colin Powell in the book who concludes, you know, when does this guy, the president, re-evaluate? Because there's never a seeming reevaluation. He sets himself on a course and he stays on it at all costs.

BLITZER: Prince Bandar who is a very important figure because he was apparently briefed as you report even before the Secretary of State Colin Powell.

BOB WOODWARD, AUTHOR, "PLAN OF ATTACK: On the decision to go to war.

BLITZER: On the decision to go to war. Although he disputes that the president told him precisely that he was going to go to war. Listen to what he said when you were on "LARRY KING LIVE" together with Prince Bandar who called in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE BANDAR BIN SULTAN, SAUDI AMBASSADOR: What he said is accurate, however, there was one sentence that was left out.

LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE: And that is?

BANDAR: Both Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld told me before the briefing that the president has not made a decision yet but here is the plan and then the rest is accurate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right.

WOODWARD: Not true.

BLITZER: What Prince Bandar is saying is not true.

WOODWARD: I'm going to say this because -- the glaring statement there makes it sound like, well, he's saying I've got it right but, no, there was a pre-meeting that kind of said he hasn't decided. Wherein this meeting you have the secretary of defense saying according to the secretary of defense's own words, you can take this to the bank, this is going to happen. And I interviewed the president and we spent a long time going over that meeting and the meeting with Colin Powell and the president is the one who said, like to Colin Powell, time to get your war uniform on. That's not a maybe, that's war is coming. It could not have been clearer. For some reason Bandar wants to fuzz this up.

BLITZER: Bandar will be among my guests Sunday on "LATE EDITION."

WOODWARD: That's great. Bandar called me last night.

BLITZER: What did he say?

WOODWARD: Woke me up, a quarter of 12:00 and we went through this. And I said, what are you doing? He said, "well, they said he hasn't made a decision." Direct quote. Wink, wink. In other words, don't believe it and I said, "well the issue here is when you left that meeting, did you think the president had decided on war?" And Bandar said absolutely.

BLITZER: All right.

WOODWARD: There you go.

BLITZER: We'll follow up with him on Sunday.

WOODWARD: Please do. Please do.

BLITZER: Stand by. We have a lot more questions to talk about including the Secretary of State Colin Powell and his precise role. My interview with Bob Woodward will continue. That's just ahead.

Plus, coalition warnings of a new military offensive in Fallujah. Will insurgents lay down their arms? A lot of people don't believe they will.

True hero, he left a dream career in the NFL to serve his country. Now this former football star joins the ranks of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Also ahead... (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLOS WATSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I'm Carlos Watson. Join me on the inside edge today as I tell you about a surprising contributor to the Bush campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. Bob Woodward's new book "Plan of Attack" has raised questions and eyebrows here in Washington, around the country, indeed around the world. It traces the Bush administration's steps toward the war in Iraq. We're continuing our conversation with Bob Woodward. The Secretary of State, Colin Powell, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a four-star general, you report was only notified of the plan to go to war...

WOODWARD: Not the plan, of the decision.

BLITZER: Of the decision to go to war after Prince Bandar, the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. Listen to what Colin Powell said this week.

WOODWARD: No, I will, but viewers ought to note, he's denying something I didn't say.

BLITZER: Well, let's listen very carefully.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The question that has arisen seems to be that Prince Bandar received a briefing on the plan with some suggestion that I hadn't. Of course, I had. I was intimately familiar with the plan and I was aware that Prince Bandar was being briefed on the plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. Someone like you who is a great reporter knows a nondenial denial.

WOODWARD: Exactly. He says there's been some suggestion I haven't been briefed on the plan. If you look at the book, I have Powell at all of these key briefings where they lay out the plan. So, you know, it's that -- if you can't deny what they said, deny what they didn't say.

BLITZER: So basically what -- just to be precise, he wasn't briefed on the decision to go to war, Bandar learned of that decision before Powell.

WOODWARD: Right, but that's kind of a coincidence. Bandar learned on a Saturday. As you know, sometimes things happen on a Saturday and then Monday morning, oh, well, we have to tell Colin in this case. And the briefing to Powell was Monday morning. 12 minutes, I spent ten minutes with the president going over what happened and the president said, it sounds like you have it right.

BLITZER: Here's the question that a lot of people are e-mailing me about, young people are asking me, old people are asking me, Bob Woodward, who together with Karl Bernstein (ph) broke the Watergate story and have written incredible books ever since. Simple question, how do you do it?

WOODWARD: The "Washington Post," Len Downey (ph), the editor, gives me a year to work on this and then we run the excerpts. Having a year as you know, having written some books, that it makes a big difference. You can go back to sources and back again and I sent the White House a 21-page memo outlining the turning points and decision points. And somebody said to me, who looked at it said you're going to write this book anyway, aren't you? And I was. And they said, let's get the president's voice in.

BLITZER: It's an amazing bit of reporting. But then again your whole 30 or 40 years of reporting have been quite amazing. Congratulations.

WOODWARD: Thanks.

BLITZER: "Plan of Attack," it's the No. 1 bestseller out right now.

The Baathists are back. The top U.S. administrator in Iraq says thousands of Saddam's former deputies will be returning to government positions. Find out why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's an opportunity for their ideas and their research to become public policy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: License to kill, the horrific story behind Nazi Germany's attempt at a master race.

And voting worries, a California advisory panel delivers a major blow to a maker of electronic voting machines. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. Is the United States just a few days away from urban warfare? I'll speak live with a journalist right in the middle of the storm. We'll go to Fallujah. First though a quick check of the latest headlines.

The White House is calling Pat Tillman an inspiration, both on and off the football field. The former NFL star walked away from a sports career two years ago to become a U.S. army ranger. Today, Pentagon officials said Tillman was killed while serving on a mission in Afghanistan. He was only 27 years old.

The British Foreign Office says it's ambassador in North Korea now is told several hundred people were killed and thousands injured in yesterday's devastating train explosion. North Korean officials told other diplomats that a spark from a live power cable apparently touched off the massive blast near the border with China.

In Saudi Arabia five suspected terrorists are dead in the wake of a shoot-out in Jeddah and a subsequent police pursuit. Saudi TV quotes an interior ministry official as saying four of the dead suspects were on the country's most wanted list. Investigators are still trying to learn who the fifth person is.

A California advisory panel says a popular touch screen voting machine should go on the -- should go the way of punch cards and hanging chads. Panel members voted unanimously yesterday to recommend banning a device manufactured by Diebold because of persistent glitches. The move signals growing doubts about all electronic voting machines at large. A federal commission will address the issue at a hearing May 5.

President Bush calls himself a committed conservationist who wants to preserve the nation's natural treasures including Florida's wetlands. Campaigning in Florida today, the president said doing so makes good economic sense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are 10 million children involved in slavery around the world. It's been said that...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Unfortunately, that was a mistake. That was not what the president said.

Critics, including Democratic challenger John Kerry, says the president's environmental policies could actually lead to more development of the nation's wetlands.

The man who wants to unseat the president is coming out swinging against the Bush administration's plan for Iraq. In a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington today, the Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, said the truth is on the line this November.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you don't believe that this election is the most important in our lifetime, then all you have to do is look at the story of Iraq itself. First, the administration would have you believe that we are about to turn over authority in Iraq to a new government, a handover that will signal the end of America's occupation.

