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Lou Dobbs Tonight

Two U.S. Pilots Killed in Iraq; Mars Rover Crisis; John Kerry Rising in New Hampshire

Aired January 23, 2004 - 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.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Tonight: John Kerry is on a roll in New Hampshire. His poll numbers are up and he is making patriotism a key part of his campaign.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're not going to take any lessons in patriotism from those who don't understand that the first definition of patriotism is keeping faith who those who wore the uniform of our country.

PILGRIM: In Iraq today, another U.S. helicopter is down. Two pilots are dead. Our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre, will report.

In "Overwhelmed America" tonight, new ideas to energize voters and convince them to take part in our great democracy. We will have a special report.

And in "Heroes," the dramatic story of an Army Reserve medic who gave his comrades first aid, even though he wounded and under enemy fire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You go there and you come back with something that you didn't expect, more stress, a little trauma. But it will just always kind of be there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Friday, January 23. Sitting in for Lou Dobbs, Kitty Pilgrim.

PILGRIM: Good evening.

Tonight, the New Hampshire primary is just four days away. And Senator John Kerry is pulling away from his rivals in the tracking polls. A new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll says Kerry now has a lead of 12 percentage points over his nearest rival, Howard Dean.

Today, in Manchester, New Hampshire, Kerry took his message to an audience full of military veterans.

Bob Franken reports from Manchester -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And Kerry has always made the veterans part of what he's trying to claim as his constituency. And he is now at a position where he can sort of glide as he pulls away. He has a commanding lead. And what he's doing now, he is trying to run a campaign that is as noncontroversial as possible.

And he's piling up the endorsements. Probably the most noteworthy was Fritz Hollings. What's noteworthy about that is, Hollings is from South Carolina, which is the next bank of states, in addition to which, that is considered a state where John Edwards was expected to have quite a strength. Edwards has rather discounted that endorsement.

In addition to which, there is word out that, when the Minnesota State Democratic Political Committee meets tomorrow, there will be a split in the most famous party family in the state. Ted Mondale is a longtime Dean supporter. He will be speaking at that convention. But speaking for John Kerry will be Walter Mondale. As I said, Kitty, when things are going your way, they are going your way.

PILGRIM: You can't overemphasize that. Thanks very much, Bob Franken.

Well, Howard Dean today strongly criticized Washington insiders, as he tried to kick-start his faltering campaign. Early in the day, Dean appeared to call for the resignation of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. But he later backed away from those comments in a CNN interview.

Candy Crowley is in Keene, New Hampshire -- Candy.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi. I'm actually in Manchester, New Hampshire.

But you're right about Howard Dean, who has really spent the past couple of days in full damage control, after a devastating third in Iowa, followed then by a very controversial concession speech. Dean last night put in a very sedate debate performance.

He followed that up with an interview with his wife on national television, the first interview that Mrs. Dean has ever done. And then he did the David Letterman top 10, trying to show that he can make fun of himself. What he's trying to do, of course, is to stop the bleeding of his campaign. The question is whether or not it's worked.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We turned the corner and we're going to come back up. And the question is, can we close the gap between now and Tuesday? And I hope we can. We're going to do everything we can to try to close the gap.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: It looked for all the world like campaign as usual today, when Dean went about his business, town hall meetings. There were a couple of rounds inside an apple-selling mart. There were also some times he went into a guitar store and strummed the guitar. They tried very hard not to make any news during all of this. But the fact of the matter is, there was that little question about Alan Greenspan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: I think Alan Greenspan has become too political. If he lacks the political courage to criticize the deficits, if he was foolish enough -- and he is not a foolish man -- to support the outrageous tax cuts that George Bush put through here, then he has become too political and we need a new chairman of the Federal Reserve.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: The Dean campaign does believe it can turn this around. Certainly, it has the money and the passionate support to move on beyond New Hampshire. But what Dean really needs here is a win -- Kitty.

PILGRIM: Candy, you said they were trying very hard not to make news, but they are making a conscious effort, Howard Dean, to present a softer image. How are we seeing that?

CROWLEY: Absolutely.

And that's what you're seeing in certainly his appearances last night with his wife and the hand-holding, sweater-wearing. They are trying to show the softer image to counteract what some saw as such a fierce performance on Monday night.

Obviously, his supporters didn't see it that way. But a lot of people looked at it and found it a little disturbing. So now we're seeing an apple -- buying apples. He's playing the guitar. So there's a lot of that sort of picture to try to counteract. At the same time, though, as you can see with the Greenspan remark, he's really going back to the basics, which is, I'm the outsider; the rest of them are insiders.

