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White House: New Iraq Plan Will Likely Come in January; President Bush Holding Series of Strategy Sessions on Iraq; Couple Found Dead In Car in North Carolina; At Least 60 Killed In Baghdad While Waiting For Work; Some Politicians Don't Know Difference Between Sunni and Shiite; "Taking the Hill" Discussed

Aired December 12, 2006 - 14:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Don Lemon.

Live this hour, the Fed's final interest rate announcement of 2006. CNN's Ali Velshi joins us with "The Bottom Line."

PHILLIPS: He exposed lawmakers who didn't know the difference between Shia and Sunni. Now another political pop quiz from Jeff Stein. Who passed and who failed?

LEMON: She says she never meant to bust up Jennifer Aniston's marriage to Brad Pitt. It just suddenly happened. Notable quotes from Angelina Jolie's "Vogue" interview.

You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Consultation in Washington. Devastation in Baghdad. President Bush pushes on with his listening tour and pushes back with his announcement of a new war strategy.

Meantime, Iraqi ears are filled with explosions and cries of victims.

Let's start at the White House, where the president is about to huddle with a high-ranking Iraqi leader.

CNN's Elaine Quijano is there -- Elaine.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Don.

And we should be hearing about that meeting just a short time from now. But not until the new year, that is what White House Press Secretary Tony Snow says to expect in a time frame for when President Bush might make an announcement to changes to his Iraq policy.

This on his second day in a row of consultations. The president, of course, was at the State Department yesterday, and then today took part in a secure video teleconference with his top military commanders in Iraq, as well as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. But among those attending as well, of course, outgoing defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his replacement, Dr. Robert Gates, who we're told actually had breakfast here at the White House with President Bush this morning. Bob Gates, of course, due to be sworn in to his new post on Monday.

Now, as for that announcement on changes to Iraq policy, senior Bush aides had said that the president had hoped to make that announcement before Christmas. But officials say that he basically wants more time to explore complex questions that he's posed to his commanders and to top diplomats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: People have come back with answers, and he said, "I want more." And he's not going to move before it's ready.

And we have also cautioned a number of times -- I think a lot of this -- I tried yesterday to push back on the expectations game because there was a notion, you know, is it ready? Is it off the shelf? And I said, "No, no, no, there's a lot of hard work to be done, and there still is."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUIJANO: Now, as for this afternoon, the president, as you noted, sitting down with a top Iraqi politician, a Sunni Iraqi vice president by the name of Tariq al-Hashemi. What's on the agenda? Well, we're told national reconciliation and, of course, what to do about the sectarian violence and the security situation in Iraq, part of the president's ongoing consultations over the next few days.

And, in fact, tomorrow, Don, he will be heading over to the Pentagon for meetings with top officials there -- Don.

LEMON: Elaine Quijano at the White House.

Thank you.

PHILLIPS: The Iraq Study Group's study, the Pentagon's doing its own study, as are the State Department and the National Security Council. And President Bush is studying is all. He heads to the Pentagon tomorrow.

Jamie McIntyre is there.

Hey, Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kyra.

Well, the Pentagon is the next stop on the president's listening tour, as he goes over the options available to him to try to turn things around in Iraq. Again, there's a little bit of a, I think, misconception that the Pentagon is producing some sort of formal report. What he's going to hear from the Pentagon is a list of the options and the advice of the top commanders here, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Peter Pace, who has been essentially polling his commanders for their best advice on how to move forward. But General Pace is not going to be producing a written report of recommendations. He's going to be essentially serving in his role as the senior military adviser to both the president and the defense secretary.

Both the current defense secretary and the new defense secretary will be here to discuss the options with the president. And Pentagon sources indicate that they're not going to be giving a single Pentagon position on what the president ought to do. They're going to be giving advice on the -- on the pluses and minuses of the various options, including the call for withdrawal of some troops, including some people advocating a surge of troops or forces into Baghdad. And still others advocating perhaps even more troops over a longer term.

So he's going to be getting an earful from the top commanders and the top leadership here. And then, again, he's going to have to perform his role as the decider, as he likes to say.

And I think the indication -- the word we got today that President Bush is putting off his speech about what he's going to decide is just an indication of the kind of conflicting advice he's getting, making it all the more difficult for him to figure out what is the best way forward -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Tony Snow talked about this at the White House briefing, right?

MCINTYRE: That's right. And he said, you know, don't put too much stock into the Iraq Study Group report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: I think what you will have is a pretty comprehensive look at the way forward, and you've got to keep in mind, the touchstone is not the Baker-Hamilton decision, it's the situation in Iraq and it's the situation in the region. That is the touchstone.

