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California Wildfire Still Raging; Everyday Life in Iraq
Aired October 27, 2006 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And you are in the CNN NEWSROOM.
Good morning, everyone.
I'm Tony Harris.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Heidi Collins.
For the next three hours, watch events unfold live on this Friday, the 27th of October.
Here's what's on the rundown.
The California wildfire still raging. And now talk of murder charges.
HARRIS: Going beyond the bullets and the bombs -- everyday life in Iraq. It is a view you seldom see.
COLLINS: And Madonna put the story in a spotlight.
How hard is it for Americans to adopt overseas?
You are in THE NEWSROOM.
A raging wildfire in Southern California. This time yesterday we told you about it. It had burned 800 acres. Today, that toll is 24,000 acres, and four firefighters trapped in its path were killed. Investigators say the arsonist could be charged now with murder.
Let's get the very latest now from Riverside County and CNN's Chris Lawrence.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Teams are attacking this wildfire on two fronts. One thousand firefighters trying to push the flames back from the front line.
GREG KEEFER, FIREFIGHTER: And if we can't hold this row, we're in for a world of hurt.
LAWRENCE: A smaller team of investigators searching for who started it.
CHIEF JOHN HAWKINS, RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA FIRE DEPARTMENT: This is an arson fire. This is a deliberately set arson fire. A deliberately set arson fire that leads to the death of anyone constitutes murder.
LAWRENCE: By Thursday night, this fire had killed four. A team of five firefighters moved to a town west of Palm Springs, trying to evacuate residents and protect their homes. At some point, the Santa Ana winds whipped up and suddenly changed direction.
KEEFER: The fire moved into a grove of eucalyptus and the next thing they knew, it -- in eucalyptus, the oils can explode and cause a splatter. And what happened is the fire spread quickly around and got behind them, from what I understand. And that's a fireman's worst nightmare.
LAWRENCE: They were engulfed by the fire. Three died right there; another at the burn center. The fifth is in critical condition.
KEEFER: God bless those firefighters, you know?
LAWRENCE: Officials suspected arson after investigators read the burn patterns and traced the fire back to its area of origin.
HAWKINS: It was set in alignment with the wind, the slope and it was basically set to go.
LAWRENCE: Coming near the end of wildfire season, after no rain for months, there is nothing but dry brush to fuel it.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
COLLINS: Chris Lawrence joining us now live from Riverside County -- Chris, boy, it is just devastating how this thing has basically exploded, as we heard that firefighter say.
What is the plan for today?
Have you been able to find out?
LAWRENCE: Yes, well, right now, they have been fighting this fire all night. Once the sun-comes up in about an hour or so, they'll be able to get an even better handle on it.
I was speaking to a firefighter just about an hour ago and he said once that daylight comes, they're going to have a much better chance to get back into some of those areas with better visibility to maybe get a leg up on this fire.
As of right now, at last check, it was about 5 percent contained.
COLLINS: Yes, and that's not very much.
All right, Chris Lawrence, we'll continue to check in with you on this story.
Thanks so much.
HARRIS: And we wanted to walk over here and join Chad Myers for a second -- Chad, when we were on the air -- let's back up in time a little bit. When we were on the air yesterday at about this time, we were talking about...
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, 24 hours.
HARRIS: Yes, 24 hours ago -- we were talking about a fire that had consumed first 500 acres, then 800 acres.
MYERS: Right.
HARRIS: And then this thing exploded.
I love what you have up here. Let me step out of the way and you can demonstrate how quickly this fire just moved.
MYERS: It was a wind problem.
HARRIS: Yes.
MYERS: You've got -- the fire started here near Cabazon. The storm went up -- the firestorm went right up the mountains and trapped these firefighters on a very curvy road. This road is so curvy, I mean, you've got switchbacks back and forth. They said they couldn't even get back to their vehicle, it happened so fast.
What was happening at that point, it was a ground fire. And then the ground fire was kind of getting through some of the tress...
HARRIS: Look at this.
MYERS: ... but not every tree. And as it got farther and farther and closer to them, it got into a eucalyptus bed.
HARRIS: Yes.
MYERS: I mean this is like pine tree stuff. And so the eucalyptus caught on fire and then it jumped for eucalyptus tree to eucalyptus tree and they were under this fire before they even knew it. These firefighters really never had a chance.
And we talked about this yesterday. This was not a fire you could fight on the ground. This was an air fighting fire. The only way you could do it when the winds yesterday were gusting to, what, it was 45 miles per hour.
