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American Morning

Airport Scanners Pose Cancer Risk; Wal-Mart to Ask Supreme Court to Throw Out Sex Discrimination Lawsuit; Woman Falls Into Sinkhole; Police Dog "Midge" in Centerfold; A Crisis With No Way Out?; Interview with Senator John McCain

Aired March 29, 2011 - 07:00   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Making his case for war. President Obama addresses the nation. Why Libya? Why Gadhafi? Why now?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Libya, at this particular moment, we were faced with a prospect of violence on a horrific scale.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: We'll have the responses from both sides. Senators John McCain and Dick Durbin live on this AMERICAN MORNING.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning to you. So glad you're with us on this Tuesday. It's March 29th. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING.

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Lot to talk about this morning.

Coming up this hour, new danger at the severely damaged nuclear reactor in Japan. all the water used to cool it, it's now nuclear too. Workers are battling to keep pools of radioactive water from flooding into the ocean.

ROMANS: At 7:15, it could be the largest job description case in American history. The Supreme Court deciding whether 1.5 million women can sue Wal-Mart stores.

CHETRY: Also, nine minutes after the hour, don't honk if you're in a hurry. Volkswagen has to recall thousands of Jettas because honking the horn can cause the engine to stall.

VELSHI: But we begin with President Obama defending the mission in Libya. The president says military intervention was necessary to prevent that bloodbath by Moammar Gadhafi against his own people. But he says removing Gadhafi by force would be a costly mistake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Of course, there is no question that Libya and the world would be better off with Gadhafi out of power. I, along with many other world leaders, have embraced that goal and will actively pursue it through nonmilitary means. But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Not everyone's convinced, though, of what the president has to say. CNN's Brianna Keilar is live on Capitol Hill with reaction for us. Brianna, how was the speech received on Capitol Hill?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: With Republicans, they are certainly still critical, especially House Speaker John Boehner. A spokesman for him put out a statement. As you know, he sent a letter to President Obama last week articulating more than a dozen questions about the U.S. involvement in Libya.

And the spokesman saying last night following the president's speech that a long time had passed and that this speech really only answered a few questions for Americans. It said that it's still unclear what U.S. resources will be required throughout this process.

And even though we heard last night, Ali, President Obama saying that despite the fact that Americans' safety, immediate safety wasn't threatened, this was something where the U.S. needed to intervene, the spokesman for Speaker Boehner raising the question of how is this consistent with U.S. policy?

So this isn't really a surprise. We knew that there would be a lot of questions. But let's talk about Democrats who have also had their concerns, particularly they have said that the president in their eyes didn't consult with Congress enough.

From Democratic leaders in the house and Senate, House Minority Leader Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Reid generally very supportive statements. And they highlight a couple of particular things, especially that President Obama was talking about the limited scope of U.S. involvement. They certainly emphasize that.

And then the common ground between Democrats and Republicans, both saying how much is this going to cost? And you also had Democrats and Republicans questioning the constitutionality of this, particularly conservative Republicans, oddly, and liberal Democrats like Dennis Kucinich who actually referred to this as the "Obama doctrine," which is certainly some harsh criticism from a democrat for the president.

ROMANS: And we'll have more reaction from both sides this morning. Senator John McCain will join us at 7:40 eastern. We'll also talk to Dick Durbin at 8:10 eastern.

Meantime, the battle on the ground in Libya rages on with rebel forces advancing on Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte. There's word that the U.S. is sending an envoy to Benghazi for more direct communication with Libyan opposition leaders. CNN's Nic Robertson is live in Tripoli. Hello there, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Well, the situation in Tripoli is surprising silence having heard what President Obama's had to say. No doubt Moammar Gadhafi will think he's dodged a bullet by hearing there isn't going to be a mission change to put boots on the ground to force regime change here.

But we can certainly expect him to continue to dig in, perhaps reassess his position. What comes out of the conference in London that will determine a more unified political move and military implications, therefore, of what happens here in Libya.

