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Lou Dobbs Tonight
Supreme Court Rules on Affirmative Action; Search for Saddam Still in High Gear; Explosions Prevent Tapping of Iraqi Oil
Aired June 23, 2003 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Monday, June 23. Here now, Lou Dobbs.
LOU DOBBS, HOST: Good evening, everyone.
Race and education, a sensitive relationship in this country and the topic of a key decision today from Washington, the Supreme court has delivered a landmark ruling on affirmative action that could affect public and private institutions throughout the country.
The high court said the University of Michigan's law school can give minority applicants preferential treatment but the high court also struck down a separate affirmative action program for undergraduate admissions -- National Correspondent Bob Franken reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If someone was hoping the Supreme Court would clear up the confused law over affirmative action he will probably be disappointed.
The decisions in the two cases were mixed. What dissenting Justice Scalia called a "split double header which seems perversely designed to prolong the controversy and the litigation."
Writing for the winning 5-4 side in the Michigan law school case, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said: "The use of race is not prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, that the school could use a subjective judgment in an effort to achieve meaningful diversity in education."
The other case involved a challenge to the University of Michigan's more structured undergraduate admissions program with added points assigned to minorities.
Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the 6-3 decision saying "it violates the Equal Protection Clause that this one went too far in considering race."
It was a set of rulings that allowed both sides to declare victory.
MARY SUE COLEMAN, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: What it means is its core is that affirmative action may still be used and the court has given us a road map to get there and so we are very, very excited and very pleased.
TERRY PELL, PRESIDENT, CTR. OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: At the end of the day, the court raised the bar. The court made it harder for schools to take race into account.
FRANKEN: At the end of the day the two rulings leave a result that many believe mirror the so-called Bakke decision of 1978 in which quota systems were ruled illegal but race could still be a consideration. These decisions affect more than just school admissions.
TOM GOLDSTEIN, SUPREME COURT APPELLATE ATTORNEY: Today's decisions are also a road map, not just for universities but affirmative action generally. The Supreme Court has told us that so long as you have a nuance to inquiry, one that looks not just at race but other factors.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN: So, Lou, what we have now is a decision that President Bush called a balanced decision but many skeptics are saying is that it was really indecision -- Lou.
DOBBS: Indeed, Bob, and it's easy to forget that this ruling today comes about as a result of two plaintiffs who brought the case. What does this split decision mean for those two plaintiffs?
FRANKEN: Well, what it means is is in the case of actually practical effect, not a lot, because of course these are cases that have long been denied. But they took the cases on on behalf of people who were upset with the affirmative action programs at the University of Michigan, for that matter across the country.
The effect it's going to have after all is said and done is, as I was mentioning just a moment ago, is probably it's going to pretty much track where we already were with the Bakke decision.
DOBBS: OK, Bob, thank you very much. Bob Franken, our national correspondent, reporting from Washington.
Five months ago, President Bush said the University of Michigan's affirmative action programs were fundamentally flawed and unconstitutional. Today, the president applauded the Supreme Court for recognizing the value of diversity. President Bush said: "Race is a reality in American life. Yet like the court, I look forward to the day when America will be a colorblind society."
The University of Michigan's law school has a higher percentage of minority students than the national average. Minorities make up 25 percent of Michigan's law school. The American Bar Association says overall American law schools have fewer than 20 percent of their students as minorities.
That is higher, though, than the average minority enrollment at the country's medical and business schools. Overall, they have about a ten percent minority enrollment. In another ruling today, the Supreme Court said Congress can protect children from online pornography on computers in public libraries. The ruling upholds a federal law that forces libraries receiving government money to install filters to block pornography. The court ruled those filters don't violate the First Amendment on free speech.
Later tonight, I'll be talking with CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin about the meaning of today's Supreme Court decision on affirmative action and we will figure out exactly what it means for public and private institutions all across the country if such a thing is indeed possible.
Turning overseas, new details tonight about a firefight between U.S. troops in Iraq and Syrian border guards, a defense official told CNN the fighting began after U.S. forces attacked an Iraqi convoy.
Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre joins us now and has the story -- Jamie.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, due to the secretive nature of this mission, we're still not clear if it was actually a firefight, an exchange of gunfire or whether some of these Syrian border guards were actually shot from planes in the air. They're still sorting that out.
But let's back up and say how the story started. It started really with the capture last week of the close confidante to Saddam Hussein General Amid Hamid Mahmud who his capture, it's not what he told his interrogators, but other intelligence that was developed at the time he was captured that led the U.S. to target a convoy of vehicles that was leaving a compound in Kaime (ph) Wednesday night, a border town right along the border with Syria.
The intelligence indicated that they were former senior leaders of the Iraqi regime in that convoy and there was a hope, said one Pentagon official that Saddam Hussein or his sons might be among them.
Now, according to sources, a U.S. Air Force Predator drone, armed with Hellfire missiles tracked the vehicles. An AC-130 gunship was also called in. At some point, the predator launched its Hellfire missiles. The AC-130 opened fire and a commando team from Task Force 20, that's the Special Operations force that is targeting Saddam Hussein, also moved in on these vehicles.
It's right along the Syrian border, and according to sources, some of the people from those vehicles apparently were trying to cross the border into Syria at the time these Syrian border guards were wounded. It's unclear, again, if that was from the sky or from the ground.
One thing, though, the U.S. is checking DNA from the site. That's an indication that they want to make sure that Saddam Hussein wasn't among those killed -- Lou.
DOBBS: Jamie, do we know how many vehicles were in the convoy, anything just beyond just the speculative nature of who might have been in the convoy?
MCINTYRE: Well, there was, we're told, six or seven vehicles and they took into detention after this event about 20 or 24 people most of whom they've let go now, indicating that they don't believe they were high level people.
So, but this is -- all the details of this are highly classified and very few people at the Pentagon have any firsthand knowledge of what happened. What it does show, though, is that the search for Saddam Hussein remains in high gear and as soon as the U.S. gets any intelligence they're poised to act.
DOBBS: Any indication that those U.S. troops were actually across the Syrian border?
MCINTYRE: There are some indications they may have crossed the Syrian border and Pentagon sources say part of that problem may have been that Syria failed to stop the Iraqis from crossing the border which they've agreed to do and in their "enthusiasm" some of the U.S. troops may have crossed the border but that's one of the details we're just not clear about.
DOBBS: International hot pursuit, if you will. Jamie McIntyre, our Senior Pentagon Correspondent, thank you very much.
U.S. officials in Iraq today announced plans to create a new Iraqi army. Recruitment begins next week and the first division of 12,000 soldiers will be ready within a year. Officials also say up to a quarter of a million former troops will be paid between $50 and $150 a month.
The salary of Iraqi troops only one item that will eventually be paid for with revenue from Iraq's oil exports but it will now take some time before those exports and revenues come online.
So far, a series of explosions and sabotage has prevented the coalition from tapping Iraq's oil resources, Kitty Pilgrim reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ninety miles west of Baghdad, an act of sabotage against a gas pipeline, the same town that was the scene of riots last month. It's the third attack on oil and gas pipelines in the last two weeks. A major pipeline near Mosul was also blown up.
Pipelines are hard to protect as they stretch across the desert for hundreds of miles. Iraq, with the third largest oil reserves in the world and not even a trickle getting out yet.
Sure, there was a small ceremony yesterday celebrating the first million barrels of Iraqi oil shipped out of the Turkish port in Sayan (ph) but that oil was not pumped or piped. It had been stored since before the war.
MICHAEL ROTHMAN, MERRILL LYNCH: The oil that moved Sunday was from oil that's been sitting in the tank for three months not from new production. The fact that Iraq has been delayed getting back has helped keep prices higher than most people would like to see.
PILGRIM: Looting has damaged facilities and power shortages and communications failures have cramped oil flow. Years of neglect and little investment under Saddam Hussein don't help.
FIONA HILL, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: The problem is for Iraq itself of having lost that market share and of not being able to bring its production back up again, I mean the more time that is lost the more difficult it becomes for Iraq to come back online again.
PILGRIM: The big problem is the oil revenues that were supposed to pay for reconstruction. Paul Bremer, the U.S. Civilian Administrator in Iraq attending a conference in Jordan this weekend said political sabotage may cause problems meeting production levels.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Now, Bremer admitted Iraq's level of oil exports could have problems because of security concerns. One suggestion he made was paying Iraqis dividends on oil sales. That's to give them a stake in the outcome -- Lou.
DOBBS: A stake if you will in their own oil?
PILGRIM: It seems a little preposterous to try to ask people to take money to protect their own assets but that's the point where we are.
DOBBS: Oil production, when will it be back and exportation, when will it be back to pre-war levels?
PILGRIM: Someone suggested today that just the beginning trickle will start in mid-July. The oil minister in Iraq said 18 months and a billion dollars before they're back to the pre-war levels that they were at.
DOBBS: Unbelievable. Kitty, thank you very much, Kitty Pilgrim.
The quote tonight comes from a U.S. Senator who is part of a delegation currently in Baghdad saying: "This effort that the U.S. is involved in here in Iraq, just like Afghanistan, and the mid east peace plan is in the interest of our country because it is in the interest of America to have a peaceful, stable, secure world," those words from Senator Chuck Hagel.
The Justice and Defense Departments today announced that a Qatari man who has been in custody for a year and a half has now been designated an enemy combatant. Officials say the change in status follows information that the man was a member of an al Qaeda sleeper cell. He arrived in this country on a student visa the day before the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Tonight, anti-terrorist police in Greece are questioning the crew of a ship that was carrying a huge cargo of explosives, carrying them to Sudan. Greek special forces seized that ship after they received a tip -- Julian Rush of ITN reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JULIAN RUSH, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Greek hyperbole notwithstanding, the 680 tons of mining explosive and the 8,000 detonators and fuses aboard the Baltic Sky could potentially cause a devastating explosion. Papers onboard said her cargo was destined for a company called Integrated Chemicals and Development in Sudan, a firm that seems not to exist.
