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CNN Live At Daybreak

Latest Violence Outside Iraqi City of Najaf; Joint Appearance Today by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney Before 9/11 Commission

Aired April 29, 2004 - 05:00   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.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: New for you this morning -- an attack on U.S. troops in Najaf. Will another Iraqi city erupt in violence? Live to Iraq in 90 seconds.
It is Thursday, April 29.

This is DAYBREAK.

And good morning to you.

From the CNN global headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Carol Costello.

Let me bring you up to date right now.

A plan to allow Iraqi families to return to the besieged city of Fallujah is now being implemented. But the fighting between U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents goes on.

Making history at the White House, but no stenographer will be there to record it. President Bush and Vice President Cheney will answer questions a few hours from now from the 9/11 Commission.

The families of three Italian hostages in Iraq call for a protest against the war to save the men's lives. But some Italians say they shouldn't give in to the hostage takers' blackmail.

And starting today, seniors can go online to shop with the best prescription drug discount card. Enrollment in the new Medicare program starts on Monday.

To the forecast center now and Chad -- good morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: Is it Stump the Weatherman day?

MYERS: It can be.

COSTELLO: Oh, why not? Is it Stump the Weatherman day? It is.

MYERS: Sure.

COSTELLO: Daybreak@cnn.com. If you have weather questions for Chad.

MYERS: Chad. Yes.

COSTELLO: Oh, yes, that's your name.

MYERS: You called me Tad yesterday, right?

COSTELLO: I've been a little tired this week. I don't know what the problem is.

MYERS: That's all right.

COSTELLO: Daybreak@cnn.com.

Thank you, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: All right, let's talk about Iraq now.

It's quiet this morning in Fallujah, but south of Baghdad, violence this morning at a checkpoint near Najaf.

Our Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf is in Najaf.

She joins us now live by phone -- Jane, describe the situation for us.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, just a little while ago, we were huddled under the front of an armored Humvee as rocket propelled grenades were fired around us. There was mortar in the distance and small arms fire.

Now, this was only the second day of a checkpoint that the U.S. Army has set up here. And there are two checkpoints. We have now learned that they came under virtually simultaneous attack. One of the checkpoints is across the river leading into Kufa and on to Najaf. The other one was where we are. And we are right at the edge of Kufa going into Najaf, almost in Najaf.

Now, the U.S. Army here, as we know, has come in to make its presence known. It's very clear it is not going into the holy shrines. But it is working around the edges to try to contain and defuse the threat from the militia loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr. Now, they've set up these checkpoints because they thought they had pushed the militia back, but clearly there are still elements of them.

There were no casualties in this attack and the soldiers now seem unfazed, smoking cigarettes and joking about it. And, indeed, the traffic is starting to flow again, just an indication that things, although turbulent, are what pass for normal these days around here -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Interesting, Jane.

Muqtada al-Sadr is still holed up in a mosque in Najaf. Do we know how many of this militia there are?

ARRAF: It's really hard to gauge exact numbers and they vary. They range from hardened fighters to young men who have just been given guns and a bit of money. Probably the best estimate is several hundred. Now, it could be more than that. But, again, very difficult to gauge numbers; very difficult to gauge how effective they are.

But we spoke to a lot of the people -- before this attack started and cars were coming through freely, we were asking people what the situation was like in Najaf and Kufa and who they thought was responsible. And they talked about the ongoing violence, shops being closed, some of the schools being closed. A lot of them are afraid to say what they think of Muqtada al-Sadr. But certainly it's a situation that has this holy city and the surrounding secular city in an economic stronghold -- Carol.

COSTELLO: We'll continue to check back with you.

Jane Arraf reporting in Najaf this morning.

Here are the latest developments in the war in Iraq.

The skies over Fallujah a specter in the night. That is the sound of an AC-130 Specter gunship as it trains its cannons on insurgent positions where U.S. Marines fought earlier. Firefights and truce talks coexist in Fallujah, with Sunni sheikhs from across Iraq joining the negotiations today. And families who fled Fallujah days ago are now lining up at checkpoints to get back in. The Marines are letting about 50 families back in each day.

And in the southern port city of Basra, a civilian has been killed in a drive-by shooting. No details immediately available, but the victim is not an Iraqi.

There are polls on Iraq and polls on Iraq. But this one is different. Listen to this. The latest CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll was taken in Iraq and the respondents were all Iraqi adults, 3,444 of them interviewed face to face in Arabic and Kurdish from March 22 until April 9.

So here's a sampling of the results.

"Should U.S. troops leave immediately?" That was the question posed to them. Fifty-seven percent said yes, 36 percent said no.

"Your opinion of George W. Bush." Twenty-four percent favorable, 17 percent neutral, 55 percent unfavorable.

