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CNN Live At Daybreak

Battle for Najaf; Rough Weather; Major Offensive; Cashing In

Aired August 12, 2004 - 05:30   ET

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

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Here's what's all new in the next half-hour of DAYBREAK.
The Florida coast prepares for a weather wallop.

Here's Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hey, good morning, Carol.

Hurricane warnings are now downgraded to tropical storm warnings here in Panama City Beach, but hurricane warnings are posted for the Florida Keys, all the way from about east Cape Sable, right on up to Bonita Beach as well. So Charley getting stronger, Bonnie getting a little bit weaker, but a lot of Florida under the gun for some severe weather.

MYERS: We'll be right back in two minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A double whammy in the making, Florida could get hit on both ends.

It is Thursday, August 12. This is DAYBREAK.

And good morning to you, welcome to the second half-hour of DAYBREAK. From the CNN Global Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Carol Costello.

"Now in the News," in the Iraqi city of Najaf, the offensive is on. You can hear the helicopter gunships up there. Thousands of American troops, backed by tanks and helicopter gunships, are attacking militiamen loyal to a radical cleric. Heavy fighting now reported in that city.

Insurgents believe that the Medhi Army militia are battling Iraqi security forces today in al-Kut as well. That's 100 miles southeast of Baghdad. The insurgents attacked city hall, police stations and a national guard barracks.

A bear of a wildfire outside of Redding, California, the 1,000- acre bear fire has destroyed 40 structures and injured 5 people so far. It's believed sparks from a lawnmower started the fire.

Boarding up the Panhandle, Florida residents prepare for Bonnie and Charley.

So let's head to Panama City Beach and Chad. He's out there. Well you're under cover. Has it stopped raining?

MYERS: Under cover day. No, it's still raining, but the big heavy bands that we had in the overnight hours, a lot of thunder and lightning, that has really stopped for now. But there are more bands back out in the Gulf of Mexico.

Literally, Carol, this thing is still 160 miles away from us, moving to the north at 18, maybe 16 miles per hour. So this whole thing is going to take a little while before it gets here, maybe 8 to 10 hours before it actually makes landfall.

Max winds right now are 50 miles per hour, moving to the northeast at 16. That track is going to take it right over very, very close to where we are. The eyewall, if there is one, will probably come right over this hotel, right through Panama City and then right into parts of Georgia still as a tropical storm. Then it begins to lose some intensity, although it's moving very fast, there still could be some wind gusts to almost 60 miles per hour as far north as the Piedmont of North Carolina.

Here is the next RAD radar (ph), and you can actually see some of the heavier bands on up toward Dothan, now into Tallahassee, but there is more rain. That stuff now developing in the Gulf of Mexico. You can begin to see even, I think, what is turning in to the beginning of an open eyewall there.

The last couple of frames have a couple of those orange spots there, just to the south of Panama City. That could be forming an open eyewall down there just to our south. The winds right now though, only 60 miles per hour, although it's getting a little bit more organized this morning.

Now to Hurricane Charley, max winds are 85 miles per hour. Hurricane warnings are already posted from the Dry Tortugas right up the 7-Mile Bridge and almost all the way up to Tampa.

I was just reading the latest discussion from the National Hurricane Center, and this storm has jogged a little to the left. It has just turned a little to the left. They are not changing their forecast yet, but that means that maybe you are losing a little bit of your problem down toward Naples but getting a larger problem up toward Tampa and possibly all the way up even into the mouth of the Suwanee River.

Tropical storm warnings are issued for where we are here in yellow and obviously they're all the way from Bonita Beach down to the 7-Mile Bridge and then westward right to the Dry Tortugas. So if you are in the Keys, mandatory evacuations are going on.

And let me tell you, I have been down in the Keys, I have been trying to get across the 7-Mile Bridge, the old one, in a hurricane advisory, in a hurricane warning or in an evacuation, and it's nothing to be taken lightly. So get out of there if they tell you. Get on up to the north. These winds literally could be category two, possibly a category three. We're talking 100 miles per hour or more, not a little blow like you have here with Bonnie. Carol, back to you.

COSTELLO: So get out of there now. All right. Thank you -- Chad.

MYERS: Afraid so, if they tell you to get out.

COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Chad. We'll get back to you.

You can get the latest on these storms on our Web site. Click on to CNN.com/weather.

The anticipated U.S. offensive has begun in Najaf. Heavy fighting going on there this morning. American troops are trying to dislodge militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, some of whom are holed up in the Imam Ali Mosque.

CNN's Matthew Chance is with the U.S. Marines. He's live in Najaf.

