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American Morning

War Spending Standoff; Will Funding Fight Affect Troops?; Delicate Diplomacy

Aired May 02, 2007 - 07:59   ET

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

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: And it's Wednesday, May the 2nd. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING.
I'm John Roberts.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry.

We have some stories on our radar this morning.

One of them is the aftermath of some of the immigration rallies, particularly in L.A. There was some sort of debacle that took place here. It looked like riot police were shooting rubber bullets after apparently, at least according to witnesses, some rocks and bottles were thrown.

The question today, was this handled correctly? Our cameras were there, and we're going to look into it.

ROBERTS: You know, it seems that almost every day in this country we've got extreme weather, and it's hitting in the Midwest again. Look at this, new pictures of a tornado forming in Kansas. Wow.

And then severe lightning in Ohio. Take a look at that photograph.

Chad Myers will be with us in just a couple of minutes to tell you where to expect the extreme weather today.

CHETRY: Britney Spears back on stage. She had a surprise concert last night. There she is. She has her wig on.

ROBERTS: Yes.

CHETRY: You know, because her hair could not have grown that long so quickly...

ROBERTS: No, I wouldn't think so. No.

CHETRY: ... after the buzz.

ROBERTS: That little hair-shaving incident.

CHETRY: But, yes, she's supposedly back. So, your iPod, of course, contains her best of, and you have more to look forward, perhaps a live edition you can download.

ROBERTS: You know, if you can't be there with Britney Spears in person, having her on your iPod is the next best thing.

We just heard from President Bush. An early-morning meeting with the president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, this morning. And in the next couple of hours round two in the war-funding battle begins.

We've got coverage from Andrea Koppel on Capitol Hill, and Suzanne Malveaux at the White House.

Let's begin with Suzanne this morning.

That meeting 2:30 this afternoon, what do you expect President Bush is going to say?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, what we expect the president is going to do is simply he's going to say that, I'm willing to compromise, negotiate here, but he certainly is not willing to compromise on that one aspect of this, and that is the timetable. But you will hear the president perhaps a bit more conciliatory here.

The White House has heard the comments of Senator Trent Lott, Republican, of course, as well as Congressman Roy Blunt. Both of them expressing that the time for ultimatums is over here. They really want to move forward.

And so what you may hear this White House and members of Congress talking about is the possibility of benchmarks for the Iraqi government, tied in some ways to resources to American aid, to see if they will actually go forward and use that somewhat as leverage. That is a possible compromise here -- John.

ROBERTS: Among the Republicans that we heard from yesterday was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Let's take a listen to what he said about benchmarks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MINORITY LEADER: There are a number of Republicans who do think that some kind of benchmarks, properly crafted, would actually be helpful. If you recall when General Petraeus was here, he said he thought some kind of benchmarks crafted appropriately would actually be helpful.

ROBERTS: So, Andrea Koppel, benchmarks, is that something that the liberal wing of the Democratic Party would be able to accept?

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not necessarily, John. And clearly, Speaker Pelosi is going to have to massage them quite a bit. And what they're going to tell them behind -- behind the scenes is, look, we did get the timeline through, but President Bush vetoed it. They're not giving up on this, John. They're looking at bills down the line, defense appropriations, other spending bills that they can attach that timeline to. And you better believe they will. But in the short term, they also recognize they have got to fund the troops, so they have got to come up with a compromise.

ROBERTS: All right. Let's take a listen, Suzanne, to what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday after the president issued his veto. A lot of tough talk coming from the senator.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: A veto means denying our troops the resources and the strategy that they need. After more than four years of a failed policy, it's time for Iraq to take responsibility for its own future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: So, at the same time, though, Harry Reid is saying that President Bush is denying the troops, that they're going to be in harm's way because he vetoed this, Democrats sat on this bill for a long time just so that they could deliver it on the fourth anniversary of the day that President Bush stood on the deck of that aircraft carrier and said "Mission Accomplished".

What's the White House saying about the timing of all this, Suzanne?

MALVEAUX: Well, you know, the longer this goes -- the longer this goes on here, the Republicans, particularly the moderates, are going to be under a bit of pressure here. And the White House is going to be a bit concerned whether or not they can keep and hold on to those Republicans who will not slide back, who will not change sides here, and perhaps say, look, you know what? A timetable is important. We're going to sign off on this, and perhaps it will be a veto-proof bill.

So far, that hasn't happened. The White House is certainly hoping they can hang on to those Republicans.

So, you're going to hear this president emphasize, we need to get this done as quickly as possible. But, as you know, John, yesterday, of course, there was a lot of theatrics, stage craft. Both sides trying to use that occasion, the "Mission Accomplished" anniversary, as well as the president, pictures of him huddling with his commanders, to underscore their points here. But it is going to be very difficult, and it's going it be a lot of pressure to get this done as quickly as possible.

At least that's what the president is going to emphasize.

ROBERTS: Yes. Signing ceremonies, veto statements. And we'll look forward to what comes this afternoon. Suzanne Malveaux at the White House. Andrea Koppel on the Hill.