The Baker-Hamilton commission certainly looked at it, and the president appreciates their efforts. But it's important for the president to go ahead and continue to task people who work for him, to continue asking tough questions, and in seeking answers that are satisfactory to him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCINTYRE: And the one thing you hear from the Baker-Hamilton commission report, from the top people at the Pentagon, somewhat universal, is the idea that there is no military solution in Iraq. It has to be something that's based on a political reconciliation.

And the real question is, how do you bring that reconciliation about when the Sunni and the Shia are at each other's throats at the level of violence they are right now in Iraq? And that, in many ways, is the crux of the problem -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Jamie McIntyre live from the Pentagon.

Thanks, Jamie.

LEMON: For a lot of Iraqis, time is running out today. In Baghdad today, a suicide bomber lured jobless men to his truck packed with more than 400 pounds of explosives. The blast killed at least 60 people and wounded more than 200.

Also, a bomb was found at a Shiite mosque in Samarra. The same mosque that was bombed in February, setting off a firestorm of sectarian violence. Today's device went off while security forces were trying to move and defuse it. It caused only minor damage.

PHILLIPS: From Myrtle Beach to New York City, a car full of Christmas presents for kids and grandkids. Wayne and Dianne Guay were still strapped into that car when they were found late yesterday in a swamp in North Carolina.

CNN's Jason Carroll has more on a heartbreaking end to a nerve- racking mystery.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MEGAN GUAY LIENDO, DAUGHTER: They were a perfect people. We always said we loved each other, we gave each other hugs. And I'm thankful that God gave them to me.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A daughter's pain after learning her parents died, apparently when their car swerved off a North Carolina interstate, into a swamp. Police discovered Wayne and Dianne Guay's white Mazda submerged Monday afternoon, near Rocky Mount, North Carolina. They had left early Thursday morning from their Myrtle Beach, South Carolina home, up Interstate 95, bound to visit family in New York, a 12-hour drive they've taken many times.

Family members were active in the search, passing out flyers, checking out hospitals, even paying for the helicopter that spotted their car near the interstate. South Carolina police say they checked by patrol vehicles and helicopter the routes the Guays may have driven. But one daughter said she begged the local police to more actively search for her parents, and if not for family efforts, they might still be missing.

LIENDO: I'm upset because it was my brother and my uncle who found them.

CARROLL: Because the Guays were traveling with a car full of gifts, family members suspect foul play. Police are still investigating that possibility. Police also say they're looking at another possibility, a report of a traffic collision near that location Thursday.

LISA EDGE, WBTW REPORTER: There was a call made to 911 in Nash County, saying there was a traffic collision in that same area. EMS and fire officials got out to that scene but they weren't able to find anything.

CARROLL: In the end, it may have simply been a car accident that took their lives, little comfort for a grieving family.

Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Let's go straight to the newsroom. Betty Nguyen working on a developing story -- Betty.

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: This is a pretty big story, Don. It's an immigration raid at six Swift & Company meat-packing plants at six different states. Here's a look at the plant in Greeley, Colorado.

Let me tell you the different states involved here, again: Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa and Minnesota. Again, the Swift & Company meat-packing plant.

An immigration raid that is going on today. You can see the federal agents on the ground there.

Now, this could involve hundreds of people. Let me tell you what they're being accused of.

The Custom Enforcement officials say the workers were arrested on administrative immigration violations, and in some cases, Don, existing criminal arrest warrants stemming from a nearly year-long investigation. Agents uncovered a scheme in which illegal immigrants and others were using the Social Security numbers of hundreds of U.S. citizens and residents to get access and employment at Swift & Company.

Now, Swift & Company has released a statement. The president and CEO says, "Swift has never condoned the employment of unauthorized workers, nor have we ever knowingly hired such individuals."

But I will tell you, there have been a number, a large number of people coming out in single-file lines. And, in fact, family members have even showed up at the Greeley, Colorado, plant, trying to provide documentation. Many of them saying this is extremely unfair, especially right now. Some of them don't even know who's going to pick up their children at school if they are taken away today.

But again, Swift & Company says that it did not knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Again, they are only suspected of being illegal immigrants.

Swift & Company, just a little perspective here for you, is an $8 billion business and is the world's second largest meat-packing plant. And the total number of arrests today, again, six states. We don't know that number as of yet. We may that total number by tomorrow -- Don.

LEMON: All right. Betty, we'll check back with you if there's anything new. NGUYEN: Sure.