Now, part of that poll was released yesterday. The other part releases today. You can get the full text of the Iraq poll on our Web site, cnn.com.

Four and a half hours from now, at 9:30 Eastern time, President Bush and Vice President Cheney will take questions at the White House on their version of events leading up to 9/11. But the questions will be asked behind closed doors and we may not know the answers until summer.

CNN's John King previews today's highly unusual event.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The questions in the Oval Office were direct why a joint appearance with the vice president before the 9/11 Commission and why no transcript for the victims' families and the history books but the president steered clear of specifics.

BUSH: It will be an ample -- it will be a good opportunity for these people to help write a report that hopefully will help future presidents deal with terrorist threats to the country.

KING: The joint appearance Thursday is extraordinary and is exceptionally rare for a sitting president to take questions even in private from a commission created by Congress and the White House insistence that Mr. Bush and Vice President Cheney be questioned together is generating more than a fair share of criticism.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INST. : This is a damage control kind of operation that they're both there so that they're pretty clear that the stories won't diverge much from each other.

KING: The president's top lawyer, who will also be in the room, says this is a fact-finding session not a courtroom drama.

ALBERTO GONZALES, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: I mean this is not a criminal investigation. This is not someone, you know, before a grand jury.

KING: Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney spent several hours in recent days preparing. Key issues for the session include how seriously the president and vice president viewed the al Qaeda threat their first eight months in office, what specific actions they took after summertime 2001 intelligence warnings domestic attacks, possibly even hijackings, were possible, and how the government reacted on September 11th.

Mr. Bush was in Florida that morning and Mr. Cheney directed much of the immediate response from a bunker beneath the White House. The agreement with the 10-member commission allows note-taking, but no recording, so no word-for-word account of what the president and vice president say.

GONZALES: That information will make itself -- make its way in the report in some fashion or another, I suspect.

KING (on camera): The president and vice president do not plan to deliver opening statements and will not be under oath. And while there is no set timetable, senior White House officials expect the session to be held in the Oval office, will run two, maybe 2 1/2 hours.

John King, CNN, the White House. (END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And to show you just how rare today's questioning of President Bush will be, consider this. In the last century and a half -- century and a half -- only four other sitting police stations have appeared before congressional committees or independent commissions. In 1987, Ronald Reagan was interviewed twice by the Tower Commission investigating the Iran-Contra arms sale scandal. In 1974, Gerald Ford appeared before a House subcommittee to explain his pardon of Richard Nixon. And in 1919, Woodrow Wilson was questioned by a Senate committee on the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. And in 1862, Abraham Lincoln met with two members of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the Civil War. They wanted to know why he relieved General John Freemont from command.

Now, another type of questioning is going on in the John Kerry camp -- background checks of potential running mates. The candidates include Dick Gephardt, John Edwards and Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack. Besides poring over financial records and other documents, Kerry's team has even interviewed family members. Kerry is not expected to make his choice any time soon.

New terrorist threats in the Philippines. Islamic militants band together and reportedly widen their base in the Philippines. We're going to have a live report for you.

And the fight for Fallujah as seen through the lens of a photojournalist in the thick of battle.

And do you Google? The all seeing, all knowing Internet search engine is facing a deadline today, as it flirts with going public.

And you've got a name to nibble. Our Jeanne Moos finds a lunch crowd that reads like a menu.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: 5:12 Eastern time.

An ominous development in the Philippines. Radical factions of three militant Islamic groups linked to al Qaeda now working together to plot more terrorist attacks.

Want more details on this?

Let's head live to Manila and Maria Ressa -- good morning, Maria.

Tell us more.

MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

I don't know if you remember a few weeks back, President Arroyo said that her government had prevented Madrid style bombings. The government arrested six men. They recovered 80 pounds of explosives. Well, after weeks of interrogation, they have discovered two important developments in the way al Qaeda affiliated groups are evolving here. The first is that they seem to be functioning on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We're seeing alliances between the radical elements of three al Qaeda linked groups, groups that in the past would have had nothing to do with each other.

The second thing is that they have formed -- that most of the terrorist attacks in the Philippines take place in the Muslim south. Well, now these groups, which are based in the south, are recruiting Christian converts from the north, men who are familiar with the way the capital is laid out, processes of security.

Authorities fear that these converts of Islam, a group called Balik Islam or the Rajah Solaiman Movement, may be more effective in being the vanguard to carry out the terrorist attacks -- Carol.

COSTELLO: It's a very fascinating development. I just wonder when exactly they decided to join forces. Was it after 9/11? Was it after Afghanistan? Was it after the invasion of Iraq?

RESSA: As far as authorities can see, it seems to be -- this seems to be the effect of almost all of those events that you've mentioned, and one other major factor -- the arrest of so many men in the region. We've had more than 200 Jamia Islamia members -- Jamia Islamia is al Qaeda's arm in Southeast Asia -- more than 200 arrested across Southeast Asia. As these men are picked up, they're replaced.

