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Lou Dobbs Tonight

Three Americans Killed in Gaza; U.N. Considers Resolution on Iraq; Interview With DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe

Aired October 15, 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 Wednesday, October 15. Here now, Lou Dobbs.
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening.

Of course, you've just been watching the news, Wolf Blitzer reporting, the Staten Island ferry crashing into the dock, dozens of people injured, at least 12 passengers aboard the ferry killed in the accident. And we are, of course, going to be covering this story throughout the evening.

Turning now to international developments, radical Islamist terrorists today opened a new front in their global war of terror against this country. Terrorists killed three American security officers and wounded another as they were traveling in a U.S. Embassy convoy in Gaza. A remote-control bomb blew up the van shortly after the convoy crossed the border from Israel.

President Bush today blamed Palestinian officials for that attack, saying that they should have taken action against terrorists a long time ago.

Chris Burns reports now from Gaza -- Chris.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, a mangled ball of wreckage was what we saw, which had been an armor-plated Chevrolet SUV that had been carrying bodyguards for this U.S. convoy of U.S. diplomats. The Palestinian police who were escorting that convoy had just passed over a certain area when the explosion went off, destroying that SUV, killing three private guards and seriously injuring one other, the U.S. government demanding quick action.

There was strong condemnation from the Palestinian prime minister.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AHMED QUREIA, PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER: We condemn it strongly. We send all condolences to the families of those who has been killed there. And we hope for those who are injured that they will recover very soon. And we will investigate from our side this. From wherever, -- we condemn it -- from wherever it comes. And we will investigate the case.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNS: The Palestinian Authority has invited the FBI to join in, in the investigation. There was an incident, however, when the FBI showed up to start looking at the wreckage. There was a crowd that started throwing rocks at it, also throwing rocks at international journalists who came to the site, so a very ugly scene there, a lot of frustration among Palestinians, and anger as well.

The Palestinian Authority, however, under severe pressure from the Americans to take some kind of action. And tonight, as we speak, we're hearing from Palestinian security sources that they are moving quickly to start detaining a number of people, trying to track down who was responsible for this. The main Palestinian militant organizations are saying they had nothing to do with this. It could have been some free agents involved -- Lou.

DOBBS: Chris, thank you -- Chris Burns reporting from Gaza.

Tonight, the United Nations Security Council began to consider a new resolution on Iraq that would include a timetable for elections and a Constitution. U.S. officials are optimistic that the council will support the resolution, after concessions by France, Germany and Russia, three countries that have consistently opposed U.S. policy.

Richard Roth reports now from the United Nations -- Richard.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Lou, this may be a long evening, but the U.S. is confident that they have the votes here at the Security Council to pass a resolution on Iraq.

The U.S. believes it has the nine required votes. The only issue is really how many abstentions from the permanent members, from France and Russia, those who have been disagreeing with Washington steadily on the Iraq issue. The big concern is the timetable. The resolution says that, by December 15, the Iraqi Governing Council has to come up with a schedule for the writing of the Constitution and the drafting of elections.

However, the French and others have wanted to see a firmer, swifter timetable. Countries such as China have filed objections.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WANG GUANGYA, CHINESE AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS: We feel that it's not -- it has not met our expectations. If more role could be given to the United Nations and if there is a clear language which indicates that there will be an early return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people, this certainly would be welcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Consultations behind closed doors will begin in about an hour. But the U.S. and Britain don't expect a total unanimous vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMYR JONES PARRY, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS: I think unanimity is beyond expectation. But getting the highest number short of unanimity is what we'll try and do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Nobody expects Syria to accept this resolution. The U.S. appears to be trying to isolate France once again, honing in on Russia and China and Germany to get their support. And some feel they may have it -- Lou.

DOBBS: Richard, thanks -- Richard Roth, our senior U.N. correspondent.

As Richard just reported, the U.N. Security Council tonight is discussing Iraq and its transition to democracy. Remarkably, some of the Security Council members making judgments about the future of democracy in Iraq are themselves authoritarian countries, better known for abusing the rights of their citizens than voicing even concern for human rights.

Kitty Pilgrim is here now and has the report for us -- Kitty.

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, the U.N. Security Council includes China, Syria, Pakistan. It's rife with one-party states, others one by the military. Well, talking about democracy is fine, but some United Nations member countries are run by totalitarian governments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM (voice-over): The tone has been lofty, the rhetoric high-minded, but some find it ironic nondemocratic countries at the U.N. should see fit to lecture the United States on democracy.

JOEL MOWBRAY, AUTHOR, "DANGEROUS DIPLOMACY": It would be nice if the United Nations spent half as much time making sure that its own members were democratic, as they now seem to have this sudden concern for Iraq. And the United States, of course, I mean, we're the people who created the first truly free society in modern history.

ROTH: Only a week ago, insiders were saying the chances of passing a resolution were hardly assured. Even yesterday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was still being less than sunny.

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: Obviously, the current resolution does represent a major shift in the thinking of the coalition.

ROTH: Some say, in the better debate over Iraq, objectivity has been loss.

ABRAHAM SOFAER, SR. FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION: Oh, I think Kofi Annan has been less objective on this issue than ever -- than I've ever seen him. We took the occupying power role. We wanted that role. Now, the U.N. approved that role in its last resolution. And I think it's very important that Kofi Annan come to grips with that, accept that and go on from there.

ROTH: Some see perpetual irony at the U.N., citing glaring anomalies that defy logic.

NILE GARDINER, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: The United Nations Commission on Human Rights headed by one of the worst abusers in the world of human rights, Libya. Also, Libya is a major sponsor of international terrorism. It is a dangerous, rogue state. And this, I think, represents everything that is wrong with the United Nations.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: And despite talk of democratic institutions, not many seem willing to pay for it. The United States has offered to pay $20 billion for reconstruction. But so far, so-called concerned countries have only talked about $2 billion for a donor's conference in Madrid -- Lou.

DOBBS: Kitty, thank you -- Kitty Pilgrim.

Well, turning now to that crash of the Staten Island ferry in New York City, these are live pictures that you're looking at now. We are confirming five dead in the crash, dozens of others injured.

We're going to go now to Jason Carroll for the very latest on this crash.

Jason, give us, first, your understanding of the casualty count in this crash.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely.

At this point, police are telling us that at least 10 people at this point are confirmed dead. We're going to be able to get some more updated numbers for you in just a few moments, as the police commissioner and the mayor begin a press conference again, which is expected to start just a few minutes from now.

Let me just set the scene for where I am. If you take a look right behind me, you can see a number of emergency crews, firefighters, police officers who are gathered here. The ferry is beyond the brick building that you see there. One eyewitness who I spoke to just a short while ago, who came down here actually looking for his son told me that what he saw as he walked up to the ferry was a gaping hold on the side. He said, it was the size of at least one city bus.

Firefighters out here tell us that many, many people are injured, again, not a confirmed number at this point. But we are waiting for the police commissioner, where we will get some updated numbers in terms of injuries. But we're told that people at this point are severely injured. I'm told that the mayor is speaking at this point.

Let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (R), MAYOR OF NEW YORK: ... of people were killed and injured. What we know at the moment, there are 10 confirmed deaths and 34 people have been removed to a hospital. There are multiple hospitals involved. Some of the injuries are serious. Some of the victims are stable and should recover fully. We cannot, at this point, speculate on exactly what happened. And the numbers can change, as the Fire Department, Police Department and OEM continue their recovery and rescue operations.

If anybody has a question about a family member, please call 311 and they will connect you to the family assistance center. They will take your name. And, as we identify people in the hospital, you will be called back. If you normally take this ferry and were not on it or if you took it and you got off safely, please call your family. Assure them that you are safe, so that they don't burden the 311 and family assistance operators with needless calls. If you normally take the ferry at any time, please call your family.

DOBBS: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg telling citizens of New York, if they suspect that they have a family member or a loved one on board the ferry that has crashed into the pier there, the concrete pier, at Staten Island, of how to contact authorities and to receive word on the identification of those casualties in this crash.

As we have just reported, 10 confirmed deaths, dozens of others injured and transported to a hospital. And we will continue to follow this story, this breaking story, throughout the evening.

Next here: China has launched successfully its entry into the space race and into the history books more than four decades after the first manned missions into space. Miles O'Brien will be here with the story.

And Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe joins us tonight. We'll be talking about the race for the White House.

And our special report tonight, "A Crowded Nation," and a water supply in jeopardy. Bill Tucker will report.

Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: Tonight, parts of this country's water supply are in danger. In our special report "A Crowded Nation," we examine a new and rising threat to the nation's drinking water supply: urban sprawl. The boom in our population and the rapid growth of cities are contaminating our most precious resource.

Bill Tucker is here now and has the report -- Bill.

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, by some measures, the overall quality of the water in most of the country has improved in recent decades. But the quality of the water is only part of an increasingly complex problem.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New Yorkers use 1.3 billion gallons of water a day. That's an enormous amount of water.

TUCKER (voice-over): That's enough water to fill the Empire State Building four times over. New York City's addressing its distribution problem by building a third massive tunnel to deliver water from its upstate reservoirs to the city.

WARD: All cities are struggling with water supply from a long- term perspective, as we've seen with climate change, water supplies in terms of drought, in terms of distribution, has been a huge problem.

TUCKER: Alarmingly, the parts of the country showing the fastest population growth are in the West and particularly the Southwest, where there are already critical shortages of water.

ROBERT HIRSCH, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY: Locally, or in certain regions of the country, we are depleting our water supplies. There are areas of Texas, Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Southern California where, in fact, we're really mining the water that's available in the ground in our nation's aquifers.

TUCKER: In practical terms, that means, for millions of people, water conservation will no longer be an emergency measure, but a way of life.