Thanks. We'll see you folks later on.

CHETRY: And President Bush says U.S. troops will begin paying the price if the funding fight is not resolved soon. So we did a "Fact Check".

CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr joins us now with more on that.

Hi, Barbara. What did you find?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran.

Well, you know, the military brass here at the Pentagon always says they don't do politics, but, of course, they are, indeed, putting out plenty of statements about what they may have to cut if this funding resolution, this funding controversy is not resolved. Let's get right to it. Here are some of the things the U.S. Army says may have to be thrown overboard if they don't get the money that they need.

First, training brigade combat teams may be delayed, the units going over to Iraq. Tours in Iraq of those troops already there, tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, may be extended. And new contracts, new service orders, new work, spare parts, that sort of thing, that may all go by the wayside.

But, the facts, will this really happen? Certainly, political common sense is that neither the president nor Congress, of course, wants to be tagged with not providing what the troops need. So there is every expectation here that a compromise will be worked out. Nonetheless, top military officials saying they already are making a vow that no troop will go to the war zone without the training and equipment they need -- Kiran.

CHETRY: What about the reports that Army -- the Army told commanders, buy fewer parts, try to delay repairs on some of your training equipment, and also postpone non-essential travel? All of that, you know, in some way affects the war on terror.

STARR: Well, it does. What they're trying to do is stretch out what they've got until they get this compromise and until they get the money in hand.

If a compromise were not to be reached, yes, it would be dire as time goes on. There's no question about that. Already, some moves being made, some spare parts being delayed, some repair work, some maintenance being delayed. But the hope is that within the next two weeks they can get this resolved.

CHETRY: And Barbara, what of the GOP criticism as well that the Democrats sat on this for 12 weeks because they wanted it to coincide, they wanted to hand the bill to the president to coincide with the so- called "Mission Accomplished" speech anniversary? STARR: Well, you know, that, Kiran, is where you get the answer in these hallways from the military, "We don't do politics." They try very hard here to stay out of that sort of fray. But again, the reality is, of course, they're very aware of the timing of all of this.

They see it. But, you know, I think it should be emphasized, for the young Army soldier, Marine, or service member on the ground in Iraq fighting or in Afghanistan, they don't really see a lot of all of this political controversy. They're very preoccupied with staying alive -- Kiran.

CHETRY: You're absolutely right.

Barbara Starr at the Pentagon for us.

Thank you.

ROBERTS: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Egypt today for an international meeting on the future of Iraq. It's the second one that she has attended now.

CNN's Zain Verjee is in Sharm el Sheikh. Secretary Rice set to arrive there in the next half hour.

And Zain, what does the secretary hope to accomplish at this meeting? Not a whole lot got done at the first one.

ZAIN VERJEE, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: No, not a whole lot got done. They're going to go through the motions, but she does have expectations, although she did play them down as she spoke to reporters on the way over.

Secretary of State Rice said that the region, its future, is at stake. She said, "The most important message that I will be delivering is that a stable, unified and democratic Iraq is an Iraq that will be a pillar of stability in the Middle East."

She's going to ask Arab governments to do more to back and to support Iraq. She wants them to give more money to Iraq, more diplomatic support.

As you know, John, Sunni-Arab governments in this region have been pretty skeptical about Iraq. They don't like or trust the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki. They don't like the Shia-dominated government. And they have been a little bit frustrated that what they say is there hasn't been enough progress in including Sunnis into the political process in Iraq.

Also at this conference, the Iraqis themselves have their own responsibility. They've got to carry out a series of economic and political reforms before they can get any of that international aid -- John.

ROBERTS: The Iranians are also going to be there, Zain. Will the secretary actively seek them out? Will she accidentally bump into them? Is she actually going to talk with them about anything substantive?

VERJEE: Well, that's going to be the most interesting thing to observe here at this conference. Many are saying that it could overshadow Iraq, which is supposed to be the star of this conference. But the way it's going to be orchestrated, there's a big question mark there.

Secretary Rice on the plane, speaking to reporters, said, you know, she's open to an encounter with the Iraqis. She said that she is a polite lady, if she encounters the Iranian foreign minister she's going to have a chat with him. And she said even if the conversation wanders beyond Iraq, if it wanders to, oh, the nuclear issue, she said she will be able to take some questions and she will be able to articulate the U.S. position on that.

But any kind of interaction will be under the microscope. It will be significant, and it will be rare at this level -- John.

ROBERTS: Well, we look forward to seeing the results of that, Zain. And to your upcoming reporting.

Zain Verjee for us this morning in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.

VERJEE: Thank you.

CHETRY: Well, the numbers are coming in this morning on the turnout at immigration rallies nationwide. Chicago reporting 150,000 people showed up. That's less than half that showed up last year. Fifteen thousand in Phoenix, far below last year's numbers, as well.