What is the situation now? Do U.S. Marines have control of any part of that city?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They do have control over certainly big parts of the city. But what they're doing along with U.S. Army personnel, and in fact U.S. Army personnel are the main force on the ground at the moment. The members of the 1st Cavalry Division, in fact, they are in several parts of Najaf, striking very hard with tanks and armored personnel carriers and helicopter gunships in the skies, very hard at suspected positions of the Medhi Army troops, fighters, rather, loyal to the radical Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Much of the fighting, as you mentioned, is taking place close to that sacred shrine of the Imam Ali Mosque, one of the most holy sites in Shi'a Islam. That's proving very difficult, of course, for U.S. forces, because they see it very much as a red line they don't want to cross. So although there are militants inside that mosque, in the past few hours, at least 25 mortars have been fired from inside the mosque itself outwards towards Iraqi police forces in the area causing significant damage and significant casualties.

Even though that is happening, U.S. forces are being very careful not to attack the mosque, very mindful of the fact that if they did, that would be seen by very many Iraqis as simply too much, inflaming passions against them throughout the majority Shiite community of the country.

Now what the Iraqi interim government is saying is that they understand there is a problem. They need to get that problem ended as soon as possible. If any advance is made on any of the sacred sites in Najaf, they are insisting that Iraqi forces are the ones that should do it -- Carol.

COSTELLO: This still is very much guerrilla warfare. Is there any way to know how many of Muqtada al-Sadr's people are out there fighting?

CHANCE: No, it's all together unclear about the exact numbers. We believe, we've been told, intelligence is telling the U.S. military that there are about 1,000 quite well armed fighters on the ground. A number of them have been killed, though, perhaps a couple of hundred over the past week or so of very intensive fighting. In fact, the U.S. Army puts the number at 360 that it's killed.

How many that leaves, it's unclear, because there may be people who are drifting away from the Medhi Army as a result of the intense fighting that they have been in the middle of for the past week or so. And at the same time, you know such are the passions that are being aroused by U.S. forces battling in this sacred city, there may well be people joining the ranks of the Medhi Army as well -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Matthew Chance, live in Najaf, live on the phone for us. He's with the U.S. Marines this morning.

Some fast facts now about Najaf for you, some 2,000 U.S. Marines are in Najaf facing the Medhi militia. Along with the Marines, there are about 1,800 Iraqi national guard troops. The latest insurgency started last Thursday when U.S. troops and militia clashed near that sacred Imam Ali Mosque. There are no solid figures on the number of insurgents in Najaf, but you heard Matthew Chance just say they believe there are about 1,000 insurgents fighting within that area in Najaf around that mosque.

As strong winds swirl in both the Gulf and the Caribbean, our weather guys are back in five minutes. Chad and Rob this morning, they'll have live updates on Tropical Storm Bonnie and Hurricane Charley.

And bundling the bundles of cash for the all or nothing run at the White House. In seven minutes, part three of Lisa Sylvester's "The Best Government Money Can Buy."

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Thursday morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Your news, money, weather and sports. It is 5:44 Eastern. Here is what's all new this morning.

A showdown in Najaf, U.S. and Iraqi forces have launched a major offensive against militia members loyal to a Muslim cleric. An Iraqi government official calls the military operation a critical test for the interim government.

Scott Peterson's former mistress heads back to the witness stand for a third day of testimony in his murder trial. On Wednesday, jurors heard several hours of taped conversations between Amber Frey and Peterson.

In money news, your heating bill is going to go up, maybe 10 to 20 percent this winter. And the government says if you use natural gas, expect to shell out 20 percent more than you did last winter.

In culture, actress and activist Jane Fonda joined other prominent women in announcing a new "Get Out the Vote" initiative. They are hoping to involve the 40 million women who failed to vote in the last presidential election.

In sports, an early exit for Ken Griffey, Jr. again. The Reds outfielder will have surgery next week on a ruptured hamstring. Man! That will bench him for the rest of the season. And he was having such a good season, too. It is the third straight season Griffey has failed to play in 100 games.

Out to Florida now for a check of the weather with Chad and up to the Forecast Center with Rob. Let's start with Chad.

MYERS: That just hurts looking at that, Carol. You could just feel the pain as he was grabbing that hamstring.

Yes, anyway, Bonnie now beginning to lose a little strength in the Gulf of Mexico, down to 50 miles per hour. But the latest couple of satellite pictures had it blowing up just a little bit, and so it's probably going to regain some strength, a lot like it did this time yesterday. It was very disorganized last night, now it's coming back again. It's that nocturnal thing, it gets bigger at night. And as it comes on shore, we're still 160 miles away here.