But, in reality, we are no closer to a real Iraqi government capable of providing security for its people, making laws, ensuring freedoms. This is still America's problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: As we reported earlier, the shaky truce remains in effect in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, but U.S. officials suggest they aren't willing to wait much long information insurgents to turn in their weapons.

For the very latest on the situation in Fallujah, we're joined once again on the phone by Tony Perry of "The Los Angeles Times." He's an embedded journalist with the U.S. Marines.

Tony, what happened today?

TONY PERRY, "THE LOS ANGELES TIMES": We had a series of small skirmishes between the Marines and insurgents. The insurgents have attacked the Marines in a number of locations. And the Marines have responded. I don't know of any Marine casualties.

Just in the last few minutes, for example, there's been mortaring and artillery exchanges in the far distance, while in the foreground there's the Islamic call to prayer. So it's sort of our nightly pattern. We hear the prayers in the foreground and the fighting in the background.

BLITZER: Is there a growing sense that it's imminent? Earlier today, I spoke with Brigadier General Kimmitt in Baghdad, who said they are only going to give them days. He didn't want to get more specific, but it sounds like the military, the Marines where you are, are getting ready for that.

PERRY: They are certainly prepared. There's three battalions already in place. There are other...

BLITZER: Unfortunately, we just lost Tony Perry's line in Fallujah. We'll try to reconnect Tony Perry of "The Los Angeles Times." He's embedded with the U.S. Marines in Fallujah reporting for us what is going on. We'll try to reconnect with Tony in Baghdad -- in Fallujah, that is.

And here's your chance to weigh in on this important story. Our "Web Question of the Day" is this: Should the coalition resume offensive operations in Fallujah? You can vote right now. Go to CNN.com/Wolf. We'll have the results coming up later in this broadcast.

The top U.S. administrator in Iraq confirmed today that thousands of former Baath Party members will be allowed to return to government jobs. They were barred from those jobs after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But U.S. administrator Paul Bremer now says that policy was poorly implemented.

CNN's Jim Clancy reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Friday's message came from the top to all Iraqis. PAUL BREMER, U.S. ADMINISTRATOR IN IRAQ: Working together, we can create the future you want.

CLANCY: While depicted as a mere technical adjustment some saw Bremer's national address on the U.S.-funded television channel as an effort to correct past mistakes.

On the military front, the policy shift may reflect the lessons learned in April as security plunged and casualties soared. The Iraqi army and police trained by the U.S. performed poorly. Friday, Bremer said former high-ranking officers not involved in the crimes of Saddam Hussein's regime would come back.

BREMER: Over 70 percent of the men in the Iraqi army and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps served honorably in the former army. They have asked to serve their country again and we welcome their renewed service.

CLANCY: Also dismissed after the war, more than 10,000 Iraqi teachers who had membership in the Baath Party, a measure some say has hurt the education of all Iraqis.

BREMER: This will allow thousands of teachers to return to work. Thousands more will begin receiving pensions this week.

CLANCY: While reconstruction efforts have suffered as some giant foreign contractors pulled out staff to avoid kidnapping, Ambassador Bremer said he ordered other projects accelerated, a move that may create more than a million jobs.

BREMER: I have told my colleagues in the coalition to accelerate these projects everywhere in the country. We expect that they will create over a million and a half jobs over the next year. I have instructed the coalition to give priority to Iraqi firms whenever possible in order to create as many opportunities for Iraqis as possible.

CLANCY: Iraqis will welcome a greater share of the billions of dollars in reconstruction money U.S. taxpayers are pouring into the country. Many argue Iraqis can do the work cheaper and employment is the best way to convince people they have a stake in their country's future.

(on camera): In many ways, Bremer's address was in itself an effort to rebuild, rebuild trust after some of the worst violence in more than a year. It also sent the message that the coalition was prepared not only to tell Iraqis how to run their country, but to listen to their ideas as well.

Jim Clancy, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And we have reestablished our phone line with Tony Perry of "The Los Angeles Times." He's in Fallujah. Tony, you were telling our viewers about the approximate number of days you think before the U.S. Marines go from being on the defensive to taking the offensive.

PERRY: Well, I think, as they said yesterday, days not weeks. Whether it's one, two, three, four, five days, who knows.

I talked today to one of the leading ground commanders, Colonel John Tulin (ph), a very plainspoken Marine. I said, Colonel Tulin, are we closer? He, we are 24 hours closer than we were yesterday. Clearly, the clock is ticking. The insurgents are not turning in their weaponry. They are not stopping their attacks on Marines. They attacked Marines and injured a number of Iraqi civilians today that had to be treated by the Navy medics here. The clock is ticking and I don't see anything that stops us from going forward in the very short term.

BLITZER: Would this be real classic urban warfare, hand to hand, house to house, door to door?

PERRY: Could be. But don't forget the U.S. has a whole arsenal. It has tremendous airpower. It has tremendous artillery power. There's all sorts of things that could come into play.

But ultimately if the insurgents choose to fight it could become classic urban warfare, the like of which we really haven't seen since the battle for Hue City in Vietnam. We really haven't seen it. The Marines are trained for it. They have been training for it for 30 years. They really haven't done it door to door, roof to roof, house to house. They are ready for it. It is the bloodiest, most difficult kind of warfare there is.

There will be civilian casualties. No one is saying there won't be. There will be Marine casualties. And there will be massive deaths by the insurgents.

BLITZER: Tony Perry, please be careful. Thanks very much for calling in. We really appreciate it.

Tony Perry of "The Los Angeles Times," a very, very excellent journalist.

Despite the chaos in Iraq and the controversy over the run-up to the war, President Bush's approval rating seems to be holding steady. But can they last? And how can a Kerry, a John Kerry that is, make a splash up next? Up next, Carlos Watson joins us for "The Inside edge."

And Nazi doctors. It was Hitler's atrocious attempt at preventing genetically diseased offspring. It was also a mandate for murder. We'll get to that.

First, though, a quick look at some other news making headlines around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BLITZER (voice-over): Officials from both sides say Israeli raids across the West Bank have left another four Palestinians dead. Palestinian security sources say three were killed when Israeli undercover troops opened fire on a group of suspected militants. They say the fourth was a civilian who died in Nablus in the crossfire of a fight between militants and Israeli forces.

Almost 260 people are under a quarantine in China on the heels of reports of two confirmed cases of SARS and two suspected cases. All are in an eastern province and Beijing. Last year's SARS outbreak was deemed a global threat and killed nearly 800 people worldwide.

People in Argentina are so fed up with rampant crime that tens of thousands filled into the streets of Buenos Aires in protest. They held a huge rally outside a central courthouse to demand that authorities declare a judicial emergency and come down hard on violent criminals.

A river in Brazil's Amazon jungle becomes a surfer's mecca twice a year. It happens when the spring equinox merges with moon tides to create a huge tidal wave, the longest wave in the world. Sufferers come from round the world to ride that, despite dangers from snakes, crocodiles and piranha.