But it is surprisingly silent. Nothing heard here about President Obama's speech. And certainly Sirte is becoming the new front line here in the fight between the rebels and the government. Sirte has a lot of loyalists on Gadhafi's side, reports that people there have been armed.

ROMANS: Nic, there's word this morning that the U.S. may be sending an envoy to Benghazi for more direct communication with the opposition. What are we to make of that move? The president said it's not our job to target Gadhafi and act regime change. It's clear that the U.S. mission and the NATO mission is certainly helping the opposition move forward.

ROBERTSON: It's certainly going to do several things. One, it will certainly ad the psychological and perhaps political pressure on Gadhafi to realize that the world is serious that he has to leave, that this isn't something that is ultimately going to be able to escape in the long run.

But it will also be an important diplomatic step to try to figure out more about this opposition, more about the rebel groups, exactly who are they? How are they organized? Are they going to be an effective part of a future government?

And certainly when you listen to people on this side in Tripoli here, they talk about the opposition leaders as being discredited characters. There's all sorts of slander thrown against them, misappropriation of government funds.

All of these sorts of things to the point they say these are not people they can really negotiate with all the people in the west of the country can deal with. But if there is going to be a negotiated, diplomatic solution, it's going to come from both sides. This will be a step towards that, as well.

ROMANS: Thank you, Nic.

CHETRY: Happening right now in Syria, thousands of people pouring into the streets of the capital of Damascus. You see the big picture of their president, Bashar al-Assad. This is a pro-Assad rally. But elsewhere in the country, a tense situation after deadly riots, the entire Syrian cabinet is expected to resign, perhaps as soon as a few hours from now.

VELSHI: To Japan. Just moments ago another earthquake has struck, a 6.4 in the Miyagi area. All of this is happening while Japanese officials say the situation at the Daiichi nuclear power station is very grave this morning now that highly toxic plutonium has been discovered in the soil around the plant, further evidence that the reactors at the facility have been severely damaged.

Another problem, large pools of radioactive water, they've got to be pumped out of the plant before electricity can be restored to the cooling systems, but there is so much of it that officials say they simply have no safe place to store it.

CHETRY: The problems continue for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Verlusconi. A tax fraud trial is now underway. He appeared in a courtroom yesterday but didn't speak. This case centers around the acquisition of film rights for his media company. Berlusconi also faces charges in three other cases, including one for allegedly having sex with an underage prostitute. That trial starts next week.

The FBI is examining a U.S. airways jet this morning after a pilot discovered a small hole on the outside of the Boeing 737's fuselage yesterday. There were no problems during the actual flight. The plane was quickly taken out of service. More than 140 passengers scheduled to flight were booked on to other flights, and the airline is working with the FBI to figure out what caused that hole.

Spring snow, those are two words that shouldn't go together, but it's a reality for central Virginia where they saw several inches of snow yesterday. It's actually blamed for an 11-car pile-up on a highway in Christiansburg yesterday morning.

VELSHI: Growing up in Iowa, I grew up with spring snow.

CHETRY: Yes.

ROMANS: I could remember going to my cousin's high school graduation party and it was a snowstorm.

CHETRY: And we had one of our biggest snowstorms here in March --

VELSHI: Virginia, we don't expect it so much.

(WEATHER REPORT)

ROMANS: Also, if you own a Jetta, Volkswagen recalling thousands of them because honking the horn could shut down the car, 71,000 of these things. Not as big as the Toyota recalls last year, but it's irritating.

And more importantly, I'm thinking about a college student, you see that cute boy or girl, beep, beep -- that would be a problem, right? You stall out, oh, not a good time. This is an actual issue, and this is truly happening.

Volkswagen of America saying they're going to recall these cars because using the horn could cause a short circuit. And that would disconnect from the converter box if that happens and loses power to say headlight headlights, maybe the engine controller, and if it doesn't have power, you stall out. Not too cool.

So there are all Jettas made between March, 2010 and March, 2011. They're not aware of any accidents or injuries, but we don't want those and I'm sure Volkswagen doesn't want any of those. This one's a smaller one because of some wiring problems, but it could be probably more embarrassing than anything else when you look at it.