Here are the stats, though, for Bonnie, now the very, very latest for you. Winds at 50 miles per hour, some higher gusts of course. They have found some gusts out there with the satellite, as they look down from the satellite, around 55 miles per hour or so, moving to the northeast at 16. Obviously still about 8 to 10 hours from landfall right here. Winds are beginning to pick up a little bit, but really not that much.

Here is the track right across Panama City, right through and into southern Georgia. And as this happens, we might even get a little bit of what we call sogginess in the ground. We start to get a lot of water in the ground and some of the trees become saturated, the ground becomes saturated.

And the problem is probably not Bonnie, wind gusts are even probably 45 to 50 miles per hour in the Piedmont. But Bonnie will then lay down just a layer of moisture. You can see it already. And that layer of moisture will be what, unfortunately, Charley works over and could be knocking down some trees there, especially across the Piedmont.

Have a wind meter here this morning, Carol, our peak wind gust has only been 11 miles per hour, but it's going to get worse at about 10:00, 11:00 this afternoon. This morning things are really going to start to heat up.

Back to you.

COSTELLO: All right, we'll check back with you, Chad. Now to Rob to talk about Charley. ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Carol.

Some of the rain bands from Bonnie about to make their way in that Chad didn't show you and they are strengthening there.

I show you this map for a couple of reasons. Here is the Florida peninsula. And the latest track, forecast track out of the Hurricane Center, brings Charley somewhere in here tomorrow afternoon. But it's coming in from such an angle, such an oblique angle, that if it's off by like 50 miles, 100 miles, I mean the track where it makes landfall will be off tremendously as well. Right now it does bring it in somewhere around Tampa with a strong storm surge and category two, maybe category three status. This could be a doozy as we go through tomorrow afternoon.

These are the latest numbers for you. Hurricane Charley, it does have winds of 85 miles an hour right now. Winds are northwest at 15 to 16 miles an hour, and it is blowing up as it heads towards the Cayman Islands, across Cuba, Carol, across the Florida Keys likely tomorrow morning and then maybe into the western coastline of Florida. Could track through Orlando, possibly up through Jacksonville and then the East Coast. I mean this could affect a lot of people during the day and weekend.

COSTELLO: Nasty, nasty. Yes.

MARCIANO: Yes.

COSTELLO: And you know we're kind of going to revive "Stump the Weatherman" on Thursday for this day, because people are so fascinated by these two storms developing at the same time. If you have weather questions, send them to DAYBREAK@CNN.com. That's DAYBREAK@CNN.com. Chad or Rob will answer your questions this morning.

MARCIANO: Great, sounds good.

COSTELLO: Thank you -- Rob.

MARCIANO: You bet.

COSTELLO: In our third of several reports aimed at "Your Money and the Best Government it Can Buy," our Lisa Sylvester looks at who is giving to the Bush and Kerry campaigns and just what those big bucks are buying.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Kerry sang his way to more than $7 million at this fund-raiser that brought out the Hollywood hitters. President Bush raised $1 million on a lunch break. Guests had a chance to snap a few pictures with the president.

Both candidates opted out of the public financing system for the primaries that would have limited spending to $45 million. Instead, the two men raised four to five times that amount. FRED WERTHEIMER, PRESIDENT, DEMOCRACY 21: We've lost the cap on this, and, when you take the limits off, people rush out to raise as much money as they can get their hands on, and now we're up to each candidate raising $200 million.

SYLVESTER: The money has rushed in thanks to a system called bundling. Campaign finance laws restrict individuals from giving more than $2,000, but bundling allows middle men to raise large sums of money.

The Bush campaign ranks its bundlers: Bush Pioneers $100,000; Rangers $200,000; Super Rangers, $200,000 for the Bush campaign and $300,000 for the Republican Party. For Kerry, so called Chairs $50,000 and Vice Chairs $100,000. For their effort, the bundlers get a token gift.

WAYNE BERMAN, BUSH RANGER: Don't know what the goody is this time. I'm sure it will be cuff links, or maybe this time we'll get -- maybe we'll get a necktie or something.

SYLVESTER: But the real perk is access, as seen in 2001, when energy groups had a seat at the table with Vice President Dick Cheney who was drafting the nation's energy policy. The finance and real- estate industry has also done well in the last four years. They've raised a minimum of $24 million this election season for Mr. Bush. Lawyers and lobbyists bundled at least $12 million, and other business interests raised at least $8 million for the Bush campaign.