And that's our look around the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: What lay behind the horrors of the Holocaust? Long before the mass murder of the Jews, Nazi doctors and scientists were practicing a deadly medicine aimed at creating a master race. For the next 18 months, this evil is on exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here in Washington, D.C.

CNN's Brian Todd reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the infancy of a wicked regime, the very first year of Adolf Hitler's dictatorship, the new German chancellor signs a chilling new mandate, the law for the prevention of genetically diseased offspring. This is its result.

These children would not survive the application of the law. Simon Rozenkier did, but only after Nazi doctors made sure he would never have children of his own.

SIMON ROZENKIER, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: I understand German and what they said. They said, we don't want to kill him, but let's make him that he would not -- how will you say it -- that he not be productive.

TODD: Striving to create a pure Nordic populous, Hitler and his cohorts seize upon science. SUSAN BACHRACH, CURATOR, DEADLY MEDICINE EXHIBIT: The idea that you could breed better human beings. You could improve the human stock.

TODD: Eugenics, the concept of changing the genetic makeup of a population, mainly through controlling marriage and reproduction, clearly attractive to the Third Reich.

It issues instructional films, encourages Aryans to couple off and strengthen the blood lines. The Nazis want to wean their population of those they deem inferior. In the region's early days, that means not only Jews, but anyone from the depressed to the paranoid to the so-called feeble-minded to people of mixed race.

BACHRACH: This provided a new opportunity to carry out policies in the name of the fatherland and using the argument that certain groups were just an enormous burden on German resources.

TODD: The exhibits "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race," just opened at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, takes you through this purposeful, regimented slaughter, as the Nazis gather the undesirables, tell their families they are being taken away for special care and go to work.

Some 400,000 are forcibly sterilized; 200,000 are killed, the most popular methods, lethal injection, heavy sedation and later gassing. As the Nazis roll through Europe, the program extends to the concentration camps and people like Simon Rozenkier. A Polish teenager who survived the Jewish ghettos, he is sent to Auschwitz in 1943.

ROZENKIER: Being in Auschwitz, they gave me shots. They gave me shots, you know, and they send me to block 10. So they gave me -- they called it in German (SPEAKING IN GERMAN) so I should be stronger, able to work.

TODD: He doesn't know it at the time, but the shots make him sterile. Others at Auschwitz and elsewhere are murdered, their bodies dissected for research. The twisted, horrifying story turns surreal with portraits of the hands-on perpetrators.

(voice-over): The most notorious name attached to Nazi physical experimentation, Dr. Joseph Mengele. He was a very significant part of the program to alter the genetic makeup of Germany, but he was really just one in just a long line of accomplished doctors who bought into the Nazi ideal of biological purity.

(voice-over): Like geneticist Otmar von Verschuer, a mentor of Mengele's who shares his fascination with twins, a driving force behind the sterilization program.

Eugen Fischer, a prominent anthropologist, who galvanizes the program to eliminate racial mixing. Dr. Eranst Ventzler (ph), respected pediatrician who orders the killing of several thousand children. Dr. Julius Hallervorden, a well-known neuropathologist who once acknowledged receiving the brains of nearly 700 executed children for research.

BACHRACH: It was an opportunity for their ideas and their research to become public policy.

TODD: A doctor's opportunity, a child's demise. Perhaps the most disturbing visual in this exhibit, a tribute to the youngest victims.

Simon Rozenkier remembers the children, remembers how close he came to joining them. Liberated from the camps, Rozenkier comes to America, joins the Army, serves in the Korean War, gets married, adopts a new born girl. He met Dr. Mengele and his colleagues at Auschwitz and suffered at their hands.

ROZENKIER: I want to know what happened to them. That bothers me. The war is over. Where did they go?

TODD: Where? Most of these torturers are never prosecuted. They fade into society. Some practice traditional medicine again. But their legacy does not escape.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And this reminder. For those of you who would like more information, you can visit the exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here in Washington. The exhibit will run until October 2005.

A rough week, but President Bush still has his political head well above water. Can he keep it there? Fresh insights on that. Plus, John Kerry's next big mission, that is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The ebb and flow of the political season is evident this week. Despite a difficult week on almost every front, President Bush is showing momentum in his race with John Kerry.

As he does every Friday, our political analyst Carlos Watson joins us now with more with that.

What kind of week was this for the president?

CARLOS WATSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Much better week than most people would have expected.

You would have thought with Bob Woodward's book, the continuing tensions in Fallujah, the president's numbers would be down. Instead, two or three polls came out, showed him with a four- or five-point lead, including one of our own earlier this week.

I attribute that to a couple of things. One is that the president has done a very good job taking a page not out of Ronald Reagan's playbook, but out of Bill Clinton's playbook on two accounts. One, political jujitsu. He has been tremendous at taking things that should hurt him, like the Condi Rice treatment, like Richard Clarke, like Bob Woodward, turning that to his advantage, according to the polls.

And, No. 2, you now start to see what I call him co-opting issues that Democrats like to call their own. Last week, we talked about that in terms of the 9/11 Commission. He is now calling for an intelligence czar. We talked about that in terms of Iraq, asking for more troops and more U.N. involvement. And beginning now, you are starting to see him this week on the environment and a host of domestic issue beginning to reach out to the middle.

So an impressive week for the president in many ways. We don't know whether or not it will hold. And, frankly, there are some gathering storms that he has got to worry about.

BLITZER: Let's talk about John Kerry for a second. Where does all this leave him?

WATSON: Well, John Kerry right now, if he were to paint the picture, he would say, look, it's been a tough couple weeks. He spent $55 million-plus on us, but I now have some money in the bank and I'm ready to go.

A lot of people would say that, with that money, he now needs to introduce himself to a wide swathe of voters. I think the opportunity, though, here is not simply to do it through ads, but an "Oprah" moment, if you will, to begin using "Oprah," "Jay Leno" and other kinds of popular TV shows to introduce himself in a way that seems less partisan.

You saw Arnold Schwarzenegger do that very well last fall when he went on "Oprah." You saw several years ago George Bush fundamentally change some of his numbers among women with that. I think there's an opportunity for him. The second thing -- and, Wolf, I was just in Pennsylvania, classic battleground state, talking to Republicans and Democrats.

Even among Democrats, what you hear from them consistently is, I want this guy to take a stand. I want this guy to come out clear and decisive on three or four issues that are compelling and that I understand. And it's interesting to hear that even from the most liberal Democrats.

BLITZER: All right, what should we be looking for, those of us who are political news junkies? What should we be looking for next week?

WATSON: Well, I think one of the stories that you talked about earlier, the abortion march on Sunday, I think is going to reintroduce what we popularly called in the '80s and early '90s the culture wars.

We earlier saw gay marriage touched on. And that issue kind of went away at least for the moment in terms of a hot, burning issue. We now see abortion. I think you are going to see a number of these conversations happen, including on guns as well. And I think the next several weeks, we'll not only see the economy and the war, but we will now see that balance out.

The second thing is, don't forget that, in Fallujah, there's a tense standoff. You talked about that earlier today. Many people are saying that if this is resolved, that will clear a path for June 30 to happen, again, limited sovereignty, not full sovereignty. But if it doesn't happen, that could be a downward spiral. So I think it's going to be a very important week.

