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President Bush on the Road Talking Immigration; Anticipated Draw-Down of U.S. Troops in Iraq May be on Hold a Little While Longer

Aired June 07, 2006 - 07:00   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Dana Bash live now on Capitol Hill with more on this.
And the question is -- you posed it, Dana -- why have a vote if you almost know really for certain you're not going to win?

DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And they've known for certain, Miles, of course, since they began this that there's no way they were going to reach the two-thirds majority needed to change the Constitution.

One of the reasons why proponents of this federal ban give is simply to raise national awareness, have a national debate on this issue at this time. And that is what we saw this week on the Senate floor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICK SANTORUM (R), PENNSYLVANIA: If marriage is not about one man and one woman, for the purpose of a relationship of which to have children and continue the society, then what -- if it's about two women or two men, why not two women and three men? Why not whatever arrangement? If gender doesn't matter anymore, why does number matter? What's the significance?

SEN. FRANK LAUTENBERG (D), NEW JERSEY: Once the federal government starts regulating marriage, what's next? What's going to stop Congress from acting as the morality police and prohibit people from getting married unless they pledge to have children? Or unless they pledge to restrict the number of children they have? What is this to do to stop this body from outlawing divorce?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now there is an expectation later this morning when senators vote that we will see the first majority vote for this issue, and supporters of a ban will claim that as a victory, Miles, because they say this is part of a long-term policy goal, and this is about just gaining momentum in that goal.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, explain, Dana, though how you spin that into a victory, and really how much good that will do, because the goal here is to shore up the right thing of the party. Will it really work?

BASH: Certainly, there's no question that is a big part of the political goal here, and as we've been talking about this week, one of the big concerns for Republican leaders here is the fact that the conservative rank and file are frustrated with the fact that they believe that the Republican leaders here just simply aren't doing a good job, especially when it comes to issues they care about. We're seeing this, a debate on same-sex marriage. There will be a debate just after that trying to appeal to fiscal conservatives, that will essentially repeal the estate tax, so they certainly are hoping it will work.

But there are some Republican naysayers who are actually thinking this could hurt some Republicans, like for example in New England for whom this issue certainly not going to help.

M. O'BRIEN: Dana bash on Capitol Hill, thank you -- Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush is on the road today talking immigration. He's visiting a center in Nebraska that helps immigrant families. The president remaining hopeful that Congress is going to agree on immigration reform.

CNN White House correspondent Elaine Quijano is in Omaha this morning.

Elaine, good morning.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad.

President Bush in the midst of a two-day, three-state push to try to sell the American people and members of Congress on his immigration plan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUIJANO (voice over): President Bush chose the only U.S. Border Patrol academy in the country to deliver his latest pitch on comprehensive immigration reform. With the House and Senate bills remaining far apart, Mr. Bush suggested both sides in the emotional debate share basic beliefs.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And while the differences grab the headlines, the similarities and approaches are striking. We all agree we need to control our borders. There's a common agreement that the federal government has a responsibility to control the borders.

QUIJANO: To emphasize that part of his message, the president chose as his backdrop this facility in Artesia, New Mexico, where America's future Border Patrol agents receive training in everything from checkpoint operations to immigration law. Mr. Bush also oversaw the swearing in of their new boss, Ralph Basham, former Secret Service director and now the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection.

By highlighting their work, Mr. Bush hopes to sway skeptical House Republicans who have long called for tougher border security measures and want that dealt with before tackling other aspects of immigration reform. Yet, the president remains convinced that a temporary guest worker program and a path to what he calls earned citizenship are vital to reforming immigration laws. Critics call that path amnesty, but during a second stop in Laredo, Texas, the president took issue with his critics.

BUSH: Amnesty is something nobody is for in America. I'm not for it. But in order to frighten people, you just say the word "amnesty".

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUIJANO: And next up for President Bush, he will visit a Catholic charities facility here in Omaha, Nebraska to highlight the need for immigrants to assimilate into American society. And then a little later on this morning, Soledad he will be delivering remarking on immigration here at Metropolitan Community College in Omaha -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: So is the ultimate goal just to continue to push immigration and his message there?

QUIJANO: Exactly. The president knows full well that both sides on this issue are very deeply entrenched, but he is hoping that by going out there, showing that he can be tough on border security, that will hopefully nudge the two sides closer together. But they acknowledge, senior administration officials do, that this is indeed a heavy lift -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Elaine Quijano is in Omaha, Nebraska this morning. Elaine, thanks.

CNN is going to bring the president's remarks in Omaha later this afternoon. We're expecting them around 9:40 Eastern Time -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: As many as eight people dead following three morning attacks in Baghdad. Iraqi police were targeted in two of the attacks. A roadside bomb killed two high-ranking officers.

