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American Morning
Congress Set To Reform U.S. Intelligence; Choosing A Healthcare Plan; Movie Edition of "90-Second Pop"
Aired November 12, 2004 - 09:31 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome, everybody. Half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. Bill Hemmer off today. Rick Sanchez is filling in. Nice to have you.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Nice to be here, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. Along with the situation in Ramallah, we're also keeping an eye on the situation in Falluja. U.S. troops going door to door, sweeping through that city in search of insurgents. They've run into some resistance. We're going to take you live to Karl Penhaul to get the very latest on that in just a moment.
SANCHEZ: Also, it's the time of the year when you get to pick your healthcare for next year. In other words, that open enrollment thing that they love to have...
O'BRIEN: ... we never read and throw?
SANCHEZ: Yeah, exactly.
O'BRIEN: Not this year, darn it.
SANCHEZ: What was it? Oh, yeah, I got that. You mean that's what I had? Well, sometimes it's like alphabet soup -- HMO, POS, PPO. If you're confused, help is on the way. Wall Street reporter Kelly Spors is going to tell us which plan is right for you.
O'BRIEN: Wade through all that confusing information.
SANCHEZ: All the PP things.
O'BRIEN: Before we get into that, though, Heidi Collins has a look at the top stories this morning, as well. Good morning to you, again, Heidi.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you guys, as well.
Want to get straight to that news. In fact, within the past hour, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was buried in the compound where he had spent the last three years of his life. It took over an hour for Arafat's casket to be carried off a helicopter and through this crowd of thousands of people. Police firing wildly, though, to keep that crowd back. A Palestinian official said Arafat would have loved the massive outpouring of emotion. Here in the United States, a new juror joins deliberations in the Scott Peterson double murder trial. The change comes after the judge dismissed two jurors, including the foreman, earlier this week. Meanwhile, attorneys in the case have reportedly met with investigators. It's not clear if the meeting was related to the juror dismissals.
President Bush holding talks this morning with his key ally in the war in Iraq. The president and British Prime Minister Tony Blair discussing the prospects for renewing peace efforts now in the Middle East post Yasser Arafat. The two leaders are expected to appear together following a meeting at the Oval Office. CNN will carry their news conference live. It will come your way at 11:25 Eastern.
Now back to Soledad.
O'BRIEN: All right, Heidi. Thanks.
This morning, the battle for Falluja goes on. Six hundred insurgents, 18 U.S. troops, five Iraqi soldiers have been killed so far in that assault. Karl Penhaul joins us live from Baghdad with the very latest on what's happening there. Karl, good morning.
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Soledad.
Now, you'll remember a couple of days ago U.S. Military commanders on the ground said that they'd broken the back of the command and control centers of the insurgents inside of Falluja. What the insurgents now seem to have done is to break down into smaller cells, and they're still giving some resistance to the advancing U.S. forces there.
We're told that in a course of the day, Marines and Army soldiers have been fighting against those pockets of resistance and have been trying to push the insurgents toward a military cordon on the southern edge of the city. That's squeezing the insurgents. But as the Marines and soldiers advance, they are having to go house to house, street to street, and they are encountering some resistance -- sniper fire being a problem at this stage, but they're also encountering light arms fire and mortar fire from those insurgents.
We understand Falluja -- certainly parts of it -- is a rabid war in (ph) of houses and streets. And also as they get towards the south of the city -- this is a industrial area, and we understand from our teams on the ground there, they're certain of the buildings there have been rigged to explode. There are booby-traps there. And so, this is obviously slowing the advance a little bit. But it does seem that the coalition forces there are trying to be very thorough.
We haven't got any update -- the latest update on U.S. and Iraqi casualties, nor on the insurgent casualties. We have in the course of this afternoon, though, been talking to the Iraqi Red Crescent to try and find out a little bit about civilian casualties. They say that they have no exact figures, but they do say there are at least 157 families still inside of Falluja in urgent need of medical attention. Because of the fighting there, humanitarian aid organizations haven't been able to enter the city to really assess the scale of the humanitarian crisis there, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Karl, we've also heard reports of air strikes in Mosul. Do you have any idea what the targets are there?
PENHAUL: This really is part of a strategy insurgents announced even before the start of the coalition offensive on Falluja, inasmuch as the insurgents said they would mount a series of rear guard actions elsewhere in Iraq. And we have seen, over the last couple of days, a series of insurgent attacks, primarily on police stations and public facilities inside of Mosul.
And today, in response to that, U.S. forces backing Iraqi security forces did carry out a series of air strikes on insurgent positions there. Tonight, things seem a little calmer in Mosul. We have also seen insurgent action in Baquba, and we have seen firefights even in a district of Baghdad between insurgents and police.
All, though, seems to be quiet in Baghdad as well right now, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Karl Penhaul for us this morning. Karl, thank you -- Rick?
SANCHEZ: U.S. intelligence, as we know, is good at technical wizardry, but lacking, as we've seen since 9/11, on human intelligence, or the spy network. Now, Congress is set to reform U.S. intelligence to try to enact some type of recommendation from the 9/11 Commission. But some are suggesting the changes could really miss the point.