And last but not least, on Thursday, the economic growth numbers come out for the U.S. Those numbers could be good. And don't forget, while we don't talk about it here in the U.S., the world GDP, gross domestic product, numbers have come out very good in the last several weeks, Wolf, People saying that China and India are growing and that some of that works in our favor in terms of trade and jobs.

BLITZER: So the demonstration this Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people supporting abortion rights for women, that could be significant? Is that what you're saying?

WATSON: That could significant, because, don't forget, you're not just going to see those that are in favor of choice, if you will, but you will see those on the other side come out as well. So I think you are going to see a response. And I think that will initiate a new culture conference.

BLITZER: Carlos Watson, as usual, thanks for joining us. If people want to read your column, they can go to?

WATSON: CNN.com/Carlos. It's been good this past week. We have obviously talked about Kerry and some surprise V.P. announcements.

BLITZER: All right, we'll read it. Thanks.

WATSON: Thank you.

BLITZER: The results of our hot Web question when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Here are the results of our Web question. Take a look, remembering, of course, this is not a scientific poll.

Yesterday, at this time, we aired video of photos of flag-draped coffin that the Pentagon had confirmed to us were those of military remains returning to the Dover Air Force Base. We didn't air those photos until we got that confirmation from the Pentagon. However, NASA now says that a few of the photos were of the coffins containing the remains of the Columbia shuttle astronauts also at Dover.

The Pentagon tells CNN that the more than 300 photos that it released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request may have in fact included the shuttle coffin photos. And so we've removed those NASA photos from the reporting of this story.

Need a bit of color to cap your Friday? Everything is coming up tulips for our picture of the day. Look at this. We take you to the Netherlands for a look at the endless fields of flowers. Tulips originated in Persia and were introduced to the Netherlands in the 16th century. The country dedicates more than 65,000 acres to the cultivation of bulbs and blooms. Beautiful.

A reminder, you can always catch WOLF BLITZER REPORTS weekdays at this time, 5:00 p.m. Eastern. We're also on noon Eastern weekdays. Don't forget to tune in to "LATE EDITION," the last word in Sunday talk. Among my special guests, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and Karen Hughes, the longtime adviser to the president. That's Sunday noon Eastern.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" starts right now.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired April 23, 2004 - 17:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The ultimate sacrifice from Arizona to Afghanistan. He gave up pro football and millions of dollars to fight terrorism.

PAT TILLMAN, ARIZONA CARDINALS, U.S. ARMY: I really haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that. And so I have a great deal of respect for those who have.

BLITZER: Now, he's given his life.

Deadly foe. As coalition casualties mount, a Shi'ite sermon warns of suicide bombings. But the U.S. has a warning of its own.

PAUL BREMER, U.S. CIVILIAN ADMINISTRATOR IN IRAQ: Major hostilities could resume on short notice.

BLITZER: "Plan of Attack." His new book on the run-up to the war has rocked the Capitol. They have their own versions. Who is right? I'll speak with author Bob Woodward.

Nazi doctors. Their medicine was not meant for healing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Being in Auschwitz they gave me shots. They gave me shots, you know, and they send me to block ten.

BLITZER: A new look at Holocaust horrors.

ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS for Friday, April 23, 2004.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: We begin with a developing story. A statement today by the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is causing some distress over at the White House.

In an interview with an Israeli television station, the Israeli prime minister said he is no longer bound by a promise he once made to President Bush not to harm the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. CNN's Elaine Quijano is over at the White House. She's following this story -- Elaine

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Wolf. That statement certainly getting the attention of the White House. Two senior administration officials saying that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice actually phoned the chief of staff for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and said quite plainly the United States will oppose any Israeli effort to target Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The White House telling that Israeli government that it considered a, quote, "a pledge a pledge." Now the sources say that the prime minister raised that pledge during a meeting last week at the White House with the president. A U.S. official says President Bush reiterate his opposition to such an action. This official saying that the prime minister's remarks on Israeli television prompted that call or got the White House's attention.

This already adding to the complicated situation for the president as the administration had hoped at this time to be jump starting the so-called road map to peace -- Wolf.

BLITZER: CNN's Elaine Quijano with an important story over at the White House. Thanks, Elaine, very much.

Now to a very sad story, a story of war and tragedy. He had fame and fortune, but he gave it all up to serve his country. Former Arizona Cardinal Pat Tillman quit the NFL To join the hunt for Osama bin Laden. He was serving with the U.S. Army Special Forces when he was killed on patrol in Afghanistan.

We have two reports. CNN's Sean Callebs will tell us about the man and his motivation. But we begin with our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well Sergeant Pat Tillman was a member of the 75th Army Ranger Regiment, among the elite troops hunting for Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

He lost his life when his patrol was ambushed on Thursday night near a small town southwest of the coast, along the that region, the town of Sperah, right along the border region where his patrol came under attack.

According to the Pentagon, there was a fire fight, two Americans were wounded in that fire fight, an Afghan militia fighting along with the U.S. was also killed with Sergeant Tillman.

His brother Kevin, we are told, is in the same battalion. And, in fact, he enlisted with his brother. That's why he went into Special Forces. And at this point we can confirm they were both in the same battalion, although they weren't apparently patrolling together.

Sergeant Tillman remains will be brought back to the United States. And the Army is making no further statement at this time -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon. Thanks, Jamie, very much. The White House says Pat Tillman made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror and it's calling him an inspiration. For more on this young man with a clear-cut mission, let's turn to CNN's Sean Callebs -- Sean.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, no shortage of superlatives talking about Pat Tillman. He walked away from celebrity and all its trappings to serve his country. Tillman didn't seek headlines but now the entire nation is talking about this pro safety turned Special Forces.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CALLEBS (voice-over): Pat Tillman's extraordinary athletic talent brought him to the sport's highest level, his heart and passion for the flag led him to Iraq and then Afghanistan.

This is Tillman in an NFL tribute the day after the September 11 attacks.

TILLMAN: You know, my great-grandfather was at Pearl Harbor and a lot of my family has given up and has gone fought in wars. I really haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that. And so I have a great deal of respect for those that have.

CALLEBS: Tillman gave up this uniform for this uniform. He served as an Army Ranger in the 75th Regiment. Offered the chance to come in as an officer, Tillman, 27, and his younger brother Kevin both joined as Specialist making $18,000 a year.

His teammates are calling the man who walked away from a $3.6 million pro contract a hero.

ANTHONY EDWARDS, FORMER TEAMMATE: In this life, there's a lot of people that are loaded on money, that wasn't Pat. It never was him.

CALLEBS: Tillman died in the dirt in Afghanistan, in a gun battle. It wasn't his first tour of duty.

SCOTT BORDOW, "EAST VALLEY TRIBUNE":: He had just been married a couple years ago to his high school sweetheart. They wanted to start a family. But he felt a great sense of duty and obligation to country. And he was more than ready to go back to the Middle east.his family.

CALLEBS: He didn't have a cakewalk to the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL. He excelled despite the odds. Long before he made it here, he came to college as a walk-on. He graduated in three and a half years with a 3.84 grade point average.

Tillman was one of the last players taken in the 1998 NFL Draft. Without question, he left a lasting impression on those who knew him best.