But what's happening now is that moderate Muslims are also pulling away. So the radical members of each of the individual groups are finding more of a common cause -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Maria Ressa live from Manila in the Philippines this morning.

Fascinating report, as usual, from Maria. She's something.

Your news, money, weather and sports.

It's 5:15 Eastern.

Here's what's all new this morning.

The 9/11 Commission calls at the White House this morning. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will meet with the panel investigating the terrorist attacks.

A sad and tragic story in Bogota, Colombia to tell you about. A back hoe tumbles nearly 70 feet off of a steep hillside, landing on a school bus and absolutely crushing it. Twenty-one students and two adults were killed; 36 people injured.

In money news, the U.S. House votes to lower taxes for some married couples. The measure would change part of the tax law requiring some couples to pay higher taxes than if they filed individual returns.

In sports, Jack Nicklaus says he spent every weekend for the last 40 years in press rooms at golf courses and now he is considering quitting competitive golf, possibly after the Memorial Golf Tournament in June. And, of course, that takes place in Columbus, Ohio.

In culture, if you keep up with these sorts of things, "People" magazine is out with its most beautiful people list. Among those listed, take a guess -- Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt.

Once again, Chad Myers and I didn't make the list either.

MYERS: No, but Dale Earnhardt, Jr. did.

COSTELLO: Really?

MYERS: Yes. NASCAR.

COSTELLO: How do you know that exactly?

MYERS: Because I read the article.

Good morning, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: We're getting some fascinating Stump the Weatherman questions. We'll get to those a little later, daybreak@cnn.com.

Let's see if a gloomy day on Wall Street is casting a pall in overseas markets.

For that, we head live to London and Diana Muriel -- good morning, Diana.

DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Well, it certainly seems to be. We're seeing a rather downbeat mood this Thursday across the whole of the main European indices, with Germany leading the way down, over one percent lower.

It's really a reaction that we're seeing to weaker basic resources stocks. That's because China signaled overnight that it wants to reign in its red hot economy. And that, of course, is going to affect companies in that sector.

But, also, the European markets have a slew of corporate results to digest this morning and they're taking their time to crunch those numbers. Let's have a look at some of those stocks that have been reporting.

Shell, the big Anglo-Dutch oil giant, coming in with good first quarter results. This despite the machinations of the year so far, where the company has restated its oil reserves three times and, indeed, has lost its head of the company in a resignation over that problem. It's up 2.33 percent in the London market at the moment. Net profit coming in at $4.25 billion, up nine percent on the year.

AstraZeneca has just reported its results in the last few minutes. The number two drug company in the U.K. coming in with pretax profits down 14 percent, at $1.1 billion.

BASF, which is a big chemicals maker and a bit of a bellwether in that sector, has come out with its results in Germany. It's down after those. And DaimlerChrysler up ahead of its results later in the day -- back to you, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Diana Muriel live in London this morning.

A huge award by a jury in Texas tops Stories Across America this Thursday.

The jury in Beaumont says the Wyeth Drug company must pay the family of Cynthia Cappel-Coffey more than $1 billion. Cappel-Coffey died of lung disease after taking the now banned fen-phen diet pills that Wyeth made. The drug company says it will appeal.

Classmates visit the caves near St. Paul, Minnesota where three teenagers died on Tuesday, apparently of carbon monoxide poisoning. A fourth teenager was rescued and is hospitalized in serious condition. Authorities say there may have been a fire smoldering in a cave. Back in the 1800s, the caves were sandstone mines along the Mississippi River.

The dollar coin is not wildly popular, but is that Sacagawea's fault? She was the Indian guide for Lewis and Clark and the House is considering replacing her image on the dollar. But the director of the U.S. Mint says any change probably won't make a difference because he says people tend to want to collect them instead of spend them. I think they look too much like a quarter.

Don't you think?

Next on DAYBREAK, despite claims of racism, "American Idol" fans take on the challenge of picking the next big name in music.

Google going public? The powerhouse search engine could soon be rolling in the dough. You stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... is John Stevens. George Huff is safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Last night's results on "American Idol" would belie charges by pop music icon Elton John that the show is "incredibly racist." Sir Elton refers to the poor success rate of a number of black contestants. Judge Simon Powell had this to say in his own style.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John Stevens, everybody. SIMON POWELL: With regard to the racism, I mean we've coined a new phrase here called the American idle. And that's spelled I-D-L-E. And that applies to a lot of the passive viewers who complain about the results but don't actually pick up a telephone or text a message. Because there's one simple way to keep your favorites in the competition -- you vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: But hasn't there been controversy about how they collect the numbers of calls coming into "American Idol?"

MYERS: I don't know. I'd be happy to say, the first one to say I've never seen an "American Idol" episode.

