Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
President Bush Will Unveil Plan to Redeploy U.S. Military Forces Worldwide, Bring Tens of Thousands of Troops Back Home; 'Paging Dr. Gutpa'
Aired August 16, 2004 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Also if you air woman having a hard time kicking the habit, there might be a good reason for that. It seems not all treatments work as well for women as they do for men. We're going to page Dr. Gupta on that. He's going to have some tips for us.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Also we'll talk to James Woolsey in a few moments. He's one of three former CIA directors testifying today before the 9/11 committee opposed to some of the recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission. We'll talk about that in a moment here. James Woolsey our guest in a few minutes.
COLLINS: Later this morning, though, President Bush will unveil a plan to redeploy U.S. military forces worldwide and bring tens of thousands of troops back home.
Elaine Quijano is live at the White House now with more details on this.
Elaine, good morning to you.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi.
Well, he will be doing that at a speech this morning in Cincinnati. The Bush/Cheney campaign saying it is an official campaign event, and campaign aides are calling this a major foreign policy announcement that will involve some 70,000 American troops, in what they say will be the largest U.S. troop realignment since the end of the Cold War.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Bush is set to announce what Pentagon officials say has been in the works for some time, a change in where and how the United States positions its military forces around the world.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld discussed it earlier this month.
DONALD RUMSFELD, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: We've decided that it's time to shift our posture in Europe and Asia and around the world and move from static defense, which does not make much sense today, to a more deployable and usable set of capabilities. QUIJANO: Pentagon and senior administration officials say the president's announcement will describe a major reduction and repositioning of U.S. forces overseas. While they won't talk total troop numbers, they say most reductions will come from Europe, the rest from Asia. One official says the plan would bring some 100,000 family members of military support staff back to the United States.
The move, say officials, is designed to reflect a ready posture for the war on terror rather than the cold war stance adopted years ago when officials believed the Soviet Union posed the biggest threat to America.
U.S. officials emphasize they've consulted with American allies and members of Congress along the way.
SEN. RICHARD LUGAR (R), FOREIGN RELATIONS CHAIRMAN: So this is a fundamental change, and it's a change probably in the tactics of our military so that our people will be more mobile, more available at other places all over the earth.
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: There are some things that we should do to re-deploy troops so that they're in the best position possible for what the new threats are.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUIJANO: Now yesterday Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrapping up a trip to Europe and Asia said that this proposed troop realignment would take place over several years and would likely mean more American service personnel stationed inside the United States -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Elaine Quijano, live from the White House this morning. Elaine, thanks.
HEMMER: There's a Senate committee already today going to hear testimony from three men who used to run the CIA. At issue once again will be the 9/11 Commission recommendations for intelligence reform. Who better to know about that and talk about it than the former CIA director James Woolsey back in D.C. and back with us on AMERICAN MORNING.
Welcome back. Good to have you here.
JAMES WOOLSEY, FMR. CIA DIRECTOR: Good to be with you, Bill.
HEMMER: I understand you think that the No. 1 thing is not to necessarily reorganize the intelligence community. You don't believe that is what is most effective. Explain those comments to us?
WOOLSEY: Well, I generally support the commission's reorganization recommendations, although I like Congresswoman Jane Harman's version of it, a somewhat modified version.
But I don't think reorganization is the main thing we need to improve foreign intelligence. I think it's substantive changes. I think the current organization could probably work with the right people.
And also people shouldn't think that foreign intelligence collection is the main thing that's going to protect us against terrorism. After all, the 9/11 plotters worked principally in two countries, Germany and the United States, where American foreign intelligence doesn't collect, and satellites don't tell you that much about terrorists.
The more we talk about signals intercepts, such as what we were get on bin Laden's satellite telephone back before 1998 when someone decided to talk to the press about it, the more they changed their communications pattern.
So people are going to have to realize, we're going to have to improve the resilience of our networks here in the United States of all sorts to keep them, you know, the oil and gas pipelines, the Internet, to keep them from being taken down by terrorists. Even without our having foreign intelligence information about what's going to occur.
HEMMER: Despite all that, it still seems that the 9/11 Commission is pretty strong in its opinion that a national intelligence director, an intelligence czar, needs to be created that supersedes the FBI and the CIA. Do you support that?
WOOLSEY: In part. That's what I was referring to, that I think Congresswoman Harman's original formulation of this is better really than the commission's, and I think better than the original reaction from the White House. The commission really does lean towards czardom, and I must say, I think several hundred years of stupidity and autocracy, followed by the victory of Bolshevism is not a good model for the management of American intelligence. The Harman proposal is more moderate than that. It would let this new official, for example, appoint jointly with the secretary of defense, the heads of defense agencies, such as the National Security Agency, and it would give the secretary of defense the ability to object, not necessarily to win, but to object, if the new national intelligence director moved money from one defense intelligence program to another, and I think that's a superior formulation.