CHETRY: Last year it was cars that wouldn't stop, this is a car that does stop. I like the idea of beep, beep -- that's really kind of funny to me. I'm sure they don't think --

VELSHI: It's cartoonish.

Coming up on "American Morning," concerns around the full-body scanners at airports. Now a new report answers our biggest question yet. Are they safe?

ROMANS: And attorneys for Wal-Mart appearing before the Supreme Court trying to get a massive sex discrimination case against the retail giant thrown out. Why everyone with a job should be paying close attention here. It's 12 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: A new report is out on the full-body scanners at airports. There are some small health risks involved. The article found that the scanners do pose a risk of cancer. That's because the machines use small doses of ionizing radiation, a known carcinogen. But fliers shouldn't be worried. We're told the risks are extremely small. The study explains that for every 100 million passengers who take seven flights a year, only six extra cancer cases were detected over a lifetime.

VELSHI: Whose lifetime? These things haven't been around for that long.

ROMANS: That's what they say.

VELSHI: Yes, I've got to tell you, I start getting uncomfortable with us telling people what they say because I sometimes think that they hold back information.

ROMANS: We're bombarded -- here's the thing. We're bombarded with so many different ways by exposure to chemicals --

VELSHI: Right.

ROMANS: Plastics, to carcinogens, to radiation that, you know, measuring --

CHETRY: It's hard to pinpoint what is the cause.

ROMANS: Right.

VELSHI: It's sort of as if, I eat all this garbage, I shouldn't have a diet coke. Well, hold on, the fact is it doesn't mean you should have more radiation just because you already get lots of radiation. I mean, a lot of people do get cancer.

ROMANS: Does the risk outweigh the safety of knowing what's going -- who's going on an airplane with what?

VELSHI: I think, I don't know. That's a good point.

CHETRY: But the other thing to keep in mind is that you can opt out of this, right? You can opt for a pat-down.

ROMANS: That's right.

VELSHI: Right. There are some things you can't get away with, radiation. A dental x-ray, an MRI, a CT scan, things like that. You can figure out a way to get on a plane without an x-ray. They can x- ray your stuff. Just -- I'm not saying it's wrong. I just think there's a lot of -- there's a lot of officials saying never worry about things and we don't know if that's actually true.

All right. Here's something we know is true. It's the largest sex discrimination case in U.S. history. Six female employees taking on retail giant Wal-Mart in a class action lawsuit that could eventually involve more than 1.5 million if the U.S. Supreme Court decides the case can move forward as a class action suit. Kate Bolduan live in Washington this morning.

Kate, the attorneys for Wal-Mart will be appearing before the Supreme Court today. They're not arguing the merits of the case. They're not arguing today in this case as to whether Wal-Mart did or didn't discriminate against women. This is just about how this case can proceed.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. And actually, attorneys for both sides, on the sides representing these six women as well as the class action side of it, as well as attorneys for Wal-Mart will be appearing before the court today. But this is a very big case because for one, this involves the biggest name in big box retail. Wal-Mart employs more than 1.4 million people just in the U.S. And now Wal-Mart is asking the Supreme Court to settle a potentially billion dollar battle that really comes down to the rights of corporations versus the rights of workers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN (voice-over): It started with six strangers in California. Chris Kwapnoski is one of them.

CHRISTINE KWAPNOSKI, FILED LAWSUIT AGAINST WAL-MART: I'm a fighter if nothing else. And so are all the other women that are involved.

BOLDUAN: Kwapnoski has worked at Sam's Club, part of the Wal-Mart brand for more than two decades. She says she's been paid less than her male counterparts and passed over for promotions for years.

KWAPNOSKI: Men who never had even a day's worth of Sam's Club experience were coming in and I was the one training them.

BOLDUAN: So Kwapnoski and five other women who worked at Wal-Mart are suing the company in a high stakes gender discrimination case.