COSTELLO: Really?

MYERS: I've never T-voted, never watched it and probably won't.

COSTELLO: Really?

MYERS: No.

COSTELLO: You're missing out on a huge like American pop culture kind of thing.

MYERS: And I would be missing out on sleep, which is more important.

COSTELLO: Well, that's true. You're much more interested in those Stump the Weatherman questions this morning.

MYERS: We have a lot of them today. A couple of good ones. What is the term used for a tornado that's an F0? Fujita 0? Because, you know, usually you want a scale to go from one to 10. That makes people happy. When a scale goes from zero to five, they go huh? Zero? Why are we starting at zero? There's nothing. But it's not nothing. There actually is a tornado. It could be about 50, 60, 75 miles per hour, a pretty small one. It could be just a little bit of a rope that comes down, a little spin. It could even be almost something that looks like a dust devil. Not a dust devil. It has to be attached to the cloud. But you just see the little swirl down the bottom.

COSTELLO: So if it knocks a few leaves off the trees, it's an F0?

MYERS: It could be. Correct.

COSTELLO: Good.

MYERS: Correct.

OK. Eye-Opener next.

COSTELLO: Eye-Opener? A couple of Maryland women get that sinking feeling. That tops our DAYBREAK Eye-Opener.

Take a look at this. A 20 foot hole in the ground near a mall in Owings Mills, Maryland. Look at that, Chad. Two women were rescued after their car plunged into the sink hole, which spread across both lanes. Fortunately, they were not seriously hurt. But the car, that's a different matter.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: That would do something to your car, wouldn't it?

Still in Maryland, taking no chances. As early as today, they could begin draining a lake in Montgomery County. That's after a fisherman caught this 19 inch northern snakehead, a fish so voracious is can wipe out other species. The snakehead is from Asia. Remember a couple of years back it infested another Maryland pond and made it...

MYERS: It can walk on land and go from pond to pond. That's the scary part.

COSTELLO: That is scary.

In the eastern part of Washington State and near its border with Canada, severe weather. About 18,000 residents in Snohomish County remained without power last night after a windstorm. There was even a rare tornado -- a rare tornado up there in those parts.

MYERS: Yes. Yes.

COSTELLO: Wow. Authorities say no one was hurt, though, and that's the good news.

It sure beats looking for information in a dusty library.

CNN's Daniel Sieberg is here with a slice of Google culture.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can think of ogle as the bulletin board for the global village.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Do you Google? These days it seems who doesn't. Google comes from G-O-O-G-O-L, a math term that means one followed by 100 zeros. It symbolizes the huge amount of data on the Internet. And its creators, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, two former Stanford students, are on a mission to organize all of it, from museum collection to Britney photos, even your home address.

PROF. JANET MURRAY, GEORGIA TECH: Everything about your life seems to be just one Google away.

SIEBERG (on camera): Remember card catalogs, the Dewy Decimal System, libraries? Well, not only did Google's founders find a way to search the billions of pages of information on the Internet in a fraction of the time, but they also made it easy to read, accurate and a little fun.

CHRIS SHERMAN, SEARCHENGINEWATCH.COM: Well, Google calls their headquarters the "Googleplex." And when you walk into the Googleplex, you immediately recognize that this is not just your ordinary corporation or computer place. Google has a grand piano in the lobby, for example. There are lava lamps all over the place. They play roller hockey in the parking lot.

SIEBERG (voice-over): And that sense of doing Googley things at their Mountainview, California office translates to their site.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, you know what I love the most? I love how they do little logos for Christmas and different activities, different holidays. They do little graphics and sort of make fun of their logo.

SIEBERG: And it's not just looking for things. Sometimes it's people.

MURRAY: I do the same thing with my daughter when she has a new boyfriend. One of the first things I do is put his name in that search engine and see what comes up. I try to say very subtlety, oh, how do you spell that, dear?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never Googled myself. I'm afraid for what I might find.

SHERMAN: Google makes it as simple as sitting down, typing in a few words, and in most cases, it will actually give you a very good answer, and so I think that's the reason for its overwhelming popularity.

SIEBERG: Google still faces competition from the likes of Yahoo!, Altavista, Microsoft, and Askjeeves. Now it's branched out to include other functions, plus a Web-based e-mail service.

SHERMAN: In 50 years, they'd ultimately like to have Google be the same kind of computer that you see in Star Trek right now, where it's basically everywhere, you speak to it, it give you answers, and so on. Whether they actually reach that goal or not remains to be seen, but it shows you that their ambitions are certainly quite high.

SIEBERG: Want to know more? Well, you could always Google it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And here's what's all new in the next half hour of DAYBREAK.

Sporadic violence in Iraq is forcing U.S. officials to shift gears. Just ahead, the changes that are being put into place on the front lines.