HEMMER: You've referred to Jane Harman's idea twice now. Do others in Washington believe the same, and is there a majority on that?
WOOLSEY: Well, I don't know, but I hope so. I haven't been really part of any deliberations on this. The commission says they are implementing something very much like her recommendations, but, in fact, I think the commission goes much further and establishes this new official with so much overall power that it's a problem.
HEMMER: I see.
One final question here, 41 recommendations given out by the 9/11 Commission. If you embrace some of them, what do you oppose?
WOOLSEY: I agree with about 35 or 36 of those entirely and all but one, and all but one, I agree with in part. The one I think that is a serious problem is moving all paramilitary operations, such as the CIA's paramilitary operations, into the Pentagon. I think that that could lead to our special forces, you know, the Navy SEALS, and Army special forces and others, having some of the types of constraints that are on the CIA placed on them, with respect to formal findings by the president and all the rest. I think that could limit our military forces ability to fight effectively in some of these guerrilla, and counter-guerrilla and terrorist operations.
HEMMER: We'll be listening for your testimony today, you and two of your colleagues as well. James Woolsey, thanks, in D.C. -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Thirty-seven minutes past the hour now, time for a look at some of today's other news, and Carol Costello, and heading back to Florida -- Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right, thank you, Heidi.
Repair crews are pouring into the most heavily damaged areas of Florida in an effort to restore utility and phone service after Hurricane Charley. One million residents are still without power this morning. Aid agencies have already provided more than 300,000 meals. More than 20 Florida counties have been designated eligible for federal disaster assistance.
On the campaign trail this morning, President Bush will rally in Michigan. He'll speak at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Ohio, a key battleground state. Senator John Kerry will speak to the same convention on Wednesday. He's now vacationing in Idaho. In the meantime, his running mate, Senator John Edwards is meeting with voters in Missouri and Georgia.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says his victory today is a victory for the common people. Preliminary polling results show the president survived a referendum that would have removed him from office two years before the end of his term. More than eight million people turned out to vote. Officials say that is a record turn out for any election in that country.
And at the box office, "Alien Versus Predator" invaded theaters, hunting down the No. 1 spot this weekend. The sci-fi thriller scared its way into the top spot by grabbing more than $38 million. That's according to studio estimates. "The Princess Diaries" sequel opened in second place, with a three-day gross of $23 million.
Can't believe that opened in second place. Back to you, Heidi.
COLLINS: I haven't seen the movie in, like, years now.
HEMMER: "Alien Versus Predator," I think Hollywood is running out of ideas.
COLLINS: Yes, kind of an old idea.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COLLINS: By the way, I have seen movies, but not in months, I said years. Maybe I sounded kind of like a geek.
HEMMER: No, you would never be a geek.
COLLINS: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, Miller beer went to a lot of trouble to remember the birth of rock 'n' roll. So how could they forget one of the most important things?
HEMMER: Also, men and women are not equal when it comes to kicking the habit. Sanjay knows that. He explains after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Nicotine replacements help many smokers trying to quit, but now a new study suggests women may have a harder time kicking the habit than men.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta joining us from the CNN Center with details.
It doesn't seem fair, Sanjay.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It doesn't seem fair.
You know, quitting is hard for everybody, there is no question about that. But a certain study now coming out of Texas A&M tried to evaluate all these nicotine-replacement methods, we're talking about the lozenges, the patches, the gum, all that. They analyzed 21 different studies, big studies, and tried to figure out, who does it work better for, men or women?
And what they found actually sort of interesting. At least initially, for the first six months there's -- women tend to have a -- I think we have a -- this is the second graphic. Let me go to that first -- there we go, nicotine replacements -- for the first six months, equally better, for men and women, for the first six months. Twelve months, as you start to get to a year, men have two times better an effect than placebo, whereas women have about the same effect with these nicotine replacements than placebo.
Now let's go to that other graphic here. Let me show you, if you combine those nicotine replacements, plus therapy, women tend to do two times better than placebo, whereas men got little benefit from adding the therapy to the nicotine replacement. Really interesting there. I think it really speaks to how these treatments might change, might need to be different in men and women. Women tend to get better benefits if you combine the therapy with nicotine replacements. Men don't seem to care about the therapy as much -- Heidi.
COLLINS: So how do we explain the gender difference then? What's the difference between men and women?
GUPTA: Well, there's lots of differences in terms of...
COLLINS: On this note, I should say.
GUPTA: On this note, yes. Well, when it comes to nicotine replacement, when it comes to smoking overall, a lot of it has to do with expectations. What are the expectations from smoking? What are the expectations from quitting smoking? For example, with women, they tend to worry more about weight gain. They tend to use cigarettes more to relieve anxieties, things like that. They tend to fixate on that hand, oral sort of movement which is something that cigarettes provide as well. Whereas men they almost just want to get the nicotine, they want to get the nicotine, which is why if you give them nicotine replacements, they are going to succeed more in terms of quitting. Women need that therapy as well -- Heidi.
