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U.N. Ambassador Steps Down; Powerful Shiite Cleric, Key to Iraq's Future?; Firefighters Battle California Wildfire; Boy, 5, Kidnapped in Mother's Car; Couple Rebuilds in Gulfport, Mississippi

Aired December 04, 2006 - 13:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Betty Nguyen, in for Kyra -- Kyra Phillips today.

President Bush meets with a top Shiite. The leaked Rumsfeld memo and more on Iraq strategy during the week. Will Iran be one of the answers to the problem?

LEMON: The Supreme Court on affirmative action. Should students get bumped from their neighborhood schools in order to desegregate?

NGUYEN: And hundreds forced from their homes while some stay to fight the fast-moving flames. Can firefighters get a handle on a late-season blaze fueled by the Santa Ana winds?

The course of the war, the future of Iraq, the face of the Bush administration. A big week for all three with big changes in store.

A White House briefing begins this hour, and in just minutes President Bush huddles with a man who could tip the balance of power in Baghdad. All this as he accepts marching papers from a U.N. foot soldier, prepares to send his defense secretary nominee to Capitol Hill and waits to hear what the Iraq Study Group has learned.

LEMON: And CNN is following it all for you. Let's start at the U.N., where U.S. Ambassador John Bolton is on the way out. We're expected to hear from Bolton and the president in just a couple of hours.

Standing by now in New York with the very latest, senior U.N. correspondent Richard Roth -- Richard.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Don, John Bolton is stepping down as the U.S. ambassador here at the United Nations. Bolton saying, according to one official he didn't want to risk any more embarrassment for accepting a post that would have a different title as ambassador, but somehow remain while bypassing congressional approval. He didn't want it to be a distraction for the Bush administration.

And certainly there was not enough support inside the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to get Bolton's nomination to the floor following the Democratic election victory, certainly, in November, in Congress.

For the United States ambassador, it's been an interesting run here at the United Nations. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had a working relationship with John Bolton, but would have probably preferred that Bolton had been more outgoing in terms of cooperation on key issues with other countries.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOFI ANNAN, SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE U.N.: I think it's difficult to blame one individual ambassador for difficulties on some of the issues whether it's reform, or some other issues. But I think what I've always maintained, that it is important that the ambassadors work together, that the ambassadors understand that to get concessions they have to make concessions, and they need to work with each other for the organization to move ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Here at the United Nations, several ambassadors worked with John Bolton, even in previous capacities. They were very familiar with what the type of individual they were getting. Some liked working with him. Others thought he was a bit of a bully.

China was -- was very effective with John Bolton in working on resolutions regarding North Korea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WANG GUANGYA, CHINESE AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: I worked very closely with him, and I believe that he's hard working. And, so, I regret that he's going to resign.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any chance? (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

GUANGYA: Yes, in a way, yes. Because his style is different. He's hard working. He's pushed the American interest here. So, I think that this is what my impression sometimes would differ but, certainly, I think I can work together with him. He knows the job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Now, the search is on for a replacement for John Bolton, one state official telling CNN the replacement could be someone who is semi-retired who will run the ship, certainly won't be as controversial as Bolton was.

And some think Bolton was just following the orders of the Bush administration, and they're not surprised by whatever message he conveyed here, whether he vetoed a resolution on the Middle East or put up a tough fight on how to change the United Nations.

Back to you.

LEMON: Richard, you talked -- you touched on this a little bit, but let's talk about during his tenure. How effective was Bolton during his tenure?

ROTH: Well, trying to stay impartial here, I think he was quite effective in working with the French on Lebanon and the Hezbollah war. Certainly, put up a strong front representing the United States.

And he was -- ambassadors here, as one delegate told me, ambassadors are not their own country. They're not their own state; they represent the views from the capitol. He worked with China on several issues.

He probably lost a lot of support here by the -- his manner in touch when the --all of the U.N. countries tried to rally around a document that would so-called reform or change the future of the U.N. Very difficult issues to try to work out between 192 countries.

John Bolton was still himself here. The media will miss him. He made himself available, gave them very pithy quotes to use. It will be different without John Bolton out here; that's for sure.

LEMON: Yes, definitely. I think it's fair to say he was a fairly colorful character.