And that's where the Greenspan remark came from.

PILGRIM: Well, he certainly looked very mellow today. Thanks very much, Candy Crowley.

Wesley Clark spent the day emphasizing what he believes is his most significant advantage over his rivals, his leadership qualities. And John Edwards again criticized President Bush on his economic policies.

Now, we have two reports, beginning with the Clark campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF: I'm Dan Lothian in Manchester, New Hampshire. Retired General Wesley Clark said he feels good about his performance at last night's debate. He believes he was able to make a clear case to the American people that he is electable. But Clark is still having to deal with that issue of his credentials as a Democrat. This is a question that came up when he first got into the race because of his support for Republicans in the past. It came up at last night's debate.

But today, Clark told me it is just not an issue.

WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think the voters understand I am a Democrat. And I think that the Republican Party understands that as well. And if you refer to Richard Cohen's latest column in "The Washington Post," he said I'm the one Democrat that Karl Rove has to fear.

And I looked at who asked the questions and, you know, I think that that's part of a Republican Party agenda in the debate.

LOTHIAN: In that last comment, Clark referring to a Fox News anchor who took part in the questioning last night. That comment could become quite controversial.

On the campaign trail today, Clark began by singing with kindergarten students.

CHILDREN (singing): God bless America, my home sweet home.

LOTHIAN: Later, speaking to supporters, Clark said, as president, he will focus on education, creating jobs, providing universal health care, and making America safer.

Now, the Clark campaign is expected to get some key endorsements over the next couple of days. Already today, they are being endorsed by the former attorney general of Florida, Bob Butterworth.

Dan Lothian, CNN, Manchester, New Hampshire.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I'm Jeanne Meserve covering the Edwards campaign.

John Edwards has moved up in the polls here since his strong performance in Iowa, but not a lot. He is still in fourth place. But the senator, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, says he's noticing a lot of people coming to his events who were Dean supporters. And he thinks he's beginning to see in New Hampshire what he saw in Iowa, a late surge.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What is happening here in New Hampshire in the last few days is what I saw in the last week in Iowa. The events I go to, I'm expecting 100 or 150. And we had an event in Portsmouth, there were 600 people, 100 more outside who couldn't get in. Had the same thing in Dartmouth yesterday, 400 or so and another couple of hundred who couldn't get in.

So this is the same kind of momentum that I saw there. And I just have to keep it going and keep moving.

MESERVE: Edwards made only one campaign appearance in New Hampshire today. And last night's debate may well have been his last chance to make a big splash with the state's voters.

Interestingly, when Edwards was asked about his vote against an $87 billion expenditure for Iraq, he aligned himself with the man who is currently leading the pack here.

EDWARDS: There are two of us on this stage, Senator Kerry and myself, both voted against it. And I know that both of us felt we needed to say loud and clear to President Bush that what he was doing was wrong and we thought he needed to change course.

MESERVE: One of the hallmarks of Edwards campaign has been his refusal to snipe at other candidates. He stuck to that successful strategy last night, but so did virtually everyone else, which could make it harder for Edwards to stand out.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Manchester, New Hampshire.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: The big question tonight is whether anyone can beat John Kerry in Tuesday's primary.

And joining me now are Drew Cline, who is the editorial page editor of "The Union Leader" newspaper and our own Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst.

And thank you both for joining us.

Bill, let's start with you. And what do you make of the latest tracking polls? Quite a difference from a month ago.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Quite a difference from a few days ago, Kitty.

What we're seeing is a big surge by John Kerry. He's now 12 points ahead of Howard Dean. It's Kerry 34, Dean 22. And Dean is only five points ahead of Wesley Clark. There is a real danger that, if Dean continues to drop, he could come out third in this primary. John Edwards has picked up a few points. He's now at 12 percent. Joe Lieberman stuck at No. 5, 8 point.

This shows that the Kerry lead is continuing, though, I add, all these interviews were conducted after the Iowa caucuses, but before last night's debate.

PILGRIM: Now, we look at trends, Bill. What's the trend you're seeing?

SCHNEIDER: Well, we're seeing sort of four trends going on. One I call the big mo, which is the Kerry trend, up, up, and very high, been going on now for a couple of weeks. Look at that yellow line. We see a smaller trend for Edwards. He's been improving slowly, just a bit. That's the little mo. Then we have the big whoa. That is Howard Dean, that green line. That is just going down and down and down. We'll see if he was able to arrest that decline with the debate and his interview on "Primetime" last night.