COLLINS: So what's the approach then that people should follow? II mean, you can't really just put on a patch and slap it on there and go. I mean, isn't it different for everybody?
GUPTA: Yes, for women especially. I think that the message is this: Even initially, even at the beginning, if you are trying to quit smoking, you probably need to combine both the nicotine replacement and at least some therapy. Therapy can come in all sorts of different ways. Professional therapy obviously is going to be a very good option. But set a quit date, talk to your friends and family about that. Identify your motivation -- why your doing this? Get rid of all the smoking paraphernalia in the house. Don't hide any cigarettes, and this is an important point, the last one, be prepared to slip every now and then. People have set very high expectations in terms of quitting cold turkey, for example. If they're going to slip a little bit, that's okay, keep on the train and hopefully you'll succeed -- Heidi.
COLLINS: OK, it's a hard one to kick, that's for sure. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much for that this morning.
Still to come, is there new hope for Wal-Mart as it faces a record sex -- let me try this again -- sex-discrimination suit? That's it. And it is coming up next, here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: All righty. Welcome back.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Wal-Mart getting a chance to defend itself again. Actually A big decision in their favor. And a moron on the loose at the Miller Brewing Company, an absolute village idiot running amok at the Miller Brewing Company.
Christine Romans, in for Andy Serwer, "Minding Your Business."
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS: Let's start with Wal-Mart, I guess, because you're right. It is a little bit of a victory in the war between Wal-Mart and 1.6 million women who are in a class-action sex discrimination suit. It's called the mother of all sex discrimination suits.
Stakes really high, and Wal-Mart winning a court battle. It wants these suits to be considered separately store by store. Opponents say nothing at Wal-Mart is done store by store, but an appeals court is going to consider whether this should be class action at all.
The women want their cases to be heard together for convenience and also for the power, the leverage that they get. Possibly a settlement kind of situation. The payout, analysts say, could be a billion dollars if Wal-Mart loses.
This is what Wal-Mart is accused of: systematically promoting men; hiring men and paying them more; not promoting women to managers unless they can lift a 50-pound bag of dog food. Female managers, once they could lift that bag of dog food, according to the suit, had to go to Hooters and strip clubs for meetings.
CAFFERTY: Well, that's -- that's OK.
ROMANS: Yes -- Jack. Women were called "little Janey-Qs" and "girls." And a Florida manager in this suit, a man, said, "Women work in retail just for extra money. Men are the heads of households, so of course they should be paid more."
Sounds like 1950s...
CAFFERTY: So, Miller's not the only place where there are morons running amuck. Wal-Mart has some, too, apparently.
ROMANS: According to this suit. But you'd think the big companies would know that diversity is in their best interest, which brings me to this Miller -- Miller beer can controversy.
The 50th anniversary of rock and roll, it picks these six artists to have special commemoration cans: Elvis, Blondie, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Willie Nelson, and two cans with guitars. No black artists, and this is...
CAFFERTY: This is obscene. Stupid -- where's Ray Charles? Where's Little Richard? Where's Chuck Berry?
ROMANS: This is why people...
CAFFERTY: Willie Nelson -- I mean, Willie Nelson is a country songwriter.
ROMANS: One outraged Syracuse professor told the Associated Press, "It's like doing a set of six great impressionist paintings and not including any Frenchmen."
CAFFERTY: Who's the great left-handed guitar player that came along in the '60s? Hendrix? I mean...
ROMANS: Miller says it didn't consider race.
CAFFERTY: I mean, I quit drinking...
ROMANS: It just picked Def Leppard over Ray Charles. CAFFERTY: I quit drinking anything 15 years ago. If I still drank, I'd never have another can of Miller beer as long as I live. They should fire the advertising agency...
HEMMER: Amen.
CAFFERTY: ... that allowed that kind of thing to go through. That's insulting. Def Leppard and Blondie? They didn't invent anything.
ROMANS: Six beer cans.
CAFFERTY: Those people didn't invent anything.
HEMMER: And two guitars.
ROMANS: And two guitars over -- over, you know, Ray Charles or Little Richard.
CAFFERTY: Morons. That's just -- that's terrible. Ray Charles should have been there.
HEMMER: Where's Miller brewed?
ROMANS: Well, it's brewed all over the place.
CAFFERTY: Probably in Cleveland or Cincinnati.
HEMMER: It's not Michigan, is it? Wouldn't be Motown, would it?
ROMANS: They have breweries all over the place, but SAB is a...
CAFFERTY: Fats Domino invented...
ROMANS: South African Breweries owns Miller now. So, it's majority owned by a South African company.
CAFFERTY: The Platters. I mean, come on! The early days of rock and roll: The Platters, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry.
HEMMER: I'm on board.
CAFFERTY: What are the markets going to do?
ROMANS: Def Leppard. Def Leppard.
CAFFERTY: Def Leppard -- got your Def Leppard -- what are the markets going to do?