LEMON: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Time running out for three missing mountain climbers. The men somewhere on Mount Hood in Oregon, last heard from two days ago. Dangerous weather sidelined searchers yesterday. Search crews are hoping today brings another chance to find them before it's too late.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF PRICHER, HOOD RIVER SEARCH AND RESCUE: Their biggest danger is hypothermia, you know, and the weather. The same as ours. You know, they're hunkered down and, you know, at some point if we don't find them, that's -- you know, the hypothermia takes over, you know, and we need to -- we need to find them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: The hike up Mount Hood is unusual for this time of year mostly because of the weather.

LEMON: Bird flu, bioterror, any other mass disaster or pandemic. Is your state prepared? Is any state prepared? A new report says you shouldn't bet your life on it.

Homeland Security correspondent Jeanne Meserve joins us with details on that.

Hi, Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Don.

The current E. coli outbreak makes this a particularly timely and worrisome study. Its bottom line, emergency health preparedness is inadequate, despite the potential for a pandemic flu and the experiences of 911, the anthrax attacks and Hurricane Katrina.

The Trust for America's Health rated all 50 states and the District of Columbia on 10 key indicators. Half the states scored six or less. Only two, Kansas and Oklahoma, got nine out of 10.

Among the findings, only 14 states and two cities are rated at the highest level when it comes to providing emergency vaccines, antidotes and medical supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile. Half of the states would run out of hospital beds within two weeks if a moderately severe pandemic flu outbreak occurred. Forty states and the District of Columbia have a shortage of registered nurses.

According to the Trust for America's Health, this means Americans face unnecessary and unacceptable levels of risk -- Don.

LEMON: Only 14 states prepared. You said half would run out of hospital beds, and 40 states don't have enough nurses, a shortage of nurses? Why aren't the states doing better than that? MESERVE: Well, no surprise in this, money is one reason. Although Congress has appropriated a lot of money for public health preparedness, including about $5 billion for a pandemic flu.

Some programs have reduced the amount of money actually flowing down to the states, and six states have cut their public health budgets over the past year. The report says right now the median for state funding of public health is only $31 per person per year. But it is not all about money. The report also cites a lack of clarity in the roles of various state, local and federal agencies, and a lack of guidelines for state and local health departments to be held to -- Don.

LEMON: All right.

Jeanne Meserve, thank you.

MESERVE: You bet.

PHILLIPS: A major flub from a major player. The incoming House intelligence chair came up short when asked about Mideast terror ties. Up next in the NEWSROOM, we're going to talk to the reporter who did the asking.

LEMON: Plus, live this hour, the Fed's final interest rate announcement of 2006. CNN's Ali Velshi joins us with "The Bottom Line."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right. We just heard a decision from the Fed Reserve on interest rates. It looks like they'll be unchanged.

Susan Lisovicz, Ali Velshi both here to talk to us about it.

Susan, does that mean everything's OK?

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know what? The Fed is basically monitoring the patient. In this case, the patient is the huge trillion-dollar U.S. economy. The Fed is trying to balance the risks between runaway inflation and a slowdown that could go into recession.

Basically, the Federal Reserve saying that economic growth has slowed over the course of the year. It wanted to see that, reflecting a substantial cooling of the housing market. We all know that, many of us, firsthand. But it says that readings on core inflation have been elevated.

And this is a big concern for the Fed, and will determine basically what policymakers will do in the new year. But so far, in the final meeting of the year, it's done nothing. It continues to assess those twin risks -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: You mentioned runaway inflation. We could talk about an economy tilting toward inflation. Ali, what do you think? What's the bigger concern?

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Susan made an interesting point. She talked about how the Fed, in their statement, talked about the substantial cooling of the housing market. There are kind of three things that most people look at these days. We look at unemployment, we look at energy prices, and we look at housing.

Unemployment, we all seem to agree, is doing OK right now. It might tick upwards a little bit, but it's under five percent. We know what the energy market is doing, we know that it's a lot lower -- energy is lower than it was last year, oil prices are lower than they were last year.

The issue remains housing. We're all thinking about housing. It's the thing that makes us spend more, thing that -- things that make us feel rich, and that's the one we have to worry about.

The Fed is noticing that. When they say there is a substantial cooling in the housing market, that means they're a little worried about this. If you start pushing interest rates up now to slow down the economy, well, guess what, guys? Between oil prices and the housing market slowing down, the economy is already slowing down.

So don't aggravate the process. That's what the Fed is looking at right now.

LISOVICZ: But Ali, as you know, it's not only energy prices at this point because the economy has been ticking along. We've seen a terrific stock market. We've seen corporate profits that have been double-digit on average for several years now. What's happening is we're starting to see the inflationary pressures outside of energy -- most notably, wages, right there above what we've seen in the last few years.

VELSHI: Right.

