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Attorney Firings Fallout; Attack on Holy Shiite Mosque in Samarra

Aired June 13, 2007 - 11:00   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, everyone. You're with CNN. You're informed.
I'm Tony Harris.

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there. I'm Heidi Collins.

Developments keep coming into the NEWSROOM on this Wednesday, June 13th.

Here's what's on the rundown.

Fired federal prosecutors fallout. Congress sending out subpoenas to former White House officials.

HARRIS: Missing soldier's body found. He disappeared during a training exercise. Live this hour, a news conference with details on the death.

COLLINS: And Iraq mosque bombed again. A U.S. general calls it an inside job, but a firebrand cleric blames the U.S.

In the NEWSROOM.

HARRIS: And at the top this hour, the search for a missing soldier ends the search for answers about his disappearance and death. Just beginning -- we expect a news conference any minute now on the death of Sergeant Lawrence Sprader. Searchers found his body late last night. He disappeared at Fort Hood, Texas, during an exercise to test map reading and navigation skills.

Hundreds of soldiers scoured the 15,000-acre training range. Army officials say nine other soldiers got lost during the exercise. All but Sprader managed to return safely to a rallying point. Sprader's body was sent for an autopsy to determine an exact cause of death.

COLLINS: New developments this morning in the fallout from the U.S. attorneys firings. News just in now of subpoenas being issued to some former White House officials.

Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash first broke the story. She's joining us now live from Capitol Hill, on the phone with more detail -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Heidi. Right, well, this is really a significant development in this ongoing showdown between Congress and the White House over the fired federal prosecutors, why they were fired, and who was behind it.

Now, what we have here is the very first time that Congress has issued subpoenas for people inside the White House -- two high-level aides to President Bush, his former White House counsel, Harriet Miers, and also the former political director, Sara Taylor. Now, both have now left the White House, but still, if you are the White House, you certainly see these two people as they have really for anybody who's worked in the White House.

The White House has made it very clear to Congress that they do not think it is appropriate for aides to the president to come and testify. And that is why it has reached this point, where the Congress is actually issuing subpoenas.

What's going to happen, Heidi, the Senate is going -- the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to issue the subpoena for Sara Taylor, who was political director, top aide to Karl Rove. And in the House, the House Judiciary Committee, they will issue the subpoena to former White House counsel Harriet Miers. And, of course, what they say they have wanted to know from these two figures and others is information about what went on behind the scenes as the decision went down in terms of who would be fired in U.S. attorneys' offices across the country and why.

COLLINS: All right. CNN's Dana Bash following the story for us and breaking the news first here on CNN.

Dana, thank you.

HARRIS: And let's get some White House reaction now to the subpoenas.

Kathleen Koch is following that reaction.

Kathleen, what are you hearing?

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the White House responded very quickly to Dana breaking this news that these subpoenas would be going out. Spokesperson Tony Fratto saying, "We are aware of the Judiciary Committee's plans to issue subpoenas. We will respond appropriately. The committees can easily obtain the facts they want without a confrontation by simply accepting our offers for documents and interviews, but it's clear that Senator Leahy and Representative Conyers are more interested in drama than fact."

And again, to really reiterate what Dana Bash was just reporting, it was just back in March that White House counsel Fred Fielding sent a letter up to Capitol Hill, basically saying, yes, you may interview Karl Rove, you may interview Harriet Miers, their deputies, other White House staff, but only on the president's terms, in private, without the need for them taking these sort of oaths and without a transcript. And that's simply something to this point that the lawmakers have rejected -- Tony. HARRIS: Got you.

Kathleen, let's change gears a bit here. What are you hearing about a replacement for White House counselor Dan Bartlett?

KOCH: Well, it was just a few weeks ago that Bartlett said he was leaving his position here, and now we understand that the White House has announced that at 12:45 today, the president will name his replacement. And according to a senior administration official, it will be Ed Gillespie.

He was formerly chairman of the Republican National Committee, worked on the Bush campaign in 2004. So a loyal Bush confidante, a loyal -- a Republican.

HARRIS: OK. Kathleen Koch at the White House for us.

Kathleen, thank you.

KOCH: You bet.

COLLINS: More perspective now on the subpoenas being issued in the fired U.S. attorneys investigation. Former U.S. attorney and former congressman Bob Barr joining us now by telephone from Washington.

Always love to get your perspective, Bob, because of those two positions that you held.