HARRIS: Forty-five?
MYERS: Now today...
HARRIS: Yes?
MYERS: Today it's not so bad. The winds are still 30. But I was watching some of the pictures there and Chris Lawrence says those tents in the background were starting to blow around again. So these winds are going to pick up in the next couple of hours.
HARRIS: And now we're at a place which we're talking about 24,000 acres...
MYERS: Tony, look at this.
HARRIS: Yes.
MYERS: This is KABC. I mean, this is live. This is happening right now.
HARRIS: Oh, boy.
MYERS: Where do you -- what do you fight?
HARRIS: Where do you begin?
MYERS: Where do you begin?
HARRIS: Where do you begin to tackle that?
MYERS: They're just not contained, not containment. They're not going to get it maybe today.
HARRIS: OK, and, once again, the winds will likely pick up a little bit during the course of the day?
MYERS: They were about five to 10 miles per hour most of the night. But now I just saw, right here, where's Banning? This is Beaumont right there. That's where our Chris Lawrence is.
HARRIS: OK.
MYERS: They just had a wind gust of 34.
HARRIS: OK.
You're going to be following this for us all day today?
MYERS: Oh, of course.
HARRIS: Of course. And in a bit we'll talk about what's happening in Colorado.
Is that something we should do now or should we do it a little later?
It's up to you.
MYERS: They're digging out. It's OK, you know?
HARRIS: OK.
MYERS: But there are some tornado warnings for Louisiana and Mississippi. If you hear a siren going off in your neighborhood, that's a real siren. It's not a fake.
HARRIS: Beautiful.
MYERS: It's not a test.
HARRIS: OK, Chad, thanks.
MYERS: You bet.
HARRIS: Heidi.
COLLINS: And as Chad just mentioned, in Colorado, they are digging out from a big early season snowstorm. Up to two feet of snow blanketed parts of the state. Look at that.
Today, there is still plenty of snow and ice on the streets in some residential areas. Thousands of people are actually without power now.
But for the ski resorts, all this white powder has been seeing green, in fact, and some are hoping to get an early start on the season.
Shoveling and shivering in parts of New Mexico, too. They're dealing with snow, high winds and ice. The poor driving conditions have led the state police to close part of Interstate 25 near the community of Raton. Visibility there? Zero.
HARRIS: A developing story out of Florida this morning.
Four persons of interest in the killing of a family of four two weeks ago now reportedly in custody. They are being held on unrelated charges. We'll find out more about this when authorities hold a news conference in about two hours.
Meantime, our Susan Candiotti joins us on the phone from Florida with more -- Susan, good morning.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you.
A law enforcement source does tell us that these four people are being held on unrelated federal drug charges, charges unrelated to the homicide case of those four people who were slain along the Florida Turnpike two weeks ago.
These four people again called people of interest in this case, not suspects at this point. They were picked up in Palm Beach County and, perhaps as importantly, a law enforcement source just told me, "And we are looking for more," as he put it.
Now, this happened in West Palm Beach County, where these people were picked up. That's the same place where the family of four, the Escobedos, lived, about 70 miles south of the crime scene along the Florida Turnpike two weeks ago.
You'll recall that the mother, the father and two young boys were each shot multiple times, apparently execution style.
Authorities this morning are also putting a lookout for a 1999 red van, a red Dodge convertible van with a Florida tag which might be missing at this point. A sheriff's spokesman told me that this van they consider to "be definitely involved in the murders."
Again, we hope to learn more details.
Are they making progress?
It would seem so. But, as one person told me, we're not there yet -- back to you.
HARRIS: OK.
CNN's Susan Candiotti for us.
Susan, thank you.
COLLINS: Under attack in Afghanistan -- authorities say a bomb ripped through a bus today in the province of Uruzgan. Fourteen people were killed. The victims were on their way to a celebration marking the end of Ramadan.
There is anger in a neighboring province over this week's NATO air strikes against Taliban targets. Witnesses and local officials say as many as 80 civilians were killed. NATO initially said a dozen were killed.
Last week, Afghan President Hamad Karzai urged NATO to use maximum caution after nine civilians were killed in another military operation.
Despite today's bombing, overall violence in Afghanistan is down this month.
CNN's Jamie McIntyre checks up on the security situation in Kabul.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): British NATO troops are on a hearts and minds mission in the heart of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Brigadier General Nick Pope is checking with shopkeepers and pitching walnuts in a popular children's game.