LISOVICZ: That's great for workers, but if you start to see it press in all areas, that's what the Fed is concerned about.

VELSHI: And that's the problem right now. You see all these things that otherwise talk about a strong economy, the kind of thing that would typically make a Federal Reserve think about raising interest rates, but then you have this problem in the housing market that makes them think twice about it.

And if you look at this, the vote on this thing wasn't unanimous. There was one -- one voting member of the board who wanted rates to go up by 25 bases points, by a quarter of a percent. Obviously he was voted down. But that means that this isn't done yet.

And Susan's absolutely right, this is a very mixed situation. When you're the Fed, it's like looking in your toolbox and seeing a hammer. That's all you have. You have one tool, and you've got to decide whether you're using it or not. They've decided not to use it again. LISOVICZ: And, of course, Wall Street, of course, hoping there will be a rate cut. And that's what's so interesting, I think, Ali and Kyra, is that, you know, the Federal Reserve raised rates for two years, trying to slow down the economy. And sometimes what happens is there's too much medicine, and that, in fact, the economy could go into recession if it slowed it down too much.

So the hope on Wall Street and a lot of economists think that the next move, the actual move that the Fed could do in '07 is actually a rate cut to revive the U.S. economy.

PHILLIPS: Would that be the first part of the year?

LISOVICZ: Well, the hope would be as soon as possible on the street. That's for sure, because, you know, that affects, you know, that affects what it costs for us to borrow money, and corporate borrowing costs as well.

But I think that what we see most often, what I've seen most often, is perhaps by June, there will be a rate cut. It seems a long time away, but the Fed is very careful, very measured in what it does because it not only affects this economy, it affects the global economy.

PHILLIPS: All about balance, right, Ali?

VELSHI: We'd better make sure we just keep on sending mixed signals, Susan, so that they keep having us on. Because if we all of a sudden say no, it's all done, we know what they're going to do next time.

LISOVICZ: We love talking about this stuff.

VELSHI: Exactly.

PHILLIPS: We stay balanced in all areas of our life.

Susan Lisovicz, Ali Velshi, thanks, you guys.

LISOVICZ: And good to see you, Ali.

VELSHI: And you, Susan.

See you, Kyra.

LEMON: A lack of intelligence or gotcha politics? New questions about wrong answers from the incoming House intelligence chairman. That's ahead in the NEWSROOM.

Plus, the president meets with the Iraqi vice president today at the White House. We'll hear what they had to say.

It's all next. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: The president is in an intense effort to try to change the course of things in Iraq this morning at the White House, meeting with the Iraqi vice president. Let's take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's been my honor to meet with vice president of Iraq again. I had the pleasure of meeting the vice president in Baghdad.

It was there that I invited him to come to Washington, D.C. And I did so because I understand his importance to the future of Iraq.

The vice president suffered unspeakable violence in his family. He's lost loved ones to violent action. And yet, in spite of his grief and in spite of the pain in his heart, he's willing to work for a united Iraq and a peaceful Iraq, an Iraq that can govern itself and sustain itself and defend itself, a free Iraq that will be an ally in the war against extremists and radicals.

And Mr. Vice President, I respect your courage, and I respect your advice.

I spent time with the vice president today talking about the conditions in Iraq and what the United States can do to help this Iraqi government succeed. He brought me up to date on the terrible violence that has taken place in some of the neighborhoods in Baghdad. He spoke eloquently about the suffering that innocent families have gone through.

And my heart goes out to those, Mr. Vice President, who have suffered at the hands of extremists and killers.

Our objective is to help the Iraqi government deal with the extremists and killers and support the vast majority of Iraqis who are reasonable people who want peace.

And so, Mr. Vice President, my message to you today and to the Iraqi people, is we want to help you. We want to help your government be effective. We want your government to live up to its words and ideals.

And I thank you for being a leader of one aspect of Iraqi society. You're the leader of many Sunnis, and you're committed to a government that is Shia, Sunni, Kurdish and everybody else in your country, every other group in your country that will help achieve peace. And I welcome you, I thank you, and I praise your courage.

TARIQ AL-HASHEMI, IRAQ'S SUNNI VICE PRESIDENT: I would like to express my sincere thanks to President Bush for his invitation, first of all, and to -- when he (INAUDIBLE), which takes a really positive message to the Iraqi people that the American administration, while they are revising their strategy, they are looking for a balanced and fair analysis from the leaders in Iraq.

So (INAUDIBLE) Mr. Al-Hakim, I would like to express my appreciation to the unique and unforgettable comments (ph) of the president, when he said and continues saying that we are committed to the success in Iraq. And I share his views and aspirations that there is no way but success in Iraq.