And there was a little bit of chaos this year in Los Angeles. Police in riot gear clashed with protesters suspected of throwing bottles and rocks at police. At the end of the rally in L.A., they fired rubber bullets into the crowd at MacArthur Park. LAPD chief William Bratton defended the action, but he also said he's going to be looking into exactly what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF WILLIAM BRATTON, LOS ANGELES POLICE: It is a very large incident that occurred here in a very large geographic area. And we will, as we always do, investigate this thoroughly, completely, and will go where the truth takes us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: Fire officials say that three people went to the hospital, others were treated at the park. But there were no reports of serious injuries.

And the birth of a tornado caught on camera. This one near Topeka.

We're going to check today's severe weather threat from the heartland and beyond, up next. Also, every day trucks roll through our cities. They're carrying toxic materials. They're carrying explosive materials. And sometimes there are devastating accidents. So, how easy is it to turn a truck into a rolling bomb?

We're taking a look next on AMERICAN MORNING.

The most news in the morning is here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Coming up now to 14 minutes after the hour. Extreme weather in sections of the country.

Chad Myers down there in the weather center in Atlanta monitoring it all.

And who's under the gun today, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's going to be Texas and it's going to be the Carolinas, John.

Right now we still have that rain spinning around Texas and Little Rock and Memphis. Big weather coming out of eastern New Mexico, as well.

This is a graphic that I don't show you very often, but this is the rain that came down yesterday. This is the storm totals. This is usually just a behind-the-scenes map that I use to look at, but everywhere that you see green on this map, that was an inch of rain or more.

A lot of green in the central parts of the plains, and there's even some yellow spots in here. And when you look at the yellow and the oranges in parts of Texas, that's upwards of three to six inches of rainfall yesterday alone, and that's on top of the three to six they had the day before. And this has been spinning around. This low has been over Texas for a very long time.

We do expect this area to fill in with severe weather today. Nothing there right now. And you think, oh, that's good, nothing going to happen. But, in fact, that's bad.

The sunshine warms up the ground, the ground warms up the air. That air wants to rise, and rising air will make thunderstorms. We're expecting that right over Raleigh, all the way down even to North Carolina.

Kiran, back to you.

CHETRY: Chad, thanks so much.

Well, are U.S. security officials over looking potential terrorist targets right here at home? Just this weekend, a tanker truck full of gasoline crashed and exploded, destroying two levels of an Oakland, California, freeway ramp. And they're saying this could be months before it is fixed again. And crippling traffic in and out of the Bay Area.

Could tanker trucks be a terrorist weapon?

Steve Flynn, author of "America the Vulnerable" joins me now.

Steve, what did you think when you saw that crash as it relates to the possibility of a terror threat?

STEVE FLYNN, AUTHOR, "AMERICA THE VULNERABLE": Well, first, it does remind us that the more foreseeable and likely consequential events often happens by accidents or natural disasters, versus by terrorists. But then it also tells us that we don't have to import weapons of mass destruction, or adversaries don't, in order to mess up our lives.

The fact is, there are plenty around the United States. There are literally thousands of these kinds of tank cars, trucks driving around on our roads. There are existent railcars, as well, and then we have chemical facilities sprawled around the United States, as well.

And also, they're located in places that -- where infrastructures is becoming a bit more brittle. That is, you know, we're heavily reliant on overstressed highways and so forth. So, you hit the right place at the right time, you can really mess up people's lives.

CHETRY: What are some of our other more vulnerable areas or vulnerable structures?

FLYNN: Well, there is a whole series of them, of course, if we look around. I mean, one of the cases I try to make, the most reasonable on the edge of disaster, is to look at the area that -- at how brittle these infrastructures have become. Our things like our electric grid. We saw the power go out, for instance, in the Northeast in 2003, and that wasn't the result, again, of an act of terror, but it shows just how fragile things can be not only if we hit it -- it was hit by our adversaries, but also if Mother Nature again does its worst.

CHETRY: As we saw with the levees in the Gulf states, as well. And especially...

FLYNN: Exactly. And actually, more vulnerable levees is not far from Oakland, and that is the levee system around the Sacramento River Valley. Two-thirds of the water supply for the state of California, which is a pretty arid state, basically are protected by levees that are in far worse condition than the ones that were around New Orleans.

So, we're going to face natural disasters, we can't prevent those. But we're also going to face manmade acts of terror. We're not going to eliminate the terrorist threat any time soon.

One of the things that should speak to us is the need for resiliency. That is really looking to things that are really valuable for us, really important for us, and figuring out, how can we invest in making them ideally less consequential if something goes wrong? But also responding.

It will be interesting to see how quickly California can bounce back from this. Obviously, a lot of lives are going to being disrupted in the interim. But we have been focusing, though, on our war on terror primarily beyond our shores.

CHETRY: Right.

FLYNN: Imagining all threats that can essentially be dealt with at arm's length. The reality is that we need to make resiliency at home, I argue, as much of a priority as confronting threats beyond our borders.

That is, what makes acts of terror really terrifying is when we -- when it has real cascading consequences, we can't respond well. But responding to these events helps us out not just with terror, but as we'll see in this incidence here, when we have accidents, or we have an earthquake, or we have other natural disasters that are far more probable.