Let's talk about Kofi Annan. He made some comments about the war in Iraq that weren't too positive.

ROTH: Well, he's been moving his comments down a certain path and now is saying that, yes, it is a civil war going on there. Last week he told me it was nearly a civil war. And now today he is saying that we're in that situation, based upon the violence on the ground.

And Kofi Annan opposed this war. It affected him emotionally. He says he did whatever he could to prevent the invasion of Iraq. He wanted to see diplomacy and negotiation still carried out.

He has a few more weeks left in office. And as he told me, both he and John Bolton will have graduated from the U.N. by January 1.

LEMON: Senior U.N. correspondent, Richard Roth. Thank you, Richard.

NGUYEN: Well, he's President Bush's special guest today and a leading political player in Iraq, but up until now you might not have heard of Abdul Azziz al-Hakim. Well, that's about to change.

Let's get some background now from our Nic Robertson in Baghdad.

Nic, bring us up to speed on this man.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's a powerful leader of a powerful party. He's a religious cleric. He is softly spoken. We've seen a lot over the past week of a firebrand Shiite cleric that's cut from the same religious cloth, if you will.

But Abdul Azziz al-Hakim is a very powerful figure in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ROBERTSON (voice-over): Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the powerful leader of Iraq's largest Shia party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, is friendly to the United States. How much of that warmth is political maneuvering is hard to fathom.

Hakim, a quietly spoken Shia cleric, spent decades in exile in Iran, only returning when Saddam was overthrown. He wants Iran to help out in Iraq.

ABDUL AZZIZ AL-HAKIM, SHIITE LEADER (through translator): They can help Iraq and the Iraqis a lot. They can participate in solving security and economic problems.

ROBERTSON: Hakim still has strong ties with Tehran. His party has an Iranian-trained militia, the 25,000 strong Badr Brigade. Many have joined Iraq's national police service. Others pledged to disarm.

But the militia, whose commanders got top jobs in the police force, have yet to shake well-founded accusations they are running death squads, killing Sunnis.

Hakim came to leadership by default. His older brother, Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, was blown up by Sunni insurgents.

Since then, Hakim has, publicly at least, preached against retaliation and steered the Shia towards unity, maximizing their political clout.

But divisions are opening up. Hakim opposed fellow Shia Nuri al- Maliki for prime minister, preferring a candidate from his own party. Now the prime minister is on the political ropes, under intense American pressure to disarm his most powerful backer, firebrand Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia.

Hakim could benefit if the prime minister fails.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: Now Hakim also has a historic rivalry with Muqtada al-Sadr. Their fathers used to compete for followers among the Shia faithful. But it's unlikely that it's going to go to President Bush with a message to divide the Shias. The analysis here is that it's far more likely to go in and try to get the United States support the whole Shia community -- Betty.

NGUYEN: You talk about the rivalry between him and Muqtada al- Sadr. Let's talk about the obvious differences between the two.

ROBERTSON: Well, Hakim is -- has supported so far the federal structure in Iraq that would allow -- this was legislation that allow in a year and a half's time the different provinces to split up and go their own way, i.e. section off the country into three parts: Kurdish in the north, Sunnis and Shias.

Muqtada al-Sadr has played a sort of national tradition and stayed against that. Muqtada Al-Sadr, for his part, didn't leave Iraq under Saddam Hussein's rule. Hakim did.

These differences play to different constituencies here. The analysis generally is that Hakim's followers are generally better educated than Muqtada al-Sadr's -- Betty.

NGUYEN: CNN's Nic Robertson joining us live today. And of course, we will hear more from al-Hakim and President Bush when they wrap up their meeting a little bit later this afternoon -- Don.

LEMON: Winds and wildfires, a terrifying combination in Southern California. At the moment much of the fighting -- firefighting focuses just north of Los Angeles, where a wildfire is raging out of control and growing larger by the minute.

CNN's Chris Lawrence has been in Moorpark since before dawn.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now that the sun has come up, the flames seem to have died down somewhat. It's a big change from what we saw overnight, where the embers were literally just flying everywhere.

Firefighters have no containment on this fire right now, but no homes are being threatened and no further evacuations have been ordered.

This fire has scorched nearly 10,000 acres. It's burned down five homes and destroyed five other structures, as well.