Let me ask you just if you were surprised that these subpoenas had been issued.

BOB BARR, FMR. U.S. ATTORNEY: I was not really surprised that they had been issued, Heidi. A little bit disappointed that the two sides had not been able to work something out.

You never like to see a dispute or disagreement like this come down to form legal proceedings, which certainly subpoenas are an initial step. But the fact of the matter is, Congress, whether it's under Republican or Democrat leadership, should never be satisfied with what the White House has offered here.

Other administrations, the Clinton administration would try the same thing of saying, oh, we'll sit down with you in private with no transcripts. That clearly will not satisfy nor should it satisfy the oversight responsibility of the Congress. So I think Congress is certainly within its rights, and as a policy matter, as well, in insisting on having this information.

COLLINS: So you are very much of the opinion, Bob, then that this is not really just another case of a Democratic-controlled Congress battling with the White House. This is oversight. There is no other agenda that the Democrats may have?

BARR: Well, I don't know that I would go so far as to say there's no other agenda. Certainly politics will play a role in how this plays itself out. But I think at its core, what the House and Senate judiciary committees are looking at here is very clearly and legitimately within the responsibility and jurisdiction of the Congress.

There's no more department of our government that is more important to domestic policy than the Department of Justice. And where there are, as here, serious allegations that partisanship and partisan politics may very well have played a role in the administration of justice, clearly Congress has a responsibility to look into this.

Whether or not, as I say, politics may, you know, play at the fringes of it is another matter. But the legitimate -- the inquiry itself is very legitimate.

COLLINS: Any laws been broken, any evidence of that that you see?

BARR: We don't know yet. While on the one hand, as everybody know, I think, a president can remove and replace U.S. attorneys for whatever reason, if in fact there was an effort made -- for example, as in the case of the former U.S. attorney in New Mexico or the former U.S. attorney in Missouri -- where there are at least some preliminary allegations that they were removed because they were either proceeding too aggressively in a certain area or not as aggressively as they should, as the White House wanted them to with regard to allegations of political corruption, that could fall into the area of obstruction of justice.

In other words, if the reason for the firing was to derail a legitimate investigation, that could be something very serious. We certainly, at this point, don't know that, but at least there are some indications that that might have been the case. So that gives an additional reason for Congress to inquire.

COLLINS: OK. Real quickly, Bob, before we let you go, so we have two subpoenas now for Sara Taylor and for Harriet Miers, former White House employees.

Any chance they could be shielded in some way by the White House?

BARR: Certainly the White House may claim that these are internal deliberations, executive privilege applies. I don't think that will carry the day eventually, but the White House, I'm sure, will try something like that.

COLLINS: Former U.S. attorney and congressman Bob Barr.

Bob, always nice to talk with you. Thanks.

BARR: Thank you, Heidi.

HARRIS: An appeal for calm after one of the holiest Shiite Muslim shrines in Iraq is bombed again, but new fear this morning that sectarian divisions already tearing the country apart will worsen. Police say insurgents targeted the remaining minarets of the mosque. It is the same holy site that was attacked in February of last year. That attack started a wave of sectarian clashes that hasn't stopped.

Live to our Paula Hancocks, in Baghdad now.

Paula, if you would, give us the details as you know of them of how this attack was carried out.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Tony, we've heard from a U.S. general that he has a belief this was an inside job, this particular attack. And we know that in the early hours of this morning there were clashes just outside this mosque.

We understand there were two cordons protecting this mosque of Iraqi national police and other security forces. Then those insurgents got inside the compound, planted the bombs around the minarets, and detonated them, destroying both of them.

Now, General Mixon -- he is head of the multinational division north -- has told CNN he believes it was an inside job. Fifteen of those security forces have been arrested, as they are suspected of being involved in this particular attack.

A U.S. explosives team is in Samarra to find out exactly what happened. And also, one extra Iraqi brigade is on its way to reinforce this particular area.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIG. GEN. KEVIN BERGNER, MULTINATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ SPOKESMAN: We join with Prime Minister Maliki in urging all Iraqis to remain calm and to allow appropriate responses to come from the legitimate security forces of Iraq.

This afternoon, Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus met with Prime Minister Maliki. And all agreed to work together to take a number of military and political actions to promote security and restraint in the wake of this inflammatory attack. This will be a cooperative endeavor as we go forward and assist the government of Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANCOCKS: The U.S. and Iraqi officials are Plame blaming al Qaeda for this particular attack. They're urging restraint. We also heard restraint called for my Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric. He is actually saying the Iraqis should unite, because he blames the invisible hand of the occupation forces, talking about the U.S. forces. He's also called for three days of mourning.