We have no other option in Iraq but to achieve that success. And with then cooperation with our friends and Mr. President and the American administration, we will join forces to achieve that success in the foreseeable future.

(INAUDIBLE), and I can assure you there is a great and real chance to get out of this present dilemma. It is a hard time that the Iraqis (INAUDIBLE), but there is a light in the corridor. There is a chance, but we need a good will and a strong determination, the same strong determination that Mr. President has. There will be a chance for the country and for Iraq to succeed.

During my discussion and dialogue with Mr. President, I had really a frank and positive dialogue and conversation. We tackled a few issues, and hopefully at the end of the day, I would like to see my comments and observations welcomed because, at the end of the day, what I said to Mr. President is achieving, or could we see as genuine and agreed (ph) part in the way of achieving the success.

I thank Mr. President, again, for the time given to myself and to my colleagues. And I leave United States with great hope that we do have friends in Washington, that they are very much interested, in fact, to help us in this very difficult times and to achieve (INAUDIBLE) success.

What about the sacrifices of my family and the country, at the end of the day, we have no other option but to maintain this momentum and to struggle until we meet that success (INAUDIBLE).

QUESTION: Mr. President, why put off the speech, sir?

LEMON: President Bush and the Iraqi vice president, Tariq al- Hashemi meeting in the Oval Office, basically both of them saying that there's no other potion, no other alternative, but success in Iraq.

The president said he does realize the importance of the Iraqi president. And it's also important to point out that the Iraqi president who lost his sister and brother, they were killed in sectarian violence, so the president of the United States acknowledging that at the beginning of this.

Let's go to Baghdad now where the lure of work was once again a death trap for dozens of poor Iraqis.

Our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that blast coming right after 7:00 a.m. in the morning, a massive blast that could be felt a mile away, heard much further away. According to police, 200 kilograms of explosives packed into the vehicle driven by the suicide bomber. And what he did was drive right into the crowd of day workers, looking for employment, called out to them that he had jobs, according to police, the people moved forward. That's when he detonated the explosives.

At least 60 people killed, 220 wounded, many taken to hospitals in the center of Baghdad. Very possibly this was a sectarian attack, an attack against Shias because typically they are the unemployed, typically they are the more impoverished, desperate, looking for this sort of day labor.

We've heard from other day laborers saying that many of them no longer go to these gathering points. They try and get their work by phone. This wasn't the first such attack, but people now growing very wary of gathering together in such large numbers.

And a failed attack today in a Shia shrine in the town of Samarra. The golden shrine there. Police reported that a bomb was discovered at the entrance of the shrine. A U.S. military EOD explosives team was brought in. They tried to remove the fuse, cut some of the wiring, but as they were trying to get the bomb out of the area, it went off.

It didn't cause a lot of damage, according to military officials. According to them, no reports of casualties, but that, again, an apparent effort at a sectarian attack, that Shia shrine was targeted in February, the golden shrine. And when it was targeted in February, it triggered a round of sectarian violence that has been continuing throughout the year.

Also, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi meeting with President Bush on his agenda, likely the sectarian violence, also the fact that many Sunnis here feel that they are being left out of the political process. Tariq al-Hashemi from the large Iraqi Islamic Party, some 44 members of parliament. He is one of the leaders of that political grouping, quite an influential politician at this particular time.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: A major flub from a major player. The incoming House Intelligence chair came up short when asked about Mideast terror ties. Up next in the NEWSROOM, the reporter who did the asking. Jeff Stein does it again.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Hello, I'm Kyra Phillips in CNN World headquarters in Atlanta.

LEMON: And I'm Don Lemon. So many factions, so few know the facts. What don't lawmakers know about Mideast militants? "Congressional Quarterly" editor Jeff Stein joins us with details on his latest political pop quiz. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. PHILLIPS: Mistaken, misspoken, or misunderstood. The incoming House Intel chair answer to a simple question prompts a lot more questions.

Here's CNN's Brian Todd.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He'll soon head the House committee that oversees U.S. intelligence agencies and authorizes their money. When he got the job as chairman, Congressman Silvestre Reyes was confident.

REP. SILVESTRE REYES (D), TEXAS: I felt that I had very strong credentials and credentials that I could -- that could stand up to anybody.

TODD: But Reyes' basic knowledge of who's waging this war is now in question. Speaking recently with the "Congressional Quarterly," Reyes is asked, "Is al Qaeda Sunni or Shia?"

"Predominately, probably, Shiite."

TODD: Analyst Derek Chollet says Reyes is a smart guy who probably just got tripped up.

But shouldn't the man who, in nearly six years on the Intelligence Committee has already gotten several classified briefings, know that the world's best known terrorist group is mostly Sunni?