MICHAEL BIDWILL, VICE PRESIDENT, ARIZONA CARDINALS: The Cardinals and the National Football League were privileged to have Pat Tillman in its family. And we're all weaker today following this loss.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLEBS: Tillman announced he was going into the Army right after he returned from his honeymoon back in 2002. In this day of cash crazy sports salaries, an interesting note: Tillman made the decision to join the service without talking to his agent -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Sean Callebs, thanks very much for that report. And our deepest condolences to the Tillman family.

A member of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division was killed in Iraq today when suspected insurgents used an explosive device to attack a convoy rolling through Samarra. Earlier, there was another deadly attack on coalition forces. Let's go to our battle lines report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Karbala, insurgents ambush a Bulgarian convoy near Karbala's city hall. The attack started a gun battle that left a military truck in flames. A sergeant shot during the fight later died in the military hospital, the sixth Bulgarian soldier to be killed in Iraq.

Najaf, radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr leads Friday prayers and uses the occasion to threaten the U.S.-led coalition. Speaking to thousands of worshipers, Sadr warns that if Najaf or Karbala are attacked his followers will respond with suicide bombers.

Said, Sadr, quote, "We will all be time bombs in the face of the enemy."

Basra, authorities say they made arrest in connection with this week's deadly attacks in the Basra area. Reports now put the death toll in those attacks at least 74. Officials say the suspects are believed to have links to the al Qaeda terror network.

Fallujah, U.S. Marines continue their siege, occasionally responding to gunfire with insurgents. Coalition officials warn all- out fighting may resume within days, unless insurgents live up to an agreement to turn in their arms. So far, authorities say the response has not been encouraging.

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY: There were a couple of weapons turned in today, far less than yesterday.

BLITZER: Baghdad, the Iraq Red Crescent Society sets up a tent city for refugees from Fallujah. The camp is located in Baghdad's Hudra (ph) district . So far only a few dozen tents have been set up but more may be needed with just over 30 families already signing up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And we'll have much more coming up on the shaky cease- fire in Fallujah. I'll speak with one of the few journalist embedded with U.S. Marines right now in the city. Questions raised about the president's inner circle, their relationships and the events leading up to the war in Iraq. We'll hear directly and live from Bob Woodward, the author of the controversial book "Plan of Attack." He'll be coming up here next.

Strong criticism of Democratic candidate John Kerry comes out swinging against the president on Iraq.

Plus this...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand (UNINTELLIGIBLE) word he said. We don't want to kill him, but let's make him that he would not -- how do you say it -- that he not be productive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Torture disguised as medicine. New information about the horrific experiments Nazi doctors performed during the Holocaust.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back, all this week it's been hard to escape the buzz about a hot new book that hit bookstores only a few days ago. Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack" traces the Bush administration's steps toward war in Iraq. The author is joining us now to talk about the fallout and the implications. Thanks very much, Bob, for joining us. Congratulations, No. 1 best seller. Didn't take very long.

BOB WOODWARD, AUTHOR, "PLAN OF ATTACK": People are interested in Bush and Iraq. They should be because it's a window into who he is.

BLITZER: The bottom line, the White House, the Republican party, the Bush-Cheney campaign, they believe this book is favorable towards the president.

WOODWARD: Because it shows he has no doubt. He's very determined. But at the same time if you look at it and I think it's on the Kerry website as recommended reading.

BLITZER: As well.

WOODWARD: There are lots of points where -- like when Colin Powell warned him. You are going to own this country. That's what the news has been for the last year really. You are going to own it, if you break it. And the consequences of that ownership had not been fully -- were not fully examined before the war.

BLITZER: If you read your book, you have to come around to the conclusion, assuming people believe you, that when the president said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he honestly believed that.

WOODWARD: Yes, I think he did.

BLITZER: He wasn't lying to the American people based on all of your reporting.

WOODWARD: Yes. Absolutely. When George Tenet the CIA director after they give President Bush a briefing on a Saturday in the Oval Office and Bush is skeptical, wait a minute, Joe Public isn't going to buy that...

BLITZER: Because the intelligence was sort of...

WOODWARD: Very fuzzy. You know about intelligence. It always is (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And you always get little pieces and fragments.

And George Tenet the CIA director said, "don't worry, it's a slam dunk." I think arguably and some people have read it and have said, wait a minute, the president then should have said, doesn't pass the smell test with me, George Tenet said it's a slam dunk. Let's get somebody in here to really look at this, start from square one, because it's the critical issue in the decision to go to war. Some people are going to think he didn't go far enough with this skepticism. A lot of people are going to look at it and say he was the skeptical one but he was reassured by his CIA director and his vice president.

BLITZER: Do you get any indication whatsoever, you interviewed him for at least three and a half hours or so, do you get any indication whatsoever he's kicking himself for not telling George Tenet, slam dunk, let's do a little bit more checking?

WOODWARD: Well, you would hope he would given that we haven't found weapons of mass destruction, but he doesn't -- as you know, he's a no doubt person. He does not -- if he thinks he makes mistakes, he doesn't acknowledge it. And it's Colin Powell in the book who concludes, you know, when does this guy, the president, re-evaluate? Because there's never a seeming reevaluation. He sets himself on a course and he stays on it at all costs.

BLITZER: Prince Bandar who is a very important figure because he was apparently briefed as you report even before the Secretary of State Colin Powell.

BOB WOODWARD, AUTHOR, "PLAN OF ATTACK: On the decision to go to war.

BLITZER: On the decision to go to war. Although he disputes that the president told him precisely that he was going to go to war. Listen to what he said when you were on "LARRY KING LIVE" together with Prince Bandar who called in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE BANDAR BIN SULTAN, SAUDI AMBASSADOR: What he said is accurate, however, there was one sentence that was left out.

LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE: And that is?

BANDAR: Both Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld told me before the briefing that the president has not made a decision yet but here is the plan and then the rest is accurate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right.

WOODWARD: Not true.

BLITZER: What Prince Bandar is saying is not true.

WOODWARD: I'm going to say this because -- the glaring statement there makes it sound like, well, he's saying I've got it right but, no, there was a pre-meeting that kind of said he hasn't decided. Wherein this meeting you have the secretary of defense saying according to the secretary of defense's own words, you can take this to the bank, this is going to happen. And I interviewed the president and we spent a long time going over that meeting and the meeting with Colin Powell and the president is the one who said, like to Colin Powell, time to get your war uniform on. That's not a maybe, that's war is coming. It could not have been clearer. For some reason Bandar wants to fuzz this up.

BLITZER: Bandar will be among my guests Sunday on "LATE EDITION."

WOODWARD: That's great. Bandar called me last night.

BLITZER: What did he say?

WOODWARD: Woke me up, a quarter of 12:00 and we went through this. And I said, what are you doing? He said, "well, they said he hasn't made a decision." Direct quote. Wink, wink. In other words, don't believe it and I said, "well the issue here is when you left that meeting, did you think the president had decided on war?" And Bandar said absolutely.

BLITZER: All right.

WOODWARD: There you go.

BLITZER: We'll follow up with him on Sunday.

WOODWARD: Please do. Please do.

BLITZER: Stand by. We have a lot more questions to talk about including the Secretary of State Colin Powell and his precise role. My interview with Bob Woodward will continue. That's just ahead.