Ali al-Sistani, the grand ayatollah here, has also called for restraint. But of course this is what they did a year ago as well, called for retrant. But at that point it was not listened to.

Now, we are now hearing from the Interior Ministry official that one Sunni mosque has been burnt to the ground. This is in a southwestern Baghdad area, the Baya (ph) neighborhood, a Shiite neighborhood. And certainly the amount of shooting we've been hearing from our location early afternoon has increased as well -- Tony.

HARRIS: CNN's Paula Hancocks for us in Baghdad.

Paula, as always, thank you.

We know this mosque in Samarra is one of the holiest places in Shia Islam. The al-Askari Mosque is also known as the Golden Mosque.

So what's the importance of this place? It contains the tombs of the 10th and 11th Shiite imams who lived more than 1,200 years ago. Both of them descendants of the Prophet Mohammed.

Shiites believe the 12th imam, who is the son and grandson of those buried there, will reappear at that mosque one day. The shrine's golden dome, which has been bombed to rubble, was completed in 1905.

COLLINS: Want to go ahead and get you some information now coming in to us through Lebanon and our CNN's Brent Sadler.

Apparently, we are learning -- you can see the pictures now -- there has been a terrible explosion in the seaside neighborhood Manara. This happening just a while ago. New video into us here to show you.

Our Brent Sadler reporting seeing bodies being carried out of a nearby building. You can see the chaos, and people just running around through that scene there.

Apparently, this blast happening near a military sports club. You see once again that car just engulfed in flames. Windows of one of the buildings nearby just completely shattered. You see them there.

Of course you remember our reporting just a few days ago on the Palestinian refugee camp and the fighting that had been going on there between Israeli forces and the Islamic militants. This now just the latest in that series.

Again, a terrible explosion. That's a popular beach area in the neighborhood of Manara, happening just a while ago.

Our Brent Sadler is there. We will continue to effort more information through Brent.

HARRIS: And just want to bring you the news that we learned just an hour ago here at CNN. The Georgia Aquarium in downtown Atlanta, not very far from the CNN Center, in fact, is reporting the death of one of its whale sharks.

The whale shark Norton died this morning -- the aquarium's president and executive director. Sad news, because so many people make Atlanta a destination location now just to see the whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium. But in the statement from the executive director this morning, saying that Norton had stopped eating and was showing erratic swimming behavior over the past few months. So many of you may remember that back in January, another whale shark, Ralph, died at the aquarium. So the news this morning that one of the star attractions there at the Georgia Aquarium, the whale shark Norton, has died.

COLLINS: New allegations Iran is arming the Taliban. Washington tells CNN it is the smoking gun.

What does it mean? A closer look ahead in the NEWSROOM.

HARRIS: Grading the airlines. A passenger's rights group handing out failing grades. We will talk with one airline expert to find out what it really means.

That's ahead in the NEWSROOM.

Up from the swamps and far from Florida. Atlanta fisherman find a gator later in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Directly to Lebanon, where we are seeing now more violence in the very latest between the Islamic militants in that area and Israeli forces. A huge explosion this morning rocked a Beirut neighborhood by the name of Manara. This a pretty popular beachside area.

You can see that car just completely engulfed in flames. Quite a bit of chaos there.

We are also learning now new information. At least four people dead, 10 wounded. This is according to Israeli police forces. That is the number we have at this time.

And just to give you a bit of geography here, this is apparently near a military sports club. Don't know if that has anything to do with it or not. But you can see some of the buildings there that have completely -- the windows have been blown out.

So our Brent Sadler is there on the ground and giving us some of this information. We will continue to follow it. Again, just the latest in the fighting between Islamic militants and the Israeli forces.

We first began telling you about this about three weeks ago, at that Palestinian refugee camp just north of Tripoli. So a lot more activity there.

HARRIS: Developing this morning, Washington levels new allegations against Tehran. A top U.S. diplomat tells CNN there is new proof that Iran is arming the Taliban in Afghanistan. He says that evidence is "irrefutable".

So what does that mean?

CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr has been working the story for us.

Barbara, great to see you this morning.

We have heard about Iranian weapons in Iraq, but now the U.S. government is saying the same thing is happening in Afghanistan.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: They are, Tony. And it's pretty remarkable, because historically the Iranians have not been close to the Taliban, to say the least, in Afghanistan. In fact, they have been fairly arch enemies.