DEREK CHOLLET, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: We should expect all of our public officials, particularly those in positions that are responsible for overseeing and conducting the war on terror, to know as much as they possibly can about the threat that we face.

TODD: Reyes also couldn't identify Hezbollah, long considered a terrorist organization by the State Department.

The reporter, Jeff Stein, was accused of cheap shots when a previous article by him pointed out that top FBI counter-terror officials didn't know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite.

Was he ambushing them or Reyes?

JEFF STEIN, "CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY": No. I don't sneak up on them at all. I'm not there to ask them this question. I go to ask them what their policies are, what they think about certain intelligence issues, counter-terrorism issues.

TODD: Silvestre Reyes was Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi's safe choice when she had a falling out with long-time ranking member, Jane Harman.

(on camera): An aide to Pelosi tells CNN she does not regret choosing Reyes and still has full confidence in him.

(voice-over): Reyes' office issued us this statement: "The 'C.Q.' interview covered a wide range of topics other than the selected points published in the story.

As a member of the Intelligence Committee since before 9/11, I am acutely aware of al Qaeda's desire to harm Americans. The Intelligence Committee will keep its eye on the ball and focus on the pressing security and intelligence issues facing us."

It should be pointed out, when he got the job, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte and CIA Chief Michael Hayden praised Silvestre Reyes for his grasp of intelligence issues.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

PHILLIPS: All right, it's time to play Sunni or Shiite. Let's start with the world's most-wanted man. Is Osama bin Laden a Sunni Muslim or a Shiite? You give up? He's Sunni. How about firebrand Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr? He's Shiite. And finally, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Sunni or Shiite? The answer is Shiite.

We're testing you for a reason. But Jeff Stein started it. He's the man who's been putting the questions to the people in power who should know. He's "Congressional Quarterly's" national security editor. You did it again, Jeff.

JEFF STEIN, "C.Q." NATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: What can I say? I go and interview people and ask them questions. Like, I would have asked President Bush after his remarks, what extremists are you talking about, Mr. President? Which ones? Because there's a lot of extremists in the Middle East. And I would have asked him to explain that.

And that's all I do with Congressmen or these officials. I ask them to explain the factual basis of their opinions. And when I sense that they don't know what they're talking about, I ask them basic questions like what's the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite, or what is al Qaeda? Are they Sunni or Shiite? This is as important as knowing the difference between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.

PHILLIPS: And I was looking back at the transcript from when we did our first interview, when you first did this story and all these leaders on the Hill had no idea the difference between the two -- leaders that were making decisions in Iraq, by the way.

STEIN: yes.

PHILLIPS: And I said to you, OK, are you going to do a follow- up? And you said, I guess. I don't think anybody's going to talk to me. They'll probably say, no thanks. I'd like to think that they're at home studying. Well, it looks like, even after your story, all these months later, there's still some pretty major leaders up there on the Hill that don't know the difference. STEIN: The reason this is important -- you know, I work for "Congressional Quarterly," which is a very serious publication, and we ask officials about policies because Congress and the oversight committees are the representatives of the taxpayers. They're there to judge how well, in terms of the House Intelligence Committee, how well the CIA is doing or the Defense Intelligence Agency or the NSA.

And if they don't know some basic questions, then they can't do a very good job of representing the taxpayers when they, you know, are judging how well our intelligence is doing, and obviously, there's been some questions about how well our intelligence agencies are doing.

PHILLIPS: Let's talk about Silvestre Reyes, the incoming intelligence chair. And you asked him the question, do you know the difference between Sunni and Shia? And the quote, "al Qaeda, they have both. Predominantly -- probably Shiite." Well, he couldn't have been any more wrong. So tell me, do we need to worry about this? I mean, he's not a dumb guy. He's a smart guy, and he's got a lot of background.

STEIN: It's not for me to say whether people should worry about it or not. I report, you decide.

PHILLIPS: Wait. That's the wrong network. You know what, Jeff Stein? This interview is over. I'm canceling my love and affection for you.

STEIN: You're another one who won't talk to me anymore.

PHILLIPS: We're the most trusted name in news. Yes, that's right. I'm hanging up on you right now.

STEIN: Well, I'm just -- well, that's the point here is that I'm putting forward the facts as a Congressman tells me, he believes they are. And that's what I do.

PHILLIPS: Now, Reyes didn't even know what Hezbollah was either. Isn't that bizarre when we just, for months, covered a war in Lebanon and all we talked about was Hezbollah and how Hezbollah was supplying weapons in Iraq?