And we see the little whoa, which is Wesley Clark, who is also losing support, because a lot of people who were thinking about voting for Clark seem to be switching to John Kerry. We don't see Joe Lieberman. He's sort of the no-mo. He's stuck in the bottom and not showing much movement at all.

PILGRIM: He doesn't even deserve a line on that chart.

Let's talk about presidential personality. And that's a really interesting poll.

SCHNEIDER: Yes, we did ask people if each of the contenders has the personality you want to see in a president. And they all overwhelmingly said yes, with one exception, Howard Dean. Democrats were split just about 50/50 in the case of Howard Dean. Look at this. Just 50 percent said Dean has the kind of personality a president should have.

That, you see in front of you, is the damage inflicted by the tirade on Monday night, the damage he tried to stem with his performance last night, with his very subdued campaign now here in New Hampshire. But that was the first impression a lot of voters got of Howard Dean around the country. And, obviously, it changed the view of Howard Dean here in New Hampshire, where, just a few weeks ago, he was running 25 points ahead.

It's a new Howard Dean and a new John Kerry.

PILGRIM: All right, Bill, let's bring in Drew Cline of "The Union Leader."

And, Drew, New Hampshire is an interesting state, so many independent voters. And I understand, they make up their mind at the very last second. It's almost hard to call this, isn't it?

DREW CLINE, EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR, "THE UNION LEADER": It's impossible to call. And that's true. The voters do make up their minds mostly at the very last minute, a lot of them not until they get into the booth.

So I think any smart person in New Hampshire who is asked whether they are going to make a prediction about this will say no, because it's absolutely impossible.

PILGRIM: Yes.

But 37 percent are undeclared at this point. That's a pretty high percentage. What was your view, seeing it through the eyes of where you sit, of last night's debate? Some suggest that it was very sedate. No one was really willing to take very many risks.

CLINE: I think that's true. Nobody wanted to take a lot of risks.

I think the real loser in that debate was Clark. He answered questions terribly. He really did a very awful job. And what that lost him was the people who are wavering from Dean. There are people who looked at Monday night's tirade and said, I don't know if this guy is electable. I don't know. I think I might want to go to Clark, because Dean supporters are people who didn't want to go to Edwards, they didn't want to go to Kerry, the establishment candidates. They wanted somebody who was an outsider.

And when Clark just botched almost every question last night, I think that made a lot of Dean supporters say, maybe I'll stick with Dean or maybe Edwards and maybe Kerry aren't that bad after all.

PILGRIM: Let's get Bill Schneider in on this.

What were your impressions, Bill?

SCHNEIDER: I think that Drew is exactly right. I thought that Clark's performance was quite disappointing. He had very poor answers, particularly to questions about domestic policy.

If there was one candidate who I thought made a positive impression, it was John Edwards. And I would suggest that we keep a close eye on John Edwards. He's drawing a very positive response. His numbers, we just saw, are creeping up slowly. But he says he sees a late surge. John Edwards is a very affable campaigner. He's very positive. A lot of people are impressed by him. Watch John Edwards. He may surprise everybody on Tuesday.

PILGRIM: We certainly will. Thanks very much, Bill Schneider and Drew Cline of "The Union Leader." Thanks very much for joining us this evening and have a great weekend.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHNEIDER: You're welcome.

CLINE: OK.

PILGRIM: Coming up next, another deadly day for American troops in Iraq.

And also, Halliburton admits what it calls an irregularity. Critics call it a scandal. We'll have the details.

Then, in search of Spirit. NASA's rover checks in, but only for a moment. And the drama continues on Mars.

And "Broken Borders" tonight, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher on why he says the president's immigration plan will only lead to more illegal immigration.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PILGRIM: Two Army pilots were killed in Iraq today when their helicopter crashed near the northern city of Mosul. The military said it does not know if the crash was caused by hostile fire or mechanical problems.

Senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre reports -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kitty.

The helicopter crash happened about 8:30 at night local time in Iraq. And OH-58 observation helicopter, a Kiowa Warrior, was flying in the area South of Mosul when it crashed. These were two helicopters at the time like this. The one that was accompanying the helicopter did not give any indication of hostile activity. So, at this time, they don't know if the helicopter was shot down or had a mechanical problem.