So, the bottom line is, Americans are waking up, again, that our infr infrastructure is vulnerable. That if you hit the right place, you can disrupt people's lives.

CHETRY: Right.

FLYNN: That's certainly what people in the Bay Area are seeing. But this is a problem throughout the country. And we really need to take a close look at these issues.

You know, Eisenhower -- President Eisenhower was probably our last president who looked at our infrastructure and our civil society as key components of our national defense. He did it basically because of the concern if the Cold War got hot.

Now, our highway system was built around the Interstate and Defense Act by the federal government putting resources in. Almost in the same way, I would argue, in a new age we're in, where lots of hazards will come to us. We need to make these same kinds of investments.

CHETRY: Got you. All right. Interesting stuff.

Steve Flynn, thanks for being with us this morning.

FLYNN: Thanks so much for having me.

CHETRY: Coming up, how would you like to hear from your boss, take off as much time as you want? Well, we're going to tell you which companies are actually saying that to their workers.

Plus, is there any room for compromise on the war-funding bill? We're going to be talking to House Republican whip Roy Blunt.

Stay with us on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Coming up now to 22 minutes after the hour.

President Bush delivered on his promise to veto the Iraq war spending bill yesterday, saying calls for a timetable for a withdrawal set "a date for failure".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Members of the House and the Senate passed a bill that substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military commanders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Has the president left any room for compromise?

House Republican whip Roy Blunt joins me now from Washington.

Good to see you, Congressman.

REP. ROY BLUNT (R), HOUSE MINORITY WHIP: John, good to be with you.

ROBERTS: You're going to be at that meeting this afternoon at 2:30. What do you expect is going to come out of it?

BLUNT: Well, I hope what we can decide at that meeting is who's going to be the narrow team that now needs to negotiate this and get into a 'round-the-clock effort to get this settled. We've now wasted three months on a bill that from day one the Democrats' leaders knew was never going to be signed, and now we've -- we're at a point where we really are having critical problems created both with the military here and in the training of the Iraqi military and training of people getting ready to go to Iraq, and we have got to do something about this.

It needs to happen quickly. And I believe it can and should.

ROBERTS: Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was on our program a little bit earlier on today. I asked him what his response was to the president's veto, and here's what he told us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI), CHAIRMAN, ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: What he did was veto the will of the American people last November that we should find our way out of Iraq, that we've got to begin to reduce our troop presence because there's no military solution in Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: What do you say to that, Congressman Blunt?

BLUNT: I think it's a mistake whenever you overemphasize your mandate, particularly a mandate in a very close election. You have got to remember, on the House side, a number of Democrats, both times when this bill has come to the floor, have voted with virtually all the Republicans not to send a bill with this excessive spending.

Certainly the American public didn't vote for that. And not to send a bill with timelines. Not to send a bill that restricts what the commanders in the field can do in a way that's different than the command responsibilities they've always had.

So I think it's a huge mistake to overemphasize your mandate. Republicans have made that mistake in the past. I think the Democrats are making it today in an area that is particularly critical to the future security of the country.

ROBERTS: As we pointed out, Congressman, when we were introducing you, President Bush calls this particular bill "setting a date for failure". But what's wrong with putting some timetables down, or at the very least benchmarks, and saying to the Iraqi government, do this by this time or we're going to stop propping you up?

BLUNT: Well, you know, House Republican leaders over two months ago proposed that we put some benchmarks out there for the Iraqi leaders. I think that's important. I think we can do that. I've thought all the time, as the other Republican leaders in the House have, we should have.

But we have gotten no reaction from the Democrat leaders in the House at all. In fact, that idea was ignored as we went on toward a product that everybody knew was destined to exactly the result that happened yesterday.

There's an overwhelming number of votes in the House to sustain the president's veto. That won't even be a close vote. Democrats knew that. We have to get back to getting what needs to be done here done.

ROBERTS: Public opinion appears to be solidly behind the Democrats on this. They have a majority of support for what they're trying to do here, and there is a majority -- two-thirds of the American people oppose this war now.

Are Republicans on the wrong side of this issue? And how long can you hold out against public opinion?

BLUNT: You know, John, I think this is too important an issue to worry about the polling. I think that the side that's willing to take on this jihadist threat, this narrow sliver, but dangerous sliver of Islam, history will be on that side.

And what we can't afford to do is leave Iraq in the way we left Lebanon 25 years ago, the way we left Somalia. The lack of response we've had for a generation now to these suicidal attacks to a group of people who have said they are opposed to our way of life and, consequently, believe that we don't deserve the life we have. ROBERTS: Congressman, real quick, there is the possibility that this troop increase could work and that General Petraeus pulls it out of the fire. But if by the end of the summer Iraq is still where it is in terms of violence, is there any reason to keep going?

BLUNT: I think the reason to keep going is that how we leave Iraq will determine the future of how these terrorist enemies of ours look at us. And we need to be looking for what we can achieve, how we can achieve it. Our goals need to be realistic, and we need to be doing everything we can to encourage in every possible way the Iraqis to reach the goals for their country that can realistically be reached.