Plus, coalition warnings of a new military offensive in Fallujah. Will insurgents lay down their arms? A lot of people don't believe they will.

True hero, he left a dream career in the NFL to serve his country. Now this former football star joins the ranks of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Also ahead... (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLOS WATSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I'm Carlos Watson. Join me on the inside edge today as I tell you about a surprising contributor to the Bush campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. Bob Woodward's new book "Plan of Attack" has raised questions and eyebrows here in Washington, around the country, indeed around the world. It traces the Bush administration's steps toward the war in Iraq. We're continuing our conversation with Bob Woodward. The Secretary of State, Colin Powell, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a four-star general, you report was only notified of the plan to go to war...

WOODWARD: Not the plan, of the decision.

BLITZER: Of the decision to go to war after Prince Bandar, the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. Listen to what Colin Powell said this week.

WOODWARD: No, I will, but viewers ought to note, he's denying something I didn't say.

BLITZER: Well, let's listen very carefully.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The question that has arisen seems to be that Prince Bandar received a briefing on the plan with some suggestion that I hadn't. Of course, I had. I was intimately familiar with the plan and I was aware that Prince Bandar was being briefed on the plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. Someone like you who is a great reporter knows a nondenial denial.

WOODWARD: Exactly. He says there's been some suggestion I haven't been briefed on the plan. If you look at the book, I have Powell at all of these key briefings where they lay out the plan. So, you know, it's that -- if you can't deny what they said, deny what they didn't say.

BLITZER: So basically what -- just to be precise, he wasn't briefed on the decision to go to war, Bandar learned of that decision before Powell.

WOODWARD: Right, but that's kind of a coincidence. Bandar learned on a Saturday. As you know, sometimes things happen on a Saturday and then Monday morning, oh, well, we have to tell Colin in this case. And the briefing to Powell was Monday morning. 12 minutes, I spent ten minutes with the president going over what happened and the president said, it sounds like you have it right.

BLITZER: Here's the question that a lot of people are e-mailing me about, young people are asking me, old people are asking me, Bob Woodward, who together with Karl Bernstein (ph) broke the Watergate story and have written incredible books ever since. Simple question, how do you do it?

WOODWARD: The "Washington Post," Len Downey (ph), the editor, gives me a year to work on this and then we run the excerpts. Having a year as you know, having written some books, that it makes a big difference. You can go back to sources and back again and I sent the White House a 21-page memo outlining the turning points and decision points. And somebody said to me, who looked at it said you're going to write this book anyway, aren't you? And I was. And they said, let's get the president's voice in.

BLITZER: It's an amazing bit of reporting. But then again your whole 30 or 40 years of reporting have been quite amazing. Congratulations.

WOODWARD: Thanks.

BLITZER: "Plan of Attack," it's the No. 1 bestseller out right now.

The Baathists are back. The top U.S. administrator in Iraq says thousands of Saddam's former deputies will be returning to government positions. Find out why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's an opportunity for their ideas and their research to become public policy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: License to kill, the horrific story behind Nazi Germany's attempt at a master race.

And voting worries, a California advisory panel delivers a major blow to a maker of electronic voting machines. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. Is the United States just a few days away from urban warfare? I'll speak live with a journalist right in the middle of the storm. We'll go to Fallujah. First though a quick check of the latest headlines.

The White House is calling Pat Tillman an inspiration, both on and off the football field. The former NFL star walked away from a sports career two years ago to become a U.S. army ranger. Today, Pentagon officials said Tillman was killed while serving on a mission in Afghanistan. He was only 27 years old.

The British Foreign Office says it's ambassador in North Korea now is told several hundred people were killed and thousands injured in yesterday's devastating train explosion. North Korean officials told other diplomats that a spark from a live power cable apparently touched off the massive blast near the border with China.

In Saudi Arabia five suspected terrorists are dead in the wake of a shoot-out in Jeddah and a subsequent police pursuit. Saudi TV quotes an interior ministry official as saying four of the dead suspects were on the country's most wanted list. Investigators are still trying to learn who the fifth person is.

A California advisory panel says a popular touch screen voting machine should go on the -- should go the way of punch cards and hanging chads. Panel members voted unanimously yesterday to recommend banning a device manufactured by Diebold because of persistent glitches. The move signals growing doubts about all electronic voting machines at large. A federal commission will address the issue at a hearing May 5.

President Bush calls himself a committed conservationist who wants to preserve the nation's natural treasures including Florida's wetlands. Campaigning in Florida today, the president said doing so makes good economic sense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are 10 million children involved in slavery around the world. It's been said that...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Unfortunately, that was a mistake. That was not what the president said.

Critics, including Democratic challenger John Kerry, says the president's environmental policies could actually lead to more development of the nation's wetlands.

The man who wants to unseat the president is coming out swinging against the Bush administration's plan for Iraq. In a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington today, the Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, said the truth is on the line this November.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you don't believe that this election is the most important in our lifetime, then all you have to do is look at the story of Iraq itself. First, the administration would have you believe that we are about to turn over authority in Iraq to a new government, a handover that will signal the end of America's occupation.

But, in reality, we are no closer to a real Iraqi government capable of providing security for its people, making laws, ensuring freedoms. This is still America's problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: As we reported earlier, the shaky truce remains in effect in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, but U.S. officials suggest they aren't willing to wait much long information insurgents to turn in their weapons.

For the very latest on the situation in Fallujah, we're joined once again on the phone by Tony Perry of "The Los Angeles Times." He's an embedded journalist with the U.S. Marines.

Tony, what happened today?

TONY PERRY, "THE LOS ANGELES TIMES": We had a series of small skirmishes between the Marines and insurgents. The insurgents have attacked the Marines in a number of locations. And the Marines have responded. I don't know of any Marine casualties.

Just in the last few minutes, for example, there's been mortaring and artillery exchanges in the far distance, while in the foreground there's the Islamic call to prayer. So it's sort of our nightly pattern. We hear the prayers in the foreground and the fighting in the background.

BLITZER: Is there a growing sense that it's imminent? Earlier today, I spoke with Brigadier General Kimmitt in Baghdad, who said they are only going to give them days. He didn't want to get more specific, but it sounds like the military, the Marines where you are, are getting ready for that.

PERRY: They are certainly prepared. There's three battalions already in place. There are other...

BLITZER: Unfortunately, we just lost Tony Perry's line in Fallujah. We'll try to reconnect Tony Perry of "The Los Angeles Times." He's embedded with the U.S. Marines in Fallujah reporting for us what is going on. We'll try to reconnect with Tony in Baghdad -- in Fallujah, that is.

And here's your chance to weigh in on this important story. Our "Web Question of the Day" is this: Should the coalition resume offensive operations in Fallujah? You can vote right now. Go to CNN.com/Wolf. We'll have the results coming up later in this broadcast.

The top U.S. administrator in Iraq confirmed today that thousands of former Baath Party members will be allowed to return to government jobs. They were barred from those jobs after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But U.S. administrator Paul Bremer now says that policy was poorly implemented.

CNN's Jim Clancy reports.

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JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Friday's message came from the top to all Iraqis. PAUL BREMER, U.S. ADMINISTRATOR IN IRAQ: Working together, we can create the future you want.