So it is surprising to see this development. It is something that U.S. military commanders have been speaking about over the last few weeks, growing evidence that Iran is shipping weapons into Afghanistan to arm the Taliban against U.S. and NATO forces.

Now, if you look at the map right, it pretty much tells part of the story. In the last couple of months, two convoys of Iranian weapons seized in western Afghanistan, not all that far from the Iranian border. The belief is the weapons are being shipped in by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Now today the State Department stepping into the fray. Here's what Nicholas Burns, one of the top State Department officials, had to say about it all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICHOLAS BURNS, UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE: Well, it's certainly coming from the government of Iran, it's coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian government. That's the organization that is supplying arms to all the other different militant groups in the Middle East.

STARR: But you know, Tony, the question there somewhat left unanswered is the same question people have been discussing for months now. If it is Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is a paramilitary organization inside Iran, is it really under the direction of Iran's central government, under the direction of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Is he the one behind all of this, is he directly challenging the United States?

Nobody in the Bush administration yet willing to make that very public direct link -- Tony.

HARRIS: Well, because of that lack of clarity with a real direct implication to the government in Tehran, I'm wondering, is there any thought being given now to any kind of military action against Iran?

STARR: Well, you know, over the weekend we saw Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut make that very suggestion...

HARRIS: Yes.

STARR: ... what about a military strike? Because Senator Lieberman's view, of course, is at least in Iraq. There is quite a good deal of evidence that these Iranian-shipped weapons are causing the death of so many U.S. troops. But commanders say the problem is how to development a reasonable target list.

If it's not the Iranian government, if it's the Revolutionary Guard Corps, what do you hit, how do you go after it, how do you really stop it? You know, there's a lot of evidence that military strikes these days don't exactly stop insurgent activity. So no one here at least is really talking about military action at this point -- Tony.

HARRIS: CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr for us.

Barbara, thank you.

STARR: Sure.

COLLINS: Man struck by lightning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of a sudden, there was a flash and, like, a concussion, and a ball of fire around my foot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: He's OK, but not his clothes. Look at that.

We'll have the story for you coming up in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Keeping track of airline inconveniences. A passenger's rights group just out with its report card this morning. Overall, some major carriers getting Fs.

American rated the worst in dealing with stranded passengers. United and US Airways also getting failing grades overall.

Delta, Continental and JetBlue are barely getting by. They get Ds for their overall performance.

Top grades go to Hawaiian Airlines, Aloha Airlines, and Southwest. They were cited for going above and beyond.

We do want to point this out: this is a non-scientific survey of media reports and eyewitness accounts. It was compiled by the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights.

So, what does it all mean? Well, most of the grades not looking very good, that's for sure. But what does it really mean for the airlines and, of course, for you, the travelers?

Joining us from Washington now to talk about that is "USA Today" travel reporter Ben Mutzabaugh.

Ben, nice to see you again. Hey, what do you make of this? What's your reaction to the report card?

BEN MUTZABAUGH, "USA TODAY": Well, while this report might raise some very legitimate issues, I think -- and you guys kind of hinted at -- it's not a scientific survey.

COLLINS: Yes.

MUTZABAUGH: And this is clearly done by a group that's trying to advocate the push for Congress to pass a passenger's bill of rights. So it's an unscientific survey and it's really -- in my opinion, it seems to be just a P.R. tool for these people to help push the passenger's bill of rights.

COLLINS: But isn't the passenger's bill of rights a good thing for everybody? I mean, is that really going to help travelers?

MUTZABAUGH: Well, you know, that's a very interesting question. Because at first glance, who is going to say a passenger's bill of rights is a bad thing?

COLLINS: Yes, right.

MUTZABAUGH: But, now one of the things you have to be concerned about -- this is what the other side will say -- is that with a passenger's bill of rights, you have to be careful that you're not creating -- fixing one problem, only to unintentionally create problems that were worse than the ones you tried to solve. For example, people say -- the opponents of the bill of rights say well, of course the airlines should do better. But once you start giving the government power to do this, A, you're trusting the government to do it -- to enforce this and enforce it correctly, and you're creating an incentive for airlines to cancel flights instead of delay them and still get them out.