JACK HOFFBUHR, AMERICAN WATER WORKS ASSN.: As we see more and more population, more and more development, clearly, we're going to have to have water resources to serve these people and future generations. So now's the time to begin with long-range planning that includes water conservation, that includes water reuse, and, in the future, will include the use of new technology to treat water they're we're currently not using.

TUCKER: Thirty years ago, when the Clean Water Act was passed, only 30 percent of our water was safe for fishing or swimming. That amount has increased to 55 percent. And the source of pollutants has changed.

Ironically, it is no longer our power plants and factories which are primary culprits, but runoff. As our population crowds our cities and paves over open land, water no longer seeps into the ground. It runs off our streets, through our storm drains, carrying our urban dirt with it. And from our suburbs and from our farmland, that runoff carries pollution in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and silt.

PAUL SCHWARTZ, CLEAN WATER ACTION: The spread of the population from our urban cores to our suburban and exurban, meaning sort of sprawled out communities in what used to be farm fields, is threatening our rivers through what I like to call death by 1,000 cuts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNS: And, we should note, the Clean Water Act does not create standards for drinking water. Lou, amazingly, standards are for fishing and recreational use.

DOBBS: Bill, thanks very much -- Bill Tucker.

Well, tomorrow night, in our special report "A Crowded Nation," we take a look at the drain on this nation's food supplies, too many people, overfished oceans and overdeveloped farmland threatening our national food supply -- tomorrow night. Please join us.

Tonight's thought is on the future of a crowded nation. "Overcrowding can be corrected only by inducing people not to crowd. And the environment will continue to deteriorate until polluting practices are abandoned" -- psychologist B.F. Skinner.

Intel, the world's largest computer chip maker, predicts China will overtake the United States as the largest consumer of personal computers by 2010. Intel, by the way, has invested a quarter of a billion in manufacturing plants in China. And in recent comments, Chairman Andy Grove warned that the United States is on the verge of losing its dominance in technology to other countries, thanks, he says, in large part to the outsourcing of jobs overseas.

Intel, incidentally, will have exported more than 3,000 of those jobs over the course of the next two years.

The official Chinese news agency has just reported that China's first manned spacecraft has reentered the atmosphere after its 21-hour mission in space. China has now become the third nation to put a man in space, following Russia and the United States.

Our space correspondent, Miles O'Brien, joins us now form CNN Center in Atlanta -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Lou, according to that same Chinese news agency, they have seen the parachute and they have communicated with the so-called taikonaut. He says he's feeling fine.

Space just got a little more crowded. China's liftoff into that elite club of nations to send people off the planet appeared to go off without a hitch from launch all the way to landing. Taikonaut Yang Liwei, whose name was kept secret until the last minute, strapped into the Shenzhou spacecraft. It means divine vessel.

And, by all accounts, the 38-year-old fighter pilot had a divine trip. He orbited the planet 14 times in all. Now, as he whizzed overhead, he unfurled a Chinese flag. He ate chicken and rice. He told mission controllers he felt great. He called the view splendid, said hello to all the peoples of the world and then he took a three- hour snooze.

Now, take a look at this of the Shenzhou 5. It was captured by an amateur by the name of George Maley in Oklahoma last night. This dot streaking across the sky is Shenzhou 5, a little piece of history there. The capsule is built largely with the Russian Soyuz design. For Yang, the trip home began somewhere over North America, when the rockets slowed the Shenzhou down just enough for it to begin falling out of orbit. All went well, as best we can tell. We hope it has touched down gently. We do know the parachutes did in fact deploy and he's feeling fine, landing in Inner Mongolia as we speak.

Now, earlier, I spoke with the other two humans in space, the crew of the International Space Station, astronaut Ed Lu and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YURI MALENCHENKO, RUSSIAN COSMONAUT: I am glad to have somebody else in space instead of me and Ed. And also, I know it was great work by thousands and thousands of people from China. I congratulate all of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER: Now, the Chinese, as you know, Lou, say this is just the start. They might very well seek to join the International Space Station partnership. They might build a station of their own. Or they might very well make good on a vow to establish a permanent colony on the moon, the sky no longer the limit for the Chinese -- Lou.

DOBBS: No longer the limit, three nations now leading the way into space.

Miles O'Brien, we thank you very much.

While China joins the United States and Russia with its first manned spaceflight, it still trails those two countries in use of satellites. The Goddard Space Flight Center says Russia has now about 1,300 satellites in orbit, the United States 700, China, just about 21, all told, an estimated 2,500 functioning satellites orbiting the Earth.

We'll have more on China's historic spaceflight later in this program. I'll be talking with Joan Johnson-Freese, who heads the department of national security studies at the Naval War College. We'll be talking about the geopolitical implications of China's entry into the space race as well.

And this update on a story we brought you last night. An FDA advisory panel today recommended that the 11-year-old ban against silicone breast implants be lifted. That panel voted 9-6 to lift the ban, with conditions, including regular doctor visits and a mandatory national registry for patients.

Coming up next: President Bush has a commanding lead in the fund-raising race for 2004. Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe will join me next to tell us how he and the Democratic hopefuls plan to compete.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) DOBBS: Turning to national politics, the race for the White House well under way. So are the candidate's fund-raising efforts. Incidentally, all the candidates have until midnight tonight to file their third-quarter fund-raising reports. But here's what we know so far.

Howard Dean leading the Democratic field with almost $15 million this quarter, bringing his total raised so far to $25 million. To put that in some perspective, his $15 million beats the party's third- quarter record, that set by President Clinton in 1995. And Dean's $25 million total matches Vice President Al Gore's at this point in 2000.

But President Bush is blowing the doors off his rivals with his fund-raising, $85 million so far. But are those dollars translating into popular appeal? Howard Dean, well, the answer seems to be yes. Dean has a solid lead in the latest New Hampshire and Iowa polls. However, the recently started campaign of Wesley Clark has been doing well in national polls, showing him in the lead among Democratic voters.

Fund-raising is certainly something our next guest knows a few things about, Terry McAuliffe often credited with helping to secure President Clinton's '96 reelection by raising hundreds of millions of dollars for the party. He's now chairman of the Democratic National Committee and joins us Washington, D.C.

Terry, good to have you with us.

TERRY MCAULIFFE, DNC CHAIRMAN: Lou, great to be with you again.

DOBBS: Howard Dean looks like he is for real. He's in the lead. He looks like he's -- there's not going to be a close second in fund- raising. Your thoughts?

MCAULIFFE: Well, he's doing great.

And what he has tapped into is the Internet. He's bringing a lot of new, energized, young voters into the political process. It's very exciting. When you raise money on the Internet, Lou, as you know, there's no cost to it. It's 100 percent matchable. The federal government matches every check up to $250.

But all our candidates are raising enough money to be able to get their message out. We're about to head into our primary season. We're about 100 days away. It's going to get very competitive. Money is only one barometer. But I can tell you, Howard Dean is doing a great job, bringing a lot of new people into the party, just as the national party. We just had the best nine months in the history of our party. I just announced that the other day.

DOBBS: Right.

And looking to 2004, with nine candidates now in the field, you've got to be excited, because you've got a diversity of view. You've got all of those perspectives in front of the American voter. You pretty excited about that, Terry? MCAULIFFE: I am.

I say, Lou, if you ever want to have fun, just be chairman of the DNC for one day. We are a very big, very broad party. But it's our diversity is what makes us great. I think we'll have a nominee by around March 10, 2004. And that will then give us eight months to go one-on-one against George Bush. We have released a poll today, as you probably saw, 46-42, a Democrat, a generic Democrat, leading President Bush.

ABC, "Washington Post" Paul today, we're now beating George Bush by five points, outside the margin of error. So it's these economic issues, Lou, that are concerning Americans. And they don't think George Bush is taking us in the right way. They want a Democrat back in to create jobs. So I'm very excited at where we are today.

DOBBS: How concerned are you, Terry, in that context, about a 3.3 percent GDP growth rate, in the second quarter, the likelihood that we're going to see a significant improvement over that for the third quarter? Also, a jobless number that seems to be improving -- we're going to see more over the next few weeks, certainly -- and also a rising market, are those concerning you about the economic context?

MCAULIFFE: Well, Lou, listen, if George Bush was out creating jobs and the economy roaring, I would be as happy as anyone else. I want to see people work in this country.

We proved, '93 through 2000, when we created 22 million new jobs, it's the Democrats who want to see job growth. But I will disagree with you, Lou. I don't see the job picture getting any better. In the month of September, George Bush heralded that 50,000 new jobs were created. But, at the same time, as you know, 250,000 people just gave up looking for a job. They walked away from the job market. So that's a net loss of 200,000.

The issue is, the stock market could go up and the wealthier will be able to get more wealth, but he's not creating jobs. The issue is going to be in the 2004 election. Who is going to be able to create an economic engine to get people working again? You've seen 2.8 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. White-collar jobs are now moving overseas. He's the first president since Herbert Hoover, as you know, to lose jobs every single month since he's been in office.

(CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: On that subject, Terry, let me ask you, I don't hear any one of these nine candidates talking about the outsourcing of jobs. By the way, on unemployment, Terry, I wasn't referring to the unemployment rate for September. I was referring to the initial claims for jobless benefits, that have shown a retreat to levels for the month of February. So that is an improvement, I agree with you about the unemployment rate for the rate of September.

MCAULIFFE: But, as you know, on the claims, people have now exhausted their claims. They have totally moved out and they're not entitled to any claims anymore. (CROSSTALK)

MCAULIFFE: So, listen, there are 10 million people out of work in this nation today. It's clear that George Bush has not created one job. He's the first president every single month to lose jobs.

DOBBS: Terry?

MCAULIFFE: Lou.