National security correspondent David Ensor explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Reorganizing U.S. intelligence, as Congress is trying to do, will not fix what is wrong at the CIA according to some knowledgeable analysts.
ROBERT BAER, FMR. CIA OFFICER: It's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. You know, putting another layer of bureaucracy is not going to do it.
RICHARD RUSSELL, FMR. CIA ANALYST: There's a lot of discussion over reorganizing the Intelligence Committee, but there's no discussion about how we go about doing human intelligence operations. There's none whatsoever.
ENSOR: And that, say many experts, is where the real problem lies. Though the U.S. has the best spy satellites and eavesdropping technology, they say it's never been very effective at the traditional game of human espionage.
RUSSELL: It's a standard mantra. We're not very good at it. We're not very good at it. It's about time we got good at it.
ENSOR: Critics argue the CIA should take more risks in who it hires -- for example, among Arab-Americans whose relatives may be under the control of other governments. And it should take more risks where they operate -- impersonating businessmen rather than diplomats.
These critics argue, too, that the CIA should put more effort into soliciting and exploiting defectors, walk-ins -- whether they be al Qaeda members or Iranian scientists.
For his part, the man who until recently ran America's spies, James Pavitt, warns against expecting too much.
JAMES PAVITT, FMR. DIR. CIA OPERATIONS: Human intelligence is a very difficult undertaking. There is no perfection in my business. If we're right 40 to 50 percent of the time, we're doing very, very well.
ENSOR (on camera): The kinds of changes that knowledgeable critics are talking about are not the sorts of things that Congress can mandate. It will now mostly be up to Porter Goss, the new CIA director, to try to build on the nation's talent at the world's second-oldest profession.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Lawmakers hope to complete work on the U.S. intelligence system in time for final action by Congress when it returns next week for a post-election session.
O'BRIEN: Weather now for the day ahead. Chad Myers at the CNN Center. Latest look for us. Hey, Chad. Raining here. How's it looking elsewhere?
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: In today's "House Call" segment, your health: It's that time again -- open enrollment season when employees can make changes to their existing health plans or pick a new plan altogether. It can be a daunting prospect, forcing many folks to simply keep the plan they have. But that might not actually be the best idea.
Kelly Spors is a reporter for "The Wall Street Journal." She helps us sort it all out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
Let's walk through what some of the good news and some of the bad news this time around.
KELLY SPORS, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": All right. The good news, first of all, is that HMOs, some of the most restrictive plans, historically, are becoming more flexible. In the past, you always had to get a referral to go see a doctor, to see a specialist.
Now, they're saying, OK, if you want to go see a gynecologist, if you want to go see a cardiologist, you can do that. You don't need to go to your primary care doctor. That's a big change. And that's especially good for people who have HMOs and are trying to keep costs down. Because now, they have access to better doctors.
O'BRIEN: And cut an extra doctor out of the loop. But there's some bad news, too. What's the bad news?
SPORS: The bad news is that employers are passing more of the costs of healthcare onto their employees. The annual premiums are not actually rising as much, but you're seeing a lot more of employers passing out-of-pocket costs onto the employees. A lot more plans, regardless of what kind of plan you have, are making you pay higher deductibles, are making you pay co-insurance, a percentage of the cost.
O'BRIEN: So it may not look on paper like you're paying more money, but at the end of the day, depending what plan you pick, it could actually be fairly more expensive.
SPORS: Right.
O'BRIEN: Let's start by talking about some of the different plans. HMO, as you say, somewhat restrictive, because of course it limits you. You have to stay within your network. Give me a sense of what kind of people should be going for the HMO?
SPORS: HMOs should be for people who need to use a lot of routine and preventive services. You have a child who gets a lot ear infections. You have a lot of colds. You're a pregnant mother who needs to see their doctor, you know, for wellness checkups.
O'BRIEN: POS, the point of service plan, more flexible than an HMO?
SPORS: Right.
O'BRIEN: Who should be going to a POS?
SPORS: The main reason to get a POS is they have the network option, and you're still going to keep costs low for staying in the network. But the benefit of going out of network is available with a POS plan.
O'BRIEN: Sort of a happy medium; it wont' be quite so restrictive.
SPORS: Right.
O'BRIEN: Then there's the preferred provider option, the PPO. I love all these acronyms here. Most expensive, though. Who should be looking at that?
SPORS: Those are really for people who do not want to get referrals to see specialists, somebody who doesn't want to have to waste the time to get a referral, somebody who needs to see a lot of specialists, somebody who's being treated for acid reflux, for instance, and wants to see a G.I. doctor every month, but doesn't want to always have to go back to their primary care physician.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Kelly Spors from "The Wall Street Journal," Kelly advises that to figure out which plan is best for you, ask yourself the following questions. Do you have enough savings? Do you need lots of routine care? do you like having a primary care doctor? And do you need to see lots of specialists? Then make your decision from there -- Rick.