STEIN: This is not, you know, secret text from the Dead Sea Scrolls or something. This is on the front page of the newspaper every day. And it is curious to me that officials don't have the curiosity to say, who are these people I'm reading about every day?

Now, I wouldn't expect the Agriculture Committee chairman to do that, but I would think that the Intelligence Committee chairman would certainly be curious about who we're fighting in the Middle East.

I mean, American soldiers are dying. This is kind of funny, this whole quiz thing, you know, and people are getting a chuckle out of it. But you know what? American soldiers are dying in Iraq and in Afghanistan at the hands of these extremists. And we should know, I think -- it's their job to know. They're paid $162,500 a year to know this. That's what they're paid for. If you hire a plumber, he's supposed to know the difference between a wrench and a hammer. An electrician has to go to work and know the difference between a copper wire and an aluminum wire. It's no different from the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He's got to know the basics of his job. That's all we're asking.

PHILLIPS: I know that we're having fun with the pop quiz, but it's absolutely pathetic that these people don't understand the basics of the religion over there. I mean, this whole talk about civil war, OK, whether there is one or not...

STEIN: Yes.

PHILLIPS: ... that is what is happening with regard to the religious divide. How can you make decisions and policy decisions when you don't even understand the various religious groups? Now, are you working on part three? I mean, before we thought no one was going to talk to you, OK?

STEIN: Yes.

PHILLIPS: They're still talking to you. So part three?

STEIN: Well, Chairman Reyes -- or Chairman-to-be Reyes had never heard of the pieces that I wrote that got a lot of attention before. So when I told him that I had asked these questions of other officials, he actually kind of joked, he said, I can feel a trap coming, or something like that. I said, well, I'm just going to ask you some simple questions.

But I'm going to keep doing my job, which is simply to ask officials why they feel -- why they have a policy. You know, what's their opinion? It's what their opinion is based on. You know, that's what a reporter is supposed to do. A reporter asks an official or a source, for that matter, how do you know this is true? What facts do you have to reach that opinion?

PHILLIPS: Well, Jeff...

STEIN: That's all I'm doing.

PHILLIPS: Well, you bring up another point. You think everybody on the Hill should be reading "Congressional Quarterly." Hello? I'd be staying on top of what you're writing about.

STEIN: That's a nice plug.

PHILLIPS: There you go. Jeff Stein, we'll talk to you hopefully again. Maybe not so...

STEIN: Tomorrow.

PHILLIPS: Yes, exactly. Let me know as you make your phone calls. Thanks, Jeff. STEIN: Thank you, Kyra. Bye.

PHILLIPS: All right.

LEMON: Well, they survived sectarian violence, survived Iraq, but can they handle Congress?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got back and I thought I'd try and live a normal life. But when your country needs you, your country needs you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Taking the Hill, as in Capitol Hill. That's next in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The war in Iraq was front and center in last month's elections. More than 50 veterans were candidates, the most since World War II. Among them was Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who made it big as a big part of her campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: I should have bled out and died in four-and-a-half minutes. I managed to survive 15 minutes. As soon as we were hit and we landed the aircraft, the second helicopter landed and got me out of there. They were pretty sure I was going to lose the arm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I've read about some of the things that you have said. And I've got to say, you're liberal and you're against the war.

DUCKWORTH: Absolutely it was a mistake to go in. One of the bridesmaids at my wedding is flying helicopters in Iraq right now. That's where my allegiance is. It's not to any party. And I'm going to be willing to ask a lot of really hard questions to both sides. You know, I want to know how come...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: A new documentary called "Taking the Hill" follows Duckworth and three other veterans answering a different call to duty.

Joining me from New York is filmmaker Brent Renaud and in Philadelphia, Democratic Congressman-elect Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war veteran who appeared in the film.

We'll start with you, Mr. Renaud. And I saw you looking at this film, met Tammy Duckworth. she is feisty, she is strong. Why did you follow her and the other candidates around?

BRENT RENAUD, FILMMAKER, "TAKING THE HILL": Well, like you said, there are more veterans running for Congress this term than at any time in history. And we followed a diverse group of folks that were running, diverse in their service to the country, diverse in the amount of money and the resources that their campaigns were going to have. And diverse in some of their opinions, even.

And Tammy was just a fascinating story -- helicopter pilot, shot down, double amputee. And really what this film is about is these soldiers wanting to take their next step, their next step in their service to their country.

LEMON: Yes and that's what, when I mentioned she's feisty and she's strong and also very opinionated, how did you pick these four candidates?