The arrest followed a tip off from NATO the Baltic Sky was operating suspiciously. She left Albania at the end of April, then stopped in Tunisia where the explosives were loaded. Ten days later she was in Istanbul and she was next seen off northern Turkey.
Then, at four o'clock yesterday morning, coast guards were called to investigate and seize the boat. Greece has stepped up security ahead of next year's Olympics.
MAYOR PYTHAGORAS SAMARAS, ASTAKOS, GREECE: Maybe those explosives in my modest opinion, of course, could be for some use in the Olympic Games. We're not really sure about this.
RUSH: Today, the seven man crew of Ukrainians and Azaras (ph) were charged with illegally transporting explosives through Greek waters charges that could lead to 20 years in jail.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Julian Rush of ITN reporting.
Turning to this country a massive wildfire continues to burn out of control tonight in Arizona. The Aspen fire, as it's called, has already scorched more than 12,000 acres. It's now destroyed hundreds of homes. Firefighters say this blaze may continue to burn for weeks.
Jennifer Reardon from CNN affiliate KBOA joins us now from Oracle, Arizona with the very latest -- Jennifer.
JENNIFER REARDON, KBOA CORRESPONDENT: And, Lou, one of the reasons they're predicting three weeks is because, as you can see, the wind is intense and it has not let up. I'm going to step out of the way so our chief photojournalist Paul Hankey (ph) can get a closer look at the flames that have been erupting on this mountain all day.
Now, we are on the backside of the Catalina Mountains. This is a vantage point that has not yet been seen on this fire. This is the direction the flames are moving, kind of in a northeasterly directly. Winds are being fueled out of the southwest and that is not helping at all.
Of course, right now it is about three o'clock in the afternoon, the hottest part of our day. This is the most active time on the fire and we have watched it grow beyond belief. You can see some of the black smoke, kind of encompassing these towns. We are in the town of Oracle, which is about 3,500 people. Just east of us is a town known as San Manuel. It's a mining town where people are already living with predisposed problems to -- breathing problems and things like that because of the mining there and it's only getting worse. The clinics are getting filled up with asthma and respiratory problems.
As you said, this fire has now grown to about 12,410 acres and it is only five percent contained. It is the number one federal emergency right now. We have FEMA here up on the mountain assessing the damage but so far this fire has cost about $2.5 million to fight.
We have over 913 personnel and more have been ordered and that includes eight helicopters and two tankers trying to attack this from the sky. This fire is burning in very rugged, steep terrain and so it has been very difficult to hold onto all the structures.
At this point, we know more than 300 structures have burned and, as we said, for hotshot crews on the ground it's making the fight very difficult because it is very steep, rugged terrain, so they are depending on those air tankers but our wind is so intense that a lot of those have been grounded because it is so dangerous to fly right now because of this wind in the area and we do know that there is no rain in sight, so that is why another estimated three weeks before this fire is out.
Also, it is our very dry fire season. There are other fires burning in our neck of the woods and many of the crewmembers that are here have now been called off to other fires. So, more on the order of we're expected to have at least 1,000 throughout the week fighting this blaze -- Lou.
DOBBS: And a difficult firefighting season beyond. Jennifer Reardon, thank you very much.
Across the country in Florida water, not fire is the problem. It remains the problem as it's been for weeks now. Ten to 20 inches of rain have fallen in parts of that state since last Wednesday. The downpour has flooded roads and pushed rivers out of their banks.
Yesterday, hundreds of families were forced from their homes when a flood gate jammed at the Lake Manatee Dam. It required 12 hours to repair the gate.
Still ahead here tonight, we begin a series of special reports this week focusing on our borders, the Border Patrol. Has the Department of Homeland Security made us more safe at home? Are our borders more secure? Peter Viles reports.
And Robert Bonner, the commissioner of U.s. Customs and Border Protection is our special guest this evening.
Also tonight, a sex scandal rocks the U.S. Air Force Academy. We'll have a live report for you. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) DOBBS: On Wall Street today, stocks took a break from their recent rally on new concerns about corporate earnings amongst other things. The Dow Jones Industrials today down 128 points almost the NASDAQ lost almost 34, while the S&P 500 dropped 14 points on the day.
Susan Lisovicz is here with the story of a market that paused a bit today.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNNfn CORRESPONDENT: And, you know, a lot of market watchers, Lou, say that the markets were ripe for a pullback. We certainly got it today. Setting the tone a profit warning from Tenet Healthcare on rising costs and declining revenue, Tenet plummeted 26 percent and was the second most actively traded issue at the New York Stock Exchange.
Goodyear did not have a good day, slumping seven percent on word that North American tire shipments for new vehicles fell more than the industry average. Deere and Company bucked the negative trend after Merrill Lynch recommended the stock as (unintelligible).
Among the blue chips, Alcoa up nearly four and a half percent after S&P cut its debt rating late Friday due to its retiree benefits. Wal-Mart edged down even though it reaffirmed its sales guidance for the months, and Altria, parent company of Philip Morris, one of only five of the Dow 30 to end the day on the upside after Morgan Stanley raised its price target.
Lou, the Dow and S&P fell nearly 1.5 percent on the day. The NASDAQ finished two percent lower, yet a new poll shows investor optimism at a 13-month high shooting up to 77 this month. It was 42 in May, so big jump.
DOBBS: That's an impressive jump. I suppose, though, the ultimate read on investor confidence will come in stock prices and the levels of those index.
LISOVICZ: And that certainly helped and you know also not surprisingly in that same poll investors said they were increasingly confident about the economy improving.
DOBBS: It's funny how those things go together. Susan, thank you very much, Susan Lisovicz.
Well, 73 executives now in all of corporate America have been charged with crimes, 16 from Enron still, Sam Waksal the only executive on his way to jail in the 567 days since Enron's bankruptcy.
Still ahead here, bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman may be out of prison but he's not out of trouble and an interesting development in U.S.-Mexican border relations, that story will be coming up.
And, our series of special reports this week on Border Patrol begins tonight with the 8,000-mile Canadian border. Peter Viles will have the report.
And later, the Supreme Court says race matters sometimes. Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin joins us on today's historic decisions on affirmative action and precisely what it means and doesn't mean. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: A special committee set up by Congress to investigate sexual assaults at the U.S. Air Force Academy met for the first time today. Dozens of female cadets say they were raped at the academy and either ignored or disciplined when they complained.
Elaine Quijano is live in Washington and has the story for us -- Elaine.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Lou. Well this panel's job really is to look into the policies, procedures, and climate at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado that led up to these accusations of sexual misconduct.
Now today, during this meeting, Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado, who happens to be a member of the Board of Visitors of the academy which oversees the U.S. Air Force Academy, he appeared before this panel and he recounted how he first got involved in this issue when an attorney for the family of a 13-year-old girl contacted his office saying the girl had been assaulted at a sports camp at the Air Force Academy.
Now since then, Senator Allard says some 60 cadets have contacted his office with an allegation of sexual assault and that his office found a pattern that some cadets believed coming forward could jeopardize their military futures. Now, he also recommended that the panel look more closely at the issue of accountability and improving communication between academy officials and cadets' families.
Now, it was just last week that the Air Force general counsel actually issued a report about 200 some pages long. In it, in that report, the general counsel said that it did not find any systematic problems with the way that the Air Force Academy had handled any accusations of sexual misconduct, but Senator Allard said that he felt this report was incomplete and he urged the panelists to visit the academy and meet with cadets themselves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. WAYNE ALLARD (R), COLORADO: Something went very wrong at the Air Force Academy and it's up to this panel to help Congress figure out how and why this tragedy occurred and what we can do to ensure that it never happens again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: Now, the secretary of the Air Force also appeared before this panel. He acknowledged there was a climate at the academy that for decades did not make women feel welcome but he also said that determining how to change that mentality if now a main goal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMES G. ROCHE, SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE: How do we teach cadets that the gender or the race of someone is irrelevant when you're in combat, because anyone who's been in combat knows that?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: As for the panel, the chair says she plans to visit the academy in mid-July and the report and recommendations by the panel are due to the defense secretary and members of Congress in September -- Lou.
DOBBS: Elaine, allegations of as many as 60 rapes is a far cry from making women feel welcome at the U.S. Air Force Academy. What is even the relevance of that to this discussion coming as it does even a week after the Air Force Academy denied there was a cover-up?
QUIJANO: Well, I think what the general atmosphere at the academy is, is going to be central for this panel. Really, that is their charge is to look at not only the policies and procedures, as I said, but what kind of climate did women feel as though they could not come forward? As I mentioned Senator Allard's office saying that some of these women felt that their future military careers would be in jeopardy.
One cadet even whose father was in the military told her father and they made the decision jointly, according to Senator Allard, that they would not come forward. That is how pervasive this atmosphere was. That is part of the reason that this panel is so interested to find out and why also the secretary for the Air Force says it is very germane to this discussion just what kind of atmosphere these female cadets were feeling.
But of course now the question what kind of policy changes, what kind of procedural changes need to be made. That really will be what the panel will recommend what kind of decisions that need to be changed, what decisions need to be made rather by some of the leadership at the academy in order to change that mentality -- Lou.
DOBBS: Elaine Quijano, reporting from Washington, thank you very much.
When we continue, securing our borders, Peter Viles will begin our series of special reports this week, Border Patrol. Tonight, we take a look at security along the sprawling Canadian border.