The Kerry-Edwards team is heavily supported by lawyers who raised a minimum of $14 million. Finance and real-estate groups also gave to Kerry at least $9 million. And the communications and electronics industry brought in a minimum of $5 million.

This form from the 2000 Bush Exploratory Committee shows how secret codes are used to show what each interest group is giving. Each bundler gets a special tracking number. Donors write that number on their checks, and so the politicians know exactly who came through.

STEVE WEISSMAN, CAMPAIGN FINANCE INSTITUTE: Congressmen and presidents know that they only got where they got because they were able to get support from certain donors.

SYLVESTER: And the individual bundlers are remembered. What do Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge, Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson and Commerce Secretary Don Evans all have in common? They all were Pioneers in 2000.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Tonight in our series on "The Best Government Money Can Buy," Lisa reports on so-called foreign buying power. That's on CNN's "LOU DOBBS" at 6:00 Eastern, 3:00 Pacific, find out which governments and other international entities are spending millions of dollars lobbying U.S. lawmakers.

Northern California residents are forced to flee their homes as two separate fast moving wildfires destroy dozens of structures. A live report from Miguel Marquez in the next hour of DAYBREAK.

And Chad is braving the wrath of Tropical Storm Bonnie. He'll be live from the Florida Panhandle in three minutes.

This is DAYBREAK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: OK, we've revived "Stump the Weatherman" -- Chad.

MYERS: What?

COSTELLO: Aren't you excited?

MYERS: "Stump the Chump." All right, sure.

COSTELLO: "Stump the Chump." That's terrible to call yourself such a thing this early in the morning.

MYERS: I know.

COSTELLO: Anyway, Chad is live in Florida this morning, and you're dealing with Tropical Storm Bonnie.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: Although she seems rather calm at the moment. But we do have a few questions.

MYERS: I mean this is the calm before the storm for sure, yes.

COSTELLO: I know.

MYERS: Go ahead.

COSTELLO: I know, but here it is. Hi, Chad. This is from Andy (ph). He says what would happen if two hurricanes came together? Do winds intensify? Obviously there is more rain. Can one take out the eye of the other?

MYERS: Interesting question. This probably came from the old book "The Perfect Storm." You remember that and how it happened. That was not two hurricanes, though. We had one very cold core storm coming off of Canada and then a warm core storm, or your tropical type system, coming up, and they got together. The cold storm, like a snowstorm, if you will, in the winter, that was strengthening because it was infused with moisture.

Now you've got to think about hurricanes, they are spinning the same direction. And it's almost like looking at an Indy car. And if you bump wheels in an Indy car, one car is going to go flying. Here's this hurricane going this way, here's this hurricane going this way. So if you think about it, they're actually going to work against each other until they actually come together. There's enough shear with this one that's going to break one or two apart. Now what they can do, they can do something called what's called Fujiwara, big name. They can actually move around each other and keep rotating around. That happens mainly in the Pacific Ocean. But for two to come together, they shear each other apart and they don't work out. They lose intensity.

COSTELLO: What is that phenomena called fujirama (ph)?

MYERS: Fujiwara. Go to the Sushi House tomorrow and ask for two orders of Fujiwara and see what you get.

COSTELLO: OK. Another question.

MYERS: OK.

COSTELLO: This one is from Patrick (ph) from Centerville, Ohio.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: Can they rename hurricanes? Bonnie and Clyde sounds a lot better than Bonnie and Charley.

MYERS: I was thinking how good Bonnie and Clyde would have been. They can rename hurricanes, although not in the Atlantic. What they'll do is if a hurricane actually comes from the Atlantic Ocean, through the Caribbean, and jumps over into the Pacific, they can actually, if it dies and reforms out there, they can actually rename it a Pacific name. But if it's in the Atlantic, it gets the name and it stays the name, so it's Bonnie and Charley this year.

Maybe Charley will be a strong enough storm that they will retire it. Now there will be no more Andrew, there will be no more Hugo and there will be no more Camilles. Those names are all retired. So if they retire Charley and they get Clyde, then some year it could be Bonnie and Clyde, because this storm looks like they're going to get to reuse the name because it's not doing much out there in the Gulf of Mexico -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Well that is the best thing you've said so far. Thank you, Chad, we'll get back to you in the next hour.

MYERS: Yes, you're welcome.

COSTELLO: CNN is the network to watch for up to the minute coverage of the top stories.

In the next hour of DAYBREAK, violence erupts overnight as Islamic loyalists and coalition forces clash in Najaf. This is going on this morning there. We're going to take you there live.

