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Bush to Address Nation on Iraq Transition; Do Vitamin Waters Deliver on Promises?

Aired May 24, 2004 - 08:30   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight President Bush speaks to the nation about the situation in Iraq and that country's immediate future. The prime time address will be the first in a series of speeches outlining the plan for a smooth transition to Iraqi sovereignty.
Joining us this morning from New Haven, Connecticut, with his take on what he thinks the president needs to say, is former White House advisor David Gergen, now a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Nice to see you, David, as always. Thanks for being with us.

DAVID GERGEN, KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Thank you, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Jack Cafferty all morning, if you've been listening, has been calling this speech huge. Do you agree with that?

GERGEN: I think it is very significant. But the White House is already facing a major roadblock. And that is that the -- my understanding is that the four big networks, over the air networks, have decided not to carry the speech live.

That means that the audience the president faces will be all on cable, and that's a significant audience to be sure. But it's not the massive audience the White House would want for a big, big, huge speech.

O'BRIEN: The president's approval rating on Iraq is at the lowest point ever. At the CNN/"TIME," I believe, poll, 41 percent is the number there.

Is this the primary reason for this press conference, do you think?

GERGEN: Well, I think he's giving this speech and others because we're approaching very rapidly the hand-off of, quote, "sovereignty" to Iraq. And he wants to -- he's had a hemorrhaging of public support here at home for the war, as well as for his own personal support.

But he really wants to rebuild public support here at home to give -- to give himself some time to see this through, to try to get to success.

So I think in order to rebuild public support, he's got to do three things.

One is he has to offer a clear, credible plan for success, for American success in Iraq.

Secondly, he has to face the harsh realities of the prison, the Chalabis and the others that have been so discouraging for so many Americans.

And thirdly, I think he does need to break new ground here. I don't think he can simply repackage rhetoric and repackage "stay the course."

One of the reasons that the networks probably have decided not carry it is they don't hear that there's much new. You know, the networks make a decision about over the air network coverage based on whether there is going to a newsworthy speech, is he going to make headlines because of new policies, new decisions, new people.

And the fact they decided not carry it is a signal they don't believe it's breaking new ground. I think that's vital in order to shake this up and to tell the country we're really on the road now to a much better place.

O'BRIEN: We heard the word "specific" five or six or ten times from the communications director, who came out and talked to us a little bit earlier this morning from the White House.

When you say "break new ground," where do you think that new ground is going to be broken? Just by being more specific, as many people have called for, or do you think in another arena?

GERGEN: I think if we're going to get the granular details of what sovereignty will look like for Iraq, that they're going to be two presidents and two vice presidents and five ministers or 26 ministers or that sort of thing, that's not breaking new ground. Those are the details that Brahimi from the U.N. has been working out on Bob Blackwood (ph), who's been representing the White House on this -- on this negotiation about sovereignty.

I think new ground means are we going to put more troops in there, how long are we going to be there, how much of large role -- how large a role will the U.N. get, can we talk NATO into doing this?

New ground is more than tactics. It's a lot more about strategy and new strategy. Because I think Americans are really worried that the strategy we're on right now does not seem to be working well. And there is fear that this war is not leading to success. It's leading to chaos.

And I think the president has to still those fears and rebuild public support. He cannot have a situation where we're handing over sovereignty and the Iraqi people say, "We want to end the occupation." Polls show 82 percent of Iraqis would like to -- are against the occupation. And a majority of Americans want to us come home.

He can't sustain his policy in that situation. He has to build up a majority here at home to support him, and he has to build, frankly, a better majority in Iraq. Hard.

O'BRIEN: Not...

GERGEN: Very hard.

O'BRIEN: Forgive me for interrupting there. Item two on your list was that he has to face certain problems. And you listed some of them.

GERGEN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Chalabi is one of them, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, certainly this wedding party -- was it a wedding party or was it insurgents -- kind of thing. And other arrest warrants being now sent out for associates of Chalabi, as well.