Just 15 minutes later, gunmen opened fire on a police patrol in the city. More than a dozen kidnapped Iraqis have been set free. They were among the 50 people kidnapped in a coordinated assault by the phony Iraqi police commandos we told you about. The 15 released all say said they have been beaten and tortured.

And a big prisoner release, really the biggest since the American invasion. Nearly 600 prisoners turned loose this morning. It's part of a national reconciliation plan by Iraq's prime minister. As many 2,500 prisoners expected to be freed when all is said and done on this. The idea is to stem the violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

The anticipated draw-down of troops in Iraq may be on hold a little while longer. CNN's Kathleen Koch live at the Pentagon this morning with more.

Kathleen, good morning.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles. Yes, CNN has learned according to military officials that up to 3,700 or more U.S. forces could soon begin rotating into Iraq. That plan runs counter to previous expectations, previously expressed hopes that U.S. troops in Iraq could begin drawing down perhaps as soon as the summer. Now the troops with the Second Brigade First Infantry Division. They're based right now in Schweinfurt, Germany, and they've gotten orders to begin packing up their gear, begin heading to Kuwait. That's the staging ground for forces who are heading into Iraq. The forces would eventually replace troops that are rotating out of Iraq. U.S. military officials say that it was last week that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made the decision, the plan to approve the funding for this movement of troops.

Back to you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Kathleen, bring us up-to-date on the investigations under way on those allegations of atrocities, Hamdaniya, Haditha? Where do they stand this morning?

KOCH: Not a lot of movement in the investigations. But, Miles, you know, when Congress was out of session last week, and the expectation when they came back, they would want to know more about these investigations. That's precisely what's happened. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John Warner, has already sent a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saying he wants cooperation in holding hearings on these investigations as soon as possible.

And he was asked yesterday if he believes that the U.S. military has tried to cover up what happened in these incidents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN WARNER (R), VIRGINIA: As far as I know, the professionalism by way of investigation is quite accurate. And I have no basis at this time to say that there's any effort to cover up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: Now, the senator has, though, requested that Major General Eldon Bargewell, who conducting the investigation into whether or not there has been a cover up in the Haditha incident, he has asked that the Major General Bargewell be made available to testify -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Kathleen Koch at the Pentagon, thank you -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: CBS News reporter Kimberly Dozier is returning to the United States today. She was, of course, seriously injured in a bomb attack in Iraq that killed four others. She spent a week at a U.S. military hospital in Germany.

CNN's Chris Burns joins us via broadband from Ramstein Airbase in Germany.

Hey, Chris. Good morning.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Well, the C-17 on which Kimberly Dozier was put on just about an hour ago about to take off any minute here now at Ramstein U.S. Airbase, and near the base is Landstuhl U.S. Medical Center where she's been here for more than a week after she was severely wounded in Iraq. She's had surgery to the head to remove some shrapnel. She's had surgery also on her legs to put rods in her legs, but she's also shown signs of improvement. She's been taken off a ventilator. She's been eating solid foods. She's been talking with her family. She just in the past day has under gone the first physiotherapy for the legs, and it's said that the swelling in her face has gone down considerably.

So she's showing signs of improvement, heading back do the States, to Andrews Air Force Base. She'll be ambulanced on to the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland where she'll undergo further treatment in what's expected to be a very long recovery process -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, but at least she is making the early moves in that way. Chris Burns for us this morning. Chris, thanks -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: A rare sight, fortunately, over Arizona, a dust storm driven by 60-mile-an-hour winds. Look at this picture. It happened during the afternoon rush hour, made a mess of that. That's Sky Harbor International Airport. Planes were not flying, no visibility. You could call it a biblical image. Just add some locusts and remember the date, 6-6.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, but the world didn't end. So people who were betting on that...

M. O'BRIEN: Maybe it was a...

S. O'BRIEN: A little dust and the world ending are not even close.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, maybe it was an attempted Armageddon that didn't work out so well.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, details of a new report that says the CIA is running secret prisons in Eastern Europe.

M. O'BRIEN: Then it's primary time. There were voters at the polls yesterday, and they could offer a bit of a bellwether for what's going to happen in the midterm elections. The question is, what will it mean come November?

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Carol Costello. Scott Peterson is there, and so is Charles Manson. A rare look inside the walls of San Quentin as we talk to the lifers. That's just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (NEWSBREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: This morning, we take a rare look at life at one of America's most notorious prisons, San Quentin. Carol Costello joins us live from the newsroom with more.

Hey, Carol, good morning.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad. Good morning to all of you.