(on camera): Someone says it's just one bad supervisor or it's a couple bad supervisors. Is it worth taking the entire company on?

KWAPNOSKI: It's just not one supervisor, though. It's supervisor after supervisor after supervisor.

BOLDUAN: The lawsuit began here at this Wal-Mart in Pittsburgh, California, a decade ago. Now the original six women in this case could expand to nearly every female Wal-Mart employee past and present, some 1.5 million women, making this the largest job discrimination case in U.S. history.

(voice-over): Wal-Mart is fighting back, arguing these allegations are isolated, that there's no so-called corporate culture or nationwide pattern of gender bias at their 4,300 facilities.

THEODORE BOUTROUS, ATTORNEY FOR WAL-MART: I think Wal-Mart has a very strong policy against discrimination and in favor of diversity. And it works hard to instill that throughout the company.

GISEL CRUZ, WAL-MART EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Our company culture is about providing all associates opportunities to advance and grow.

BOLDUAN: The Supreme Court though isn't weighing in on whether the women's discrimination claims are valid. Rather it's deciding the more technical yet closely watched question. Can they file as a class? Or do they have to fight Wal-Mart individually?

KWAPNOSKI: It's just Wal-Mart's way of trying to stalemate us. They know we're right and they just -- they don't want to admit it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: However, many in the business community fear that the outcome of this case, the result of this case could open them up to a flood of frivolous lawsuits causing jobs and hurting the economy. However, the justices decide really could impact businesses across the country far beyond Wal-Mart big and small. We, of course, are going to hear oral arguments today, Ali, and we expect a ruling on this by the end of June.

VELSHI: It's got a lot of impact. Thanks very much, Kate.

ROMANS: Thanks, Kate.

CHETRY: Well, this was a bad morning for one poor lady in Florida. Carla Chapman is her name. She was in the backyard of her Tampa Bay area home yesterday when a sinkhole opened up and pulled her in, literally. It was 24 inches wide and several inches deep. I'm sure we're going to see it in a second. Luckily, Chapman had her cell phone. She had it with her. So she was able to call for help from inside the sinkhole. Here's how she described those terrifying moments alone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLA CHAPMAN, FELL INTO SINKHOLE: It compresses you. It's hard to -- you can't maneuver out of it. You're wiggling and you're maneuvering more into it.

WILLIAM OSMANSKI, PLANT CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT: And I heard her screaming. I was following the scream. And as I look to the left, all I see was her fingertips sticking out of this hole. That's all I've seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: That is amazing that she had her cell phone with her.

VELSHI: Wow. Yes.

CHETRY: Because, I mean, what should she have done without that? Aside from a few scratches and bruises, she's said to be doing just fine. A little shaken up. You saw in that first picture that we took, she's hugging the police officer.

VELSHI: That just gives me the creeps just thinking about that.

CHETRY: I know. How can you -- you're standing in your own yard and it swallows you up.

VELSHI: Yes.

CHETRY: And you just happen to have your cell phone.

VELSHI: Wow.

CHETRY: So lucky.

ROMANS: All right. Coming up on this AMERICAN MORNING, what you're going to do when Midge comes for you? The world's smallest drug sniffing dog and her surprise write-up in "Playboy." Playboy, hmmm.

It's 21 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Well, this is an amazing discovery. A priceless treasure, truly a rare bible sitting in plain sight at a small church in England. It is an original, the original King James Bible which was created in 1611.

VELSHI: Wow.

CHETRY: Look it up. It's in pretty good shape.

VELSHI: That's excellent.

CHETRY: Survived nearly 400 years. There's only a handful of this edition left. The bible was displayed on a table at the St. Laurence (ph) Church in Hilmarton (ph) for years. I guess they then were then able to discover that it was indeed the original one.