One thing that hasn't changed is the wind. It is still ferocious. At times firefighters said they could barely stand with some of those gusts kicked up around 50 miles per hour. Other times so much smoke and ash was blowing around that firefighters said they had a hard time even seeing what was in front of them.

A lot of the homeowners did evacuate. Some of them decided to stay, watering down their property with lawn hoses, with water hoses, trying to help firefighters as they tried to save their home.

Firefighters, mostly, in a defensive mod, trying to wait out this wind. As it dies down, this will begin to attack this fire a little more strongly.

Reporting from Moorpark, California, I'm Chris Lawrence.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: And for more from the scene of that wildfire just racing across the hills outside Moorpark, we are joined on the phone by Fred Ponce with the Ventura County Fire Department.

First of all, I want to get an update on the situation right now. Where is that fire headed and how much of it do you have contained?

FRED PONCE, VENTURA COUNTY FIRED DEPARTMENT: Right now we have no containment. We're looking at the fire data to see the actual -- see how much containment line has been put in as of last night.

We're hoping to have this fire contained by tomorrow. Containment time is unknown at this time.

The fire right now has kind of died down. It's still in the areas of Somis and above the city of Moorport, but even with the wind blowing as they are right now, it hasn't been much fire activity going on.

NGUYEN: Well, we're looking at some video right now, and you can definitely see the winds just whipping this fire across the landscape there.

Let me ask you about those winds. We were talking yesterday that they were up to 70 miles per hour. Any chance that this is going to be dying down to give you guys a little bit of relief?

PONCE: The weather report today said that we will still have winds, but it will start this dying down by tomorrow.

NGUYEN: Well, that's good to hear. What about the homes? Nearby homes, how many are threatened by this?

PONCE: Right now, we have no homes threatened. We had some -- about 3,000 homes yesterday that were threatened. But at this time we have no homes threatened, and there's no recommended evacuations at this time.

NGUYEN: But you don't expect containment until tomorrow. What's being done to get this fire under control? What are you doing?

PONCE: Our general plan, action plan today is we want to build a box around the fire, which is we want to -- we have some spots, which like, we want to keep it south of the South Mountain Road, south of Galveston Road (ph), and east of Beltone (ph) Canyon Road, west of Alamos Canyon (ph) Road, north of the -- Highway 118.

The other is our big concern, you know, with the 118. If this fire jumps to 118, then we have some issues that it can burn on the other side of the Moorpark area.

NGUYEN: Do you have any idea, just very quickly, how this fire started?

PONCE: Right now we have -- it's still under investigation. We have no cause at this time.

NGUYEN: All right. Of course, we'll be watching this every step of the way. Fred Ponce with the Ventura County Fire Department, thank you for that update.

PONCE: OK, thank you.

LEMON: A developing story happening now. Let's head to the NEWSROOM. T.J. Holmes, what do we have, an Amber Alert? T.J. HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Forgive me here, Don. I'm having some problems with my ear piece, but I know you're coming to me here. I'm going to go head and tell you about this story. But I've got something here in my ear.

I want to tell you about this missing child, a case we're looking at in Alabama. This is 5-year-old Geontae Glass. He was actually taken this morning, according to police, in Albertville, Alabama.

The way this reportedly went down was that his mother pulled up to the front of a store there in Albertville, Alabama. She left him in the car with the engine running. She went into the store, and at that time, according to police, a pickup truck pulled up to the store. A man hopped out of that pickup truck, hopped in the car and drove off with the Geontae Glass in it. So that is why an Amber Alert has now been issued for him.

Now, according to police, there were at least two people in that pickup that pulled up, because at that point the pickup then took off, driving away, as well, with the stolen car.

And the stolen car is a light blue 1994 Nissan Altima, according to police, and that car did not have tags on it when it was taken this morning. And the only sighting they have had with this car, according to police, is on one highway heading south, Alabama Highway 205.

So again, 5-year-old Geontae Glass missing after he was taken along with the car he was sitting in waiting on his mother, who had gone into a store for just a brief moment, left the car running. And took off with the child.

You see his description there. Young black male, three feet tall, 65 pounds, 5-year-old Geontae Glass. This incident went down at about 6 a.m. this morning, and so police are desperate to find him.