SANCHEZ: Soledad, still to come, CBS has to apologize to its viewers once again. "The Cafferty File" is coming up. And producers are nervous about a "Polar Express," their next generation children's movie. Its first big weekend is sandwiched between a smash hit and a sure thing. How will it do?
Stay with. This is AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Time for a special, a little edition of "90-Second Pop." We're just doing weekend movie previews. B.J. Sigesmund is a staff editor for "US Weekly" joining us.
Where are all your friends, B.J.?
B.J. SIGESMUND, "US WEEKLY": I know, they're not here. gave it 2 1/2 stars.
O'BRIEN: We're just doing movie today, so all we need is you.
Let's talk about "Bridget Jones Diary." It's actually gotten some mixed reviews. Some people said they thought it was better than the first, and then "US Weekly."
SIGESMUND: We gave it 2 1/2 starts.
O'BRIEN: Not a love affair.
SIGESMUND: Yes, you know, there are a lot of women in my office, and it was a real --a group of very mixed opinions on this film. Some people loved it. Some people thought it was nowhere near as good as the first one. Some people thought it was like a one-star movie. It's really all over the map.
The thing that's good about it is Renee Zellweger. She's really endearing. You know, she gained almost 30 pounds to play this part. And it really shows. She does a lot of running around and jiggling in the movie.
O'BRIEN: I feel your pain, Renee. Let's listen to a clip.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Hello.
RENEE ZELLWEGER, ACTRESS: It's me. Just wondered how are you.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I'm fine, thanks. Is everything all right with you?
ZELLWEGER: Fine. Though I've just had a rather graphic flashback. You do have a genuinely gorgeous bottom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. I'm actually with the Mexican ambassador, the head of Amnesty International, and the undersecretary for trade industry. And you're on speakerphone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: That is a very cute clip. And it's moments like that that made the first one so successful.
SIGESMUND: Right. And that's what we call a Bridget Jones moment. Now the problem with the movie, as I said, Renee Zellweger is great, but the movie is far too reliant on slapstick moments. That really wasn't one of them. But there's a lot of farce in this film, there's a lot of pratfalls, like Renee Zellweger tripping down -- you know, she tells her boyfriend she can ski, of course she can't, so she's like tripping down the mountain. Yes, or you know, she goes to run to catch the bouquet at the wedding, and she of course falls over. Or she's on assignment, parachuting out of an airplane and she falls into a pig sty, like those things get a little repetitive after awhile. So that's why not everyone is going to love this movie.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk about some other movies. "Polar Express," Tom Hanks. Apparently lots of nervousness about this movie.
SIGESMUND: You know, It cost something like $165 million to make this movie. This is groundbreaking technology. Through computer generated animation, Tom Hanks actually plays five characters in this film. He plays the conductor right there. He also plays the little boy. He also plays the little boy's father, he plays a homeless person, and one other person I can't even remember.
O'BRIEN: So they saved money on casting.
SIGESMUND: They only paid Tom Hanks one salary.
O'BRIEN: But it's actually sort of a dark -- I mean, I know the book that this is based on, it's kind of a dark and creepy story.
SIGESMUND: It's a dark, and it's kind of a -- it's only 32 pages long, also, and that's with pictures, the actual book. And then they created a two-hour film out of it. So it's inflated. And most of the -- I should say some of the reviews have said it was dull. We actually only gave it one star in "US Weekly."
There have been other reviews that say it's very good. The problem with this is it doesn't really have a lot of comedy in it. So it's going to get kids. Kids are really going to like it, but the teenagers and young adults...
O'BRIEN: They need the pratfalls, they need and slapstick from Bridget Jones.
Let's talk about "After the Sunset." I love Salma Hayek. She's not hard to look at. She's so cute. Is this a good movie?
SIGESMUND: This is also another movie that's getting mixed reviews.
O'BRIEN: Oh, man, come on, B.J.
SIGESMUND: I'm sorry, Soledad. We'll get to two more movies at the end that are very good.
O'BRIEN: Look how beautiful she is.
SIGESMUND: Look at how beautiful she is. Pierce Brosnan is also in this movie. It's a heist flick. These -- Pierce and Salma play a couple who retire after their last big heist to the Bahamas, but they just can't help it, they want one more heist. So they try to get these jewels, and Woody Harrelson plays an FBI agent that is trying to wrangle them.
O'BRIEN: Well, I might just go see that for Salma Hayek, because I love that girl.
B.J., thank you so much, appreciate it, holding down the whole fort. Have a nice weekend, OK. We'll check in with you next week.
SIGESMUND: Thank you, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Let's go back to Rick.
SANCHEZ: All right, thanks, guys. You know, we've just gotten some pictures now, British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He apparently has arrived at the White House. You'll see a quick shot of him there. Looks like a rainy day in Washington as well. He's going to have an 11:25 news conference with the president. At issue today, one would expect a lot of talk about the Middle East. We'll have that for you.
Also a solid economic report is driving the stock market. Andy Serwer is going to be "Minding Your Business."