And faith on the front lines -- how soldiers deal with the very real possibility of suddenly meeting their maker.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired April 29, 2004 - 05:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: New for you this morning -- an attack on U.S. troops in Najaf. Will another Iraqi city erupt in violence? Live to Iraq in 90 seconds.
It is Thursday, April 29.

This is DAYBREAK.

And good morning to you.

From the CNN global headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Carol Costello.

Let me bring you up to date right now.

A plan to allow Iraqi families to return to the besieged city of Fallujah is now being implemented. But the fighting between U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents goes on.

Making history at the White House, but no stenographer will be there to record it. President Bush and Vice President Cheney will answer questions a few hours from now from the 9/11 Commission.

The families of three Italian hostages in Iraq call for a protest against the war to save the men's lives. But some Italians say they shouldn't give in to the hostage takers' blackmail.

And starting today, seniors can go online to shop with the best prescription drug discount card. Enrollment in the new Medicare program starts on Monday.

To the forecast center now and Chad -- good morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: Is it Stump the Weatherman day?

MYERS: It can be.

COSTELLO: Oh, why not? Is it Stump the Weatherman day? It is.

MYERS: Sure.

COSTELLO: Daybreak@cnn.com. If you have weather questions for Chad.

MYERS: Chad. Yes.

COSTELLO: Oh, yes, that's your name.

MYERS: You called me Tad yesterday, right?

COSTELLO: I've been a little tired this week. I don't know what the problem is.

MYERS: That's all right.

COSTELLO: Daybreak@cnn.com.

Thank you, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: All right, let's talk about Iraq now.

It's quiet this morning in Fallujah, but south of Baghdad, violence this morning at a checkpoint near Najaf.

Our Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf is in Najaf.

She joins us now live by phone -- Jane, describe the situation for us.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, just a little while ago, we were huddled under the front of an armored Humvee as rocket propelled grenades were fired around us. There was mortar in the distance and small arms fire.

Now, this was only the second day of a checkpoint that the U.S. Army has set up here. And there are two checkpoints. We have now learned that they came under virtually simultaneous attack. One of the checkpoints is across the river leading into Kufa and on to Najaf. The other one was where we are. And we are right at the edge of Kufa going into Najaf, almost in Najaf.

Now, the U.S. Army here, as we know, has come in to make its presence known. It's very clear it is not going into the holy shrines. But it is working around the edges to try to contain and defuse the threat from the militia loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr. Now, they've set up these checkpoints because they thought they had pushed the militia back, but clearly there are still elements of them.

There were no casualties in this attack and the soldiers now seem unfazed, smoking cigarettes and joking about it. And, indeed, the traffic is starting to flow again, just an indication that things, although turbulent, are what pass for normal these days around here -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Interesting, Jane.

Muqtada al-Sadr is still holed up in a mosque in Najaf. Do we know how many of this militia there are?

ARRAF: It's really hard to gauge exact numbers and they vary. They range from hardened fighters to young men who have just been given guns and a bit of money. Probably the best estimate is several hundred. Now, it could be more than that. But, again, very difficult to gauge numbers; very difficult to gauge how effective they are.

But we spoke to a lot of the people -- before this attack started and cars were coming through freely, we were asking people what the situation was like in Najaf and Kufa and who they thought was responsible. And they talked about the ongoing violence, shops being closed, some of the schools being closed. A lot of them are afraid to say what they think of Muqtada al-Sadr. But certainly it's a situation that has this holy city and the surrounding secular city in an economic stronghold -- Carol.

COSTELLO: We'll continue to check back with you.

Jane Arraf reporting in Najaf this morning.

Here are the latest developments in the war in Iraq.

The skies over Fallujah a specter in the night. That is the sound of an AC-130 Specter gunship as it trains its cannons on insurgent positions where U.S. Marines fought earlier. Firefights and truce talks coexist in Fallujah, with Sunni sheikhs from across Iraq joining the negotiations today. And families who fled Fallujah days ago are now lining up at checkpoints to get back in. The Marines are letting about 50 families back in each day.

And in the southern port city of Basra, a civilian has been killed in a drive-by shooting. No details immediately available, but the victim is not an Iraqi.

There are polls on Iraq and polls on Iraq. But this one is different. Listen to this. The latest CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll was taken in Iraq and the respondents were all Iraqi adults, 3,444 of them interviewed face to face in Arabic and Kurdish from March 22 until April 9.

So here's a sampling of the results.

"Should U.S. troops leave immediately?" That was the question posed to them. Fifty-seven percent said yes, 36 percent said no.

"Your opinion of George W. Bush." Twenty-four percent favorable, 17 percent neutral, 55 percent unfavorable.

Now, part of that poll was released yesterday. The other part releases today. You can get the full text of the Iraq poll on our Web site, cnn.com.