BRIG. GEN. NICK POPE, BRITISH ARMY: Excellent. I like that.
MCINTYRE: The Taliban may have staged a comeback this summer in the south, but in the faces on the streets of Kabul, you can see a glimmer of what Afghanistan could be.
(on camera): We're perfectly safe here?
POPE: Absolutely safe, yes. This is...
MCINTYRE: I'm wearing body armor. You're wearing light -- but we've taken our helmets off.
POPE: We take our helmets off. We wear body armor because that's what our force protection rules require to us do. But I do not feel threatened walking apart -- walking around in this part of the community one iota.
MCINTYRE (voice-over): NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, on a four day inspection tour, says while Iraq strategy may be under review, Afghanistan is on the right path.
GEN. JAMES JONES, SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: Reconstruction has to follow any kind of military activity. That's what convinces the people that we're serious about this.
MCINTYRE (on camera): What would you say to somebody who thinks Afghanistan is not going well and is not going to be a success (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?
POPE: I say look around us. You know, if we are -- if this country is failing, then you would not see this activity on the streets around us. I would not be walking around here in a soft beret. I would not go around talking to the locals and having a good time talking to the locals, finding out information from them and finding out whether they are happy. So from my perspective, actually, we are making progress here.
MCINTYRE: NATO says after a spike in August and September, the number of attacks across Afghanistan is down sharply, although there is a small increase in the number of suicide and roadside bombs.
Still, overall, the violence is down. But NATO's top commander, General Jim Jones, says the military success will all be for naught if it's not quickly followed up with improvements for the average Afghan citizen.
Jamie McIntyre, CNN, Kabul, Afghanistan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Not acting -- Michael J. Fox responds to criticism of his appearance in a political ad. That ahead in THE NEWSROOM.
COLLINS: Nasty ads -- candidates say they're not to blame.
So who's behind them?
HARRIS: And a rare look at life in Iraq from a CNN correspondent who travels frequently to the war zone.
He joins us live in THE NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: We want to show you these live pictures out of Riverside County, California.
Take a look at this. Pre-dawn out there in Los Angeles and Southern California. Look at this. This fire has literally -- what was the word, Heidi?
COLLINS: Exploded. HARRIS: Exploded.
COLLINS: Yes. This looks like an oil field explosion to me.
HARRIS: Isn't this something?
COLLINS: Um-hmm.
HARRIS: To 24,000 acres burned. Four U.S. Forest Service firefighters killed battling this; 5 percent contained at this point.
How do you -- how do you start to battle this?
You battle it from the air, obviously. The firefighters...
COLLINS: Which is tough, with the winds.
HARRIS: Which is tough with the winds. And, as Chad mentioned just a moment ago, winds will pick up throughout the course of the day.
COLLINS: Yes. And I didn't know about the eucalyptus.
HARRIS: Yes.
COLLINS: I didn't know that -- the oils inside these eucalyptus trees...
HARRIS: Yes.
COLLINS: ... or branches, the brush...
HARRIS: Fuel...
COLLINS: ... really does explode.
HARRIS: Yes. So we will be following this, of course, throughout the day.
And to the firefighters and to our friends in Southern California, it's going to be another difficult day for you.
COLLINS: Meanwhile, actor Michael J. Fox sounds off on the controversy over his appearance in campaign ads.
Fox, who has Parkinson's Disease, is supporting candidates who call for stem cell research.
Fox appeared on the CBS Evening News to answer Rush Limbaugh's criticism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM CBS EVENING NEWS, COURTESY CBS)
KATIE COURIC, HOST: I called Rush Limbaugh and he told me: "I believe Democrats have a long history of using victims of various things as political spokespeople because they believe they are untouchable, infallible, they are immune from criticism."
MICHAEL J. FOX, STEM CELL RESEARCH ADVOCATE: Well, the first thing, you know, he used the word victim. And in another occasion I heard he used the word pitiable.
And understand, nobody in this position wants pity. We don't want pity. I could give a damn about Rush Limbaugh's pity or anyone else's pity. And I don't -- I'm not a victim.
I'm someone who's in this situation. I think I'm in this situation along with millions of other Americans. And we have a right, if there's answers out there, to pursue those answers with the full support of our politicians.
And so I don't need anyone's permission to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Rush Limbaugh apologized after suggesting Fox was exaggerating his symptoms in a campaign ad.
HARRIS: Commercial controversy, nasty political ads piling up as we count down to the mid-term elections.