ROMANS: Markets are probably going to be a little bit higher, I'm predicting. But everyone else is saying mixed. And I think that if you see oil prices coming down, Jack, then it'll be a pretty decent day in the market.
CAFFERTY: Good. Thanks, Christine. ROMANS: You're welcome.
CAFFERTY: There's a guy in Louisiana, he's 26 years old, sentenced to five years probation. The judge has dubbed him "The Serial Snuggler." This would be the Monday edition of the "File."
He sneaks into women's apartments. He folds their clothes, and in some cases he makes nachos, and then he crawls into bed with them. In one case, he rubbed a woman's stomach. None of them were hurt -- terrified, probably, but not hurt.
The judge attributed the snuggler's behavior to the use of drugs and alcohol. there's an unconfirmed report that some of the women have invited him back. Apparently he does make great nachos.
First there was the Arnold Schwarzenegger -- Christine has just gone over the back of her chair.
Remember the Arnold Schwarzenegger bobblehead doll, depicting the Governator wearing a suit and brandishing his assault rifle? That caused a lawsuit that Schwarzenegger filed against the dollmaker, John Edgell, who agreed to back off, disarm the doll, quit making it.
Well, then last month, Schwarzenegger -- we did this on the AMERICAN MORNING "Question of the Day" -- remember when he called a bunch of Democrats in Sacramento "girlie-men" for holding up the state budget? Now the same guy Edgell has announced plans for a "girlie- man" Arnold Schwarzenegger doll featuring the Governator wearing a pink dress, lipstick, and some eye makeup. No response yet from the Schwarzenegger camp.
And you think there might be preservatives in that junk food you like? Check this out. Roger Bennatti, he's a science teacher in Maine, and he placed a Twinkie -- a standard run-of-the-mill supermarket Twinkie -- on the edge of his blackboard in his classroom 30 years ago to see how long it would take to spoil.
It's still there. It's brittle now. It has a few specks of mold, but otherwise it has stood the test of time. Bennatti says it's probably still edible. Three decades, and it probably still tastes better than the school's meat loaf that they serve on Tuesdays.
Can you believe that? A Twinkie.
COLLINS: He says it's probably still edible. He's too afraid to try it.
CAFFERTY: No, he didn't -- hasn't. That's all I have.
You should boycott Miller beer. Oh, there's more?
HEMMER: You have one more thing, Jack.
CAFFERTY: The scorecard. See, I was away a week, and I have to be retrained when I get back. The number of days since the 9/11 Commission made recommendations for protecting the country against terrorism? Nothing changes -- 25 days. Number of recommendations adopted by Congress? Still zero. They say they are holding hearings, which is, you know, what we need are more Congressional hearings. We haven't had enough in three years.
HEMMER: Def Leppard, Blondie?
There ought to be a law.
ROMANS: Are we being too P.C.?
CAFFERTY: No. That's an insult to some of the great pioneers of a music form that changed the history of the world, and the agency ought to be fired and people ought to quit drinking their beer. It's an insult. And no, we're not being P.C. at all.
HEMMER: Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING, Christine.
ROMANS: Thank you very much. I love the controversy.
HEMMER: It's wonderful to have you for another week here.
ROMANS: Jack, it's great to have you back.
HEMMER: Break here in a moment, back to Florida. Back to Florida, day three now after Charley and the news gets even tougher by the day.
We'll let you know what's happening today with sunup there on a Monday morning after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Still to come: Michael Jackson visits with children. He also says he has a special reason for being in court today.
Stay with us, on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God. Here comes another one. It's bad. It's bad.
HEMMER (voice-over): Hurricane Charley ripping through Florida. Today, again, thousands trying to pick up their lives and put them back together.
The race is on to save scores of homes out west. Hundreds of firefighters battling a massive blaze there.
And another strange chapter in the Michael Jackson matter. The whole Jackson family to court today to face down the man who's putting Michael on trial on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(END VIDEOTAPE) ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien.
HEMMER (on camera): Good morning, everybody. Almost 9:00 here in New York. Heidi Collins is along with me again on this Monday morning.
Good morning to you. Good weekend?
COLLINS: Yeah, relatively. Sick child.
HEMMER: Yes. How is he doing?
COLLINS: He's doing well, thank you.
HEMMER: All right, well, we wish him the best for him. Also the best for the folks in Florida again today. Charley is gone, we know that, but residents along that coast trying to pick up the pieces of their lives.
In a moment, we'll talk to the official from the county hardest hit by that storm late on Friday afternoon.
COLLINS: Also, we'll go live to Santa Maria, California. Michael Jackson will be in court today for a pretrial hearing, and he's bringing the whole family with him. That's because today's star witness is the district attorney. We'll explain more about that.
HEMMER: Also, the Scott Peterson case, back in court today after an off day on Friday. Jurors expected to hear more taped phone conversations between Peterson and Amber Frey.
