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American Morning
Guantamo Bay Debate; Stay at Home Dads
Aired June 13, 2005 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: You know when people are wearing the tank tops.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: I was going to say, it looks very pleasant out there.
O'BRIEN: It's going to be, yes.
VELSHI: You know, it's going to rain...
O'BRIEN: Now.
VELSHI: This afternoon, I'm told, or this evening or something. You have to go out and build an arc, it's going to rain some much.
O'BRIEN: Really? Well, that'll be -- people are looking forward to it...
VELSHI: Yes, it will cool it down.
O'BRIEN: It's supposed to be 90 degrees today.
VELSHI: Yes, it will cool it down a little bit.
O'BRIEN: And what did Jacqui say? Maybe add an extra five degrees.
VELSHI: Right, just for fun.
O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. Half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. Ali Velshi's is in for Bill today. He's taking a long weekend. Nice to have you.
VELSHI: Nice to be here. Thank you.
Coming up, Sanjay Gupta joins us with his series about Father's Day. This morning, he's looking at stay at home dads and some of the good things that happen to children when fathers spend more time raising them.
O'BRIEN: Whoo hoo. I'll drink to that.
VELSHI: Cheers in here for that.
O'BRIEN: That's ahead this morning. First, though, let's get a look at the headlines with Carol Costello. Good morning again.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to all of you.
"Now in the News," a car bomb kills two civilians and wounds five others in western Baghdad this morning. Iraqi police officials say the attack was aimed at a U.S. military convoy. And in a separate incident, a car bomber targets an Iraqi police patrol in Tikrit. Three people were killed, 11 others wounded.
President Bush meets with leaders of five African countries this morning to discuss democracy and trade agreements. Over the weekend, the U.S. and other leaders of the G-8 agreed to eliminate more than $40 billion in debt owed by 18 of the world's poorest nations. The president also plans to urge Congress to give duty-free status to goods from poor countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
It's been two weeks since an Alabama teenager went missing during a high school trip to Aruba. A total of five suspects still being held in connection with Natalee Holloway's disappearance, but so far no formal charges have been filed. An attorney for one of the suspects says he will file an appeal if his client is not released by today. In the meantime, the search for the teenager has been scaled back.
And jurors in the Michael Jackson style start their seventh day of deliberations today. Fans of the pop star were out decorating the outside of the Neverland Ranch this weekend just to show their support. You see the hearts they placed on the fence surrounding the ranch. Jackson himself hasn't been seen since the jury got the case. He's supposedly waiting it out at Neverland. Court resumes in the next three hours. And as always, we will keep you posted.
O'BRIEN: Of course we will. Carol, thanks very much.
Well, the Bush administration has no plans to close the detention camp at Guantanamo. New reports of mistreatment, though, in "Time" Magazine have some prominent Republicans questioning the camp's value. Joe Johns has our report this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Spotlight on the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, where government designated enemy combatants are taken and interrogated. The question, should the place be closed? Even some congressional Republicans are starting to wonder.
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R), NEBRASKA: This can't be a situation where we just hold them forever and ever until they just die of old age. What are our plans here?
JOHNS: Republican Senator Mel Martinez asked of Florida also asked over the weekend whether the political costs of the camp are starting to outweigh the benefits.
But the view of many in the party controlling the Congress is that a prisoner at Gitmo gets pretty good treatment. REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: We're going to serve him rice pilaf. We're going to serve him oven fried chicken. We're going to serve him three types of fruit and pita bread, and he's going top that all off with a glass of tea.
JOHNS: Among the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Mohammed al Kahtani, a suspected 20th hijacker who never made it to the plane on September 11.
A new report in "Time" magazine, citing a secret interrogation diary, says the government used stress strategies on him like standing for prolonged periods, isolation for as long as 30 days, removal of clothing, forced shaving of facial hair, playing on individual phobias, such as dogs." Interrogation techniques that are not new and some say are not over the line.
REP. PETE KING (D), NEW YORK: Quite frankly, if it's going to save American lives just by shaving someone's hair or by holding him in isolation, I think we have to keep this in context and not be so quick to criticize the military.
JOHNS: A Pentagon statement said Guantanamo provides valuable intelligence information and said al Kahtani's interrogation "was guided by a very detailed plan and conducted by trained professionals." The administration has been clear on its views of the Guantanamo detainees.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: They are enemy combatants for a reason, because they seek to do harm to the American people.
JOHNS: But the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee calls Guantanamo a legal black hole.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D), VERMONT: I think Guantanamo Bay has become a black eye for the United States. We have people there held under dubious reasons. We won't -- we are unwilling to follow even our own rules in holding them. We ought to either charge these people or release them.
JOHNS (on camera): The problem is, there's no clear alternative to Guantanamo right now. And as long as that's true, they say it's a waste of time to debate shutting it down.