Stay with us. This is AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. A look at the action on Wall Street, and of course the weekend football picks. Hint -- I'm winning! Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business." Hello.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: That's your new nickname, the winner.
O'BRIEN: The cheater -- the cheater should be my nickname because...
SERWER: No, no, you're the winner. My boy Todd's got my back. But anyway, let's start by talking about the markets.
SERWER: Let's do that. Kind of a mixed picture on Wall Street this morning.
Dell had some great earnings. Down six. Dell had some great earnings. That stock is up $1.60. Does any other company make computers in the United States anymore?
The price of oil has notched up a little bit. More problems in Nigeria. That's what's making the markets go down this morning. And so, that's what we got there.
Now let's move on to the main event, which is football. Because this Friday, and it's America, and Soledad is the leader of the pack. That's why they call her the leader of the pack.
O'BRIEN: Because of my extensive football knowledge, Jack.
SERWER: And there's Jack. Jack doesn't make good football picks. Jack tells it like it is on...
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: There's a lot of stuff I don't do well. That's just one of them.
SERWER: He tells it like it. All right...
O'BRIEN: You give credit to Todd, your producer?
SERWER: Todd does a little bit for Soledad. That's right. Very good.
All right, let's do some picks. I was 3-0 last week on my highlighted picks. This week, Cincinnati Bengals against the Washington Redskins. I am picking the Redskins, because Bill Hemmer is not here. Let's see, and also when the Redskins win a game after the election, it means that in 2008 Jeb Bush is going to beat Hillary. OK? You heard it here first.
Next game, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons. This is the NFL's largest cocktail party, because it is Florida against Georgia -- get it? The Bucs used to be bad. The Bucs are getting better now. They're two in a row. And I think the Bucs are going to win this one.
Let's move on to the Steelers versus the Browns. Sorry, Ben Roethlisberger, it's time to burst your bubble. The Browns are going to win this one. The Borowitz's Browns are going to beat the Steelers, I say. Jack doesn't agree.
And also, there's the "Sports Illustrated" curse, which is really why the Steelers are going to lose. That always works, Jack.
CAFFERTY: That's true. I forgot about that.
SERWER: It really does. Yes. So, there we go.
O'BRIEN: Thank you, Andy.
SERWER: You're welcome.
SANCHEZ: All right. Let's go over to Jack now and see what's going on with "The Cafferty File."
CAFFERTY: Thank you, Rick.
Didn't used to be this tough when I was a student. Of course, that was a long time ago. An 11-year-old kid in Los Angeles, little girl, kicked out of school for a week for doing cartwheels and handstands during a lunchtime recess. School officials say that the girl disobeyed school rules by doing gymnastics on school grounds.
And in Miami, Florida, a six-year-old boy hit with a stun gun by police in the principal's office. Police say that the stun gun was used because the child was threatening to hurt himself with a piece of glass. He's six-years old! So, in order to prevent a six-year-old from hurting himself with a piece of glass, the cops hit him with a stun gun. I think I'm missing something somewhere.
SANCHEZ: Wow.
CAFFERTY: CBS, the network that has trouble getting it, strikes again. Wednesday night, they broke into the last few minutes of "CSI: New York" with the news of Yasser Arafat's death, running the entire -- ruining, rather, the entire ending of the show for millions of viewers.
Now, CBS is apologizing with a statement saying an overly aggressive news producer jumped the gun with a report that should have been offered to local stations for their late news. The interruption came five minutes before local news broadcasts were scheduled to begin. CBS will re-air the show tonight.
Note to CBS, have you ever heard of the little crawl that goes across the bottom of the screen that says, "Yasser Arafat is dead?" However give them credit, at least the story was true.
I got one more. A middle-aged -- I like this one. A middle-aged female orangutan at a suburban Chicago zoo has gotten herself a makeover. She's 43 years old. This is Maggie. She's lost 90 pounds, quit snoring, stopped suffering from flatulence and constipation...
O'BRIEN: Men hate that.
CAFFERTY: ... as soon as the zookeepers found out she had a thyroid problem. She's a whole new woman. Apparently the treatment has also jump-started her libido, and she's gone from being extremely shy and anti-social to chasing all the male orangutans around to see if she can get a little action.
O'BRIEN: You go, girl.
CAFFERTY: That'd be Maggie.
SANCHEZ: Looking good.
CAFFERTY: And she's a pretty thing.
O'BRIEN: ... a thyroid problem. Well...
SERWER: Get rid of that pain and...
CAFFERTY: There you go.
O'BRIEN: Little thyroid problem cleared up, and the flatulence (INAUDIBLE).
Short break. We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: We are out of time.,
SANCHEZ: It's been busy, though.
O'BRIEN: Thank you, and we'll you at the beginning of next week, as well.
SANCHEZ: Yeah, I'll be here Monday.
O'BRIEN: Great. Have a great weekend everybody. Carol Lin's at the CNN Center, going to take you through the next few hours. Hey, Carol, good morning.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad. Good morning, Rick and everybody. I'm Carol Lin here at the CNN Center, and here's what's happening right now in the news.