The candidates say don't blame us.
CNN's Mary Snow has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM FREE ENTERPRISE FUND COMMITTEE CAMPAIGN AD)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our boy down in Washington, Bob Menendez.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SNOW (voice-over): Call it politics Soprano style.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM FREE ENTERPRISE FUND COMMITTEE CAMPAIGN AD)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. We'd better start looking into these fixed contracts. Bada-bing, we're in it, but deep. And worse, this guy Tom Kean, he wants to clean things up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SNOW: A conservative group spent $200,000 to run-these campaign ads mimicking mobsters and targeting Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. Menendez has denounced the commercials and called on his Republican challenger, Tom Kean, Jr. to have them pulled.
SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D), NEW JERSEY: An ad that's being run-on his behalf smears Italian-Americans in this state, as it tries to smear me at the same time. SNOW: Kean says his campaign had nothing to do with the ad.
TOM KEAN (R-NJ), SENATE CANDIDATE: This is one of those independent expenditures, those 527 groups. And it's wrong. I -- I'm outraged by this ad and I said that last week.
SNOW: It's independent political groups, say observers, that go where candidates don't want to tread, in advertisements that are seemingly negative each season.
EVAN TRACEY, TNS MEDIA INTELLIGENCE: These groups can really engage on issues that sometimes the campaigns just have to stay away from because they're too hot to handle.
SNOW: Case in point, this ad in New York's 24th District.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM CAMPAIGN AD)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, sexy. You've reached the live one-on- one fantasy line.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SNOW: The National Republican Congressional Committee stands by its $10,000 ad that targets Democrat Michael Arcuri, claiming he billed taxpayers for a call to a phone sex hotline.
Arcuri says the number was on a phone bill because an aide called a sex hotline by mistake that had similar digits to a government office. Arcuri's office says he hasn't ruled out filing a lawsuit over the ad. And his Republican challenger, Raymond Meier, has distanced himself from the NRCC and the ad.
With such loud protests over these ads, why are thousands of dollars being spent to make them?
TRACEY: If they didn't work, campaigns wouldn't use them. This is the time that every campaign that's trailing or every campaign that's trying to put an opponent away will generally try and get one ad out there on the air that they think is the silver bullet.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
SNOW: At last check, the phone sex ads aired at the beginning of this week and several stations refused to show it.
The question is will these tactics backfire in places like New Jersey, where many voters say they are fed up with the negativity?
Mary Snow, CNN, Hoboken, New Jersey.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
HARRIS: So 11 days to go until the mid-term election and the question is could it get dirtier? And will we start talking about issues in any of these ads? We will bring a Democratic and Republican strategist into THE NEWSROOM and ask some of these questions.
COLLINS: A new theory on that E. coli outbreak linked to spinach from California. Health officials say, get this, wild boars may be partly to blame. Earlier, they had identified cattle as a source of the contamination. The illness hit in 26 states and one Canadian province. Three people died. Several grocery chains pulled bagged spinach off the shelves before the threat ran its course last month.
We are Minding Your Business.
Andy Serwer here now with a live preview to what we're talking about today -- hi there, Andy.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Hello, Heidi.
We're going to be talking about Microsoft and its secret weapon.
Plus, shades of the 1980s -- the Ray-Ban Wayfarer is making a come back. We'll tell you about that.
Stay tuned.
You're in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: So we are clearly concerned about our friends in Riverside County, California. Of course, the firefighters who are doing the best they can against some very difficult conditions right now. The fire that we started talking about at this time, what, 24 hours ago, yesterday, in these hours, Heidi, that started off at 500 acres burned, jumped to 800 and then literally exploded.
We're not talking about a fire that has consumed 24,000 acres, that is 5 percent contained.
Look at this picture from our affiliate, KABC.
How go you get at that?
What do you do with that?
You can only attack it from the air, obviously. But it is a very dangerous situation, an arson fire now. Four U.S. Forest Service firefighters killed. We will continue to follow the situation throughout the course of the day, obviously.
COLLINS: Xbox sales give a boost to Microsoft's bottom line.
Andy Serwer is here Minding Your Business on that.
Xbox, boy, you know, I still haven't jumped on the bandwagon.
SERWER: Oh, Heidi, come on... COLLINS: I can't play that at all.
SERWER: ... I took you for a gamer, you know?
COLLINS: I'm not sure what that means, Andy.
SERWER: Yes, that's right.