Also tonight, more on the landmark rulings from the Supreme Court today, I'll be joined by CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. We'll be talking about the impact of this high court decision on affirmative action and business as well as education. Stay with us.
DOBBS: Hong Kong has officially been given the all clear on SARS. The World Health Organization today removed Hong Kong from its list of SARS infected areas. That means the virus is no longer spreading.
Health officials credit quarantines with curbing that disease. Three hundred people died from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in Hong Kong during the height of the outbreak.
In this country, it looked like something from a horror movie, millions of honeybees swarming after a truck carrying hundreds of hives overturned near Kansas City. An interstate ramp was shut down. Nearby residents locked themselves indoors. Several workers were stung repeatedly trying to capture the bees.
The cleanup continues in Nebraska tonight where several tornadoes tore across the state last night killing at least one person, injuries several others, dozens of homes were damaged or destroyed.
Twelve passengers were hurt during the emergency evacuation of a Delta airline jet liner in Florida today. The plane was leaving the gate when the pilots noticed a fireball shoot from one of the planes engines.
Twenty-four thousand lives were lost between 1998 and 2001 because of bad roads, not bad drivers. A new government study suggests lives and money could be saved if more was spent to improve signage and lighting on highways and roads.
Our poll question for tonight, how much of a factor should race play in college admissions? a great deal? some? minimal? or none? Please vote on our web site, cnn.com/lou. We'll have the preliminary results later in the show.
Checking the results of our poll question Friday on the case of a little girl in Naples, Florida, whose lemonade stand was shut down because she didn't have a permit, local officials passionately agreed to waive a fine and give her a permit to keep her stand. We asked, would your local government -- your local government -- have acted as compassionately and sensibly as that of Naples, Florida? Twenty-eight percent of you said yes, 72 percent unfortunately said no.
Tonight we begin a special weeklong series of reports on the safety and the security of our borders. In the past, this was a job split among several federal agencies: justice, treasury, agriculture. But now border security falls under the new department of homeland security, and it is far from an easy assignment. Peter Viles has the report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming off the east access road. This is the subject we've been chasing here for about three hours.
PETER VILES, CNNfn CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just how easy is it to sneak into the United States? Well, it's not as easy as this guy thinks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This individual is starting to run.
VILES: He ought to run. This is border patrol video of a drug smuggler trying to sneak across the Canadian border earlier this month. But there's an eye in the sky, a hidden camera like this one. Border patrol is watching from this command center miles away, and here comes the border patrol agent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's approaching the middle of the highway at this time, and he's jumping the fence at this time.
VILES: And walking right into the arms of the United States border patrol.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Charlie 23, be advised he crossed the highway and he's in custody.
VILES: A victory for the good guys in a battle that will never end. The border patrol protects nearly 6,000 miles of U.S. borders with 10,400 agents, and those borders are busy. 427 million people entered the United States last year, the vast majority legally; 1.4 million were arrested, intercepted or otherwise turned back. But somehow, an estimated 700,000 illegal immigrants cross the border each year.
STEVEN CAMMAROTA, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: It seems almost certain that the most common ways to get into the United States is to walk across the border, usually in small groups, and often, but not always, with the help of a guide, usually referred to as a coyote, who shows you what you need to do.
VILES: The truth is, it is almost impossible to protect America's borders, because for generations, this country has welcomed visitors and immigrants from all over the world, and that attitude is reflected in our borders themselves. This is the border between the United States and Canada. United States here, Canada here. As you can see, there's no fence along this border. Along this stretch of border, there's one agent for every 2.5 miles of border. Doesn't sound like a fair fight. But the government does have hidden cameras, and decades of insight into the mind of a smuggler.
JOSEPH MELLIA, UNITED STATES BORDER PATROL: He'll go through all the other smuggling routes, all the other smugglers go through, and we know those routes. We have a lot of those routes monitored, either by sensor, camera, just our everyday patrol.
VILES: Since 9/11 the federal government has hired 3,100 new border patrol agents. Just as important, new technology, like the hidden cameras that spotted this minivan crossing illegally on a back road from Canada in May.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Following a minivan that's possible southbound intrusion.
VILES: Using a network of cameras, border patrol stalked the vehicle until agents, ten miles away, could run it down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eighty-seven overpass, he's now making a left. I believe there's a BP in behind it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VILES: Now, one of the big problems here is the United States, now, trying to protect its borders without really cracking down on the underlying cause of much border activity, and that is the use of illegal workers in the domestic economy here -- Lou.
DOBBS: Seven-hundred thousand illegal aliens, and that is only, of course, an estimate.
VILES: Sure. There's one million in all that get in every year, but 300, 000 walk in the door legally with papers and overstay their welcome. Somehow an estimated 700, 000 additional get into the country every year, sneak across the border, they're smuggled across the border, somehow they get in.
DOBBS: Pete, thank you very much. Peter Viles.
Joining me is the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Robert Bonner. Good to have you with us.
ROBERT BONNER, U.S. COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION: Good to be here.
DOBBS: You have a daunting task by any scale, the borders of Mexico and Canada, amounting to thousands of miles. How good a job do you think you're doing right now in providing security on those borders?
BONNER: Well, I can tell you, Lou, we're doing a lot better than we were on 9/11 and we're doing a lot better since the organization of the department of homeland security, which went into effect just a little over three months ago on march 1. And the reason for that is, for the first time in our country's history, we've actually combined all of the agencies with border responsibilities. That's the border patrol, U.S. Customs, immigration inspection, now into one agency for the border within the department of homeland security. And that is making us more effective in pursuing our priority mission, which is to keep terrorists and terrorist weapons out of our country.
So we're doing a better job than we had been before. And one of the things I was able to do as the head now of customs and border protection, which includes the border patrol, is on March 1, I directed the border patrol to staff, to add increase the staffing at our northern border by placing a minimum of 1,000 border patrol agents at our northern border. And that's -- that nearly triples the number of border patrol agents that were patrolling the northern border from what we had on 9/11.
DOBBS: And without question, significant progress has been made. Yet at the same time, as Peter Viles reported, an estimated 700,000 illegal aliens, and certainly most of them moving across the Mexican border, coming into this country. Could they not just as easily be terrorists crossing our borders?
BONNER: Well, and that poses a security threat. I mean, first of all, we need to have better control of our borders, both our northern border with Canada and southern border with Mexico. And we need to do that not just through personnel, but the use of technology, to leverage our resources, and these are the sensors, the infrared cameras, the smart camera systems as well as aerial surveillance, which allows us to leverage our resources.
By the way, I'm not quite sure those figures are accurate. I can tell you, this, the border patrol last year apprehended almost 1 million people attempting to illegally enter the country. And most of that, of course, was on the southern border. But from a terrorist threat point of view, we have both -- we need to be concerned about both our border with Mexico and our border with Canada. And we need to be able to both increase our staffing and using technology: cameras and sensors and the like, and frankly, the knowledge that the border patrol has about familiar crossing points to become even more effective.
And what we'll never, by the way if the goal is that we're going to stop every illegal alien that tries to cross our border, if we set that up as a goal, that probably is an impossible goal. But what we can do is we can be far more effective, and we are becoming far more effective than we were in the past, in terms of intercepting and apprehending illegal aliens, including potential terrorists, that may be trying to cross our borders illegally.
DOBBS: The national policy, on whether to stop illegal aliens, is an interesting one, I think, historically because, in point of fact, we don't have a national policy that says that it is a priority to maintain the integrity of our borders. Otherwise we would not have so many crossing those borders, I think you would agree. But on the issue of terrorists who could cross our borders, you have done a great deal. Is there, in your judgment, an appetite on the part of Congress and this president to say, we need more people rather than one to every 2.5 miles of the Canadian board to protect it? Is there some, perhaps, overconfidence here right now on the part of our national policy makers in discussing the issue of security, real security on our borders?
BONNER: Well, look, I think that there is a renewed emphasis on the need to better secure and better control our borders. And I think the -- that's a commitment from the president, from secretary ridge and the creation of the department of homeland security is to organize ourselves better to be able to do a better job in terms of controlling our borders and preventing both illegal entry across those borders, the illegal drug smuggling and the like, including, the of course, the security issue that's now posed with respect to the potential that terrorists may attempt to cross through our borders.
So we're committed to doing that. I can tell you there's no question in my mind that we know we must do a better job, and we are organized better now since the creation of the department of homeland security, since bringing together and combining all the resources of every agency that has significant border responsibility into one new agency, which is called Customs and Border Protection, within the Department of Homeland Security. And I can tell you, our priority mission, Lou, is nothing less than doing everything we reasonably and responsibly can to prevent terrorists, or for that matter, terrorist weapons from entering our country.
And that means we've got to do and are doing a better job of controlling the borders. And that includes our southern border with Mexico as well as our northern border.
Now, how do we do it?
We do it by being smarter about using technology to help us control the border and leveraging our manpower. We do it also, by the way, by pushing our borders and our zone of security outward so our borders are our last line of defense, not our first line of defense. And so we've undertaken a number of initiatives including, for example, the container security initiative. And taking a look at people before they reach the United States border to determine whether they pose a threat.
DOBBS: Is there one way -- let me ask this another way.
Is it indicative, if you can reduce the number of illegal aliens coming across that border is that a fair statement about the rising security, the reason that we should be more confident in the security of our borders if those numbers start going down?