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 November 12, 2004 - 09:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome, everybody. Half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. Bill Hemmer off today. Rick Sanchez is filling in. Nice to have you.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Nice to be here, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. Along with the situation in Ramallah, we're also keeping an eye on the situation in Falluja. U.S. troops going door to door, sweeping through that city in search of insurgents. They've run into some resistance. We're going to take you live to Karl Penhaul to get the very latest on that in just a moment.
SANCHEZ: Also, it's the time of the year when you get to pick your healthcare for next year. In other words, that open enrollment thing that they love to have...
O'BRIEN: ... we never read and throw?
SANCHEZ: Yeah, exactly.
O'BRIEN: Not this year, darn it.
SANCHEZ: What was it? Oh, yeah, I got that. You mean that's what I had? Well, sometimes it's like alphabet soup -- HMO, POS, PPO. If you're confused, help is on the way. Wall Street reporter Kelly Spors is going to tell us which plan is right for you.
O'BRIEN: Wade through all that confusing information.
SANCHEZ: All the PP things.
O'BRIEN: Before we get into that, though, Heidi Collins has a look at the top stories this morning, as well. Good morning to you, again, Heidi.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you guys, as well.
Want to get straight to that news. In fact, within the past hour, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was buried in the compound where he had spent the last three years of his life. It took over an hour for Arafat's casket to be carried off a helicopter and through this crowd of thousands of people. Police firing wildly, though, to keep that crowd back. A Palestinian official said Arafat would have loved the massive outpouring of emotion. Here in the United States, a new juror joins deliberations in the Scott Peterson double murder trial. The change comes after the judge dismissed two jurors, including the foreman, earlier this week. Meanwhile, attorneys in the case have reportedly met with investigators. It's not clear if the meeting was related to the juror dismissals.
President Bush holding talks this morning with his key ally in the war in Iraq. The president and British Prime Minister Tony Blair discussing the prospects for renewing peace efforts now in the Middle East post Yasser Arafat. The two leaders are expected to appear together following a meeting at the Oval Office. CNN will carry their news conference live. It will come your way at 11:25 Eastern.
Now back to Soledad.
O'BRIEN: All right, Heidi. Thanks.
This morning, the battle for Falluja goes on. Six hundred insurgents, 18 U.S. troops, five Iraqi soldiers have been killed so far in that assault. Karl Penhaul joins us live from Baghdad with the very latest on what's happening there. Karl, good morning.
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Soledad.
Now, you'll remember a couple of days ago U.S. Military commanders on the ground said that they'd broken the back of the command and control centers of the insurgents inside of Falluja. What the insurgents now seem to have done is to break down into smaller cells, and they're still giving some resistance to the advancing U.S. forces there.
We're told that in a course of the day, Marines and Army soldiers have been fighting against those pockets of resistance and have been trying to push the insurgents toward a military cordon on the southern edge of the city. That's squeezing the insurgents. But as the Marines and soldiers advance, they are having to go house to house, street to street, and they are encountering some resistance -- sniper fire being a problem at this stage, but they're also encountering light arms fire and mortar fire from those insurgents.
We understand Falluja -- certainly parts of it -- is a rabid war in (ph) of houses and streets. And also as they get towards the south of the city -- this is a industrial area, and we understand from our teams on the ground there, they're certain of the buildings there have been rigged to explode. There are booby-traps there. And so, this is obviously slowing the advance a little bit. But it does seem that the coalition forces there are trying to be very thorough.
We haven't got any update -- the latest update on U.S. and Iraqi casualties, nor on the insurgent casualties. We have in the course of this afternoon, though, been talking to the Iraqi Red Crescent to try and find out a little bit about civilian casualties. They say that they have no exact figures, but they do say there are at least 157 families still inside of Falluja in urgent need of medical attention. Because of the fighting there, humanitarian aid organizations haven't been able to enter the city to really assess the scale of the humanitarian crisis there, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Karl, we've also heard reports of air strikes in Mosul. Do you have any idea what the targets are there?
PENHAUL: This really is part of a strategy insurgents announced even before the start of the coalition offensive on Falluja, inasmuch as the insurgents said they would mount a series of rear guard actions elsewhere in Iraq. And we have seen, over the last couple of days, a series of insurgent attacks, primarily on police stations and public facilities inside of Mosul.
And today, in response to that, U.S. forces backing Iraqi security forces did carry out a series of air strikes on insurgent positions there. Tonight, things seem a little calmer in Mosul. We have also seen insurgent action in Baquba, and we have seen firefights even in a district of Baghdad between insurgents and police.
All, though, seems to be quiet in Baghdad as well right now, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Karl Penhaul for us this morning. Karl, thank you -- Rick?
SANCHEZ: U.S. intelligence, as we know, is good at technical wizardry, but lacking, as we've seen since 9/11, on human intelligence, or the spy network. Now, Congress is set to reform U.S. intelligence to try to enact some type of recommendation from the 9/11 Commission. But some are suggesting the changes could really miss the point.