And airlines will get much more cautious in scheduling flights. And that's going to lead to more canceled flights. And you know how full flights are these days. If you have airlines canceling more flights and sending hundreds of people back into the airports, the other side will say, well, this means more passengers will get stranded, maybe not an airplane -- one airplane full, but a whole airport full of people whose flights are canceled by more cautious airlines.

COLLINS: Yes. And flights are so full because they don't have any aircraft anymore, it seems like.

MUTZABAUGH: Exactly.

COLLINS: Now, will the airline industry, do you think, take this report very seriously, or are they going to kind of just blow it off?

MUTZABAUGH: Well, I mean, I think right now there's a lot of pressure for the airlines to do something. You saw in the press that JetBlue got for its Valentine's Day meltdown. You've seen some of the press for some of the American flights that were diverted and then stranded in Austin, and some of the United flights that were diverted during the Denver snowstorm.

There's a lot of media attention on this. And this is actually what the opposite side of the passenger's bill of rights people are saying -- hey, there's no need for legislation, the media's on to this.

And you can bet if JetBlue has another meltdown, the media's going to be all over it. And I think people are willing to give JetBlue, for example, one time. But if this happens again, people are going to say, hey, there's something fundamentally wrong with that airline.

And the counter argument would be that you leave it to the market, to the passengers to punish the airlines that don't, you know, stick up for what they say they're going to do. And once you start introducing legislation and fines and penalties, government enforcement, it gets a little murky.

COLLINS: Right. You know what? It's all the hub system. You know?

MUTZABAUGH: It certainly is an easy target to blame. And you saw and Aloha and Hawaiian not do -- they did well in this report, and they don't have very busy hubs.

COLLINS: Yes.

MUTZABAUGH: So that actually -- there is something to that.

COLLINS: Yes. Well, and also, everybody wants to go to Hawaii, and they'll put up with no food or whatever to get to Hawaii.

MUTZABAUGH: I know I sure would.

COLLINS: All right. Ben, so nice to see you again.

Ben Mutzabaugh with "USA Today".

Thanks, Ben.

MUTZABAUGH: You're welcome.

Good morning once again, everybody. We just talked to Ben, so...

HARRIS: Yes, yes, yes. I'm with you.

COLLINS: So good morning once a Ben.

I'm Heidi Collins.

HARRIS: And I'm Tony Harris.

Welcome back, everyone, to the CNN NEWSROOM.

Just want to show you these dramatic pictures out of Beirut, Lebanon. Actually, the Beirut neighborhood of Manara.

An explosion, as you can tell, has really rocked this area. It is a seaside Beirut neighborhood. The latest casualty figures, five people, we understand, have been killed in this bombing, 10 others at least wounded. The blast happened near a military sports club and a side street that leads to several restaurants.

CNN's Brent Sadler is reporting wounded people being carried out of one building. Two vehicles engulfed in flames, and the explosion, apparently, with all the hallmarks of a bombing attack. Many of the off-duty soldiers in that area still wearing their workout clothes, rushed to the scene to try to calm people down, but just look at these pictures, just in to CNN, again, our Brent Sadler is working this for us and giving us all the information that he has available. We will get additional information and pass that along to you as soon as we can right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: New developments in the story of the U.S. attorney firings, subpoenas being issued to some former White House officials. Our congressional correspondent Dana Bash first broke the story. Sources say the Senate Judiciary Committee will subpoena former White House political director Sara (ph) Taylor. Taylor was a key deputy political advisor to Karl Rove. Then the House Judiciary Committee will issue a subpoena to former White House counsel Harriet Miers. At issue is whether the administration improperly dictated which prosecutors should be fired. The White House says it will respond appropriately, but a spokesman says the Democrats are more interested in drama than fact.

HARRIS: And we are following this developing story out of ff Iraq for you as well. One of the holiest Shiite Muslim shrines in the country has been bombed again. Police say insurgents targeted the remaining minarets of the mosque. A top U.S. commander in Iraq says CNN there's evidence that the bombing as an inside job. Fifteen Iraqi security force members have been arrested. A spokesman for the multinational force says the attack is reprehensible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIG. GEN. KEVIN BERGNER, MULTINATL FORCE IRAQ SPOKESMAN: Today's attack on the al Askari (ph) mosque is an affront to the values and dignity of people from all religions. We join with the people of Iraq in condemning this action. It is further proof of the enemy's indiscriminate violence and the depths to which they will go to incite hatred.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Elsewhere in Iraq, the U.S. military says three more U.S. troops have been killed, two soldiers died in separate roadside bomb attacks in Baghdad over the past two days. A Marine was killed while on combat patrol in Anbar province. That brings the U.S. death toll in Iraq to 3,513. COLLINS: The Georgia aquarium in Atlanta has lost another treasure. Officials say f the whale shark named Norton was euthanized this morning after suffering from declining health. Norton is the second whale shark to die at the aquarium this year. Ralph died back in January. The whale sharks in Georgia were the only ones on display outside of Asia.