Overall, the number of attacks against Americans in Iraq has been going down. But, lately, commanders have been citing what they believe is an al Qaeda influence, the latest statement of that coming today in an interview that the top commander on the ground there, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, gave to CNN's Sheila MacVicar, in which he said he saw the fingerprints of al Qaeda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ, U.S. COMMANDER IN IRAQ: We believe that there's training that's been conducted for some of the terrorists.

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In Iraq?

SANCHEZ: No, not conducted in Iraq, but training provided to those elements that are operating in here. And we think that there's also financing that has been taking place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCINTYRE: As if to underscore what General Sanchez was saying, Pentagon sources today confirmed that the U.S. has captured what they believe is a key lieutenant to one of the key people in the Ansar al- Islam group, a group that is connected to al Qaeda, the suspect identified as Husam al-Yemeni, captured last week, along with other suspects in a raid near Fallujah. He is believed to be a key lieutenant to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is seen as having links to Osama bin Laden.

PILGRIM: Jamie, a quick follow-up on another issue.

The Army chief of staff, General Schoomaker, put forward a fairly radical plan to reorganize the Army and increase the number of combat brigades. And what precisely is the Army chief of staff proposing?

MCINTYRE: We'll he's talking right now at this hour with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And he's pushing a plan to essentially eliminate the Army's 10 divisions and replace them with smaller, more deployable brigades, maybe 45 or 46 of those smaller units, as a way to make the Army more deployable, but without increasing end strength.

And you may recall, both Secretary Rumsfeld and now the Army chief are saying they don't want any more troops. That would be a temporary fix, they say, despite congressional calls. And I should mention that, even though the Pentagon is not asking for any more troops, they are asking for more money. The Pentagon, just a few moments ago, put out its budget request for next year, $401.7 billion. That's an increase of 7 percent -- Kitty.

PILGRIM: All right, thanks very much, Jamie McIntyre. Thanks, Jamie.

More trouble tonight for Halliburton. Now, the company was once led by Vice President Dick Cheney. Halliburton is already under investigation for allegedly overcharging the Army for fuel in Iraq. And now the company says officials from one of its subsidiaries may have accepted kickbacks.

Lisa Sylvester reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Halliburton's internal auditors caught the violation and reported it to the Pentagon's inspector general.

A Kuwaiti-based subcontractor providing support service in Iraq overcharged the U.S. government $6.3 million, part of that money allegedly pay for kickbacks to two employees of Halliburton's KBR subsidiary in exchange for the contract. This latest disclosure has given new ammunition to Halliburton's critics, who contend, the company has been getting special consideration for work in Iraq because of Vice President Dick Cheney's ties to the company.

REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: To me, it would be a real light flashing, saying, you better investigate the matter, because, if they are admitting this, maybe there is more to it.

SYLVESTER: Halliburton says it should be given credit for disclosing.

In a statement, KBR said it is "conducting an investigation and will cooperate with the Department of Defense inspector general. Those individuals involved are no longer employed by the company. None of Halliburton's senior officers were involved."

But KBR is already under fire. Last year, Pentagon auditors found, the subsidiary overbilled the U.S. government $61 million to bring in gasoline for Kuwait. The Pentagon's inspector general is weighing whether to open a criminal investigation looking into the matter. But critics say there's a larger problem that is not being addressed. DANIELLE BRIAN, PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT: The government essentially has developed a system over the last 10 years where, remarkably, there's very little competition for contracts anymore. And we have very little transparency in really getting to see exactly how our dollars are being spent.

SYLVESTER: Adding to the debate, last week, Halliburton was awarded another contract to rebuild Iraq's oil fields, after it beat out several competitors. That contract is worth $1.2 billion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SYLVESTER: Today, Halliburton reimbursed the government the $6.3 million to cover the overbilling and will in turn seek reimbursement from the Kuwaiti subcontractor -- Kitty.

PILGRIM: All right, thanks very much, Lisa Sylvester.

Coming up next, signs of life on Mars, at least from NASA's wayward rover, that is. Scientists are not ready to give up on Spirit quite yet.

And solutions for an "Overwhelmed America," motivating a disgruntled population back into action.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PILGRIM: NASA's Spirit rover today delighted scientists by sending its first signal from Mars in two days. Spirit transmitted data to Earth two different times today. But NASA says Spirit is skill in -- quote -- "critical condition." It could take weeks to repair.