How specific does he have to get on those issues?

GERGEN: I think he has to do more than simply say we've been facing some problems. It does seem to me that Americans are going to be looking for more than a pep talk tonight about how good this can be and how wonderful it would be to have a democracy in Iraq.

The -- we've taken some really hard hits in our policies here in the last few days. The Chalabi incident is one which is only now we're beginning to understand.

You know, "Newsweek" has on its cover, "The con man, Chalabi." You know, there is widespread view this guy conned us into believing that we would be greeted as liberators, that he provided evidence that was misleading on the nature of the threat.

And now there are allegations that are being floated, possibly by the CIA, that he's been a double agent all along, that he's been passing information to the Iranians.

Americans deserve to know what the heck has happened here? How did we get in bed with this guy? You know, he's a crook, put in the eyes of the Jordanians. They'd like to slap him in jail. They found him guilty of fraud.

O'BRIEN: A lot of questions.

GERGEN: So there are a lot of questions like that. And I think it's important the president not just simply gloss over that.

Americans -- We're in a crunch time in Iraq now. And Americans want to believe their president. They would like to see our troops succeed. We put a lot of blood and treasury into this. We need to succeed.

I think Americans will line up behind the president if he's direct with us, as is his nature, and he tells us, "Here's how we can do it. I realize we've had these four or five problems. We're going to solve this, and we're going to find a way out of this. Stick with me." I think he's got to give people a sense that he's totally facing reality, and he's not glossing over it. And he's got a plan that involves some new things that will actually solve the problem. Unless he does that, it's going to be passed away as more rhetoric. And he needs to do more than that now.

O'BRIEN: Sounds like you're saying specifics, specifics, specifics, like everybody else.

GERGEN: More than specifics. Big specifics. Not just small little details.

O'BRIEN: David Gergen joining us this morning. Nice to see you, as always.

GERGEN: OK. OK, Soledad. Thank you.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, a publicity stunt gone wrong leaves 100,000 people trying to find a very valuable needle in a haystack. We'll explain.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Also in a moment, are the claims of vitamin waters all wet? We'll take a closer look in our medical report in a moment when we continue right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. Sanjay is off today. In this morning's medical segment, the truth about vitamin water. It's all the rage in the beverage world. But do these enriched drinks deliver the kind of boost that they actually advertise?

Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us from the CNN Center with details of a new study.

Elizabeth, good morning.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Soledad, they're called vitamin waters. Some people call them enhanced waters. And they are the fastest growing segment in the beverage industry.

We have a collection here in front of me this morning. As you can see, they come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, some of them. Here is a strawberry-kiwi vitamin water. Here's a strawberry- banana. Not all of them are flavored.

And they range in calories. Some of them are zero calories. Some of them are 125 calories. So you have a lot of options there.

Well, a group called Consumer Labs, which is an independent testing lab, decided to put them to the test to see if they actually have the vitamins that they say they have. And what they found was that three out of four didn't.

One of them, Gatorade Propel, did. It had what it said it had. However, one Glaceau Vitamin Water had less Vitamin A and less Vitamin C than it was supposed to have. Fruit 20 Plus have less Vitamin C, and Aquafina Essentials had less Vitamin C.

So you don't always apparently get what's on the label, apparently, according to this report.

Now that one, Aquafina, that we mentioned, is no longer available. It's on the shelves. You can buy it, but they're not making it any more.

And they and several other companies we talked to said that the reason why perhaps this might be true is that vitamin content can vary by temperature. It can vary when something has been on the shelves for a while. So they said that that would be the reason why that was true.

But it's interesting to know that if you think you're getting the vitamins that you need out of water, you might want to think again and you might want to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet instead -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Are there real benefits from drinking vitamin water? I mean, especially in light of some of the dubious claims now. Or is it just sort of better to go ahead and just drink regular water?