DOBBS: The question I had about, why aren't any of your nine candidates talking about the importance of outsourcing those jobs, about the fundamental flaws in trade policy in this country?

(CROSSTALK)

MCAULIFFE: Well, I've got to say, Lou, that you did not watch your own debate on CNN the other night that we had Phoenix, Arizona, where we spend a good amount of time talking about trade agreements. And there is general agreement on the Democratic side that, when we negotiate these trade agreements, we've got to do them in a manner so that the workers here in the United States of America are protected.

But there are serious issues. Telemarketers today -- I don't care what you're calling about, customer service for Whirlpool or whatever, you're getting India on the phone. People are very concerned. These jobs are not here in America. And a lot of these jobs aren't coming back. So we have been talking about trade policies. The president's negotiating CAFTA now, the Central America Free Trade Agreement. We got to make sure that we're creating an economic engine here in this country. We did it, Lou. We did it in 1993 through 2000. And we can do it again.

DOBBS: Well, Terry, let's talk about immigration law. From what I've seen so far, the Democratic Party is talking about, in most quarters, amnesty for illegal aliens, talking about basically a blank check to cross our borders. And the unions in this country have a sort of weird, schizophrenic position, trying to protect jobs and provide security for their workers and, at the same time, inviting more low-cost labor across the border. How do you square that up?

MCAULIFFE: I know you're going to have a discussion later on immigration policy.

But the Democrats believe, listen, we need to make sure the people who do come in this country, who work hard, who pay their taxes, are entitled to the benefits of other citizens in the country. But it's not -- closing our borders is not the answer to job creation in our nation. It's creating an economic engine that's creating jobs, so that we can have jobs for the people in this country and to bring -- we are a land of immigrants. We want people to come into the country.

(CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: Terry, wait a minute. We're not a land of illegal immigrants, are we?

MCAULIFFE: No, we're not of illegal immigrants.

But what I'm trying to distinction is the people who do come into this country, who come in. They pay their taxes. They work hard. They ought to be entitled to benefits. But the problem with the Bush administration is not solely an immigration policy. It's a lack of job creation policy. That is the fundamental difference. We proved we could create 22 million new jobs under the Clinton/Gore administration.

We can do that again. It isn't just tax cuts for the richest. We need to put money into the hands of the small business to go out and create jobs, money into the hands of ordinary hard-working citizens, who will create an economic engine than will create jobs. That's what the Democratic position is. We're for changing the tax code. We need, I believe, a total reform of our tax system today.

DOBBS: Terry, you and I agree about that. We just probably disagree about how to construct it. Thanks a lot.

(CROSSTALK)

MCAULIFFE: Valid point, Lou. Great to be with you.

DOBBS: Terry McAuliffe, good to have you here.

MCAULIFFE: Thank you.

DOBBS: Coming up next: "Face-Off," immigration. One expert says, send them home. Another says, illegal immigrants fill an important role in our society. They're illegal either way. We'll hear two very different views on the issue next.

Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: In tonight's "Face-Off": the impact of immigration on this country's resources, its society.

We're joined by Dan Stein. He is the executive director of the Federation For American Immigration Reform. He says illegal immigrants cost the system far more than they give back. We're also joined by Muzaffar Chishti. He is the director of the Migration Policy Institute at New York University School of Law, and says immigrants pay far more in taxes than they receive in services.

Gentlemen, good to have you with us.

(CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: Muzaffar, let's begin with a very simple issue. Illegal aliens are first and foremost illegal. Why is this country having such a difficult time coming to terms with controlling our borders and enforcing the law? MUZAFFAR CHISHTI, DIRECTOR, MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE: I think we should control our borders and we should also enforce the law and we should do a better job with both of those things.

But I think the present dilemma about illegal immigration is that, as a country, we haven't come to terms with the reality of the labor market. It's true that there are about seven to eight million people who are undocumented. But the fact is that these are hard- working people, working in some of the most important and needed jobs in our country.

And there's a demand for them. And the simple truth, we should have a policy which actually quite comes to terms with that and, therefore, gives legal status to these people, so that they could ...

DOBBS: Didn't we do that in 1986?

CHISHTI: Obviously, the reality of the labor market has changed since then.

We have a demand for certain jobs, for which these people are needed. And it's important to have them working for us legally, so that we can enforce their rights and they can become more open members of our society.

DOBBS: Dan Stein, Muzaffar makes an excellent point, needed labor, and let bygones be bygones. Why not?

DAN STEIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FAIR: Lou, I know you have been exploring this issue in some depth. And I think it's pretty obvious to an awful lot of people, probably including yourself, that immigration ultimately is about redistribution.

We're putting money into the pockets of immigrants who send money back to their home countries or some employers and we're taking it out of the hands of middle-class taxpayers, hard-working Americans, who wind up picking up the cost for this labor subsidy, for education, housing, health care. We have immigration that's simply out of control.

And after 9/11, you would think something would be done about it. But we have two political parties that are split. Republicans want their cheap labor. The Democrats say, well, look, we can get some cheap votes this way, because immigrants tend to vote heavily Democrat. And they won't do anything about what 90 percent of the American people want, which is a timeout in overall immigration.

DOBBS: Dan Stein, Muzaffar, has just said the unthinkable. Both parties have economic interests in pursuing borders with open policies, instead of enforcing migration and immigration law. What do you think?

CHISHTI: The interesting thing about this debate, this is as old as our nation. People will tell you that George Washington said that we have too many people in this country and we probably don't need anyone more than a few skilled people. (CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: I must say, I never read George Washington on immigration. But when we're talking about a million people a year crossing our borders, it becomes quite a different contextual issue.

CHISHTI: We don't have a million people crossing our border illegally and staying here every year.

We have the majority of our immigration is legal. That's the dominant story about immigration. We have had this little distraction about illegal immigration, as if that is the dominant story. About 90 percent of our immigration is legal. It's managed. And it's driven by family unification, jobs that employers sponsor people for, and by refugee admission.

Illegal immigration is certainly a part of it, but it's a very small part of it. And we have to recognize that illegal immigration is a reflection about the demand of our labor market. And the best way to respond to that is to have a policy that comes to terms with that and gives these people a status, so that they will actually not be exploited in the way that many of them are.

DOBBS: Dan, Muzaffar has quite a different construction of our immigration flow than certainly I have read. What is your judgment?

STEIN: Lou, over half of the -- quote -- "legal immigration" flow today is the result of past illegal immigration.

But if you take a look at our domestic priorities, Lou, what you realize is, immigration, as it's currently practiced, doesn't meet any of them. Is immigration making crime go down? No. It's increasing it. What about overcrowding in our schools? Whole -- entire public school systems are being overwhelmed. Is immigration increasing the water tables? No, we're paving over the prime farmland as Americans flee out into exurbia, trying to flee the overcrowded housing stock in Miami, New York, Los Angeles, etcetera.

And if you look at labor market, the evidence is clear. Many immigrants come. Don't get me wrong. There are certainly some immigrants who expand our productive potential and who may be economically vital, but it's a very small number. The vast majority come. They work for lower wagers. They have very low overhead. They are substitutes for American workers, with the net effect that we're creating a two-tier, hourglass society.

We have people who manage capital, lawyers, politicians, members of the media on the top. And now we have for Americans with two years of college or less diminishing job opportunities, while we send jobs overseas, while we send money overseas. And now we're bringing in all this unskilled labor. And we have absolutely no idea why the political parties will not have the guts to address the fact that, yes, if we're going to have immigrants, fine. But how many and how are we going to enforce the rules?

Otherwise, we're headed -- we're going to be as crowded at China at the rate we're going. And the housing industry may like that and Wall Street might like it, but the American people don't.

DOBBS: Muzaffar?

CHISHTI: Dan, as usual, is jumbling up a lot of issues into one.

We can't blame all the ills of our society on immigration. The schools in this country have been failing us for a long time. They started failing us much before the current high levels of immigration. And there are failed schools in certain parts of the country where immigration is extremely low. We need to improve our school system. And we can't blame immigrants for it.

The housing situation in New York, Lou, you and I both lived in New York in the '70s, when immigration was low. That was not exactly the heyday of New York City. The real estate market in New York City in the '90s, when we had high immigration, was a buzzing phenomena, compared to the dead-end real estate market that we had in the '70s. To me, that's positive. That's not negative news.

DOBBS: The issue -- and each of you, Muzaffar, Dan, you have talked about immigration. Now, personally, I have, frankly, if it's our national policy to bring in one million immigrants a year, legally, that is a decision of our government, our elected representatives. It's us shaping our society, making decisions about the working class, the middle class, average American family, how he or she is going to have a work and provide for their families.

But where we are de facto turning over each of the issues, education, health care, our minimum wage, who will have jobs just by ignoring an issue strikes me as totally unreasonable and irrational.

CHISHTI: No. I think that's exactly what I'm saying. I don't think we should ignore it. What we have done is effectively give people the avenue, the only avenue of coming to the United States was come illegally for some of these jobs. We should remedy that by a policy change which would allow them to do the same jobs that they do now, very important jobs, work hard, but do it through legal channels. And then we could also

(CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: You're suggesting amnesty?

CHISHTI: We're suggesting some form of a mechanism by which they have an adjustment which they can earn by having worked in this country for a certain number of years.

(CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: Dan Stein, you get the last word.

STEIN: Our political system has a hard time dealing with -- when you have narrow, cramped, special interest lobbies that want to fight for their own agenda, the general public in our political system, its interest tends to get abandoned. And we have had 20 years of commissions saying we need secure I.D., interior immigration enforcement, employer sanctions for people who hire illegal aliens.

And those provisions are always being defeated in Congress by cheap labor interests, ethnic lobbies that are very highly organized. And that's why we haven't been able to get the job done. But people are going to have to demand change or, I'm telling you, this country is headed way down the wrong path.