Four and a half hours from now, at 9:30 Eastern time, President Bush and Vice President Cheney will take questions at the White House on their version of events leading up to 9/11. But the questions will be asked behind closed doors and we may not know the answers until summer.

CNN's John King previews today's highly unusual event.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The questions in the Oval Office were direct why a joint appearance with the vice president before the 9/11 Commission and why no transcript for the victims' families and the history books but the president steered clear of specifics.

BUSH: It will be an ample -- it will be a good opportunity for these people to help write a report that hopefully will help future presidents deal with terrorist threats to the country.

KING: The joint appearance Thursday is extraordinary and is exceptionally rare for a sitting president to take questions even in private from a commission created by Congress and the White House insistence that Mr. Bush and Vice President Cheney be questioned together is generating more than a fair share of criticism.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INST. : This is a damage control kind of operation that they're both there so that they're pretty clear that the stories won't diverge much from each other.

KING: The president's top lawyer, who will also be in the room, says this is a fact-finding session not a courtroom drama.

ALBERTO GONZALES, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: I mean this is not a criminal investigation. This is not someone, you know, before a grand jury.

KING: Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney spent several hours in recent days preparing. Key issues for the session include how seriously the president and vice president viewed the al Qaeda threat their first eight months in office, what specific actions they took after summertime 2001 intelligence warnings domestic attacks, possibly even hijackings, were possible, and how the government reacted on September 11th.

Mr. Bush was in Florida that morning and Mr. Cheney directed much of the immediate response from a bunker beneath the White House. The agreement with the 10-member commission allows note-taking, but no recording, so no word-for-word account of what the president and vice president say.

GONZALES: That information will make itself -- make its way in the report in some fashion or another, I suspect.

KING (on camera): The president and vice president do not plan to deliver opening statements and will not be under oath. And while there is no set timetable, senior White House officials expect the session to be held in the Oval office, will run two, maybe 2 1/2 hours.

John King, CNN, the White House. (END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And to show you just how rare today's questioning of President Bush will be, consider this. In the last century and a half -- century and a half -- only four other sitting police stations have appeared before congressional committees or independent commissions. In 1987, Ronald Reagan was interviewed twice by the Tower Commission investigating the Iran-Contra arms sale scandal. In 1974, Gerald Ford appeared before a House subcommittee to explain his pardon of Richard Nixon. And in 1919, Woodrow Wilson was questioned by a Senate committee on the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. And in 1862, Abraham Lincoln met with two members of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the Civil War. They wanted to know why he relieved General John Freemont from command.

Now, another type of questioning is going on in the John Kerry camp -- background checks of potential running mates. The candidates include Dick Gephardt, John Edwards and Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack. Besides poring over financial records and other documents, Kerry's team has even interviewed family members. Kerry is not expected to make his choice any time soon.

New terrorist threats in the Philippines. Islamic militants band together and reportedly widen their base in the Philippines. We're going to have a live report for you.

And the fight for Fallujah as seen through the lens of a photojournalist in the thick of battle.

And do you Google? The all seeing, all knowing Internet search engine is facing a deadline today, as it flirts with going public.

And you've got a name to nibble. Our Jeanne Moos finds a lunch crowd that reads like a menu.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: 5:12 Eastern time.

An ominous development in the Philippines. Radical factions of three militant Islamic groups linked to al Qaeda now working together to plot more terrorist attacks.

Want more details on this?

Let's head live to Manila and Maria Ressa -- good morning, Maria.

Tell us more.

MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

I don't know if you remember a few weeks back, President Arroyo said that her government had prevented Madrid style bombings. The government arrested six men. They recovered 80 pounds of explosives. Well, after weeks of interrogation, they have discovered two important developments in the way al Qaeda affiliated groups are evolving here. The first is that they seem to be functioning on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We're seeing alliances between the radical elements of three al Qaeda linked groups, groups that in the past would have had nothing to do with each other.

The second thing is that they have formed -- that most of the terrorist attacks in the Philippines take place in the Muslim south. Well, now these groups, which are based in the south, are recruiting Christian converts from the north, men who are familiar with the way the capital is laid out, processes of security.

Authorities fear that these converts of Islam, a group called Balik Islam or the Rajah Solaiman Movement, may be more effective in being the vanguard to carry out the terrorist attacks -- Carol.

COSTELLO: It's a very fascinating development. I just wonder when exactly they decided to join forces. Was it after 9/11? Was it after Afghanistan? Was it after the invasion of Iraq?

RESSA: As far as authorities can see, it seems to be -- this seems to be the effect of almost all of those events that you've mentioned, and one other major factor -- the arrest of so many men in the region. We've had more than 200 Jamia Islamia members -- Jamia Islamia is al Qaeda's arm in Southeast Asia -- more than 200 arrested across Southeast Asia. As these men are picked up, they're replaced.