Miles O'Brien is live at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and has the very latest on that -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And the very latest, Kitty, includes another communication pass, which would make it the third since the wee hours of this morning, this one, perhaps, much more significant.

Joining us to talk about it is the associate administrator for science at NASA headquarters in Washington, Ed Weiler.

Ed, you have gotten a tremendous amount of data back. Why don't you just tell us what the team has learned just within the past few minutes.

ED WEILER, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR SCIENCE, NASA: Well the surprising thing is, Miles, about four or five hours, we sent a command to turn off the spacecraft, to utilize save power, and the spacecraft received the command, but then it kept beeping at us, basically telling us it was ignoring the command. That was about noon.

And then, about 1:00, 2:00 Pacific time, the spacecraft turned on and sent about 80 megabytes of data to the Odyssey spacecraft, which it hasn't done in like 2 1/2 days. Now, most of the data was garbage, but, by pure coincidence, some of the frames, as we call them, had data in them. And they just happened to be power system data. And they show that the power system was totally nominal, totally in working order, no problems at all, which was really good news.

O'BRIEN: All right, so that's a significant amount of data, much more than you have gotten heretofore since this problem occurred, 80 megabytes.

(CROSSTALK)

WEILER: But most of it was garbage.

O'BRIEN: But most of it garbage. Nevertheless, to be able to say that the power system is A-OK is a big step for this engineering team, as they try to figure out what has gone wrong.

WEILER: Right.

As you heard this morning from the project, one of the things we want to do now is really, hopefully, put the satellite to sleep, the spacecraft to sleep, for a few days to let the engineers catch up with the data as it comes in now and understand what they have to do. Plus, we have a small little event occurring tomorrow which we need to concentrate on called the second landing.

O'BRIEN: The second landing, yes. And the word we got earlier was that, with the team having a stable spacecraft, Spirit, they could focus on this.

But given what is happening now with this additional information coming in, does that change the focus at all back to Spirit? Or is it

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: ... on Opportunity?

WEILER: It actually helps us move the focus away from Spirit, because, if we know we have a stable power system that can survive the night and day cycles and all that, we can leave that spacecraft sit there for days at a time and not have to worry about it.

O'BRIEN: All right, so do you feel you have turned a corner here?

WEILER: I'm feeling a lot better than I did yesterday.

O'BRIEN: All right, Ed Weiler, we appreciate you being with us, the associate administrator for space science at NASA headquarters. Thanks very much.

Kitty, we're going to keep you posted. Slowly, but surely, the communication not only keeps going, but it seems to be getting -- well, actually is getting a lot better moment by moment -- Kitty.

PILGRIM: Miles, we're hanging by our fingernails on this one. We know you'll track it. Thanks, Miles.

Still to come, "Broken Borders." Tonight, I will be joined by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a forceful critic of President Bush's new immigration plan.

In "Overwhelmed America," new ways to energize voters and encourage them to take control of their lives and their communities.

And in "Heroes," the remarkable story of an Army Reserve medic who looked after wounded troops in Iraq while wounded himself.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PILGRIM: President Bush's new immigration plan would give temporary legal status to an estimated 10 million illegal aliens in this country. My guest tonight says that would have many dangerous effects, especially on our healthcare system and also national security.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher is a member of the International Relations Committee. He joins us tonight from Irvine, California. And thanks very much for joining us.

Congressman, you say that the Bush plan is really a defacto amnesty and you don't like it at all. Explain to us why.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER, (R) CALIFORNIA: Well, first of all, let me note I think President Bush has a very good heart and I think that he's motivated because of the predicament that we have with so many people in our country, illegally, who are being exploited and live in very bad conditions.

And I think the try to normalize the situation, the president is trying to reach out for a solution, but I don't think that solution will be very good for the rest of us. I think it will have dramatically bad impact on people's wages and on our social services.

PILGRIM: One of the things you object to is giving Social Security to illegal alien workers and you have proposed an alternative to that. Tell us a little bit about it.

ROHRABACHER: Well, let's put it this way. If we start providing that people in our country illegally can be part of our Social Security system, there is going to be no end to it. It will just -- most countries in the world do not have retirement plans for their people. And if they learn all over the world and third world countries that they get to the United States, that they could be part of our Social Security system, it is going to have a horrendous damage.

I'll give you this one example. Our people today don't pay into Social Security as much as they get out. After a few years, it becomes a city penned from the government to help people live well or live better when they are older. Well, if we extend that same courtesy to tens of millions of people who come from foreign countries. When they go back to their own country, we are going to be providing retirement benefits for millions and millions of people all over the world. It will break the system.

