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American Morning
Florida Cleans Up After Hurricane Frances; Street Battles Continue in Iraq
Aired September 07, 2004 - 7:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.
Florida -- like a state that's been stepped on yet again. This morning, assessing the damage from three drenching days of Frances.
Insurgents battle U.S. troops in the streets of Baghdad. The shoot out coming as American casualties suddenly spike higher.
And on the campaign trail...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
U.S. SENATOR JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: George W. Bush, and the W stands for wrong.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My opponent woke up this morning with new campaign advisers, and yet another new position.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: The candidates cranking up the campaign yet again on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING, with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien.
HEMMER: All right. Good morning, everyone. Tuesday here in New York City. 7:00 in the morning, and good morning. Soledad and Heidi are off.
Kelly Wallace back with us again today.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you.
HEMMER: Great to have you here, by the way.
WALLACE: Great to have you back here in New York.
HEMMER: Well, thank you.
That was a long storm, by the way. It started blowing at 6 o'clock in the morning on Saturday, it was still going at 4 o'clock in the afternoon Sunday.
I mean, we were sick of Frances on Sunday. I can't imagine what the people in Florida are still dealing with there. A lot of folks without power and electricity. And good luck.
WALLACE: Many more days for them ahead.
HEMMER: Yeah, hang in there too.
WALLACE: Absolutely.
Other stories on another very busy AMERICAN MORNING: Former President Bill Clinton was apparently in grave danger before his heart operation. We'll find out more about his recovery from a quadruple bypass and what the doctors discovered from Dr. Sanjay Gupta in just a few minutes.
HEMMER: Also this morning, how long can the U.S. afford to wait before taking a more aggressive stand on the country of Iran and its alleged nuclear weapons programs? The U.S. options, not all good ones, are guaranteed to work either, for that matter. We'll have a look at that.
Jack is off -- he is off all week, is that right?
WALLACE: Off all week enjoying some time in New Jersey, I believe.
HEMMER: He's a lucky man, yeah.
Toure is in, back with us today. So we'll get to Toure a bit later this hour.
First though, want to get to Iraq. An American soldier already dying today fighting militants loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad. The number of U.S. troops lost in the war now almost at 1,000.
Diana Muriel starts our coverage live in Baghdad now -- Diana.
DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bill, indeed 12 U.S. soldiers, including seven Marines killed near Fallujah on Monday, have died in the past 24 hours. That brings the total number of U.S. soldiers who have died here in Iraq since the beginning of the conflict back in March 2003 to 998 -- very close to that 1,000 figure.
The concentration of attacks in Baghdad, in the area around Baghdad, have been in Sadr City, a slum district to the north of the main conivation (ph) of Baghdad. There were violent confrontations there during the night, late afternoon and during the night, with U.S. forces.
We have heard from U.S. military sources who tell us that one soldier died there and five were wounded. The ministry of health tells us that 30 Iraqi civilians were killed and nearly 200 were wounded.
There were three separate rocket-propelled grenade attacks on U.S. forces and five homemade bombs which exploded. One Bradley armored personnel carrier was damaged and one tank was destroyed. There is still fighting going on in Sadr City as I speak to you and no sign of any end to this conflict. They appear to be members of the Mehdi militia who have come back from Najaf after the crisis ended there, and they have seemed to have -- after a few days of relative peace and quiet in that area, they seem to have taken up arms again against U.S. forces -- Bill.
HEMMER: Diana, thanks.
Diana Muriel working the story there in Baghdad. That's our lead story this morning.
To the other news, "News in the Now" with Betty Nguyen at the CNN Center.
Good morning.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Bill.
Israeli forces are pounding Palestinian militants in Gaza City. Israeli helicopters fired missiles at what they said was a Hamas training camp. A Palestinian source says at least 15 people were killed. Medical sources say as many as 50 people are wounded.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is accusing some U.S. officials of undermining Russia's war on terrorism by supporting Chechen separatists. Putin says U.S. demands for Russia to negotiate with the Chechen separatists is comparable to the U.S. holding talks with Osama bin Laden. The comment comes as thousands of Russians are preparing for an anti-terror march in Moscow set to begin in just about two hours.
Well, last week's Republican convention is energizing President Bush's re-election campaign. A new poll shows the president gained two percentage points and is now the choice of 52 percent of likely voters. Democratic candidate John Kerry slips down to 45 percent since last week. The CNN/"USA Today" Gallup poll was conducted by telephone between September 3rd and 5th.
And a little sports news -- Tiger Woods is bumped from the top spot in golf. Yesterday, Vijay Singh won a head-to-head matchup with Tiger Woods, and that ended his record reign of 264 weeks as the world's top-ranked golfer. Singh withstood a mid-round challenge from Woods to win the Deutsche Bank Open. It's his tour-leading sixth victory of the year.
Back to you, Bill.
HEMMER: He's not used to second place, is he?
NGUYEN: No, he is not. We'll see how it fares out all in the end.
HEMMER: Thank you, Betty.