ROMANS: Wow. All right. She's a seven-pound dog with a nose for narcotics, the smallest police dog in the world. Part Chihuahua named Midge. But Midge's ego may be getting a little too big now that she's gracing the pages of "Playboy." Her whole department outside Cleveland was shocked to see the blurb about her in the latest issue, but the locals are happy to have a celebrity amongst them -- among them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I read almost any magazine with (INAUDIBLE) in it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just read it for the articles about dogs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: You know, they imagined it would be more exciting to have a playmate -- actual playmate.

CHETRY: Do we know why she was featured?

ROMANS: It's unclear why she was featured in "Playboy." That's one detail of the who, what, where, when and why of the story. I do not know.

VELSHI: Self-promotional little dog.

CHETRY: So cute.

VELSHI: All right. Top stories coming up right after the break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: We're crossing the half hour right now. It's time for a look at your top stories.

U.S. planes now targeting Libyan ships off the coast of Misrata. Military officials say they did this. They fired at three ships, destroying one, and damaging the other two. These ships were apparently indiscriminately firing at merchant vessels in the port of Misrata. Some dramatic video coming to us courtesy of the Department of Defense.

Meantime, the men accused of raping a Libyan woman have reportedly filed countercharges against her for slander. The woman seen here is Eman al-Obeidi. She told her story to foreign journalists. She came into the hotel and just started crying and telling her story that she'd been raped and tortured for two days at the hands of Gadhafi's soldiers after being picked up at a checkpoint. Journalists who were there including our Nic Robertson noted how she was whisked off by government agents at the hotel in Tripoli. And despite the fact that they say she was allowed to return home, her family says they have still not seen her.

President Obama says the military mission in Libya prevented a humanitarian crisis. He defended his decision to order airstrikes over Libya in a speech to the nation last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For generations, the United States of America has played a unique role as an anchor of global security and as an advocate for human freedom. Mindful of the risks and costs of military action, we are naturally reluctant to use force to solve the world's many challenges. But when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: And the president said that removing Moammar Gadhafi by force would be a mistake, but reiterated Libya would be better off without him.

And two troubling developments are unfolding in Japan. Highly toxic plutonium has now been discovered in the soil around the Daiichi nuclear power plant. This is further evidence that the reactors at the facility have been severely damaged.

And there's another big problem, the large pools of radioactive water that have to be pumped out of the plant before electricity can be restored to the cooling systems have no place to go. There's so much of it that officials say they simply do not have the storage capacity.

VELSHI: Now, for engineers and plant workers in northeast Japan, it's quite a double-edged sword. They needed that water to pour over those heating -- overheating fuel rods, but the water, as Kiran just said, is now posing the biggest threat. So, what's next?

Joe Cirincione is the president of the Ploughshares Fund, a public grant-making foundation focused on nuclear weapons policy. He joins us live from Washington this morning.

Joseph, thanks very much for being with us.

JOE CIRINCIONE, PRESIDENT, PLOUGHSHARES FUND: My pleasure.

VELSHI: OK. So, here's -- we keep saying -- we keep hearing that there's nowhere for this water to go and the dangers it might have to go into the ocean. Just tell me what this all means.

CIRINCIONE: Sure. So, unlike your basement when it floods, you just pump out in the street -- you can't just pump radioactive water out to the street. You've got to put it some place.

So, they have some holding tanks, but those holding tanks are filling up rapidly, and the water keeps coming. So, all of the tons of water you saw sprayed over last week --

VELSHI: Right.

CIRINCIONE: -- is now radioactive and is filling up in the basements of at least three reactors, hampering rescue efforts, making it more difficult, slowing down all the work and now threatening to send tons and tons of water spilling into the ocean. It's an unfolding crisis. They just have no place to put it.

ROMANS: And they also detected plutonium in the soil near the plant.

CIRINCIONE: Yes.

ROMANS: What is the significance of that?

CIRINCIONE: Yes. Well, this is one of the most deadliest substances known to humankind. A microscopic speck of plutonium in your lungs will give you cancer, several specks can kill you. So, you don't -- there is no safe level of plutonium. So finding it anywhere is dangerous.