Joe Johns, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Is the administration beginning to lose support on Guantanamo? In Washington to debate this this morning, Democratic consultant Victor Kamber. Cliff May is a former RNC communications director, also in D.C. Nice to see you, gentleman.
VICTOR KAMBER, DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANT: Morning, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Thanks for talking with us. CLIFF MAY, FMR. RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Good morning, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Good morning to you.
Cliff, let's start with you. Mel Martinez, he's a Republican. He is asking whether or not the political costs are starting to outweigh the benefits. Do you think there's a chipping away of support for Guantanamo right now?
MAY: Possibly, but I think it's a mistake, and I think Senator Martinez is mistaken in this. Look, you have enemy combatants that we managed to arrest on the battlefield. They need to go somewhere. If we close down Guantanamo, we'd open up someplace else. There, as in Guantanamo, we would have the strictest possible rules for the military, including such things as giving Korans and having a call to prayer and good medical care. All that would be there.
But some people might break the rules. It happens in prisons all the time. Some people might mistreat a prisoner. What are you going to do? Then close down the next place and the next place? Eventually, you're going to say, well, we just don't take prisoners. So what do you do them? You release them or you execute them. I don't think this has been thought through very carefully.
O'BRIEN: That's kind of question for Victor. Victor, another question to add to that. Dick Cheney even said -- in remarks that are going to air a little bit later on Fox today -- he said these are bad people who are captured at Guantanamo. These are not Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, right?
KAMBER: Yes, I agree. And no one's questioning the fact that we need prisons and that we need to contain people. I think -- I think and it should not be a political issue, and this is where I think this administration goes crazy sometimes, when somebody makes a suggestion that they don't make, they put their back up.
Guantanamo may have outlived its usefulness, and I think that's what Senator Martinez is saying. As a political force, it's stigmatized. It has an aura about it. has a connotation about it. Let's open up another camp. It may take the next six months to do it. Let's put the detainees someplace else. I mean, there's plenty of prisons out there that could do it. And let's close down.
MAY: Everything is off...
KAMBER: You know, Guantanamo is off...
MAY: Victor...
KAMBER: ... is off the United States. It's on the island of Cuba. It's been used in the Cuban period of time. It's now used for the terrorists. I mean, close it.
MAY: Victor, it's very easy to stigmatize Americans. Next, they'll say, OK, we've opened another facility. And you know what they're doing? You just heard it. They're making people shave. Oh, isn't that terrible? Isn't that inhuman? What if...
KAMBER: But Cliff...
MAY: We pay more attention to making people shave in prison camp than we do to cutting people's throats on video film.
KAMBER: Cliff, obviously that's...
MAY: You cannot win a war like this.
KAMBER: You can cite the shaving. We obviously have heard there are abuses there, and Guantanamo Bay has been compared with...
O'BRIEN: Cliff, in all fairness, shaving is one of a litany of things that people have complained about at Guantanamo. It's not an issue of only shaving, right?
MAY: No. There are rules, and I think they're the best rules and most disciplined that any military in the world has. If you want to make tougher rules, that's Congress' jobs. When they're not in front of the cameras, they can actually pass legislation. And there will be people in any prison, anywhere in the world, including America, who will break those rules on occasion. If so, they will be and are being investigated and then prosecuted. But the idea that every time some guard yells at somebody, we're going to close down the facility and...
KAMBER: It's not every time, Cliff.
MAY: ... open up another one, it's not going to happen. Every time somebody tries to stigmatize the Americans, we are going to say we're so guilty, we're so sorry. Let's shut down and start again. Eventually, you're going to have no prisons. Let me tell you, you could not have won World War II like this, and we didn't win the Vietnam War. And if you want to lose this war, this is the way to do it.
O'BRIEN: Before we run out of time, I want to throw another question. You guys see this article on the front page of the "New York Times." It talks about Iraqi forces and they basically say it could be years before the Iraqi forces are in any shape to really protect the citizenry of Iraq. Which means, of course, that American troops would have to be there far longer a year than some predict. Many years is what they're thinking of. The article, in fact, makes them not only sound, you know, inexperienced, but absolutely incompetent.
But here's my question for you, Cliff. Don't you think someone should be able to spell out how long American forces are going to be there?
MAY: American forces are still in Japan. They're still in Europe. American forces are still South Korea, they're still in Bosnia. We should be there as long as the Iraqis need us to kill the al Qaeda terrorists and the Baathist terrorists who are fighting Americans and who are fighting Iraqis. The idea that we should be out of Iraq when we're still in Europe and South Korea and Japan strikes me as crazy.
O'BRIEN: At the same time...
KAMBER: American forces...
O'BRIEN: Should they be saying that American forces are looking for early withdrawal, which is what we've heard of late from the government?
MAY: I don't think we should be looking for an early withdrawal. We should be looking for a successful withdrawal. We should be there as long as it takes. When FDR was asked how long will World War II take, how long will it be, we be over there? He said, for the duration. That's the only answer if you want win, not lose, the war you're involved in.