DOBBS: On a final note, it's extraordinary to me, as you have constructed, whether Democrats or Republicans, whether business or organized labor, the inconsistencies and the contradictions are extraordinary.

Unions in this country supporting amnesty, the rights of illegal aliens, while, at the same time, failing to give representation to working, middle-class families in the country. And that's why they're down to 8 percent of representation.

CHISHTI: With due respect, they're not, actually. They're now beginning to represent some of the most vulnerable population of the country, which is these workers who are working in substandard conditions.

DOBBS: They're trying.

CHISHTI: They're trying.

(CROSSTALK)

CHISHTI: And they're recognizing the importance of immigration and recognizing

(CROSSTALK)

STEIN: They're embracing the forces of their own demise, trying to represent illegal workers, because more illegal workers will just replace them.

DOBBS: Dan Stein, Muzaffar Chishti, we thank you both for being with us.

CHISHTI: Thank you.

DOBBS: Please come back soon.

And that brings us to the subject of our poll tonight. What do you believe is the impact of illegal aliens on our economy and our society? Do you believe it is positive? Do you believe it is negative? Do you believe it has ultimately no impact? Cast your vote at CNN.com/Lou. We'll have results for you later here in the show.

Let's take a look now at some of your thoughts, writing in on this important issue and others.

From Riverside, Rhode Island: "Mr. Dobbs, you exemplify excellent journalism in your segments on special reports. It's so refreshing to view responsible coverage on emerging issues that are impacting our society and economy" -- that from Joan Bowden.

From Lansdale, Pennsylvania: "Again, Lou, you and your staff have put together an excellent body of work lately. Subjects that can be loaded with hype and pandering have been treated with balance. You folks are doing a public service, while most shows are shouting at each other or covering Kobe, Peterson, or the latest reality show phenom" -- Dave Fahey.

And from Tacoma, Washington: "Lou, the U.S. cannot handle the world's poor anymore. Here where I live, schools are overcrowded, social services are strained, and hospitals and clinics are forced to take care of the many illegal immigrants who have become accustomed to free services. We must do something now to control the borders or our cities could the next Bombay or Beijing, polluted, overcrowded and without the quality of life we all deserve" -- that from Jo Anne Miller.

From Cypress, Texas: "It seems to me that yourself and your program have a lot of xenophobia against immigrants, but especially for Mexican people, even though they may be in this country legally" -- that from E. Montes.

Well, we realize that some people will be calling us names as we report on these tough and important issues, including our porous national borders, the subject of illegal aliens, and the export of American jobs. Recently, I've had CEOs call me everything but a communist when we talk about the export of jobs and excess of executive compensation. Liberals call us xenophobic or racist occasionally when we report on illegal immigration.

But these issues are too important to working middle-class Americans, to all of us, to continue to be ignored. So, call us what you will. Here we go. We love hearing from you. E-mail us at LouDobbs@CNN.com.

Coming up next: China says its first astronaut has just landed safely after a 21-hour mission in space. We have some pictures just coming into CNN now of the capsule on arrival. A leading expert joins us next for more on what this mission means to the future of the space race and U.S.-China relation.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: China's official news agency has just reported its first ever manned spacecraft has now successfully landed, these pictures just coming in, this 21-hour flight obviously successful, the capsule landing safely. The pilot, the astronaut, is reported to be in safe and good condition.

Joining me now to talk about the implications of China's venture into space is Joan Johnson-Freese. She heads the Department of National Security Studies at the Naval War College.

Good to have you here.

JOAN JOHNSON-FREESE, NAVAL WAR COLLEGE: Thank you for having me.

DOBBS: This has got to be a wonderful moment for the Chinese. The excitement has got to be tremendous. How important is it, in your judgment, for the nation of China?

JOHNSON-FREESE: It's huge.

The Chinese that I've talked to today are absolutely over the top with excitement and celebration. And it's certainly reminiscent of the kind of feelings that we had with the first Apollo landing and with the subsequent moon landings and the shuttle launches. So they are absolutely overjoyed.

DOBBS: Amongst those people in the space community with whom I've spoken, there's a little jostling for position, saying, well, great, they've accomplished something that we did 40 years ago. There's just a touch of competitiveness, which suggests, to me at least, that some people are eager to start a space race. Is this the onset of that?

JOHNSON-FREESE: Well, at least in the manned field. I think there's a new race for second place.

What China did today was certainly a great accomplishment. And I don't mind to underestimate it at all. But U.S. space technology and capabilities are such that we are unreachable. What China has done is leapfrogged over Europe, Japan, India, and is now battling it out for second.

DOBBS: We may be unreachable, but we're riding piggyback with Russians to Space Station Alpha, because our technology isn't working so hot.

JOHNSON-FREESE: Well, I think we need to separate out here our space capabilities generally, in terms of perhaps looking at the military capabilities, and the manned space program.

And it's important to remember that, even at the height of Apollo, public opinion was basically very much -- very supportive. But when it comes to priority rankings for government spending, space comes in dead last. It's viewed as expendable. So China now has the political will that, quite frankly, we haven't had since Apollo.

DOBBS: And Apollo, we have to reach back 30 years, almost 30 years. We also have to look at that technology in the shuttle, which is basically 25 years old. There isn't as much distance between China and the U.S. space program as many people would like in manned spaceflight.

JOHNSON-FREESE: In manned space.

DOBBS: And that's got to be disturbing a few people, including yourself, because it has implications, I would think, geopolitically, militarily as well. JOHNSON-FREESE: It's interesting.

I think, after this first launch, there really has not been a lot of public reaction in the United States. In fact, all the people I've talked to about it here today in New York, it's been: That's interesting. How about those Yankees?

DOBBS: You bet.

JOHNSON-FREESE: But I think, after three or four launches, people are going to say, well, now, what's going on? China does launch after launch and has plans and a program. And we're still waiting to get the shuttle off the ground again. We're still waiting for those high-level policy directives.

Are we ceding our leadership in manned space to the Chinese? And that will be uncomfortable.

DOBBS: We have already ceded our leadership in the most commercial aspect. And that is satellites. In launch and manufacture, we have been overtaken, once dominant. Any thought there that, with new competition, that we'll ever reemerge as dominant?

JOHNSON-FREESE: Again, I think, in terms of our technical capabilities, for the private satellite industry, if the market is there, we can do it better than anybody. But with the market down and with the situation in terms of export controls, it's very difficult for our aerospace industry to compete internationally.

DOBBS: And the space race, do you think it will materialize, given the successful venture of the Chinese?

JOHNSON-FREESE: Well, I think, in terms of manned space, yes. In terms of overall capabilities, the U.S. is in the Olympics and they're playing in the backyard.

DOBBS: I kind of like the idea of the space race. Let's go get 'em.

JOHNSON-FREESE: Well, I think we all do if it reinvigorates our own program.

DOBBS: Let's head for the moon. Let's head for Mars. Let's get back to business.

JOHNSON-FREESE: And let's do it together, yes.

DOBBS: Joan, thank you very much for being with us.

JOHNSON-FREESE: Thank you.

DOBBS: Appreciate it.

Coming up next: Christine Romans with the market. We'll have that up here next a lot of other stuff as well.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: The results of tonight's poll. The question: What do you believe is the impact of illegal aliens on our economy and our society? Sixty percent of you said positive; 34 percent said negative; 6 percent said no impact.

Well, some impact on Wall Street today. Stock prices pulled back slightly after setting new highs earlier. The Dow lost 10 points, the Nasdaq down 4, the S&P 500 down 3.

Christine Romans now with the market -- Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: IBM might add 10,000 jobs next year.

DOBBS: All right.

ROMANS: Yes, says that information...

DOBBS: In this country?

ROMANS: Well, we'll see. They don't say where they are, but 10,000 jobs at least. It sees stabilization in information technology. And profit and sales rose at IBM.

The strong earnings news continues. General Motors reported a profit. Financial earnings have been strong; 84 S&P 500 companies have reported. And profit growth, Lou, now 17.2 percent.

DOBBS: All right.

ROMANS: Good news for Merrill Lynch employees. The two-year-old pay freeze has been lifted for workers who earn less than $100,000, two years of pay freeze for the rank-and-file. But, oh, Lou, it still pays to be a CEO. In the first half of the year, CEO base pay grew 4.3 percent. But cash bonuses surged 26 percent.

And among the CEOs getting restricted stock, that payout surged 73 percent. That more than offsets any drop in the value of options granted. The median restricted stock payout, Lou, $2.3 million for American CEOs.

Meanwhile, two Bank One executives lost their jobs today in a purged tied to the mutual fund sandal. And that scandal as yet has not dented investor optimism on Wall Street. Investors Intelligence says 52 percent are bullish, less than 20 percent are bearish on Wall Street.

DOBBS: Less than how many?

ROMANS: Less than 20 percent.

DOBBS: That's pretty good. When's the last time it was that low? ROMANS: 1987, April of 1987.

So the contrarians say, watch out. But the bulls say, it just shows that the bullish sentiment, the momentum continues in this market.

DOBBS: 1987, huh?

ROMANS: It was a good year.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: ... a year up from 1987, if you held on the whole time.

DOBBS: Absolutely, coincidences in history. Thanks, Christine -- Christine Romans.

That's our show for tonight. Thanks for being with us.

Tomorrow here, on our special report "A Crowded Nation," we take a look at this country's declining food supply. In two decades, we will be able to produce only enough food to feed ourselves at our present rate of population growth. And "Grange On Point." Tomorrow, General David Grange joins us. We'll be focusing on why the United States needs more troops in Iraq, with all of those divisions in Korea and Europe.