This is DAYBREAK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired August 12, 2004 - 05:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Here's what's all new in the next half-hour of DAYBREAK.
The Florida coast prepares for a weather wallop.

Here's Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hey, good morning, Carol.

Hurricane warnings are now downgraded to tropical storm warnings here in Panama City Beach, but hurricane warnings are posted for the Florida Keys, all the way from about east Cape Sable, right on up to Bonita Beach as well. So Charley getting stronger, Bonnie getting a little bit weaker, but a lot of Florida under the gun for some severe weather.

MYERS: We'll be right back in two minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A double whammy in the making, Florida could get hit on both ends.

It is Thursday, August 12. This is DAYBREAK.

And good morning to you, welcome to the second half-hour of DAYBREAK. From the CNN Global Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Carol Costello.

"Now in the News," in the Iraqi city of Najaf, the offensive is on. You can hear the helicopter gunships up there. Thousands of American troops, backed by tanks and helicopter gunships, are attacking militiamen loyal to a radical cleric. Heavy fighting now reported in that city.

Insurgents believe that the Medhi Army militia are battling Iraqi security forces today in al-Kut as well. That's 100 miles southeast of Baghdad. The insurgents attacked city hall, police stations and a national guard barracks.

A bear of a wildfire outside of Redding, California, the 1,000- acre bear fire has destroyed 40 structures and injured 5 people so far. It's believed sparks from a lawnmower started the fire.

Boarding up the Panhandle, Florida residents prepare for Bonnie and Charley.

So let's head to Panama City Beach and Chad. He's out there. Well you're under cover. Has it stopped raining?

MYERS: Under cover day. No, it's still raining, but the big heavy bands that we had in the overnight hours, a lot of thunder and lightning, that has really stopped for now. But there are more bands back out in the Gulf of Mexico.

Literally, Carol, this thing is still 160 miles away from us, moving to the north at 18, maybe 16 miles per hour. So this whole thing is going to take a little while before it gets here, maybe 8 to 10 hours before it actually makes landfall.

Max winds right now are 50 miles per hour, moving to the northeast at 16. That track is going to take it right over very, very close to where we are. The eyewall, if there is one, will probably come right over this hotel, right through Panama City and then right into parts of Georgia still as a tropical storm. Then it begins to lose some intensity, although it's moving very fast, there still could be some wind gusts to almost 60 miles per hour as far north as the Piedmont of North Carolina.

Here is the next RAD radar (ph), and you can actually see some of the heavier bands on up toward Dothan, now into Tallahassee, but there is more rain. That stuff now developing in the Gulf of Mexico. You can begin to see even, I think, what is turning in to the beginning of an open eyewall there.

The last couple of frames have a couple of those orange spots there, just to the south of Panama City. That could be forming an open eyewall down there just to our south. The winds right now though, only 60 miles per hour, although it's getting a little bit more organized this morning.

Now to Hurricane Charley, max winds are 85 miles per hour. Hurricane warnings are already posted from the Dry Tortugas right up the 7-Mile Bridge and almost all the way up to Tampa.

I was just reading the latest discussion from the National Hurricane Center, and this storm has jogged a little to the left. It has just turned a little to the left. They are not changing their forecast yet, but that means that maybe you are losing a little bit of your problem down toward Naples but getting a larger problem up toward Tampa and possibly all the way up even into the mouth of the Suwanee River.

Tropical storm warnings are issued for where we are here in yellow and obviously they're all the way from Bonita Beach down to the 7-Mile Bridge and then westward right to the Dry Tortugas. So if you are in the Keys, mandatory evacuations are going on.

And let me tell you, I have been down in the Keys, I have been trying to get across the 7-Mile Bridge, the old one, in a hurricane advisory, in a hurricane warning or in an evacuation, and it's nothing to be taken lightly. So get out of there if they tell you. Get on up to the north. These winds literally could be category two, possibly a category three. We're talking 100 miles per hour or more, not a little blow like you have here with Bonnie. Carol, back to you.

COSTELLO: So get out of there now. All right. Thank you -- Chad.

MYERS: Afraid so, if they tell you to get out.

COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Chad. We'll get back to you.

You can get the latest on these storms on our Web site. Click on to CNN.com/weather.

The anticipated U.S. offensive has begun in Najaf. Heavy fighting going on there this morning. American troops are trying to dislodge militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, some of whom are holed up in the Imam Ali Mosque.

CNN's Matthew Chance is with the U.S. Marines. He's live in Najaf.