We're going to keep our eye on this one, of course. If anybody has information, you're encouraged to call local police, or call police wherever you are, but especially in Albertville, Alabama.

So again, guys, this is one we're keeping our eye on.

LEMON: Thank you, T.J.

NGUYEN: Unfortunately, you hear these stories a lot of parents going into a store and leaving their children in a running car.

LEMON: Yes.

NGUYEN: And something happening.

LEMON: Let's hope they find him.

NGUYEN: Yes, absolutely.

Hey Don, you can call it a classroom warfare, perhaps. And here's the question. Where should your kids go to school? Well, the Supreme Court revisits the tricky issue of affirmative action and the business of bussing. We're on board with the legal and political angles. That's ahead in the NEWSROOM.

LEMON: Plus, we're going to talk about a triumph over hope, over experience -- of hope over experience. Meet the first people to rebuild along a devastated stretch of Mississippi's Gulf Coast. That's ahead right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: More than 15 months after Hurricane Katrina, you can drive for miles and miles along the Gulf Coast and see nothing but wiped out beach front. Now, we can see how some are rebuilding, and it comes with great personal sacrifice, including loneliness.

CNN's Sean Callebs is live in Gulfport, Mississippi.

And Sean, I've been there. Nothing -- there's nothing, really, along the beach front there. And so now we have some people that are trying to rebuild?

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's interesting. No matter how many times you hear about it or even come here, when you drive down Highway 90 and just see slab after slab, when you see a home like this one, which belongs to Lee and Chichi Bryant, the first house built from the ground up since Hurricane Katrina rolled through this area.

They've only been in it a couple of weeks. It's been a great couple of weeks for them. But Lee Bryant says, only half jokingly, he has to travel pretty far if he wants to borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CALLEBS (voice-over): Lee and Chichi Bryant just couldn't walk away.

CHICHI BRYANT, HOMEOWNER: Sand looks nice, doesn't it? Nice and smooth.

CALLEBS: They are the first people on Highway 90, Mississippi's Gulf Coast, to rebuild, after months trading in their 400 square foot FEMA trailer for a 3,300-square-foot home.

LEE BRYANT, HOMEOWNER: When the hurricane hit, it made me appreciate what I had had before the hurricane and what I had lost, and I vowed to rebuild.

CALLEBS: The Bryant say people cringe when they explain they're building on exactly the same slab where their old home stood and was washed away and didn't built it any higher off the ground.

But Lee says his new home is safer, with steel rods running from the foundation to the rafters every two feet throughout the home.

(voice-over) Was there ever any thought to not rebuilding?

L. BRYANT: Not at all. I mean, I didn't hesitate one time. I knew it was going to be difficult to do.

CALLEBS: Like a lot of Gulf Coast homeowners, the Bryants believe they've been shorted by their insurance company. They rebuilt after getting nothing on a $100,000 policy for contents. Money for wind damage is in litigation, so, they scrimped and saved.

L. BRYANT: It took about 35,000 bricks to rebuild our home, and 10,000 of those bricks are from our old house.

CALLEBS: That saved $7,000.

C. BRYANT: This can be cleaned up, and it will look nice and pretty.

CALLEBS: And Chichi is still finding her old knickknacks Katrina washed away.

But what the Bryants really miss are neighbors. Now just slabs and weeds to the left, rubble and more overgrown fields to the right.

L. BRYANT: They're rebuilding the back of us on Second Street, but I wish more people would take the initiative like we had and rebuild.

CALLEBS: Till then, they will be virtually alone on their patch of Highway 90 along with a view and the hope that others will follow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLEBS: Back live at Gulfport, this, of course, the balcony where Lee and Chichi have their morning view from. The sun rises just to the left of where I am. They enjoy that part every day.

But what they also enjoy, up and down this way a number of houses are under construction. Many of them just not very close to people moving in.

We want to show you what that really looks like. We have a couple of cameras set up here. If you look over here you can just see slab after slab. There's a FEMA trailer in the left-hand corner of the picture.

And to give you an idea if you look down there, you can see what the hurricane storm surge did to this hardwood floor. Just completely warped it, destroyed it. That's pretty much the image that you see as you go down through here.