O'BRIEN: Victor, is "for the duration" good enough for you?
KAMBER: No, it's not and it speaks, again, to failed policy, a president that entered a war, claimed the mission accomplished, without a plan how to escalate or how to get out of the war. We need other troops, we need the rest of the world to participate. And the fact that we have troops in Japan, they're not losing their lives every day as they are in Iraq. Iraq is ill-prepared to take over. We have to be there. I don't disagree with Cliff, we cannot pull out, we have to be there. because Iraq is unable to self serve themselves.
MAY: Victor, if we only send troops where there aren't wars, we're not going to win wars.
KAMBER: We created the war. This is not a war that we're sending troops to stop. It's a war that we went after and created, and then claimed it was over.
MAY: We're fighting Al Qaeda right now.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: I have a feeling we're not going to wrap this up this morning, and we're certainly not going to wrap it up in the next few seconds.
Gentlemen, you can continue fighting off camera.
KAMBER: Thank you.
MAY: We will.
O'BRIEN: Cliff May, Victor Kamber, as always, nice to see you guys, because you're both in D.C. this morning -- Ali.
(WEATHER REPORT)
VELSHI: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, a musical revival for one of Coca-Cola's most popular ad campaigns. Can it work a second time around? We're "Minding Your Business." O'BRIEN: And stay-at-home dads. Why are more and more men choosing to hold down the fort at home?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta begins his special series called "Just For Dad."
Speaking of dads, here's a little question for you. When it comes to childbirth, nearly 40 percent of fathers in France indicated in a recent poll they wish they could, a, film the birth of their child; b, be pregnant instead of their wives; and, c, avoid being in the delivery room all together. We've got the answer for you just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All this week, just in time for Father's Day, Dr. Sanjay Gupta examines some of the issues facing fathers in a special five-part series called "Just For Dad." We begin with a look at stay- at-home dads. Sanjay is at the CNN Center this morning. Hey, Sanjay. Good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Yes, Soledad, a lot of men would have scoffed at the idea of being a stay- at-home dad just a few years ago. But the numbers are increasing exponentially. So we decided to take a look at the goods and the bads.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): Fifteen months ago, salesman Bill Cook got a new job. He traded phone calls, meetings and power lunches for feedings, nap time, and play dates.
BILL COOK, STAY-AT-HOME DAD: Daddy's got his list.
GUPTA: Cook is a stay-at-home dad.
COOK: People look at me like I've got two heads sometimes when I walk in and I've got three babies -- I've got the two babies and I've got my daughter with me, and they look at me, like, where's your wife? Why are you here by yourself?
GUPTA: Sure, they seem to be an anomaly, but two million men, according to the latest census findings, do it. That's four times the number of dads opting to hold down the home fort 20 years ago. A new generation of what some are calling Mr. Mom.
COOK: I get that a lot. Mr. Mom, Mr. Mom. No, it's Mr. Dad. Yes.
GUPTA: And while chaos reigns in movies like Mr. Mom, the scene at the Cook residence most days, placid, organized.
COOK: Where's his eyes?
GUPTA: Cook juggles the kids, while mom works her sales job from home. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let me look into it and find out and give you a call back.
GUPTA: Far removed from the activity outside.
COOK: We looked at her job and looked at my job, and which one could we do without easier? And it was my job.
GUPTA: The biggest job for moms seems to be nurturing. So are 6-year-old Lauren (ph), and 1-year-old twins Connor (ph) and Sophie getting as much from dad as they would from mom? Studies say yes. Before a baby is born, dad's experience a surge in nurturing hormones, like estrogen and perlactin, which is the hormone coursing through you when you're in live. And the essentially male hormone testosterone dips by a third once baby is born.
COOK: I think you can learn to be nurturing. I think that's something that maybe not everybody, you know, may agree with, but I think for me, I was already, I think, nurturing in a way. And from having the experience at home, and I helped raise brothers and sisters and things like that, it came natural to me.
GUPTA: Dr. Kyle Pruitt has conducted the longest term studies on the children of stay-at-home dads, finding later in life they are better problem solvers, and not surprisingly, less prone to gender stereotyping.
The key, regardless of which parent stays home, says Pruitt, is that kids know they're being cared for by a parent who loves them.
KYLE PRUITT, YALE CHILD STUDY CENTER: When you look at the father's style, the mother's style, it's not that one's right and one's wrong, the child figures out a way to weave a stronger cloth, a fabric together, from these two lessons they are learning.
GUPTA: Cook's learning his lessons every day.
COOK: It's like a constant clean-up thing. Load of laundry.
GUPTA: But even more, he's truly involved with his kids.
COOK: It's very prideful. I mean, you see your kid, and all of a sudden they're crawling or they sat up, and that's really cool. That's a cool thing to see firsthand instead of getting a phone call and saying, hey, you now, your daughter just sat up or rolled over.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: And, again, Bill Cook is just one of a couple million now stay-at-home dads out there.