Want to get back to Frances now. Once mighty Hurricane Frances now just a tropical depression. But even in the city of Atlanta today and throughout Georgia, that storm dropping six to 10 inches across the Deep South.
Hurricane Frances now blamed for at least six deaths in the state of Florida, two more back in the Bahamas.
As Tom Foreman reports today, it's going to be a while before Floridians get back to business as usual.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Six million people without electricity, 90,000 in shelters, and up to $10 billion in property damage. By the numbers alone, Frances was a monster.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just went on and on and on and on and on.
FOREMAN: And the clean up is going to be mammoth too. Extra utility crews and relief trucks are heading in from all around the South and people are lining up by the thousands just for the basics.
LT. GOV. TONI JENNINGS (R), FLORIDA: We're focused on mass care at this point. That's the ice water, food, comfort stations headed toward those areas in southeast Florida that had the first of the impact.
FOREMAN: The loss of lives was relatively small considering the storm's size, but among the fatalities are a former son-in-law and a grandson of Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden. They died in a car crash on a wet road.
Many residents are grateful they lost only property, but at places like this decimated marina, where the National Guard is now standing by to stop looting, that is little comfort.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, it's got insurance on it. That's all I can do is collect the insurance. And we spent all our free time working on it, trying to keep it nice. (INAUDIBLE) What can you do?
FOREMAN: Up in the panhandle where Frances passed with little of the expected damage, a sigh of relief.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You never know what you're going to get. So you have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
FOREMAN (on camera): Authorities say their biggest concern now is people who fled the storm trying to go home too soon. With so many power lines down and basic services missing, they say it's still not safe and probably won't be for a few days.
Tom Foreman, CNN, on the Florida Gulf Coast.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: Tom, thanks for that.
Now this morning, Karen Hagan from the Red Cross joining me now, assessing the damage and clean up efforts.
And good morning to you, Karen.
I know in that part of Florida spared largely by the wrath of Frances. You felt it yesterday. However, throughout the state of Florida, what's the biggest concern today on this Tuesday?
KAREN HAGAN, RED CROSS SPOKESWOMAN: Well, right now -- you've said that we had almost 200,000 people in shelters. Last night, we sheltered about 40,000 people.
And what that means is a lot of folks are getting ready to go back to their communities. When they get back there, whether or not their homes are still standing is going to be of major concern to them.
And so, of course, what we're concerned about is their safety; making sure that if they smell gas, they don't enter; if there is water in their homes that they ascertain what the safety is of their habitat.
And so, we're going to be looking at doing disaster assessment today; trying to get a good idea of the kind of damage that's out there; and, of course, really gearing up to do mobile feeding and mass feeding and taking care of those very basic needs.
HEMMER: Karen, how much help is coming in?
HAGAN: We've had about 10,000 Red Cross volunteers and staff come in to Florida. We've had to move some of the folks that were still assisting in Hurricane Charley up to help with sheltering and mass care.
And we continue to send people in from the Southeast and from all over the country.
HEMMER: For those without power, and for those without water, how can the Red Cross help out?
HAGAN: Well, one of the things we're going to do, if they go back to their communities and they can't get back into their home, of course, we're going to need to keep some of the shelters open.
And if they don't have any power, that's when mobile feeding is going to be very important, because we'll need to be going community- community, street-to-street to try to make sure that people are fed; trying to make sure that there's ice to be distributed.
We don't know how long the power's going to be out. So we just need to make sure that people's basic needs are met.
HEMMER: Good luck, Karen.
The governor down there, Jeb Bush already saying that the damage from this storm could match Charley. If that's the case, you're talking about $7 billion in damage. So good luck to you and everyone working down there, OK?
HAGAN: Thank you very much.
HEMMER: All right, Karen.
(WEATHER UPDATE)
WALLACE: Turning now to Bill Clinton. Doctors say the former president should be able to leave a New York hospital in several days. He is recovering from a quadruple-bypass operation. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been at New York Presbyterian Hospital all day yesterday. He's back again this morning with more on the procedures and the president's prognosis.
Good morning, Sanjay.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kelly. He's resting now. He's off the breathing machine and expected to leave the ICU later on today.
Listen, the doctors say he was very close a heart attack. In fact, if nothing had been done, they say that heart attack could have come within a couple of weeks.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): A procedure that's done 1,000 times a day in America was done yesterday on a former president: cardiac bypass surgery. The result? successful.
DR. CRAIG SMITH, NEW YORK-PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: He had a relatively routine quadruple-bypass operation. We left the operating room around noon, and he is recovering normally at this point.
GUPTA: During the operation, Clinton's chest was opened, his heart was stopped, and he was put on a heart-lung machine. The bypass procedure was then performed, and his heart restarted. The operation took four hours. It will be two or three months before Mr. Clinton is 100 percent.
SMITH: It would be common for him to be ready to leave the hospital within four or five days. Right now, based on how he's doing, there's no reason to think he wouldn't fall within the same experience.