CLANCY: While depicted as a mere technical adjustment some saw Bremer's national address on the U.S.-funded television channel as an effort to correct past mistakes.

On the military front, the policy shift may reflect the lessons learned in April as security plunged and casualties soared. The Iraqi army and police trained by the U.S. performed poorly. Friday, Bremer said former high-ranking officers not involved in the crimes of Saddam Hussein's regime would come back.

BREMER: Over 70 percent of the men in the Iraqi army and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps served honorably in the former army. They have asked to serve their country again and we welcome their renewed service.

CLANCY: Also dismissed after the war, more than 10,000 Iraqi teachers who had membership in the Baath Party, a measure some say has hurt the education of all Iraqis.

BREMER: This will allow thousands of teachers to return to work. Thousands more will begin receiving pensions this week.

CLANCY: While reconstruction efforts have suffered as some giant foreign contractors pulled out staff to avoid kidnapping, Ambassador Bremer said he ordered other projects accelerated, a move that may create more than a million jobs.

BREMER: I have told my colleagues in the coalition to accelerate these projects everywhere in the country. We expect that they will create over a million and a half jobs over the next year. I have instructed the coalition to give priority to Iraqi firms whenever possible in order to create as many opportunities for Iraqis as possible.

CLANCY: Iraqis will welcome a greater share of the billions of dollars in reconstruction money U.S. taxpayers are pouring into the country. Many argue Iraqis can do the work cheaper and employment is the best way to convince people they have a stake in their country's future.

(on camera): In many ways, Bremer's address was in itself an effort to rebuild, rebuild trust after some of the worst violence in more than a year. It also sent the message that the coalition was prepared not only to tell Iraqis how to run their country, but to listen to their ideas as well.

Jim Clancy, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And we have reestablished our phone line with Tony Perry of "The Los Angeles Times." He's in Fallujah. Tony, you were telling our viewers about the approximate number of days you think before the U.S. Marines go from being on the defensive to taking the offensive.

PERRY: Well, I think, as they said yesterday, days not weeks. Whether it's one, two, three, four, five days, who knows.

I talked today to one of the leading ground commanders, Colonel John Tulin (ph), a very plainspoken Marine. I said, Colonel Tulin, are we closer? He, we are 24 hours closer than we were yesterday. Clearly, the clock is ticking. The insurgents are not turning in their weaponry. They are not stopping their attacks on Marines. They attacked Marines and injured a number of Iraqi civilians today that had to be treated by the Navy medics here. The clock is ticking and I don't see anything that stops us from going forward in the very short term.

BLITZER: Would this be real classic urban warfare, hand to hand, house to house, door to door?

PERRY: Could be. But don't forget the U.S. has a whole arsenal. It has tremendous airpower. It has tremendous artillery power. There's all sorts of things that could come into play.

But ultimately if the insurgents choose to fight it could become classic urban warfare, the like of which we really haven't seen since the battle for Hue City in Vietnam. We really haven't seen it. The Marines are trained for it. They have been training for it for 30 years. They really haven't done it door to door, roof to roof, house to house. They are ready for it. It is the bloodiest, most difficult kind of warfare there is.

There will be civilian casualties. No one is saying there won't be. There will be Marine casualties. And there will be massive deaths by the insurgents.

BLITZER: Tony Perry, please be careful. Thanks very much for calling in. We really appreciate it.

Tony Perry of "The Los Angeles Times," a very, very excellent journalist.

Despite the chaos in Iraq and the controversy over the run-up to the war, President Bush's approval rating seems to be holding steady. But can they last? And how can a Kerry, a John Kerry that is, make a splash up next? Up next, Carlos Watson joins us for "The Inside edge."

And Nazi doctors. It was Hitler's atrocious attempt at preventing genetically diseased offspring. It was also a mandate for murder. We'll get to that.

First, though, a quick look at some other news making headlines around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BLITZER (voice-over): Officials from both sides say Israeli raids across the West Bank have left another four Palestinians dead. Palestinian security sources say three were killed when Israeli undercover troops opened fire on a group of suspected militants. They say the fourth was a civilian who died in Nablus in the crossfire of a fight between militants and Israeli forces.

Almost 260 people are under a quarantine in China on the heels of reports of two confirmed cases of SARS and two suspected cases. All are in an eastern province and Beijing. Last year's SARS outbreak was deemed a global threat and killed nearly 800 people worldwide.

People in Argentina are so fed up with rampant crime that tens of thousands filled into the streets of Buenos Aires in protest. They held a huge rally outside a central courthouse to demand that authorities declare a judicial emergency and come down hard on violent criminals.

A river in Brazil's Amazon jungle becomes a surfer's mecca twice a year. It happens when the spring equinox merges with moon tides to create a huge tidal wave, the longest wave in the world. Sufferers come from round the world to ride that, despite dangers from snakes, crocodiles and piranha.

And that's our look around the world.

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BLITZER: What lay behind the horrors of the Holocaust? Long before the mass murder of the Jews, Nazi doctors and scientists were practicing a deadly medicine aimed at creating a master race. For the next 18 months, this evil is on exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here in Washington, D.C.

CNN's Brian Todd reports.

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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the infancy of a wicked regime, the very first year of Adolf Hitler's dictatorship, the new German chancellor signs a chilling new mandate, the law for the prevention of genetically diseased offspring. This is its result.

These children would not survive the application of the law. Simon Rozenkier did, but only after Nazi doctors made sure he would never have children of his own.

SIMON ROZENKIER, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: I understand German and what they said. They said, we don't want to kill him, but let's make him that he would not -- how will you say it -- that he not be productive.

TODD: Striving to create a pure Nordic populous, Hitler and his cohorts seize upon science. SUSAN BACHRACH, CURATOR, DEADLY MEDICINE EXHIBIT: The idea that you could breed better human beings. You could improve the human stock.

TODD: Eugenics, the concept of changing the genetic makeup of a population, mainly through controlling marriage and reproduction, clearly attractive to the Third Reich.

It issues instructional films, encourages Aryans to couple off and strengthen the blood lines. The Nazis want to wean their population of those they deem inferior. In the region's early days, that means not only Jews, but anyone from the depressed to the paranoid to the so-called feeble-minded to people of mixed race.

BACHRACH: This provided a new opportunity to carry out policies in the name of the fatherland and using the argument that certain groups were just an enormous burden on German resources.

TODD: The exhibits "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race," just opened at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, takes you through this purposeful, regimented slaughter, as the Nazis gather the undesirables, tell their families they are being taken away for special care and go to work.

Some 400,000 are forcibly sterilized; 200,000 are killed, the most popular methods, lethal injection, heavy sedation and later gassing. As the Nazis roll through Europe, the program extends to the concentration camps and people like Simon Rozenkier. A Polish teenager who survived the Jewish ghettos, he is sent to Auschwitz in 1943.

ROZENKIER: Being in Auschwitz, they gave me shots. They gave me shots, you know, and they send me to block 10. So they gave me -- they called it in German (SPEAKING IN GERMAN) so I should be stronger, able to work.