BONNER: Absolutely. It seems somewhat ironic, but the more we get control of our borders, we're going to see the apprehension rate actually drop. And that indicates that fewer people are trying to illegally enter through our country. And I must say, over the last several years, pursuing a national strategy for our borders, the border patrol has been getting a better control and grasp over certain parts of the border, for example, the southern -- the southern border with Mexico. But I'll tell you right now, we have a ways to go here. There's no question that we do not have as much control over our border -- and by that I mean the ability to detect and prevent -- yes.
DOBBS: I'm sorry, we're getting into into -- we're having time problems, I guess, is the way to put it. We thank you very much for sharing your time with us this evening. You have a daunting job, as we all know, and we certainly wish you all of the success as you raise the security of those borders to the north and south.
BONNER: I appreciate that, Lou. Good to be with you.
DOBBS: Good to have you. Robert Bonner.
Checking now on the national debt tonight, it stands at almost $6,600 trillion, up $1 million since Friday.
Coming up next, affirmative action upheld and shot down simultaneously by the Supreme Court.
CNN's legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin will be here to tell us how the law works on this landmark decision. And censorship in our classrooms, the need to be politically correct is changing your child's curriculum.
Why words benign at "wife" and "forefathers" are out in our school text. Diane Ravitch is the author of "The Language Police" and she joins us next. Stay with us.
Tonight Duane "Dog" Chapman is out of jail, but not out of trouble. He can't leave Mexico. Chapman's the bounty hunter who was arrested with his crew last week as they captured fugitive heir Andrew Luster. They now face charges of illegal deprivation of liberty in Mexico. Officials there say they won't place more severe kidnapping charges. Andrew Luster is now in prison in California where he will serve 124 years for rape, that conviction and sentencing in absentia.
As we reported, the United States Supreme Court ruled today the University of Michigan can give preferential treatment to minorities in the admission process. But the high court, seemingly confoundingly, ruled against the school's undergraduate program that awarded points to students because of their race.
CNN's legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, who is always the one we turn to sort out the legal machinations of this judiciary system is here to tell us what in the world of real impact of this is and what it really means.
Jeffrey, this looks contradictory at least on the face.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it may be -- it may be contradictory when you look deeper, too. I mean, this decision is -- this decision is truly perplexing. It raises almost as many questions as it answers. But just to state what the court said is that affirmative action, in general, is permissible. You may consider race, among other factors, when weighing admissions to a university. However, you cannot use numerical data, numerical points that treats everybody in the same race the same way. You need to have individual assessments of each person.
DOBBS: And if I were to ask you to put that in some kind of English for us and say, well, does it mean that you can give the same amount of weight to race as you can an SAT score or a grade point average?
What is the implication of the court's decision?
TOOBIN: Well, here's a declarative English sentence. I don't know.
DOBBS: That I understand.
TOOBIN: I see we're on the same wavelength. That is one of the many mysteries that comes out of this opinion. Clearly in the law school setting, which is the one the court approved, they did say race could be a plus factor. It could be considered, among other factors. But how important, which was, you know the gist of your question, remains somewhat unclear.
DOBBS: Isn't the supreme court's role in these cases to remove ambiguity and uncertain from the law?
TOOBIN: Well, you know, you would think. And Justice Scalia, in his dissenting opinion in the law school case, has a long paragraph where he says, look at all the questions that are left unresolved by you, my colleagues in the majority. You are creating more litigation more uncertainty than when we began this process. DOBBS: Do you...
TOOBIN: I'm sorry, go ahead.
DOBBS: Do you concur with Scalia?
TOOBIN: I think this is a tough one. I think this is really a can of worms that they opened up because, you know, there was an elegance, and a simplicity to the position advocated by Scalia, by justice -- Chief Justice Rehnquist, by Justice Thomas, which is you simply can't consider race, period. Race is an inadmissible consideration. That's what the constitution says. The court clearly rejected that position. But how much race can be considered is up in the air. Let me just give you one...
DOBBS: Quick example, if you will.
TOOBIN: ... one set of statistic. Quick example. The law school, which was approved, 300 new students next year, the -- and that was an OK procedure. In the undergraduates, they had 25,000 applicants last year. Each one of those presumably are now going to have to be analyzed individually. That's something the university really just didn't do previously. Now you're going to have to see apparently new admissions officers hired, new standards, a real mystery about how this is going to work out.
DOBBS: Well, Jeffrey, we appreciate you trying to unravel at least part of the mystery, and we appreciate those declarative sentences, even when they are uttered as "I don't know," which is often one of my utterances.
Jeffrey Toobin, thank you very much.
TOOBIN: OK, Lou.
DOBBS: A reminder to vote in tonight's poll. The question, how much of a factor should race play in college admissions? A great deal, some, minimal, none. You can vote on our web site, cnn.com/lou. We invite you to do so. In fact, we'll share the results later.
Still ahead, censorship in American classrooms is reaching new, disturbing levels. Diane Ravitch is the author of the book "The Language Police," and believe me, what she has to say will disturb you, and is it something we should all be thinking about.
And we'll share some of your e-mails. Your thoughts on the government's broken promises to this country's military veterans. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The list of words and phrases now banned in American classrooms is rising at an alarming rate. You may be surprised even though there are such words and phrases that would be banned in our classrooms. The need to be politically correct is causing book publishers to err on the side of caution. This is being kind when it comes to education.
A new book entitled "The Language Police" examines the impact of political correctness in our schools. Diane Ravitch is the author. Expert on our educational system joins us now. Thanks for being here.
DIANE RAVITCH, AUTHOR, "THE LANGUAGE POLICE": Great to be with you, Lou.
DOBBS: Let's just put this in real quickly, some of the words that you know are banned. Anchorman, for example.
RAVITCH: Right.
DOBBS: Adam and Eve, it must be replaced with Eve and Adam to demonstrate males do not take priority over females. Abnormal. Banned as demeaning to persons with disabilities. Actress. I mean, we're just in the few "A's." What in the world is going on?
RAVITCH: Well, what I found looking at -- publishers issue something called bias guidelines, and these are supposed to protect people's feelings from being hurt. And I compiled a list of over 500 everyday words that are banned. Some of these words are obsolete, like codger and croon (ph). But it seems so silly to say you can't say this, you can't say it on a test, you can't say it in a textbook.
And the idea is that if you say any of these words, like actress or businessman or salesman, or founding fathers or brotherhood...
DOBBS: Or forefathers.
RAVITCH: Yes, you'll offend someone because these are either sexist words or age-biased words, or someone will find them offensive.
DOBBS: Most parents, I would suspect, and I'm parent of four kids, they wouldn't like being referred to as kids, I have four children of various ages, some of them old enough not to be called kids, I guess all of them, but the idea that publishers, textbook publishers are deciding that words cannot be used and therefore in a book, and therefore probably not in the classroom, wringing the life from the language out of some sort of mysterious impulse toward political correctness, it's mind boggling.
RAVITCH: Well, you know, in New York state a year ago, we discovered that the state's Education Department was actually rewriting classic literature, dropping phrases and words because there were words like "God" that weren't allowed, even though it appeared in the works of Eli Wiesel, or Isaac Bashevis Singer. There were references to race and religion that were removed. This kind of thing goes on in testing frequently.
DOBBS: And our viewers may be astonished to find there are four -- basically four major publishing companies.
RAVITCH: There are four big companies that dominate about 75 percent of the market at this point.
DOBBS: And aside from McGraw-Hill, which is American?
RAVITCH: Well, there are three, one is Reed Elsevier, which is Dutch owned, one is Pearson, which is British owned. Until recently, Vivendi, which is a French company, was the fourth, and it's recently sold off its American holdings, which is basically Hoten Mifflin (ph). It's very tough for small publishers, it's very tough to have a book that's different from the textbooks that exist today.
DOBBS: Diane Ravitch, I wish we had more time. So we're going to invite you back. As a matter of fact, we're going to invite you back as often as you can be here, because this is a really important subject for our educational system, for all of us as parents, for all of us in this country.
RAVITCH: I would love to be here. Thank you, Lou.
DOBBS: Diane Ravitch, thank you. And the book is appropriately, "The Language Police."
When we continue, we'll share some of your thoughts and we'll have the results of tonight's poll. Please stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Preliminary results of our poll question. How much of a factor should race play in college admissions? Six percent say a great deal, 25 percent say some, 9 percent say minimal, 60 percent say none at all. You can continue to vote on our Web site, cnn.com/lou. We'll have the final results tomorrow night here.
Taking a look at some of your thoughts, on our segment with General David Grange, on the U.S. government's broken promises to veterans. Bobby Travis Garner of Texas said -- "I pray that this will produce action to correct the long overdue health issue for military retirees of World War II and the Korean War."
Lawrence Hall of Vocaville, California, a chief master sergeant in the Air Force. "It's obvious our federal government is doing the math. We're dying at the rate of 1,000 per day. Delay long enough; the problem will simply go away."
"Grange on Point," by the way, will be a weekly feature here, focusing on military and veterans' affairs.
Many of you wrote in to share your thoughts on our series on emerging diseases. Dominique Baytarian of Massachusetts said about Lyme disease -- "This emerging public health threat gets the least amount of public attention. Hopefully, more coverage on this disease will raise awareness of this devastating illness."
Melba Kendrick of Florida had a solution for the Lyme disease ticks carried by the runaway explosion in the deer population in this country -- "Dear Lou, with the deer population at 30 million, I think it would behoove us all to eat more venison."
And Meredith Wheaton of Massachusetts said, regarding the young girl banned from selling lemonade in Naples, Florida: "There are three things in this life that one should not miss: Listening to a grammar- school band, watching a small-town parade, and buying lemonade from a stand run by a 6-year-old girl. Some things are truly important."
We couldn't agree more.
We love hearing from you. Send us your thoughts. E-mail us at loudobbs@cnn.com.