What is the situation now? Do U.S. Marines have control of any part of that city?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They do have control over certainly big parts of the city. But what they're doing along with U.S. Army personnel, and in fact U.S. Army personnel are the main force on the ground at the moment. The members of the 1st Cavalry Division, in fact, they are in several parts of Najaf, striking very hard with tanks and armored personnel carriers and helicopter gunships in the skies, very hard at suspected positions of the Medhi Army troops, fighters, rather, loyal to the radical Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Much of the fighting, as you mentioned, is taking place close to that sacred shrine of the Imam Ali Mosque, one of the most holy sites in Shi'a Islam. That's proving very difficult, of course, for U.S. forces, because they see it very much as a red line they don't want to cross. So although there are militants inside that mosque, in the past few hours, at least 25 mortars have been fired from inside the mosque itself outwards towards Iraqi police forces in the area causing significant damage and significant casualties.

Even though that is happening, U.S. forces are being very careful not to attack the mosque, very mindful of the fact that if they did, that would be seen by very many Iraqis as simply too much, inflaming passions against them throughout the majority Shiite community of the country.

Now what the Iraqi interim government is saying is that they understand there is a problem. They need to get that problem ended as soon as possible. If any advance is made on any of the sacred sites in Najaf, they are insisting that Iraqi forces are the ones that should do it -- Carol.

COSTELLO: This still is very much guerrilla warfare. Is there any way to know how many of Muqtada al-Sadr's people are out there fighting?

CHANCE: No, it's all together unclear about the exact numbers. We believe, we've been told, intelligence is telling the U.S. military that there are about 1,000 quite well armed fighters on the ground. A number of them have been killed, though, perhaps a couple of hundred over the past week or so of very intensive fighting. In fact, the U.S. Army puts the number at 360 that it's killed.

How many that leaves, it's unclear, because there may be people who are drifting away from the Medhi Army as a result of the intense fighting that they have been in the middle of for the past week or so. And at the same time, you know such are the passions that are being aroused by U.S. forces battling in this sacred city, there may well be people joining the ranks of the Medhi Army as well -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Matthew Chance, live in Najaf, live on the phone for us. He's with the U.S. Marines this morning.

Some fast facts now about Najaf for you, some 2,000 U.S. Marines are in Najaf facing the Medhi militia. Along with the Marines, there are about 1,800 Iraqi national guard troops. The latest insurgency started last Thursday when U.S. troops and militia clashed near that sacred Imam Ali Mosque. There are no solid figures on the number of insurgents in Najaf, but you heard Matthew Chance just say they believe there are about 1,000 insurgents fighting within that area in Najaf around that mosque.

As strong winds swirl in both the Gulf and the Caribbean, our weather guys are back in five minutes. Chad and Rob this morning, they'll have live updates on Tropical Storm Bonnie and Hurricane Charley.

And bundling the bundles of cash for the all or nothing run at the White House. In seven minutes, part three of Lisa Sylvester's "The Best Government Money Can Buy."

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Thursday morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Your news, money, weather and sports. It is 5:44 Eastern. Here is what's all new this morning.

A showdown in Najaf, U.S. and Iraqi forces have launched a major offensive against militia members loyal to a Muslim cleric. An Iraqi government official calls the military operation a critical test for the interim government.

Scott Peterson's former mistress heads back to the witness stand for a third day of testimony in his murder trial. On Wednesday, jurors heard several hours of taped conversations between Amber Frey and Peterson.

In money news, your heating bill is going to go up, maybe 10 to 20 percent this winter. And the government says if you use natural gas, expect to shell out 20 percent more than you did last winter.

In culture, actress and activist Jane Fonda joined other prominent women in announcing a new "Get Out the Vote" initiative. They are hoping to involve the 40 million women who failed to vote in the last presidential election.

In sports, an early exit for Ken Griffey, Jr. again. The Reds outfielder will have surgery next week on a ruptured hamstring. Man! That will bench him for the rest of the season. And he was having such a good season, too. It is the third straight season Griffey has failed to play in 100 games.

Out to Florida now for a check of the weather with Chad and up to the Forecast Center with Rob. Let's start with Chad.

MYERS: That just hurts looking at that, Carol. You could just feel the pain as he was grabbing that hamstring.

Yes, anyway, Bonnie now beginning to lose a little strength in the Gulf of Mexico, down to 50 miles per hour. But the latest couple of satellite pictures had it blowing up just a little bit, and so it's probably going to regain some strength, a lot like it did this time yesterday. It was very disorganized last night, now it's coming back again. It's that nocturnal thing, it gets bigger at night. And as it comes on shore, we're still 160 miles away here.