It's been very small amounts so far. But it's an indication -- say the Japanese government officials that the containment areas around the reactor core has been breached, either in the reactor vessel itself, or in some of the piping going into the reactor. It's a sign that the radioactivity that's been generated inside the reactor is now coming out to the outside atmosphere, the ground around it. It's a dangerous sign that this could get a lot worse.

CHETRY: Just to clarify now, though, the EPA is saying that if this plutonium is inhaled or ingested, that's when, as you said, it's very dangerous. But that external exposure poses little health risk. Do you agree with that?

CIRINCIONE: That's exactly right. It's a beta emitter. So, you can actually hold plutonium in your hand with a plastic glove and it won't hurt you at all. It won't penetrate the skin. But it's only when ingested that the gamma -- the rays -- beta rays from that plutonium actually come and start causing cancerous growths.

CHETRY: So, does that mean because it's in the soil, the concern is that it would then get into the ground water, perhaps the drinking water and be ingested?

CIRINCIONE: That's exactly right. And there are other radioactive isotopes they're finding, like cesium 137, another highly radioactive substance. So, they're concerned about all of this.

So far -- so far, they've contained most of the radiation. What they're worried about is if the rods continue to meltdown and that uranium turns into a molten mass and breaches the concrete reactor walls, then you would have high radiation throughout the area. That's what they're trying to avoid.

And the reason you see officials so grim-faced these days is they're looking at that possibility. It's looking more and more likely that you'll get a complete meltdown of one or more of these reactors.

VELSHI: Joe, tell me this. You said there are containers for some of the radioactive water and there's this issue of you can't just put it into the ocean. Tell me two this: where -- can they build more containment for this radioactive water? What does it take to do that? And what are the consequences of it going into the ocean? CIRINCIONE: Well, two good questions. One, they're struggling to find some tanks they can move into the site. And as of this morning, they hadn't done that yet. And the one tank they had remaining was half full. So, they're running out of time. They're running out of space.

If you flush it into the ocean, to tell you the truth, the ocean is a great diluter. It would be a disaster for the immediate marine environment and tens of kilometers, maybe hundreds of kilometers out. But the ocean is so large, it would dilute the radioactivity. So, it wouldn't be harmful, for example, for the United States, many thousands of miles away.

ROMANS: Hey, Joe, just real quickly, we only have about 30 seconds left here. What's your -- what's your take on when TEPCO and the government can be playing offense on this thing? It seems as though they are just reacting to crisis after crisis. What -- how do you stop it from devolving?

CIRINCIONE: This isn't a question of intent. They are trying to stop the crisis. It's a question of capability.

The problems are multiplying faster than the fixes they can apply. They're making things up at this point. There's no game book for this. There's no safety plan that tells you to bring fire trucks on the beach and pump sea water into the reactors.

They're desperately trying to keep those reactor rods covered with water to prevent a meltdown and time is not on their side at this point.

ROMANS: You know, I've mentioned -- we said it was like literally firefighting before. We've said that on the air. And the firefighter friend of mine actually said, no, we have very clear plans for all kinds of fires.

CHETRY: Yes. So, when you say it doesn't look good and I know we're running of time, I mean, what does this mean? It doesn't look, meaning that there's just going to be a core meltdown, and just a major, major crisis that we've never seen a nuclear crisis in the world?

CIRINCIONE: We've already never seen this. We have six reactors lined up, three of them are in critical condition with cores that have been partially melting down, and there's seven pools of spent fuel that are in risk of draining and catching on fire or melting down themselves.

We've never seen anything like this. It's already way passed Three Mile Island and we're headed into Chernobyl territory. The best case scenario is that those meltdowns are contained. This all kept inside the concrete boxes that surround the reactors. The worst case is that the molten lava breaches those concrete walls and spills out spreading radioactivity for hundreds of square kilometers.

But remember, this is a Japanese radiation problem. This radiation is not coming over to America. There's no reason for Americans to be concerned at this stage.

CHETRY: Joe Cirincione for us -- thanks for clearing up some of the biggest questions that we had about this. Appreciate it.

CIRINCIONE: My pleasure. Thank you.