ROBERTS: House minority whip Congressman Roy Blunt.

Thanks very much for being with us.

BLUNT: Thank you.

ROBERTS: Do us a favor. Come out to the stakeout in the White House driveway after the meeting. We'd love to hear from you then.

BLUNT: We'll probably see you today.

ROBERTS: All right. Thanks very much.

CHETRY: Twenty-six past the hour right now. And Polly LaBarre is in for Ali, "Minding Your Business".

And I've got to write down the name of this company you're about to tell us about -- or a couple of them.

POLLY LABARRE, BUSINESS JOURNALIST: Well, Google is a company we all know the name of. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about summer vacations, the time we all think about planning our summer vacation.

CHETRY: Right.

LABARRE: How many long weekends can we finagle out of the summer, what strategically placed sick days can we put on Monday and Friday so we can -- we can get out? That's just unofficial policy, of course. Nobody really does that.

CHETRY: No, we don't want to get in trouble.

LABARRE: Some companies are saying, you know, let's explode the traditional approach to vacation policy, punching the clock, and put time back in the hands of our employees. And basically, we hire adults, let's treat them like adults.

Google has a really incredible policy. They call it 20 percent time. So all of the engineers at Google are encouraged to spend one- fifth of their time on projects they're passionate about that have nothing to do with what they're working on and what the company's priorities are. The interesting flip side of that is, they have come up with some of the most lucrative innovations at Google, from Google News, to (INAUDIBLE). And the idea is putting their time in their hands.

CHETRY: Oh, so they do that when they're on the clock, the 20 percent.

LABARRE: OK. So that's not a vacation policy.

CHETRY: Right.

LABARRE: Netflix has just announced an un-vacation policy, which is basically, take any vacation whenever you want to, for as long as you want to, no matter what your seniority is in the company.

CHETRY: What?

LABARRE: No questions asked.

CHETRY: How do you work an effective company if people can just always be off?

LABARRE: Again, it's about responsibility. People take vacations according to the rhythm of their own jobs. They end up working really harder before they go on their vacation. And, you know, then harder when they get back.

So, basically it's saying, work is something you do, not a place you go. Put time back in people's hands.

CHETRY: Pretty interesting. And as you said, unconventional.

ROBERTS: Hang on. Wait a minute. Does Netflix pay you during your vacations? Paid vacations?

LABARRE: They certainly do.

ROBERTS: So take as much time off, we'll keep paying you, come back when you feel like it.

LABARRE: Again, it's about getting your work done. I mean, the stipulation in all of these policies is, get your work done, accomplish what you need to accomplish. And it's worked so well that they're taking 25 to 30 vacation days. The average American takes about 10 max. And productivity and results are up.

CHETRY: Don't get any ideas, John. We need you here for three hours every morning.

ROBERTS: Oh, believe me, if I had the idea, they would fall on deaf ears. I already know that.

Coming up, patients deciding to pay for their own experimental drugs and the trials to test them. Would you be willing to pay for a risky treatment that may or may not save your life?

Paging Dr. Gupta. He's got the story coming up next.

And Oprah sits down with Larry King. Hear what she says was the greatest day that she ever experienced -- next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

ROBERTS: President Bush and Congress are still far apart on the war spending bill, and each side is accusing the other of holding up money need to fight the war in Iraq. Democratic strategist and CNN political contributors James Carville and Paul Begala join me now from Washington.

Thanks for being with us, guys. Appreciate it.

JAMES CARVILLE, CNN POL. CONTRIBUTOR: Hi. Thank you.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POL. CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks.

ROBERTS: Let me just throw this out to you first of all. Did Democrats overstep on this veto challenge with President Bush? They went all in with this whole thing, they lost. Now they are, according to some people, going into these next round of negotiations at a disadvantage.

BEGALA: Yes, well, certainly not according to most Democrats or even most Americans, if you look at the polling data, but I think this is even beyond polling. And I think particularly Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are playing for history and playing for the soldiers. I think they strike me as people who are really concerned that this war is going in the wrong direction, and that we need to do two things, like they did in their bill, which is fund the troops, but change the strategy, change the mission.

ROBERTS: But, James, are the Democrats forced to compromise now and could that open up with the liberal wing of the party that they had to use an awful lot of political capital to patch up going into this whole debate?

CARVILLE: You know, this is -- everything you learned in ninth- grade civics is playing out right in front of you. There's a thing called separation of powers, and the president, the Democrats don't have the votes to override the president's veto. The president does not have the votes to pass the spending bill.

The Democrats, the American public prefers a Democratic position by 20 points. The only people who are overstepping here are the president and the Republicans. But yes, they will sit down and they will forge some kind of a compromise and that's what the Constitution says. That's what Sister Rosetta Stone told us in the ninth grade.

ROBERTS: And, Paul, how is the liberal wing of the Democratic Party going to react to this idea of a compromise?