Once again, as we look out, there's low tide, and this is the view they have every day. This is the reason Lee and Chichi said that they wanted to move back to this area.

Don, if you look in the lower right-hand corner, there you see our producer and the real photographer doing their job, but this is the view. This is what they're going to stay here for, even if there is another hurricane -- Don.

LEMON: Yes. It's amazing how close it is. It's really just a few -- maybe a few hundred yards from the ocean there. And some might wonder. When it was all happening you saw cars that were, like, on different streets had moved miles away. Some would wonder with all this why people would want to move back.

Let's talk about, though, the insurance company, Sean. Because there was some -- they've been fighting with their old insurance company.

CALLEBS: Right.

LEMON: And now are they going to be able to get insurance for this new home? Do they have it?

CALLEBS: They do have insurance. They have flood insurance. They have the maximum federal flood insurance, which is $250,000, which is nowhere near enough to replace a home this close to the beach. You know how expensive those homes are.

They have fire insurance, and they have wind coverage. The biggest change, wind coverage. Get this, Don. Their wind coverage insurance went up by 400 percent since Hurricane Katrina. So if anybody else is going to move down to this area, be prepared to pay, because it is going to be very expensive.

LEMON: Yes. Sean Callebs, thank you very much for that.

NGUYEN: And there's a parting shot from the Pentagon. Just before he resigned, Donald Rumsfeld sent a secret memo to the White House. The details on his call for a major adjustment. That's ahead in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Wouldn't you know it? Bad news for drivers ahead of the holidays. Yes, Susan Lisovicz is at the New York Stock Exchange with all the details on this.

Just in time, Susan. I can't wait to hear it.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sorry, Betty. I mean, it could be worse, I guess...

NGUYEN: True.

LISOVICZ: ... to put it in perspective. Prices at the pump, once again, on the rise, according to the Lundberg Survey. The price of a gallon of self-serve regular rose 4 cents over the past week to $2.27.

The national average has now risen for four weeks straight.

The highest average price, once again, found in Honolulu at $2.74 a gallon. The cheapest gas, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Gas prices have fallen 84 cents over a three-month period before reversing course a month ago. But even though the recent increases are small in comparison, gas prices are still at historically high levels -- Betty.

NGUYEN: OK, so, does that mean that we're going to continue to see them just go upward and upward?

LISOVICZ: No, it won't be as bad as we had seen it, that according to the surveys publisher, Trilby Lundberg. Winter is a typically low demand season for gasoline. Unless some other factor comes into the equation, like extremely cold weather, which would cause a jump in heating oil consumption, Lundberg says prices should be relatively stable in the coming weeks. That's pretty good.

(STOCK REPORT)

LISOVICZ: Coming up, working out at McDonald's. It could happen, for your kids, at least. I'll explain in the next hour of NEWSROOM.

NGUYEN: Can you really say that in the same sentence? Working out at McDonald's? Let's see.

LISOVICZ: Well, Mickey D's would like you to believe that.

NGUYEN: OK. We'll see about that. Thank you, Susan.

LISOVICZ: You're welcome.

NGUYEN: We do want to get straight to the NEWSROOM now, though, and T.J. Holmes with details on a developing story.

What do you have, T.J.?

HOLMES: Yes, Betty. This thing just continues to develop. This -- this strange case of this Russian spy, former Russian spy, of course, who died of polonium 210 exposure, that radiation.

Well, some of the stuff, traces of it, has been popping up all over London, for the most part, even showed up on a couple planes, traces of this -- this radioactive material.

Well, now, Scotland Yard telling us that at least two more locations are being checked out for more traces of this stuff, the polonium 210. They're checking out another hotel and they're also checking out another building in central London. Now, again, traces have popped up on people, different places all around, and it was a concern that this was going it be a major health issue possibly in London, and authorities there were kind of upset that, didn't know if there were some connections to the Russian government.

So they're upset on that level that maybe this was a health risk there for their citizens, but right now it looks like this thing continues to expand, and they're continuing to follow the trail of this and finding more traces of it around London, but two more locations being checked out. We are going to have a live report on this expecting at the top of the hour.