KARA FINNSTROM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kara Finnstrom in Los Angeles, where a train will be leaving later today with 100 so-called dreamers on board. The national debate they hope to impact, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: President Bush and his immigration reforms, he returns from Capitol Hill apparently empty handed. He went there to lobby fellow Republicans to resurrect the measure. There is no sign he made any headway. Many Republicans oppose the reform saying they provide amnesty to illegal immigrants. The Senate's leading Democrat says he is ready to revisit the measure when Republicans, quote, have their own act together.

HARRIS: Their journey called dreams across America, their mission share their personal stories of immigration, now U.S. citizens. They're riding the rails to lobby for reform. CNN's Kara Finnstrom is in Los Angeles where the eight-day trip is getting underway. Explain this to us Kara, good to see you.

FINNSTROM: Good to see you too. This is an eight-day journey. It'll begin just behind me. The train will be taking off from these tracks later on this afternoon. Now on board will be 100 dreamers as they call themselves. These are all legal immigrants, different ages, different backgrounds, but they all say they want to share their story and they're going to be making several stops across the country, meeting with different communities and hoping to raise awareness about some different immigration issues that are important to them.

Now the last stop will be in Washington, DC. and as you just mentioned, yesterday was a big day there with President Bush speaking with some GOP lawmakers trying to get them on board his immigration bill. They will be speaking with lawmakers once they get there. They have some concerns they want to address. As a group though, they are not taking any particular stand on the legislation that is in Washington right now. They say a lot of the debate until now has been very abstract and they want to humanize all of this. They want to share personal stories. One of the personal stories that will be shared aboard this train is the story of Luz Diaz. She came here at the age of three. She came here with her mother who was deported a year later and at that time, she wasn't a documented immigrant. She didn't see her mother or her sisters until she was eight years old. Today, she is proud to say she is a U.S. citizen and she is also a member of the navy reserves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUZ DIAZ, "DREAMER": Being in Mexico, you may have land and money, but if there's corruption and if people want your land, they just come to you with a gun and they take over. Here, they don't have the liberties that we do in other countries. So we're very fortunate and people that are born here are blessed. I just wish that they would listen to us to what we have to say, just to walk a little bit in our shoes and understand that we are here because we love this country. We are here because we want to build this country. And now that we're here, you know, we should be having the same liberties.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FINNSTROM: This is a grass roots organization of different religious, labor and community groups from all across the country. They'll be leaving from here later this afternoon. In Los Angeles, Kara Finnstrom for CNN.

HARRIS: All right, Kara, appreciate it, thank you.

COLLINS: Chad Myers standing by now in the weather center. We keep on putting up that severe weather banner because it's just happening every day at least at some place across the country Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Exactly and that brand new watch box now just put up, a watch box means that conditions are rife that one or two of the storms may actually fire and be strong enough to have winds or have hail. This is a severe thunderstorm watch. That's why it's yellow. If it was red, it would be a tornado watch, which means that the storms are big enough to not only have lightning, hail, but also could be spinning enough to make tornadoes. This one here just a watch box, just a severe watch box for Florida, all part of a system that will make big severe weather across even Lake Okeechobee over the next couple of hours from Sebring all the way down to Miami.

Showers and thunderstorms in Minneapolis down through Kansas and also into Dallas. This area will fire up again today with more heavy rainfall in places that are already flooding. This is the front, I kind of see a little front right through here, can you kind of see a line of rain there? That is the front. That's where the focus will be on where the weather will be today. Although it does not include Tampa St. Pete or Ft. Myers, you are so close to the box, I want you to kind of watch out as well. There could be some big-time severe weather for you as well, certainly rainfall across parts of Florida, some of it a couple of inches deep. They can use the rainfall. I was checking the Lake Okeechobee lake levels. They've steadied off instead of -- they've stopped falling, at least, guys, I guess that's some start to it. Back to you.

COLLINS: All right Chad, we know you're watching it.

HARRIS: You can start to go in the other direction at least hopefully.