BEGALA: Probably not very well, actually, John. You know, driving over here this morning I was listening to our former colleague Bill Press, used to be on CNN. He's got a very influential progressive talk radio show in the morning, and both Bill and all his callers were telling the Democrats, pass the same bill again. Make him veto it again. Make it like your kid eating the spinach. Keep serving it until he finally has to choke it down. So that's kind of where the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is, they're not in the mind to compromise right now, and yet compromise will come. And i think you're right, I think the Democratic base won't like it very much, but I suspect the Republican Base won't either.

ROBERTS: Yes, force him to compromise, make him eat it, or as presidential candidate Joe Biden said yesterday, quote, "shove it down his throat." So over on the Democratic side of this...

CARVILLE: That's an improvement. I probably would have used a different body part. I am kind of impressed that Joe has that kind of control now.

ROBERTS: But over in the president campaign you've got an emerging split -- you've got people like Biden, Edwards, Dodd and Richardson, all saying we need these drastic steps to end the war now, pushing it in the same bill, and Richardson goes even further, take more steps to stop the war. And then you have the Clinton and Obama camps, who were urging, you know, more negotiations on this particular bill. So everybody seemed to be unified on this, James, and now we see, again, those evolving, and changing and different positions here among the Democrats., and that has historically been their weakness.

CARVILLE: If God wanted us to march in lock step, he would have made us all Republicans. And the Republicans have marched in lock step in this entire disastrous war. They all voted for it. They voted for funding without any benchmarks, without any timetables, without any change of strategy. And I think that's one of the things that people's (INAUDIBLE). They're is -- you're right, there is a robust opinion within the Democratic Party about the best way to solve this problem. There is no division of a opinion in the Republican party -- it is strictly stay the course, stay the course, stay the course.

And I am actually proud to be part of a political party that sees this disaster and is struggling to try to find an answer, as opposed to staying the course on a disastrous policy.

I mean, they're certainly are emerging splits in the Republican Party on a lot of things well.

CARVILLE: Where?

ROBERTS: Well, on different issues.

CARVILLE: But not on the war.

ROBERTS: Immigration, there's certainly a split.

But, Paul, did the Democrats lead themselves in a position of vulnerability here in term of the public relations part of the debate, by sitting on this bill for 12 weeks and waiting to deliver it on the fourth anniversary of the day that President Bush stood on that deck of the Abraham Lincoln with the "mission accomplished" banner behind him. If you really cared about the troops, and you really wanted the funding to go through and you wanted it under your terms, shouldn't you have not done this weeks ago?

BEGALA: No, Congress takes its time to work its will.

ROBERTS: You're saying this is all about this takes time in Congress?

BEGALA: Well, they have a perfect right, I think, to try to call attention to that, that dishonest photo op of four years ago with the "mission accomplished" banner.

ROBERTS: Yes, but do you do that with a spending bill for military operations?

BEGALA: Sure. The money is there. The money is there, the Congressional Research Service says, until June. This is May 2nd. There's still plenty of time to do this.

By the way, it has been about 85 days since the president asked for this money, and he got it yesterday and then vetoed it. The last time he asked the Republican Congress for a supplemental, it took him 117 days. So I think the Democrats ought to at least have as much time as the president's own party had to pass the supplemental.

ROBERTS: All right, and the debate goes on. Paul Begala, James Carville, always good to see you guys. Thanks for coming in this morning.

CHETRY: U.S. and Iraqi officials are still trying to determine if the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq is dead or alive. He's Abu Ayyub al-Masri. Iraq's interior ministry first reported yesterday he had been killed, but U.S. authorities have not yet verified that. An al Qaeda-front organization is denying it.

So that leads us to this question. It was e-mailed to us here at Ask AMERICAN MORNING. This one comes from Tyler in New York. He asks, in Iraq, how will U.S. intelligence determine if al-Masri is dead or alive?

Well, our Arwa Damon is live in Baghdad to help us answer that question.

And how will they finally confirm or deny that, Arwa?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kiran, actually, let me start by saying that the first thing we are trying to get confirmation of is, where is the body that is alleged to be that of al-Masri's. The U.S. military saying in a press conference earlier that it has no information, and a spokesman for Iraq's ministry of interior also coming out saying they had nothing new to report, and the last that we had heard from them is that they were still trying to recover the body. But once they do, if we take the identification methods used to positively identify Zarqawi, who was the former leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, killed in a U.S. airstrike over the summer. In that case, initial identification came from fingerprinting, facial recognition, as well as the identification of known scars on his body. Following that, there were DNA samples that were sent to too the United States for testing. After all of those tests came back positive, did the U.S. and Iraqi governments come forward saying that they had, in fact, killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Presumably, once a body ends up in the custody of the authorities, similar sorts of tests will be conducted.

CHETRY: All right. So, there certainly is spin going on on both sides, but you need a body before you can even start with the positive confirmation.

Arwa Damon from Baghdad, thanks so much.