Please join us tomorrow. For all of us here, thanks for being with us tonight. Good night from New York.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





on Iraq; Interview With DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe>


Aired October 15, 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 Wednesday, October 15. Here now, Lou Dobbs.
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening.

Of course, you've just been watching the news, Wolf Blitzer reporting, the Staten Island ferry crashing into the dock, dozens of people injured, at least 12 passengers aboard the ferry killed in the accident. And we are, of course, going to be covering this story throughout the evening.

Turning now to international developments, radical Islamist terrorists today opened a new front in their global war of terror against this country. Terrorists killed three American security officers and wounded another as they were traveling in a U.S. Embassy convoy in Gaza. A remote-control bomb blew up the van shortly after the convoy crossed the border from Israel.

President Bush today blamed Palestinian officials for that attack, saying that they should have taken action against terrorists a long time ago.

Chris Burns reports now from Gaza -- Chris.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, a mangled ball of wreckage was what we saw, which had been an armor-plated Chevrolet SUV that had been carrying bodyguards for this U.S. convoy of U.S. diplomats. The Palestinian police who were escorting that convoy had just passed over a certain area when the explosion went off, destroying that SUV, killing three private guards and seriously injuring one other, the U.S. government demanding quick action.

There was strong condemnation from the Palestinian prime minister.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AHMED QUREIA, PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER: We condemn it strongly. We send all condolences to the families of those who has been killed there. And we hope for those who are injured that they will recover very soon. And we will investigate from our side this. From wherever, -- we condemn it -- from wherever it comes. And we will investigate the case.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNS: The Palestinian Authority has invited the FBI to join in, in the investigation. There was an incident, however, when the FBI showed up to start looking at the wreckage. There was a crowd that started throwing rocks at it, also throwing rocks at international journalists who came to the site, so a very ugly scene there, a lot of frustration among Palestinians, and anger as well.

The Palestinian Authority, however, under severe pressure from the Americans to take some kind of action. And tonight, as we speak, we're hearing from Palestinian security sources that they are moving quickly to start detaining a number of people, trying to track down who was responsible for this. The main Palestinian militant organizations are saying they had nothing to do with this. It could have been some free agents involved -- Lou.

DOBBS: Chris, thank you -- Chris Burns reporting from Gaza.

Tonight, the United Nations Security Council began to consider a new resolution on Iraq that would include a timetable for elections and a Constitution. U.S. officials are optimistic that the council will support the resolution, after concessions by France, Germany and Russia, three countries that have consistently opposed U.S. policy.

Richard Roth reports now from the United Nations -- Richard.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Lou, this may be a long evening, but the U.S. is confident that they have the votes here at the Security Council to pass a resolution on Iraq.

The U.S. believes it has the nine required votes. The only issue is really how many abstentions from the permanent members, from France and Russia, those who have been disagreeing with Washington steadily on the Iraq issue. The big concern is the timetable. The resolution says that, by December 15, the Iraqi Governing Council has to come up with a schedule for the writing of the Constitution and the drafting of elections.

However, the French and others have wanted to see a firmer, swifter timetable. Countries such as China have filed objections.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WANG GUANGYA, CHINESE AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS: We feel that it's not -- it has not met our expectations. If more role could be given to the United Nations and if there is a clear language which indicates that there will be an early return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people, this certainly would be welcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Consultations behind closed doors will begin in about an hour. But the U.S. and Britain don't expect a total unanimous vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMYR JONES PARRY, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS: I think unanimity is beyond expectation. But getting the highest number short of unanimity is what we'll try and do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Nobody expects Syria to accept this resolution. The U.S. appears to be trying to isolate France once again, honing in on Russia and China and Germany to get their support. And some feel they may have it -- Lou.

DOBBS: Richard, thanks -- Richard Roth, our senior U.N. correspondent.

As Richard just reported, the U.N. Security Council tonight is discussing Iraq and its transition to democracy. Remarkably, some of the Security Council members making judgments about the future of democracy in Iraq are themselves authoritarian countries, better known for abusing the rights of their citizens than voicing even concern for human rights.

Kitty Pilgrim is here now and has the report for us -- Kitty.

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, the U.N. Security Council includes China, Syria, Pakistan. It's rife with one-party states, others one by the military. Well, talking about democracy is fine, but some United Nations member countries are run by totalitarian governments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM (voice-over): The tone has been lofty, the rhetoric high-minded, but some find it ironic nondemocratic countries at the U.N. should see fit to lecture the United States on democracy.

JOEL MOWBRAY, AUTHOR, "DANGEROUS DIPLOMACY": It would be nice if the United Nations spent half as much time making sure that its own members were democratic, as they now seem to have this sudden concern for Iraq. And the United States, of course, I mean, we're the people who created the first truly free society in modern history.

ROTH: Only a week ago, insiders were saying the chances of passing a resolution were hardly assured. Even yesterday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was still being less than sunny.

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: Obviously, the current resolution does represent a major shift in the thinking of the coalition.

ROTH: Some say, in the better debate over Iraq, objectivity has been loss.

ABRAHAM SOFAER, SR. FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION: Oh, I think Kofi Annan has been less objective on this issue than ever -- than I've ever seen him. We took the occupying power role. We wanted that role. Now, the U.N. approved that role in its last resolution. And I think it's very important that Kofi Annan come to grips with that, accept that and go on from there.

ROTH: Some see perpetual irony at the U.N., citing glaring anomalies that defy logic.

NILE GARDINER, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: The United Nations Commission on Human Rights headed by one of the worst abusers in the world of human rights, Libya. Also, Libya is a major sponsor of international terrorism. It is a dangerous, rogue state. And this, I think, represents everything that is wrong with the United Nations.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: And despite talk of democratic institutions, not many seem willing to pay for it. The United States has offered to pay $20 billion for reconstruction. But so far, so-called concerned countries have only talked about $2 billion for a donor's conference in Madrid -- Lou.

DOBBS: Kitty, thank you -- Kitty Pilgrim.

Well, turning now to that crash of the Staten Island ferry in New York City, these are live pictures that you're looking at now. We are confirming five dead in the crash, dozens of others injured.

We're going to go now to Jason Carroll for the very latest on this crash.

Jason, give us, first, your understanding of the casualty count in this crash.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely.

At this point, police are telling us that at least 10 people at this point are confirmed dead. We're going to be able to get some more updated numbers for you in just a few moments, as the police commissioner and the mayor begin a press conference again, which is expected to start just a few minutes from now.

Let me just set the scene for where I am. If you take a look right behind me, you can see a number of emergency crews, firefighters, police officers who are gathered here. The ferry is beyond the brick building that you see there. One eyewitness who I spoke to just a short while ago, who came down here actually looking for his son told me that what he saw as he walked up to the ferry was a gaping hold on the side. He said, it was the size of at least one city bus.

Firefighters out here tell us that many, many people are injured, again, not a confirmed number at this point. But we are waiting for the police commissioner, where we will get some updated numbers in terms of injuries. But we're told that people at this point are severely injured. I'm told that the mayor is speaking at this point.

Let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (R), MAYOR OF NEW YORK: ... of people were killed and injured. What we know at the moment, there are 10 confirmed deaths and 34 people have been removed to a hospital. There are multiple hospitals involved. Some of the injuries are serious. Some of the victims are stable and should recover fully. We cannot, at this point, speculate on exactly what happened. And the numbers can change, as the Fire Department, Police Department and OEM continue their recovery and rescue operations.

If anybody has a question about a family member, please call 311 and they will connect you to the family assistance center. They will take your name. And, as we identify people in the hospital, you will be called back. If you normally take this ferry and were not on it or if you took it and you got off safely, please call your family. Assure them that you are safe, so that they don't burden the 311 and family assistance operators with needless calls. If you normally take the ferry at any time, please call your family.

DOBBS: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg telling citizens of New York, if they suspect that they have a family member or a loved one on board the ferry that has crashed into the pier there, the concrete pier, at Staten Island, of how to contact authorities and to receive word on the identification of those casualties in this crash.

As we have just reported, 10 confirmed deaths, dozens of others injured and transported to a hospital. And we will continue to follow this story, this breaking story, throughout the evening.

Next here: China has launched successfully its entry into the space race and into the history books more than four decades after the first manned missions into space. Miles O'Brien will be here with the story.

And Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe joins us tonight. We'll be talking about the race for the White House.

And our special report tonight, "A Crowded Nation," and a water supply in jeopardy. Bill Tucker will report.

Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: Tonight, parts of this country's water supply are in danger. In our special report "A Crowded Nation," we examine a new and rising threat to the nation's drinking water supply: urban sprawl. The boom in our population and the rapid growth of cities are contaminating our most precious resource.

Bill Tucker is here now and has the report -- Bill.

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, by some measures, the overall quality of the water in most of the country has improved in recent decades. But the quality of the water is only part of an increasingly complex problem.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New Yorkers use 1.3 billion gallons of water a day. That's an enormous amount of water.

TUCKER (voice-over): That's enough water to fill the Empire State Building four times over. New York City's addressing its distribution problem by building a third massive tunnel to deliver water from its upstate reservoirs to the city.

WARD: All cities are struggling with water supply from a long- term perspective, as we've seen with climate change, water supplies in terms of drought, in terms of distribution, has been a huge problem.

TUCKER: Alarmingly, the parts of the country showing the fastest population growth are in the West and particularly the Southwest, where there are already critical shortages of water.

ROBERT HIRSCH, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY: Locally, or in certain regions of the country, we are depleting our water supplies. There are areas of Texas, Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Southern California where, in fact, we're really mining the water that's available in the ground in our nation's aquifers.

TUCKER: In practical terms, that means, for millions of people, water conservation will no longer be an emergency measure, but a way of life.