Few long term study on this now, Soledad, because it is becoming more popular now. But other possible benefits include more behavioral control in a child later on in life and less likely to enter the juvenile justice system as well. So some benefits there, Soledad. O'BRIEN: Sanjay, Mr. Cook, of course, looks like he is very well adjusted, but I have to imagine that there are socially some huge pressures on him and other stay-at-home dads.
GUPTA: Yes, you know, it's sort of interesting. We looked into this quite a bit, and the social ramifications, obviously, he talked about the chiding that he gets sometimes from some of the other dads out there who are not stay-at-home dads. But more concretely, you know, for moms, there's lots of systems in place for a stay-at-home moms. There are classes they can go to. There are classes they can go to with their child. Everything is sort of designed for the mom being at home with the child. For the father, there's not that sort of thing. One of the biggest complaints, one of the biggest bads, if you will, was the sense of loneliness that a lot of fathers complained of, because they don't have the social structure to engage in if they're a stay-at-home dad.
O'BRIEN: Sanjay, we should mention the second part of your series is for postpartum depression, and it's not just for moms anymore. A look at that tomorrow right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
Sanjay, thanks.
GUPTA: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Back to the question we asked you about earlier. When it comes to childbirth, nearly 40 percent of fathers in France indicated in a recent poll, they wish they could, A, film the birth of their child; B, be pregnant instead of their wives; or C, avoid being in the delivery room all together. Guess what? The answer was B. That's right a poll of more than 500 French fathers -- I'm sorry -- I just don't believe that.
VELSHI: They're making that up.
O'BRIEN: Let me finish. Thirty-eight percent want to go through the real thing. No, you don't, guys. A slightly higher percentage of women like that idea. I'm just not buying it.
VELSHI: They're completely making that up. Someone said it sounded more sensitive. Come on.
All right, still to come, TV's biggest advertiser says it's cutting back on buying ads. What's behind the decision? We're "Minding Your Business," next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: One of the most popular stories on CNN.com, some good news for anybody thinking about buying a car. It's a report that General Motors is cutting sticker prices on some Chevrolet, Pontiac and Saturn models. GM is responding to a dwindling marketshare and a billion-dollar first quarter loss. The company hopes lower prices will boost sales. This is in addition to them disclosing that they're going to give everybody company prices on a number of their cars.
The makers of Coke want to teach the world to sing again.
Gerri Willis is in for Andy Serwer, and she is "Minding Your Business." And if they want to bring that tune back, I'd be happy to hear it again.
GERRI WILLIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, you know, they say everything old is new again. Coke is making good on that. You heard it the first time, right? Listen in.
(SINGING)
WILLIS: All right, so you remember this tune. Thirty-four years ago we first heard this thing. It was the most popular ad campaign that Coke ever had, and now they're going to use the same song again to launch Coca-Cola Zero. But it's not aimed at you people who remember this ad. It's aimed at people 18 to 24 who probably have never heard it, Ali. So they're going to launch this new Coca-Cola Zero. They're going to raise the hip quotient. They're got a hip-hop artist named G-Love.
VELSHI: G-Love? G-Love.
WILLIS: I'm not hip enough to know this name. G-Love, and he's going to sing, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Chill."
VELSHI: Oh, OK, so we're changing it a little bit. All right, G-Love, waiting for that.
World's biggest advertiser?
WILLIS: Procter & gamble.
VELSHI: Yes, I was trying to think about that. That makes sense, doesn't it? Because they have a lot of products.
WILLIS: Well, you know them, consumer products. They make Tide, pampers and Crest. And guess what, they've announced they're going to commit less money to television advertising, in fact, 25 percent less. That's a whole lot of dough that will sit on the sidelines. They say they're going to put it into TV product placement. So they're going to spend it differently. But there's big questions whether they'll come in later in the season and spend some money on ads. It could happen in the scatter market. Big questions of course now about the effectiveness of advertising dollars on television, particularly with the development of TiVo, digital video recorders...
VELSHI: You can skip them.
WILLIS: ... which allow consumers to get rid of the ads.
VELSHI: Yes. There's some discussion about rigging those devices so that you can't skip over the ads. But I think we'll be able to find a fix around that.
Now Phil Purcell, very interesting story here, certainly interesting for people who follow business. WILLIS: Exactly. Well, Phil Purcell being reported today. In fact, the company is announcing that he's resigning amid media reports that he has been fired. We're going to have more on that story in the next hour.
VELSHI: And of course this is Morgan Stanley. Phil Purcell's been under pressure for some time.
Gerri, good, thanks very much -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Still ahead this morning, today's top stories, including the case that ended in a hung jury more than 40 years ago. Today a new trial begins for an 80-year-old former preacher in connection with three civil rights murders. We're going to talk to the accused man's lawyer just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired June 13, 2005 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: You know when people are wearing the tank tops.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: I was going to say, it looks very pleasant out there.