TODD: He doesn't know it at the time, but the shots make him sterile. Others at Auschwitz and elsewhere are murdered, their bodies dissected for research. The twisted, horrifying story turns surreal with portraits of the hands-on perpetrators.

(voice-over): The most notorious name attached to Nazi physical experimentation, Dr. Joseph Mengele. He was a very significant part of the program to alter the genetic makeup of Germany, but he was really just one in just a long line of accomplished doctors who bought into the Nazi ideal of biological purity.

(voice-over): Like geneticist Otmar von Verschuer, a mentor of Mengele's who shares his fascination with twins, a driving force behind the sterilization program.

Eugen Fischer, a prominent anthropologist, who galvanizes the program to eliminate racial mixing. Dr. Eranst Ventzler (ph), respected pediatrician who orders the killing of several thousand children. Dr. Julius Hallervorden, a well-known neuropathologist who once acknowledged receiving the brains of nearly 700 executed children for research.

BACHRACH: It was an opportunity for their ideas and their research to become public policy.

TODD: A doctor's opportunity, a child's demise. Perhaps the most disturbing visual in this exhibit, a tribute to the youngest victims.

Simon Rozenkier remembers the children, remembers how close he came to joining them. Liberated from the camps, Rozenkier comes to America, joins the Army, serves in the Korean War, gets married, adopts a new born girl. He met Dr. Mengele and his colleagues at Auschwitz and suffered at their hands.

ROZENKIER: I want to know what happened to them. That bothers me. The war is over. Where did they go?

TODD: Where? Most of these torturers are never prosecuted. They fade into society. Some practice traditional medicine again. But their legacy does not escape.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And this reminder. For those of you who would like more information, you can visit the exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here in Washington. The exhibit will run until October 2005.

A rough week, but President Bush still has his political head well above water. Can he keep it there? Fresh insights on that. Plus, John Kerry's next big mission, that is coming up.

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BLITZER: The ebb and flow of the political season is evident this week. Despite a difficult week on almost every front, President Bush is showing momentum in his race with John Kerry.

As he does every Friday, our political analyst Carlos Watson joins us now with more with that.

What kind of week was this for the president?

CARLOS WATSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Much better week than most people would have expected.

You would have thought with Bob Woodward's book, the continuing tensions in Fallujah, the president's numbers would be down. Instead, two or three polls came out, showed him with a four- or five-point lead, including one of our own earlier this week.

I attribute that to a couple of things. One is that the president has done a very good job taking a page not out of Ronald Reagan's playbook, but out of Bill Clinton's playbook on two accounts. One, political jujitsu. He has been tremendous at taking things that should hurt him, like the Condi Rice treatment, like Richard Clarke, like Bob Woodward, turning that to his advantage, according to the polls.

And, No. 2, you now start to see what I call him co-opting issues that Democrats like to call their own. Last week, we talked about that in terms of the 9/11 Commission. He is now calling for an intelligence czar. We talked about that in terms of Iraq, asking for more troops and more U.N. involvement. And beginning now, you are starting to see him this week on the environment and a host of domestic issue beginning to reach out to the middle.

So an impressive week for the president in many ways. We don't know whether or not it will hold. And, frankly, there are some gathering storms that he has got to worry about.

BLITZER: Let's talk about John Kerry for a second. Where does all this leave him?

WATSON: Well, John Kerry right now, if he were to paint the picture, he would say, look, it's been a tough couple weeks. He spent $55 million-plus on us, but I now have some money in the bank and I'm ready to go.

A lot of people would say that, with that money, he now needs to introduce himself to a wide swathe of voters. I think the opportunity, though, here is not simply to do it through ads, but an "Oprah" moment, if you will, to begin using "Oprah," "Jay Leno" and other kinds of popular TV shows to introduce himself in a way that seems less partisan.

You saw Arnold Schwarzenegger do that very well last fall when he went on "Oprah." You saw several years ago George Bush fundamentally change some of his numbers among women with that. I think there's an opportunity for him. The second thing -- and, Wolf, I was just in Pennsylvania, classic battleground state, talking to Republicans and Democrats.

Even among Democrats, what you hear from them consistently is, I want this guy to take a stand. I want this guy to come out clear and decisive on three or four issues that are compelling and that I understand. And it's interesting to hear that even from the most liberal Democrats.

BLITZER: All right, what should we be looking for, those of us who are political news junkies? What should we be looking for next week?

WATSON: Well, I think one of the stories that you talked about earlier, the abortion march on Sunday, I think is going to reintroduce what we popularly called in the '80s and early '90s the culture wars.

We earlier saw gay marriage touched on. And that issue kind of went away at least for the moment in terms of a hot, burning issue. We now see abortion. I think you are going to see a number of these conversations happen, including on guns as well. And I think the next several weeks, we'll not only see the economy and the war, but we will now see that balance out.

The second thing is, don't forget that, in Fallujah, there's a tense standoff. You talked about that earlier today. Many people are saying that if this is resolved, that will clear a path for June 30 to happen, again, limited sovereignty, not full sovereignty. But if it doesn't happen, that could be a downward spiral. So I think it's going to be a very important week.

And last but not least, on Thursday, the economic growth numbers come out for the U.S. Those numbers could be good. And don't forget, while we don't talk about it here in the U.S., the world GDP, gross domestic product, numbers have come out very good in the last several weeks, Wolf, People saying that China and India are growing and that some of that works in our favor in terms of trade and jobs.

BLITZER: So the demonstration this Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people supporting abortion rights for women, that could be significant? Is that what you're saying?

WATSON: That could significant, because, don't forget, you're not just going to see those that are in favor of choice, if you will, but you will see those on the other side come out as well. So I think you are going to see a response. And I think that will initiate a new culture conference.

BLITZER: Carlos Watson, as usual, thanks for joining us. If people want to read your column, they can go to?

WATSON: CNN.com/Carlos. It's been good this past week. We have obviously talked about Kerry and some surprise V.P. announcements.

BLITZER: All right, we'll read it. Thanks.

WATSON: Thank you.

BLITZER: The results of our hot Web question when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Here are the results of our Web question. Take a look, remembering, of course, this is not a scientific poll.

Yesterday, at this time, we aired video of photos of flag-draped coffin that the Pentagon had confirmed to us were those of military remains returning to the Dover Air Force Base. We didn't air those photos until we got that confirmation from the Pentagon. However, NASA now says that a few of the photos were of the coffins containing the remains of the Columbia shuttle astronauts also at Dover.

The Pentagon tells CNN that the more than 300 photos that it released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request may have in fact included the shuttle coffin photos. And so we've removed those NASA photos from the reporting of this story.

Need a bit of color to cap your Friday? Everything is coming up tulips for our picture of the day. Look at this. We take you to the Netherlands for a look at the endless fields of flowers. Tulips originated in Persia and were introduced to the Netherlands in the 16th century. The country dedicates more than 65,000 acres to the cultivation of bulbs and blooms. Beautiful.

A reminder, you can always catch WOLF BLITZER REPORTS weekdays at this time, 5:00 p.m. Eastern. We're also on noon Eastern weekdays. Don't forget to tune in to "LATE EDITION," the last word in Sunday talk. Among my special guests, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and Karen Hughes, the longtime adviser to the president. That's Sunday noon Eastern.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" starts right now.

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