JACK HOFFBUHR, AMERICAN WATER WORKS ASSN.: As we see more and more population, more and more development, clearly, we're going to have to have water resources to serve these people and future generations. So now's the time to begin with long-range planning that includes water conservation, that includes water reuse, and, in the future, will include the use of new technology to treat water they're we're currently not using.

TUCKER: Thirty years ago, when the Clean Water Act was passed, only 30 percent of our water was safe for fishing or swimming. That amount has increased to 55 percent. And the source of pollutants has changed.

Ironically, it is no longer our power plants and factories which are primary culprits, but runoff. As our population crowds our cities and paves over open land, water no longer seeps into the ground. It runs off our streets, through our storm drains, carrying our urban dirt with it. And from our suburbs and from our farmland, that runoff carries pollution in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and silt.

PAUL SCHWARTZ, CLEAN WATER ACTION: The spread of the population from our urban cores to our suburban and exurban, meaning sort of sprawled out communities in what used to be farm fields, is threatening our rivers through what I like to call death by 1,000 cuts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNS: And, we should note, the Clean Water Act does not create standards for drinking water. Lou, amazingly, standards are for fishing and recreational use.

DOBBS: Bill, thanks very much -- Bill Tucker.

Well, tomorrow night, in our special report "A Crowded Nation," we take a look at the drain on this nation's food supplies, too many people, overfished oceans and overdeveloped farmland threatening our national food supply -- tomorrow night. Please join us.

Tonight's thought is on the future of a crowded nation. "Overcrowding can be corrected only by inducing people not to crowd. And the environment will continue to deteriorate until polluting practices are abandoned" -- psychologist B.F. Skinner.

Intel, the world's largest computer chip maker, predicts China will overtake the United States as the largest consumer of personal computers by 2010. Intel, by the way, has invested a quarter of a billion in manufacturing plants in China. And in recent comments, Chairman Andy Grove warned that the United States is on the verge of losing its dominance in technology to other countries, thanks, he says, in large part to the outsourcing of jobs overseas.

Intel, incidentally, will have exported more than 3,000 of those jobs over the course of the next two years.

The official Chinese news agency has just reported that China's first manned spacecraft has reentered the atmosphere after its 21-hour mission in space. China has now become the third nation to put a man in space, following Russia and the United States.

Our space correspondent, Miles O'Brien, joins us now form CNN Center in Atlanta -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Lou, according to that same Chinese news agency, they have seen the parachute and they have communicated with the so-called taikonaut. He says he's feeling fine.

Space just got a little more crowded. China's liftoff into that elite club of nations to send people off the planet appeared to go off without a hitch from launch all the way to landing. Taikonaut Yang Liwei, whose name was kept secret until the last minute, strapped into the Shenzhou spacecraft. It means divine vessel.

And, by all accounts, the 38-year-old fighter pilot had a divine trip. He orbited the planet 14 times in all. Now, as he whizzed overhead, he unfurled a Chinese flag. He ate chicken and rice. He told mission controllers he felt great. He called the view splendid, said hello to all the peoples of the world and then he took a three- hour snooze.

Now, take a look at this of the Shenzhou 5. It was captured by an amateur by the name of George Maley in Oklahoma last night. This dot streaking across the sky is Shenzhou 5, a little piece of history there. The capsule is built largely with the Russian Soyuz design. For Yang, the trip home began somewhere over North America, when the rockets slowed the Shenzhou down just enough for it to begin falling out of orbit. All went well, as best we can tell. We hope it has touched down gently. We do know the parachutes did in fact deploy and he's feeling fine, landing in Inner Mongolia as we speak.

Now, earlier, I spoke with the other two humans in space, the crew of the International Space Station, astronaut Ed Lu and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YURI MALENCHENKO, RUSSIAN COSMONAUT: I am glad to have somebody else in space instead of me and Ed. And also, I know it was great work by thousands and thousands of people from China. I congratulate all of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER: Now, the Chinese, as you know, Lou, say this is just the start. They might very well seek to join the International Space Station partnership. They might build a station of their own. Or they might very well make good on a vow to establish a permanent colony on the moon, the sky no longer the limit for the Chinese -- Lou.

DOBBS: No longer the limit, three nations now leading the way into space.

Miles O'Brien, we thank you very much.

While China joins the United States and Russia with its first manned spaceflight, it still trails those two countries in use of satellites. The Goddard Space Flight Center says Russia has now about 1,300 satellites in orbit, the United States 700, China, just about 21, all told, an estimated 2,500 functioning satellites orbiting the Earth.

We'll have more on China's historic spaceflight later in this program. I'll be talking with Joan Johnson-Freese, who heads the department of national security studies at the Naval War College. We'll be talking about the geopolitical implications of China's entry into the space race as well.

And this update on a story we brought you last night. An FDA advisory panel today recommended that the 11-year-old ban against silicone breast implants be lifted. That panel voted 9-6 to lift the ban, with conditions, including regular doctor visits and a mandatory national registry for patients.

Coming up next: President Bush has a commanding lead in the fund-raising race for 2004. Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe will join me next to tell us how he and the Democratic hopefuls plan to compete.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) DOBBS: Turning to national politics, the race for the White House well under way. So are the candidate's fund-raising efforts. Incidentally, all the candidates have until midnight tonight to file their third-quarter fund-raising reports. But here's what we know so far.

Howard Dean leading the Democratic field with almost $15 million this quarter, bringing his total raised so far to $25 million. To put that in some perspective, his $15 million beats the party's third- quarter record, that set by President Clinton in 1995. And Dean's $25 million total matches Vice President Al Gore's at this point in 2000.

But President Bush is blowing the doors off his rivals with his fund-raising, $85 million so far. But are those dollars translating into popular appeal? Howard Dean, well, the answer seems to be yes. Dean has a solid lead in the latest New Hampshire and Iowa polls. However, the recently started campaign of Wesley Clark has been doing well in national polls, showing him in the lead among Democratic voters.

Fund-raising is certainly something our next guest knows a few things about, Terry McAuliffe often credited with helping to secure President Clinton's '96 reelection by raising hundreds of millions of dollars for the party. He's now chairman of the Democratic National Committee and joins us Washington, D.C.

Terry, good to have you with us.

TERRY MCAULIFFE, DNC CHAIRMAN: Lou, great to be with you again.

DOBBS: Howard Dean looks like he is for real. He's in the lead. He looks like he's -- there's not going to be a close second in fund- raising. Your thoughts?

MCAULIFFE: Well, he's doing great.

And what he has tapped into is the Internet. He's bringing a lot of new, energized, young voters into the political process. It's very exciting. When you raise money on the Internet, Lou, as you know, there's no cost to it. It's 100 percent matchable. The federal government matches every check up to $250.

But all our candidates are raising enough money to be able to get their message out. We're about to head into our primary season. We're about 100 days away. It's going to get very competitive. Money is only one barometer. But I can tell you, Howard Dean is doing a great job, bringing a lot of new people into the party, just as the national party. We just had the best nine months in the history of our party. I just announced that the other day.

DOBBS: Right.

And looking to 2004, with nine candidates now in the field, you've got to be excited, because you've got a diversity of view. You've got all of those perspectives in front of the American voter. You pretty excited about that, Terry? MCAULIFFE: I am.

I say, Lou, if you ever want to have fun, just be chairman of the DNC for one day. We are a very big, very broad party. But it's our diversity is what makes us great. I think we'll have a nominee by around March 10, 2004. And that will then give us eight months to go one-on-one against George Bush. We have released a poll today, as you probably saw, 46-42, a Democrat, a generic Democrat, leading President Bush.

ABC, "Washington Post" Paul today, we're now beating George Bush by five points, outside the margin of error. So it's these economic issues, Lou, that are concerning Americans. And they don't think George Bush is taking us in the right way. They want a Democrat back in to create jobs. So I'm very excited at where we are today.

DOBBS: How concerned are you, Terry, in that context, about a 3.3 percent GDP growth rate, in the second quarter, the likelihood that we're going to see a significant improvement over that for the third quarter? Also, a jobless number that seems to be improving -- we're going to see more over the next few weeks, certainly -- and also a rising market, are those concerning you about the economic context?

MCAULIFFE: Well, Lou, listen, if George Bush was out creating jobs and the economy roaring, I would be as happy as anyone else. I want to see people work in this country.

We proved, '93 through 2000, when we created 22 million new jobs, it's the Democrats who want to see job growth. But I will disagree with you, Lou. I don't see the job picture getting any better. In the month of September, George Bush heralded that 50,000 new jobs were created. But, at the same time, as you know, 250,000 people just gave up looking for a job. They walked away from the job market. So that's a net loss of 200,000.

The issue is, the stock market could go up and the wealthier will be able to get more wealth, but he's not creating jobs. The issue is going to be in the 2004 election. Who is going to be able to create an economic engine to get people working again? You've seen 2.8 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. White-collar jobs are now moving overseas. He's the first president since Herbert Hoover, as you know, to lose jobs every single month since he's been in office.

(CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: On that subject, Terry, let me ask you, I don't hear any one of these nine candidates talking about the outsourcing of jobs. By the way, on unemployment, Terry, I wasn't referring to the unemployment rate for September. I was referring to the initial claims for jobless benefits, that have shown a retreat to levels for the month of February. So that is an improvement, I agree with you about the unemployment rate for the rate of September.

MCAULIFFE: But, as you know, on the claims, people have now exhausted their claims. They have totally moved out and they're not entitled to any claims anymore. (CROSSTALK)

MCAULIFFE: So, listen, there are 10 million people out of work in this nation today. It's clear that George Bush has not created one job. He's the first president every single month to lose jobs.

DOBBS: Terry?

MCAULIFFE: Lou.

DOBBS: The question I had about, why aren't any of your nine candidates talking about the importance of outsourcing those jobs, about the fundamental flaws in trade policy in this country?