So the traces of this, this nasty, nasty stuff, but you just can't go to your local drugstore and check out starting to show up in more places around London. Keeping an eye on it, are expecting that live report, guys.

NGUYEN: Well, it's obviously extremely deadly and the mystery just continues to widen. Still want to know, where did it originate from, who started all of this. Thank you, T.J.

LEMON: Critics say it's about more about missing a flight when travelers are on the losing end of a terror-risk score, ahead in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

NGUYEN: Is Donald Rumsfeld abandoning his Iraq strategy just as he prepares to abandon his job. There is more fallout from a leaked memo penned by the outgoing defense secretary.

Our Jamie McIntyre is following it all from the Pentagon and he joins us with the latest.

Hi there, Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Betty.

Well, you know, to the extent that there's consternation over this Rumsfeld memo, it's over the fact that Rumsfeld in this confidential memo to the president seems to be a lot more forthcoming and candid about the realities of the situation on the ground in Iraq compared to his public upbeat announcement that things are going relatively well, all things considered.

There's some interesting items that Rumsfeld suggested here as things that should be considered and noting that he didn't endorse any of them specifically. One of them was to provide security for provinces or cities that request U.S. help. That is only go to the places that invite the United States in and agree to support the U.S. In addition, he proposed to stop rewarding the bad behavior. He said no more reconstruction assistance in areas where there is violence. This is a common Rumsfeld theme. He believes that you should reward behavior that you want to encourage and punish behavior you want to limit.

He also suggested that perhaps a substantial U.S. force should be put on the border near Iraq and Syria to prevent infiltration. That's something that the Pentagon has complained about for quite some time.

And perhaps one of the most interesting proposals, because it is in line with his Democratic critics is this one to some begin modest withdrawals of U.S. troops. So, in his words, the Iraqis have to pull their socks up and step up. He calls that taking the hand off the bicycle seat and letting the Iraqis defend for themselves. This idea of withdrawing U.S. troops and moving them back out of the line of fire, perhaps having them in the quick-reaction force mode is very similar to proposals proposed by the Democrats in particular, Congressman John Murtha who has been calling for this sort of strategic redeployment for months now. Very interesting to see what Rumsfeld was saying in private compared to what he was saying in private.

NGUYEN: Interesting, indeed. When people look at this, they're look at the timing, as well. Two days before he resigned, is this perhaps some kind of damage control?

MCINTYRE: Well, you know, I think some people are going to look at this as Rumsfeld on his way out trying to show he has a grasp of what was going on in Iraq and wasn't in a state of denial.

But the Pentagon also notes that this came at a time when President Bush had asked everybody in his administration to take a new look at the Iraq policy and come up with ideas. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were doing their own review, Rumsfeld was reviewing policy options, the Iraq Study Group was working then, and the White House was doing its own review.

So they say this memo was simply a part of this process, and that it wasn't calculated. But, now why was it leaked at this point? Well, you know, I think probably whoever leaked it thought they were doing Donald Rumsfeld a favor.

NGUYEN: All right, CNN's Jamie McIntyre. Thank you for that, Jamie.

LEMON: Call it classroom warfare. Where should your kids go to school? The Supreme Court revisits a tricky issue of affirmative action and the business of bussing. We're on board with the legal and political angles right here ahead in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: Here's a question for you -- should race be considered when a school district decides which school your child attends? Well, the Supreme Court heard arguments today in cases involving school systems in Seattle and Louisville, Kentucky, and justices are asking whether a school's effort to promote diversity is doing that or creating illegal racial quotas instead.

CNN's Gary Nurenberg takes looks at how the system works in Louisville.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Seth? You guys awake?

GARY NURENBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seventeen year- old Seth Dubois wakes up in his mostly white Louisville neighborhood and spends about an hour and a half on buses to go to a very good school in a mostly black Louisville neighborhood.

HOWARD BRIM, JUNIOR, BALLARD HIGH SCHOOL: I get up at 5:00.

NURENBERG: Sixteen year-old Howard Brim wakes up in his mostly black Louisville neighborhood and spends about an hour and a half on buses to go to a very good school in a mostly white Louisville neighborhood.

BRIM: Sometimes it's worth the sacrifice. I mean, Ballard High School has a much higher education standard than my home school.