PILGRIM: One of the other things you take on is healthcare and you basically were opposed to voting for the Medicare Reform Bill because of a billion dollars that was in it to take care of healthcare needs of illegal aliens in this country. You ultimately went with the bill, but came up with a plan of your own. Tell us a little bit about that one.

ROHRABACHER: Well, surely. I voted for the Medicare bill. The president was strongly pushing that to make sure, again taking care of our seniors. But while that bill was in the Senate, somebody added an extraneous provision, it was a good friend of mine, Senator Kyl, that extraneous position -- addition was that there was a billion dollars added to the bill to provide emergency healthcare for illegal immigrants.

Well, my bill -- I was not going to vote for the bill, but to get my vote they agreed that we would have some legislation that I would write that would mitigate the bad impact of having the taxpayers officially picking up the medical costs, emergency medical costs, for illegal immigrants.

What my bill says is that if an illegal immigrant comes in for emergency healthcare. Yes we're going to treat him if it's an emergency, but we are not going to be treating him, and it does define what an emergency is, for conditions that he had when he came into this country.

We can't have people coming here and expecting to be treated for genetic conditions, for cancer, for long-term healthcare problems. No, we will treat someone if they are in an emergency, if their life is threatened at that moment and only to the degree that they can then get back to their home country.

Furthermore, the hospitals will be required to get the names and ask the legal status of the people they are treating. Then make that available to the INS.

PILGRIM: So it really -- I was about to ask you, it really makes the hospital responsible for reporting an illegal alien in this country, does it not?

ROHRABACHER: No, what it does is it require the hospitals to ask questions as they have to ask right now. They ask a lot of questions. It just means they have to ask is the person here legally? And if not, who -- where they live and who their employer is.

And what my bill does, if they are here illegally, and the employer has not called to try to confirm whether they are here illegally, the medicare costs will then be picked up not by the taxpayers for that emergency healthcare, but by the employer.

PILGRIM: All right. Very interesting proposals. Thank you very much for explaining them to us.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, thanks for being with us.

Let's take a look at some of your e-mails. And let's turn to Barbara from California. Barbara writes, "I am tired of hearing about illegal immigrants working in jobs that American's do not want. There are plenty of unemployed Americans who would love to work in construction, landscaping and restaurant industries for a decent wage. Unfortunately, employers would rather hire illegal immigrants to do this work so they can pay them off the books.

Janet from South Carolina wrote about the strain on this country's National Guard and reserves. She writes, "If our regular military were sufficiently staffed, our National Guard and reserves could protect our home borders, U.S. citizens and other legal residence, not to mention our nation overall would be much better off than we are today."

And Dave Jack wrote, "I don't understand the criticism of the Bush administration that they are not creating jobs. They've created millions of jobs in China, India, Mexico, Indonesia, Hoduras and a host of other countries."

We do love hearing from you. E-mail us at loudobbs@CNN.com.

Now for our series of special report, "Overwhelmed America." This week we've been reporting on the many Americans who are too busy with work and their own lives to try to help make this country a better place. And today we look at some possible solutions, attempts to re-engage the American people.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM (voice-over): Welcome to the new way of campaigning. It's not a party, this group in Atlanta is meeting to talk politics. Attracting even Democratic national committee chairman, Terry McAuliffe.

TERRY MCAULIFFE, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Events like this are critical to get people energized.

PILGRIM: All across the country organizations are trying to excite voters at events like this "MeetUp" in New York.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seems like there's a lot of energy in the room and it's a great turn out.

SCOTT HEIFERMAN, FOUNDER MEETUP.COM: The Kerry campaign, Kucinich, Clark, Dean, the Democratic Party, conservative organizations, the fastest growing Meet-ups actually, ever are the conservative Meet-Ups. And there are George Bush supporter meet-ups.

PILGRIM: Democratic hopeful Howard Dean showing in Iowa have raised questions how new recruiting tools, like the Internet can be. And with nearly half the country not voting in the last presidential election, experts say a new approach is needed. BOB HANSAN, PARTICIPATE AMERICAN FOUNDATION: We have been spending millions and millions of dollars in this country trying to get people to vote, but they are not doing it.

PILGRIM: On the local level, political experts say, if you can hook people with just one issue they will become involved in politics.