Thanks for being with us tonight. For all of us here, good night from New York.
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Saddam Still in High Gear; Explosions Prevent Tapping of Iraqi Oil>
Aired June 23, 2003 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Monday, June 23. Here now, Lou Dobbs.
LOU DOBBS, HOST: Good evening, everyone.
Race and education, a sensitive relationship in this country and the topic of a key decision today from Washington, the Supreme court has delivered a landmark ruling on affirmative action that could affect public and private institutions throughout the country.
The high court said the University of Michigan's law school can give minority applicants preferential treatment but the high court also struck down a separate affirmative action program for undergraduate admissions -- National Correspondent Bob Franken reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If someone was hoping the Supreme Court would clear up the confused law over affirmative action he will probably be disappointed.
The decisions in the two cases were mixed. What dissenting Justice Scalia called a "split double header which seems perversely designed to prolong the controversy and the litigation."
Writing for the winning 5-4 side in the Michigan law school case, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said: "The use of race is not prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, that the school could use a subjective judgment in an effort to achieve meaningful diversity in education."
The other case involved a challenge to the University of Michigan's more structured undergraduate admissions program with added points assigned to minorities.
Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote the 6-3 decision saying "it violates the Equal Protection Clause that this one went too far in considering race."
It was a set of rulings that allowed both sides to declare victory.
MARY SUE COLEMAN, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: What it means is its core is that affirmative action may still be used and the court has given us a road map to get there and so we are very, very excited and very pleased.
TERRY PELL, PRESIDENT, CTR. OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: At the end of the day, the court raised the bar. The court made it harder for schools to take race into account.
FRANKEN: At the end of the day the two rulings leave a result that many believe mirror the so-called Bakke decision of 1978 in which quota systems were ruled illegal but race could still be a consideration. These decisions affect more than just school admissions.
TOM GOLDSTEIN, SUPREME COURT APPELLATE ATTORNEY: Today's decisions are also a road map, not just for universities but affirmative action generally. The Supreme Court has told us that so long as you have a nuance to inquiry, one that looks not just at race but other factors.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN: So, Lou, what we have now is a decision that President Bush called a balanced decision but many skeptics are saying is that it was really indecision -- Lou.
DOBBS: Indeed, Bob, and it's easy to forget that this ruling today comes about as a result of two plaintiffs who brought the case. What does this split decision mean for those two plaintiffs?
FRANKEN: Well, what it means is is in the case of actually practical effect, not a lot, because of course these are cases that have long been denied. But they took the cases on on behalf of people who were upset with the affirmative action programs at the University of Michigan, for that matter across the country.
The effect it's going to have after all is said and done is, as I was mentioning just a moment ago, is probably it's going to pretty much track where we already were with the Bakke decision.
DOBBS: OK, Bob, thank you very much. Bob Franken, our national correspondent, reporting from Washington.
Five months ago, President Bush said the University of Michigan's affirmative action programs were fundamentally flawed and unconstitutional. Today, the president applauded the Supreme Court for recognizing the value of diversity. President Bush said: "Race is a reality in American life. Yet like the court, I look forward to the day when America will be a colorblind society."
The University of Michigan's law school has a higher percentage of minority students than the national average. Minorities make up 25 percent of Michigan's law school. The American Bar Association says overall American law schools have fewer than 20 percent of their students as minorities.
That is higher, though, than the average minority enrollment at the country's medical and business schools. Overall, they have about a ten percent minority enrollment. In another ruling today, the Supreme Court said Congress can protect children from online pornography on computers in public libraries. The ruling upholds a federal law that forces libraries receiving government money to install filters to block pornography. The court ruled those filters don't violate the First Amendment on free speech.
Later tonight, I'll be talking with CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin about the meaning of today's Supreme Court decision on affirmative action and we will figure out exactly what it means for public and private institutions all across the country if such a thing is indeed possible.
Turning overseas, new details tonight about a firefight between U.S. troops in Iraq and Syrian border guards, a defense official told CNN the fighting began after U.S. forces attacked an Iraqi convoy.
Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre joins us now and has the story -- Jamie.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, due to the secretive nature of this mission, we're still not clear if it was actually a firefight, an exchange of gunfire or whether some of these Syrian border guards were actually shot from planes in the air. They're still sorting that out.
But let's back up and say how the story started. It started really with the capture last week of the close confidante to Saddam Hussein General Amid Hamid Mahmud who his capture, it's not what he told his interrogators, but other intelligence that was developed at the time he was captured that led the U.S. to target a convoy of vehicles that was leaving a compound in Kaime (ph) Wednesday night, a border town right along the border with Syria.
The intelligence indicated that they were former senior leaders of the Iraqi regime in that convoy and there was a hope, said one Pentagon official that Saddam Hussein or his sons might be among them.
Now, according to sources, a U.S. Air Force Predator drone, armed with Hellfire missiles tracked the vehicles. An AC-130 gunship was also called in. At some point, the predator launched its Hellfire missiles. The AC-130 opened fire and a commando team from Task Force 20, that's the Special Operations force that is targeting Saddam Hussein, also moved in on these vehicles.
It's right along the Syrian border, and according to sources, some of the people from those vehicles apparently were trying to cross the border into Syria at the time these Syrian border guards were wounded. It's unclear, again, if that was from the sky or from the ground.
One thing, though, the U.S. is checking DNA from the site. That's an indication that they want to make sure that Saddam Hussein wasn't among those killed -- Lou.
DOBBS: Jamie, do we know how many vehicles were in the convoy, anything just beyond just the speculative nature of who might have been in the convoy?
MCINTYRE: Well, there was, we're told, six or seven vehicles and they took into detention after this event about 20 or 24 people most of whom they've let go now, indicating that they don't believe they were high level people.
So, but this is -- all the details of this are highly classified and very few people at the Pentagon have any firsthand knowledge of what happened. What it does show, though, is that the search for Saddam Hussein remains in high gear and as soon as the U.S. gets any intelligence they're poised to act.
DOBBS: Any indication that those U.S. troops were actually across the Syrian border?
MCINTYRE: There are some indications they may have crossed the Syrian border and Pentagon sources say part of that problem may have been that Syria failed to stop the Iraqis from crossing the border which they've agreed to do and in their "enthusiasm" some of the U.S. troops may have crossed the border but that's one of the details we're just not clear about.
DOBBS: International hot pursuit, if you will. Jamie McIntyre, our Senior Pentagon Correspondent, thank you very much.
U.S. officials in Iraq today announced plans to create a new Iraqi army. Recruitment begins next week and the first division of 12,000 soldiers will be ready within a year. Officials also say up to a quarter of a million former troops will be paid between $50 and $150 a month.
The salary of Iraqi troops only one item that will eventually be paid for with revenue from Iraq's oil exports but it will now take some time before those exports and revenues come online.
So far, a series of explosions and sabotage has prevented the coalition from tapping Iraq's oil resources, Kitty Pilgrim reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ninety miles west of Baghdad, an act of sabotage against a gas pipeline, the same town that was the scene of riots last month. It's the third attack on oil and gas pipelines in the last two weeks. A major pipeline near Mosul was also blown up.
Pipelines are hard to protect as they stretch across the desert for hundreds of miles. Iraq, with the third largest oil reserves in the world and not even a trickle getting out yet.
Sure, there was a small ceremony yesterday celebrating the first million barrels of Iraqi oil shipped out of the Turkish port in Sayan (ph) but that oil was not pumped or piped. It had been stored since before the war.
MICHAEL ROTHMAN, MERRILL LYNCH: The oil that moved Sunday was from oil that's been sitting in the tank for three months not from new production. The fact that Iraq has been delayed getting back has helped keep prices higher than most people would like to see.
PILGRIM: Looting has damaged facilities and power shortages and communications failures have cramped oil flow. Years of neglect and little investment under Saddam Hussein don't help.
FIONA HILL, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: The problem is for Iraq itself of having lost that market share and of not being able to bring its production back up again, I mean the more time that is lost the more difficult it becomes for Iraq to come back online again.
PILGRIM: The big problem is the oil revenues that were supposed to pay for reconstruction. Paul Bremer, the U.S. Civilian Administrator in Iraq attending a conference in Jordan this weekend said political sabotage may cause problems meeting production levels.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Now, Bremer admitted Iraq's level of oil exports could have problems because of security concerns. One suggestion he made was paying Iraqis dividends on oil sales. That's to give them a stake in the outcome -- Lou.
DOBBS: A stake if you will in their own oil?
PILGRIM: It seems a little preposterous to try to ask people to take money to protect their own assets but that's the point where we are.
DOBBS: Oil production, when will it be back and exportation, when will it be back to pre-war levels?
PILGRIM: Someone suggested today that just the beginning trickle will start in mid-July. The oil minister in Iraq said 18 months and a billion dollars before they're back to the pre-war levels that they were at.
DOBBS: Unbelievable. Kitty, thank you very much, Kitty Pilgrim.
The quote tonight comes from a U.S. Senator who is part of a delegation currently in Baghdad saying: "This effort that the U.S. is involved in here in Iraq, just like Afghanistan, and the mid east peace plan is in the interest of our country because it is in the interest of America to have a peaceful, stable, secure world," those words from Senator Chuck Hagel.
The Justice and Defense Departments today announced that a Qatari man who has been in custody for a year and a half has now been designated an enemy combatant. Officials say the change in status follows information that the man was a member of an al Qaeda sleeper cell. He arrived in this country on a student visa the day before the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Tonight, anti-terrorist police in Greece are questioning the crew of a ship that was carrying a huge cargo of explosives, carrying them to Sudan. Greek special forces seized that ship after they received a tip -- Julian Rush of ITN reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JULIAN RUSH, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Greek hyperbole notwithstanding, the 680 tons of mining explosive and the 8,000 detonators and fuses aboard the Baltic Sky could potentially cause a devastating explosion. Papers onboard said her cargo was destined for a company called Integrated Chemicals and Development in Sudan, a firm that seems not to exist.