But what's happening now is that moderate Muslims are also pulling away. So the radical members of each of the individual groups are finding more of a common cause -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Maria Ressa live from Manila in the Philippines this morning.

Fascinating report, as usual, from Maria. She's something.

Your news, money, weather and sports.

It's 5:15 Eastern.

Here's what's all new this morning.

The 9/11 Commission calls at the White House this morning. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will meet with the panel investigating the terrorist attacks.

A sad and tragic story in Bogota, Colombia to tell you about. A back hoe tumbles nearly 70 feet off of a steep hillside, landing on a school bus and absolutely crushing it. Twenty-one students and two adults were killed; 36 people injured.

In money news, the U.S. House votes to lower taxes for some married couples. The measure would change part of the tax law requiring some couples to pay higher taxes than if they filed individual returns.

In sports, Jack Nicklaus says he spent every weekend for the last 40 years in press rooms at golf courses and now he is considering quitting competitive golf, possibly after the Memorial Golf Tournament in June. And, of course, that takes place in Columbus, Ohio.

In culture, if you keep up with these sorts of things, "People" magazine is out with its most beautiful people list. Among those listed, take a guess -- Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt.

Once again, Chad Myers and I didn't make the list either.

MYERS: No, but Dale Earnhardt, Jr. did.

COSTELLO: Really?

MYERS: Yes. NASCAR.

COSTELLO: How do you know that exactly?

MYERS: Because I read the article.

Good morning, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: We're getting some fascinating Stump the Weatherman questions. We'll get to those a little later, daybreak@cnn.com.

Let's see if a gloomy day on Wall Street is casting a pall in overseas markets.

For that, we head live to London and Diana Muriel -- good morning, Diana.

DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Well, it certainly seems to be. We're seeing a rather downbeat mood this Thursday across the whole of the main European indices, with Germany leading the way down, over one percent lower.

It's really a reaction that we're seeing to weaker basic resources stocks. That's because China signaled overnight that it wants to reign in its red hot economy. And that, of course, is going to affect companies in that sector.

But, also, the European markets have a slew of corporate results to digest this morning and they're taking their time to crunch those numbers. Let's have a look at some of those stocks that have been reporting.

Shell, the big Anglo-Dutch oil giant, coming in with good first quarter results. This despite the machinations of the year so far, where the company has restated its oil reserves three times and, indeed, has lost its head of the company in a resignation over that problem. It's up 2.33 percent in the London market at the moment. Net profit coming in at $4.25 billion, up nine percent on the year.

AstraZeneca has just reported its results in the last few minutes. The number two drug company in the U.K. coming in with pretax profits down 14 percent, at $1.1 billion.

BASF, which is a big chemicals maker and a bit of a bellwether in that sector, has come out with its results in Germany. It's down after those. And DaimlerChrysler up ahead of its results later in the day -- back to you, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Diana Muriel live in London this morning.

A huge award by a jury in Texas tops Stories Across America this Thursday.

The jury in Beaumont says the Wyeth Drug company must pay the family of Cynthia Cappel-Coffey more than $1 billion. Cappel-Coffey died of lung disease after taking the now banned fen-phen diet pills that Wyeth made. The drug company says it will appeal.

Classmates visit the caves near St. Paul, Minnesota where three teenagers died on Tuesday, apparently of carbon monoxide poisoning. A fourth teenager was rescued and is hospitalized in serious condition. Authorities say there may have been a fire smoldering in a cave. Back in the 1800s, the caves were sandstone mines along the Mississippi River.

The dollar coin is not wildly popular, but is that Sacagawea's fault? She was the Indian guide for Lewis and Clark and the House is considering replacing her image on the dollar. But the director of the U.S. Mint says any change probably won't make a difference because he says people tend to want to collect them instead of spend them. I think they look too much like a quarter.

Don't you think?

Next on DAYBREAK, despite claims of racism, "American Idol" fans take on the challenge of picking the next big name in music.

Google going public? The powerhouse search engine could soon be rolling in the dough. You stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... is John Stevens. George Huff is safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Last night's results on "American Idol" would belie charges by pop music icon Elton John that the show is "incredibly racist." Sir Elton refers to the poor success rate of a number of black contestants. Judge Simon Powell had this to say in his own style.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John Stevens, everybody. SIMON POWELL: With regard to the racism, I mean we've coined a new phrase here called the American idle. And that's spelled I-D-L-E. And that applies to a lot of the passive viewers who complain about the results but don't actually pick up a telephone or text a message. Because there's one simple way to keep your favorites in the competition -- you vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: But hasn't there been controversy about how they collect the numbers of calls coming into "American Idol?"

MYERS: I don't know. I'd be happy to say, the first one to say I've never seen an "American Idol" episode.

COSTELLO: Really?

MYERS: I've never T-voted, never watched it and probably won't.

COSTELLO: Really?

MYERS: No.

COSTELLO: You're missing out on a huge like American pop culture kind of thing.

MYERS: And I would be missing out on sleep, which is more important.

COSTELLO: Well, that's true. You're much more interested in those Stump the Weatherman questions this morning.

MYERS: We have a lot of them today. A couple of good ones. What is the term used for a tornado that's an F0? Fujita 0? Because, you know, usually you want a scale to go from one to 10. That makes people happy. When a scale goes from zero to five, they go huh? Zero? Why are we starting at zero? There's nothing. But it's not nothing. There actually is a tornado. It could be about 50, 60, 75 miles per hour, a pretty small one. It could be just a little bit of a rope that comes down, a little spin. It could even be almost something that looks like a dust devil. Not a dust devil. It has to be attached to the cloud. But you just see the little swirl down the bottom.

COSTELLO: So if it knocks a few leaves off the trees, it's an F0?

MYERS: It could be. Correct.

COSTELLO: Good.

MYERS: Correct.

OK. Eye-Opener next.

COSTELLO: Eye-Opener? A couple of Maryland women get that sinking feeling. That tops our DAYBREAK Eye-Opener.

Take a look at this. A 20 foot hole in the ground near a mall in Owings Mills, Maryland. Look at that, Chad. Two women were rescued after their car plunged into the sink hole, which spread across both lanes. Fortunately, they were not seriously hurt. But the car, that's a different matter.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: That would do something to your car, wouldn't it?

Still in Maryland, taking no chances. As early as today, they could begin draining a lake in Montgomery County. That's after a fisherman caught this 19 inch northern snakehead, a fish so voracious is can wipe out other species. The snakehead is from Asia. Remember a couple of years back it infested another Maryland pond and made it...

MYERS: It can walk on land and go from pond to pond. That's the scary part.

COSTELLO: That is scary.

In the eastern part of Washington State and near its border with Canada, severe weather. About 18,000 residents in Snohomish County remained without power last night after a windstorm. There was even a rare tornado -- a rare tornado up there in those parts.

MYERS: Yes. Yes.

COSTELLO: Wow. Authorities say no one was hurt, though, and that's the good news.

It sure beats looking for information in a dusty library.

CNN's Daniel Sieberg is here with a slice of Google culture.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can think of ogle as the bulletin board for the global village.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Do you Google? These days it seems who doesn't. Google comes from G-O-O-G-O-L, a math term that means one followed by 100 zeros. It symbolizes the huge amount of data on the Internet. And its creators, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, two former Stanford students, are on a mission to organize all of it, from museum collection to Britney photos, even your home address.

PROF. JANET MURRAY, GEORGIA TECH: Everything about your life seems to be just one Google away.

SIEBERG (on camera): Remember card catalogs, the Dewy Decimal System, libraries? Well, not only did Google's founders find a way to search the billions of pages of information on the Internet in a fraction of the time, but they also made it easy to read, accurate and a little fun.

CHRIS SHERMAN, SEARCHENGINEWATCH.COM: Well, Google calls their headquarters the "Googleplex." And when you walk into the Googleplex, you immediately recognize that this is not just your ordinary corporation or computer place. Google has a grand piano in the lobby, for example. There are lava lamps all over the place. They play roller hockey in the parking lot.

SIEBERG (voice-over): And that sense of doing Googley things at their Mountainview, California office translates to their site.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, you know what I love the most? I love how they do little logos for Christmas and different activities, different holidays. They do little graphics and sort of make fun of their logo.

SIEBERG: And it's not just looking for things. Sometimes it's people.

MURRAY: I do the same thing with my daughter when she has a new boyfriend. One of the first things I do is put his name in that search engine and see what comes up. I try to say very subtlety, oh, how do you spell that, dear?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never Googled myself. I'm afraid for what I might find.

SHERMAN: Google makes it as simple as sitting down, typing in a few words, and in most cases, it will actually give you a very good answer, and so I think that's the reason for its overwhelming popularity.

SIEBERG: Google still faces competition from the likes of Yahoo!, Altavista, Microsoft, and Askjeeves. Now it's branched out to include other functions, plus a Web-based e-mail service.

SHERMAN: In 50 years, they'd ultimately like to have Google be the same kind of computer that you see in Star Trek right now, where it's basically everywhere, you speak to it, it give you answers, and so on. Whether they actually reach that goal or not remains to be seen, but it shows you that their ambitions are certainly quite high.

SIEBERG: Want to know more? Well, you could always Google it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And here's what's all new in the next half hour of DAYBREAK.

Sporadic violence in Iraq is forcing U.S. officials to shift gears. Just ahead, the changes that are being put into place on the front lines.

And faith on the front lines -- how soldiers deal with the very real possibility of suddenly meeting their maker.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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