On the last tape we heard last week, Peterson revealed one of his biggest secrets. And CNN's Rusty Dornin joins us for a preview of what we expect today in court. So, stay tuned for that.
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 August 16, 2004 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Also if you air woman having a hard time kicking the habit, there might be a good reason for that. It seems not all treatments work as well for women as they do for men. We're going to page Dr. Gupta on that. He's going to have some tips for us.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Also we'll talk to James Woolsey in a few moments. He's one of three former CIA directors testifying today before the 9/11 committee opposed to some of the recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission. We'll talk about that in a moment here. James Woolsey our guest in a few minutes.
COLLINS: Later this morning, though, President Bush will unveil a plan to redeploy U.S. military forces worldwide and bring tens of thousands of troops back home.
Elaine Quijano is live at the White House now with more details on this.
Elaine, good morning to you.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi.
Well, he will be doing that at a speech this morning in Cincinnati. The Bush/Cheney campaign saying it is an official campaign event, and campaign aides are calling this a major foreign policy announcement that will involve some 70,000 American troops, in what they say will be the largest U.S. troop realignment since the end of the Cold War.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Bush is set to announce what Pentagon officials say has been in the works for some time, a change in where and how the United States positions its military forces around the world.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld discussed it earlier this month.
DONALD RUMSFELD, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: We've decided that it's time to shift our posture in Europe and Asia and around the world and move from static defense, which does not make much sense today, to a more deployable and usable set of capabilities. QUIJANO: Pentagon and senior administration officials say the president's announcement will describe a major reduction and repositioning of U.S. forces overseas. While they won't talk total troop numbers, they say most reductions will come from Europe, the rest from Asia. One official says the plan would bring some 100,000 family members of military support staff back to the United States.
The move, say officials, is designed to reflect a ready posture for the war on terror rather than the cold war stance adopted years ago when officials believed the Soviet Union posed the biggest threat to America.
U.S. officials emphasize they've consulted with American allies and members of Congress along the way.
SEN. RICHARD LUGAR (R), FOREIGN RELATIONS CHAIRMAN: So this is a fundamental change, and it's a change probably in the tactics of our military so that our people will be more mobile, more available at other places all over the earth.
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: There are some things that we should do to re-deploy troops so that they're in the best position possible for what the new threats are.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUIJANO: Now yesterday Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrapping up a trip to Europe and Asia said that this proposed troop realignment would take place over several years and would likely mean more American service personnel stationed inside the United States -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Elaine Quijano, live from the White House this morning. Elaine, thanks.
HEMMER: There's a Senate committee already today going to hear testimony from three men who used to run the CIA. At issue once again will be the 9/11 Commission recommendations for intelligence reform. Who better to know about that and talk about it than the former CIA director James Woolsey back in D.C. and back with us on AMERICAN MORNING.
Welcome back. Good to have you here.
JAMES WOOLSEY, FMR. CIA DIRECTOR: Good to be with you, Bill.
HEMMER: I understand you think that the No. 1 thing is not to necessarily reorganize the intelligence community. You don't believe that is what is most effective. Explain those comments to us?
WOOLSEY: Well, I generally support the commission's reorganization recommendations, although I like Congresswoman Jane Harman's version of it, a somewhat modified version.
But I don't think reorganization is the main thing we need to improve foreign intelligence. I think it's substantive changes. I think the current organization could probably work with the right people.
And also people shouldn't think that foreign intelligence collection is the main thing that's going to protect us against terrorism. After all, the 9/11 plotters worked principally in two countries, Germany and the United States, where American foreign intelligence doesn't collect, and satellites don't tell you that much about terrorists.
The more we talk about signals intercepts, such as what we were get on bin Laden's satellite telephone back before 1998 when someone decided to talk to the press about it, the more they changed their communications pattern.
So people are going to have to realize, we're going to have to improve the resilience of our networks here in the United States of all sorts to keep them, you know, the oil and gas pipelines, the Internet, to keep them from being taken down by terrorists. Even without our having foreign intelligence information about what's going to occur.
HEMMER: Despite all that, it still seems that the 9/11 Commission is pretty strong in its opinion that a national intelligence director, an intelligence czar, needs to be created that supersedes the FBI and the CIA. Do you support that?
WOOLSEY: In part. That's what I was referring to, that I think Congresswoman Harman's original formulation of this is better really than the commission's, and I think better than the original reaction from the White House. The commission really does lean towards czardom, and I must say, I think several hundred years of stupidity and autocracy, followed by the victory of Bolshevism is not a good model for the management of American intelligence. The Harman proposal is more moderate than that. It would let this new official, for example, appoint jointly with the secretary of defense, the heads of defense agencies, such as the National Security Agency, and it would give the secretary of defense the ability to object, not necessarily to win, but to object, if the new national intelligence director moved money from one defense intelligence program to another, and I think that's a superior formulation.
HEMMER: You've referred to Jane Harman's idea twice now. Do others in Washington believe the same, and is there a majority on that?
WOOLSEY: Well, I don't know, but I hope so. I haven't been really part of any deliberations on this. The commission says they are implementing something very much like her recommendations, but, in fact, I think the commission goes much further and establishes this new official with so much overall power that it's a problem.
HEMMER: I see.
One final question here, 41 recommendations given out by the 9/11 Commission. If you embrace some of them, what do you oppose?
WOOLSEY: I agree with about 35 or 36 of those entirely and all but one, and all but one, I agree with in part. The one I think that is a serious problem is moving all paramilitary operations, such as the CIA's paramilitary operations, into the Pentagon. I think that that could lead to our special forces, you know, the Navy SEALS, and Army special forces and others, having some of the types of constraints that are on the CIA placed on them, with respect to formal findings by the president and all the rest. I think that could limit our military forces ability to fight effectively in some of these guerrilla, and counter-guerrilla and terrorist operations.
HEMMER: We'll be listening for your testimony today, you and two of your colleagues as well. James Woolsey, thanks, in D.C. -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Thirty-seven minutes past the hour now, time for a look at some of today's other news, and Carol Costello, and heading back to Florida -- Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right, thank you, Heidi.
Repair crews are pouring into the most heavily damaged areas of Florida in an effort to restore utility and phone service after Hurricane Charley. One million residents are still without power this morning. Aid agencies have already provided more than 300,000 meals. More than 20 Florida counties have been designated eligible for federal disaster assistance.
On the campaign trail this morning, President Bush will rally in Michigan. He'll speak at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Ohio, a key battleground state. Senator John Kerry will speak to the same convention on Wednesday. He's now vacationing in Idaho. In the meantime, his running mate, Senator John Edwards is meeting with voters in Missouri and Georgia.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says his victory today is a victory for the common people. Preliminary polling results show the president survived a referendum that would have removed him from office two years before the end of his term. More than eight million people turned out to vote. Officials say that is a record turn out for any election in that country.
And at the box office, "Alien Versus Predator" invaded theaters, hunting down the No. 1 spot this weekend. The sci-fi thriller scared its way into the top spot by grabbing more than $38 million. That's according to studio estimates. "The Princess Diaries" sequel opened in second place, with a three-day gross of $23 million.
Can't believe that opened in second place. Back to you, Heidi.
COLLINS: I haven't seen the movie in, like, years now.
HEMMER: "Alien Versus Predator," I think Hollywood is running out of ideas.
COLLINS: Yes, kind of an old idea.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COLLINS: By the way, I have seen movies, but not in months, I said years. Maybe I sounded kind of like a geek.
HEMMER: No, you would never be a geek.
COLLINS: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, Miller beer went to a lot of trouble to remember the birth of rock 'n' roll. So how could they forget one of the most important things?
HEMMER: Also, men and women are not equal when it comes to kicking the habit. Sanjay knows that. He explains after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Nicotine replacements help many smokers trying to quit, but now a new study suggests women may have a harder time kicking the habit than men.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta joining us from the CNN Center with details.
It doesn't seem fair, Sanjay.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It doesn't seem fair.
You know, quitting is hard for everybody, there is no question about that. But a certain study now coming out of Texas A&M tried to evaluate all these nicotine-replacement methods, we're talking about the lozenges, the patches, the gum, all that. They analyzed 21 different studies, big studies, and tried to figure out, who does it work better for, men or women?
And what they found actually sort of interesting. At least initially, for the first six months there's -- women tend to have a -- I think we have a -- this is the second graphic. Let me go to that first -- there we go, nicotine replacements -- for the first six months, equally better, for men and women, for the first six months. Twelve months, as you start to get to a year, men have two times better an effect than placebo, whereas women have about the same effect with these nicotine replacements than placebo.
Now let's go to that other graphic here. Let me show you, if you combine those nicotine replacements, plus therapy, women tend to do two times better than placebo, whereas men got little benefit from adding the therapy to the nicotine replacement. Really interesting there. I think it really speaks to how these treatments might change, might need to be different in men and women. Women tend to get better benefits if you combine the therapy with nicotine replacements. Men don't seem to care about the therapy as much -- Heidi.
COLLINS: So how do we explain the gender difference then? What's the difference between men and women?
GUPTA: Well, there's lots of differences in terms of...
COLLINS: On this note, I should say.
GUPTA: On this note, yes. Well, when it comes to nicotine replacement, when it comes to smoking overall, a lot of it has to do with expectations. What are the expectations from smoking? What are the expectations from quitting smoking? For example, with women, they tend to worry more about weight gain. They tend to use cigarettes more to relieve anxieties, things like that. They tend to fixate on that hand, oral sort of movement which is something that cigarettes provide as well. Whereas men they almost just want to get the nicotine, they want to get the nicotine, which is why if you give them nicotine replacements, they are going to succeed more in terms of quitting. Women need that therapy as well -- Heidi.
COLLINS: So what's the approach then that people should follow? II mean, you can't really just put on a patch and slap it on there and go. I mean, isn't it different for everybody?
GUPTA: Yes, for women especially. I think that the message is this: Even initially, even at the beginning, if you are trying to quit smoking, you probably need to combine both the nicotine replacement and at least some therapy. Therapy can come in all sorts of different ways. Professional therapy obviously is going to be a very good option. But set a quit date, talk to your friends and family about that. Identify your motivation -- why your doing this? Get rid of all the smoking paraphernalia in the house. Don't hide any cigarettes, and this is an important point, the last one, be prepared to slip every now and then. People have set very high expectations in terms of quitting cold turkey, for example. If they're going to slip a little bit, that's okay, keep on the train and hopefully you'll succeed -- Heidi.
COLLINS: OK, it's a hard one to kick, that's for sure. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much for that this morning.
Still to come, is there new hope for Wal-Mart as it faces a record sex -- let me try this again -- sex-discrimination suit? That's it. And it is coming up next, here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: All righty. Welcome back.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Wal-Mart getting a chance to defend itself again. Actually A big decision in their favor. And a moron on the loose at the Miller Brewing Company, an absolute village idiot running amok at the Miller Brewing Company.
Christine Romans, in for Andy Serwer, "Minding Your Business."
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS: Let's start with Wal-Mart, I guess, because you're right. It is a little bit of a victory in the war between Wal-Mart and 1.6 million women who are in a class-action sex discrimination suit. It's called the mother of all sex discrimination suits.
Stakes really high, and Wal-Mart winning a court battle. It wants these suits to be considered separately store by store. Opponents say nothing at Wal-Mart is done store by store, but an appeals court is going to consider whether this should be class action at all.
The women want their cases to be heard together for convenience and also for the power, the leverage that they get. Possibly a settlement kind of situation. The payout, analysts say, could be a billion dollars if Wal-Mart loses.
This is what Wal-Mart is accused of: systematically promoting men; hiring men and paying them more; not promoting women to managers unless they can lift a 50-pound bag of dog food. Female managers, once they could lift that bag of dog food, according to the suit, had to go to Hooters and strip clubs for meetings.
CAFFERTY: Well, that's -- that's OK.
ROMANS: Yes -- Jack. Women were called "little Janey-Qs" and "girls." And a Florida manager in this suit, a man, said, "Women work in retail just for extra money. Men are the heads of households, so of course they should be paid more."
Sounds like 1950s...
CAFFERTY: So, Miller's not the only place where there are morons running amuck. Wal-Mart has some, too, apparently.
ROMANS: According to this suit. But you'd think the big companies would know that diversity is in their best interest, which brings me to this Miller -- Miller beer can controversy.
The 50th anniversary of rock and roll, it picks these six artists to have special commemoration cans: Elvis, Blondie, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Willie Nelson, and two cans with guitars. No black artists, and this is...
CAFFERTY: This is obscene. Stupid -- where's Ray Charles? Where's Little Richard? Where's Chuck Berry?
ROMANS: This is why people...
CAFFERTY: Willie Nelson -- I mean, Willie Nelson is a country songwriter.
ROMANS: One outraged Syracuse professor told the Associated Press, "It's like doing a set of six great impressionist paintings and not including any Frenchmen."
CAFFERTY: Who's the great left-handed guitar player that came along in the '60s? Hendrix? I mean...
ROMANS: Miller says it didn't consider race.
CAFFERTY: I mean, I quit drinking...
ROMANS: It just picked Def Leppard over Ray Charles. CAFFERTY: I quit drinking anything 15 years ago. If I still drank, I'd never have another can of Miller beer as long as I live. They should fire the advertising agency...
HEMMER: Amen.
CAFFERTY: ... that allowed that kind of thing to go through. That's insulting. Def Leppard and Blondie? They didn't invent anything.
ROMANS: Six beer cans.
CAFFERTY: Those people didn't invent anything.
HEMMER: And two guitars.
ROMANS: And two guitars over -- over, you know, Ray Charles or Little Richard.
CAFFERTY: Morons. That's just -- that's terrible. Ray Charles should have been there.
HEMMER: Where's Miller brewed?
ROMANS: Well, it's brewed all over the place.
CAFFERTY: Probably in Cleveland or Cincinnati.
HEMMER: It's not Michigan, is it? Wouldn't be Motown, would it?
ROMANS: They have breweries all over the place, but SAB is a...
CAFFERTY: Fats Domino invented...
ROMANS: South African Breweries owns Miller now. So, it's majority owned by a South African company.
CAFFERTY: The Platters. I mean, come on! The early days of rock and roll: The Platters, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry.
HEMMER: I'm on board.
CAFFERTY: What are the markets going to do?
ROMANS: Def Leppard. Def Leppard.
CAFFERTY: Def Leppard -- got your Def Leppard -- what are the markets going to do?
ROMANS: Markets are probably going to be a little bit higher, I'm predicting. But everyone else is saying mixed. And I think that if you see oil prices coming down, Jack, then it'll be a pretty decent day in the market.