ROMANS: All right. To Libya now. One of the loudest critics of the White House's approach to Libya -- why did Senator John McCain say President Obama's speech must have comforted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi? We'll speak to Senator McCain live, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: President Obama says he wants Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi out, but that's not the reason we're dropping bombs. He made the case for war last night in front of the nation and the world. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Of course, there is no question that Libya and the world would be better with Gadhafi out of power. I, along with many other world leaders, have embraced that goal and will actively pursue it through non-military means. But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Joining us now from Capitol Hill to respond to the president's speech is the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, former Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain.

Senator, thank you for joining us.

You say that part of the speech might have given comfort to Moammar Gadhafi. Why? I mean, we've dropped 192 Tomahawk missiles at $1 million a pop. He's not very comfortable, I think.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I don't think he's very comfortable, but when the president says that it would be a mistake to use military force in order to take him out of power, which is U.S. policy to, quote, "force him to step down," I think is a serious mistake. Could I say that I think the president made a clear and convincing case for our military intervention. It's clear that Benghazi would have been the scene of a massacre.

If we had done the no-fly zone three weeks before, Gadhafi would've fallen. But it is what it is. And now, the anti-Gadhafi rebels are succeeding because we are giving them significant and essential assistance from the air, taking out Gadhafi's ground forces. And we just proved outside of Sirte that without that, the rebels don't match up with the Gadhafi forces.

I hope that Gadhafi goes --

ROMANS: What more should we be doing? What do you think we should be doing more here to get him out? You want him out, how do we do it?

MCCAIN: I think keep -- keep moving. Keep the support of the air to their troops on the ground and to keep taking out Gadhafi's military. And one or two things is going to happen. Gadhafi will leave or be forced out, or we will force him to surrender. But to say that we're not going to use military means to achieve a U.S. policy goal, in my view, is a contradiction with the facts on the ground where we are heavily engaged militarily from the air.

ROMANS: What if our European partners -- if someone were to step forward and negotiate for him to leave the country, maybe promising him that he wouldn't be tried in an international war crimes tribunal -- would that be a solution you could live with?

MCCAIN: Yes, I could live with it. Obviously, I'd love to see him in criminal court. He has the blood of American citizens on his hands as a result of Pan Am 103. But -- and what he's done to his own people probably as important. But --

ROMANS: You want him out? You want him out?

MCCAIN: I want him out. I want him out.

ROMANS: You want him out. Who -- can give you --

MCCAIN: But to say that we are --

ROMANS: Go ahead.

MCCAIN: Anyway, to say we don't want him out -- we rule out the use of military power, I think one contradicts the situation as it exists. We are assisting the rebels with our significant air power capabilities and the factor in determining their success or failure. And at the same time, to say we're not going to take him out through military means.

And finally, could I just say?

ROMANS: Sure.

MCCAIN: Gadhafi remains in power, it'll be a stalemate. We saw a stalemate before after Operation Desert Storm. We saw a no-fly zone and sanctions that lasted for 10 years that Saddam Hussein was able to remain in power. A stalemate is not an acceptable solution.

ROMANS: But, you know, the thing about North Africa and the Middle East is trying to compare one country to another is so difficult. You could take a look at Libya and then talk about Syria. What do we -- you know what I mean? I mean, it's very difficult, the inherent contradictions, as we say, in American foreign policy.

So, let me switch to Syria and Yemen, as well. I mean, you have an American ally president there. How concerned are you about other parts of the region? We're focusing so much on Libya now. But there are more concerns for Americans here. MCCAIN: Well, I think there are significant concerns. But it does not mean just because we used air power in Libya that we are going to use them in other countries. Each country is different.

And I am reluctant to commit U.S. military force in any country unless it is an absolute situation where we are preventing what we've always said we would prevent, a Holocaust, a Rwanda, a Srebrenica. And so, I'm not advocating the use of military -- U.S. military anywhere unless there is a situation that absolutely compels it.

And the president made a strong case for that in Libya last night.