National security correspondent David Ensor explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Reorganizing U.S. intelligence, as Congress is trying to do, will not fix what is wrong at the CIA according to some knowledgeable analysts.
ROBERT BAER, FMR. CIA OFFICER: It's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. You know, putting another layer of bureaucracy is not going to do it.
RICHARD RUSSELL, FMR. CIA ANALYST: There's a lot of discussion over reorganizing the Intelligence Committee, but there's no discussion about how we go about doing human intelligence operations. There's none whatsoever.
ENSOR: And that, say many experts, is where the real problem lies. Though the U.S. has the best spy satellites and eavesdropping technology, they say it's never been very effective at the traditional game of human espionage.
RUSSELL: It's a standard mantra. We're not very good at it. We're not very good at it. It's about time we got good at it.
ENSOR: Critics argue the CIA should take more risks in who it hires -- for example, among Arab-Americans whose relatives may be under the control of other governments. And it should take more risks where they operate -- impersonating businessmen rather than diplomats.
These critics argue, too, that the CIA should put more effort into soliciting and exploiting defectors, walk-ins -- whether they be al Qaeda members or Iranian scientists.
For his part, the man who until recently ran America's spies, James Pavitt, warns against expecting too much.
JAMES PAVITT, FMR. DIR. CIA OPERATIONS: Human intelligence is a very difficult undertaking. There is no perfection in my business. If we're right 40 to 50 percent of the time, we're doing very, very well.
ENSOR (on camera): The kinds of changes that knowledgeable critics are talking about are not the sorts of things that Congress can mandate. It will now mostly be up to Porter Goss, the new CIA director, to try to build on the nation's talent at the world's second-oldest profession.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Lawmakers hope to complete work on the U.S. intelligence system in time for final action by Congress when it returns next week for a post-election session.
O'BRIEN: Weather now for the day ahead. Chad Myers at the CNN Center. Latest look for us. Hey, Chad. Raining here. How's it looking elsewhere?
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: In today's "House Call" segment, your health: It's that time again -- open enrollment season when employees can make changes to their existing health plans or pick a new plan altogether. It can be a daunting prospect, forcing many folks to simply keep the plan they have. But that might not actually be the best idea.
Kelly Spors is a reporter for "The Wall Street Journal." She helps us sort it all out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
Let's walk through what some of the good news and some of the bad news this time around.
KELLY SPORS, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": All right. The good news, first of all, is that HMOs, some of the most restrictive plans, historically, are becoming more flexible. In the past, you always had to get a referral to go see a doctor, to see a specialist.
Now, they're saying, OK, if you want to go see a gynecologist, if you want to go see a cardiologist, you can do that. You don't need to go to your primary care doctor. That's a big change. And that's especially good for people who have HMOs and are trying to keep costs down. Because now, they have access to better doctors.
O'BRIEN: And cut an extra doctor out of the loop. But there's some bad news, too. What's the bad news?
SPORS: The bad news is that employers are passing more of the costs of healthcare onto their employees. The annual premiums are not actually rising as much, but you're seeing a lot more of employers passing out-of-pocket costs onto the employees. A lot more plans, regardless of what kind of plan you have, are making you pay higher deductibles, are making you pay co-insurance, a percentage of the cost.
O'BRIEN: So it may not look on paper like you're paying more money, but at the end of the day, depending what plan you pick, it could actually be fairly more expensive.
SPORS: Right.
O'BRIEN: Let's start by talking about some of the different plans. HMO, as you say, somewhat restrictive, because of course it limits you. You have to stay within your network. Give me a sense of what kind of people should be going for the HMO?
SPORS: HMOs should be for people who need to use a lot of routine and preventive services. You have a child who gets a lot ear infections. You have a lot of colds. You're a pregnant mother who needs to see their doctor, you know, for wellness checkups.
O'BRIEN: POS, the point of service plan, more flexible than an HMO?
SPORS: Right.
O'BRIEN: Who should be going to a POS?
SPORS: The main reason to get a POS is they have the network option, and you're still going to keep costs low for staying in the network. But the benefit of going out of network is available with a POS plan.
O'BRIEN: Sort of a happy medium; it wont' be quite so restrictive.
SPORS: Right.
O'BRIEN: Then there's the preferred provider option, the PPO. I love all these acronyms here. Most expensive, though. Who should be looking at that?
SPORS: Those are really for people who do not want to get referrals to see specialists, somebody who doesn't want to have to waste the time to get a referral, somebody who needs to see a lot of specialists, somebody who's being treated for acid reflux, for instance, and wants to see a G.I. doctor every month, but doesn't want to always have to go back to their primary care physician.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Kelly Spors from "The Wall Street Journal," Kelly advises that to figure out which plan is best for you, ask yourself the following questions. Do you have enough savings? Do you need lots of routine care? do you like having a primary care doctor? And do you need to see lots of specialists? Then make your decision from there -- Rick.
SANCHEZ: Soledad, still to come, CBS has to apologize to its viewers once again. "The Cafferty File" is coming up. And producers are nervous about a "Polar Express," their next generation children's movie. Its first big weekend is sandwiched between a smash hit and a sure thing. How will it do?
Stay with. This is AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Time for a special, a little edition of "90-Second Pop." We're just doing weekend movie previews. B.J. Sigesmund is a staff editor for "US Weekly" joining us.
Where are all your friends, B.J.?
B.J. SIGESMUND, "US WEEKLY": I know, they're not here. gave it 2 1/2 stars.
O'BRIEN: We're just doing movie today, so all we need is you.
Let's talk about "Bridget Jones Diary." It's actually gotten some mixed reviews. Some people said they thought it was better than the first, and then "US Weekly."
SIGESMUND: We gave it 2 1/2 starts.
O'BRIEN: Not a love affair.
SIGESMUND: Yes, you know, there are a lot of women in my office, and it was a real --a group of very mixed opinions on this film. Some people loved it. Some people thought it was nowhere near as good as the first one. Some people thought it was like a one-star movie. It's really all over the map.
The thing that's good about it is Renee Zellweger. She's really endearing. You know, she gained almost 30 pounds to play this part. And it really shows. She does a lot of running around and jiggling in the movie.
O'BRIEN: I feel your pain, Renee. Let's listen to a clip.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Hello.
RENEE ZELLWEGER, ACTRESS: It's me. Just wondered how are you.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I'm fine, thanks. Is everything all right with you?
ZELLWEGER: Fine. Though I've just had a rather graphic flashback. You do have a genuinely gorgeous bottom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. I'm actually with the Mexican ambassador, the head of Amnesty International, and the undersecretary for trade industry. And you're on speakerphone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: That is a very cute clip. And it's moments like that that made the first one so successful.
SIGESMUND: Right. And that's what we call a Bridget Jones moment. Now the problem with the movie, as I said, Renee Zellweger is great, but the movie is far too reliant on slapstick moments. That really wasn't one of them. But there's a lot of farce in this film, there's a lot of pratfalls, like Renee Zellweger tripping down -- you know, she tells her boyfriend she can ski, of course she can't, so she's like tripping down the mountain. Yes, or you know, she goes to run to catch the bouquet at the wedding, and she of course falls over. Or she's on assignment, parachuting out of an airplane and she falls into a pig sty, like those things get a little repetitive after awhile. So that's why not everyone is going to love this movie.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk about some other movies. "Polar Express," Tom Hanks. Apparently lots of nervousness about this movie.
SIGESMUND: You know, It cost something like $165 million to make this movie. This is groundbreaking technology. Through computer generated animation, Tom Hanks actually plays five characters in this film. He plays the conductor right there. He also plays the little boy. He also plays the little boy's father, he plays a homeless person, and one other person I can't even remember.
O'BRIEN: So they saved money on casting.
SIGESMUND: They only paid Tom Hanks one salary.
O'BRIEN: But it's actually sort of a dark -- I mean, I know the book that this is based on, it's kind of a dark and creepy story.
SIGESMUND: It's a dark, and it's kind of a -- it's only 32 pages long, also, and that's with pictures, the actual book. And then they created a two-hour film out of it. So it's inflated. And most of the -- I should say some of the reviews have said it was dull. We actually only gave it one star in "US Weekly."
There have been other reviews that say it's very good. The problem with this is it doesn't really have a lot of comedy in it. So it's going to get kids. Kids are really going to like it, but the teenagers and young adults...
O'BRIEN: They need the pratfalls, they need and slapstick from Bridget Jones.
Let's talk about "After the Sunset." I love Salma Hayek. She's not hard to look at. She's so cute. Is this a good movie?
SIGESMUND: This is also another movie that's getting mixed reviews.
O'BRIEN: Oh, man, come on, B.J.
SIGESMUND: I'm sorry, Soledad. We'll get to two more movies at the end that are very good.
O'BRIEN: Look how beautiful she is.
SIGESMUND: Look at how beautiful she is. Pierce Brosnan is also in this movie. It's a heist flick. These -- Pierce and Salma play a couple who retire after their last big heist to the Bahamas, but they just can't help it, they want one more heist. So they try to get these jewels, and Woody Harrelson plays an FBI agent that is trying to wrangle them.
O'BRIEN: Well, I might just go see that for Salma Hayek, because I love that girl.
B.J., thank you so much, appreciate it, holding down the whole fort. Have a nice weekend, OK. We'll check in with you next week.
SIGESMUND: Thank you, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Let's go back to Rick.
SANCHEZ: All right, thanks, guys. You know, we've just gotten some pictures now, British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He apparently has arrived at the White House. You'll see a quick shot of him there. Looks like a rainy day in Washington as well. He's going to have an 11:25 news conference with the president. At issue today, one would expect a lot of talk about the Middle East. We'll have that for you.
Also a solid economic report is driving the stock market. Andy Serwer is going to be "Minding Your Business."
