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American Morning
Continuing Controversy Between Comments by Vice President Cheney, 9/11 Commission; Examining Political Significance of Release of Former President Clinton's Memoir
Aired June 21, 2004 - 08:00 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.
Is it misinformation or a deadly security breach inside the Saudi kingdom? Looking for the truth behind the latest al Qaeda claim there.
The dawn of a new day in space travel. Getting there a whole new way, with no government strings attached.
And is the Kobe Bryant just the tip of an NBA iceberg? A new book and a very controversial conclusion about the league's players. We'll to all of that this hour on AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien.
SOLEDAD S. O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.
Welcome, everybody.
Some of the other stories that are making headlines this morning.
As the 9/11 hearings drew to a close last week, you will recall that there was an intense debate over whether evidence existed to link al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein. Well, now could some brand new evidence be available for the panel's consideration? We're going to take a look at that just ahead.
HEMMER: Also this hour, you might have heard about this bizarre case in Wisconsin. A father and his two young sons found dead on the shores of Lake Michigan, tied together, weighted down with sand. Police do not know why. The investigation well under way there. We'll get to it this morning.
S. O'BRIEN: Also, the reviews are starting to come in for President Clinton, the author. His autobiography is getting absolutely slammed in some corners, praised in others. Jeff Greenfield is going to tell us this thoughts, politically speaking.
HEMMER: Nine hundred and fifty-seven pages worth.
S. O'BRIEN: Plenty.
HEMMER: Jack Cafferty -- good morning to you.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
Coming up in the Cafferty File this morning, you'll find out why white bread makes people rounder, according to research.
S. O'BRIEN: I didn't eat white bread. Why are looking at me?
CAFFERTY: And -- yes. And we'll tell you why passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight were told to close their window shades and not look out after the plane landed. They were in the wrong place.
HEMMER: Yes, they were. Boy, what a story that is.
How does that happen? I'm not going to give it away, but my gosh.
CAFFERTY: Oh, you can give it away if you want.
HEMMER: No. That's OK. We're going to hold this.
CAFFERTY: It's not a big deal.
HEMMER: Thank you, Jack.
CAFFERTY: There's no breach of national security there.
HEMMER: It is so funny the way it turned out.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
HEMMER: Let's get to Saudi Arabia again, first up this hour.
The Saudi group that beheaded American Paul Johnson says they had help from Saudi security forces with that abduction. A Web site claiming to tell the whole story of how Johnson was taken and killed says that the al Qaeda cell was given uniforms and vehicles to help them pull off the kidnapping. The group's leader was killed in a shootout with police on Friday, not long after Johnson's death.
Saudi forces were back in the area of that shootout again last night. The government denies that members of its security were involved. Much more on this as we move throughout the morning -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Members of the 9/11 Commission would like Vice President Dick Cheney to tell them what else he may know about Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda. The panel and the White House have been at odds over the strength of that connection, particularly because of the commonly held public belief that Saddam Hussein had a hand in 9/11.
Elaine Quijano is at the White House for us this morning -- Elaine, good morning.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
The White House continues to insist that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. And this past weekend, members of the September 11 Commission repeated their invitation for the White House to tell them more about it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
QUIJANO (voice-over): The September 11 Commission doesn't know yet whether it will need to speak with Vice President Dick Cheney again on his claim of an Iraq-al Qaeda link prior to 9/11. But for now...
RICHARD BEN-VENISTE, 9/11 COMMISSIONER: There is no plan to hear again from Mr. Cheney or Mr. Bush in any sort of interview format.
QUIJANO: It was in a television interview Thursday that the vice president raised questions about what he knows.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know things that the Commission does not know?
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Probably.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And do you think the Commission needs to know them?
CHENEY: I don't -- I don't have any way -- I don't know what they know.
QUIJANO: In a statement Sunday, Cheney Spokesman Kevin Kellems said: "The administration has cooperated fully with the Commission and given them unprecedented access to highly classified information. To my knowledge, we have not received a request for additional information of any kind."
The Bush administration maintains it never directly stated that Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq collaborated with al Qaeda to carry out the September 11 attacks. Instead, the White House has emphasized numerous contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda, both points not in conflict with the September 11 Commission's interim staff report.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq prior to September 11. I don't think there's any dispute about that. There were such contacts.
The second assertion that we make is that there was no collaborative relationship, no operational relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUIJANO: Now, the September 11 Commission's final report is not due out till next month and a Commission spokesperson emphasizes that these staff reports are simply interim documents, snapshots of information on hand at the time, and subject to change if new information warrants -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Elaine Quijano for us at the White House this morning.
Elaine, thanks -- Bill.
HEMMER: About six minutes now past the hour.
He's not running for office, but Bill Clinton is campaigning again, and it's a P.R. push of major proportions. A 957-page memoir on sale tomorrow. The full court press already under way -- a "60 Minutes" interview that aired last night; a "Time" magazine cover out today; an intimate party for 1,000 at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art later this evening.
And with all that comes the inevitable question -- what does it mean politically?
Our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield, here to help sort through all this -- good morning to you.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
HEMMER: What do you think is the critical point in this book?
GREENFIELD: Well, for obvious reasons, the focus of the early attention is all on the Lewinsky affair and the impeachment. And in one sense what Clinton said -- I have not read the book, full confession -- but I've -- not yet, today and tomorrow. But it's classically Clintonian in that he makes no excuses and he says his conduct was indefensible, but in explaining it, he then takes dead aim at Ken Starr and at his political opponents or enemies. And he says, or seems to say, that the pressures of his battle with the Republican Congress in 1995, the government shutdown, the Starr investigation into Whitewater created the atmosphere in which he yielded to what he calls his inner demons.
And what struck me about the comment and about so much else we saw is the almost day and night contrast with the last ex-president who we paid a lot of attention to, Ronald Reagan.
HEMMER: You're not drawing a comparison here, are you? There's a contrast.
GREENFIELD: It's an absolute day and night contrast and I don't mean politics. Look, both of these men were raised in families with alcoholic fathers or stepfathers. Ronald Reagan became, famously, a public figure with no inner life. His children said so publicly -- you'll never get to know this guy. His biographer, Edmund Morris (ph), was driven to distraction by it.
Now, by contrast, Bill Clinton is, as far as I can tell, by far the most comfortable president ever with the whole confessional, therapeutic, Oprah-like discussions. He's going to be on "Oprah" today. Now, maybe this is generational, but to see him talking to Dan Rather in the cemetery where his parents are buried and to listen to him talking about those inner demons, that's about as total a contrast as you can get with an older kind of political figure like Reagan.
HEMMER: So get to the political implications. What are they, coming out of this?
GREENFIELD: Well, one of the things is that, I should add, that there's relatively -- and this is really striking -- there's almost no focus on the domestic economy. You would have thought that that would be the most trumpeted achievement of the Clinton years. He brushed it off in the "60 Minutes" interview, but between the Lewinsky impeachment story and the what did you do about terrorism, the domestic economy has been pushed more or less in the shadows.
But to answer your questions, what about the politics?
HEMMER: Right.
GREENFIELD: OK, it's broken record time here, Bill. This is June. We're not going to vote until November. And I think, call me mad cap, but the idea that a media dustup in June is going to have a lot of influence on a November election, I think, is a little overwrought. Actually, I think it's a lot overwrought.
I mean maybe when we see the clip of that BBC interview where the British press reports Clinton gets very angry with an interviewer who asked him are you really contrite about Monica or is it just that you got caught? Maybe that'll have an impact in kind of making Clinton look not as good as he wants to be.
I think the one political punch, actually, is Clinton's relatively kind words for the president, this president, on Iraq. Yes, he says, we should have waited longer. But there's no talk from Clinton about misleading America into war or manipulating the intelligence. I've got a feeling the White House actually is happier with what Clinton is saying about Iraq than the Democratic National Committee or the Kerry campaign.
HEMMER: What do you think right now, as you take -- well, the reviews are one thing -- the "New York Times," the "National Review" online I think has something, as well. The hard feelings that people have, good or bad, for this president, are starting to resurface yet again.
GREENFIELD: Absolutely. I happened to click onto the "National Review" log. And as the Clinton interview on "60 Minutes" was going on, there were, I don't know, a half a dozen not entirely pleasant comments.
I do think among people who really dislike Clinton -- and there are plenty -- this is going to fuel their feeling all over again, the fact that he's making $10 million, took 957 pages to write his book, that's everything they see about Clinton.
Whether the book is going to encourage his admirers is another interesting question, because you're right, not only did the "New York Times" give it a real knock, but a lot of the people who've read the book, those few journalists who've had access -- and they're not Clinton haters -- have said, you know, the second part of this book is really -- Joe Klein called it a data dump, you know? You know, the first half is kind of interesting about his childhood, but the presidency, it's just like he was rushing to meet a deadline.
So this man stirred up some very strong feelings and they're not going to go away.
HEMMER: Nonetheless, though, he will be the everywhere man leading up to the first night of the convention in Boston at the end of July.
GREENFIELD: Yes. And then I think the Kerry campaign would -- well, I shouldn't say that. I think they would like to see -- I think the Kerry campaign would like to see him campaign where he's strong and I think they'd like not, the cameras not to show him campaigning on TV sets where he's weak.
HEMMER: Thank you, Jeff.
GREENFIELD: I don't think that makes any sense at all.
HEMMER: Slightly.
Thanks.
GREENFIELD: OK.
HEMMER: Good to see you.
All right, here's Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: A pretrial hearing in the prison abuse scandal was abruptly canceled in Baghdad today. Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Fredrick wants a civilian lawyer on his defense team. But that lawyer refuses to go to Baghdad because, he says, of the danger.
Pretrial hearings were completely for Sergeant Javal Davis and also Specialist Charles Graner. The judge refused the lawyers' request to have the trial moved from Baghdad and denied requests for new hearings because the security situation prevented some witnesses from being interviewed and could not be made available.
The lawyers will be allowed to seek the top military leader in Iraq, Lieutenant Ricardo Sanchez, and CENTCOM Commander General John Abizaid. But they will not be able to go higher up to question Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Tim Susanin is an attorney who was a judge advocate general in the Navy.
He joins us with more on this.
Let's start with this very weird news, what I consider to be weird news, the civilian attorney says he wants to represent his client by phone because the security in Iraq, he says, is unsafe, and just logistically it's difficult to travel around Iraq.
How unusual is that? TIM SUSANIN, FORMER NAVY J&G, FORMER MILITARY ATTORNEY: Well, extremely unusual. I mean this is, you know, ordinarily garden variety criminal cases now going on in the context of this sensational scandal, and I don't know if we have, Soledad, here a clever move by the defense, where they can't get the venue changed so they're going to work that motion through a lawyer who says I can't get to my client, you're going to have to bring the client to me.
S. O'BRIEN: The client himself says he's not going to waive his right to that particular lawyer. He says I -- oh, I want him.
SUSANIN: That's right.
S. O'BRIEN: At some point, what happens to that decision? Does the judge say you can't have your lawyer? Or -- how -- where is the decision made?
SUSANIN: It's going to be interesting because in the military you actually have a right to three attorneys -- a military lawyer that they'll appoint for you, which is what he already has; a civilian lawyer of your choice, which is this individual who doesn't want to travel; and a third military lawyer who might have represented you in prior actions. So at some point the judge is going to have to balance this out and say I understand you have a right to your own little dream team, but we've got a venue issue here and one is going to take precedence over the other. And I'm betting it's the venue.
S. O'BRIEN: If your dream team won't come...
SUSANIN: That's right.
S. O'BRIEN: Now, there is no opportunity now for a change of venue. They made that motion and the judge seems to be ruling against it.
That's done?
SUSANIN: That's done. That was one of the things that the prosecutors won today, although there has been some traction, I think, by the defendants here on their motions. They are getting some documents and some witnesses that they asked for in these pretrial motions.
As you pointed out in the lead-in there, they're going to get to talk to people high up the chain, particularly General Sanchez, who was the commander of troops there in Iraq. And this gives legs to this whole defense of let's get this up the chain and show that this came from above.
S. O'BRIEN: Is that a done deal, as well, or is the judge just sort of giving them the opportunity to talk to General Sanchez if they can prove that he might have something to say?
SUSANIN: Well, it depends on both sides whether he's going to be a trial witness and he does not have relevant testimony. The judge probably won't have him testify at trial. But it seems that the judge is making the correct assessment, that is, I'm not going to give you a ticket to the Pentagon to go bring Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in here, but to the extent that Sanchez is a relevant witness because he, there's a claim that he witnessed some of the abuse, I'm going to let you talk to him.
S. O'BRIEN: The defendants get to pick how they're going to be tried.
What are their options, actually?
SUSANIN: They can be tried by a jury, or just like in our regular system, they can waive that right to a jury trial and be tried by a judge alone. In this case, it would be a military judge. They can also elect a panel of judges. We have not seen that decision and probably won't see it for a few weeks, at least.
S. O'BRIEN: When does the trial start? We're in pretrial hearings and, of course, it's been slowed down by this odd sort of things going on with Chip Frederick's case.
SUSANIN: Right. Interesting question. We've heard that they're going to start in August. But I think the whole defense tactic here, as it should be in this case, is delay. The longer this is put on hold, the more chance this scandal has to burgeon and bubble up and percolate. And that, I think, plays into the defense strategy.
S. O'BRIEN: We will see.
Tim Susanin, nice to see you, as always.
SUSANIN: Thanks for having me.
S. O'BRIEN: Thanks for coming in.
Appreciate it.
SUSANIN: Thanks, Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Bill.
HEMMER: The top story out of Wisconsin, Soledad, Wisconsin police treating the deaths of a man and his two young sons as homicides. Their bodies washed ashore from Lake Michigan over the weekend. They were tied together, weighted down with sand.
Chris Lawrence is live in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin -- Chris, good morning there.
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Bill.
The bodies literally washed up just behind me. But right now detectives are trying to figure out exactly when and where they went into the water. And with no visible signs of trauma on these bodies, exactly how this family died.
Now, nobody had seen the family since May 6, when Kevin Amde took his youngest 3-year-old son to pick up his older 6-year-old brother at school in Chicago.
Now, the wife and mother says he often took the kids for a couple days at a time without telling her, on different trips. So she didn't even report them missing for five days.
The medical examiner says they had been in the water about six weeks, which is consistent with the amount of time that they had been missing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHIEF BRIAN WAGNER, PLEASANT PRAIRIE, WISCONSIN POLICE: We consider these deaths to be very suspicious and this case is being handled by law enforcement as a homicide at this time. As has been reported, the bodies were found tethered together with a length of nylon rope. All three were tethered at the waist with the rope through either belt loops, the belt itself or, as in the case of one of the children, wrapped around the waist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAWRENCE: And the police also found, when they did find the bodies, they also found two nylon bags that had some personal things, things you would normally find in children's book bags. But it also had two Ziploc plastic bags. They were filled with sand. And police also tell us that some -- one of the children's pockets was also filled with sand and the zipper of the pocket had been zipped closed. They tell us that added about 48 pounds of weight to the children -- Bill.
HEMMER: Chris, is there a possibility this was a suicide?
LAWRENCE: It's a possibility. What we're hearing is that he did take the kids on trips like this a lot. He would take them out fishing here in Wisconsin. He would take the kids to a museum in Chicago. So the family says it's not unusual that he would take the kids out like this. But police are investigating some reports that Kevin Amde may have lost his job recently and that the family may have been facing eviction from their home in Chicago.
HEMMER: A tough, tough story.
Chris Lawrence, thanks, in Wisconsin -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Sixteen minutes past the hour now.
Time to take a look at some of the other stories making headlines today with Daryn Kagan -- hi, Daryn.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.
We begin in Iraq. There is word of a deadly shootout between American soldiers and Iraqi insurgents. CNN is confirming now four U.S. troops have been killed west of Baghdad. The bodies were reportedly found in Ramadi. The U.S. military has not confirmed that attack. Iraq is restructuring its security forces. The country's new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, announcing a new plan to reorganize security forces under a central command. The prime minister also says the government is still considering whether it will impose martial law in some trouble spots.
Democratic hopeful John Kerry apparently collected money for his campaign from the recently arrested son of South Korea's former president. The Associated Press is reporting the Kerry campaign collected a maximum $2,000 from the son of the ex-president. Kerry's camp says the money is now being returned.
Here in the U.S., in Shinnecock Hills, New York, South African Retief Goosen wins his second U.S. Open. The Goose won it by two strokes, shooting a one over 71. As for Phil Mickelson, it all came down to 17 on the final round. Mickelson three putted from five feet. It was a double bogey. That dropped him two strokes behind Goosen and walked away with the number two spot -- Soledad, it's the third time he's come in second place at the U.S. Open. But he gets a chance next month at the British Open, Weltrun (ph) in Scotland.
S. O'BRIEN: Always could do it then.
KAGAN: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: I like, you know, I always like that they, all the golfers are so calm. They just wave.
KAGAN: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: They wave to the crowd. I've just won $1.1 million. Hello. Thank you.
KAGAN: Very dignified, yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Very dignified, exactly.
Thanks, Daryn.
There is a new space race on. The first privately built manned space ship will be tested this morning. It's called Space Ship One. A $10 million prize has been offered to whoever develops a commercially viable spacecraft for tourism.
Miles O'Brien is live for us this morning in the Mojave Desert in California -- hey, Miles, good morning.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
This has the feel of one of the old moon shots from many years ago. More than 200 accredited media outlets here from all over the world to capture what we all hope will be a little bit of space history, as the first privately funded rocket, about $20 million, mostly provided by the Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, and a billionaire, and designed by Burt Rutan.
That craft attempts to reach the threshold of space, which officially is 100 kilometers of altitude, or 62 and a half miles.
Let me just show you a little bit of animation here on how this works. The craft, Space Ship One, goes up to altitude under the belly of a larger airplane and then they light the candle on that rocket. It burns for about a minute and 20 seconds. The pilot will then, at the top of that parabola or that peak, will be in excess of 400,000 feet and at that point officially become the first civilian astronaut.
The pilot is -- has flown this particular craft eight times before on other tests. The last one occurred last month. He flew in excess of 200,000 feet. His name is Mike Melvill. He's a 62-year-old native of South Africa, now a U.S. citizen. He has been flying for many years here with Burt Rutan and his team of scale composites.
Now, Burt Rutan, you may recall from 1986, designed a craft called Voyager, which flew all the way around the world on a single tank of gas. It was piloted by his brother Dick. So while this may seem like a long shot type of attempt here today at the Mojave Desert, Burt Rutan is the kind of guy who has a way of delivering on his promises -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Miles O'Brien for us.
We're going to see if, indeed, history is made when we check back in with you around 9:30 a.m. Eastern time.
Miles, thanks.
(WEATHER REPORT)
S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, the IRS says it pays to be a whistle-blower. Andy Serwer is minding your business this morning.
HEMMER: Also in a moment, we all know about the Kobe Bryant matter. But a new book says his situation is just part of a larger problem throughout the league. Some shocking statistics in this book. The league strongly saying it's not true. We'll get to it in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: Time to check in with Jack for the Cafferty File -- good morning.
CAFFERTY: How are you doing?
A Northwest Airlines from Minneapolis landed in the wrong place on Saturday. The flight was supposed to go to the Rapid City regional airport and instead it touched down at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. The passengers were told to close their window shades and not look out, because it's like a classified place, I guess. Military officials then interrogated the crew, who had apparently become confused and landed in the wrong airport, which is like 30 miles from where they were supposed to be.
A Northwest official says the incident is under review.
HEMMER: I bet.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes. Don't open the window.
CAFFERTY: Buy a ticket on Northwest and go who the hell knows where.
The kind of bread you choose is one of the things, Soledad, that can make you rounder. White bread and other refined grains tend to go right to the belly, according to researchers at Tufts University. They studied the eating habits of people who eat white bread versus whole grain. They found the belt size of the white bread group increased about a half an inch a year. And at the end of the survey period, that group had three times the gain at the waistline as those who ate the fiber bread.
S. O'BRIEN: So that's what's going on.
CAFFERTY: I like white bread. You know, that's one of the ways. I don't think yours is white bread.
S. O'BRIEN: More than happening here. But (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
CAFFERTY: That wasn't eating white bread that caused that.
A big investment bank telling its clients money isn't everything. German owned Kleinwort Dresdner Wasserstein says clients should have sex, ideally with someone they love, reflect on the good things in life and get plenty of sleep and exercise. The author of the note admits, though, "I still need a little money just to keep me happy."
HEMMER: Yes.
CAFFERTY: Don't we all?
HEMMER: And then there's that.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
HEMMER: That's right.
Thank you, Jack.
S. O'BRIEN: Oh, that's funny.
All right, Jack.
Thanks.
HEMMER: In a moment here, some surprising health news today. Breast cancer and osteoporosis said to be on the rise among men. Sanjay stops by with what you need to know in a moment on those stories.
Also, the Iraq handover about nine days away. Find out what an author and reporter says has been one of the most consistent failures by U.S. forces. He's written a book about it and we'll talk to him in a moment here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired June 21, 2004 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.
Is it misinformation or a deadly security breach inside the Saudi kingdom? Looking for the truth behind the latest al Qaeda claim there.
The dawn of a new day in space travel. Getting there a whole new way, with no government strings attached.
And is the Kobe Bryant just the tip of an NBA iceberg? A new book and a very controversial conclusion about the league's players. We'll to all of that this hour on AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien.
SOLEDAD S. O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.
Welcome, everybody.
Some of the other stories that are making headlines this morning.
As the 9/11 hearings drew to a close last week, you will recall that there was an intense debate over whether evidence existed to link al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein. Well, now could some brand new evidence be available for the panel's consideration? We're going to take a look at that just ahead.
HEMMER: Also this hour, you might have heard about this bizarre case in Wisconsin. A father and his two young sons found dead on the shores of Lake Michigan, tied together, weighted down with sand. Police do not know why. The investigation well under way there. We'll get to it this morning.
S. O'BRIEN: Also, the reviews are starting to come in for President Clinton, the author. His autobiography is getting absolutely slammed in some corners, praised in others. Jeff Greenfield is going to tell us this thoughts, politically speaking.
HEMMER: Nine hundred and fifty-seven pages worth.
S. O'BRIEN: Plenty.
HEMMER: Jack Cafferty -- good morning to you.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
Coming up in the Cafferty File this morning, you'll find out why white bread makes people rounder, according to research.
S. O'BRIEN: I didn't eat white bread. Why are looking at me?
CAFFERTY: And -- yes. And we'll tell you why passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight were told to close their window shades and not look out after the plane landed. They were in the wrong place.
HEMMER: Yes, they were. Boy, what a story that is.
How does that happen? I'm not going to give it away, but my gosh.
CAFFERTY: Oh, you can give it away if you want.
HEMMER: No. That's OK. We're going to hold this.
CAFFERTY: It's not a big deal.
HEMMER: Thank you, Jack.
CAFFERTY: There's no breach of national security there.
HEMMER: It is so funny the way it turned out.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
HEMMER: Let's get to Saudi Arabia again, first up this hour.
The Saudi group that beheaded American Paul Johnson says they had help from Saudi security forces with that abduction. A Web site claiming to tell the whole story of how Johnson was taken and killed says that the al Qaeda cell was given uniforms and vehicles to help them pull off the kidnapping. The group's leader was killed in a shootout with police on Friday, not long after Johnson's death.
Saudi forces were back in the area of that shootout again last night. The government denies that members of its security were involved. Much more on this as we move throughout the morning -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Members of the 9/11 Commission would like Vice President Dick Cheney to tell them what else he may know about Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda. The panel and the White House have been at odds over the strength of that connection, particularly because of the commonly held public belief that Saddam Hussein had a hand in 9/11.
Elaine Quijano is at the White House for us this morning -- Elaine, good morning.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
The White House continues to insist that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. And this past weekend, members of the September 11 Commission repeated their invitation for the White House to tell them more about it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
QUIJANO (voice-over): The September 11 Commission doesn't know yet whether it will need to speak with Vice President Dick Cheney again on his claim of an Iraq-al Qaeda link prior to 9/11. But for now...
RICHARD BEN-VENISTE, 9/11 COMMISSIONER: There is no plan to hear again from Mr. Cheney or Mr. Bush in any sort of interview format.
QUIJANO: It was in a television interview Thursday that the vice president raised questions about what he knows.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know things that the Commission does not know?
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Probably.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And do you think the Commission needs to know them?
CHENEY: I don't -- I don't have any way -- I don't know what they know.
QUIJANO: In a statement Sunday, Cheney Spokesman Kevin Kellems said: "The administration has cooperated fully with the Commission and given them unprecedented access to highly classified information. To my knowledge, we have not received a request for additional information of any kind."
The Bush administration maintains it never directly stated that Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq collaborated with al Qaeda to carry out the September 11 attacks. Instead, the White House has emphasized numerous contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda, both points not in conflict with the September 11 Commission's interim staff report.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq prior to September 11. I don't think there's any dispute about that. There were such contacts.
The second assertion that we make is that there was no collaborative relationship, no operational relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUIJANO: Now, the September 11 Commission's final report is not due out till next month and a Commission spokesperson emphasizes that these staff reports are simply interim documents, snapshots of information on hand at the time, and subject to change if new information warrants -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Elaine Quijano for us at the White House this morning.
Elaine, thanks -- Bill.
HEMMER: About six minutes now past the hour.
He's not running for office, but Bill Clinton is campaigning again, and it's a P.R. push of major proportions. A 957-page memoir on sale tomorrow. The full court press already under way -- a "60 Minutes" interview that aired last night; a "Time" magazine cover out today; an intimate party for 1,000 at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art later this evening.
And with all that comes the inevitable question -- what does it mean politically?
Our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield, here to help sort through all this -- good morning to you.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
HEMMER: What do you think is the critical point in this book?
GREENFIELD: Well, for obvious reasons, the focus of the early attention is all on the Lewinsky affair and the impeachment. And in one sense what Clinton said -- I have not read the book, full confession -- but I've -- not yet, today and tomorrow. But it's classically Clintonian in that he makes no excuses and he says his conduct was indefensible, but in explaining it, he then takes dead aim at Ken Starr and at his political opponents or enemies. And he says, or seems to say, that the pressures of his battle with the Republican Congress in 1995, the government shutdown, the Starr investigation into Whitewater created the atmosphere in which he yielded to what he calls his inner demons.
And what struck me about the comment and about so much else we saw is the almost day and night contrast with the last ex-president who we paid a lot of attention to, Ronald Reagan.
HEMMER: You're not drawing a comparison here, are you? There's a contrast.
GREENFIELD: It's an absolute day and night contrast and I don't mean politics. Look, both of these men were raised in families with alcoholic fathers or stepfathers. Ronald Reagan became, famously, a public figure with no inner life. His children said so publicly -- you'll never get to know this guy. His biographer, Edmund Morris (ph), was driven to distraction by it.
Now, by contrast, Bill Clinton is, as far as I can tell, by far the most comfortable president ever with the whole confessional, therapeutic, Oprah-like discussions. He's going to be on "Oprah" today. Now, maybe this is generational, but to see him talking to Dan Rather in the cemetery where his parents are buried and to listen to him talking about those inner demons, that's about as total a contrast as you can get with an older kind of political figure like Reagan.
HEMMER: So get to the political implications. What are they, coming out of this?
GREENFIELD: Well, one of the things is that, I should add, that there's relatively -- and this is really striking -- there's almost no focus on the domestic economy. You would have thought that that would be the most trumpeted achievement of the Clinton years. He brushed it off in the "60 Minutes" interview, but between the Lewinsky impeachment story and the what did you do about terrorism, the domestic economy has been pushed more or less in the shadows.
But to answer your questions, what about the politics?
HEMMER: Right.
GREENFIELD: OK, it's broken record time here, Bill. This is June. We're not going to vote until November. And I think, call me mad cap, but the idea that a media dustup in June is going to have a lot of influence on a November election, I think, is a little overwrought. Actually, I think it's a lot overwrought.
I mean maybe when we see the clip of that BBC interview where the British press reports Clinton gets very angry with an interviewer who asked him are you really contrite about Monica or is it just that you got caught? Maybe that'll have an impact in kind of making Clinton look not as good as he wants to be.
I think the one political punch, actually, is Clinton's relatively kind words for the president, this president, on Iraq. Yes, he says, we should have waited longer. But there's no talk from Clinton about misleading America into war or manipulating the intelligence. I've got a feeling the White House actually is happier with what Clinton is saying about Iraq than the Democratic National Committee or the Kerry campaign.
HEMMER: What do you think right now, as you take -- well, the reviews are one thing -- the "New York Times," the "National Review" online I think has something, as well. The hard feelings that people have, good or bad, for this president, are starting to resurface yet again.
GREENFIELD: Absolutely. I happened to click onto the "National Review" log. And as the Clinton interview on "60 Minutes" was going on, there were, I don't know, a half a dozen not entirely pleasant comments.
I do think among people who really dislike Clinton -- and there are plenty -- this is going to fuel their feeling all over again, the fact that he's making $10 million, took 957 pages to write his book, that's everything they see about Clinton.
Whether the book is going to encourage his admirers is another interesting question, because you're right, not only did the "New York Times" give it a real knock, but a lot of the people who've read the book, those few journalists who've had access -- and they're not Clinton haters -- have said, you know, the second part of this book is really -- Joe Klein called it a data dump, you know? You know, the first half is kind of interesting about his childhood, but the presidency, it's just like he was rushing to meet a deadline.
So this man stirred up some very strong feelings and they're not going to go away.
HEMMER: Nonetheless, though, he will be the everywhere man leading up to the first night of the convention in Boston at the end of July.
GREENFIELD: Yes. And then I think the Kerry campaign would -- well, I shouldn't say that. I think they would like to see -- I think the Kerry campaign would like to see him campaign where he's strong and I think they'd like not, the cameras not to show him campaigning on TV sets where he's weak.
HEMMER: Thank you, Jeff.
GREENFIELD: I don't think that makes any sense at all.
HEMMER: Slightly.
Thanks.
GREENFIELD: OK.
HEMMER: Good to see you.
All right, here's Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: A pretrial hearing in the prison abuse scandal was abruptly canceled in Baghdad today. Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Fredrick wants a civilian lawyer on his defense team. But that lawyer refuses to go to Baghdad because, he says, of the danger.
Pretrial hearings were completely for Sergeant Javal Davis and also Specialist Charles Graner. The judge refused the lawyers' request to have the trial moved from Baghdad and denied requests for new hearings because the security situation prevented some witnesses from being interviewed and could not be made available.
The lawyers will be allowed to seek the top military leader in Iraq, Lieutenant Ricardo Sanchez, and CENTCOM Commander General John Abizaid. But they will not be able to go higher up to question Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Tim Susanin is an attorney who was a judge advocate general in the Navy.
He joins us with more on this.
Let's start with this very weird news, what I consider to be weird news, the civilian attorney says he wants to represent his client by phone because the security in Iraq, he says, is unsafe, and just logistically it's difficult to travel around Iraq.
How unusual is that? TIM SUSANIN, FORMER NAVY J&G, FORMER MILITARY ATTORNEY: Well, extremely unusual. I mean this is, you know, ordinarily garden variety criminal cases now going on in the context of this sensational scandal, and I don't know if we have, Soledad, here a clever move by the defense, where they can't get the venue changed so they're going to work that motion through a lawyer who says I can't get to my client, you're going to have to bring the client to me.
S. O'BRIEN: The client himself says he's not going to waive his right to that particular lawyer. He says I -- oh, I want him.
SUSANIN: That's right.
S. O'BRIEN: At some point, what happens to that decision? Does the judge say you can't have your lawyer? Or -- how -- where is the decision made?
SUSANIN: It's going to be interesting because in the military you actually have a right to three attorneys -- a military lawyer that they'll appoint for you, which is what he already has; a civilian lawyer of your choice, which is this individual who doesn't want to travel; and a third military lawyer who might have represented you in prior actions. So at some point the judge is going to have to balance this out and say I understand you have a right to your own little dream team, but we've got a venue issue here and one is going to take precedence over the other. And I'm betting it's the venue.
S. O'BRIEN: If your dream team won't come...
SUSANIN: That's right.
S. O'BRIEN: Now, there is no opportunity now for a change of venue. They made that motion and the judge seems to be ruling against it.
That's done?
SUSANIN: That's done. That was one of the things that the prosecutors won today, although there has been some traction, I think, by the defendants here on their motions. They are getting some documents and some witnesses that they asked for in these pretrial motions.
As you pointed out in the lead-in there, they're going to get to talk to people high up the chain, particularly General Sanchez, who was the commander of troops there in Iraq. And this gives legs to this whole defense of let's get this up the chain and show that this came from above.
S. O'BRIEN: Is that a done deal, as well, or is the judge just sort of giving them the opportunity to talk to General Sanchez if they can prove that he might have something to say?
SUSANIN: Well, it depends on both sides whether he's going to be a trial witness and he does not have relevant testimony. The judge probably won't have him testify at trial. But it seems that the judge is making the correct assessment, that is, I'm not going to give you a ticket to the Pentagon to go bring Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in here, but to the extent that Sanchez is a relevant witness because he, there's a claim that he witnessed some of the abuse, I'm going to let you talk to him.
S. O'BRIEN: The defendants get to pick how they're going to be tried.
What are their options, actually?
SUSANIN: They can be tried by a jury, or just like in our regular system, they can waive that right to a jury trial and be tried by a judge alone. In this case, it would be a military judge. They can also elect a panel of judges. We have not seen that decision and probably won't see it for a few weeks, at least.
S. O'BRIEN: When does the trial start? We're in pretrial hearings and, of course, it's been slowed down by this odd sort of things going on with Chip Frederick's case.
SUSANIN: Right. Interesting question. We've heard that they're going to start in August. But I think the whole defense tactic here, as it should be in this case, is delay. The longer this is put on hold, the more chance this scandal has to burgeon and bubble up and percolate. And that, I think, plays into the defense strategy.
S. O'BRIEN: We will see.
Tim Susanin, nice to see you, as always.
SUSANIN: Thanks for having me.
S. O'BRIEN: Thanks for coming in.
Appreciate it.
SUSANIN: Thanks, Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Bill.
HEMMER: The top story out of Wisconsin, Soledad, Wisconsin police treating the deaths of a man and his two young sons as homicides. Their bodies washed ashore from Lake Michigan over the weekend. They were tied together, weighted down with sand.
Chris Lawrence is live in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin -- Chris, good morning there.
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Bill.
The bodies literally washed up just behind me. But right now detectives are trying to figure out exactly when and where they went into the water. And with no visible signs of trauma on these bodies, exactly how this family died.
Now, nobody had seen the family since May 6, when Kevin Amde took his youngest 3-year-old son to pick up his older 6-year-old brother at school in Chicago.
Now, the wife and mother says he often took the kids for a couple days at a time without telling her, on different trips. So she didn't even report them missing for five days.
The medical examiner says they had been in the water about six weeks, which is consistent with the amount of time that they had been missing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHIEF BRIAN WAGNER, PLEASANT PRAIRIE, WISCONSIN POLICE: We consider these deaths to be very suspicious and this case is being handled by law enforcement as a homicide at this time. As has been reported, the bodies were found tethered together with a length of nylon rope. All three were tethered at the waist with the rope through either belt loops, the belt itself or, as in the case of one of the children, wrapped around the waist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAWRENCE: And the police also found, when they did find the bodies, they also found two nylon bags that had some personal things, things you would normally find in children's book bags. But it also had two Ziploc plastic bags. They were filled with sand. And police also tell us that some -- one of the children's pockets was also filled with sand and the zipper of the pocket had been zipped closed. They tell us that added about 48 pounds of weight to the children -- Bill.
HEMMER: Chris, is there a possibility this was a suicide?
LAWRENCE: It's a possibility. What we're hearing is that he did take the kids on trips like this a lot. He would take them out fishing here in Wisconsin. He would take the kids to a museum in Chicago. So the family says it's not unusual that he would take the kids out like this. But police are investigating some reports that Kevin Amde may have lost his job recently and that the family may have been facing eviction from their home in Chicago.
HEMMER: A tough, tough story.
Chris Lawrence, thanks, in Wisconsin -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Sixteen minutes past the hour now.
Time to take a look at some of the other stories making headlines today with Daryn Kagan -- hi, Daryn.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.
We begin in Iraq. There is word of a deadly shootout between American soldiers and Iraqi insurgents. CNN is confirming now four U.S. troops have been killed west of Baghdad. The bodies were reportedly found in Ramadi. The U.S. military has not confirmed that attack. Iraq is restructuring its security forces. The country's new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, announcing a new plan to reorganize security forces under a central command. The prime minister also says the government is still considering whether it will impose martial law in some trouble spots.
Democratic hopeful John Kerry apparently collected money for his campaign from the recently arrested son of South Korea's former president. The Associated Press is reporting the Kerry campaign collected a maximum $2,000 from the son of the ex-president. Kerry's camp says the money is now being returned.
Here in the U.S., in Shinnecock Hills, New York, South African Retief Goosen wins his second U.S. Open. The Goose won it by two strokes, shooting a one over 71. As for Phil Mickelson, it all came down to 17 on the final round. Mickelson three putted from five feet. It was a double bogey. That dropped him two strokes behind Goosen and walked away with the number two spot -- Soledad, it's the third time he's come in second place at the U.S. Open. But he gets a chance next month at the British Open, Weltrun (ph) in Scotland.
S. O'BRIEN: Always could do it then.
KAGAN: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: I like, you know, I always like that they, all the golfers are so calm. They just wave.
KAGAN: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: They wave to the crowd. I've just won $1.1 million. Hello. Thank you.
KAGAN: Very dignified, yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Very dignified, exactly.
Thanks, Daryn.
There is a new space race on. The first privately built manned space ship will be tested this morning. It's called Space Ship One. A $10 million prize has been offered to whoever develops a commercially viable spacecraft for tourism.
Miles O'Brien is live for us this morning in the Mojave Desert in California -- hey, Miles, good morning.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
This has the feel of one of the old moon shots from many years ago. More than 200 accredited media outlets here from all over the world to capture what we all hope will be a little bit of space history, as the first privately funded rocket, about $20 million, mostly provided by the Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, and a billionaire, and designed by Burt Rutan.
That craft attempts to reach the threshold of space, which officially is 100 kilometers of altitude, or 62 and a half miles.
Let me just show you a little bit of animation here on how this works. The craft, Space Ship One, goes up to altitude under the belly of a larger airplane and then they light the candle on that rocket. It burns for about a minute and 20 seconds. The pilot will then, at the top of that parabola or that peak, will be in excess of 400,000 feet and at that point officially become the first civilian astronaut.
The pilot is -- has flown this particular craft eight times before on other tests. The last one occurred last month. He flew in excess of 200,000 feet. His name is Mike Melvill. He's a 62-year-old native of South Africa, now a U.S. citizen. He has been flying for many years here with Burt Rutan and his team of scale composites.
Now, Burt Rutan, you may recall from 1986, designed a craft called Voyager, which flew all the way around the world on a single tank of gas. It was piloted by his brother Dick. So while this may seem like a long shot type of attempt here today at the Mojave Desert, Burt Rutan is the kind of guy who has a way of delivering on his promises -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Miles O'Brien for us.
We're going to see if, indeed, history is made when we check back in with you around 9:30 a.m. Eastern time.
Miles, thanks.
(WEATHER REPORT)
S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, the IRS says it pays to be a whistle-blower. Andy Serwer is minding your business this morning.
HEMMER: Also in a moment, we all know about the Kobe Bryant matter. But a new book says his situation is just part of a larger problem throughout the league. Some shocking statistics in this book. The league strongly saying it's not true. We'll get to it in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: Time to check in with Jack for the Cafferty File -- good morning.
CAFFERTY: How are you doing?
A Northwest Airlines from Minneapolis landed in the wrong place on Saturday. The flight was supposed to go to the Rapid City regional airport and instead it touched down at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. The passengers were told to close their window shades and not look out, because it's like a classified place, I guess. Military officials then interrogated the crew, who had apparently become confused and landed in the wrong airport, which is like 30 miles from where they were supposed to be.
A Northwest official says the incident is under review.
HEMMER: I bet.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes. Don't open the window.
CAFFERTY: Buy a ticket on Northwest and go who the hell knows where.
The kind of bread you choose is one of the things, Soledad, that can make you rounder. White bread and other refined grains tend to go right to the belly, according to researchers at Tufts University. They studied the eating habits of people who eat white bread versus whole grain. They found the belt size of the white bread group increased about a half an inch a year. And at the end of the survey period, that group had three times the gain at the waistline as those who ate the fiber bread.
S. O'BRIEN: So that's what's going on.
CAFFERTY: I like white bread. You know, that's one of the ways. I don't think yours is white bread.
S. O'BRIEN: More than happening here. But (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
CAFFERTY: That wasn't eating white bread that caused that.
A big investment bank telling its clients money isn't everything. German owned Kleinwort Dresdner Wasserstein says clients should have sex, ideally with someone they love, reflect on the good things in life and get plenty of sleep and exercise. The author of the note admits, though, "I still need a little money just to keep me happy."
HEMMER: Yes.
CAFFERTY: Don't we all?
HEMMER: And then there's that.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
HEMMER: That's right.
Thank you, Jack.
S. O'BRIEN: Oh, that's funny.
All right, Jack.
Thanks.
HEMMER: In a moment here, some surprising health news today. Breast cancer and osteoporosis said to be on the rise among men. Sanjay stops by with what you need to know in a moment on those stories.
Also, the Iraq handover about nine days away. Find out what an author and reporter says has been one of the most consistent failures by U.S. forces. He's written a book about it and we'll talk to him in a moment here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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