ROMANS: And we prevented Benghazi for being added to that list, you think?

MCCAIN: Absolutely.

ROMANS: All right. Senator John McCain, thank you so much for your time this morning, sir. Thanks.

MCCAIN: Thank you.

ROMANS: Kiran.

CHETRY: Christine, thanks.

Well, severe thunderstorms in the south and in the north now, snow in the north, Rob Marciano's tracking all of it for us. It's been quite an unusual spring. He expects that trend to continue.

Forty-five minutes past the hour.

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VELSHI: This morning's top stories are just minutes away, including a bizarre offer for customers at a Radio Shack store. Sign up for the Dish Network and get a free gun. Talk about getting a bang for your buck.

ROMANS: I don't even know what the two things have to do with each other.

OK. A big announcement from Oprah. We now have the date for her final show and that has everyone wondering what she has up her sleeve for the big finale.

CHETRY: Airport scanners, are they safe? There's a new report out that talks about the amount of radiation travelers are being exposed to. Still up in the air, though, is it something we need to worry about?

VELSHI: Fifty minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CHETRY: Fifty-three past the hour right now. We're talking about those full body X-ray scanners in airports. Of course, they've been a center of controversy, but also a source of concern for a little while as the debate shifted from the privacy issues to any potential health risks. Well now a new report by researchers from the University of California finds that although passengers are exposed to some radiation, they shouldn't be too concerned.

Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us live from Atlanta with details.

So we know you're getting a dose of radiation, I guess you could say, or a small, small dose. But, do they know exactly how much is in these machines and what the effect is?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: They do. And so what these researchers did is they looked at what the dose of radiation they get is, and they tried to put it into terms that regular people can understand.

So I'm using a term they didn't use but they basically say that the amount of radiation you get is teeny weeny, weeny. Very, very small. So they say, for example, going through one of the scanners they say is equivalent of two minutes on the plane, because you get radiation, you actually get more radiation up high than you do on the ground. So you're getting radiation on an airplane. So two minutes on an airplane, they say, is equal to one of these scanners.

And they hope that putting it in that context will help flyers make choices when they get to the airport, because you don't have to go through a scanner and it might help you make a choice, Kiran.

CHETRY: I got you. So it's not without risk, though?

COHEN: It isn't without risk, and I think that's important for people to know. And so they did a mathematical modeling to show what kind of risk it is. So take a look at this.

Let's say you have 100 million passengers and each of them are seven one-way flights per year. There's probably a lot of people that fly about that amount. So each of them taking seven one-way flights per year, you would have six extra cancers at the end of the day because of the -- because of going through those scanners.

So because of the scanners, you would see six extra cancers among those 100 million people.

CHETRY: What about for children? Is the risk greater for the kids?

COHEN: The risk is greater for kids, both because they're smaller and because they're growing and their bodies are constantly changing.

So they did another mathematical modeling look at five-year-old girls. If you took a group of five-year-old girls, two million five-year-old girls and put them through scanners and they did one round trip flight her week you would see one extra breast cancer when they got older, again, as a result of the scanner. That's what their modeling says. One extra breast cancer per two million five-year-old girls.

CHETRY: All right. And what do the experts say about this? Do the agree about the potential risks involved in the scanners?

COHEN: You know what? Not surprisingly, Kiran, they don't agree. These researchers, in order to do their calculations, they relied on information from the manufacturers of these scanners and there are some researchers who wonder how accurate that is.

So, for example, one researcher at Columbia, he thinks that maybe the risk is 10 times my higher than what the manufacturers say, but he is quick to point out it's still it's a really, really a low risk but he does think it's higher than what this study says.

CHETRY: I got you. All right, Elizabeth Cohen clearing up some of the concerns about going through them. And, of course, you can always opt for the pat down, the enhanced pat down instead. I know neither option is fun or ideal, but again, at least putting it in perspective for us.

Elizabeth Cohen, thanks so much.

COHEN: Thanks.

We're going to have a quick break. Top stories coming up in just a minute.

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