The arrest followed a tip off from NATO the Baltic Sky was operating suspiciously. She left Albania at the end of April, then stopped in Tunisia where the explosives were loaded. Ten days later she was in Istanbul and she was next seen off northern Turkey.
Then, at four o'clock yesterday morning, coast guards were called to investigate and seize the boat. Greece has stepped up security ahead of next year's Olympics.
MAYOR PYTHAGORAS SAMARAS, ASTAKOS, GREECE: Maybe those explosives in my modest opinion, of course, could be for some use in the Olympic Games. We're not really sure about this.
RUSH: Today, the seven man crew of Ukrainians and Azaras (ph) were charged with illegally transporting explosives through Greek waters charges that could lead to 20 years in jail.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Julian Rush of ITN reporting.
Turning to this country a massive wildfire continues to burn out of control tonight in Arizona. The Aspen fire, as it's called, has already scorched more than 12,000 acres. It's now destroyed hundreds of homes. Firefighters say this blaze may continue to burn for weeks.
Jennifer Reardon from CNN affiliate KBOA joins us now from Oracle, Arizona with the very latest -- Jennifer.
JENNIFER REARDON, KBOA CORRESPONDENT: And, Lou, one of the reasons they're predicting three weeks is because, as you can see, the wind is intense and it has not let up. I'm going to step out of the way so our chief photojournalist Paul Hankey (ph) can get a closer look at the flames that have been erupting on this mountain all day.
Now, we are on the backside of the Catalina Mountains. This is a vantage point that has not yet been seen on this fire. This is the direction the flames are moving, kind of in a northeasterly directly. Winds are being fueled out of the southwest and that is not helping at all.
Of course, right now it is about three o'clock in the afternoon, the hottest part of our day. This is the most active time on the fire and we have watched it grow beyond belief. You can see some of the black smoke, kind of encompassing these towns. We are in the town of Oracle, which is about 3,500 people. Just east of us is a town known as San Manuel. It's a mining town where people are already living with predisposed problems to -- breathing problems and things like that because of the mining there and it's only getting worse. The clinics are getting filled up with asthma and respiratory problems.
As you said, this fire has now grown to about 12,410 acres and it is only five percent contained. It is the number one federal emergency right now. We have FEMA here up on the mountain assessing the damage but so far this fire has cost about $2.5 million to fight.
We have over 913 personnel and more have been ordered and that includes eight helicopters and two tankers trying to attack this from the sky. This fire is burning in very rugged, steep terrain and so it has been very difficult to hold onto all the structures.
At this point, we know more than 300 structures have burned and, as we said, for hotshot crews on the ground it's making the fight very difficult because it is very steep, rugged terrain, so they are depending on those air tankers but our wind is so intense that a lot of those have been grounded because it is so dangerous to fly right now because of this wind in the area and we do know that there is no rain in sight, so that is why another estimated three weeks before this fire is out.
Also, it is our very dry fire season. There are other fires burning in our neck of the woods and many of the crewmembers that are here have now been called off to other fires. So, more on the order of we're expected to have at least 1,000 throughout the week fighting this blaze -- Lou.
DOBBS: And a difficult firefighting season beyond. Jennifer Reardon, thank you very much.
Across the country in Florida water, not fire is the problem. It remains the problem as it's been for weeks now. Ten to 20 inches of rain have fallen in parts of that state since last Wednesday. The downpour has flooded roads and pushed rivers out of their banks.
Yesterday, hundreds of families were forced from their homes when a flood gate jammed at the Lake Manatee Dam. It required 12 hours to repair the gate.
Still ahead here tonight, we begin a series of special reports this week focusing on our borders, the Border Patrol. Has the Department of Homeland Security made us more safe at home? Are our borders more secure? Peter Viles reports.
And Robert Bonner, the commissioner of U.s. Customs and Border Protection is our special guest this evening.
Also tonight, a sex scandal rocks the U.S. Air Force Academy. We'll have a live report for you. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) DOBBS: On Wall Street today, stocks took a break from their recent rally on new concerns about corporate earnings amongst other things. The Dow Jones Industrials today down 128 points almost the NASDAQ lost almost 34, while the S&P 500 dropped 14 points on the day.
Susan Lisovicz is here with the story of a market that paused a bit today.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNNfn CORRESPONDENT: And, you know, a lot of market watchers, Lou, say that the markets were ripe for a pullback. We certainly got it today. Setting the tone a profit warning from Tenet Healthcare on rising costs and declining revenue, Tenet plummeted 26 percent and was the second most actively traded issue at the New York Stock Exchange.
Goodyear did not have a good day, slumping seven percent on word that North American tire shipments for new vehicles fell more than the industry average. Deere and Company bucked the negative trend after Merrill Lynch recommended the stock as (unintelligible).
Among the blue chips, Alcoa up nearly four and a half percent after S&P cut its debt rating late Friday due to its retiree benefits. Wal-Mart edged down even though it reaffirmed its sales guidance for the months, and Altria, parent company of Philip Morris, one of only five of the Dow 30 to end the day on the upside after Morgan Stanley raised its price target.
Lou, the Dow and S&P fell nearly 1.5 percent on the day. The NASDAQ finished two percent lower, yet a new poll shows investor optimism at a 13-month high shooting up to 77 this month. It was 42 in May, so big jump.
DOBBS: That's an impressive jump. I suppose, though, the ultimate read on investor confidence will come in stock prices and the levels of those index.
LISOVICZ: And that certainly helped and you know also not surprisingly in that same poll investors said they were increasingly confident about the economy improving.
DOBBS: It's funny how those things go together. Susan, thank you very much, Susan Lisovicz.
Well, 73 executives now in all of corporate America have been charged with crimes, 16 from Enron still, Sam Waksal the only executive on his way to jail in the 567 days since Enron's bankruptcy.
Still ahead here, bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman may be out of prison but he's not out of trouble and an interesting development in U.S.-Mexican border relations, that story will be coming up.
And, our series of special reports this week on Border Patrol begins tonight with the 8,000-mile Canadian border. Peter Viles will have the report.
And later, the Supreme Court says race matters sometimes. Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin joins us on today's historic decisions on affirmative action and precisely what it means and doesn't mean. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: A special committee set up by Congress to investigate sexual assaults at the U.S. Air Force Academy met for the first time today. Dozens of female cadets say they were raped at the academy and either ignored or disciplined when they complained.
Elaine Quijano is live in Washington and has the story for us -- Elaine.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Lou. Well this panel's job really is to look into the policies, procedures, and climate at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado that led up to these accusations of sexual misconduct.
Now today, during this meeting, Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado, who happens to be a member of the Board of Visitors of the academy which oversees the U.S. Air Force Academy, he appeared before this panel and he recounted how he first got involved in this issue when an attorney for the family of a 13-year-old girl contacted his office saying the girl had been assaulted at a sports camp at the Air Force Academy.
Now since then, Senator Allard says some 60 cadets have contacted his office with an allegation of sexual assault and that his office found a pattern that some cadets believed coming forward could jeopardize their military futures. Now, he also recommended that the panel look more closely at the issue of accountability and improving communication between academy officials and cadets' families.
Now, it was just last week that the Air Force general counsel actually issued a report about 200 some pages long. In it, in that report, the general counsel said that it did not find any systematic problems with the way that the Air Force Academy had handled any accusations of sexual misconduct, but Senator Allard said that he felt this report was incomplete and he urged the panelists to visit the academy and meet with cadets themselves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. WAYNE ALLARD (R), COLORADO: Something went very wrong at the Air Force Academy and it's up to this panel to help Congress figure out how and why this tragedy occurred and what we can do to ensure that it never happens again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: Now, the secretary of the Air Force also appeared before this panel. He acknowledged there was a climate at the academy that for decades did not make women feel welcome but he also said that determining how to change that mentality if now a main goal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMES G. ROCHE, SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE: How do we teach cadets that the gender or the race of someone is irrelevant when you're in combat, because anyone who's been in combat knows that?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: As for the panel, the chair says she plans to visit the academy in mid-July and the report and recommendations by the panel are due to the defense secretary and members of Congress in September -- Lou.
DOBBS: Elaine, allegations of as many as 60 rapes is a far cry from making women feel welcome at the U.S. Air Force Academy. What is even the relevance of that to this discussion coming as it does even a week after the Air Force Academy denied there was a cover-up?
QUIJANO: Well, I think what the general atmosphere at the academy is, is going to be central for this panel. Really, that is their charge is to look at not only the policies and procedures, as I said, but what kind of climate did women feel as though they could not come forward? As I mentioned Senator Allard's office saying that some of these women felt that their future military careers would be in jeopardy.
One cadet even whose father was in the military told her father and they made the decision jointly, according to Senator Allard, that they would not come forward. That is how pervasive this atmosphere was. That is part of the reason that this panel is so interested to find out and why also the secretary for the Air Force says it is very germane to this discussion just what kind of atmosphere these female cadets were feeling.
But of course now the question what kind of policy changes, what kind of procedural changes need to be made. That really will be what the panel will recommend what kind of decisions that need to be changed, what decisions need to be made rather by some of the leadership at the academy in order to change that mentality -- Lou.
DOBBS: Elaine Quijano, reporting from Washington, thank you very much.
When we continue, securing our borders, Peter Viles will begin our series of special reports this week, Border Patrol. Tonight, we take a look at security along the sprawling Canadian border.