O'BRIEN: It's going to be, yes.
VELSHI: You know, it's going to rain...
O'BRIEN: Now.
VELSHI: This afternoon, I'm told, or this evening or something. You have to go out and build an arc, it's going to rain some much.
O'BRIEN: Really? Well, that'll be -- people are looking forward to it...
VELSHI: Yes, it will cool it down.
O'BRIEN: It's supposed to be 90 degrees today.
VELSHI: Yes, it will cool it down a little bit.
O'BRIEN: And what did Jacqui say? Maybe add an extra five degrees.
VELSHI: Right, just for fun.
O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. Half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. Ali Velshi's is in for Bill today. He's taking a long weekend. Nice to have you.
VELSHI: Nice to be here. Thank you.
Coming up, Sanjay Gupta joins us with his series about Father's Day. This morning, he's looking at stay at home dads and some of the good things that happen to children when fathers spend more time raising them.
O'BRIEN: Whoo hoo. I'll drink to that.
VELSHI: Cheers in here for that.
O'BRIEN: That's ahead this morning. First, though, let's get a look at the headlines with Carol Costello. Good morning again.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to all of you.
"Now in the News," a car bomb kills two civilians and wounds five others in western Baghdad this morning. Iraqi police officials say the attack was aimed at a U.S. military convoy. And in a separate incident, a car bomber targets an Iraqi police patrol in Tikrit. Three people were killed, 11 others wounded.
President Bush meets with leaders of five African countries this morning to discuss democracy and trade agreements. Over the weekend, the U.S. and other leaders of the G-8 agreed to eliminate more than $40 billion in debt owed by 18 of the world's poorest nations. The president also plans to urge Congress to give duty-free status to goods from poor countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
It's been two weeks since an Alabama teenager went missing during a high school trip to Aruba. A total of five suspects still being held in connection with Natalee Holloway's disappearance, but so far no formal charges have been filed. An attorney for one of the suspects says he will file an appeal if his client is not released by today. In the meantime, the search for the teenager has been scaled back.
And jurors in the Michael Jackson style start their seventh day of deliberations today. Fans of the pop star were out decorating the outside of the Neverland Ranch this weekend just to show their support. You see the hearts they placed on the fence surrounding the ranch. Jackson himself hasn't been seen since the jury got the case. He's supposedly waiting it out at Neverland. Court resumes in the next three hours. And as always, we will keep you posted.
O'BRIEN: Of course we will. Carol, thanks very much.
Well, the Bush administration has no plans to close the detention camp at Guantanamo. New reports of mistreatment, though, in "Time" Magazine have some prominent Republicans questioning the camp's value. Joe Johns has our report this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Spotlight on the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, where government designated enemy combatants are taken and interrogated. The question, should the place be closed? Even some congressional Republicans are starting to wonder.
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R), NEBRASKA: This can't be a situation where we just hold them forever and ever until they just die of old age. What are our plans here?
JOHNS: Republican Senator Mel Martinez asked of Florida also asked over the weekend whether the political costs of the camp are starting to outweigh the benefits.
But the view of many in the party controlling the Congress is that a prisoner at Gitmo gets pretty good treatment. REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: We're going to serve him rice pilaf. We're going to serve him oven fried chicken. We're going to serve him three types of fruit and pita bread, and he's going top that all off with a glass of tea.
JOHNS: Among the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Mohammed al Kahtani, a suspected 20th hijacker who never made it to the plane on September 11.
A new report in "Time" magazine, citing a secret interrogation diary, says the government used stress strategies on him like standing for prolonged periods, isolation for as long as 30 days, removal of clothing, forced shaving of facial hair, playing on individual phobias, such as dogs." Interrogation techniques that are not new and some say are not over the line.
REP. PETE KING (D), NEW YORK: Quite frankly, if it's going to save American lives just by shaving someone's hair or by holding him in isolation, I think we have to keep this in context and not be so quick to criticize the military.
JOHNS: A Pentagon statement said Guantanamo provides valuable intelligence information and said al Kahtani's interrogation "was guided by a very detailed plan and conducted by trained professionals." The administration has been clear on its views of the Guantanamo detainees.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: They are enemy combatants for a reason, because they seek to do harm to the American people.
JOHNS: But the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee calls Guantanamo a legal black hole.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D), VERMONT: I think Guantanamo Bay has become a black eye for the United States. We have people there held under dubious reasons. We won't -- we are unwilling to follow even our own rules in holding them. We ought to either charge these people or release them.
JOHNS (on camera): The problem is, there's no clear alternative to Guantanamo right now. And as long as that's true, they say it's a waste of time to debate shutting it down.