(CROSSTALK)

MCAULIFFE: Well, I've got to say, Lou, that you did not watch your own debate on CNN the other night that we had Phoenix, Arizona, where we spend a good amount of time talking about trade agreements. And there is general agreement on the Democratic side that, when we negotiate these trade agreements, we've got to do them in a manner so that the workers here in the United States of America are protected.

But there are serious issues. Telemarketers today -- I don't care what you're calling about, customer service for Whirlpool or whatever, you're getting India on the phone. People are very concerned. These jobs are not here in America. And a lot of these jobs aren't coming back. So we have been talking about trade policies. The president's negotiating CAFTA now, the Central America Free Trade Agreement. We got to make sure that we're creating an economic engine here in this country. We did it, Lou. We did it in 1993 through 2000. And we can do it again.

DOBBS: Well, Terry, let's talk about immigration law. From what I've seen so far, the Democratic Party is talking about, in most quarters, amnesty for illegal aliens, talking about basically a blank check to cross our borders. And the unions in this country have a sort of weird, schizophrenic position, trying to protect jobs and provide security for their workers and, at the same time, inviting more low-cost labor across the border. How do you square that up?

MCAULIFFE: I know you're going to have a discussion later on immigration policy.

But the Democrats believe, listen, we need to make sure the people who do come in this country, who work hard, who pay their taxes, are entitled to the benefits of other citizens in the country. But it's not -- closing our borders is not the answer to job creation in our nation. It's creating an economic engine that's creating jobs, so that we can have jobs for the people in this country and to bring -- we are a land of immigrants. We want people to come into the country.

(CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: Terry, wait a minute. We're not a land of illegal immigrants, are we?

MCAULIFFE: No, we're not of illegal immigrants.

But what I'm trying to distinction is the people who do come into this country, who come in. They pay their taxes. They work hard. They ought to be entitled to benefits. But the problem with the Bush administration is not solely an immigration policy. It's a lack of job creation policy. That is the fundamental difference. We proved we could create 22 million new jobs under the Clinton/Gore administration.

We can do that again. It isn't just tax cuts for the richest. We need to put money into the hands of the small business to go out and create jobs, money into the hands of ordinary hard-working citizens, who will create an economic engine than will create jobs. That's what the Democratic position is. We're for changing the tax code. We need, I believe, a total reform of our tax system today.

DOBBS: Terry, you and I agree about that. We just probably disagree about how to construct it. Thanks a lot.

(CROSSTALK)

MCAULIFFE: Valid point, Lou. Great to be with you.

DOBBS: Terry McAuliffe, good to have you here.

MCAULIFFE: Thank you.

DOBBS: Coming up next: "Face-Off," immigration. One expert says, send them home. Another says, illegal immigrants fill an important role in our society. They're illegal either way. We'll hear two very different views on the issue next.

Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: In tonight's "Face-Off": the impact of immigration on this country's resources, its society.

We're joined by Dan Stein. He is the executive director of the Federation For American Immigration Reform. He says illegal immigrants cost the system far more than they give back. We're also joined by Muzaffar Chishti. He is the director of the Migration Policy Institute at New York University School of Law, and says immigrants pay far more in taxes than they receive in services.

Gentlemen, good to have you with us.

(CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: Muzaffar, let's begin with a very simple issue. Illegal aliens are first and foremost illegal. Why is this country having such a difficult time coming to terms with controlling our borders and enforcing the law? MUZAFFAR CHISHTI, DIRECTOR, MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE: I think we should control our borders and we should also enforce the law and we should do a better job with both of those things.

But I think the present dilemma about illegal immigration is that, as a country, we haven't come to terms with the reality of the labor market. It's true that there are about seven to eight million people who are undocumented. But the fact is that these are hard- working people, working in some of the most important and needed jobs in our country.

And there's a demand for them. And the simple truth, we should have a policy which actually quite comes to terms with that and, therefore, gives legal status to these people, so that they could ...

DOBBS: Didn't we do that in 1986?

CHISHTI: Obviously, the reality of the labor market has changed since then.

We have a demand for certain jobs, for which these people are needed. And it's important to have them working for us legally, so that we can enforce their rights and they can become more open members of our society.

DOBBS: Dan Stein, Muzaffar makes an excellent point, needed labor, and let bygones be bygones. Why not?

DAN STEIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FAIR: Lou, I know you have been exploring this issue in some depth. And I think it's pretty obvious to an awful lot of people, probably including yourself, that immigration ultimately is about redistribution.

We're putting money into the pockets of immigrants who send money back to their home countries or some employers and we're taking it out of the hands of middle-class taxpayers, hard-working Americans, who wind up picking up the cost for this labor subsidy, for education, housing, health care. We have immigration that's simply out of control.

And after 9/11, you would think something would be done about it. But we have two political parties that are split. Republicans want their cheap labor. The Democrats say, well, look, we can get some cheap votes this way, because immigrants tend to vote heavily Democrat. And they won't do anything about what 90 percent of the American people want, which is a timeout in overall immigration.

DOBBS: Dan Stein, Muzaffar, has just said the unthinkable. Both parties have economic interests in pursuing borders with open policies, instead of enforcing migration and immigration law. What do you think?

CHISHTI: The interesting thing about this debate, this is as old as our nation. People will tell you that George Washington said that we have too many people in this country and we probably don't need anyone more than a few skilled people. (CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: I must say, I never read George Washington on immigration. But when we're talking about a million people a year crossing our borders, it becomes quite a different contextual issue.

CHISHTI: We don't have a million people crossing our border illegally and staying here every year.

We have the majority of our immigration is legal. That's the dominant story about immigration. We have had this little distraction about illegal immigration, as if that is the dominant story. About 90 percent of our immigration is legal. It's managed. And it's driven by family unification, jobs that employers sponsor people for, and by refugee admission.

Illegal immigration is certainly a part of it, but it's a very small part of it. And we have to recognize that illegal immigration is a reflection about the demand of our labor market. And the best way to respond to that is to have a policy that comes to terms with that and gives these people a status, so that they will actually not be exploited in the way that many of them are.

DOBBS: Dan, Muzaffar has quite a different construction of our immigration flow than certainly I have read. What is your judgment?

STEIN: Lou, over half of the -- quote -- "legal immigration" flow today is the result of past illegal immigration.

But if you take a look at our domestic priorities, Lou, what you realize is, immigration, as it's currently practiced, doesn't meet any of them. Is immigration making crime go down? No. It's increasing it. What about overcrowding in our schools? Whole -- entire public school systems are being overwhelmed. Is immigration increasing the water tables? No, we're paving over the prime farmland as Americans flee out into exurbia, trying to flee the overcrowded housing stock in Miami, New York, Los Angeles, etcetera.

And if you look at labor market, the evidence is clear. Many immigrants come. Don't get me wrong. There are certainly some immigrants who expand our productive potential and who may be economically vital, but it's a very small number. The vast majority come. They work for lower wagers. They have very low overhead. They are substitutes for American workers, with the net effect that we're creating a two-tier, hourglass society.

We have people who manage capital, lawyers, politicians, members of the media on the top. And now we have for Americans with two years of college or less diminishing job opportunities, while we send jobs overseas, while we send money overseas. And now we're bringing in all this unskilled labor. And we have absolutely no idea why the political parties will not have the guts to address the fact that, yes, if we're going to have immigrants, fine. But how many and how are we going to enforce the rules?

Otherwise, we're headed -- we're going to be as crowded at China at the rate we're going. And the housing industry may like that and Wall Street might like it, but the American people don't.

DOBBS: Muzaffar?

CHISHTI: Dan, as usual, is jumbling up a lot of issues into one.

We can't blame all the ills of our society on immigration. The schools in this country have been failing us for a long time. They started failing us much before the current high levels of immigration. And there are failed schools in certain parts of the country where immigration is extremely low. We need to improve our school system. And we can't blame immigrants for it.

The housing situation in New York, Lou, you and I both lived in New York in the '70s, when immigration was low. That was not exactly the heyday of New York City. The real estate market in New York City in the '90s, when we had high immigration, was a buzzing phenomena, compared to the dead-end real estate market that we had in the '70s. To me, that's positive. That's not negative news.

DOBBS: The issue -- and each of you, Muzaffar, Dan, you have talked about immigration. Now, personally, I have, frankly, if it's our national policy to bring in one million immigrants a year, legally, that is a decision of our government, our elected representatives. It's us shaping our society, making decisions about the working class, the middle class, average American family, how he or she is going to have a work and provide for their families.

But where we are de facto turning over each of the issues, education, health care, our minimum wage, who will have jobs just by ignoring an issue strikes me as totally unreasonable and irrational.

CHISHTI: No. I think that's exactly what I'm saying. I don't think we should ignore it. What we have done is effectively give people the avenue, the only avenue of coming to the United States was come illegally for some of these jobs. We should remedy that by a policy change which would allow them to do the same jobs that they do now, very important jobs, work hard, but do it through legal channels. And then we could also

(CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: You're suggesting amnesty?

CHISHTI: We're suggesting some form of a mechanism by which they have an adjustment which they can earn by having worked in this country for a certain number of years.

(CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: Dan Stein, you get the last word.

STEIN: Our political system has a hard time dealing with -- when you have narrow, cramped, special interest lobbies that want to fight for their own agenda, the general public in our political system, its interest tends to get abandoned. And we have had 20 years of commissions saying we need secure I.D., interior immigration enforcement, employer sanctions for people who hire illegal aliens.

And those provisions are always being defeated in Congress by cheap labor interests, ethnic lobbies that are very highly organized. And that's why we haven't been able to get the job done. But people are going to have to demand change or, I'm telling you, this country is headed way down the wrong path.