NURENBERG: Those long trips get Howard and Seth to the good schools their parents chose for them. But in order to maintain Louisville's goal of schools with black populations of at least 15 percent, but no more than 50 percent, other students have to be turned away because of their race.

DEBORAH STALLWORTH, PARENT OPPOSING SCHOOL PLAN: I'm asking for equity here. I'm asking for fairness here.

NURENBERG: Deborah Stallworth is among the parents, black and white, suing to end the plan.

TEDDY B. GORDON, LAWYER FOR LOUISVILLE PARENTS: It's about actual discrimination that white kids who want to go to their neighborhood schools that are better performing schools are denied entrance into that school solely because of their color.

NURENBERG (on camera): The Supreme Court ruled three years ago racial quotas are unconstitutional, but said at the college level race could be one factor in admissions decisions. As with so much of what it does, the court will be balancing competing interests.

ED LAZARUS, SUPREME COURT LEGAL ANALYST: There's going to be judgment calls about which kinds of programs use race too much versus those that use it in a satisfactory way to achieve a goal that a majority of the court has said is a compelling state goal, which is the idea of diversity in schools.

NURENBERG (voice-over): Bussing fights plagued Louisville and other school districts in the '70s, and the question for the court remains: what role can race play when deciding where kids can go to school?

Gary Nurenberg, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Well, there were demonstrators and they were outside the Supreme Court this morning voicing their support for affirmative action programs in Washington State and Kentucky. Inside justices worried whether race was the only factor determining where kids went to school.

School districts argue that race is only one of the factors involved. Let's get some perspective on this. Let's get some perspective on it. Joining us now from New York, CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. Jeffrey, you know these words, you hear bussing, affirmative action on that, these were words that were part of the vernacular back in the '60s and '70s and now again. Why is this coming into play now in 2000?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Because today in the Supreme Court you saw one of the principal legacies of George W. Bush's presidency, which is a more conservative Supreme Court.

You saw what looked very much like at least five justices who are going to say to Louisville and Seattle, no, you can't consider race when assigning kids to school. Even though as Justice Steven Brier tried to point out repeatedly in this argument, this isn't some court- ordered busing plan. This was the community itself saying we want diversity, this is a value that we hold and it looked like a majority of the Supreme Court saying, not good enough, we don't want race to determine where kids go to school.

LEMON: Was there any sort of precedence set with this because there was also a very similar case, I think it was the University of Michigan and then was it Harvard University also had a case that involved the same sort of thing?

TOOBIN: Well the Michigan -- it was, the Michigan law school case three years ago probably Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's most important opinion as a justice where she said in higher education, diversity is such a goal that we will agree to have race be one of the factors.

But she's gone from the court now, replaced by Samuel Alito, a far more conservative justice and the swing vote appears to be now Anthony Kennedy. And today in court, Anthony Kennedy made a big point of saying, no, no, no, the Michigan case was just about higher education. We never said it was OK to consider race in grammar school and high school, that's a different set of circumstances.

And I don't agree that race should be allowed to be considered when it comes to grammar school and high school. So, that's how the Supreme Court sometimes slices the baloney drawing distinctions that other people think is not all that serious.

LEMON: I'm glad, Jeffrey, you talked about court because some exchanges that we want you to take a look at and we want you to comment on the other side.

TOOBIN: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUTH BADER GINSBURG, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: You say you can't use a racial means, but can you have a racial objective? That is, you want to achieve balance in the schools.

HARRY KORRELL, LAWYER: Justice Ginsburg, our position is that that is prohibited by the Constitution absent past discrimination... ANTONIN SCALIA, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: You would object then to magnet schools? You would object to any system that is designed to try to cause people voluntarily to go into a system that is more racially mixed?

KORRELL: Justice Scalia, our objection to Seattle program is that it is not a race neutral method.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON; You know Jeffrey, this is similar to what you were saying before that.

TOOBIN: Right. What you saw with Justice Ginsburg, there, who is one of the more liberal members of the court. What she is saying is look, is any consideration of race under any circumstances appropriate whether you say racial objective or racial means and the lawyer for the parents who were challenging the system says, it's not permissible. You can't do it.