Joe Johns, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Is the administration beginning to lose support on Guantanamo? In Washington to debate this this morning, Democratic consultant Victor Kamber. Cliff May is a former RNC communications director, also in D.C. Nice to see you, gentleman.
VICTOR KAMBER, DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANT: Morning, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Thanks for talking with us. CLIFF MAY, FMR. RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Good morning, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Good morning to you.
Cliff, let's start with you. Mel Martinez, he's a Republican. He is asking whether or not the political costs are starting to outweigh the benefits. Do you think there's a chipping away of support for Guantanamo right now?
MAY: Possibly, but I think it's a mistake, and I think Senator Martinez is mistaken in this. Look, you have enemy combatants that we managed to arrest on the battlefield. They need to go somewhere. If we close down Guantanamo, we'd open up someplace else. There, as in Guantanamo, we would have the strictest possible rules for the military, including such things as giving Korans and having a call to prayer and good medical care. All that would be there.
But some people might break the rules. It happens in prisons all the time. Some people might mistreat a prisoner. What are you going to do? Then close down the next place and the next place? Eventually, you're going to say, well, we just don't take prisoners. So what do you do them? You release them or you execute them. I don't think this has been thought through very carefully.
O'BRIEN: That's kind of question for Victor. Victor, another question to add to that. Dick Cheney even said -- in remarks that are going to air a little bit later on Fox today -- he said these are bad people who are captured at Guantanamo. These are not Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, right?
KAMBER: Yes, I agree. And no one's questioning the fact that we need prisons and that we need to contain people. I think -- I think and it should not be a political issue, and this is where I think this administration goes crazy sometimes, when somebody makes a suggestion that they don't make, they put their back up.
Guantanamo may have outlived its usefulness, and I think that's what Senator Martinez is saying. As a political force, it's stigmatized. It has an aura about it. has a connotation about it. Let's open up another camp. It may take the next six months to do it. Let's put the detainees someplace else. I mean, there's plenty of prisons out there that could do it. And let's close down.
MAY: Everything is off...
KAMBER: You know, Guantanamo is off...
MAY: Victor...
KAMBER: ... is off the United States. It's on the island of Cuba. It's been used in the Cuban period of time. It's now used for the terrorists. I mean, close it.
MAY: Victor, it's very easy to stigmatize Americans. Next, they'll say, OK, we've opened another facility. And you know what they're doing? You just heard it. They're making people shave. Oh, isn't that terrible? Isn't that inhuman? What if...
KAMBER: But Cliff...
MAY: We pay more attention to making people shave in prison camp than we do to cutting people's throats on video film.
KAMBER: Cliff, obviously that's...
MAY: You cannot win a war like this.
KAMBER: You can cite the shaving. We obviously have heard there are abuses there, and Guantanamo Bay has been compared with...
O'BRIEN: Cliff, in all fairness, shaving is one of a litany of things that people have complained about at Guantanamo. It's not an issue of only shaving, right?
MAY: No. There are rules, and I think they're the best rules and most disciplined that any military in the world has. If you want to make tougher rules, that's Congress' jobs. When they're not in front of the cameras, they can actually pass legislation. And there will be people in any prison, anywhere in the world, including America, who will break those rules on occasion. If so, they will be and are being investigated and then prosecuted. But the idea that every time some guard yells at somebody, we're going to close down the facility and...
KAMBER: It's not every time, Cliff.
MAY: ... open up another one, it's not going to happen. Every time somebody tries to stigmatize the Americans, we are going to say we're so guilty, we're so sorry. Let's shut down and start again. Eventually, you're going to have no prisons. Let me tell you, you could not have won World War II like this, and we didn't win the Vietnam War. And if you want to lose this war, this is the way to do it.
O'BRIEN: Before we run out of time, I want to throw another question. You guys see this article on the front page of the "New York Times." It talks about Iraqi forces and they basically say it could be years before the Iraqi forces are in any shape to really protect the citizenry of Iraq. Which means, of course, that American troops would have to be there far longer a year than some predict. Many years is what they're thinking of. The article, in fact, makes them not only sound, you know, inexperienced, but absolutely incompetent.
But here's my question for you, Cliff. Don't you think someone should be able to spell out how long American forces are going to be there?
MAY: American forces are still in Japan. They're still in Europe. American forces are still South Korea, they're still in Bosnia. We should be there as long as the Iraqis need us to kill the al Qaeda terrorists and the Baathist terrorists who are fighting Americans and who are fighting Iraqis. The idea that we should be out of Iraq when we're still in Europe and South Korea and Japan strikes me as crazy.
O'BRIEN: At the same time...
KAMBER: American forces...
O'BRIEN: Should they be saying that American forces are looking for early withdrawal, which is what we've heard of late from the government?
MAY: I don't think we should be looking for an early withdrawal. We should be looking for a successful withdrawal. We should be there as long as it takes. When FDR was asked how long will World War II take, how long will it be, we be over there? He said, for the duration. That's the only answer if you want win, not lose, the war you're involved in.