RICHARD HARWOOD, HARWOOD INST. FOR PUBLIC INNOVATION: The way to get people involved is to make the process relevant to them, to talk about issues that they care about in ways that give people a sense of possibility.

PILGRIM: In communities like Lexington, Kentucky, groups like Newcities Foundation, organize town hall events.

SYLVIA LOVELY, PRESIDENT NEWCITIES FOUNDATION: I think because they are so busy and they are so overwrought with all their experiences, just keeping up with the kids schedule is a nightmare.

We believe it's real important to show the result because the payoff is there.

PILGRIM: The key, they say, is to show that political activism can make a difference.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: Voter participation researchers say many of the past solutions have had success in the short term, the Motor Voter Initiative for example, "Rock the Vote," but they don't often retain people's interest over time.

And that brings us to our poll question tonight. "Do you vote, yes or no?" By the way, you can vote on our Web site, CNN.com/lou. We'll share the results later in the show.

Coming up, our feature series "Heroes". Tonight an army medical specialist whose surgical team was attacked in Iraq. We'll have his amazing story of survival and dedication.

And then...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just enjoy being able to contribute at my advanced age.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PILGRIM: Another American who has dedicated his life and transformed part of the USO. That and a great deal more. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PILGRIM: Four U.S. marines are dead after their helicopter crashed in Camp Pendleton, California last night. Marine investigators are trying to determine if the helicopter hit power lines.

A new government campaign says taking too much over the counter drug Acetaminophen can damage your liver. Overdoses of Acetaminophen found in Tylenol are blamed for more than 56,000 emergency room visits and 100 deaths each year.

Turning now to heroes tonight. An army reservist is adjusting after a year of tremendous changes in his life. Last January Jeremy Wellman received the call to be ready for war in Iraq. That was the beginning of several life altering events. Casey Wian has the story from Vancouver, Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Army medical specialist Jeremy Wellman went to Iraq to look after wounded American troops. But when mortars rained down on his surgical team he found himself treating fellow doctors and nurses while suffering shrapnel wounds himself.

SPC. JEREMY WELLMAN, ARMY RESERVE: I took some shrapnel on my leg and back. It wasn't bad. I didn't really notice it until after I already helped assess a patient or two. And looked down and felt a sting in my leg and had some blood come out of there.

WIAN: It was a life-altering experience.

WELLMAN: I'm pretty young. I'm pretty -- and, you know, I want to go over there and want to be bad and tough. Everybody wants that, first bullet whizzes by your head and first bomb goes off nearby that goes away and you realize your own mortality.

WIAN: But it wasn't the first surprise for Wellman since he'd been away. A middle of the night phone call in April confirmed that life at home would never be the same either.

WELLMAN: What do you do when you're 5,000 miles away and you learn that your girlfriend's pregnant and you know you're not coming home for at least three or four, six months, maybe even longer. And, I mean, pretty much overwhelming at that time.

WIAN: In September Wellman returned home. He married Samantha (ph) in October, son Braden (ph) was born in December. Now back at work at the southwest Washington Medical Center, Wellman adjusts from being a soldier to being a family man.

WELLMAN: You go there and you come back with something that you didn't expect. And -- oh, more stressful, trauma, it will always kind of be there. It's been there ever since I got back. Once a week I have a nightmare that wakes me up out of a dead sleep.

WIAN: Still he'd return to Iraq if the call came.

WELLMAN: I'd love to go back. You don't hear a lot of people saying that, but I just was excited about the effort and excited about what we were doing over there.

WIAN: Samantha and Braden are supportive but hope it doesn't happen too soon. Casey Wian, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: For troops like Jeremy Wellman who have just returned from overseas or for those about to ship out, the USO is a valuable source of help and support. There are more than 12,000 volunteers all over the world working hard for the troops and families. Among those volunteers one man's dedication stands out. Jen Rogers has the story of Michael Pileman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEN ROGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is probably what comes to mind when you think of the USO. Stars like Bruce Willis, Mariah Carey, and Robin Williams entertaining troops around the globe.

ROBIN WILLIAMS, ACTOR: Good morning, Baghdad!

ROGERS: While big names get the cheers, it's the USO's smaller programs that may make the biggest difference. The 63-year-old nonprofit offers childcare, an emergency travel fund, and over 120 centers that are safe havens for military men and women all over the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it is like a home away from home. For real.

ROGERS: Since 9/11 military deployments have increased substantially, putting pressure on the USO to respond as well.