DR. ALLAN SCHWARTZ, NEW YORK-PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: At home he'll have a schedule of exercise that will gradually increase and he will gradually resume an entirely normal physical exercise and work schedule.
GUPTA: Bill Clinton has had access to the world's best medical care, but that can't erase a lifetime of bad eating habits and a family history of heart problems. And so the larger message of Mr. Clinton's surgery may be increased awareness of the No. 1 killer of men and women in America: heart disease. (END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: To be clear, he actually had symptoms for a couple of months. And when they did that angiogram test, his arteries were over 90 percent blocked. That's pretty significant, obviously. Also another larger message is that he often confused this with reflux. if you're having chest pains, go see your doctor, Kelly.
WALLACE: Good advice, Sanjay.
As you noted in your report, the doctors used a procedure involving stopping the former president's heart, I believe for 73 minutes. Why do they opt for this rather than a less invasive procedure?
GUPTA: Well, you know, the heart-stopping sort of procedure is the more tried-and-true method. That's the procedure that's done 1,000 times a day, almost 400,000 time as day in the United States.
I asked the doctor that question specifically. What they said is they did consider the more minimally invasive procedure when they keep the heart beating. But in president Clinton's case, they said because of the anatomy of some of his blood vessels, he just wasn't a candidate for that. So head the tried-and-true method. It worked fine for him -- Kelly.
WALLACE: Thanks, Sanjay. And we'll check in with you next hour, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, outside New York Presbyterian Hospital.
And later this morning, we will be talking with Dr. Craig Smith, President Clinton's lead surgeon. That is at 9:00 a.m. Eastern, right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
HEMMER: It's got to be very tough for Bill Clinton to be sitting in a hospital bed right now during a campaign season, just itching to go, too.
WALLACE: Itching to be out there, exactly.
HEMMER: In a moment, just what are Iran's nuclear ambitions? A new sense of urgency regarding Tehran's plan. Some U.S. officials say there's a frightening pattern developing.
WALLACE: Also ahead, the murder trial of Scott Peterson resumes. A surprising and unwilling prosecution witness could soon take the stand.
HEMMER: Also, Senator Kerry on the attack, but gets hit by a stinging jab from the vice president. Live reports from the campaign trail, ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Now to campaign 2004. Senator Kerry a rally today in North Carolina. That's before he heads to Cincinnati and the key battleground state of Ohio. Labor Day gave no rest for the Democratic candidate.
Ed Henry now in Greensboro, North Carolina, following that campaign.
Ed, good morning.
ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
That's right. Senator Kerry will be having a town hall meeting here in North Carolina, focused on the economy. But even as Kerry pushes his domestic agenda, he keeps getting pulled back into the debate over Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE; Let me give you the next president of the United States, senator John Kerry!
HENRY (voice-over): Prodded by critics in his own patter, John Kerry spent Labor Day trying to shift the focus on domestic issues and sharpening his attacks on President Bush.
SEN. KERRY BUSH (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It all comes down to one letter -- 'W.' George W. Bush. What do you think that 'W' stands for? that 'W' stands for wrong -- wrong direction, wrong choices , wrong priorities, wrong judgment for our country!
HENRY: At stops in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Kerry hammered away on the economy, education and Medicare. And in West Virginia, Kerry added guns to the mix, trying not to repeat a mistake that cost Al Gore some critical electoral votes.
Kerry's need for a push on the domestic front is clear in a new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll. Bush leads 52 percent to 45 percent in the horse race, with a slight bounce from his convention. More importantly, the president has double digit leads on the question of who would do a better job on terror and handling Iraq. Kerry, meanwhile, has just a three-point edge on the economy.
But even as Kerry trained his eyes on domestic matters, he could not avoid controversy over Iraq at a front porch event in Pennsylvania.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sickens me to hear on the news, they talk about coalition troops. Those are United States troops, folks. And they're being shot at and harmed and murdered every day.
KERRY: When they talk about a coalition, that's the phoniest thing I ever heard. It's the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.
HENRY: That drew a sharp rebuke from Vice President Cheney.
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When it comes to diplomacy, looks to me like John Kerry should stick to wind surfing. (LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HENRY: Kerry fired back late last night, saying there's not one thing on Iraq he would do differently than the president did. He said he would do everything differently. So the sniping continues, Bill.
HEMMER: Ed Henry in Greensboro, North Carolina -- Kelly.
WALLACE: Thanks, Bill.
And President Bush is also on the campaign trail today, making several stops in the battleground state of Missouri.
Elaine Quijano is live at the White House.
Elaine, the president in Missouri yesterday, there again today. Clearly an important state for both candidates.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, obviously.
Good morning to you, Kelly. President Bush is working hard to put Missouri in his win column, as he did back in 2000, when he won by three percentage points in that state over Al Gore.
The president, as you said, making a few stops today. He will begin his campaign day at the town of Leaf Summit, which is a suburb of Kansas City. He then moves on to an "ask President Bush" event in the town of Bedalia (ph), and then wraps up his day in Missouri with a rally in Columbia.