Also tonight, more on the landmark rulings from the Supreme Court today, I'll be joined by CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. We'll be talking about the impact of this high court decision on affirmative action and business as well as education. Stay with us.
DOBBS: Hong Kong has officially been given the all clear on SARS. The World Health Organization today removed Hong Kong from its list of SARS infected areas. That means the virus is no longer spreading.
Health officials credit quarantines with curbing that disease. Three hundred people died from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in Hong Kong during the height of the outbreak.
In this country, it looked like something from a horror movie, millions of honeybees swarming after a truck carrying hundreds of hives overturned near Kansas City. An interstate ramp was shut down. Nearby residents locked themselves indoors. Several workers were stung repeatedly trying to capture the bees.
The cleanup continues in Nebraska tonight where several tornadoes tore across the state last night killing at least one person, injuries several others, dozens of homes were damaged or destroyed.
Twelve passengers were hurt during the emergency evacuation of a Delta airline jet liner in Florida today. The plane was leaving the gate when the pilots noticed a fireball shoot from one of the planes engines.
Twenty-four thousand lives were lost between 1998 and 2001 because of bad roads, not bad drivers. A new government study suggests lives and money could be saved if more was spent to improve signage and lighting on highways and roads.
Our poll question for tonight, how much of a factor should race play in college admissions? a great deal? some? minimal? or none? Please vote on our web site, cnn.com/lou. We'll have the preliminary results later in the show.
Checking the results of our poll question Friday on the case of a little girl in Naples, Florida, whose lemonade stand was shut down because she didn't have a permit, local officials passionately agreed to waive a fine and give her a permit to keep her stand. We asked, would your local government -- your local government -- have acted as compassionately and sensibly as that of Naples, Florida? Twenty-eight percent of you said yes, 72 percent unfortunately said no.
Tonight we begin a special weeklong series of reports on the safety and the security of our borders. In the past, this was a job split among several federal agencies: justice, treasury, agriculture. But now border security falls under the new department of homeland security, and it is far from an easy assignment. Peter Viles has the report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming off the east access road. This is the subject we've been chasing here for about three hours.
PETER VILES, CNNfn CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just how easy is it to sneak into the United States? Well, it's not as easy as this guy thinks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This individual is starting to run.
VILES: He ought to run. This is border patrol video of a drug smuggler trying to sneak across the Canadian border earlier this month. But there's an eye in the sky, a hidden camera like this one. Border patrol is watching from this command center miles away, and here comes the border patrol agent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's approaching the middle of the highway at this time, and he's jumping the fence at this time.
VILES: And walking right into the arms of the United States border patrol.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Charlie 23, be advised he crossed the highway and he's in custody.
VILES: A victory for the good guys in a battle that will never end. The border patrol protects nearly 6,000 miles of U.S. borders with 10,400 agents, and those borders are busy. 427 million people entered the United States last year, the vast majority legally; 1.4 million were arrested, intercepted or otherwise turned back. But somehow, an estimated 700,000 illegal immigrants cross the border each year.
STEVEN CAMMAROTA, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: It seems almost certain that the most common ways to get into the United States is to walk across the border, usually in small groups, and often, but not always, with the help of a guide, usually referred to as a coyote, who shows you what you need to do.
VILES: The truth is, it is almost impossible to protect America's borders, because for generations, this country has welcomed visitors and immigrants from all over the world, and that attitude is reflected in our borders themselves. This is the border between the United States and Canada. United States here, Canada here. As you can see, there's no fence along this border. Along this stretch of border, there's one agent for every 2.5 miles of border. Doesn't sound like a fair fight. But the government does have hidden cameras, and decades of insight into the mind of a smuggler.
JOSEPH MELLIA, UNITED STATES BORDER PATROL: He'll go through all the other smuggling routes, all the other smugglers go through, and we know those routes. We have a lot of those routes monitored, either by sensor, camera, just our everyday patrol.
VILES: Since 9/11 the federal government has hired 3,100 new border patrol agents. Just as important, new technology, like the hidden cameras that spotted this minivan crossing illegally on a back road from Canada in May.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Following a minivan that's possible southbound intrusion.
VILES: Using a network of cameras, border patrol stalked the vehicle until agents, ten miles away, could run it down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eighty-seven overpass, he's now making a left. I believe there's a BP in behind it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VILES: Now, one of the big problems here is the United States, now, trying to protect its borders without really cracking down on the underlying cause of much border activity, and that is the use of illegal workers in the domestic economy here -- Lou.
DOBBS: Seven-hundred thousand illegal aliens, and that is only, of course, an estimate.
VILES: Sure. There's one million in all that get in every year, but 300, 000 walk in the door legally with papers and overstay their welcome. Somehow an estimated 700, 000 additional get into the country every year, sneak across the border, they're smuggled across the border, somehow they get in.
DOBBS: Pete, thank you very much. Peter Viles.
Joining me is the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Robert Bonner. Good to have you with us.
ROBERT BONNER, U.S. COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION: Good to be here.
DOBBS: You have a daunting task by any scale, the borders of Mexico and Canada, amounting to thousands of miles. How good a job do you think you're doing right now in providing security on those borders?
BONNER: Well, I can tell you, Lou, we're doing a lot better than we were on 9/11 and we're doing a lot better since the organization of the department of homeland security, which went into effect just a little over three months ago on march 1. And the reason for that is, for the first time in our country's history, we've actually combined all of the agencies with border responsibilities. That's the border patrol, U.S. Customs, immigration inspection, now into one agency for the border within the department of homeland security. And that is making us more effective in pursuing our priority mission, which is to keep terrorists and terrorist weapons out of our country.
So we're doing a better job than we had been before. And one of the things I was able to do as the head now of customs and border protection, which includes the border patrol, is on March 1, I directed the border patrol to staff, to add increase the staffing at our northern border by placing a minimum of 1,000 border patrol agents at our northern border. And that's -- that nearly triples the number of border patrol agents that were patrolling the northern border from what we had on 9/11.
DOBBS: And without question, significant progress has been made. Yet at the same time, as Peter Viles reported, an estimated 700,000 illegal aliens, and certainly most of them moving across the Mexican border, coming into this country. Could they not just as easily be terrorists crossing our borders?
BONNER: Well, and that poses a security threat. I mean, first of all, we need to have better control of our borders, both our northern border with Canada and southern border with Mexico. And we need to do that not just through personnel, but the use of technology, to leverage our resources, and these are the sensors, the infrared cameras, the smart camera systems as well as aerial surveillance, which allows us to leverage our resources.
By the way, I'm not quite sure those figures are accurate. I can tell you, this, the border patrol last year apprehended almost 1 million people attempting to illegally enter the country. And most of that, of course, was on the southern border. But from a terrorist threat point of view, we have both -- we need to be concerned about both our border with Mexico and our border with Canada. And we need to be able to both increase our staffing and using technology: cameras and sensors and the like, and frankly, the knowledge that the border patrol has about familiar crossing points to become even more effective.
And what we'll never, by the way if the goal is that we're going to stop every illegal alien that tries to cross our border, if we set that up as a goal, that probably is an impossible goal. But what we can do is we can be far more effective, and we are becoming far more effective than we were in the past, in terms of intercepting and apprehending illegal aliens, including potential terrorists, that may be trying to cross our borders illegally.
DOBBS: The national policy, on whether to stop illegal aliens, is an interesting one, I think, historically because, in point of fact, we don't have a national policy that says that it is a priority to maintain the integrity of our borders. Otherwise we would not have so many crossing those borders, I think you would agree. But on the issue of terrorists who could cross our borders, you have done a great deal. Is there, in your judgment, an appetite on the part of Congress and this president to say, we need more people rather than one to every 2.5 miles of the Canadian board to protect it? Is there some, perhaps, overconfidence here right now on the part of our national policy makers in discussing the issue of security, real security on our borders?
BONNER: Well, look, I think that there is a renewed emphasis on the need to better secure and better control our borders. And I think the -- that's a commitment from the president, from secretary ridge and the creation of the department of homeland security is to organize ourselves better to be able to do a better job in terms of controlling our borders and preventing both illegal entry across those borders, the illegal drug smuggling and the like, including, the of course, the security issue that's now posed with respect to the potential that terrorists may attempt to cross through our borders.
So we're committed to doing that. I can tell you there's no question in my mind that we know we must do a better job, and we are organized better now since the creation of the department of homeland security, since bringing together and combining all the resources of every agency that has significant border responsibility into one new agency, which is called Customs and Border Protection, within the Department of Homeland Security. And I can tell you, our priority mission, Lou, is nothing less than doing everything we reasonably and responsibly can to prevent terrorists, or for that matter, terrorist weapons from entering our country.
And that means we've got to do and are doing a better job of controlling the borders. And that includes our southern border with Mexico as well as our northern border.
Now, how do we do it?
We do it by being smarter about using technology to help us control the border and leveraging our manpower. We do it also, by the way, by pushing our borders and our zone of security outward so our borders are our last line of defense, not our first line of defense. And so we've undertaken a number of initiatives including, for example, the container security initiative. And taking a look at people before they reach the United States border to determine whether they pose a threat.
DOBBS: Is there one way -- let me ask this another way.
Is it indicative, if you can reduce the number of illegal aliens coming across that border is that a fair statement about the rising security, the reason that we should be more confident in the security of our borders if those numbers start going down?
BONNER: Absolutely. It seems somewhat ironic, but the more we get control of our borders, we're going to see the apprehension rate actually drop. And that indicates that fewer people are trying to illegally enter through our country. And I must say, over the last several years, pursuing a national strategy for our borders, the border patrol has been getting a better control and grasp over certain parts of the border, for example, the southern -- the southern border with Mexico. But I'll tell you right now, we have a ways to go here. There's no question that we do not have as much control over our border -- and by that I mean the ability to detect and prevent -- yes.