It is a fascinating look into the criminal mind. San Quentin is a storied place that opened in 1852 and was built mostly by convicts who slept on a ship at night until the job was done. It has seen its share of famous killers. Charles Manson served time there, so did Sirhan Sirhan, the man who assassinated Robert Kennedy. In the first of a two-part special, Larry King went behind the prison walls to meet some of the lifers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): San Quentin, California's oldest prison, is home to some 5,500. Scott Peterson and serial killer Richard Ramirez, the so-called Night Stalker, are among the prisoners on death row. Larry King talked with four men now serving life terms for murder and a former inmate turned minister about life behind bars.

LONNIE MORRIS: I did take a man's life, and I think that I have to pay for the crime I committed.

KEVIN HAGAN: I regret it every day I get up and I look in the mirror, and I know back then I was -- I wasn't capable of -- I didn't have the triggers. I had the triggers, but I didn't know how to handle the triggers. I didn't have the mechanics to deal with the stress that I was under.

JEFF ELKINS, SAN QUENTIN INMATE: The most dangerous thing in the world, Larry, is a child's man in a man's body, and prison is full of child's minds in men's bodies.

COSTELLO: Jeff Elkins was married while in prison.

ELKINS: Prison by design destroys families. After six-and-a- half years, my wife, she used to come visit me every week, but she couldn't take it anymore, and never knowing if I'll ever get out, she decided to move on with her life, and I didn't blame her for that.

COSTELLO: For these lifers, the goal day-to-day is self improvement. Their focus not on what they were but what they can be.

MORRIS: Reality for me is that I have to find a way to exist that's going to improve my life as a human being, that's going to make me a better person than I was before I came to prison.

HAGAN: I believe that I could be a powerful tool in a society by my experiences behind these walls. MORRIS: When I looked at my previous life, there wasn't much good to be said about me, and so I had to change that dynamic, so that when I died, I wanted people to say, hey, man, here was a guy that had to contribute something, or tried to contribute something to life and making these lives better.

MICHAEL TOMLISON, FMR. SAN QUENTIN INMATE: San Quentin is a place to put people to death. Nowhere else in California do they do that. This is the place. And this is also a place that people are going to come to change. I have changed. I have a wife and three wonderful kids. My middle son is graduating from kindergarten today. I mean, God has changed my life. I have a blessed life, but it started here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Michael Tomlinson now runs a ministry helping ex-cons like himself, as well as inmates still inside, and he's written a book about his experience titled from "The Pit to the Pulpit" -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Carol, thanks. Be sure to catch part two of the "LARRY KING LIVE" special "Inside San Quentin" tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

Bad news for active duty troops. The Veterans' Administration now admits that case of stolen personal data's is much worse than first reported.

Then everybody's feeling the pain of high gas prices. Could be worse, though, for truckers. We are going to look at one independent trucker is coping. Our series "Paying the Price in the Heartland" continues just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: The veterans' administration admitting that stunning I.D. theft was much worse than first reported. The V.A. now says key information about 2.25 million men and women currently in uniform, not 50,000 as first reported, were on a laptop stolen from a V.A. worker's home in early May. The same laptop contained crucial information on 26.5 million discharged veterans, virtually everyone who served since 1975. The date includes birthdates, Social Security numbers, addresses, even disability codes. The V.A. has set up a hotline to give you more information. If you have concerns about this, the toll free number, 800-FED-INFO. That's 333-46-36. Veterans Group already suing the V.A., class-action status, over the security breach. The FBI and the Veterans' Affair Department offering a $50,000 reward for the return of the laptop and its hard drive.

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S. O'BRIEN: We've got some now videotape just in to CNN we want to show you guys. Let's roll the tape here. We've got pictures of Kimberly Dozier. She is at Ramstein Airbase. She of course is the CBS reporter who was injured on May 29th by a car bomb in Baghdad. She's at Ramstein, and she's being loaded, being readied to be brought back to the U.S. from Germany. She's had some treatment that we've been following.

Wow, look at her, pretty clear shot of her, and she's obviously alert, and reports that we have had from the hospital have been -- from her parents especially have said just what great spirits she is in and how strong she is. Her parents have said that she's going to require rods in her legs. She's had two surgeries even before they took her out of Iraq, emergency surgeries, and then of course several other procedures when she get to Germany, as well.

Two members of her crew, you'll recall, James Brolan and Paul Douglas, died in the car bomb. Two others as well, an Iraqi interpreter and a U.S. soldiers, were killed on that day.

We're going to obviously to follow Kimberly's progress as we hope for the very best for her.

Still to come this morning, voters head to the polls for crucial primaries. We've results to share with you this morning. And are those results a sign of what could come in the fall midterm elections? We'll take a look at that.

And the U.S. and other world powers, offer Iran a deal to stop uranium enrichment. But will that nation ever give up its nuclear ambitions? We're going to talk to the former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, up next.

Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

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