But yesterday, the president took some time during his Labor Day to deride his Democratic rival, Senator John Kerry, speaking at a rally in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and energized by new favorable poll numbers on Iraq and the war on terror, two issues most important to voters. Mr. Bush took opportunity to mock the Massachusetts senator for shifting positions, he said, on Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: After voting for the war, but against funding it, after saying he would have voted for the war, even knowing everything we know today, my opponent woke up this morning with new campaign advisers and yet another new position. Suddenly, he's against it again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: Now Senator Kerry has repeatedly argued that he would have done everything different than President Bush with regard to Iraq.
As for President Bush, he is planning a visit tomorrow, White House officials say, to visit the state of Florida, where his brother, Jeb, is governor. The president will survey the damage done in that state by Hurricane Frances -- Kelly.
WALLACE: Elaine, thanks so much. Elaine Quijano, reporting live from the White House -- Bill.
HEMMER: Now you have two hurricanes in three weeks. One Florida industry may be hurting more than any other. Andy's "Minding Your Business." He has that, after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Welcome back, everyone. Frances slamming the Sunshine State. How much now will it cost the citrus industry? And this is one of the biggest you're going to find in the entire state of Florida.
Andy's back this morning, back from a long weekend, "Minding Your Business."
Great to have you back.
ANDY SERWER, "MINDING YOUR BUSINESS": Good to see you back, Bill, from Florida.
HEMMER: How are the orange groves, huh?
SERWER: Not good. A $9 billion industry in Florida, Bill. And obviously, Hurricane Frances caused all kinds of damage there, coming right on the heels of Hurricane Charley.
Overall damage for the hurricanes, we mentioned earlier, Charley $7 billion. Wide estimates for Frances at this point, anywhere from $2 billion to $15 billion. That typically happens right on the heels, and then they'll narrow it down. Probably going to end up being about the same.
Some real devastating pictures here. Those are just grapefruits on the ground. There's no other way to put it.
Now this picture is really amazing, look at that, 80 percent to 90 percent of the fruit on the ground. The groves are flooded, that's rotting out the roots, and St. Lucie (ph) County and Indian River County in particular, also really, really hurt there. Oranges hurt as well. Orange prices probably not going to go up so much, because there was a bumper crop over the past two years, and also consumption of orange juice has gone down.
HEMMER: As you have pointed out in the past. That's just Frances. I mean, Charley did so much damage, too, in the central part of the state as well.
Theme parks were closed down over the weekend, too; it's Labor Day weekend.
SERWER: Yes, that was a big -- Disney talking about that as well. Obviously, no one out on the park. Kind of minimum damage, though -- just one stage roof blown off, apparently. And all the parks in the Orlando area are open for business. But you're right, Bill, three days of nothing for those businesses.
HEMMER: And the Kennedy Space Center, too, took a wallop. They were clocking winds about 124 miles an hour, the gusts anyway, at Cape Canaveral.
SERWER: Right, yes.
HEMMER: Welcome back.
SERWER: Good to see you.
HEMMER: Talk to you later -- Kelly.
WALLACE: Thanks, Andy. Thanks, Bill.
Jack Cafferty the day off. So time for the Question of the Day from Toure.
TOURE: Yeah.
WALLACE: I love it. I can't get enough of the...
TOURE: You know, that picture that you showed, that was a piece of art. I mean, that was beautiful.
SERWER: That was very bizarre, wasn't it? Striking...
(CROSSTALK)
TOURE: Yes, with the colors, and...
SERWER: Yes, that one right there.
TOURE: Yes, but as a photographer, like, that's art, that's beautiful.
WALLACE: That's somebody's livelihood, though.
SERWER: Yes, that's also true, Toure.
TOURE: Yes, that's true, that's true.
So yesterday President Clinton had successful bypass surgery. He ended up on the surgeon's table at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, after years of indulging his legendary appetite for junk food. His affinity for junk food contributed to his charisma, and certified him as a man of the people, but all that junk food nearly killed him.
Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I love Kentucky Fried Chicken far more than the next man.
SERWER: Who doesn't?
TOURE: But since I saw Morgan Spurlock's documentary, "Supersize Me," I've been far too scared to set foot in any fast-food emporium. But I digress. Junk food is quick, cheap, taste good, and is terrible for you. Some wonder if marijuana should be legal. We'll wondering if junk food should be illegal, or at least more closely monitored by the government the way alcohol is.
Are we smart enough to handle junk food in our lives, or should junk food be a controlled substance?
Our Question of the Day: Should the government strictly regulate junk food like it does with tobacco and alcohol? E-mail us now, am@CNN.com.
HEMMER: You think KFC's Junk food? I think that's dinner.
TOURE: It's a delicacy, unfortunately.
HEMMER: Thank you, Toure.
Let's get a break here. In a moment, is John Kerry getting ready to play hardball on the campaign trail? New names now on his team suggests that might be the case. We'll talk to the campaign chairwoman.