RENAUD: Well, you know, like I said, we wanted a diversity of a group. You've got Patrick Murphy, who is with us today, a young Iraq war vet, captain in the 82nd Airborne Division, you have Tammy, a female in the helicopter pilot, and then we had a couple of Vietnam vets, one, Rick Bolanos down in Texas and Eric Massa in upstate New York.

And they had various chances of winning, various degrees of money, and but all of them were outsiders, never had a political office before, never really had political aspirations. We wanted to see how they could negotiate, even within their own party.

LEMON: Right and that's probably the interesting part is that most of them were people you hadn't heard from before.

RENAUD: Absolutely.

LEMON: You mentioned Rick Bolanos. And I'm going to talk more about your movie here because it serves a very poignant, very moving part in the documentary here where you go to his home, and he lost relatives in Vietnam.

And he's a Vietnam veteran, and he lost a relative in Iraq. And he equated it to the Vietnam war. Let's take a listen and then we'll talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK BOLANOS, CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: It's a beautiful picture.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: See?

BOLANOS: This is a shrine to this young lady.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (SPEAKING IN SPANISH): The first mortar and then a second. They were all running for a place to hide. Another mortar and she was hit.

BOLANOS: She got caught in the mortar attack. I feel that we lost 58,000 American soldiers in Vietnam for nothing. And man, I just hope that they didn't lose their child for nothing, you know, because there's so much love in that house, man. You know? And there's nothing coming from this war except that anguish.

That if I'm elected, I'll write legislation ...

LEMON: So Rick Bolanos is the Vietnam veteran, the person he was visiting had lost a loved one in the war, and then he again, like I said, equated it to Vietnam. What was it like doing that, Rick?

RENAUD: Well, you know, a lot of these guys, Max Cleland is one of the mentors to these group of veterans who are running. And what they say over and over again, is that it's like -- I've seen this movie before. It's just like Vietnam. I see the guys coming back with the same injuries. I see the same -- our country stuck with not a great plan of how to get out of it.

I mean, you hear that over and over. And that particular scene, Rick Bolanos is reliving those old memories with the parents of a young woman who was killed in Iraq.

LEMON: Yes. Patrick Murphy, we have not forgotten about you. So, not to worry. But you won in Pennsylvania. What struck me most is that you had been there on the ground. When you got to Iraq, you saw the conditions under which these folks were fighting. And did -- was that sort of the impetus to get you to run for Congress?

PATRICK MURPHY, CONGRESSMAN-ELECT, PENNSYLVANIA: Yes, sir. And I talk about being in Al Rashid, Baghdad as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division. In our sector, we were responsible for 1.5 million Iraqis.

That's the same size as Philadelphia where I was raised. And my father served as a cop for 22 years, but with 7,000 police officers. Yet there was only 3,500 of us. So think about that. Half amount of law enforcement in a combat zone where we didn't even speak the same language.

LEMON: And I think we have something when you were campaigning? You were on the same platform as your opponent, both of you campaigning together? I think we have a little clip from that. Let's take a look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MURPHY: Hey, everybody, I'm Patrick Murphy, I'm the Iraq war veteran and Democrat running for Congress.

Hey sir, can I just introduce myself, I'm Patrick Murphy, I'm the Iraq war veteran and Democrat running for Congress.

I'm the Iraq war Veteran, I'm a former prosecutor, and I used to teach at West Point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very good.

MURPHY: I appreciate your vote tomorrow.

Hey sir, can I shake your hand, I'm Patrick Murphy, I'm the Democrat running for Congress. Appreciate your vote tomorrow.

REP. MIKE FITZPATRICK (R), PENNSYLVANIA: I'm Mike Fitzpatrick running for Congress. Any questions on the election tomorrow?

MURPHY: Right over there is Mike Fitzpatrick, he's my opponent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Was that your opponent who you went up to ask and then he refused to shake your hand?

MURPHY: That was -- I don't see the clip, actually, right here in my home, but I do know that there was a case there where that's who my opponent was there on the platform.

LEMON: You said that you wanted to get back to a normal life, but when it comes to serving your country, you do it when your country needs you. Is that a direct quote from you?

MURPHY: That's correct, yes, sir.

LEMON: Why do you say that?

Well, apparently we lost Patrick Murphy. We lost the feed for him. But we want to thank Rick -- we want to thank Mr. Renaud for joining us. You're still there right sir. Thanks so much for joining us.

Very interesting what you've done here and we're sorry that Patrick Murphy didn't get the entire time we wanted to spend with him today, but it was certainly nice for both of you to come and join us in the CNN NEWSROOM.

RENAUD: Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: New parents wait for word on their missing infant, but this may be more than kidnapping. It may be payback. We're expecting a briefing from Ft. Myers, Florida, live coverage from the NEWSROOM straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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