And Oprah Winfrey answered some of Larry King's questions last night, helping Larry celebrate 50 years in broadcasting. Oprah talked with Larry about her greatest day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KING, CNN ANCHOR: During an interview you did with us in September, you said I don't feel like I have used my life to the highest good.

OPRAH WINFREY: Yes.

KING: What do you -- has that changed since opening the schools?

WINFREY: Well, the opening of the school was one of the greatest days I ever experienced. Ever. It felt like I had 20 weddings all in one -- it felt like everything I've heard people say weddings are. It's like out of body. You don't remember what happened. You're sort of floating through it. So the opening of my leadership academy felt like that. But it also felt, you know, for me, the process of getting to something is as good as actually arriving there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: And tonight the tables are turned on Larry. Katie Couric is going to be interviewing him. All of that is leading up to tomorrow's two-hour special. ANDERSON COOPER hosting a look at pop culture through Larry King's unique perspective.

ROBERTS: Nice that Larry is going to get his 50th anniversary. It was derailed a little bit by news events a couple of weeks ago. So -- and from all of us here, of course, at AMERICAN MORNING, happy 50th, Larry. What a job.

Which countries foster freedom of religion and which countries violently suppress it. The new report is out. We'll bring it to you next.

Plus, Dr. Sanjay Gupta weighs in. Are left-handed people at risk of a shorter life?

You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

ROBERTS: Forty-six minutes after the hour now. We were going to bring you the story about two people who were going to pay for an experimental drug treatment. We'll bring you that tomorrow.

In the meantime, though, we've got a really interesting study to ask Sanjay Gupta about. You probably heard about earlier today. Left-handed women more prone to certain diseases and, in general, have a shorter lifespan than right-handed women. That's according to Dutch researchers. We're paging Dr. Gupta in Atlanta for more on this.

Sanjay, what do you make of all of this? Is this just anecdotal evidence, or could there be some scientific significance to it?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, there've been a lot of studies on this, sort of interestingly, John. Part of what was driving this is that you started to see fewer left-handed people in our society and people started asking, well, why is that? Is there something that's causing that. It could be that people are just forced to switch handedness at birth, but maybe could it be something more.

First of all, a lot of people don't buy that there's any link at all between left-handedness and early mortality. It could just be, as you say, sort of more anecdotal. But could it be instead that you're all sort of supposed to be right-handed, but instead as a result of some sort of impairment on the left side of the brain which controls the right side of your body, that some people become left handed. Could that same impairment cause a problem later on?

There's another theory out there I thought was sort of interesting. Again, not proven by any means, John, that it's sort of steroids in utero somehow drive your handedness. The more steroids you have, the more likely you're to be left-handed. And those same steroids, you know, John, part of the problem with hormone-replacement therapy is too much steroids can actually fuel cancers later on, such as breast cancer, which has been one of the possible links that they've drawn, John.

ROBERTS: You know, I've heard studies in the past, Sanjay, that left-handed people, because they live in a right-handed world, may be more prone to accidental death than right-handed people are. But this is actually talking about disease processes, like as you said, cancer and also cerebral vascular disease.

GUPTA: Yes, interesting. And cerebral vascular disease, what that basically means is the blood vessels that are in or around the brain. Now, it was -- if there was some sort of impairment on the left side of the brain, that made someone not able to be right-handed, but instead become left-handed, could that same process have also led to increased (INAUDIBLE) vascular disease later on down the road? It's hard to know for sure, John. None of these are conclusive, and there's so few, as you know, John. You talk about these sort of studies. There's so many fewer left-handed people, it's hard to draw correlations between left and right-handed people overall.

CHETRY: Is there a culture, though, anti-left-handed, people don't want their children to be left-handed? And then there's also the talk that maybe left-handed people are more creative. I feel like we talk about this a lot.

GUPTA: Yes, well, for the first point I think it's sort of interesting. Because I that, you know, when you sort of look epidemiologically and say there are fewer left-handed people now, why? It could be exactly what you're saying, Kiran. A lot of people don't want their kids to be lefthanded. It's harder. It's harder to find golf clubs, or whatever you might be driving your kid toward, so they force them to right-handedness. That makes the studies harder to do.

But also there is something to what you're saying, Kiran. There are certain areas of the brain that are just responsible for different things. The right side of your brain might be more responsible for certain analytical, practical type things; the left side of your brain more responsible for language, for example. So if your handedness in any way drives that. So left-handed people are using more of the right side of their brain, left handed-people are -- I'm not getting this straight here. Left side of the brain controls the right hand and vice versa. So you know, it could be that left-handed people have more of those creative traits exhibited.

ROBERTS: I thought it was the left side of the brain, though, that was the creative part.

CHETRY: Sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, as President Bush said.

(CROSSTALK)

ROBERTS: And then of course there's that kid in pro baseball who can throw -- he pitched equally as well.

CHETRY: The ambidextrous pitcher.

GUPTA: Exactly. Yes. And who knows what to make of that.

The hand -- not a lot of people are buying exactly into this whole handedness actually leading to increased mortality. It's interesting to sort of look at reflectively, but I'm not sure that we can draw conclusions.

CHETRY: You have a new baby. You watch your baby really closely. Mine shovels food with both hand in her mouth, so we can't tell yet.

GUPTA: I've got the same thing, yes. ROBERTS: There's a lot of parents as well whose kids are athletically inclined who tie their right hand behind their back because everybody wants a left-handed pitcher.

Sanjay, thanks very much.

GUPTA: Thank you guys.

ROBERTS: If you've got questions for Sanjay, send them his way. Head to our Web site, CNN.com/Americanmorning, and Sanjay will answer them tomorrow morning.

CHETRY: Because he knows everything, he really does. Not just about medical stuff.

ROBERTS: You don't Google thing, you Sanjay them.

CHETRY: That's very true.

Well, "CNN NEWSROOM" is just a few minutes away, and Heidi Collins is at the CNN Center. She has a look at what's ahead.

Hi, Heidi.

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Sanjay's head is so big now I can hardly sit right next to him here.

CHETRY: I know, you're stuck with him down in Atlanta.

COLLINS: Here's what's coming up on the NEWSROOM rundown today. After the veto, President Bush and Democrats meet today, still looking for a way to pay for the Iraq War. We'll talk about that.

And this -- Iraqi military and political leaders undercutting the U.S.? CNN Baghdad reports on a shadowy office -- sources call it a smoke screen -- that's promoting an extreme Shiite agenda and feeling the divide with Sunnis.

Also, getting married? Well, don't get left holding the bill if your beloved bails. We'll tell you all about wedding insurance. This is not a prenup; it's just wedding insurance. And it remind me of the runaway bride just a tad.

Tony Harris is joining me in the NEWSROOM top of the hour right here on CNN -- Kiran.

CHETRY: We'll be watching. Heidi, thanks so much.

And still ahead, which countries are suppressing religious freedoms? We have results from a brand new study out just moments ago, next on AMERICAN MORNING.

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CHETRY: Well, which countries have the most severe violations of religious freedom? The commission charged with identifying countries of concern has sent its latest recommendations to the State Department and here with more is AMERICAN MORNING's faith and values correspondent Delia Gallagher. It's hot off the presses

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN FAITH & VALUES CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

CHETRY: Just released this morning.

GALLAGHER: It's interesting because this is a group of people that travel to the countries all around the world, that talk to the ambassadors there. They talk to the people that are working in these countries, and then submit this list of countries in violation of religious freedom. I mean, I think it's important to say from the outset, what do we mean by religious freedoms and violations? Because in this country I don't think we have a concept of what other people live through in some of these countries where they're persecuted for their religion. I mea, it means that when you are in your own home with a group of people, in a prayer group, you know, the police can come in, confiscate your bibles, arrest you, take you away, burn your property, if not kill you.

So, I mean, these are the kind of circumstances that this report looks at. And there are, you know, the usual sort of suspects on the list.

CHETRY: Let's take a look.

GALLAGHER: Sudan, for example, is one that has been on for a number of years, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, North Korea.

But the interesting thing about the list this year are some of the new ones. There are two new ones on this year.

CHETRY: Pakistan made the list.

GALLAGHER: Pakistan, and Vietnam, which is interesting because Vietnam last year, you'll remember President Bush visited Vietnam, and they had been taken off of the list because they said that they were now joining the WTO and they were improving in religious freedom, and yet the recommendation this year is that they be put back on, because there have been many reports of religious violations. There was a priest there who wrote to the U.S. Congress to complain about some of the violations. He was subsequently arrested and put in jail without any due process.

CHETRY: Do we see a target of Christianity?

GALLAGHER: All kind of religious minorities. This is what's interesting. Yes, certainly Christians, Protestants, for example, in Vietnam, that were walking around with their bibles were arrested on the streets. So, you know, there are all kind of different religious minorities in these countries that are not allowed, either in private or public, to flourish.

CHETRY: Iraq's interesting, as well.

GALLAGHER: Yes, now what they have is a watch list. So they have countries of concern, and these are recommendations that secretary of state put on the list, but then they have a watch list, and they put some countries on the watch list. Iraq is one of them. In Iraq it's the great untold story of the war in Iraq, because we always hear about the Sunnis and the Shia Muslims, but there are 10 percent of the population that are religious minorities, and they, too, are being persecuted and caught in the crossfire of this war, and their stories aren't out there yet. So this report brings some attention, I think, to the lives of these people.

CHETRY: You're right. Very interesting. Thanks for bringing us up to date on that. That was faith and values correspondent Delia Gallagher.

And here's a quick look at what "CNN NEWSROOM" is working on for the top of the hour.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: See these stories in the "CNN NEWSROOM": President Bush talks Iraq war funding with congressional leaders today. He vetoed a funding bill with withdrawal deadlines.

Severe storms, heavy rain and more flooding likely in Texas today.

A newly discovered recording offering new insight into the 1970 shooting at Kent State.

The bank robber who fainted just to get three hot meals a day.

"NEWSROOM top of the hour on CNN.

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