Well, Heidi, let me talk to you a little bit about Microsoft, because Microsoft's shareholders have been sort of in a tough place for the past five years. The stock has gone down and languished. Now maybe we're getting some upward momentum. The company reported earnings after the bell last night, sales and earnings up about 11 percent.
And the real excitement here, it's twofold. One, as you suggest, the Xbox really starting to make some inroads on the PlayStation. They say they're going to sell about 10 million of these units by the end of the year, which is kind of a critical mass number.
Meanwhile, hello, where is the PlayStation 3?
COLLINS: Hello!
SERWER: It's supposed to be coming out November 17th, but we haven't seen it yet. And obviously that's been a huge problem for Sony. And Microsoft seems to be making up some ground here with the cool Xbox 360.
COLLINS: Speaking of cool, I saw you earlier with your shades on.
SERWER: Oh, you are looking good, gal.
COLLINS: They're not Wayfarers.
HARRIS: What's going on here?
COLLINS: Right?
They're not the '80s.
SERWER: Yes, but you look great. That's very great.
COLLINS: But, now that I've damaged all credibility I might have ever had...
SERWER: No, that's good.
HARRIS: OK.
COLLINS: ... Ray-Bans, the Wayfarers are making a come back, huh?
SERWER: That's right. And the Wayfarer, of course, was the sunglasses of the '60s, '70s and 1980s. COLLINS: There they are.
SERWER: You remember Audrey Hepburn...
COLLINS: Tom Cruise.
SERWER: You remember Tom Cruise in "Risky Business." You remember "The Blues Brothers," you know?
But then in the 1980s, at the end of them, they started to really tail off. And now they are making a come back. The owner of the company -- of this brand -- is bringing them back. And they're going to have models aimed more at women, which will be red and white. They've already introduced them to Sienna Miller, starlets like her, and also Kirsten Dunst.
But they're going to be rolled out worldwide starting today and maybe, you know, the '80s are back.
COLLINS: Yes. But, you know, I just bought these. Bummer.
SERWER: Dig deeper.
COLLINS: You -- any idea how much they're going to cost, though?
Are they going to be quite a bit more expensive because they're being brought back from the '80s?
SERWER: Yes. Yes, they're actually going to be really expensive. They're going to be anywhere from $130 to $180 for the polarized version.
COLLINS: Jeez.
SERWER: And you may remember that at the end of the last cycle for these things, you could get them for as cheap as $30. So, it is a bit upscale.
COLLINS: Yes, indeed.
All right, so you're going to be back with us in about a half hour.
So what do you have planned to talk about then?
SERWER: Well, we're going to talk about the aircraft carrier Intrepid, you know...
COLLINS: Yes.
SERWER: ... which is berthed here in Manhattan on the Hudson. And it's going to be going out for a little ride to get renovated. And you can get yourself on it, if you win the auction.
COLLINS: Ah, interesting.
SERWER: We'll tell you about that.
COLLINS: I'm going to be seeing the president of the Intrepid this very weekend.
SERWER: Cool.
COLLINS: Cool, huh?
All right, this is going to be a big day.
Andy Serwer, thanks so much.
SERWER: OK.
HARRIS: Have you heard this story?
Rapper Snoop Dogg, AKA Snoop Doggy Dogg, Snoop Dizzle -- yes -- is out on bail this morning. Police say he was arrested yesterday after a gun-and marijuana were found in his vehicle. It was parked in a loading zone at the airport in Burbank, California.
His lawyer says there's no basis for the arrest and predicts charges will be dismissed.
Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, is due in court in December.
And she adamantly denies she's anorexic, but she admits she's too thin. So Nicole Richie has checked into a treatment center to help her gain weight. Her publicist says Richie is working with a team of doctors and specialists on nutrition, but insists it's not a treatment for an eating disorder. Richie told "Vanity Fair" recently that she knows she's too thin and she's not happy with the way she looks. Filming of her reality show, "The Simple Life," with Paris Hilton, is on hold while Richie gets some help.
COLLINS: Firefighters on the front lines -- possible murder charges now in the background. The latest on this raging California wildfire ahead in THE NEWSROOM.
HARRIS: And a rare look at life in Iraq with a CNN correspondent who travels frequently to the war zone. He joins us live, next in THE NEWSROOM.