COLLINS: Thank you, Chad.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: ... New York Stock Exchange, when NEWSROOM returns, I'll tell you about Silicon Valley's contribution to climate change. Details on the green PC next. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Quickly want to get you the very latest now on the situation in Lebanon. We are learning five people are dead and 10 are injured. This is coming to us through security forces there in Israel that apparently this major explosion has taken place. I'm sorry, through Israeli security forces telling us that five people dead, 10 injured. And apparently, an anti-Syrian Lebanese lawmaker also dead. I want to get straight to CNN's Brent Sadler who is there and Brent, I know that you felt this blast.

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let's get the country right first. We're talking about Lebanon. This is the capital, Beirut. I was on the streets not far from this explosion, a massive blast rocked the capital, the latest in a series of deadly explosions to hit Lebanon over the past three weeks. According to anti-Syrian sources close to the U.S. backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, this was targeted quote assassination against a leading anti=-Syrian lawmaker called Walid Eido who was killed along with his son and two bodyguards in what is now being confirmed by Lebanese security sources as a bomb blast.

It seems that a car rigged with explosives was detonated to go off as the convoy of this Lebanese MP Walid Eido was passing by, this one in a series again of assassinations of leading anti-Syrian MPs in Lebanon. The targeted lawmaker was very close to the former (INAUDIBLE) Harari, the son of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri who himself was assassinated two years ago. This certainly will be seen as another very high level targeted assassination of a leading anti- Syrian legislator in parliament here and it's bound to have further repercussions on the already very fragile security in Lebanon as the Lebanese army continue to try to defeat an Islamic militant holdout inside a Palestinian refugee camp in the north of the country. Heidi.

COLLINS: Tell us a little bit about how you know this happened, Brent? I'm reading a few things here that say you were right there actually discussing what could happen next in this conflict.

SADLER: I've been living here for 10 years Heidi, been coming in and out of this country for 25. I know many people and many people are concerned that these explosions and assassinations are only going to get worse because of the regional politic, the violent politics of the Middle East right now and because of deep political divisions in this country. There have been assassinations they say of anti-Syrian journalists, activists and lawmakers and many, many people in Lebanon are concerned about the kind of scale of human carnage that we see in Iraq could be heading its way to Lebanon particularly as the army is taking on Islamic militants. It's alleged or involved or were supported by Syria by the anti-Syrian government here. Many Lebanese talk to you about this openly in the streets as I was doing at the very moment this explosion went off and then we saw people running for cover, cars dashing all over the place and people obviously terrified and in panic that there was more attempts of what could be more attempts and even more bloody savage attempts to try to destabilize Lebanon. Heidi? COLLINS: Very good. CNN's Brent Sadler on the scene there for us. Unbelievable pictures we are getting in from the area of Beirut. Brent, thanks so much.

HARRIS: "Your World Today" will be following this story at the top of the hour. Jim Clancy is here with a review. Jim, I'm sure Brent Sadler will be joining you at the top of the hour.

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Tony, Heidi, we're going to be looking at this in a little bit more depth. As Brent was describing to you there, just what does this mean for Lebanon? How far is this going to go and what risks does it pose for a country that is only just emerged really from 15 years of civil war? Could we plunge right back into that?

A violent day in Iraq as well. We're going to go there. Our own Hala Gorani will join us to tell us about an attack on a mosque that could further worsen the ethnic violence between the country's Shia and Sunni Muslims.

Also, the food fight, China firing back at the U.S. turning away shipments it says don't meet its strict food standards. Is this payback for the tainted dog food scandal that was blamed on Beijing? A good look at that.

Plus we're going take you on a trip back in time. How did ancient Rome really look? There's a new virtual image of Rome as it looked in 370 AD when the population was a million people and the empire was at its zenith. I want to share that with you, your world today and as we say, yesterday as well.

HARRIS: Very nice, Jim. Thank you.

A familiar Republican soon to be White House counselor and senior presidential advisor, Ed Gillespie replacing Dan Bartlett. President Bush to make the announcement today according to a senior administration official. Gillespie is a Republican strategist and former head of the Republican party. The official says he will start on June 27th. Bartlett is leaving for a career outside of government.

COLLINS: Google and Intel are clicking on the green bandwagon and they're hoping to drag the world's computer users with them. Susan Lisovicz is at the New York Stock Exchange with more. Hi there Susan.