And Justice Scalia who is playing a little against type there was saying, well what about a magnet school. and what the lawyer was saying, look as long as race is one factor, we think it's impermissible. And Certainly Justice Thomas, Justice Scalia are on record with agreeing with that, that the Constitution cannot allow any consideration of race at all. But now with the addition of justice, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, that's four votes for the conservative position and Justice Kennedy was certainly giving the impression that there might be a fifth vote there, as well.

LEMON: Talk more about that. How important is that, these two new justices?

TOOBIN: Well, you know, the real big change is the Alito for O'Connor switch. The replacement of Chief Justice Rehnquist with Chief Justice Roberts both were very conservative, there doesn't appear to be a big switch.

But as this very case illustrates, the Michigan case was Sandra Day O'Connor saying, no, the Constitution is not color blind. Sometimes communities, sometimes universities are allowed to consider race. We think diversity is such an important value in this country that we're going to allow institutions of higher education to consider it.

But she's gone now. And all indications are that Justice Alito is more conservative, more in the Thomas and Scalia camp and certainly his questions today indicated that he does not think race could be considered. And that's why, as Republicans said a lot during the confirmation hearings, elections have consequences.

The election of President Bush had a real serious consequence on the Supreme Court and this is a case, perhaps more than any other this year, where we're likely to see that impact.

LEMON: Yes and you know, it's going to be interesting because that is the argument for one side or the other, quotas whether it is important to take race into consideration. We're certainly going to be following this and paying a lot of attention to it in the upcoming days to see how it turns out. Thank you very much, Jeffrey Toobin.

TOOBIN: OK, Don.

NGUYEN: Well, from education to the issue of your health, there are safety concerns about a experimental cholesterol drug. Now the feds say it warrants a closer look at similar drugs in the pipeline. CNN NEWSROOM, we'll see you in just a minute and we'll show you all about this new drug being axed.

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NGUYEN: There's been a big blow for drugmaker Pfizer. What was meant to be its next star medication just crashes and burns after problems in clinical trials. Our medical correspondent Judy Fortin is here with much more on this. A lot of people very interested in what's happening here.

JUDY FORTIN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, not only from the medical perspective but from the business perspective, as well.

Now I just got off the phone with a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic who is doing research with this drug and he told me that that end of their trial is devastating news not just for Pfizer, but for patients with cardiovascular disease.

Pfizer stopped worldwide clinical trials over the weekend following the deaths of 82 patients who were taking the pill. Just to put it in perspective for you, 15,000 were enrolled in the study. Half of them were taking Torcetrapib. It's part of a new class of drugs designed to raise HDL, otherwise known as the good cholesterol.

Plaque can build up inside the artery walls contributing to blockages that can lead to a heart attack. Doctors believed that Torcetrapib works as a clean-up mechanism, pulling cholesterol out of the walls of blood vessels.

Now there are other HDL-boosting drugs out there, but experts say that they produce unpleasant side effects. Interesting to note that Pfizer has two other products in early development to raise HDL. They reportedly used the same method as Torcetrapib, but it's too early to tell, Betty, if they'll be affected by the news at all.

NGUYEN: All right, 82 deaths, do doctors know what caused those deaths? Have they pinpointed that just yet?

FORTIN: Not yet, it's still under investigation, but many of the trial participants did have heart problems. It's not known if Torcetrapib played a role. The drug is shown to raise blood pressure in some patients, but the doctor I spoke with does not believe it was enough to contribute to the deaths of those patients.

NGUYEN: OK, so what can patients -- this aside, what can patients do to reduce that cholesterol? FORTIN: Well first of all, we always hear about diet and exercise. Again, the doctor I spoke with said what you eat can really only make about a 10 percent difference in your cholesterol level. So many people turn to medication.

There are a half dozen statin drugs on the market do lower LDL, or the bad cholesterol. They include Lipitor, Zocor and Crestor. And doctors might also suggest high doses of Niacin. But a warning, you're going to need a prescription and it produces side effects like flushing. So best to check with your doctor to see what is best for you.

NGUYEN: Absolutely, Judy Fortin, thank you for that, appreciate it.

FORTIN: You're welcome.

LEMON: Heading for the Hill, we'll preview Senate confirmation hearings for Robert Gates, the president's pick for the new Pentagon chief. We're on it right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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