COLLINS: A star puts international adoption in the spotlight. Ahead, a closer look at why many Americans go abroad to build a family. That's straight ahead, right here in THE NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Good morning again, everyone. Here is what we know on the deadly wildfire in southern California. The Riverside County Fire has swept across some 24,000 acres. That's -- think about this. That's about 38 square miles. The wind-driven flames trapped five firefighters. Four have died. The lone survivor has burns over 95 percent of his body. Authorities say the fire was intentionally set, and the arsonist could face murder charges.
Bill Thomas from our affiliate KABC is in KABC's chopper, and here was his view from just a few moments ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL THOMAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This the western flank of the fire, the worst flank of the fire right now. And every now and again it appears to die down just a bit, but then those winds kick up and it takes off again. Some firefighters, they'll be very concerned about it all day long. We've been talking about that, the low humidity, the high heat, which is on the way, and more winds throughout the afternoon.
And you might be able to see that's very complicated terrain, even for the thousands of firefighters working this. It will be very difficult to contain that flank of the fire. Collectively, the Esperanza Fire only five percent contained.
Live from Air 7, I'm Bill Thomas, ABC 7, Eyewitness News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(WEATHER REPORT)
HARRIS: The Iraq war debate. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld weighs in and tells the media, back off.
Here's CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made it clear. This news conference was all about the midterm elections less than two weeks away.
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, it's a political season and everyone's trying to make a little mischief out of this and turn it into a political football and see if we can't get it on the front page of every newspaper.
STARR: The secretary was, as they say, reframing the debate, saying benchmarks for progress in Iraq don't mean deadlines and punishment for not meeting them.
RUMSFELD: You're looking for some sort of a guillotine to come flowing down if some date isn't met. That is not what this is about. So you ought to just back off, take a look at it, relax, understand that it's complicated. It's difficult.
STARR: Mr. Rumsfeld also seemed to reframe the administration's explanation of what the Iraqi government has agreed to, just two days after the U.S. ambassador to Iraq had laid it out.
ZALMAY KHALILZAD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: Iraqi leaders must step up to achieve key political and security milestones on which they have agreed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And have they agreed to establish this process by the end of the year as I think Ambassador Khalilzad said?
RUMSFELD: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They haven't agreed?
RUMSFELD: Well, they're still in discussions.
One would have thought they might have announced that if they'd decided all of that.
STARR: But Rumsfeld, who was so confident throughout his press conference, seemed to struggle at one point.
Is it the job of the U.S. soldier to step in between Sunni and Shia violence, to step into civil unrest in that country?
RUMSFELD: I'm not going to try to characterize and begin at one end of the spectrum and go to the other end of the spectrum and say when is it or is it not appropriate for U.S. military personnel to be involved in the conflict.
STARR: The secretary said the mission for U.S. troops remains unchanged, to help Iraqi forces take hold and stop the violence. A mission that is yet to be accomplished.
Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Let's turn now to Iraq you rarely get to see. CNN's Michael Holmes is just back from Iraq, Baghdad.
How long have you been back now?
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I've been back for a few weeks. It was the seventh trip.
HARRIS: OK, the seventh trip for you.
Let's see if we can put as much of this sort of back and forth political infighting, outside fighting aside for a moment, and let's talk about the view that you had of Baghdad and Iraq on the ground. In terms of -- maybe one political question, in terms of how difficult it is going to be, Michael, for the Al-Maliki government to really step in and take control of these militias in a way that the secretary of defense, the coalition would like. You have a picture here, some video, that demonstrates how difficult it's going to be.
HOLMES: Yes, it is. I -- if we can roll that videotape, if it's the clip I'm thinking of, have a look on the right-hand side of your screen. That policeman there, you watch, walking up the stairs is Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim (ph). Watch his policemen, saluting. Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim is a politician, but he's not somebody a policeman needs to or should be seen saluting. He's the head of SKIRI. Now SKIRI is the political wing of the Badr Brigade. Now the Badr Brigade is an Iranian backed, Iranian formed, Iranian-born militia, which is part now of the political process.
HARRIS: Part of the process, one of the pillars.
HOLMES: This is problem for Al-Maliki. People say, why doesn't he move against militias?
Well, the two main militias in Iraq, the Badr Brigade, headed by Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, aid and the Mehdi Army, which was headed by our friend Muqtada Al-Sadr, these are two militias they are said to be heavily involved in the sectarian violence. They -- controlling large areas of Baghdad. They are also, their political wings, crucial to the survival of Al-Maliki. They are part of the ruling coalition
HARRIS: Pillars in this government.