LISOVICZ: Hi Heidi. We talk about saving energy, it's often about switching cars or reducing our overall consumption, but we actually waste a lot of energy with our personal computers. And now Google and Intel tell want to make energy saving PCs the norm. The tech giants are launching a program called climate savers computing initiative and are trying to convince companies to make and buy more energy efficient computers.

So far Google and Intel have signed up nearly 40 companies both friend and foe. They include IBM, Microsoft, Dell, HP, Yahoo!, AMD and the coalition hopes to eventually enlist every "Fortune" 500 company. More than 25 environmental groups have also pledged their support. The typical PC wastes about half the electricity it draws. Power saving technology is out there, but it's expensive, Google and Intel hope that purchasing green computers and getting commitments from others to do the same will help push the technology into the mainstream and we'll all be using them.

Here on Wall Street, we've seen a lot of green today, nice after the triple digit sell off we saw yesterday. Stocks posting healthy gains today, partially reversing what we saw yesterday. Helping out, a small drop in bond rates. Let's check the numbers. The Dow is up 72 points. The Nasdaq is up 13 or about a half a percent for each of those, so a nice recovery so far. Tony and Heidi, I'll throw it back to you.

COLLINS: Looks a lot better with the plus sign. Susan thank you.

LISOVICZ: You're welcome.

HARRIS: still to come this morning, not just swimming and hiking for these kids this summer.

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KRISTEN ZUR, CSI CAMPER: I learned about blood typing, hair samples, fingerprinting, bones, all sorts of stuff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Huh? It's called CSI camp. We'll tell you about it. Show you more of the pictures right here in the NEWSROOM.

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COLLINS: Watch out for the alligator. It's a little bit of a warning. You hear it quite a bit in Florida, of course, but this one for people in metro Atlanta, a fisherman got a big surprise yesterday at his secret spot on the Chattahoochee River.

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NICK LAWRIMORE, FISHERMAN: I was just sitting on this rock here behind us about 11:00 in the morning, just a typical day of fishing. This is where I come. I was actually heading into the water, I usually get in the water right here and walk out, before I even got in the water, I was just sitting here by myself and saw the alligator.

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COLLINS: Experts estimate the gator to be about eight feet long or so. No denying it. No word yet how it got there. There's also an unconfirmed sighting of a second smaller alligator, you know what that could mean. State workers are on the lookout. They're urging anyone in or near the water yes, to use caution.

HARRIS: Baby boomers had childhood sleuths like Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys. Today's kids have TV shows like the CSI series. Crime fighting has gone high-tech even at summer camp. Details now from (INAUDIBLE). She is with CNN's Jacksonville, Florida affiliate WTLV.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If there's tile, laminate or wood floors, there's going to be shoe prints. You just have to find them. That's what this is for.

WTLV CORRESPONDENT: These teenagers are finding out about something they never learned in school or even from watching crime shows on TV.

KAYLA BARBER, CSI CAMPER: Reality And TV is way different. With the TV, it takes, you know, like five minutes for them to get DNA back from the lab, but in real life, it takes days to weeks.

UNKNOWN: This is crime scene investigation camp or CSI for short. Students are learning about all sorts of things.

BARBER: I've learned a lot. I've learned about blood typing, fingerprinting.

KRISTEN ZUR, CSI CAMPER: I learned about blood typing, hair samples, fingerprinting, bones, all sorts of stuff.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You spread it across the surface that you want to pick up.

UNKNOWN: JSO detective Karen Smith works on crime scenes for a living and loves teaching others about her job.

DET. KAREN SMITH, JACKSONVILLE SHERIFF'S OFFICE: I love showing children and showing kids and even adults what our job is all about. The CSI trend has become really hot right now and debunking some of those rumors from television is what I really love to do.

UNKNOWN: Many of these teens believe this may be their chosen career some day and it's nice to get a feel for real-life CSI.

ZUR: I'm really interested in forensic sciences and I think it's what I want to do when I grow up, so I thought this would be neat experience to see what it would really be like.

UNKNOWN: It's not like TV, but for these kids it's even better. In the downtown (INAUDIBLE) your news leader.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLINS: Insurgents target a holy Shiite mosque. History repeating itself in Iraq. Now fears of further sectarian violence, up next in the NEWSROOM.

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COLLINS: CNN NEWSROOM continues one hour from now. HARRIS: "Your World Today" is next with news happening across the globe and here at home. The continuing coverage of the bombing in a Beirut neighborhood.

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