Also, the circus outside Scott Peterson's trial. The case seems to have its own groupies. A look at that in a moment here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired September 7, 2004 - 7:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.
Florida -- like a state that's been stepped on yet again. This morning, assessing the damage from three drenching days of Frances.
Insurgents battle U.S. troops in the streets of Baghdad. The shoot out coming as American casualties suddenly spike higher.
And on the campaign trail...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
U.S. SENATOR JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: George W. Bush, and the W stands for wrong.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My opponent woke up this morning with new campaign advisers, and yet another new position.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: The candidates cranking up the campaign yet again on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING, with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien.
HEMMER: All right. Good morning, everyone. Tuesday here in New York City. 7:00 in the morning, and good morning. Soledad and Heidi are off.
Kelly Wallace back with us again today.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you.
HEMMER: Great to have you here, by the way.
WALLACE: Great to have you back here in New York.
HEMMER: Well, thank you.
That was a long storm, by the way. It started blowing at 6 o'clock in the morning on Saturday, it was still going at 4 o'clock in the afternoon Sunday.
I mean, we were sick of Frances on Sunday. I can't imagine what the people in Florida are still dealing with there. A lot of folks without power and electricity. And good luck.
WALLACE: Many more days for them ahead.
HEMMER: Yeah, hang in there too.
WALLACE: Absolutely.
Other stories on another very busy AMERICAN MORNING: Former President Bill Clinton was apparently in grave danger before his heart operation. We'll find out more about his recovery from a quadruple bypass and what the doctors discovered from Dr. Sanjay Gupta in just a few minutes.
HEMMER: Also this morning, how long can the U.S. afford to wait before taking a more aggressive stand on the country of Iran and its alleged nuclear weapons programs? The U.S. options, not all good ones, are guaranteed to work either, for that matter. We'll have a look at that.
Jack is off -- he is off all week, is that right?
WALLACE: Off all week enjoying some time in New Jersey, I believe.
HEMMER: He's a lucky man, yeah.
Toure is in, back with us today. So we'll get to Toure a bit later this hour.
First though, want to get to Iraq. An American soldier already dying today fighting militants loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad. The number of U.S. troops lost in the war now almost at 1,000.
Diana Muriel starts our coverage live in Baghdad now -- Diana.
DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bill, indeed 12 U.S. soldiers, including seven Marines killed near Fallujah on Monday, have died in the past 24 hours. That brings the total number of U.S. soldiers who have died here in Iraq since the beginning of the conflict back in March 2003 to 998 -- very close to that 1,000 figure.
The concentration of attacks in Baghdad, in the area around Baghdad, have been in Sadr City, a slum district to the north of the main conivation (ph) of Baghdad. There were violent confrontations there during the night, late afternoon and during the night, with U.S. forces.
We have heard from U.S. military sources who tell us that one soldier died there and five were wounded. The ministry of health tells us that 30 Iraqi civilians were killed and nearly 200 were wounded.
There were three separate rocket-propelled grenade attacks on U.S. forces and five homemade bombs which exploded. One Bradley armored personnel carrier was damaged and one tank was destroyed. There is still fighting going on in Sadr City as I speak to you and no sign of any end to this conflict. They appear to be members of the Mehdi militia who have come back from Najaf after the crisis ended there, and they have seemed to have -- after a few days of relative peace and quiet in that area, they seem to have taken up arms again against U.S. forces -- Bill.
HEMMER: Diana, thanks.
Diana Muriel working the story there in Baghdad. That's our lead story this morning.
To the other news, "News in the Now" with Betty Nguyen at the CNN Center.
Good morning.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Bill.
Israeli forces are pounding Palestinian militants in Gaza City. Israeli helicopters fired missiles at what they said was a Hamas training camp. A Palestinian source says at least 15 people were killed. Medical sources say as many as 50 people are wounded.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is accusing some U.S. officials of undermining Russia's war on terrorism by supporting Chechen separatists. Putin says U.S. demands for Russia to negotiate with the Chechen separatists is comparable to the U.S. holding talks with Osama bin Laden. The comment comes as thousands of Russians are preparing for an anti-terror march in Moscow set to begin in just about two hours.
Well, last week's Republican convention is energizing President Bush's re-election campaign. A new poll shows the president gained two percentage points and is now the choice of 52 percent of likely voters. Democratic candidate John Kerry slips down to 45 percent since last week. The CNN/"USA Today" Gallup poll was conducted by telephone between September 3rd and 5th.
And a little sports news -- Tiger Woods is bumped from the top spot in golf. Yesterday, Vijay Singh won a head-to-head matchup with Tiger Woods, and that ended his record reign of 264 weeks as the world's top-ranked golfer. Singh withstood a mid-round challenge from Woods to win the Deutsche Bank Open. It's his tour-leading sixth victory of the year.
Back to you, Bill.
HEMMER: He's not used to second place, is he?
NGUYEN: No, he is not. We'll see how it fares out all in the end.
HEMMER: Thank you, Betty.