HOLMES: If they abandon Al-Maliki, the government probably wouldn't have a majority. Al-Maliki is out of a job. Now, that is going to stop him making a whole lot of sudden movements toward...
HARRIS: Exactly. But when we talk about the military side of the militia -- you just talked about the political side of this. Let's take a look at Amarah. This time last week, we were talking about this scene of unrest, which we're going to show folks right now, and this is unrest at the hands of...
HOLMES: The Mehdi Army. Absolutely. They took out the town. What you are seeing there are Iraqi soldiers.
(CROSSTALK)
HOLMES: But the militia was essentially running the town for hours and hours and hours. A dozen people were killed. And nobody really did anything about it. The police disappeared. When the army came in, they didn't take on the militia.
HARRIS: Yes. And this also...
HOLMES: Yes.
HARRIS: And this also -- one of the other things about militias, there are militias within militias. This was thought to be a splinter group of the Mehdi Army. Now when you talk Dewaneer (ph). You were trying to talk about Dewaneer.
HARRIS: Yes, yes.
HOLMES: That's the only time that the Iraqi military has meaningfully taken on a militia. And you know what, they actually got their bottoms snapped. Lost nearly 30 troops dead. they had more wounded. They ran out of ammunition. And essentially, they withdrew, then did a cease-fire deal with the militia.
HARRIS: Now before I run out of time with you -- you've got a show to do at the top of the hour, I want to show some of the pictures, some of the still photographs of your time in Iraq, and Baghdad in particular, because this is what we don't see in my opinion enough of.
HOLMES: Yes.
HARRIS: Let's show some of these stills of the day-to-day life there.
HOLMES: This was Gazaliya. With the 10th Cav this day out on imbed, and the day before, one of their sergeants was killed, shot in the head from 400 meters by an Iraqi sniper. And I'll tell you what, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up, because this is exactly the area where he was hit.
HARRIS: Yes, and then we don't see these faces enough. That's another sign of -- look at this. That's pretty stark. Says it all.
HOLMES: Yes
HARRIS: Let's move ahead, Michael, to -- we don't see this.
HOLMES: Yes, the kids are everywhere. They're lovely kids, too. They come up, we give them candy. The troops give them candy. And we always try to interact and talk to them.
HARRIS: Yes, roll through these if you would, Michael.
HOLMES: Yes, this is just some of the...
HARRIS: A ferris wheel.
HOLMES: A ferris wheel, it's completely wrecked. The playground is a wreck. The whole infrastructure in Iraq has crumbled. You talk about reconstruction, there's not a lot going on. That's an Iraqi Army Humvee, actually, and the Iraqi troops, who were with American troops in Gazaliya. This was part of Operation Together Forward.
Now since the U.S. troops pulled out of there, the troubles are back on.
HARRIS: Yes. Look at this. We don't see this. There's a little Iraqi kid...
HOLMES: Sent out to do their shopping. They're very independent at an early age. I mean, mom and dad will send them down to the shop to get all the food.
HARRIS: And very quickly, and I shouldn't do this to you, but I have to bring it up before we let you go. You were part -- your convoy was ambushed a few years back.
HOLMES: Yes, January 27, 2004, we were hit south of the place called Mahmoudiya.
HARRIS: Yes. HOLMES: Which at the time nobody had heard of. It's now a bit of a hotbed. But yes, we were driving back two cars and we were ambushed by two cars, guys standing out of the sunroofs with AK-47s. And they lit us up pretty friends. My friends, my translator and one of our drivers was killed.
HARRIS: The other significance of this is that it kind of paints the demarcation line from this point on.
HOLMES: Yes.
HARRIS: You really couldn't travel freely in...
HOLMES: That was really it. That attack on ourself, camera man Scott McWinny (ph) was wounded, shot in the head but lived, two dead. And it was really the turning point where we could move unilaterally, as the military calls it, on our own. We'd been two hours south of Baghdad doing a story on democracy classes and stuff like that. You can't do that now. You can't do to go drive two hours south, you will probably be killed.
HARRIS: And the final thought is that you can't really get to Tikrit and talk to...
HOLMES: Not unless you are embedded with guys like this. This is when we were embedded with the Stryker Brigade, and we were embedded with the 10th Cav, and these are just some of the guys, our cameraman there, Gabe. And Nikki Roberts (ph), our producer.
And this was out on a Stryker, on patrol, 130 degrees that day.
HARRIS: Man, what a view.
Michael, great to have you.
HOLMES: Good to see you.