DOBBS: I'm sorry, we're getting into into -- we're having time problems, I guess, is the way to put it. We thank you very much for sharing your time with us this evening. You have a daunting job, as we all know, and we certainly wish you all of the success as you raise the security of those borders to the north and south.
BONNER: I appreciate that, Lou. Good to be with you.
DOBBS: Good to have you. Robert Bonner.
Checking now on the national debt tonight, it stands at almost $6,600 trillion, up $1 million since Friday.
Coming up next, affirmative action upheld and shot down simultaneously by the Supreme Court.
CNN's legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin will be here to tell us how the law works on this landmark decision. And censorship in our classrooms, the need to be politically correct is changing your child's curriculum.
Why words benign at "wife" and "forefathers" are out in our school text. Diane Ravitch is the author of "The Language Police" and she joins us next. Stay with us.
Tonight Duane "Dog" Chapman is out of jail, but not out of trouble. He can't leave Mexico. Chapman's the bounty hunter who was arrested with his crew last week as they captured fugitive heir Andrew Luster. They now face charges of illegal deprivation of liberty in Mexico. Officials there say they won't place more severe kidnapping charges. Andrew Luster is now in prison in California where he will serve 124 years for rape, that conviction and sentencing in absentia.
As we reported, the United States Supreme Court ruled today the University of Michigan can give preferential treatment to minorities in the admission process. But the high court, seemingly confoundingly, ruled against the school's undergraduate program that awarded points to students because of their race.
CNN's legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, who is always the one we turn to sort out the legal machinations of this judiciary system is here to tell us what in the world of real impact of this is and what it really means.
Jeffrey, this looks contradictory at least on the face.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it may be -- it may be contradictory when you look deeper, too. I mean, this decision is -- this decision is truly perplexing. It raises almost as many questions as it answers. But just to state what the court said is that affirmative action, in general, is permissible. You may consider race, among other factors, when weighing admissions to a university. However, you cannot use numerical data, numerical points that treats everybody in the same race the same way. You need to have individual assessments of each person.
DOBBS: And if I were to ask you to put that in some kind of English for us and say, well, does it mean that you can give the same amount of weight to race as you can an SAT score or a grade point average?
What is the implication of the court's decision?
TOOBIN: Well, here's a declarative English sentence. I don't know.
DOBBS: That I understand.
TOOBIN: I see we're on the same wavelength. That is one of the many mysteries that comes out of this opinion. Clearly in the law school setting, which is the one the court approved, they did say race could be a plus factor. It could be considered, among other factors. But how important, which was, you know the gist of your question, remains somewhat unclear.
DOBBS: Isn't the supreme court's role in these cases to remove ambiguity and uncertain from the law?
TOOBIN: Well, you know, you would think. And Justice Scalia, in his dissenting opinion in the law school case, has a long paragraph where he says, look at all the questions that are left unresolved by you, my colleagues in the majority. You are creating more litigation more uncertainty than when we began this process. DOBBS: Do you...
TOOBIN: I'm sorry, go ahead.
DOBBS: Do you concur with Scalia?
TOOBIN: I think this is a tough one. I think this is really a can of worms that they opened up because, you know, there was an elegance, and a simplicity to the position advocated by Scalia, by justice -- Chief Justice Rehnquist, by Justice Thomas, which is you simply can't consider race, period. Race is an inadmissible consideration. That's what the constitution says. The court clearly rejected that position. But how much race can be considered is up in the air. Let me just give you one...
DOBBS: Quick example, if you will.
TOOBIN: ... one set of statistic. Quick example. The law school, which was approved, 300 new students next year, the -- and that was an OK procedure. In the undergraduates, they had 25,000 applicants last year. Each one of those presumably are now going to have to be analyzed individually. That's something the university really just didn't do previously. Now you're going to have to see apparently new admissions officers hired, new standards, a real mystery about how this is going to work out.
DOBBS: Well, Jeffrey, we appreciate you trying to unravel at least part of the mystery, and we appreciate those declarative sentences, even when they are uttered as "I don't know," which is often one of my utterances.
Jeffrey Toobin, thank you very much.
TOOBIN: OK, Lou.
DOBBS: A reminder to vote in tonight's poll. The question, how much of a factor should race play in college admissions? A great deal, some, minimal, none. You can vote on our web site, cnn.com/lou. We invite you to do so. In fact, we'll share the results later.
Still ahead, censorship in American classrooms is reaching new, disturbing levels. Diane Ravitch is the author of the book "The Language Police," and believe me, what she has to say will disturb you, and is it something we should all be thinking about.
And we'll share some of your e-mails. Your thoughts on the government's broken promises to this country's military veterans. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The list of words and phrases now banned in American classrooms is rising at an alarming rate. You may be surprised even though there are such words and phrases that would be banned in our classrooms. The need to be politically correct is causing book publishers to err on the side of caution. This is being kind when it comes to education.
A new book entitled "The Language Police" examines the impact of political correctness in our schools. Diane Ravitch is the author. Expert on our educational system joins us now. Thanks for being here.
DIANE RAVITCH, AUTHOR, "THE LANGUAGE POLICE": Great to be with you, Lou.
DOBBS: Let's just put this in real quickly, some of the words that you know are banned. Anchorman, for example.
RAVITCH: Right.
DOBBS: Adam and Eve, it must be replaced with Eve and Adam to demonstrate males do not take priority over females. Abnormal. Banned as demeaning to persons with disabilities. Actress. I mean, we're just in the few "A's." What in the world is going on?
RAVITCH: Well, what I found looking at -- publishers issue something called bias guidelines, and these are supposed to protect people's feelings from being hurt. And I compiled a list of over 500 everyday words that are banned. Some of these words are obsolete, like codger and croon (ph). But it seems so silly to say you can't say this, you can't say it on a test, you can't say it in a textbook.
And the idea is that if you say any of these words, like actress or businessman or salesman, or founding fathers or brotherhood...
DOBBS: Or forefathers.
RAVITCH: Yes, you'll offend someone because these are either sexist words or age-biased words, or someone will find them offensive.
DOBBS: Most parents, I would suspect, and I'm parent of four kids, they wouldn't like being referred to as kids, I have four children of various ages, some of them old enough not to be called kids, I guess all of them, but the idea that publishers, textbook publishers are deciding that words cannot be used and therefore in a book, and therefore probably not in the classroom, wringing the life from the language out of some sort of mysterious impulse toward political correctness, it's mind boggling.
RAVITCH: Well, you know, in New York state a year ago, we discovered that the state's Education Department was actually rewriting classic literature, dropping phrases and words because there were words like "God" that weren't allowed, even though it appeared in the works of Eli Wiesel, or Isaac Bashevis Singer. There were references to race and religion that were removed. This kind of thing goes on in testing frequently.
DOBBS: And our viewers may be astonished to find there are four -- basically four major publishing companies.
RAVITCH: There are four big companies that dominate about 75 percent of the market at this point.
DOBBS: And aside from McGraw-Hill, which is American?
RAVITCH: Well, there are three, one is Reed Elsevier, which is Dutch owned, one is Pearson, which is British owned. Until recently, Vivendi, which is a French company, was the fourth, and it's recently sold off its American holdings, which is basically Hoten Mifflin (ph). It's very tough for small publishers, it's very tough to have a book that's different from the textbooks that exist today.
DOBBS: Diane Ravitch, I wish we had more time. So we're going to invite you back. As a matter of fact, we're going to invite you back as often as you can be here, because this is a really important subject for our educational system, for all of us as parents, for all of us in this country.
RAVITCH: I would love to be here. Thank you, Lou.
DOBBS: Diane Ravitch, thank you. And the book is appropriately, "The Language Police."
When we continue, we'll share some of your thoughts and we'll have the results of tonight's poll. Please stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Preliminary results of our poll question. How much of a factor should race play in college admissions? Six percent say a great deal, 25 percent say some, 9 percent say minimal, 60 percent say none at all. You can continue to vote on our Web site, cnn.com/lou. We'll have the final results tomorrow night here.
Taking a look at some of your thoughts, on our segment with General David Grange, on the U.S. government's broken promises to veterans. Bobby Travis Garner of Texas said -- "I pray that this will produce action to correct the long overdue health issue for military retirees of World War II and the Korean War."
Lawrence Hall of Vocaville, California, a chief master sergeant in the Air Force. "It's obvious our federal government is doing the math. We're dying at the rate of 1,000 per day. Delay long enough; the problem will simply go away."
"Grange on Point," by the way, will be a weekly feature here, focusing on military and veterans' affairs.
Many of you wrote in to share your thoughts on our series on emerging diseases. Dominique Baytarian of Massachusetts said about Lyme disease -- "This emerging public health threat gets the least amount of public attention. Hopefully, more coverage on this disease will raise awareness of this devastating illness."
Melba Kendrick of Florida had a solution for the Lyme disease ticks carried by the runaway explosion in the deer population in this country -- "Dear Lou, with the deer population at 30 million, I think it would behoove us all to eat more venison."
And Meredith Wheaton of Massachusetts said, regarding the young girl banned from selling lemonade in Naples, Florida: "There are three things in this life that one should not miss: Listening to a grammar- school band, watching a small-town parade, and buying lemonade from a stand run by a 6-year-old girl. Some things are truly important."
We couldn't agree more.
We love hearing from you. Send us your thoughts. E-mail us at loudobbs@cnn.com.
Thanks for being with us tonight. For all of us here, good night from New York.
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