CAFFERTY: Good. Thanks, Christine. ROMANS: You're welcome.
CAFFERTY: There's a guy in Louisiana, he's 26 years old, sentenced to five years probation. The judge has dubbed him "The Serial Snuggler." This would be the Monday edition of the "File."
He sneaks into women's apartments. He folds their clothes, and in some cases he makes nachos, and then he crawls into bed with them. In one case, he rubbed a woman's stomach. None of them were hurt -- terrified, probably, but not hurt.
The judge attributed the snuggler's behavior to the use of drugs and alcohol. there's an unconfirmed report that some of the women have invited him back. Apparently he does make great nachos.
First there was the Arnold Schwarzenegger -- Christine has just gone over the back of her chair.
Remember the Arnold Schwarzenegger bobblehead doll, depicting the Governator wearing a suit and brandishing his assault rifle? That caused a lawsuit that Schwarzenegger filed against the dollmaker, John Edgell, who agreed to back off, disarm the doll, quit making it.
Well, then last month, Schwarzenegger -- we did this on the AMERICAN MORNING "Question of the Day" -- remember when he called a bunch of Democrats in Sacramento "girlie-men" for holding up the state budget? Now the same guy Edgell has announced plans for a "girlie- man" Arnold Schwarzenegger doll featuring the Governator wearing a pink dress, lipstick, and some eye makeup. No response yet from the Schwarzenegger camp.
And you think there might be preservatives in that junk food you like? Check this out. Roger Bennatti, he's a science teacher in Maine, and he placed a Twinkie -- a standard run-of-the-mill supermarket Twinkie -- on the edge of his blackboard in his classroom 30 years ago to see how long it would take to spoil.
It's still there. It's brittle now. It has a few specks of mold, but otherwise it has stood the test of time. Bennatti says it's probably still edible. Three decades, and it probably still tastes better than the school's meat loaf that they serve on Tuesdays.
Can you believe that? A Twinkie.
COLLINS: He says it's probably still edible. He's too afraid to try it.
CAFFERTY: No, he didn't -- hasn't. That's all I have.
You should boycott Miller beer. Oh, there's more?
HEMMER: You have one more thing, Jack.
CAFFERTY: The scorecard. See, I was away a week, and I have to be retrained when I get back. The number of days since the 9/11 Commission made recommendations for protecting the country against terrorism? Nothing changes -- 25 days. Number of recommendations adopted by Congress? Still zero. They say they are holding hearings, which is, you know, what we need are more Congressional hearings. We haven't had enough in three years.
HEMMER: Def Leppard, Blondie?
There ought to be a law.
ROMANS: Are we being too P.C.?
CAFFERTY: No. That's an insult to some of the great pioneers of a music form that changed the history of the world, and the agency ought to be fired and people ought to quit drinking their beer. It's an insult. And no, we're not being P.C. at all.
HEMMER: Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING, Christine.
ROMANS: Thank you very much. I love the controversy.
HEMMER: It's wonderful to have you for another week here.
ROMANS: Jack, it's great to have you back.
HEMMER: Break here in a moment, back to Florida. Back to Florida, day three now after Charley and the news gets even tougher by the day.
We'll let you know what's happening today with sunup there on a Monday morning after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Still to come: Michael Jackson visits with children. He also says he has a special reason for being in court today.
Stay with us, on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God. Here comes another one. It's bad. It's bad.
HEMMER (voice-over): Hurricane Charley ripping through Florida. Today, again, thousands trying to pick up their lives and put them back together.
The race is on to save scores of homes out west. Hundreds of firefighters battling a massive blaze there.
And another strange chapter in the Michael Jackson matter. The whole Jackson family to court today to face down the man who's putting Michael on trial on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(END VIDEOTAPE) ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien.
HEMMER (on camera): Good morning, everybody. Almost 9:00 here in New York. Heidi Collins is along with me again on this Monday morning.
Good morning to you. Good weekend?
COLLINS: Yeah, relatively. Sick child.
HEMMER: Yes. How is he doing?
COLLINS: He's doing well, thank you.
HEMMER: All right, well, we wish him the best for him. Also the best for the folks in Florida again today. Charley is gone, we know that, but residents along that coast trying to pick up the pieces of their lives.
In a moment, we'll talk to the official from the county hardest hit by that storm late on Friday afternoon.
COLLINS: Also, we'll go live to Santa Maria, California. Michael Jackson will be in court today for a pretrial hearing, and he's bringing the whole family with him. That's because today's star witness is the district attorney. We'll explain more about that.
HEMMER: Also, the Scott Peterson case, back in court today after an off day on Friday. Jurors expected to hear more taped phone conversations between Peterson and Amber Frey.
On the last tape we heard last week, Peterson revealed one of his biggest secrets. And CNN's Rusty Dornin joins us for a preview of what we expect today in court. So, stay tuned for that.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