HARRIS: Glad to see you back. And I know you'll be going again soon.
HOLMES: Probably next year.
HARRIS: Thanks, Michael.
HOLMES: OK, thank you.
COLLINS: Abandoning the conservative cause. Some on the right say their party has gone wrong on key issues. That story coming up in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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COLLINS: A new snag in Madonna's efforts to adopt the little boy from Africa. The 13-month-old boy is living with Madonna and her family in London. A judge in Malawi postponed today's hearing. He is giving human rights lawyers more time now to prepare their case. The boy's father says he wants the adoption to proceed, but some 67 human rights groups say the adoption is illegal. They argue Malawi law forbids international adoption unless the prospective parents have lived in the country for 18 months.
American couples looking to build a family and a home. For some, that means going abroad, traveling thousands of miles away to adopt. Those couples often end up in China.
CNN's Carol Costello explains why.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mary and David Youtes could not be happier. They have four beautiful girls, three of them triplets, all adopted from China.
MARY CHILDS, ADOPTED CHILDREN FROM CHINA: We wanted to be parents. We chose China because we love China, and we basically had adopted the country as our, you know, country away from home.
COSTELLO: The Youtes, like 8,000 other American couples, chose to adopt from China, in part, because they didn't want to go through what Madonna is experiencing right now.
It isn't like Americans are flocking to Africa to adopt. Very few do because of restrictive adoption rules and local pressure to prevent African children from leaving the country, things even fame can't overcome, as Madonna opined on "Oprah" Wednesday.
MADONNA: If only my wealth and my position could have made things go faster. I assure you, it doesn't matter who you are or how much money you have. Nothing goes fast in Africa.
COSTELLO: But it can't overcome the lengthy adoption process in the United States, either. Or the lack of babies available to adopt. The Child Welfare League of America says only 4,000 were put up for adoption in 2003.
But in China, children are plentiful. Would-be adoptive parents must be at least 30 years old, have no criminal record, be employed, undergo a home study by a Chinese social worker here in the United States and have what China called a substantial income. The cost to adopt? $20,000. The timetable, 12 to 18 months.
(on camera) It sounds like China has this very organized system of adopting babies out of their country, which seems kind of odd, frankly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You mean seems like a big export industry?
COSTELLO: It does.
CHILDS: If you look at it sort of as en masse phenomenon, you know, you do get that impression.
COSTELLO (voice-over): Mary says the process may sound a tad cold, but it quickly warms up.
(on camera) So you see the baby for the first time. And you're holding your baby in your arms for the first time, and what are you feeling?
DAVID YOUTES, ADOPTED CHILDREN FROM CHINA: There's a lot of crying.
CHILDS: Yes. On both parts. Parents are just, you know, so overwhelmed with emotion that suddenly this responsibility is into their arms.
COSTELLO (voice-over): When the new family gets back home, life gets crazy. Not only are they suddenly parents; they now have children who look nothing like them or often nothing like their neighbors. It's a struggle, not only to make the kids feel as if they fit in, but to honor their ancestry, as well.
CHILDS: Right now, she's at the stage where she just wants to be like every other kid. She wants to be American. She loves football and cheerleading. And I want her to be -- you know, to feel that way. But we also want her to be aware that when people look at her, they see a Chinese face.
COSTELLO: The Youtes say it helps that they've carefully chosen where to live. Tenafly, New Jersey, has a large Asian population. In the end, though, with all of the challenges, adoption gave them what they wanted most: a family.
CHILDS: It's a blessing. And they are wonderful, wonderful children, and we couldn't love them more.
COSTELLO: Carol Costello, CNN, Tenafly, New Jersey.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Love the babies, don't you? Love the babies!
Hey, we're "Minding Your Business" on Friday, getaway day, when the Eagle flies we're talking about. Andy Serwer is here with a preview.
Good morning, Andy.
SERWER: I like it, Tony, I like it. We're going to check in on that red hot stock market, but is a freaky Friday in the cards?
Also, the aircraft carrier Intrepid, how would you like to take a ride? Well, you can if you have $100,000. You may be able to do it. We'll talk about that coming up, next, in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BUSINESS HEADLINES)
COLLINS: Hour by hour, acre by acre, a wildfire races across southern California, and the pictures just keep getting worse. The person who started it now blamed for four deaths. We'll explain, right here in the NEWSROOM.
Also, the brutal slaying of a family of four along the Florida Turnpike. New developments this morning. Details on that when CNN NEWSROOM continues.
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