Stay with us. This is AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. A look at the action on Wall Street, and of course the weekend football picks. Hint -- I'm winning! Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business." Hello.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: That's your new nickname, the winner.
O'BRIEN: The cheater -- the cheater should be my nickname because...
SERWER: No, no, you're the winner. My boy Todd's got my back. But anyway, let's start by talking about the markets.
SERWER: Let's do that. Kind of a mixed picture on Wall Street this morning.
Dell had some great earnings. Down six. Dell had some great earnings. That stock is up $1.60. Does any other company make computers in the United States anymore?
The price of oil has notched up a little bit. More problems in Nigeria. That's what's making the markets go down this morning. And so, that's what we got there.
Now let's move on to the main event, which is football. Because this Friday, and it's America, and Soledad is the leader of the pack. That's why they call her the leader of the pack.
O'BRIEN: Because of my extensive football knowledge, Jack.
SERWER: And there's Jack. Jack doesn't make good football picks. Jack tells it like it is on...
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: There's a lot of stuff I don't do well. That's just one of them.
SERWER: He tells it like it. All right...
O'BRIEN: You give credit to Todd, your producer?
SERWER: Todd does a little bit for Soledad. That's right. Very good.
All right, let's do some picks. I was 3-0 last week on my highlighted picks. This week, Cincinnati Bengals against the Washington Redskins. I am picking the Redskins, because Bill Hemmer is not here. Let's see, and also when the Redskins win a game after the election, it means that in 2008 Jeb Bush is going to beat Hillary. OK? You heard it here first.
Next game, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons. This is the NFL's largest cocktail party, because it is Florida against Georgia -- get it? The Bucs used to be bad. The Bucs are getting better now. They're two in a row. And I think the Bucs are going to win this one.
Let's move on to the Steelers versus the Browns. Sorry, Ben Roethlisberger, it's time to burst your bubble. The Browns are going to win this one. The Borowitz's Browns are going to beat the Steelers, I say. Jack doesn't agree.
And also, there's the "Sports Illustrated" curse, which is really why the Steelers are going to lose. That always works, Jack.
CAFFERTY: That's true. I forgot about that.
SERWER: It really does. Yes. So, there we go.
O'BRIEN: Thank you, Andy.
SERWER: You're welcome.
SANCHEZ: All right. Let's go over to Jack now and see what's going on with "The Cafferty File."
CAFFERTY: Thank you, Rick.
Didn't used to be this tough when I was a student. Of course, that was a long time ago. An 11-year-old kid in Los Angeles, little girl, kicked out of school for a week for doing cartwheels and handstands during a lunchtime recess. School officials say that the girl disobeyed school rules by doing gymnastics on school grounds.
And in Miami, Florida, a six-year-old boy hit with a stun gun by police in the principal's office. Police say that the stun gun was used because the child was threatening to hurt himself with a piece of glass. He's six-years old! So, in order to prevent a six-year-old from hurting himself with a piece of glass, the cops hit him with a stun gun. I think I'm missing something somewhere.
SANCHEZ: Wow.
CAFFERTY: CBS, the network that has trouble getting it, strikes again. Wednesday night, they broke into the last few minutes of "CSI: New York" with the news of Yasser Arafat's death, running the entire -- ruining, rather, the entire ending of the show for millions of viewers.
Now, CBS is apologizing with a statement saying an overly aggressive news producer jumped the gun with a report that should have been offered to local stations for their late news. The interruption came five minutes before local news broadcasts were scheduled to begin. CBS will re-air the show tonight.
Note to CBS, have you ever heard of the little crawl that goes across the bottom of the screen that says, "Yasser Arafat is dead?" However give them credit, at least the story was true.
I got one more. A middle-aged -- I like this one. A middle-aged female orangutan at a suburban Chicago zoo has gotten herself a makeover. She's 43 years old. This is Maggie. She's lost 90 pounds, quit snoring, stopped suffering from flatulence and constipation...
O'BRIEN: Men hate that.
CAFFERTY: ... as soon as the zookeepers found out she had a thyroid problem. She's a whole new woman. Apparently the treatment has also jump-started her libido, and she's gone from being extremely shy and anti-social to chasing all the male orangutans around to see if she can get a little action.
O'BRIEN: You go, girl.
CAFFERTY: That'd be Maggie.
SANCHEZ: Looking good.
CAFFERTY: And she's a pretty thing.
O'BRIEN: ... a thyroid problem. Well...
SERWER: Get rid of that pain and...
CAFFERTY: There you go.
O'BRIEN: Little thyroid problem cleared up, and the flatulence (INAUDIBLE).
Short break. We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: We are out of time.,
SANCHEZ: It's been busy, though.
O'BRIEN: Thank you, and we'll you at the beginning of next week, as well.
SANCHEZ: Yeah, I'll be here Monday.
O'BRIEN: Great. Have a great weekend everybody. Carol Lin's at the CNN Center, going to take you through the next few hours. Hey, Carol, good morning.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad. Good morning, Rick and everybody. I'm Carol Lin here at the CNN Center, and here's what's happening right now in the news.
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