COHEN: You know, H2O is H2O. Water is water. We all need it. We should all drink lots of it. This water is no different. The water itself is no different from any other water.

Sure, it might have vitamins. But you know what? If you're concerned about vitamins, A, you should eat healthy, or B, take a multivitamin. I mean, you pay for one of these bottles of water, and they're not particularly cheap all the day. And you might get the vitamins for a day.

But you can also buy a bottle of multivitamins and you get 30 or more vitamins right there. And it would be cheaper. It would be a much more economical way to do it than to drink one of these waters.

O'BRIEN: Elizabeth Cohen for us this morning. You convinced me. I'm going to go get a big, old glass of water.

COHEN: Thanks. Plain old water.

O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, a Formula One racing car with some very precious gar go on board. But there is a twist. Andy Serwer has a look at that just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back. We'll start with a look at some of the other stories that are making headlines this morning. Heidi Collins joins us with a that. Hey, Heidi. Good morning again.

HEIDI COLLINS, ANCHOR: Good morning, guys. Thanks so much. Want to get to these headlines now at 15 minutes past the hour.

An explosion in Baghdad has left two British civilians dead, one other person wounded near an entrance to U.S. coalition headquarters. The blast, first thought to be a car bombing, went off when an SUV hit an improvised explosive device.

A military spokesperson says the vehicle appears to have been the intended target of the explosive device.

A videotape obtained by the Associated Press reportedly shows a wedding party which survivors claim was the target of a U.S. strike. Last Wednesday's attack killed 45 people.

As of now, there's no way to prove the exact day or location of where this video was shot. The U.S. military says it was targeting a safe haven for foreign fighters.

Detectives now. A Coach USA bus slams into a parked tractor- trailer rig on an interstate highway. The bus reportedly rear-ended the 18-wheeler. There are reports of injuries, but details at this time are not quite clear.

Filmmaker Michael Moore's scathing documentary on the Bush administration got a big vote of confidence at the Cannes Film Festival over the weekend. "Fahrenheit 911" scored the top prize.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL MOORE, FILMMAKER: We have a distributor now in Albania that we just were told so now every country in the world can see this film except one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: The film drew attention recently when Disney, parent company of Miramax, said it would not distribute the film in the U.S. in an election year.

And in Nebraska, officials continue to assess the damage after tornadoes destroyed hundreds of homes, mainly in the southern part of the state over the weekend. More than a dozen tornadoes leveled, in one case, nearly an entire town leaving one person dead, scores of other people injured.

Nebraska's governor has declared a state of emergency now. The declaration makes available National Guard troops and emergency funding. So of course, we'll be following that story, as we've been doing all morning with Rob Marciano.

HEMMER: Rob saying it could be another tough day out there today, later in the afternoon.

COLLINS: Unfortunately. That's right.

HEMMER: We'll see.

Thank you, Heidi.

Check on businesses right now. Apparently, diamonds do not make good hood ornaments. For the doughnut story of the day, Andy Serwer checks in "Minding Your Business.

First a check of the markets.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Let's do that. The diamond thing is unbelievable. We'll get to that in a second.

Let's talk about the markets. What's up? Well, futures are much stronger this morning. Optimism over a possible increase in oil production by the Saudis doing the trick.

Let's talk about where we've been this year, though. Not as nice a picture. Stocks about five percent down, nearly, year to date. We've really been treading water well will below that Hemmer line of 2,000 on the NASDAQ and below Dow 10,000 as well. We'll have to see what we can do about that this morning.

Let's talk about this diamond thing, because this is a truly remarkable story. I'm going to call this the boneheaded business move of the month, maybe of the year. Truly remarkable.

It begins in Monaco, this story, where they had the Grand Prix race that they have every year over the weekend. There was a promotion for the new film "Ocean's 12," which is the sequel to "Ocean's 11."

You can see some of the stars there. That will be Messieurs Clooney and Pitt, flanking Austrian Grand Prix driver Christian Klien.