Here are the stats, though, for Bonnie, now the very, very latest for you. Winds at 50 miles per hour, some higher gusts of course. They have found some gusts out there with the satellite, as they look down from the satellite, around 55 miles per hour or so, moving to the northeast at 16. Obviously still about 8 to 10 hours from landfall right here. Winds are beginning to pick up a little bit, but really not that much.

Here is the track right across Panama City, right through and into southern Georgia. And as this happens, we might even get a little bit of what we call sogginess in the ground. We start to get a lot of water in the ground and some of the trees become saturated, the ground becomes saturated.

And the problem is probably not Bonnie, wind gusts are even probably 45 to 50 miles per hour in the Piedmont. But Bonnie will then lay down just a layer of moisture. You can see it already. And that layer of moisture will be what, unfortunately, Charley works over and could be knocking down some trees there, especially across the Piedmont.

Have a wind meter here this morning, Carol, our peak wind gust has only been 11 miles per hour, but it's going to get worse at about 10:00, 11:00 this afternoon. This morning things are really going to start to heat up.

Back to you.

COSTELLO: All right, we'll check back with you, Chad. Now to Rob to talk about Charley. ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Carol.

Some of the rain bands from Bonnie about to make their way in that Chad didn't show you and they are strengthening there.

I show you this map for a couple of reasons. Here is the Florida peninsula. And the latest track, forecast track out of the Hurricane Center, brings Charley somewhere in here tomorrow afternoon. But it's coming in from such an angle, such an oblique angle, that if it's off by like 50 miles, 100 miles, I mean the track where it makes landfall will be off tremendously as well. Right now it does bring it in somewhere around Tampa with a strong storm surge and category two, maybe category three status. This could be a doozy as we go through tomorrow afternoon.

These are the latest numbers for you. Hurricane Charley, it does have winds of 85 miles an hour right now. Winds are northwest at 15 to 16 miles an hour, and it is blowing up as it heads towards the Cayman Islands, across Cuba, Carol, across the Florida Keys likely tomorrow morning and then maybe into the western coastline of Florida. Could track through Orlando, possibly up through Jacksonville and then the East Coast. I mean this could affect a lot of people during the day and weekend.

COSTELLO: Nasty, nasty. Yes.

MARCIANO: Yes.

COSTELLO: And you know we're kind of going to revive "Stump the Weatherman" on Thursday for this day, because people are so fascinated by these two storms developing at the same time. If you have weather questions, send them to DAYBREAK@CNN.com. That's DAYBREAK@CNN.com. Chad or Rob will answer your questions this morning.

MARCIANO: Great, sounds good.

COSTELLO: Thank you -- Rob.

MARCIANO: You bet.

COSTELLO: In our third of several reports aimed at "Your Money and the Best Government it Can Buy," our Lisa Sylvester looks at who is giving to the Bush and Kerry campaigns and just what those big bucks are buying.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Kerry sang his way to more than $7 million at this fund-raiser that brought out the Hollywood hitters. President Bush raised $1 million on a lunch break. Guests had a chance to snap a few pictures with the president.

Both candidates opted out of the public financing system for the primaries that would have limited spending to $45 million. Instead, the two men raised four to five times that amount. FRED WERTHEIMER, PRESIDENT, DEMOCRACY 21: We've lost the cap on this, and, when you take the limits off, people rush out to raise as much money as they can get their hands on, and now we're up to each candidate raising $200 million.

SYLVESTER: The money has rushed in thanks to a system called bundling. Campaign finance laws restrict individuals from giving more than $2,000, but bundling allows middle men to raise large sums of money.

The Bush campaign ranks its bundlers: Bush Pioneers $100,000; Rangers $200,000; Super Rangers, $200,000 for the Bush campaign and $300,000 for the Republican Party. For Kerry, so called Chairs $50,000 and Vice Chairs $100,000. For their effort, the bundlers get a token gift.

WAYNE BERMAN, BUSH RANGER: Don't know what the goody is this time. I'm sure it will be cuff links, or maybe this time we'll get -- maybe we'll get a necktie or something.

SYLVESTER: But the real perk is access, as seen in 2001, when energy groups had a seat at the table with Vice President Dick Cheney who was drafting the nation's energy policy. The finance and real- estate industry has also done well in the last four years. They've raised a minimum of $24 million this election season for Mr. Bush. Lawyers and lobbyists bundled at least $12 million, and other business interests raised at least $8 million for the Bush campaign.