Want to get back to Frances now. Once mighty Hurricane Frances now just a tropical depression. But even in the city of Atlanta today and throughout Georgia, that storm dropping six to 10 inches across the Deep South.
Hurricane Frances now blamed for at least six deaths in the state of Florida, two more back in the Bahamas.
As Tom Foreman reports today, it's going to be a while before Floridians get back to business as usual.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Six million people without electricity, 90,000 in shelters, and up to $10 billion in property damage. By the numbers alone, Frances was a monster.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just went on and on and on and on and on.
FOREMAN: And the clean up is going to be mammoth too. Extra utility crews and relief trucks are heading in from all around the South and people are lining up by the thousands just for the basics.
LT. GOV. TONI JENNINGS (R), FLORIDA: We're focused on mass care at this point. That's the ice water, food, comfort stations headed toward those areas in southeast Florida that had the first of the impact.
FOREMAN: The loss of lives was relatively small considering the storm's size, but among the fatalities are a former son-in-law and a grandson of Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden. They died in a car crash on a wet road.
Many residents are grateful they lost only property, but at places like this decimated marina, where the National Guard is now standing by to stop looting, that is little comfort.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, it's got insurance on it. That's all I can do is collect the insurance. And we spent all our free time working on it, trying to keep it nice. (INAUDIBLE) What can you do?
FOREMAN: Up in the panhandle where Frances passed with little of the expected damage, a sigh of relief.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You never know what you're going to get. So you have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
FOREMAN (on camera): Authorities say their biggest concern now is people who fled the storm trying to go home too soon. With so many power lines down and basic services missing, they say it's still not safe and probably won't be for a few days.
Tom Foreman, CNN, on the Florida Gulf Coast.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: Tom, thanks for that.
Now this morning, Karen Hagan from the Red Cross joining me now, assessing the damage and clean up efforts.
And good morning to you, Karen.
I know in that part of Florida spared largely by the wrath of Frances. You felt it yesterday. However, throughout the state of Florida, what's the biggest concern today on this Tuesday?
KAREN HAGAN, RED CROSS SPOKESWOMAN: Well, right now -- you've said that we had almost 200,000 people in shelters. Last night, we sheltered about 40,000 people.
And what that means is a lot of folks are getting ready to go back to their communities. When they get back there, whether or not their homes are still standing is going to be of major concern to them.
And so, of course, what we're concerned about is their safety; making sure that if they smell gas, they don't enter; if there is water in their homes that they ascertain what the safety is of their habitat.
And so, we're going to be looking at doing disaster assessment today; trying to get a good idea of the kind of damage that's out there; and, of course, really gearing up to do mobile feeding and mass feeding and taking care of those very basic needs.
HEMMER: Karen, how much help is coming in?
HAGAN: We've had about 10,000 Red Cross volunteers and staff come in to Florida. We've had to move some of the folks that were still assisting in Hurricane Charley up to help with sheltering and mass care.
And we continue to send people in from the Southeast and from all over the country.
HEMMER: For those without power, and for those without water, how can the Red Cross help out?
HAGAN: Well, one of the things we're going to do, if they go back to their communities and they can't get back into their home, of course, we're going to need to keep some of the shelters open.
And if they don't have any power, that's when mobile feeding is going to be very important, because we'll need to be going community- community, street-to-street to try to make sure that people are fed; trying to make sure that there's ice to be distributed.
We don't know how long the power's going to be out. So we just need to make sure that people's basic needs are met.
HEMMER: Good luck, Karen.
The governor down there, Jeb Bush already saying that the damage from this storm could match Charley. If that's the case, you're talking about $7 billion in damage. So good luck to you and everyone working down there, OK?
HAGAN: Thank you very much.
HEMMER: All right, Karen.
(WEATHER UPDATE)
WALLACE: Turning now to Bill Clinton. Doctors say the former president should be able to leave a New York hospital in several days. He is recovering from a quadruple-bypass operation. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been at New York Presbyterian Hospital all day yesterday. He's back again this morning with more on the procedures and the president's prognosis.
Good morning, Sanjay.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kelly. He's resting now. He's off the breathing machine and expected to leave the ICU later on today.
Listen, the doctors say he was very close a heart attack. In fact, if nothing had been done, they say that heart attack could have come within a couple of weeks.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): A procedure that's done 1,000 times a day in America was done yesterday on a former president: cardiac bypass surgery. The result? successful.
DR. CRAIG SMITH, NEW YORK-PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: He had a relatively routine quadruple-bypass operation. We left the operating room around noon, and he is recovering normally at this point.
GUPTA: During the operation, Clinton's chest was opened, his heart was stopped, and he was put on a heart-lung machine. The bypass procedure was then performed, and his heart restarted. The operation took four hours. It will be two or three months before Mr. Clinton is 100 percent.
SMITH: It would be common for him to be ready to leave the hospital within four or five days. Right now, based on how he's doing, there's no reason to think he wouldn't fall within the same experience.