Now, he's driving a Jaguar. And to promote the movie, an Israeli diamond maker put a $2,000 diamond in the nose of the jaguar. The car goes out on the track, onto the first lap, crashes, smashes.

The driver is OK. But the diamond is lost. The $250,000 diamond...

HEMMER: First lap.

SERWER: First lap.

O'BRIEN: They called the insurance company and reported it lost.

SERWER: And it's not insured. It is not insured. This reported -- it's apparently not insured.

You know, you wonder if this whole thing, though, isn't a stunt. I mean, maybe it's $250,000 of publicity. Right?

I mean, can you believe that? Who would put a... O'BRIEN: So in the nose -- you could see it, or in...?

SERWER: You could sort of see it. It's only about the size of a button.

HEMMER: Maybe the driver was just really nervous.

SERWER: He was a rookie driver.

O'BRIEN: Oh!

SERWER: There are so many parts to this story. It's remarkable.

And they say that there are people crawling all over the place in Monaco looking for this diamond in the gutter, you know?

Get a plane ticket and go over and go.

O'BRIEN: That is the not the sharpest tack move of the day...

SERWER: Boneheaded.

O'BRIEN: ... I believe. I wasn't going to say boneheaded.

SERWER: Boneheaded.

O'BRIEN: But you did. I think that works.

Andy, thanks.

SERWER: You're welcome.

O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, medical care at one hospital has gone to the dogs. And believe it or not, the patients couldn't be happier. We'll explain as AMERICAN MORNING continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Time to check in with Jack and the Cafferty file. Sounds like you're saying the file is not so good today?

JACK CAFFERTY, CO-HOST: It's all right.

O'BRIEN: Just all right?

CAFFERTY: Yes, well, we'll see. Sometimes you don't know until you get through it.

Man's best friend is a favorite at some hospitals in Michigan. They had a test program there last year where patients in a suburban Detroit hospital were allowed visits from their dogs and cats. The goal was to make people feel more at home.

Now the staff found that the pets bring medical benefits to the patients, including a decrease in blood pressure, anxiety and pain. And now they're going to undertake a study on what effects spouses showing up at the hospital have on the patients.

O'BRIEN: I'm sorry, you can't come to the hospital, ma'am.

CAFFERTY: That's right.

The reason men don't live as long as women may have more to do with their behavior than with their biology.

Research shows men are more likely to die violently or accidentally, and they're less likely to seek medical help when they are "illing."

"USA Today" reports experts trying to fight these statistics with a new movement. A "Journal of Men's Health" debuted last week, and the first conference dedicated to the topic will be held in the U.S.

Don't call me to make reservations, because I can't help you.

Police have arrested -- This is my favorite story of the day. Police have arrested 12 Princeton University students for robbing the school bookstore.

O'BRIEN: Gosh!

CAFFERTY: The arrests at Princeton University, where the tuition is -- approaches the national debt -- the arrests at Princeton University occurred since the installation of new security cameras.

A municipal prosecutor told the "Trenton Times" newspaper that the shoplifting at Princeton's bookstore is, quote, "the university's little secret."

Well, it ain't no secret no more. The kids are robbing the bookstore at Princeton. Items stolen include sushi, razor blades and a bottle of Maalox.

The university's spokespeople would not comment on the arrests.

Just in case you missed that, that was at Princeton University.

O'BRIEN: That's a very expensive school. That's why they're knocking it over.

CAFFERTY: Really? I mean, if you can afford the $800,000 to go there you can't buy a razor?

O'BRIEN: Then you can't afford the Maalox. Obviously. Apparently.

CAFFERTY: Give me a break!

HEMMER: I love that story.

CAFFERTY: The GDP of Gambia, right there. Right? Estonia?

HEMMER: Thank you, Jack. In a moment here, some prime time pressure later tonight for the president talking about where the effort in Iraq goes from here. We will, too, after this.

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Aired May 24, 2004 - 08:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight President Bush speaks to the nation about the situation in Iraq and that country's immediate future. The prime time address will be the first in a series of speeches outlining the plan for a smooth transition to Iraqi sovereignty.
Joining us this morning from New Haven, Connecticut, with his take on what he thinks the president needs to say, is former White House advisor David Gergen, now a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Nice to see you, David, as always. Thanks for being with us.

DAVID GERGEN, KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Thank you, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Jack Cafferty all morning, if you've been listening, has been calling this speech huge. Do you agree with that?

GERGEN: I think it is very significant. But the White House is already facing a major roadblock. And that is that the -- my understanding is that the four big networks, over the air networks, have decided not to carry the speech live.

That means that the audience the president faces will be all on cable, and that's a significant audience to be sure. But it's not the massive audience the White House would want for a big, big, huge speech.

O'BRIEN: The president's approval rating on Iraq is at the lowest point ever. At the CNN/"TIME," I believe, poll, 41 percent is the number there.

Is this the primary reason for this press conference, do you think?

GERGEN: Well, I think he's giving this speech and others because we're approaching very rapidly the hand-off of, quote, "sovereignty" to Iraq. And he wants to -- he's had a hemorrhaging of public support here at home for the war, as well as for his own personal support.

But he really wants to rebuild public support here at home to give -- to give himself some time to see this through, to try to get to success.

So I think in order to rebuild public support, he's got to do three things.

One is he has to offer a clear, credible plan for success, for American success in Iraq.

Secondly, he has to face the harsh realities of the prison, the Chalabis and the others that have been so discouraging for so many Americans.

And thirdly, I think he does need to break new ground here. I don't think he can simply repackage rhetoric and repackage "stay the course."

One of the reasons that the networks probably have decided not carry it is they don't hear that there's much new. You know, the networks make a decision about over the air network coverage based on whether there is going to a newsworthy speech, is he going to make headlines because of new policies, new decisions, new people.

And the fact they decided not carry it is a signal they don't believe it's breaking new ground. I think that's vital in order to shake this up and to tell the country we're really on the road now to a much better place.

O'BRIEN: We heard the word "specific" five or six or ten times from the communications director, who came out and talked to us a little bit earlier this morning from the White House.

When you say "break new ground," where do you think that new ground is going to be broken? Just by being more specific, as many people have called for, or do you think in another arena?

GERGEN: I think if we're going to get the granular details of what sovereignty will look like for Iraq, that they're going to be two presidents and two vice presidents and five ministers or 26 ministers or that sort of thing, that's not breaking new ground. Those are the details that Brahimi from the U.N. has been working out on Bob Blackwood (ph), who's been representing the White House on this -- on this negotiation about sovereignty.

I think new ground means are we going to put more troops in there, how long are we going to be there, how much of large role -- how large a role will the U.N. get, can we talk NATO into doing this?

New ground is more than tactics. It's a lot more about strategy and new strategy. Because I think Americans are really worried that the strategy we're on right now does not seem to be working well. And there is fear that this war is not leading to success. It's leading to chaos.

And I think the president has to still those fears and rebuild public support. He cannot have a situation where we're handing over sovereignty and the Iraqi people say, "We want to end the occupation." Polls show 82 percent of Iraqis would like to -- are against the occupation. And a majority of Americans want to us come home.

He can't sustain his policy in that situation. He has to build up a majority here at home to support him, and he has to build, frankly, a better majority in Iraq. Hard.

O'BRIEN: Not...

GERGEN: Very hard.

O'BRIEN: Forgive me for interrupting there. Item two on your list was that he has to face certain problems. And you listed some of them.

GERGEN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Chalabi is one of them, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, certainly this wedding party -- was it a wedding party or was it insurgents -- kind of thing. And other arrest warrants being now sent out for associates of Chalabi, as well.

How specific does he have to get on those issues?

GERGEN: I think he has to do more than simply say we've been facing some problems. It does seem to me that Americans are going to be looking for more than a pep talk tonight about how good this can be and how wonderful it would be to have a democracy in Iraq.

The -- we've taken some really hard hits in our policies here in the last few days. The Chalabi incident is one which is only now we're beginning to understand.

You know, "Newsweek" has on its cover, "The con man, Chalabi." You know, there is widespread view this guy conned us into believing that we would be greeted as liberators, that he provided evidence that was misleading on the nature of the threat.

And now there are allegations that are being floated, possibly by the CIA, that he's been a double agent all along, that he's been passing information to the Iranians.

Americans deserve to know what the heck has happened here? How did we get in bed with this guy? You know, he's a crook, put in the eyes of the Jordanians. They'd like to slap him in jail. They found him guilty of fraud.

O'BRIEN: A lot of questions.

GERGEN: So there are a lot of questions like that. And I think it's important the president not just simply gloss over that.

Americans -- We're in a crunch time in Iraq now. And Americans want to believe their president. They would like to see our troops succeed. We put a lot of blood and treasury into this. We need to succeed.

I think Americans will line up behind the president if he's direct with us, as is his nature, and he tells us, "Here's how we can do it. I realize we've had these four or five problems. We're going to solve this, and we're going to find a way out of this. Stick with me." I think he's got to give people a sense that he's totally facing reality, and he's not glossing over it. And he's got a plan that involves some new things that will actually solve the problem. Unless he does that, it's going to be passed away as more rhetoric. And he needs to do more than that now.

O'BRIEN: Sounds like you're saying specifics, specifics, specifics, like everybody else.

GERGEN: More than specifics. Big specifics. Not just small little details.

O'BRIEN: David Gergen joining us this morning. Nice to see you, as always.

GERGEN: OK. OK, Soledad. Thank you.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, a publicity stunt gone wrong leaves 100,000 people trying to find a very valuable needle in a haystack. We'll explain.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Also in a moment, are the claims of vitamin waters all wet? We'll take a closer look in our medical report in a moment when we continue right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. Sanjay is off today. In this morning's medical segment, the truth about vitamin water. It's all the rage in the beverage world. But do these enriched drinks deliver the kind of boost that they actually advertise?

Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us from the CNN Center with details of a new study.

Elizabeth, good morning.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Soledad, they're called vitamin waters. Some people call them enhanced waters. And they are the fastest growing segment in the beverage industry.

We have a collection here in front of me this morning. As you can see, they come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, some of them. Here is a strawberry-kiwi vitamin water. Here's a strawberry- banana. Not all of them are flavored.

And they range in calories. Some of them are zero calories. Some of them are 125 calories. So you have a lot of options there.

Well, a group called Consumer Labs, which is an independent testing lab, decided to put them to the test to see if they actually have the vitamins that they say they have. And what they found was that three out of four didn't.

One of them, Gatorade Propel, did. It had what it said it had. However, one Glaceau Vitamin Water had less Vitamin A and less Vitamin C than it was supposed to have. Fruit 20 Plus have less Vitamin C, and Aquafina Essentials had less Vitamin C.

So you don't always apparently get what's on the label, apparently, according to this report.

Now that one, Aquafina, that we mentioned, is no longer available. It's on the shelves. You can buy it, but they're not making it any more.

And they and several other companies we talked to said that the reason why perhaps this might be true is that vitamin content can vary by temperature. It can vary when something has been on the shelves for a while. So they said that that would be the reason why that was true.

But it's interesting to know that if you think you're getting the vitamins that you need out of water, you might want to think again and you might want to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet instead -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Are there real benefits from drinking vitamin water? I mean, especially in light of some of the dubious claims now. Or is it just sort of better to go ahead and just drink regular water?

COHEN: You know, H2O is H2O. Water is water. We all need it. We should all drink lots of it. This water is no different. The water itself is no different from any other water.

Sure, it might have vitamins. But you know what? If you're concerned about vitamins, A, you should eat healthy, or B, take a multivitamin. I mean, you pay for one of these bottles of water, and they're not particularly cheap all the day. And you might get the vitamins for a day.

But you can also buy a bottle of multivitamins and you get 30 or more vitamins right there. And it would be cheaper. It would be a much more economical way to do it than to drink one of these waters.

O'BRIEN: Elizabeth Cohen for us this morning. You convinced me. I'm going to go get a big, old glass of water.

COHEN: Thanks. Plain old water.

O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, a Formula One racing car with some very precious gar go on board. But there is a twist. Andy Serwer has a look at that just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back. We'll start with a look at some of the other stories that are making headlines this morning. Heidi Collins joins us with a that. Hey, Heidi. Good morning again.

HEIDI COLLINS, ANCHOR: Good morning, guys. Thanks so much. Want to get to these headlines now at 15 minutes past the hour.

An explosion in Baghdad has left two British civilians dead, one other person wounded near an entrance to U.S. coalition headquarters. The blast, first thought to be a car bombing, went off when an SUV hit an improvised explosive device.

A military spokesperson says the vehicle appears to have been the intended target of the explosive device.

A videotape obtained by the Associated Press reportedly shows a wedding party which survivors claim was the target of a U.S. strike. Last Wednesday's attack killed 45 people.

As of now, there's no way to prove the exact day or location of where this video was shot. The U.S. military says it was targeting a safe haven for foreign fighters.

Detectives now. A Coach USA bus slams into a parked tractor- trailer rig on an interstate highway. The bus reportedly rear-ended the 18-wheeler. There are reports of injuries, but details at this time are not quite clear.

Filmmaker Michael Moore's scathing documentary on the Bush administration got a big vote of confidence at the Cannes Film Festival over the weekend. "Fahrenheit 911" scored the top prize.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL MOORE, FILMMAKER: We have a distributor now in Albania that we just were told so now every country in the world can see this film except one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: The film drew attention recently when Disney, parent company of Miramax, said it would not distribute the film in the U.S. in an election year.

And in Nebraska, officials continue to assess the damage after tornadoes destroyed hundreds of homes, mainly in the southern part of the state over the weekend. More than a dozen tornadoes leveled, in one case, nearly an entire town leaving one person dead, scores of other people injured.

Nebraska's governor has declared a state of emergency now. The declaration makes available National Guard troops and emergency funding. So of course, we'll be following that story, as we've been doing all morning with Rob Marciano.

HEMMER: Rob saying it could be another tough day out there today, later in the afternoon.

COLLINS: Unfortunately. That's right.

HEMMER: We'll see.

Thank you, Heidi.

Check on businesses right now. Apparently, diamonds do not make good hood ornaments. For the doughnut story of the day, Andy Serwer checks in "Minding Your Business.

First a check of the markets.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Let's do that. The diamond thing is unbelievable. We'll get to that in a second.

Let's talk about the markets. What's up? Well, futures are much stronger this morning. Optimism over a possible increase in oil production by the Saudis doing the trick.

Let's talk about where we've been this year, though. Not as nice a picture. Stocks about five percent down, nearly, year to date. We've really been treading water well will below that Hemmer line of 2,000 on the NASDAQ and below Dow 10,000 as well. We'll have to see what we can do about that this morning.

Let's talk about this diamond thing, because this is a truly remarkable story. I'm going to call this the boneheaded business move of the month, maybe of the year. Truly remarkable.

It begins in Monaco, this story, where they had the Grand Prix race that they have every year over the weekend. There was a promotion for the new film "Ocean's 12," which is the sequel to "Ocean's 11."

You can see some of the stars there. That will be Messieurs Clooney and Pitt, flanking Austrian Grand Prix driver Christian Klien.

Now, he's driving a Jaguar. And to promote the movie, an Israeli diamond maker put a $2,000 diamond in the nose of the jaguar. The car goes out on the track, onto the first lap, crashes, smashes.

The driver is OK. But the diamond is lost. The $250,000 diamond...

HEMMER: First lap.

SERWER: First lap.

O'BRIEN: They called the insurance company and reported it lost.

SERWER: And it's not insured. It is not insured. This reported -- it's apparently not insured.

You know, you wonder if this whole thing, though, isn't a stunt. I mean, maybe it's $250,000 of publicity. Right?

I mean, can you believe that? Who would put a... O'BRIEN: So in the nose -- you could see it, or in...?

SERWER: You could sort of see it. It's only about the size of a button.

HEMMER: Maybe the driver was just really nervous.

SERWER: He was a rookie driver.

O'BRIEN: Oh!

SERWER: There are so many parts to this story. It's remarkable.

And they say that there are people crawling all over the place in Monaco looking for this diamond in the gutter, you know?

Get a plane ticket and go over and go.

O'BRIEN: That is the not the sharpest tack move of the day...

SERWER: Boneheaded.

O'BRIEN: ... I believe. I wasn't going to say boneheaded.

SERWER: Boneheaded.

O'BRIEN: But you did. I think that works.

Andy, thanks.

SERWER: You're welcome.

O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, medical care at one hospital has gone to the dogs. And believe it or not, the patients couldn't be happier. We'll explain as AMERICAN MORNING continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Time to check in with Jack and the Cafferty file. Sounds like you're saying the file is not so good today?

JACK CAFFERTY, CO-HOST: It's all right.

O'BRIEN: Just all right?

CAFFERTY: Yes, well, we'll see. Sometimes you don't know until you get through it.

Man's best friend is a favorite at some hospitals in Michigan. They had a test program there last year where patients in a suburban Detroit hospital were allowed visits from their dogs and cats. The goal was to make people feel more at home.

Now the staff found that the pets bring medical benefits to the patients, including a decrease in blood pressure, anxiety and pain. And now they're going to undertake a study on what effects spouses showing up at the hospital have on the patients.

O'BRIEN: I'm sorry, you can't come to the hospital, ma'am.

CAFFERTY: That's right.

The reason men don't live as long as women may have more to do with their behavior than with their biology.

Research shows men are more likely to die violently or accidentally, and they're less likely to seek medical help when they are "illing."

"USA Today" reports experts trying to fight these statistics with a new movement. A "Journal of Men's Health" debuted last week, and the first conference dedicated to the topic will be held in the U.S.

Don't call me to make reservations, because I can't help you.

Police have arrested -- This is my favorite story of the day. Police have arrested 12 Princeton University students for robbing the school bookstore.

O'BRIEN: Gosh!

CAFFERTY: The arrests at Princeton University, where the tuition is -- approaches the national debt -- the arrests at Princeton University occurred since the installation of new security cameras.

A municipal prosecutor told the "Trenton Times" newspaper that the shoplifting at Princeton's bookstore is, quote, "the university's little secret."

Well, it ain't no secret no more. The kids are robbing the bookstore at Princeton. Items stolen include sushi, razor blades and a bottle of Maalox.

The university's spokespeople would not comment on the arrests.

Just in case you missed that, that was at Princeton University.

O'BRIEN: That's a very expensive school. That's why they're knocking it over.

CAFFERTY: Really? I mean, if you can afford the $800,000 to go there you can't buy a razor?

O'BRIEN: Then you can't afford the Maalox. Obviously. Apparently.

CAFFERTY: Give me a break!

HEMMER: I love that story.

CAFFERTY: The GDP of Gambia, right there. Right? Estonia?

HEMMER: Thank you, Jack. In a moment here, some prime time pressure later tonight for the president talking about where the effort in Iraq goes from here. We will, too, after this.

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