O'BRIEN: Victor, is "for the duration" good enough for you?
KAMBER: No, it's not and it speaks, again, to failed policy, a president that entered a war, claimed the mission accomplished, without a plan how to escalate or how to get out of the war. We need other troops, we need the rest of the world to participate. And the fact that we have troops in Japan, they're not losing their lives every day as they are in Iraq. Iraq is ill-prepared to take over. We have to be there. I don't disagree with Cliff, we cannot pull out, we have to be there. because Iraq is unable to self serve themselves.
MAY: Victor, if we only send troops where there aren't wars, we're not going to win wars.
KAMBER: We created the war. This is not a war that we're sending troops to stop. It's a war that we went after and created, and then claimed it was over.
MAY: We're fighting Al Qaeda right now.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: I have a feeling we're not going to wrap this up this morning, and we're certainly not going to wrap it up in the next few seconds.
Gentlemen, you can continue fighting off camera.
KAMBER: Thank you.
MAY: We will.
O'BRIEN: Cliff May, Victor Kamber, as always, nice to see you guys, because you're both in D.C. this morning -- Ali.
(WEATHER REPORT)
VELSHI: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, a musical revival for one of Coca-Cola's most popular ad campaigns. Can it work a second time around? We're "Minding Your Business." O'BRIEN: And stay-at-home dads. Why are more and more men choosing to hold down the fort at home?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta begins his special series called "Just For Dad."
Speaking of dads, here's a little question for you. When it comes to childbirth, nearly 40 percent of fathers in France indicated in a recent poll they wish they could, a, film the birth of their child; b, be pregnant instead of their wives; and, c, avoid being in the delivery room all together. We've got the answer for you just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All this week, just in time for Father's Day, Dr. Sanjay Gupta examines some of the issues facing fathers in a special five-part series called "Just For Dad." We begin with a look at stay- at-home dads. Sanjay is at the CNN Center this morning. Hey, Sanjay. Good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Yes, Soledad, a lot of men would have scoffed at the idea of being a stay- at-home dad just a few years ago. But the numbers are increasing exponentially. So we decided to take a look at the goods and the bads.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): Fifteen months ago, salesman Bill Cook got a new job. He traded phone calls, meetings and power lunches for feedings, nap time, and play dates.
BILL COOK, STAY-AT-HOME DAD: Daddy's got his list.
GUPTA: Cook is a stay-at-home dad.
COOK: People look at me like I've got two heads sometimes when I walk in and I've got three babies -- I've got the two babies and I've got my daughter with me, and they look at me, like, where's your wife? Why are you here by yourself?
GUPTA: Sure, they seem to be an anomaly, but two million men, according to the latest census findings, do it. That's four times the number of dads opting to hold down the home fort 20 years ago. A new generation of what some are calling Mr. Mom.
COOK: I get that a lot. Mr. Mom, Mr. Mom. No, it's Mr. Dad. Yes.
GUPTA: And while chaos reigns in movies like Mr. Mom, the scene at the Cook residence most days, placid, organized.
COOK: Where's his eyes?
GUPTA: Cook juggles the kids, while mom works her sales job from home. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let me look into it and find out and give you a call back.
GUPTA: Far removed from the activity outside.
COOK: We looked at her job and looked at my job, and which one could we do without easier? And it was my job.
GUPTA: The biggest job for moms seems to be nurturing. So are 6-year-old Lauren (ph), and 1-year-old twins Connor (ph) and Sophie getting as much from dad as they would from mom? Studies say yes. Before a baby is born, dad's experience a surge in nurturing hormones, like estrogen and perlactin, which is the hormone coursing through you when you're in live. And the essentially male hormone testosterone dips by a third once baby is born.
COOK: I think you can learn to be nurturing. I think that's something that maybe not everybody, you know, may agree with, but I think for me, I was already, I think, nurturing in a way. And from having the experience at home, and I helped raise brothers and sisters and things like that, it came natural to me.
GUPTA: Dr. Kyle Pruitt has conducted the longest term studies on the children of stay-at-home dads, finding later in life they are better problem solvers, and not surprisingly, less prone to gender stereotyping.
The key, regardless of which parent stays home, says Pruitt, is that kids know they're being cared for by a parent who loves them.
KYLE PRUITT, YALE CHILD STUDY CENTER: When you look at the father's style, the mother's style, it's not that one's right and one's wrong, the child figures out a way to weave a stronger cloth, a fabric together, from these two lessons they are learning.
GUPTA: Cook's learning his lessons every day.
COOK: It's like a constant clean-up thing. Load of laundry.
GUPTA: But even more, he's truly involved with his kids.
COOK: It's very prideful. I mean, you see your kid, and all of a sudden they're crawling or they sat up, and that's really cool. That's a cool thing to see firsthand instead of getting a phone call and saying, hey, you now, your daughter just sat up or rolled over.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: And, again, Bill Cook is just one of a couple million now stay-at-home dads out there.
Few long term study on this now, Soledad, because it is becoming more popular now. But other possible benefits include more behavioral control in a child later on in life and less likely to enter the juvenile justice system as well. So some benefits there, Soledad. O'BRIEN: Sanjay, Mr. Cook, of course, looks like he is very well adjusted, but I have to imagine that there are socially some huge pressures on him and other stay-at-home dads.
GUPTA: Yes, you know, it's sort of interesting. We looked into this quite a bit, and the social ramifications, obviously, he talked about the chiding that he gets sometimes from some of the other dads out there who are not stay-at-home dads. But more concretely, you know, for moms, there's lots of systems in place for a stay-at-home moms. There are classes they can go to. There are classes they can go to with their child. Everything is sort of designed for the mom being at home with the child. For the father, there's not that sort of thing. One of the biggest complaints, one of the biggest bads, if you will, was the sense of loneliness that a lot of fathers complained of, because they don't have the social structure to engage in if they're a stay-at-home dad.
O'BRIEN: Sanjay, we should mention the second part of your series is for postpartum depression, and it's not just for moms anymore. A look at that tomorrow right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
Sanjay, thanks.
GUPTA: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Back to the question we asked you about earlier. When it comes to childbirth, nearly 40 percent of fathers in France indicated in a recent poll, they wish they could, A, film the birth of their child; B, be pregnant instead of their wives; or C, avoid being in the delivery room all together. Guess what? The answer was B. That's right a poll of more than 500 French fathers -- I'm sorry -- I just don't believe that.
VELSHI: They're making that up.
O'BRIEN: Let me finish. Thirty-eight percent want to go through the real thing. No, you don't, guys. A slightly higher percentage of women like that idea. I'm just not buying it.
VELSHI: They're completely making that up. Someone said it sounded more sensitive. Come on.
All right, still to come, TV's biggest advertiser says it's cutting back on buying ads. What's behind the decision? We're "Minding Your Business," next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: One of the most popular stories on CNN.com, some good news for anybody thinking about buying a car. It's a report that General Motors is cutting sticker prices on some Chevrolet, Pontiac and Saturn models. GM is responding to a dwindling marketshare and a billion-dollar first quarter loss. The company hopes lower prices will boost sales. This is in addition to them disclosing that they're going to give everybody company prices on a number of their cars.
The makers of Coke want to teach the world to sing again.
Gerri Willis is in for Andy Serwer, and she is "Minding Your Business." And if they want to bring that tune back, I'd be happy to hear it again.
GERRI WILLIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, you know, they say everything old is new again. Coke is making good on that. You heard it the first time, right? Listen in.
(SINGING)
WILLIS: All right, so you remember this tune. Thirty-four years ago we first heard this thing. It was the most popular ad campaign that Coke ever had, and now they're going to use the same song again to launch Coca-Cola Zero. But it's not aimed at you people who remember this ad. It's aimed at people 18 to 24 who probably have never heard it, Ali. So they're going to launch this new Coca-Cola Zero. They're going to raise the hip quotient. They're got a hip-hop artist named G-Love.
VELSHI: G-Love? G-Love.
WILLIS: I'm not hip enough to know this name. G-Love, and he's going to sing, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Chill."
VELSHI: Oh, OK, so we're changing it a little bit. All right, G-Love, waiting for that.
World's biggest advertiser?
WILLIS: Procter & gamble.
VELSHI: Yes, I was trying to think about that. That makes sense, doesn't it? Because they have a lot of products.
WILLIS: Well, you know them, consumer products. They make Tide, pampers and Crest. And guess what, they've announced they're going to commit less money to television advertising, in fact, 25 percent less. That's a whole lot of dough that will sit on the sidelines. They say they're going to put it into TV product placement. So they're going to spend it differently. But there's big questions whether they'll come in later in the season and spend some money on ads. It could happen in the scatter market. Big questions of course now about the effectiveness of advertising dollars on television, particularly with the development of TiVo, digital video recorders...
VELSHI: You can skip them.
WILLIS: ... which allow consumers to get rid of the ads.
VELSHI: Yes. There's some discussion about rigging those devices so that you can't skip over the ads. But I think we'll be able to find a fix around that.
Now Phil Purcell, very interesting story here, certainly interesting for people who follow business. WILLIS: Exactly. Well, Phil Purcell being reported today. In fact, the company is announcing that he's resigning amid media reports that he has been fired. We're going to have more on that story in the next hour.
VELSHI: And of course this is Morgan Stanley. Phil Purcell's been under pressure for some time.
Gerri, good, thanks very much -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Still ahead this morning, today's top stories, including the case that ended in a hung jury more than 40 years ago. Today a new trial begins for an 80-year-old former preacher in connection with three civil rights murders. We're going to talk to the accused man's lawyer just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
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