DR. ALLAN SCHWARTZ, NEW YORK-PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: At home he'll have a schedule of exercise that will gradually increase and he will gradually resume an entirely normal physical exercise and work schedule.
GUPTA: Bill Clinton has had access to the world's best medical care, but that can't erase a lifetime of bad eating habits and a family history of heart problems. And so the larger message of Mr. Clinton's surgery may be increased awareness of the No. 1 killer of men and women in America: heart disease. (END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: To be clear, he actually had symptoms for a couple of months. And when they did that angiogram test, his arteries were over 90 percent blocked. That's pretty significant, obviously. Also another larger message is that he often confused this with reflux. if you're having chest pains, go see your doctor, Kelly.
WALLACE: Good advice, Sanjay.
As you noted in your report, the doctors used a procedure involving stopping the former president's heart, I believe for 73 minutes. Why do they opt for this rather than a less invasive procedure?
GUPTA: Well, you know, the heart-stopping sort of procedure is the more tried-and-true method. That's the procedure that's done 1,000 times a day, almost 400,000 time as day in the United States.
I asked the doctor that question specifically. What they said is they did consider the more minimally invasive procedure when they keep the heart beating. But in president Clinton's case, they said because of the anatomy of some of his blood vessels, he just wasn't a candidate for that. So head the tried-and-true method. It worked fine for him -- Kelly.
WALLACE: Thanks, Sanjay. And we'll check in with you next hour, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, outside New York Presbyterian Hospital.
And later this morning, we will be talking with Dr. Craig Smith, President Clinton's lead surgeon. That is at 9:00 a.m. Eastern, right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
HEMMER: It's got to be very tough for Bill Clinton to be sitting in a hospital bed right now during a campaign season, just itching to go, too.
WALLACE: Itching to be out there, exactly.
HEMMER: In a moment, just what are Iran's nuclear ambitions? A new sense of urgency regarding Tehran's plan. Some U.S. officials say there's a frightening pattern developing.
WALLACE: Also ahead, the murder trial of Scott Peterson resumes. A surprising and unwilling prosecution witness could soon take the stand.
HEMMER: Also, Senator Kerry on the attack, but gets hit by a stinging jab from the vice president. Live reports from the campaign trail, ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Now to campaign 2004. Senator Kerry a rally today in North Carolina. That's before he heads to Cincinnati and the key battleground state of Ohio. Labor Day gave no rest for the Democratic candidate.
Ed Henry now in Greensboro, North Carolina, following that campaign.
Ed, good morning.
ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
That's right. Senator Kerry will be having a town hall meeting here in North Carolina, focused on the economy. But even as Kerry pushes his domestic agenda, he keeps getting pulled back into the debate over Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE; Let me give you the next president of the United States, senator John Kerry!
HENRY (voice-over): Prodded by critics in his own patter, John Kerry spent Labor Day trying to shift the focus on domestic issues and sharpening his attacks on President Bush.
SEN. KERRY BUSH (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It all comes down to one letter -- 'W.' George W. Bush. What do you think that 'W' stands for? that 'W' stands for wrong -- wrong direction, wrong choices , wrong priorities, wrong judgment for our country!
HENRY: At stops in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Kerry hammered away on the economy, education and Medicare. And in West Virginia, Kerry added guns to the mix, trying not to repeat a mistake that cost Al Gore some critical electoral votes.
Kerry's need for a push on the domestic front is clear in a new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll. Bush leads 52 percent to 45 percent in the horse race, with a slight bounce from his convention. More importantly, the president has double digit leads on the question of who would do a better job on terror and handling Iraq. Kerry, meanwhile, has just a three-point edge on the economy.
But even as Kerry trained his eyes on domestic matters, he could not avoid controversy over Iraq at a front porch event in Pennsylvania.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sickens me to hear on the news, they talk about coalition troops. Those are United States troops, folks. And they're being shot at and harmed and murdered every day.
KERRY: When they talk about a coalition, that's the phoniest thing I ever heard. It's the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.
HENRY: That drew a sharp rebuke from Vice President Cheney.
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When it comes to diplomacy, looks to me like John Kerry should stick to wind surfing. (LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HENRY: Kerry fired back late last night, saying there's not one thing on Iraq he would do differently than the president did. He said he would do everything differently. So the sniping continues, Bill.
HEMMER: Ed Henry in Greensboro, North Carolina -- Kelly.
WALLACE: Thanks, Bill.
And President Bush is also on the campaign trail today, making several stops in the battleground state of Missouri.
Elaine Quijano is live at the White House.
Elaine, the president in Missouri yesterday, there again today. Clearly an important state for both candidates.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, obviously.
Good morning to you, Kelly. President Bush is working hard to put Missouri in his win column, as he did back in 2000, when he won by three percentage points in that state over Al Gore.
The president, as you said, making a few stops today. He will begin his campaign day at the town of Leaf Summit, which is a suburb of Kansas City. He then moves on to an "ask President Bush" event in the town of Bedalia (ph), and then wraps up his day in Missouri with a rally in Columbia.
But yesterday, the president took some time during his Labor Day to deride his Democratic rival, Senator John Kerry, speaking at a rally in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and energized by new favorable poll numbers on Iraq and the war on terror, two issues most important to voters. Mr. Bush took opportunity to mock the Massachusetts senator for shifting positions, he said, on Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: After voting for the war, but against funding it, after saying he would have voted for the war, even knowing everything we know today, my opponent woke up this morning with new campaign advisers and yet another new position. Suddenly, he's against it again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: Now Senator Kerry has repeatedly argued that he would have done everything different than President Bush with regard to Iraq.
As for President Bush, he is planning a visit tomorrow, White House officials say, to visit the state of Florida, where his brother, Jeb, is governor. The president will survey the damage done in that state by Hurricane Frances -- Kelly.
WALLACE: Elaine, thanks so much. Elaine Quijano, reporting live from the White House -- Bill.
HEMMER: Now you have two hurricanes in three weeks. One Florida industry may be hurting more than any other. Andy's "Minding Your Business." He has that, after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Welcome back, everyone. Frances slamming the Sunshine State. How much now will it cost the citrus industry? And this is one of the biggest you're going to find in the entire state of Florida.
Andy's back this morning, back from a long weekend, "Minding Your Business."
Great to have you back.
ANDY SERWER, "MINDING YOUR BUSINESS": Good to see you back, Bill, from Florida.
HEMMER: How are the orange groves, huh?
SERWER: Not good. A $9 billion industry in Florida, Bill. And obviously, Hurricane Frances caused all kinds of damage there, coming right on the heels of Hurricane Charley.
Overall damage for the hurricanes, we mentioned earlier, Charley $7 billion. Wide estimates for Frances at this point, anywhere from $2 billion to $15 billion. That typically happens right on the heels, and then they'll narrow it down. Probably going to end up being about the same.
Some real devastating pictures here. Those are just grapefruits on the ground. There's no other way to put it.
Now this picture is really amazing, look at that, 80 percent to 90 percent of the fruit on the ground. The groves are flooded, that's rotting out the roots, and St. Lucie (ph) County and Indian River County in particular, also really, really hurt there. Oranges hurt as well. Orange prices probably not going to go up so much, because there was a bumper crop over the past two years, and also consumption of orange juice has gone down.
HEMMER: As you have pointed out in the past. That's just Frances. I mean, Charley did so much damage, too, in the central part of the state as well.
Theme parks were closed down over the weekend, too; it's Labor Day weekend.
SERWER: Yes, that was a big -- Disney talking about that as well. Obviously, no one out on the park. Kind of minimum damage, though -- just one stage roof blown off, apparently. And all the parks in the Orlando area are open for business. But you're right, Bill, three days of nothing for those businesses.
HEMMER: And the Kennedy Space Center, too, took a wallop. They were clocking winds about 124 miles an hour, the gusts anyway, at Cape Canaveral.
SERWER: Right, yes.
HEMMER: Welcome back.
SERWER: Good to see you.
HEMMER: Talk to you later -- Kelly.
WALLACE: Thanks, Andy. Thanks, Bill.
Jack Cafferty the day off. So time for the Question of the Day from Toure.
TOURE: Yeah.
WALLACE: I love it. I can't get enough of the...
TOURE: You know, that picture that you showed, that was a piece of art. I mean, that was beautiful.
SERWER: That was very bizarre, wasn't it? Striking...
(CROSSTALK)
TOURE: Yes, with the colors, and...
SERWER: Yes, that one right there.
TOURE: Yes, but as a photographer, like, that's art, that's beautiful.
WALLACE: That's somebody's livelihood, though.
SERWER: Yes, that's also true, Toure.
TOURE: Yes, that's true, that's true.
So yesterday President Clinton had successful bypass surgery. He ended up on the surgeon's table at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, after years of indulging his legendary appetite for junk food. His affinity for junk food contributed to his charisma, and certified him as a man of the people, but all that junk food nearly killed him.
Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I love Kentucky Fried Chicken far more than the next man.
SERWER: Who doesn't?
TOURE: But since I saw Morgan Spurlock's documentary, "Supersize Me," I've been far too scared to set foot in any fast-food emporium. But I digress. Junk food is quick, cheap, taste good, and is terrible for you. Some wonder if marijuana should be legal. We'll wondering if junk food should be illegal, or at least more closely monitored by the government the way alcohol is.
Are we smart enough to handle junk food in our lives, or should junk food be a controlled substance?
Our Question of the Day: Should the government strictly regulate junk food like it does with tobacco and alcohol? E-mail us now, am@CNN.com.
HEMMER: You think KFC's Junk food? I think that's dinner.
TOURE: It's a delicacy, unfortunately.
HEMMER: Thank you, Toure.
Let's get a break here. In a moment, is John Kerry getting ready to play hardball on the campaign trail? New names now on his team suggests that might be the case. We'll talk to the campaign chairwoman.
Also, the circus outside Scott Peterson's trial. The case seems to have its own groupies. A look at that in a moment here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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