The Kerry-Edwards team is heavily supported by lawyers who raised a minimum of $14 million. Finance and real-estate groups also gave to Kerry at least $9 million. And the communications and electronics industry brought in a minimum of $5 million.

This form from the 2000 Bush Exploratory Committee shows how secret codes are used to show what each interest group is giving. Each bundler gets a special tracking number. Donors write that number on their checks, and so the politicians know exactly who came through.

STEVE WEISSMAN, CAMPAIGN FINANCE INSTITUTE: Congressmen and presidents know that they only got where they got because they were able to get support from certain donors.

SYLVESTER: And the individual bundlers are remembered. What do Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge, Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson and Commerce Secretary Don Evans all have in common? They all were Pioneers in 2000.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Tonight in our series on "The Best Government Money Can Buy," Lisa reports on so-called foreign buying power. That's on CNN's "LOU DOBBS" at 6:00 Eastern, 3:00 Pacific, find out which governments and other international entities are spending millions of dollars lobbying U.S. lawmakers.

Northern California residents are forced to flee their homes as two separate fast moving wildfires destroy dozens of structures. A live report from Miguel Marquez in the next hour of DAYBREAK.

And Chad is braving the wrath of Tropical Storm Bonnie. He'll be live from the Florida Panhandle in three minutes.

This is DAYBREAK.

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COSTELLO: OK, we've revived "Stump the Weatherman" -- Chad.

MYERS: What?

COSTELLO: Aren't you excited?

MYERS: "Stump the Chump." All right, sure.

COSTELLO: "Stump the Chump." That's terrible to call yourself such a thing this early in the morning.

MYERS: I know.

COSTELLO: Anyway, Chad is live in Florida this morning, and you're dealing with Tropical Storm Bonnie.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: Although she seems rather calm at the moment. But we do have a few questions.

MYERS: I mean this is the calm before the storm for sure, yes.

COSTELLO: I know.

MYERS: Go ahead.

COSTELLO: I know, but here it is. Hi, Chad. This is from Andy (ph). He says what would happen if two hurricanes came together? Do winds intensify? Obviously there is more rain. Can one take out the eye of the other?

MYERS: Interesting question. This probably came from the old book "The Perfect Storm." You remember that and how it happened. That was not two hurricanes, though. We had one very cold core storm coming off of Canada and then a warm core storm, or your tropical type system, coming up, and they got together. The cold storm, like a snowstorm, if you will, in the winter, that was strengthening because it was infused with moisture.

Now you've got to think about hurricanes, they are spinning the same direction. And it's almost like looking at an Indy car. And if you bump wheels in an Indy car, one car is going to go flying. Here's this hurricane going this way, here's this hurricane going this way. So if you think about it, they're actually going to work against each other until they actually come together. There's enough shear with this one that's going to break one or two apart. Now what they can do, they can do something called what's called Fujiwara, big name. They can actually move around each other and keep rotating around. That happens mainly in the Pacific Ocean. But for two to come together, they shear each other apart and they don't work out. They lose intensity.

COSTELLO: What is that phenomena called fujirama (ph)?

MYERS: Fujiwara. Go to the Sushi House tomorrow and ask for two orders of Fujiwara and see what you get.

COSTELLO: OK. Another question.

MYERS: OK.

COSTELLO: This one is from Patrick (ph) from Centerville, Ohio.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: Can they rename hurricanes? Bonnie and Clyde sounds a lot better than Bonnie and Charley.

MYERS: I was thinking how good Bonnie and Clyde would have been. They can rename hurricanes, although not in the Atlantic. What they'll do is if a hurricane actually comes from the Atlantic Ocean, through the Caribbean, and jumps over into the Pacific, they can actually, if it dies and reforms out there, they can actually rename it a Pacific name. But if it's in the Atlantic, it gets the name and it stays the name, so it's Bonnie and Charley this year.

Maybe Charley will be a strong enough storm that they will retire it. Now there will be no more Andrew, there will be no more Hugo and there will be no more Camilles. Those names are all retired. So if they retire Charley and they get Clyde, then some year it could be Bonnie and Clyde, because this storm looks like they're going to get to reuse the name because it's not doing much out there in the Gulf of Mexico -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Well that is the best thing you've said so far. Thank you, Chad, we'll get back to you in the next hour.

MYERS: Yes, you're welcome.

COSTELLO: CNN is the network to watch for up to the minute coverage of the top stories.

In the next hour of DAYBREAK, violence erupts overnight as Islamic loyalists and coalition forces clash in Najaf. This is going on this morning there. We're going to take you there live.

This is DAYBREAK.

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