DOBBS: On a final note, it's extraordinary to me, as you have constructed, whether Democrats or Republicans, whether business or organized labor, the inconsistencies and the contradictions are extraordinary.

Unions in this country supporting amnesty, the rights of illegal aliens, while, at the same time, failing to give representation to working, middle-class families in the country. And that's why they're down to 8 percent of representation.

CHISHTI: With due respect, they're not, actually. They're now beginning to represent some of the most vulnerable population of the country, which is these workers who are working in substandard conditions.

DOBBS: They're trying.

CHISHTI: They're trying.

(CROSSTALK)

CHISHTI: And they're recognizing the importance of immigration and recognizing

(CROSSTALK)

STEIN: They're embracing the forces of their own demise, trying to represent illegal workers, because more illegal workers will just replace them.

DOBBS: Dan Stein, Muzaffar Chishti, we thank you both for being with us.

CHISHTI: Thank you.

DOBBS: Please come back soon.

And that brings us to the subject of our poll tonight. What do you believe is the impact of illegal aliens on our economy and our society? Do you believe it is positive? Do you believe it is negative? Do you believe it has ultimately no impact? Cast your vote at CNN.com/Lou. We'll have results for you later here in the show.

Let's take a look now at some of your thoughts, writing in on this important issue and others.

From Riverside, Rhode Island: "Mr. Dobbs, you exemplify excellent journalism in your segments on special reports. It's so refreshing to view responsible coverage on emerging issues that are impacting our society and economy" -- that from Joan Bowden.

From Lansdale, Pennsylvania: "Again, Lou, you and your staff have put together an excellent body of work lately. Subjects that can be loaded with hype and pandering have been treated with balance. You folks are doing a public service, while most shows are shouting at each other or covering Kobe, Peterson, or the latest reality show phenom" -- Dave Fahey.

And from Tacoma, Washington: "Lou, the U.S. cannot handle the world's poor anymore. Here where I live, schools are overcrowded, social services are strained, and hospitals and clinics are forced to take care of the many illegal immigrants who have become accustomed to free services. We must do something now to control the borders or our cities could the next Bombay or Beijing, polluted, overcrowded and without the quality of life we all deserve" -- that from Jo Anne Miller.

From Cypress, Texas: "It seems to me that yourself and your program have a lot of xenophobia against immigrants, but especially for Mexican people, even though they may be in this country legally" -- that from E. Montes.

Well, we realize that some people will be calling us names as we report on these tough and important issues, including our porous national borders, the subject of illegal aliens, and the export of American jobs. Recently, I've had CEOs call me everything but a communist when we talk about the export of jobs and excess of executive compensation. Liberals call us xenophobic or racist occasionally when we report on illegal immigration.

But these issues are too important to working middle-class Americans, to all of us, to continue to be ignored. So, call us what you will. Here we go. We love hearing from you. E-mail us at LouDobbs@CNN.com.

Coming up next: China says its first astronaut has just landed safely after a 21-hour mission in space. We have some pictures just coming into CNN now of the capsule on arrival. A leading expert joins us next for more on what this mission means to the future of the space race and U.S.-China relation.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: China's official news agency has just reported its first ever manned spacecraft has now successfully landed, these pictures just coming in, this 21-hour flight obviously successful, the capsule landing safely. The pilot, the astronaut, is reported to be in safe and good condition.

Joining me now to talk about the implications of China's venture into space is Joan Johnson-Freese. She heads the Department of National Security Studies at the Naval War College.

Good to have you here.

JOAN JOHNSON-FREESE, NAVAL WAR COLLEGE: Thank you for having me.

DOBBS: This has got to be a wonderful moment for the Chinese. The excitement has got to be tremendous. How important is it, in your judgment, for the nation of China?

JOHNSON-FREESE: It's huge.

The Chinese that I've talked to today are absolutely over the top with excitement and celebration. And it's certainly reminiscent of the kind of feelings that we had with the first Apollo landing and with the subsequent moon landings and the shuttle launches. So they are absolutely overjoyed.

DOBBS: Amongst those people in the space community with whom I've spoken, there's a little jostling for position, saying, well, great, they've accomplished something that we did 40 years ago. There's just a touch of competitiveness, which suggests, to me at least, that some people are eager to start a space race. Is this the onset of that?

JOHNSON-FREESE: Well, at least in the manned field. I think there's a new race for second place.

What China did today was certainly a great accomplishment. And I don't mind to underestimate it at all. But U.S. space technology and capabilities are such that we are unreachable. What China has done is leapfrogged over Europe, Japan, India, and is now battling it out for second.

DOBBS: We may be unreachable, but we're riding piggyback with Russians to Space Station Alpha, because our technology isn't working so hot.

JOHNSON-FREESE: Well, I think we need to separate out here our space capabilities generally, in terms of perhaps looking at the military capabilities, and the manned space program.

And it's important to remember that, even at the height of Apollo, public opinion was basically very much -- very supportive. But when it comes to priority rankings for government spending, space comes in dead last. It's viewed as expendable. So China now has the political will that, quite frankly, we haven't had since Apollo.

DOBBS: And Apollo, we have to reach back 30 years, almost 30 years. We also have to look at that technology in the shuttle, which is basically 25 years old. There isn't as much distance between China and the U.S. space program as many people would like in manned spaceflight.

JOHNSON-FREESE: In manned space.

DOBBS: And that's got to be disturbing a few people, including yourself, because it has implications, I would think, geopolitically, militarily as well. JOHNSON-FREESE: It's interesting.

I think, after this first launch, there really has not been a lot of public reaction in the United States. In fact, all the people I've talked to about it here today in New York, it's been: That's interesting. How about those Yankees?

DOBBS: You bet.

JOHNSON-FREESE: But I think, after three or four launches, people are going to say, well, now, what's going on? China does launch after launch and has plans and a program. And we're still waiting to get the shuttle off the ground again. We're still waiting for those high-level policy directives.

Are we ceding our leadership in manned space to the Chinese? And that will be uncomfortable.

DOBBS: We have already ceded our leadership in the most commercial aspect. And that is satellites. In launch and manufacture, we have been overtaken, once dominant. Any thought there that, with new competition, that we'll ever reemerge as dominant?

JOHNSON-FREESE: Again, I think, in terms of our technical capabilities, for the private satellite industry, if the market is there, we can do it better than anybody. But with the market down and with the situation in terms of export controls, it's very difficult for our aerospace industry to compete internationally.

DOBBS: And the space race, do you think it will materialize, given the successful venture of the Chinese?

JOHNSON-FREESE: Well, I think, in terms of manned space, yes. In terms of overall capabilities, the U.S. is in the Olympics and they're playing in the backyard.

DOBBS: I kind of like the idea of the space race. Let's go get 'em.

JOHNSON-FREESE: Well, I think we all do if it reinvigorates our own program.

DOBBS: Let's head for the moon. Let's head for Mars. Let's get back to business.

JOHNSON-FREESE: And let's do it together, yes.

DOBBS: Joan, thank you very much for being with us.

JOHNSON-FREESE: Thank you.

DOBBS: Appreciate it.

Coming up next: Christine Romans with the market. We'll have that up here next a lot of other stuff as well.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DOBBS: The results of tonight's poll. The question: What do you believe is the impact of illegal aliens on our economy and our society? Sixty percent of you said positive; 34 percent said negative; 6 percent said no impact.

Well, some impact on Wall Street today. Stock prices pulled back slightly after setting new highs earlier. The Dow lost 10 points, the Nasdaq down 4, the S&P 500 down 3.

Christine Romans now with the market -- Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: IBM might add 10,000 jobs next year.

DOBBS: All right.

ROMANS: Yes, says that information...

DOBBS: In this country?

ROMANS: Well, we'll see. They don't say where they are, but 10,000 jobs at least. It sees stabilization in information technology. And profit and sales rose at IBM.

The strong earnings news continues. General Motors reported a profit. Financial earnings have been strong; 84 S&P 500 companies have reported. And profit growth, Lou, now 17.2 percent.

DOBBS: All right.

ROMANS: Good news for Merrill Lynch employees. The two-year-old pay freeze has been lifted for workers who earn less than $100,000, two years of pay freeze for the rank-and-file. But, oh, Lou, it still pays to be a CEO. In the first half of the year, CEO base pay grew 4.3 percent. But cash bonuses surged 26 percent.

And among the CEOs getting restricted stock, that payout surged 73 percent. That more than offsets any drop in the value of options granted. The median restricted stock payout, Lou, $2.3 million for American CEOs.

Meanwhile, two Bank One executives lost their jobs today in a purged tied to the mutual fund sandal. And that scandal as yet has not dented investor optimism on Wall Street. Investors Intelligence says 52 percent are bullish, less than 20 percent are bearish on Wall Street.

DOBBS: Less than how many?

ROMANS: Less than 20 percent.

DOBBS: That's pretty good. When's the last time it was that low? ROMANS: 1987, April of 1987.

So the contrarians say, watch out. But the bulls say, it just shows that the bullish sentiment, the momentum continues in this market.

DOBBS: 1987, huh?

ROMANS: It was a good year.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: ... a year up from 1987, if you held on the whole time.

DOBBS: Absolutely, coincidences in history. Thanks, Christine -- Christine Romans.

That's our show for tonight. Thanks for being with us.

Tomorrow here, on our special report "A Crowded Nation," we take a look at this country's declining food supply. In two decades, we will be able to produce only enough food to feed ourselves at our present rate of population growth. And "Grange On Point." Tomorrow, General David Grange joins us. We'll be focusing on why the United States needs more troops in Iraq, with all of those divisions in Korea and Europe.

Please join us tomorrow. For all of us here, thanks for being with us tonight. Good night from New York.

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on Iraq; Interview With DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe>