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Lou Dobbs Tonight

Bin Laden Associate Surrenders; Color-Coded Alert System Confusing and Ineffective; Severe Storms in Northeast Causes Flooding

Aired July 13, 2004 - 18:00   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.


LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, one of Osama bin Laden's closest associates surrenders to Saudi Arabia, but the United States may never have the opportunity to question him about al Qaeda.
Khaled al-Harbi surrendered himself to the Saudi embassy in Iran, but he could be set free under a Saudi government amnesty. We'll have the report.

The government's color-coded terrorist alert system is confusing and ineffective. That's the view of congressional investigators. Tonight, I'll be joined by the top Congressman on the Homeland Security Committee, Chairman Christopher Cox, and the ranking Democrat, Congressman Jim Turner.

Border Patrol agents arrest thousands of illegal aliens every day, but, incredibly, many of them are released and some of them are criminals disappearing within the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we're going to large individuals here who are referred to as prosecutable under the Customs and Immigration laws.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOBBS: And astonishing news tonight about planet Earth. Scientists say our magnetic field is weakening and weakening rapidly. What does it mean? John Tarduno professor of geophysics at the University of Rochester joins us to talk about the implications for life on Earth.

ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Tuesday, July 13. Here now for an hour of news, debate and opinion is Lou Dobbs.

DOBBS: Good evening.

Tonight, a close associate of Osama bin Laden is in custody in Saudi Arabia. Khaled al-Harbi surrendered to the Saudi Arabian embassy in Iran under a Saudi government amnesty program. That means U.S. government agents may never have the opportunity to question Harbi about al Qaeda and its global terrorist activities.

Nic Robertson reports from London -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, Saudi officials are describing Khaled al-Harbi as a sick man. When he came off the plane back in Saudi Arabia, he was unable to walk.

They say that he will be taken away for medical treatment, but they also say that he will not be a free man, that he will be interrogated for information about Osama bin Laden and about al Qaeda, and they say that he will not be released until all the civil suits against him are settled.

However, they do say that at the moment he is not guilty of any crime that they're aware of committed inside Saudi Arabia, but it appears that Khaled al-Harbi decided to turn himself into Saudi authorities as part of the leniency that Saudi authorities have been offering to al Qaeda members.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KHALED AL-HARBI, BIN LADEN ASSOCIATE (through translator): I called the embassy, and we felt that we were welcome, that we were among family. Thank God for this blessing.

I came because I abide the word of God and that of the caretaker of the holy sites. This initiative from the caretaker of holy sites and the king is an opportunity. Our country is the country of Islam.

Undoubtedly, any logical man would thank God and should take advantage of this opportunity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: Well, the last time Khaled al-Harbi was seen was December 2001 in a videotape that was released at that time sitting next to Osama bin Laden, congratulating him for the deaths in the September the 11th attacks.

What Saudi officials describe al-Harbi as is not an active member of al Qaeda inasmuch as carrying out attacks, but as a standby cleric, somebody that Osama bin Laden could turn to for fatwas, for religious rulings to justify actions that al Qaeda was taking, and Saudi officials say this is a very big catch for them -- Lou.

DOBBS: Nic, do we know just how sick he is and what will be -- what is his next disposition is?

' ROBERTSON: Well, we've -- his condition has been described as requiring urgent medical treatment. We know that he fought in Afghanistan alongside Osama bin Laden against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, also that he fought in Bosnia in the 1990s. Somewhere along the way, he received significant injuries, we're told that he is essentially unable really to walk properly, but his exact illness at this time isn't clear.

But what we understand from Saudi officials is that al-Harbi felt that he was being left in limbo by al Qaeda. That's why he decided to turn himself in, somewhere perhaps on the Iranian-Afghan border, unable to get adequate medical treatment. We're told he will get that treatment but -- that he requires, but that he will face interrogation when he's up to it after that -- Lou.

DOBBS: Nic, thank you very much.

Nic Robertson reporting from London.

The Saudi government today admitted for the first time that some Saudi citizens are now fighting on the side of insurgents in Iraq. Previously, the Saudi government strongly denied that any Saudis were taking part in the insurgency.

Yesterday, the Iraqi government said 14 Saudi citizens are now in custody in Iraq for taking part in insurgent attacks. The United States says foreign insurgents are responsible for some of the most deadly attacks in Iraq.

In Iraq today, police arrested more than 500 suspected criminals in a sweep through eastern Baghdad. Dozens of Iraqi police officers took part in the operation. The Iraqi government is trying to regain control of lawless areas of Iraq, but the government faces a huge challenge to its authority in areas controlled by insurgents.

The State Department said today the Philippines is sending the wrong message to insurgents in Iraq. The Filipino government says it will withdraw its peacekeeping troops from Iraq as soon as possible in order to secure the release of a Filipino hostage held by the insurgents. So far, there is no word on the fate of that hostage.

There is disturbing news tonight about another hostage in Iraq, a Bulgarian truck driver. Terrorists say they killed the hostage, and they are threatening now to kill a second Bulgarian citizen in the next 24 hours.

The U.S. Army is stretched almost to the breaking point fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now it is considering recruiting soldiers from unusual sources, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy. Separately, the Army has already turned to the Air Force to provide additional truck drivers in Iraq.

Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre with the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Barely a day goes by in Iraq when a convoy isn't attacked, often with deadly results.

On Sunday, Staff Sergeant Dustin Peters was killed when a roadside bomb hit his Army convoy, but Peters was not an Army sergeant. He was in the Air Force.

Since January, more than 500 airmen have been pressed into service to fill a gap created when civilian contractors began to refuse the dangerous job of driving Iraq's roads.

Last week, the Army conceded it simply failed to anticipate the insurgent attacks would be as persistent and effective and cause a critical shortage of truck drivers.

GEN. RICHARD CODY, ARMY VICE CHIEF OF STAFF: That put a stress on the combat service support troops, in particular, heavy equipment drivers, engineer units, and we had to keep more truck drivers over there because the level of violence was such you couldn't get the log cap and the civilian contractors to do some of that stuff.

MCINTYRE: The Army admits it's stretched thin and, last month, called up some 5,600 members of the Individual Ready Reserve, soldiers who have finished their active duty requirement but are still on the hook for Reserve duty. Tapping the manpower of the other services offers an alternative.

On its recruiting Web site, goarmy.com, the Army is pushing a first-ever program called Operation Blue to Green. The idea is to lure Air Force and Navy personnel nearing the end of their service commitment to serve three more years in the Army.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (on camera): Both the Army and Navy are planning to downsize in coming years by a combined total of about 28,000 troops. At the same time, the Army wants to go up by 30,000 troops, at least in the short term. The big question is how many sailors and airmen are going to want to transfer to the Army if Iraq remains a hazardous war zone -- Lou.

DOBBS: Jamie, give us the best sense you possibly can of the mood, the attitude at the Pentagon, a Pentagon that has denied for the past year that it is facing critical shortages of manpower, particularly in the Army, and at -- whether it's a recall of men and women from the Ready Reserve or now the attempt to recruit from the Air Force and the Navy, what are -- is there any sense of embarrassment about this?

MCINTYRE: Well, no. I mean, they continue to launch pretty vigorous defense that the moves they're making now are the smart moves and that they're not mortgaging the future by signing up for commitments that they're not going to fund in the future.

They're insisting that by drawing on the Reserves, by restructuring the Army, by doing the things they need to do to get through this period now, that they'll be better off down the road. The Army chief of staff put it this way. He said Congress can only fund extra troops for a year, but they can encumber us for a long time, and what they want to avoid is having more troops in the future than they really need.

They think they can get around by doing some smart moves now, that's their story, and they're sticking to it.

DOBBS: Jamie McIntyre, thank you very much. Our senior Pentagon correspondent.

On Capitol Hill, senators could vote as early as tomorrow on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, in the Senate.

Supporters of that amendment admit they are still well short of the votes needed for approval. But this story is less about gay marriage and its debate and more about partisan politics in a presidential election year.

Congressional Correspondent Ed Henry with the report -- Ed.

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Lou.

You're right. It is about presidential politics. It's obviously a major election year, and we had quite a day in the United States Senate today.

The Republicans started this debate very much on the offensive. They wanted maximum political impact. They scheduled it now right on the eve of the Democratic national convention. They wanted to get Senators John Kerry and John Edwards on the record voting against a ban.

But in the last 24 hours, we've seen the story change dramatically. Instead, we now see Republicans bickering over the actual constitutional amendment. We also -- as you mentioned, the Republicans knew all along that it was going to be very hard to get the 67 votes they needed to pass this constitutional amendment, but now it's looking like they were not even going to be able to get 51 votes, a simple majority.

So, what the Republicans have done is they've responded by bringing up the second version of the amendment, trying to force that to the Senate floor. Democrats have blocked it and have tried to call the Republicans' bluff and say bring up your original version of the constitutional amendment.

The Republicans don't want to do that because it would be embarrassing to get so few votes for that, something they pushed hard for so long. So, instead, what we're doing -- what we're faced with now is really a stalemate, a procedural fight where, basically, there's going to be a procedural vote tomorrow, not a straight up or down vote on the Republican constitutional amendment.

That's left a lot of people up here scratching their heads. But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist today defended his strategy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL FRIST (R), MAJORITY LEADER: The reason that I asked to have another amendment to it -- or we could have more, but at least one other amendment -- is that we don't want to just have one vote, and the Democrats just want to have one vote and then skedaddle. And, no, we want to very thoughtfully debate a constitutional amendment, which is serious business. We wanted to do it well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: Democrats are saying, though, that Senator Frist is really just trying to muddy the waters, bringing up two different versions. Here's what Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D), MINORITY LEADER: Our offer still holds. If they want to have a debate and a vote on a constitutional amendment, not a multiple choice, we're prepared to accept that agreement. If they want to make the Senate a constitutional convention, then we think it's time we shut down the body and get to work, but that isn't -- this isn't the time or place to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: Lou, this drama was playing out today as Senator John Edwards made his first trip as a vice presidential candidate back to Capitol Hill. He huddled behind closed doors with Senate Democrats over lunch, talked about election strategy. I talked to him afterwards. He would not talk about the gay marriage vote.

At this point, it appears that Senators John Kerry and John Edwards will skip tomorrow's vote. They're saying it's a procedural vote. It's not an up or down vote on the substance. So they want to avoid it altogether.

They think they've escaped this politically, that it's all backfired on the Republicans, but I can tell you the Republicans up here are vowing that if Kerry and Edwards skip this vote, it's going to look like they're running, that they're ducking this vote, and they're going to make a major political issue out of it -- Lou.

DOBBS: Well, indeed, a major political issue could be made of it, I suppose, but what would the issue be?

HENRY: What they're trying to say is that this would solidify the image of John Kerry as a flip-flopper, that he's privately telling gay-rights groups that he's against the constitutional amendment, but he doesn't want to go on the record and actually vote against it.

What Democrats would say is that he wouldn't be voting on the amendment itself anyway. It's become a procedural mess. He'd be voting on cloture, which most people across the country won't really understand because it is a procedural maneuver, and that it's not a direct vote on gay marriage.

So here's where we are, Lou.

DOBBS: And, Ed, where do we stand on the federal budget?

HENRY: Well, we -- we're still waiting for that, Lou. Obviously, Democrats are making some hay out of that because a couple of years ago Democrats failed to pass their budget.

Republicans now have failed to pass a budget, and you're hearing a lot of Democrats making political points, saying that rather than focusing on gay marriage, which has no chance of passage, the Republicans should instead focus on the budget, focus on Homeland Security, et cetera, Lou. DOBBS: Ed Henry from Capitol Hill. Thank you.

That brings us to the subject of tonight's poll question: Do you believe the issue of gay marriage is appropriate for inclusion in the U.S. Constitution? Yes or no. Cast your vote please at cnn.com/lou. We'll have the results later in the broadcast.

Coming right up here: A new opinion poll says America is more divided than ever. Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider will be with us. He'll have the report.

Hard-hitting criticism tonight of the national color-coated terrorist alert system. The chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Congressman Christopher Cox, and the ranking Democrat on that committee, Congressman Jim Turner join me.

And the Border Patrol arrests thousands of illegal aliens each day, but, incredibly, budget cuts force agents to set many of those illegal aliens free, and many of them should be in prison. We'll have that special report in Broken Borders, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: President Bush's visit to three states he lost in the last election comes as a new poll shows Americans more divided than even then.

Bill Schneider reports from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): There are two big issues in this election. Issue one: the economy. President Bush sees the bright side.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Since last summer, our economy is outpacing the entire world by growing at its fastest rate in nearly 20 years.

SCHNEIDER: John Kerry says who is he kidding.

SEN. JOHN F. KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They say this is the best economy of our lifetime. Do you think I'm joking?

SCHNEIDER: Good news for Mr. Bush. Since May, Americans have become more optimistic about the economy. A majority now say they think it's getting better.

Issue two, Iraq. Mr. Bush is reassuring.

BUSH: A threat has been removed, and the American people are safer.

SCHNEIDER: Mr. Kerry is skeptical.

KERRY: America will only be safer when we get results. SCHNEIDER: Bad news for Mr. Bush: Since May, more and more Americans have come to view the war in Iraq as a mistake. A majority now feel that way.

So which issue is driving the vote?

Look at voters who think the economy is getting better but the war in Iraq was a mistake. They're voting for Kerry by better than 3 to 1, even though they think the economy is improving. Iraq trumps the economy.

That's why Michael Moore's movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a big campaign event. Moore's critics say the movie is just preaching to the converted. Is it? Only 8 percent of Americans have seen the picture, but another 18 percent say they plan to see it in the theater, and 30 percent plan to watch it when it comes out on tape or DVD in September. That's a majority of Americans who plan to see it.

TOM ORTENBERG, LIONS GATE FILMS: We want people who are for the war in Iraq, who are against the war in Iraq, who are undecided about the war to see "Fahrenheit 9/11."

SCHNEIDER: Fifty-nine percent of independents say they plan to see it. So do nearly half the people who say they support the war and nearly 40 percent of Republicans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER (on camera): The movie is generating a huge curiosity factor, what they call "buzz" in Hollywood. Even people who disagree with Moore's politics are eager to find out what the fuss is about -- Lou.

DOBBS: Bill, it appears Senator Kerry's choice of Senator Edwards on the ticket has helped him out, has given him a bump in the national polls. But the latest CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll shows President Bush ahead of in North Carolina Senator Kerry in the home state of Senator Edwards. What's going on?

SCHNEIDER: Yes. Well, that's a little bit startling because he's not getting any benefit -- Kerry's not getting any benefit from having Edwards on the ticket with him. Don't they like their own senator?

As a matter of fact, they do. Edwards is actually more popular in North Carolina than President Bush. Then why isn't he helping the Democratic ticket? The answer is -- write this down, everybody -- people don't vote for vice president. They vote for president.

So the vote follows exactly how they feel about Bush, and how they feel about Edwards has really no impact on the way they vote.

DOBBS: At least in North Carolina.

SCHNEIDER: At least in North Carolina.

DOBBS: What about the boost that Senator Kerry got since adding him to the ticket nationwide?

SCHNEIDER: Well, nationwide, what you're finding is among young people, Lou, that's you and me, people -- voters who are younger -- you're finding that Edwards is appealing to a lot of them, and it's giving the ticket a little bit of a boost.

But it's -- the ticket didn't get any boost at all among voters who are over 50. They're very partisan, and they don't budge very much, while North Carolina is a state where the partisan attitudes are pretty strong, and it appears that Bush has a very solid base there.

DOBBS: Bill Schneider. Thank you, sir.

SCHNEIDER: OK.

DOBBS: Vice President Cheney is doing his part to lighten the mood on the campaign trail, at least recently. At a fundraiser in Pittsburgh, Vice President Cheney had this to say about his challenger for the vice presidency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Somebody said to me the other day that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks and charm. I said how do you think I got this job. Why is that funny?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOBBS: The vice president and president are counting on a serious debate, the gay marriage amendment, to invigorate their conservative base. However, supporting that amendment could put the Bush-Cheney campaign in jeopardy with another key group of voters, as Bruce Morton reports now from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We shall win the victory at the polls because we've been on our knees.

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Christian conservatives, evangelicals are an important part of the Republican base, but, lately, there have been rumblings evangelicals are restive, not enough attention to their social issues.

SEN. WAYNE ALLARD (R), COLORADO: So it's very appropriate that we have this debate now. It's very appropriate that we have full debate.

MORTON: The Senate is debating a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and everyone thinks it will fail. Are Christian conservatives restless? Not with the president, one leader says, but with the party.

TONY PERKINS, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: The response we've gotten to the convention as our concern was expressed over the convention speakers, most of them being against the federal marriage amendment, pro-choice, that President Bush is a conservative speaker, and he is conservative. But the tent's got to be bigger. If not, the rest of the conservatives are left outside the tent, and some of them are liable to go to other tents, I guess.

MORTON: Four years ago, conservatives who attended church weekly or more often voted 85 percent for Bush, 13 percent for Al Gore. CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup polls in June and July show that same group, 72 percent for Bush, 23 percent for John Kerry, some slippage.

PERKINS: Yes, they care about terrorism, but they also care about the family. They care about the protection of marriage and the future of children. And, if those messages are not heard, I think it dampens their enthusiasm and their ability to work to the degree that's going to be needed.

MORTON: The problem for the president is how to keep the evangelical base happy and still sound moderate enough to attract swing voters.

THOMAS MANN, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: It is true that the base of the president's party, at least among the activists, is a little unhappy with developments, and the president is now trying to carefully balance the need to excite his core conservative base, while, at the same time, appealing to swing voters. It's not clear that the marriage amendment is going to do the trick for him, however.

MORTON: If the amendment fails as expected, it may leave evangelicals still feeling neglected while not saying much to moderates either.

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOBBS: Still ahead, code confusion. A new congressional report finds the color-coded terrorist alert system in desperate need of improvement. We'll have that special report, and I'll be talking with the chairman and ranking member of the House Select Committee Homeland Security next.

Also tonight, washed out in the northeast. The heaviest rainfall in years hitting parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. We'll have that report.

And then, dry conditions in the Southwest cause an extraordinary weather phenomenon.

We'll have that and a great deal more still ahead here tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT continues. Here now for more news, debate and opinion, Lou Dobbs.

DOBBS: A new report tonight says the government's color-coded terrorist alert system is confusing and infective. The General Accounting Office says what a large percentage of the public has known for some time, that the nation is at risk of threat fatigue after too many warnings and too few specifics.

Kitty Pilgrim reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Confusion. That is the conclusion of the government study on how the terrorism color-code system has worked so far.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The threat level about to go up.

PILGRIM: Many federal and state agencies say they generally find out about the elevated color-coded threat level from the media and not official channels, and they don't have any clear idea how to respond.

Quote, "Federal agencies and states generally did not receive specific threat information and guidance, which they believed hindered their ability to determine whether they were at risk as well as their ability to determine and implement appropriate protective measures."

DAVID NEWMAN, CSIS: Right now, what we're experiencing in the states and the localities and, frankly, the public is alert fatigue. We have to have a systematic approach to warning people, to notifying what protective measures are needed,and it's not there right now.

PILGRIM: Since the system was started in March 2002, the national threat level has pretty much stayed at yellow or elevated alert. But it was raised five times to high alert, code orange. But, in the last weeks, warning about a possible al Qaeda attack before the election, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge did not move the color code.

Some domestic terrorism experts say an enhanced Homeland Security Operations Center, which opened in recent days, is targeting specific events, rather than a general national threat.

JAMES CARAFANO, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: When you do have to ramp up for certain things, like a higher security level or something like the conventions, you can bring in key players from all the federal agencies into one room, and, one, you can kind of feed them the latest information, and, two, they can -- they have means to kind of talk back to their agencies and coordinate activities.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM (on camera): Now the biggest criticism of putting the entire country on a color-code system is it's too vague and costly. More targeted warnings to specific states or cities would be more cost effective, and it would give local authorities more information about what action they may be able to take -- Lou.

DOBBS: Of course, that still leaves the issue of just how specific the threats are. PILGRIM: Well, the base information has to be pretty specific, too.

DOBBS: Kitty, thank you very much. Kitty Pilgrim.

Joining me now, the chairman and the ranking member of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security. Chairman Christopher Cox and Congressman Jim Turner both say the threat alert system must be improved to gain the trust of the public. They join us tonight from Capitol Hill.

Good to have you with us.

REP. JIM TURNER (D), SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY RANKING MEMBER: Thank you, Lou.

DOBBS: Congressman Cox, let me first begin with you. Both you and Congressman Turner have co-sponsored legislation that would provide first-responder support. What's the likely disposition of that bill?

REP. CHRISTOPHER COX (R), SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY CHAIRMAN: Well, our first-responder legislation has now been reported favorably by four committees of the House of Representatives. Its next stop is the floor of the House of Representatives. So the prognosis for that bill is very good.

That's going to take us away from political formulas for distributing first-responder funds and move us to a smart system that allocates the money according to threat and our vulnerabilities. It's also going to be a faster system that cuts out a lot of the red tape and bureaucracy so that money gets to the first responders on the front line a lot faster than it's been happening recently.

DOBBS: Now the two of you were shoulder to shoulder on that legislation. Let me ask you, Congressman Turner, the fact that you're criticizing a number of areas, deficiencies within Homeland Security, give us your sense of what this administration needs to do better.

TURNER: Well, Lou, on the Democratic side we've done work over the last several months trying to identify the security gaps we believe still remain that make us vulnerable to our terrorist enemies. And we would like to see this Congress pass legislation to close those security gaps in areas like port security, rail security, metro public transportation, subway.

We have vulnerabilities in the failure to have our first responders communicate with one another in the event of a terrorist attack. These are areas we feel strongly about that we feel the administration has been lacking and making the kind of commitment we believe needs to be made to really make our country safe as it needs to be.

DOBBS: Well, Chairman Cox, the Democrats, Congressman Turner laid out a number of areas, you're going to markup legislation this Friday, as I understand it. How much of that will make it?

COX: Our bill that's coming up in committee either this week or next is the first ever Department of Homeland Security authorization bill. And so that legislation is going to be open to all of these topics.

The principal topic we'll start with is I think the cornerstone of homeland security, and that's information sharing. The intelligence piece of the Department of Homeland Security is not a borrowed piece, it's not one of the 22 agency that is were merged into the new department. Rather, information analysis is a brand new function that's supposed to fuse all of the information from across the government and then when the analysis is complete share it and share it with one federal voice to both the federal, state, and private sector partners.

We're going to make sure that capability is enhanced, that it happens more quickly in realtime. That it occurs effortlessly. We also got a big cybersecurity piece. Cybersecurity is another function that is almost unique now to the Department of Homeland Security. That's directly related to infrastructure protection and a lot of issues that Jim Turner just mentioned.

DOBBS: Congressman Turner and Congressman Cox you refer to the terrorist alert system, the GAO, saying effectively, if I can paraphrase here, it is a silly system.

How soon can you move and homeland move to make that terrorist alert system sensible and clear?

TURNER: Well, Lou, we hope you can move very rapidly. If we don't move quickly, I think the public is going to quickly begin to ignore the warnings that are being given. And we are in a critical time now where we all know that al Qaeda is planning a new attack against our country.

We don't know when, we don't know where, we don't know what method. But the intelligence we pick up generally tells us we are in a vulnerable period and we certainly need an alert system that the public has confidence in and trust in so that it can be used for the purpose it was intended.

COX: If I might add to that.

DOBBS: Surely.

COX: The system may appear silly if you're simply getting the highest gloss and wondering whether there isn't more to it, more information that people can use.

But the Department of Homeland Security, as this system has matured, has become more refined in applying it if you run a public stadium, if you're the proprietor of a tall building, if you run a chemical plant, if you're in state or local law enforcement, if your in the military, these changes in threat level mean very, very specific things to you and the protocols that we're developing to move rapidly when there's new threat information are anything but silly.

It's very serious business and it is coming along reasonably well. We want to make sure that system is even more refined and the secretary has even more responsibility -- pardon me, authority to regionalize and particularize the information.

DOBBS: I should be very clear. The word silly, Mr. Chairman, was mine. The fact is that the general accounting office used somewhat different language. That was just my summation of their description.

I thank you both for being here, Congressman Cox and Congressman Turner. We appreciate both you of being here.

TURNER: Thank you, Lou.

COX: Happy to join you, Lou.

DOBBS: Taking a look now at some of "Your Thoughts."

Chuck and Charlotte Courie of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania: "If, as Mr. Bush is proclaiming, we are safer now that Saddam is no longer in power, why are we constantly getting these terror threats?"

Dorina of Dallas, Pennsylvania: "Lou, with a terror alert hanging over our heads, a war in Iraq, bin Laden still running loose, would you tell me why President Bush and the Senate feel the need to debate gay marriage now?"

Ray Bolton of Harriman, Tennessee: "Lou, Bush says there should be an amendment to the Constitution to ban gay marriage. Kerry says let the states decide. Why not let the people decide in a general vote. Are we not still a government of, by and for the people?"

And Larry Besel of Dalton, Georgia: "If some in Congress are so eager to support a ban on gay marriage because it would weaken the sanctity of marriage, why don't they also pursue a constitutional amendment against divorce!"

Please send us "Your Thoughts" here at loudobbs@cnn.com. E-mail us.

And a reminder to vote in our poll tonight. The question: Do you believe the issue of gay marriage is appropriate for inclusion in the U.S. Constitution? Yes or no.

Please cast your vote at cnn.com/lou. We'll have the results coming right up.

In the northeast, severe storms have caused some dramatic flooding. In New Jersey residents forced from their homes after more than a foot of rain pounded the area overnight.

Phillipa Holland, reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PHILLIPA HOLLAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tonight, two New Jersey counties are in a state of emergency. Thirteen inches of rain have fallen in Burlington and Camden Counties since last night.

JOHN GUINEY, NWS NOAA: This is the heaviest we've seen in portions of that area, New Jersey, central Pennsylvania, and portions of Maryland since Hurricane Floyd in 1999. So, it's significant rain. Certainly we haven't seen this much in about five years.

HOLLAND: The rains caused eight dams to fail.

GOV. JIM MCGREEVEY (D), NEW JERSEY: Many of these are private dams. Some of them are older. You had a confluence of 12 inches of rain and other circumstances. And you know, it's an act of God and you have this breach and it just exacerbated.

HOLLAND: Twenty-five roads were closed and more than 500 people were evacuated from their homes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think we have flood insurance. We were talking with the neighbors about it. I don't know what's going to happen next. I hope just the house will be standing when we go back.

HOLLAND: Rescue teams removed people from their cars and houses. No injuries or deaths reported.

In Maryland up to eight inches of rain fell in the northeast earn part of the state. The flood caused road closures and two counties may be declared states of emergency.

In Pennsylvania heavy rains caused rivers and streams to flood their banks. More rain is forecast for the next few days. But the National Weather Service, as of now, it believes the worst is over.

Phillipa Holland, reporting for LOU DOBBS TONIGHT.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOBBS: From floods in the northeast to dust storms in the southwest. What you're looking at is a dust storm with winds as high as 45 miles an hour. That storm moved through the Phoenix and surrounding areas last night. The high winds drove visibility down to just a few hundred feet. The National Weather Service says there may be more dust storms later today and into tomorrow.

Coming up next here our special report on "Broken Borders": Thousands of illegal aliens caught in this country being set free within the United States. We'll tell you why.

Also ahead tonight -- a natural phenomenon could turn the world upside down. Professor John Tarduno of the University of Rochester will be here to talk about polar opposites and a fading magnetosphere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) DOBBS: In our special report, "Broken Borders," tonight, the immigration crisis in this country is placing an enormous strain on the Border Patrol. Every day, agents catch thousands of illegal aliens, only to set them free because the Border Patrol lacks both the funding and resources to put those illegal aliens in prison.

Bill Tucker reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Department of Homeland Security is the biggest employer in St. Albans, the city of 14,000 in the northwest corner of Vermont near the Canadian border. The city's economy depends on the flow of trade between the United States and Canada.

BRIAN SEARLES, ST. ALBANS CITY MANAGER: It's critical. What we want to see is people who mean no harm being able to cross as quickly and as easily as they ever could and people who do intend to harm to be caught and held.

TUCKER: And across the country, on a daily basis, Border Patrol agents apprehend roughly 3,000 people on immigration violations. But they don't necessarily hold them.

Many people who enter this country illegally are no longer held in jail. They are given a notice to appear in court and released into the United States. Somewhere between 70 and 90% never show up for their court date. Local authorities say it's because they've been advised by the federal agencies that foot the bill that money is tight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometime in the very early part of April, I was informed unofficially by telephone that detention/deportation monies had pretty much run out. And it was just to give me simply a heads up that they were going only to lodge individuals here who were what's referred to as prosecutable under the customs and immigration laws.

TUCKER: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, acknowledges there are at least 400,000 people who were arrested, released, and never appeared in court. Within that group are 85,000 known criminals, a problem that ICE does recognize and says it's working on within its limited resources.

(on camera): No one seems to wants to take responsibility for a policy that appears to be dollar driven. Worse, no one wants to officially admit it's true.

(voice-over): And worse yet, border agents know that talking about the policy can get them in trouble.

T.J. BONNER, NATIONAL BORDER CONTROL COUNCIL: There's absolutely a severe written and unwritten restriction on going public with the dirty laundry of the Department of Homeland Security. And they try and intimidate employees into keeping their mouth shut. REP. JAMES TURNER (D), TEXAS: The Border Patrol agents that are willing to speak up, they're patriots. They understand from years of experience that our system of protecting our borders is broken.

TUCKER: Turner believes that the more the problem is talked about, the more likely it is to be fixed. Bill Tucker, CNN, Highgate Springs, Vermont.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOBBS: The Department of Homeland Security is testing a new tactic in its campaign against illegal immigration. The government has launched a controversial new program to fly some illegal aliens back to Mexico, and the American taxpayer is paying the bill.

Peter Viles has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Along the deadliest stretch of the Mexican border in Arizona, a kinder and gentler policy toward illegal aliens, if they agree they will be put on chartered jets in Tucson and flown 1,100 miles south back to Mexico City and then bussed back to their hometowns, all courtesy of the American taxpayer.

The theory, the current policy of bussing illegals back to the border, isn't working. They simply hang around and try to cross again, and 97 have died this year in the desert heat.

GERONIMO GUTIERREZ, MEXICAN OFFICIAL: They have no other option trying to cross again and put their lives in peril.

VILES: Now, the new policy isn't cheap. A three-month pilot program could cost as much as $12 million. But Homeland Security officials say it's worth trying.

RANDY BEARDSWORTH, DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY: This program of interior repatriation is designed to save lives, it's humanitarian in nature, and it's designed to break the smuggling cycle.

VILES: The first flight, with 138 illegals aboard, arrived Monday in Mexico City. At least one said he's giving up.

JOSE SANTIAGO, REPATRIATED MIGRANT (through translator): I couldn't stand it anymore. The heat was overwhelming, so I decided to come back. I didn't want to keep trying.

VILES: Others interviewed, however, said that they would rest up and then try again to cross the border. Still, critics of the current immigration policy, including Congressman Tom Tancredo, have endorsed the one-way ticket policy.

MARK KRIKORIAN, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: The point to interior repatriation is to make it more expensive for the illegal alien to try again and cheaper and easier for him to just give up. VILES (on camera): But this is an expensive program, and it is very limited. At the very most, we're talking about 300 people a day flown back to Mexico and only from the Tucson area. That means the vast majority of illegals apprehended at the border would just be bussed back to the other side of the border, and we know many of those will simply try to cross the border again.

Peter Viles, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOBBS: Still ahead tonight: A strange phenomenon that could send the world in an entirely new direction. Professor John Tarduno of the University of Rochester will be my guest to talk about a threat to our magnetosphere.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: Tonight, the scientific community is preparing for what could be an astonishing event that could affect a lot of us in the years ahead.

The magnetic field on this planet is apparently weakening and weakening fairly rapidly. Many scientists say it could signal a shift in the lines of magnetic force on Earth. In other words, they suspect the magnetic forces that cause compasses to point north could one day reverse and cause them to point south, with huge implications to life on Earth.

My guest tonight says such a reversal may be, in fact, overdue. John Tarduno is a Professor of Geophysics at the University of Rochester, joining us tonight from, of course, Rochester.

Professor, good to have you with us.

JOHN TARDUNO, PROFESSOR OF GEOPHYSICS, UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER: Good evening, Lou.

DOBBS: The magnetosphere, the magnetic forces that combine to create what we all think of north and south poles on this planet, how much, in your best judgment and research, have they weakened over the past century?

TARDUNO: Well, certainly, I think they've weakened at least 10%, and this is a really significant number. If we think about the Earth's magnetic field, it's generated in the outer core of the Earth. And this is due to liquid iron convecting.

Now, somehow we could just kind of turn that process off, the decay of the field is more rapid than if we had just turned the process off. So, this is a really significant event.

DOBBS: And no one at this point, Professor, understands -- and we should say this is already beginning to affect satellites. It is beginning to affect migratory animals and birds. But no one at this point quite understands why it is occurring, correct?

TARDUNO: That's right. But the decay has really gotten a lot of attention among the scientific community, because it seems to be similar to some things that we see -- that is, the pattern of decay -- similar to some things that we see in numerical simulations -- that is, computer models of what would happen during reversal.

Again, this is supporting evidence that kind of suggests that we are really going toward a reverse state.

DOBBS: If it's 10%, some suggest 15%, weakening in the magnetosphere, what are the implications as we see further erosion? What would be the impact on solar storms and the effect on this planet?

TARDUNO: Right. Well, the big effect would be much in the future, if we actually had a continuation of this. On a more recent time scale, let's say in decades, it could have an affect on satellites, for example, if there were patches -- as one is growing in the south Atlantic today -- of low magnetic field.

If a satellite just happens to be going over one of those patches when a solar storm is happening, that satellite could be damaged. And this has actually happened in the past. So, we could be seeing more of these events.

There's also a possibility of enhanced damage to local infrastructure, power lines and power grids and things like this.

DOBBS: We talked about this 10 to 15% erosion. And I suppose for some people that doesn't sound like much, but when we're talking about an ozone hole in our atmosphere -- which is influenced by the magnetosphere, -- we see a further 10 to 15% deterioration. What are the implications?

TARDUNO: Well, there are some computer models now, as well as some few chemical models, that really are kind of addressing this issue. It really will take decades, if not hundreds of years, to really get to that scenario.

But it is a fairly significant one. That is, through a cascade of reactions, the weakened magnetosphere and then the weakened shielding of the solar radiation could lead to local decreases in ozone.

Now, we don't really pay a lot of attention to those, I think, in many places because the ozone holes right now are in the southern hemisphere, in the Antarctica. But if this continued, we could start seeing similar ozone holes at mid latitudes, and this becomes a real concern then.

DOBBS: The European Space Agency is launching satellites in the next couple of years, I believe by 2007, to do further research on this phenomenon. To what degree is the United States stepping up its research, trying to better understand and contend with this development in the weakening magnetosphere? TARDUNO: Well, there are scientists who are collaborators in that European effort, certainly, and there are many people who are actually interested in it.

I think the hope is by getting this really -- increase, really, it is a tremendous increase in the resolution of the looking at their magnetic field. That way, you might be able to do some forecasting. And I think there are quite a bit of American scientists involved in this.

DOBBS: Thank you very much, Professor John Tarduno...

TARDUNO: Thank you.

DOBBS: ... University of Rochester.

Coming up next here, another near record for this nation's trade deficit. We'll have that story for you on free trade and its high cost next.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: Well, not much happened on Wall Street, not much action of any kind. But a troubling development on this nation's trade deficit.

Christine Romans is here with that -- Christine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, we bought $46 billion more from our trading partners, our foreign trading partners, in May than we sold to them, making it the third highest trade deficit on record. We sucked in a record amount of imports: $143 billion worth. We imported record amounts of cars and car parts, and we paid the highest price of imported oil in 22 years. Oil imports also a record.

Yet again, Americans showed a voracious appetite for Chinese goods. Our trade gap with China, the second highest ever, more than $12 billion there. The trade gap overall for the year, now on track to blow away last year's. And of course, that number was half a trillion dollars.

DOBBS: And now we're headed higher.

ROMANS: Headed higher.

DOBBS: Christine, thanks. Christine Romans.

Taking a look now at some of your thoughts on the issue of "Broken Borders" and the rights of illegal aliens.

Daytona Jarman of Cayce, South Carolina, wrote in to say: "When the illegal immigrants qualify for more benefits than American citizens, there is something horribly wrong!"

Merv in Salt Point, New York: "Illegal aliens in this country should have one and only one right -- the right to go home."

And Rhonda Stien of Evansville, Indiana: "I'm an American citizen and I can't afford airfare to Mexico. Do you think if I told everyone I was an illegal alien, I could have free airfare and vacation to California, then on to Mexico City...No reason people here illegally should have more fun and benefits than legal citizens!"

We love hearing from you. Send us your thoughts at loudobbs@cnn.com. When we continue, we will have the long-awaited results of tonight's poll. Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: The results now of tonight's poll: 7% of you say the issue of gay marriage is appropriate for inclusion in the U.S. Constitution; 93% of you said it is not appropriate for inclusion.

Thanks for being with us. Please join us tomorrow. Republican Congressman Don Manzullo will be here talking about the need for tougher trade laws with China. Our face-off tomorrow: gay marriage. Republican Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado drafted the amendment to ban it; Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California says it's all election-year politics. They'll be here, we hope you will be, too.

For all of us, good night from New York. "ANDERSON COOPER 360" is next.

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


Aired July 13, 2004 - 18:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, one of Osama bin Laden's closest associates surrenders to Saudi Arabia, but the United States may never have the opportunity to question him about al Qaeda.
Khaled al-Harbi surrendered himself to the Saudi embassy in Iran, but he could be set free under a Saudi government amnesty. We'll have the report.

The government's color-coded terrorist alert system is confusing and ineffective. That's the view of congressional investigators. Tonight, I'll be joined by the top Congressman on the Homeland Security Committee, Chairman Christopher Cox, and the ranking Democrat, Congressman Jim Turner.

Border Patrol agents arrest thousands of illegal aliens every day, but, incredibly, many of them are released and some of them are criminals disappearing within the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we're going to large individuals here who are referred to as prosecutable under the Customs and Immigration laws.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOBBS: And astonishing news tonight about planet Earth. Scientists say our magnetic field is weakening and weakening rapidly. What does it mean? John Tarduno professor of geophysics at the University of Rochester joins us to talk about the implications for life on Earth.

ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Tuesday, July 13. Here now for an hour of news, debate and opinion is Lou Dobbs.

DOBBS: Good evening.

Tonight, a close associate of Osama bin Laden is in custody in Saudi Arabia. Khaled al-Harbi surrendered to the Saudi Arabian embassy in Iran under a Saudi government amnesty program. That means U.S. government agents may never have the opportunity to question Harbi about al Qaeda and its global terrorist activities.

Nic Robertson reports from London -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, Saudi officials are describing Khaled al-Harbi as a sick man. When he came off the plane back in Saudi Arabia, he was unable to walk.

They say that he will be taken away for medical treatment, but they also say that he will not be a free man, that he will be interrogated for information about Osama bin Laden and about al Qaeda, and they say that he will not be released until all the civil suits against him are settled.

However, they do say that at the moment he is not guilty of any crime that they're aware of committed inside Saudi Arabia, but it appears that Khaled al-Harbi decided to turn himself into Saudi authorities as part of the leniency that Saudi authorities have been offering to al Qaeda members.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KHALED AL-HARBI, BIN LADEN ASSOCIATE (through translator): I called the embassy, and we felt that we were welcome, that we were among family. Thank God for this blessing.

I came because I abide the word of God and that of the caretaker of the holy sites. This initiative from the caretaker of holy sites and the king is an opportunity. Our country is the country of Islam.

Undoubtedly, any logical man would thank God and should take advantage of this opportunity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: Well, the last time Khaled al-Harbi was seen was December 2001 in a videotape that was released at that time sitting next to Osama bin Laden, congratulating him for the deaths in the September the 11th attacks.

What Saudi officials describe al-Harbi as is not an active member of al Qaeda inasmuch as carrying out attacks, but as a standby cleric, somebody that Osama bin Laden could turn to for fatwas, for religious rulings to justify actions that al Qaeda was taking, and Saudi officials say this is a very big catch for them -- Lou.

DOBBS: Nic, do we know just how sick he is and what will be -- what is his next disposition is?

' ROBERTSON: Well, we've -- his condition has been described as requiring urgent medical treatment. We know that he fought in Afghanistan alongside Osama bin Laden against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, also that he fought in Bosnia in the 1990s. Somewhere along the way, he received significant injuries, we're told that he is essentially unable really to walk properly, but his exact illness at this time isn't clear.

But what we understand from Saudi officials is that al-Harbi felt that he was being left in limbo by al Qaeda. That's why he decided to turn himself in, somewhere perhaps on the Iranian-Afghan border, unable to get adequate medical treatment. We're told he will get that treatment but -- that he requires, but that he will face interrogation when he's up to it after that -- Lou.

DOBBS: Nic, thank you very much.

Nic Robertson reporting from London.

The Saudi government today admitted for the first time that some Saudi citizens are now fighting on the side of insurgents in Iraq. Previously, the Saudi government strongly denied that any Saudis were taking part in the insurgency.

Yesterday, the Iraqi government said 14 Saudi citizens are now in custody in Iraq for taking part in insurgent attacks. The United States says foreign insurgents are responsible for some of the most deadly attacks in Iraq.

In Iraq today, police arrested more than 500 suspected criminals in a sweep through eastern Baghdad. Dozens of Iraqi police officers took part in the operation. The Iraqi government is trying to regain control of lawless areas of Iraq, but the government faces a huge challenge to its authority in areas controlled by insurgents.

The State Department said today the Philippines is sending the wrong message to insurgents in Iraq. The Filipino government says it will withdraw its peacekeeping troops from Iraq as soon as possible in order to secure the release of a Filipino hostage held by the insurgents. So far, there is no word on the fate of that hostage.

There is disturbing news tonight about another hostage in Iraq, a Bulgarian truck driver. Terrorists say they killed the hostage, and they are threatening now to kill a second Bulgarian citizen in the next 24 hours.

The U.S. Army is stretched almost to the breaking point fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now it is considering recruiting soldiers from unusual sources, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy. Separately, the Army has already turned to the Air Force to provide additional truck drivers in Iraq.

Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre with the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Barely a day goes by in Iraq when a convoy isn't attacked, often with deadly results.

On Sunday, Staff Sergeant Dustin Peters was killed when a roadside bomb hit his Army convoy, but Peters was not an Army sergeant. He was in the Air Force.

Since January, more than 500 airmen have been pressed into service to fill a gap created when civilian contractors began to refuse the dangerous job of driving Iraq's roads.

Last week, the Army conceded it simply failed to anticipate the insurgent attacks would be as persistent and effective and cause a critical shortage of truck drivers.

GEN. RICHARD CODY, ARMY VICE CHIEF OF STAFF: That put a stress on the combat service support troops, in particular, heavy equipment drivers, engineer units, and we had to keep more truck drivers over there because the level of violence was such you couldn't get the log cap and the civilian contractors to do some of that stuff.

MCINTYRE: The Army admits it's stretched thin and, last month, called up some 5,600 members of the Individual Ready Reserve, soldiers who have finished their active duty requirement but are still on the hook for Reserve duty. Tapping the manpower of the other services offers an alternative.

On its recruiting Web site, goarmy.com, the Army is pushing a first-ever program called Operation Blue to Green. The idea is to lure Air Force and Navy personnel nearing the end of their service commitment to serve three more years in the Army.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (on camera): Both the Army and Navy are planning to downsize in coming years by a combined total of about 28,000 troops. At the same time, the Army wants to go up by 30,000 troops, at least in the short term. The big question is how many sailors and airmen are going to want to transfer to the Army if Iraq remains a hazardous war zone -- Lou.

DOBBS: Jamie, give us the best sense you possibly can of the mood, the attitude at the Pentagon, a Pentagon that has denied for the past year that it is facing critical shortages of manpower, particularly in the Army, and at -- whether it's a recall of men and women from the Ready Reserve or now the attempt to recruit from the Air Force and the Navy, what are -- is there any sense of embarrassment about this?

MCINTYRE: Well, no. I mean, they continue to launch pretty vigorous defense that the moves they're making now are the smart moves and that they're not mortgaging the future by signing up for commitments that they're not going to fund in the future.

They're insisting that by drawing on the Reserves, by restructuring the Army, by doing the things they need to do to get through this period now, that they'll be better off down the road. The Army chief of staff put it this way. He said Congress can only fund extra troops for a year, but they can encumber us for a long time, and what they want to avoid is having more troops in the future than they really need.

They think they can get around by doing some smart moves now, that's their story, and they're sticking to it.

DOBBS: Jamie McIntyre, thank you very much. Our senior Pentagon correspondent.

On Capitol Hill, senators could vote as early as tomorrow on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, in the Senate.

Supporters of that amendment admit they are still well short of the votes needed for approval. But this story is less about gay marriage and its debate and more about partisan politics in a presidential election year.

Congressional Correspondent Ed Henry with the report -- Ed.

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Lou.

You're right. It is about presidential politics. It's obviously a major election year, and we had quite a day in the United States Senate today.

The Republicans started this debate very much on the offensive. They wanted maximum political impact. They scheduled it now right on the eve of the Democratic national convention. They wanted to get Senators John Kerry and John Edwards on the record voting against a ban.

But in the last 24 hours, we've seen the story change dramatically. Instead, we now see Republicans bickering over the actual constitutional amendment. We also -- as you mentioned, the Republicans knew all along that it was going to be very hard to get the 67 votes they needed to pass this constitutional amendment, but now it's looking like they were not even going to be able to get 51 votes, a simple majority.

So, what the Republicans have done is they've responded by bringing up the second version of the amendment, trying to force that to the Senate floor. Democrats have blocked it and have tried to call the Republicans' bluff and say bring up your original version of the constitutional amendment.

The Republicans don't want to do that because it would be embarrassing to get so few votes for that, something they pushed hard for so long. So, instead, what we're doing -- what we're faced with now is really a stalemate, a procedural fight where, basically, there's going to be a procedural vote tomorrow, not a straight up or down vote on the Republican constitutional amendment.

That's left a lot of people up here scratching their heads. But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist today defended his strategy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL FRIST (R), MAJORITY LEADER: The reason that I asked to have another amendment to it -- or we could have more, but at least one other amendment -- is that we don't want to just have one vote, and the Democrats just want to have one vote and then skedaddle. And, no, we want to very thoughtfully debate a constitutional amendment, which is serious business. We wanted to do it well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: Democrats are saying, though, that Senator Frist is really just trying to muddy the waters, bringing up two different versions. Here's what Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D), MINORITY LEADER: Our offer still holds. If they want to have a debate and a vote on a constitutional amendment, not a multiple choice, we're prepared to accept that agreement. If they want to make the Senate a constitutional convention, then we think it's time we shut down the body and get to work, but that isn't -- this isn't the time or place to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: Lou, this drama was playing out today as Senator John Edwards made his first trip as a vice presidential candidate back to Capitol Hill. He huddled behind closed doors with Senate Democrats over lunch, talked about election strategy. I talked to him afterwards. He would not talk about the gay marriage vote.

At this point, it appears that Senators John Kerry and John Edwards will skip tomorrow's vote. They're saying it's a procedural vote. It's not an up or down vote on the substance. So they want to avoid it altogether.

They think they've escaped this politically, that it's all backfired on the Republicans, but I can tell you the Republicans up here are vowing that if Kerry and Edwards skip this vote, it's going to look like they're running, that they're ducking this vote, and they're going to make a major political issue out of it -- Lou.

DOBBS: Well, indeed, a major political issue could be made of it, I suppose, but what would the issue be?

HENRY: What they're trying to say is that this would solidify the image of John Kerry as a flip-flopper, that he's privately telling gay-rights groups that he's against the constitutional amendment, but he doesn't want to go on the record and actually vote against it.

What Democrats would say is that he wouldn't be voting on the amendment itself anyway. It's become a procedural mess. He'd be voting on cloture, which most people across the country won't really understand because it is a procedural maneuver, and that it's not a direct vote on gay marriage.

So here's where we are, Lou.

DOBBS: And, Ed, where do we stand on the federal budget?

HENRY: Well, we -- we're still waiting for that, Lou. Obviously, Democrats are making some hay out of that because a couple of years ago Democrats failed to pass their budget.

Republicans now have failed to pass a budget, and you're hearing a lot of Democrats making political points, saying that rather than focusing on gay marriage, which has no chance of passage, the Republicans should instead focus on the budget, focus on Homeland Security, et cetera, Lou. DOBBS: Ed Henry from Capitol Hill. Thank you.

That brings us to the subject of tonight's poll question: Do you believe the issue of gay marriage is appropriate for inclusion in the U.S. Constitution? Yes or no. Cast your vote please at cnn.com/lou. We'll have the results later in the broadcast.

Coming right up here: A new opinion poll says America is more divided than ever. Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider will be with us. He'll have the report.

Hard-hitting criticism tonight of the national color-coated terrorist alert system. The chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Congressman Christopher Cox, and the ranking Democrat on that committee, Congressman Jim Turner join me.

And the Border Patrol arrests thousands of illegal aliens each day, but, incredibly, budget cuts force agents to set many of those illegal aliens free, and many of them should be in prison. We'll have that special report in Broken Borders, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: President Bush's visit to three states he lost in the last election comes as a new poll shows Americans more divided than even then.

Bill Schneider reports from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): There are two big issues in this election. Issue one: the economy. President Bush sees the bright side.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Since last summer, our economy is outpacing the entire world by growing at its fastest rate in nearly 20 years.

SCHNEIDER: John Kerry says who is he kidding.

SEN. JOHN F. KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They say this is the best economy of our lifetime. Do you think I'm joking?

SCHNEIDER: Good news for Mr. Bush. Since May, Americans have become more optimistic about the economy. A majority now say they think it's getting better.

Issue two, Iraq. Mr. Bush is reassuring.

BUSH: A threat has been removed, and the American people are safer.

SCHNEIDER: Mr. Kerry is skeptical.

KERRY: America will only be safer when we get results. SCHNEIDER: Bad news for Mr. Bush: Since May, more and more Americans have come to view the war in Iraq as a mistake. A majority now feel that way.

So which issue is driving the vote?

Look at voters who think the economy is getting better but the war in Iraq was a mistake. They're voting for Kerry by better than 3 to 1, even though they think the economy is improving. Iraq trumps the economy.

That's why Michael Moore's movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a big campaign event. Moore's critics say the movie is just preaching to the converted. Is it? Only 8 percent of Americans have seen the picture, but another 18 percent say they plan to see it in the theater, and 30 percent plan to watch it when it comes out on tape or DVD in September. That's a majority of Americans who plan to see it.

TOM ORTENBERG, LIONS GATE FILMS: We want people who are for the war in Iraq, who are against the war in Iraq, who are undecided about the war to see "Fahrenheit 9/11."

SCHNEIDER: Fifty-nine percent of independents say they plan to see it. So do nearly half the people who say they support the war and nearly 40 percent of Republicans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER (on camera): The movie is generating a huge curiosity factor, what they call "buzz" in Hollywood. Even people who disagree with Moore's politics are eager to find out what the fuss is about -- Lou.

DOBBS: Bill, it appears Senator Kerry's choice of Senator Edwards on the ticket has helped him out, has given him a bump in the national polls. But the latest CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll shows President Bush ahead of in North Carolina Senator Kerry in the home state of Senator Edwards. What's going on?

SCHNEIDER: Yes. Well, that's a little bit startling because he's not getting any benefit -- Kerry's not getting any benefit from having Edwards on the ticket with him. Don't they like their own senator?

As a matter of fact, they do. Edwards is actually more popular in North Carolina than President Bush. Then why isn't he helping the Democratic ticket? The answer is -- write this down, everybody -- people don't vote for vice president. They vote for president.

So the vote follows exactly how they feel about Bush, and how they feel about Edwards has really no impact on the way they vote.

DOBBS: At least in North Carolina.

SCHNEIDER: At least in North Carolina.

DOBBS: What about the boost that Senator Kerry got since adding him to the ticket nationwide?

SCHNEIDER: Well, nationwide, what you're finding is among young people, Lou, that's you and me, people -- voters who are younger -- you're finding that Edwards is appealing to a lot of them, and it's giving the ticket a little bit of a boost.

But it's -- the ticket didn't get any boost at all among voters who are over 50. They're very partisan, and they don't budge very much, while North Carolina is a state where the partisan attitudes are pretty strong, and it appears that Bush has a very solid base there.

DOBBS: Bill Schneider. Thank you, sir.

SCHNEIDER: OK.

DOBBS: Vice President Cheney is doing his part to lighten the mood on the campaign trail, at least recently. At a fundraiser in Pittsburgh, Vice President Cheney had this to say about his challenger for the vice presidency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Somebody said to me the other day that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks and charm. I said how do you think I got this job. Why is that funny?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOBBS: The vice president and president are counting on a serious debate, the gay marriage amendment, to invigorate their conservative base. However, supporting that amendment could put the Bush-Cheney campaign in jeopardy with another key group of voters, as Bruce Morton reports now from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We shall win the victory at the polls because we've been on our knees.

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Christian conservatives, evangelicals are an important part of the Republican base, but, lately, there have been rumblings evangelicals are restive, not enough attention to their social issues.

SEN. WAYNE ALLARD (R), COLORADO: So it's very appropriate that we have this debate now. It's very appropriate that we have full debate.

MORTON: The Senate is debating a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and everyone thinks it will fail. Are Christian conservatives restless? Not with the president, one leader says, but with the party.

TONY PERKINS, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: The response we've gotten to the convention as our concern was expressed over the convention speakers, most of them being against the federal marriage amendment, pro-choice, that President Bush is a conservative speaker, and he is conservative. But the tent's got to be bigger. If not, the rest of the conservatives are left outside the tent, and some of them are liable to go to other tents, I guess.

MORTON: Four years ago, conservatives who attended church weekly or more often voted 85 percent for Bush, 13 percent for Al Gore. CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup polls in June and July show that same group, 72 percent for Bush, 23 percent for John Kerry, some slippage.

PERKINS: Yes, they care about terrorism, but they also care about the family. They care about the protection of marriage and the future of children. And, if those messages are not heard, I think it dampens their enthusiasm and their ability to work to the degree that's going to be needed.

MORTON: The problem for the president is how to keep the evangelical base happy and still sound moderate enough to attract swing voters.

THOMAS MANN, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: It is true that the base of the president's party, at least among the activists, is a little unhappy with developments, and the president is now trying to carefully balance the need to excite his core conservative base, while, at the same time, appealing to swing voters. It's not clear that the marriage amendment is going to do the trick for him, however.

MORTON: If the amendment fails as expected, it may leave evangelicals still feeling neglected while not saying much to moderates either.

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOBBS: Still ahead, code confusion. A new congressional report finds the color-coded terrorist alert system in desperate need of improvement. We'll have that special report, and I'll be talking with the chairman and ranking member of the House Select Committee Homeland Security next.

Also tonight, washed out in the northeast. The heaviest rainfall in years hitting parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. We'll have that report.

And then, dry conditions in the Southwest cause an extraordinary weather phenomenon.

We'll have that and a great deal more still ahead here tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT continues. Here now for more news, debate and opinion, Lou Dobbs.

DOBBS: A new report tonight says the government's color-coded terrorist alert system is confusing and infective. The General Accounting Office says what a large percentage of the public has known for some time, that the nation is at risk of threat fatigue after too many warnings and too few specifics.

Kitty Pilgrim reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Confusion. That is the conclusion of the government study on how the terrorism color-code system has worked so far.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The threat level about to go up.

PILGRIM: Many federal and state agencies say they generally find out about the elevated color-coded threat level from the media and not official channels, and they don't have any clear idea how to respond.

Quote, "Federal agencies and states generally did not receive specific threat information and guidance, which they believed hindered their ability to determine whether they were at risk as well as their ability to determine and implement appropriate protective measures."

DAVID NEWMAN, CSIS: Right now, what we're experiencing in the states and the localities and, frankly, the public is alert fatigue. We have to have a systematic approach to warning people, to notifying what protective measures are needed,and it's not there right now.

PILGRIM: Since the system was started in March 2002, the national threat level has pretty much stayed at yellow or elevated alert. But it was raised five times to high alert, code orange. But, in the last weeks, warning about a possible al Qaeda attack before the election, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge did not move the color code.

Some domestic terrorism experts say an enhanced Homeland Security Operations Center, which opened in recent days, is targeting specific events, rather than a general national threat.

JAMES CARAFANO, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: When you do have to ramp up for certain things, like a higher security level or something like the conventions, you can bring in key players from all the federal agencies into one room, and, one, you can kind of feed them the latest information, and, two, they can -- they have means to kind of talk back to their agencies and coordinate activities.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM (on camera): Now the biggest criticism of putting the entire country on a color-code system is it's too vague and costly. More targeted warnings to specific states or cities would be more cost effective, and it would give local authorities more information about what action they may be able to take -- Lou.

DOBBS: Of course, that still leaves the issue of just how specific the threats are. PILGRIM: Well, the base information has to be pretty specific, too.

DOBBS: Kitty, thank you very much. Kitty Pilgrim.

Joining me now, the chairman and the ranking member of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security. Chairman Christopher Cox and Congressman Jim Turner both say the threat alert system must be improved to gain the trust of the public. They join us tonight from Capitol Hill.

Good to have you with us.

REP. JIM TURNER (D), SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY RANKING MEMBER: Thank you, Lou.

DOBBS: Congressman Cox, let me first begin with you. Both you and Congressman Turner have co-sponsored legislation that would provide first-responder support. What's the likely disposition of that bill?

REP. CHRISTOPHER COX (R), SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY CHAIRMAN: Well, our first-responder legislation has now been reported favorably by four committees of the House of Representatives. Its next stop is the floor of the House of Representatives. So the prognosis for that bill is very good.

That's going to take us away from political formulas for distributing first-responder funds and move us to a smart system that allocates the money according to threat and our vulnerabilities. It's also going to be a faster system that cuts out a lot of the red tape and bureaucracy so that money gets to the first responders on the front line a lot faster than it's been happening recently.

DOBBS: Now the two of you were shoulder to shoulder on that legislation. Let me ask you, Congressman Turner, the fact that you're criticizing a number of areas, deficiencies within Homeland Security, give us your sense of what this administration needs to do better.

TURNER: Well, Lou, on the Democratic side we've done work over the last several months trying to identify the security gaps we believe still remain that make us vulnerable to our terrorist enemies. And we would like to see this Congress pass legislation to close those security gaps in areas like port security, rail security, metro public transportation, subway.

We have vulnerabilities in the failure to have our first responders communicate with one another in the event of a terrorist attack. These are areas we feel strongly about that we feel the administration has been lacking and making the kind of commitment we believe needs to be made to really make our country safe as it needs to be.

DOBBS: Well, Chairman Cox, the Democrats, Congressman Turner laid out a number of areas, you're going to markup legislation this Friday, as I understand it. How much of that will make it?

COX: Our bill that's coming up in committee either this week or next is the first ever Department of Homeland Security authorization bill. And so that legislation is going to be open to all of these topics.

The principal topic we'll start with is I think the cornerstone of homeland security, and that's information sharing. The intelligence piece of the Department of Homeland Security is not a borrowed piece, it's not one of the 22 agency that is were merged into the new department. Rather, information analysis is a brand new function that's supposed to fuse all of the information from across the government and then when the analysis is complete share it and share it with one federal voice to both the federal, state, and private sector partners.

We're going to make sure that capability is enhanced, that it happens more quickly in realtime. That it occurs effortlessly. We also got a big cybersecurity piece. Cybersecurity is another function that is almost unique now to the Department of Homeland Security. That's directly related to infrastructure protection and a lot of issues that Jim Turner just mentioned.

DOBBS: Congressman Turner and Congressman Cox you refer to the terrorist alert system, the GAO, saying effectively, if I can paraphrase here, it is a silly system.

How soon can you move and homeland move to make that terrorist alert system sensible and clear?

TURNER: Well, Lou, we hope you can move very rapidly. If we don't move quickly, I think the public is going to quickly begin to ignore the warnings that are being given. And we are in a critical time now where we all know that al Qaeda is planning a new attack against our country.

We don't know when, we don't know where, we don't know what method. But the intelligence we pick up generally tells us we are in a vulnerable period and we certainly need an alert system that the public has confidence in and trust in so that it can be used for the purpose it was intended.

COX: If I might add to that.

DOBBS: Surely.

COX: The system may appear silly if you're simply getting the highest gloss and wondering whether there isn't more to it, more information that people can use.

But the Department of Homeland Security, as this system has matured, has become more refined in applying it if you run a public stadium, if you're the proprietor of a tall building, if you run a chemical plant, if you're in state or local law enforcement, if your in the military, these changes in threat level mean very, very specific things to you and the protocols that we're developing to move rapidly when there's new threat information are anything but silly.

It's very serious business and it is coming along reasonably well. We want to make sure that system is even more refined and the secretary has even more responsibility -- pardon me, authority to regionalize and particularize the information.

DOBBS: I should be very clear. The word silly, Mr. Chairman, was mine. The fact is that the general accounting office used somewhat different language. That was just my summation of their description.

I thank you both for being here, Congressman Cox and Congressman Turner. We appreciate both you of being here.

TURNER: Thank you, Lou.

COX: Happy to join you, Lou.

DOBBS: Taking a look now at some of "Your Thoughts."

Chuck and Charlotte Courie of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania: "If, as Mr. Bush is proclaiming, we are safer now that Saddam is no longer in power, why are we constantly getting these terror threats?"

Dorina of Dallas, Pennsylvania: "Lou, with a terror alert hanging over our heads, a war in Iraq, bin Laden still running loose, would you tell me why President Bush and the Senate feel the need to debate gay marriage now?"

Ray Bolton of Harriman, Tennessee: "Lou, Bush says there should be an amendment to the Constitution to ban gay marriage. Kerry says let the states decide. Why not let the people decide in a general vote. Are we not still a government of, by and for the people?"

And Larry Besel of Dalton, Georgia: "If some in Congress are so eager to support a ban on gay marriage because it would weaken the sanctity of marriage, why don't they also pursue a constitutional amendment against divorce!"

Please send us "Your Thoughts" here at loudobbs@cnn.com. E-mail us.

And a reminder to vote in our poll tonight. The question: Do you believe the issue of gay marriage is appropriate for inclusion in the U.S. Constitution? Yes or no.

Please cast your vote at cnn.com/lou. We'll have the results coming right up.

In the northeast, severe storms have caused some dramatic flooding. In New Jersey residents forced from their homes after more than a foot of rain pounded the area overnight.

Phillipa Holland, reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PHILLIPA HOLLAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tonight, two New Jersey counties are in a state of emergency. Thirteen inches of rain have fallen in Burlington and Camden Counties since last night.

JOHN GUINEY, NWS NOAA: This is the heaviest we've seen in portions of that area, New Jersey, central Pennsylvania, and portions of Maryland since Hurricane Floyd in 1999. So, it's significant rain. Certainly we haven't seen this much in about five years.

HOLLAND: The rains caused eight dams to fail.

GOV. JIM MCGREEVEY (D), NEW JERSEY: Many of these are private dams. Some of them are older. You had a confluence of 12 inches of rain and other circumstances. And you know, it's an act of God and you have this breach and it just exacerbated.

HOLLAND: Twenty-five roads were closed and more than 500 people were evacuated from their homes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think we have flood insurance. We were talking with the neighbors about it. I don't know what's going to happen next. I hope just the house will be standing when we go back.

HOLLAND: Rescue teams removed people from their cars and houses. No injuries or deaths reported.

In Maryland up to eight inches of rain fell in the northeast earn part of the state. The flood caused road closures and two counties may be declared states of emergency.

In Pennsylvania heavy rains caused rivers and streams to flood their banks. More rain is forecast for the next few days. But the National Weather Service, as of now, it believes the worst is over.

Phillipa Holland, reporting for LOU DOBBS TONIGHT.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOBBS: From floods in the northeast to dust storms in the southwest. What you're looking at is a dust storm with winds as high as 45 miles an hour. That storm moved through the Phoenix and surrounding areas last night. The high winds drove visibility down to just a few hundred feet. The National Weather Service says there may be more dust storms later today and into tomorrow.

Coming up next here our special report on "Broken Borders": Thousands of illegal aliens caught in this country being set free within the United States. We'll tell you why.

Also ahead tonight -- a natural phenomenon could turn the world upside down. Professor John Tarduno of the University of Rochester will be here to talk about polar opposites and a fading magnetosphere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) DOBBS: In our special report, "Broken Borders," tonight, the immigration crisis in this country is placing an enormous strain on the Border Patrol. Every day, agents catch thousands of illegal aliens, only to set them free because the Border Patrol lacks both the funding and resources to put those illegal aliens in prison.

Bill Tucker reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Department of Homeland Security is the biggest employer in St. Albans, the city of 14,000 in the northwest corner of Vermont near the Canadian border. The city's economy depends on the flow of trade between the United States and Canada.

BRIAN SEARLES, ST. ALBANS CITY MANAGER: It's critical. What we want to see is people who mean no harm being able to cross as quickly and as easily as they ever could and people who do intend to harm to be caught and held.

TUCKER: And across the country, on a daily basis, Border Patrol agents apprehend roughly 3,000 people on immigration violations. But they don't necessarily hold them.

Many people who enter this country illegally are no longer held in jail. They are given a notice to appear in court and released into the United States. Somewhere between 70 and 90% never show up for their court date. Local authorities say it's because they've been advised by the federal agencies that foot the bill that money is tight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometime in the very early part of April, I was informed unofficially by telephone that detention/deportation monies had pretty much run out. And it was just to give me simply a heads up that they were going only to lodge individuals here who were what's referred to as prosecutable under the customs and immigration laws.

TUCKER: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, acknowledges there are at least 400,000 people who were arrested, released, and never appeared in court. Within that group are 85,000 known criminals, a problem that ICE does recognize and says it's working on within its limited resources.

(on camera): No one seems to wants to take responsibility for a policy that appears to be dollar driven. Worse, no one wants to officially admit it's true.

(voice-over): And worse yet, border agents know that talking about the policy can get them in trouble.

T.J. BONNER, NATIONAL BORDER CONTROL COUNCIL: There's absolutely a severe written and unwritten restriction on going public with the dirty laundry of the Department of Homeland Security. And they try and intimidate employees into keeping their mouth shut. REP. JAMES TURNER (D), TEXAS: The Border Patrol agents that are willing to speak up, they're patriots. They understand from years of experience that our system of protecting our borders is broken.

TUCKER: Turner believes that the more the problem is talked about, the more likely it is to be fixed. Bill Tucker, CNN, Highgate Springs, Vermont.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOBBS: The Department of Homeland Security is testing a new tactic in its campaign against illegal immigration. The government has launched a controversial new program to fly some illegal aliens back to Mexico, and the American taxpayer is paying the bill.

Peter Viles has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Along the deadliest stretch of the Mexican border in Arizona, a kinder and gentler policy toward illegal aliens, if they agree they will be put on chartered jets in Tucson and flown 1,100 miles south back to Mexico City and then bussed back to their hometowns, all courtesy of the American taxpayer.

The theory, the current policy of bussing illegals back to the border, isn't working. They simply hang around and try to cross again, and 97 have died this year in the desert heat.

GERONIMO GUTIERREZ, MEXICAN OFFICIAL: They have no other option trying to cross again and put their lives in peril.

VILES: Now, the new policy isn't cheap. A three-month pilot program could cost as much as $12 million. But Homeland Security officials say it's worth trying.

RANDY BEARDSWORTH, DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY: This program of interior repatriation is designed to save lives, it's humanitarian in nature, and it's designed to break the smuggling cycle.

VILES: The first flight, with 138 illegals aboard, arrived Monday in Mexico City. At least one said he's giving up.

JOSE SANTIAGO, REPATRIATED MIGRANT (through translator): I couldn't stand it anymore. The heat was overwhelming, so I decided to come back. I didn't want to keep trying.

VILES: Others interviewed, however, said that they would rest up and then try again to cross the border. Still, critics of the current immigration policy, including Congressman Tom Tancredo, have endorsed the one-way ticket policy.

MARK KRIKORIAN, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: The point to interior repatriation is to make it more expensive for the illegal alien to try again and cheaper and easier for him to just give up. VILES (on camera): But this is an expensive program, and it is very limited. At the very most, we're talking about 300 people a day flown back to Mexico and only from the Tucson area. That means the vast majority of illegals apprehended at the border would just be bussed back to the other side of the border, and we know many of those will simply try to cross the border again.

Peter Viles, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOBBS: Still ahead tonight: A strange phenomenon that could send the world in an entirely new direction. Professor John Tarduno of the University of Rochester will be my guest to talk about a threat to our magnetosphere.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: Tonight, the scientific community is preparing for what could be an astonishing event that could affect a lot of us in the years ahead.

The magnetic field on this planet is apparently weakening and weakening fairly rapidly. Many scientists say it could signal a shift in the lines of magnetic force on Earth. In other words, they suspect the magnetic forces that cause compasses to point north could one day reverse and cause them to point south, with huge implications to life on Earth.

My guest tonight says such a reversal may be, in fact, overdue. John Tarduno is a Professor of Geophysics at the University of Rochester, joining us tonight from, of course, Rochester.

Professor, good to have you with us.

JOHN TARDUNO, PROFESSOR OF GEOPHYSICS, UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER: Good evening, Lou.

DOBBS: The magnetosphere, the magnetic forces that combine to create what we all think of north and south poles on this planet, how much, in your best judgment and research, have they weakened over the past century?

TARDUNO: Well, certainly, I think they've weakened at least 10%, and this is a really significant number. If we think about the Earth's magnetic field, it's generated in the outer core of the Earth. And this is due to liquid iron convecting.

Now, somehow we could just kind of turn that process off, the decay of the field is more rapid than if we had just turned the process off. So, this is a really significant event.

DOBBS: And no one at this point, Professor, understands -- and we should say this is already beginning to affect satellites. It is beginning to affect migratory animals and birds. But no one at this point quite understands why it is occurring, correct?

TARDUNO: That's right. But the decay has really gotten a lot of attention among the scientific community, because it seems to be similar to some things that we see -- that is, the pattern of decay -- similar to some things that we see in numerical simulations -- that is, computer models of what would happen during reversal.

Again, this is supporting evidence that kind of suggests that we are really going toward a reverse state.

DOBBS: If it's 10%, some suggest 15%, weakening in the magnetosphere, what are the implications as we see further erosion? What would be the impact on solar storms and the effect on this planet?

TARDUNO: Right. Well, the big effect would be much in the future, if we actually had a continuation of this. On a more recent time scale, let's say in decades, it could have an affect on satellites, for example, if there were patches -- as one is growing in the south Atlantic today -- of low magnetic field.

If a satellite just happens to be going over one of those patches when a solar storm is happening, that satellite could be damaged. And this has actually happened in the past. So, we could be seeing more of these events.

There's also a possibility of enhanced damage to local infrastructure, power lines and power grids and things like this.

DOBBS: We talked about this 10 to 15% erosion. And I suppose for some people that doesn't sound like much, but when we're talking about an ozone hole in our atmosphere -- which is influenced by the magnetosphere, -- we see a further 10 to 15% deterioration. What are the implications?

TARDUNO: Well, there are some computer models now, as well as some few chemical models, that really are kind of addressing this issue. It really will take decades, if not hundreds of years, to really get to that scenario.

But it is a fairly significant one. That is, through a cascade of reactions, the weakened magnetosphere and then the weakened shielding of the solar radiation could lead to local decreases in ozone.

Now, we don't really pay a lot of attention to those, I think, in many places because the ozone holes right now are in the southern hemisphere, in the Antarctica. But if this continued, we could start seeing similar ozone holes at mid latitudes, and this becomes a real concern then.

DOBBS: The European Space Agency is launching satellites in the next couple of years, I believe by 2007, to do further research on this phenomenon. To what degree is the United States stepping up its research, trying to better understand and contend with this development in the weakening magnetosphere? TARDUNO: Well, there are scientists who are collaborators in that European effort, certainly, and there are many people who are actually interested in it.

I think the hope is by getting this really -- increase, really, it is a tremendous increase in the resolution of the looking at their magnetic field. That way, you might be able to do some forecasting. And I think there are quite a bit of American scientists involved in this.

DOBBS: Thank you very much, Professor John Tarduno...

TARDUNO: Thank you.

DOBBS: ... University of Rochester.

Coming up next here, another near record for this nation's trade deficit. We'll have that story for you on free trade and its high cost next.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: Well, not much happened on Wall Street, not much action of any kind. But a troubling development on this nation's trade deficit.

Christine Romans is here with that -- Christine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, we bought $46 billion more from our trading partners, our foreign trading partners, in May than we sold to them, making it the third highest trade deficit on record. We sucked in a record amount of imports: $143 billion worth. We imported record amounts of cars and car parts, and we paid the highest price of imported oil in 22 years. Oil imports also a record.

Yet again, Americans showed a voracious appetite for Chinese goods. Our trade gap with China, the second highest ever, more than $12 billion there. The trade gap overall for the year, now on track to blow away last year's. And of course, that number was half a trillion dollars.

DOBBS: And now we're headed higher.

ROMANS: Headed higher.

DOBBS: Christine, thanks. Christine Romans.

Taking a look now at some of your thoughts on the issue of "Broken Borders" and the rights of illegal aliens.

Daytona Jarman of Cayce, South Carolina, wrote in to say: "When the illegal immigrants qualify for more benefits than American citizens, there is something horribly wrong!"

Merv in Salt Point, New York: "Illegal aliens in this country should have one and only one right -- the right to go home."

And Rhonda Stien of Evansville, Indiana: "I'm an American citizen and I can't afford airfare to Mexico. Do you think if I told everyone I was an illegal alien, I could have free airfare and vacation to California, then on to Mexico City...No reason people here illegally should have more fun and benefits than legal citizens!"

We love hearing from you. Send us your thoughts at loudobbs@cnn.com. When we continue, we will have the long-awaited results of tonight's poll. Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: The results now of tonight's poll: 7% of you say the issue of gay marriage is appropriate for inclusion in the U.S. Constitution; 93% of you said it is not appropriate for inclusion.

Thanks for being with us. Please join us tomorrow. Republican Congressman Don Manzullo will be here talking about the need for tougher trade laws with China. Our face-off tomorrow: gay marriage. Republican Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado drafted the amendment to ban it; Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California says it's all election-year politics. They'll be here, we hope you will be, too.

For all of us, good night from New York. "ANDERSON COOPER 360" is next.

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