MICHAEL TEILMANN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE BOB HOPE USO AT LAX: When I first joined the board of the USO I would say, gee, you guys are only open two or three day as week down there and only for several hours a day, I think you ought to do this and that and the other. Pretty soon I got a call from one of the guys on the board saying, you talk a good game, Teilmann, why don't you go out and do something about it.

ROGERS: So he did. Under Retired Brigadier General Michael Teilmann's management, the USO center at Los Angeles International Airport expanded its hours to seven days a week, 18 hours a day.

TEILMANN: Where you headed off to?

ROGERS: Keeping this USO running is just his day job. He also moonlights as a producer for USO events overseas.

TEILMANN: They are out in the field or wherever and all of a sudden they see this group of very famous people coming by, it's a great morale booster.

ROGERS: For Teilman, it's a way to stay active without being on active duty. TEILMANN: I just enjoy being able to still contribute at my advanced age.

ROGERS: These young guys seem pretty grateful for that contribution. Jen Rogers, CNN financial news. Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: On Wall Street the Dow broke an eight-week winning streak. The Dow lost almost 55 points on the day. The Nasdaq rose five and the S&P 500 lost two. And Christine Romans is here with "The Market." Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kitty, the Dow was lower on the day on the week but the S&P 500 managed to match another weekly advance. A nice week high in a row. That hasn't happened since 1989. Meanwhile, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange the investigation into the Stock Exchange specialist heats up.

Several of those firms have been put on notice by the SEC that they may be disciplined. Action is also expected by the NYSE itself. At issue the allegation of the five biggest specialist firms got in the way of stock trades to line their own pocket. That is something that could have cost investigators $155 million, Kitty, over the past three years. This investigation continues.

PILGRIM: I have to ask you about Harvard. They had a pretty good year.

ROMANS: Absolutely. $101 million, Harvard five fund managers were paid for the performance that they gave for Harvard's big endowment helping grow Harvard's nest egg. One fund manager got $34 million, another money manager, $35 million. Harvard says that those two accounted for $700 million in gains to its already huge endowment.

Some alumni, Kitty, are screaming. They call the payout obscenely high. After all, the fund managers took home 2,700 years worth of Harvard tuition. Harvard says it will re-examine its pay policies and come up with a pay ceiling from now on, a maximum, if you will. Harvard says it's a fortunate problem to have because these money managers made a lot of money for the Harvard endowment and so they were paid quite well in turn.

PILGRIM: Nobody says they weren't smart. Thanks very much.

Now a reminder, do vote in our poll, question tonight. We're asking, "Do you vote? Yes or no." You can vote on our website CNN.com/lou. We'll share the results later in the show.

Coming up next, this week's news makers and also a nose for trouble. A dog with uncanny instincts. He knows just where to turn in an emergency. That and -- all that and more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PILGRIM: It's been a pretty busy week in politics with the Iowa caucuses and the president's State of the Union address. And next week brings the nation's first state-wide primary in New Hampshire. And to discuss all of this and much more, I am joined by the editors of the nation's leading business magazines. We have Tim Ferguson, editor of "Forbes" global, Bill Powell, managing editor of "Fortune," and Jim Ellis, chief of correspondents at "BusinessWeek." And thank you for sharing your Friday evening with us. And let's start with you, Bill. You were in Iowa, what is your version of what happened there, and the Kerry upset?

BILL POWELL, FORTUNE: It's not entirely different, I think, from what a lot of us have heard since then. I think one of the things that gets a little bit overlooked in particularly in the case of Howard Dean in the wake of the Monday night performance is that earlier the previous week, the tape that had come out in which he dissed the Iowa caucuses pretty severely. I found, just talking to Iowa voters, that really hurt him. It really, you know, put a lid on his support.

Going forward to New Hampshire, I understand among my political reporter friends it's, you know, one doesn't make predictions now because God knows anything can happen, but since I'm not a political reporter I will say I think Dean is finished. I think Kerry and Edwards from here on out will -- is the competition. And we'll see.

PILGRIM: The latest CNN-"USA Today" poll has Kerry at 34 percent, Dean at 22, Clark at 17 and Edwards at 12. Jim, we have seen -- we are talking about one tape where he dissed Iowa, but another tape we have seen ad nauseum, and that's the ...

JIM ELLIS, BUSINESSWEEK: The screech tape there.

PILGRIM: Right.

ELLIS: I think it was -- it's been a pretty deep blow for him. I also think that the comment today about Alan Greenspan was probably not the best thing to say, either. I think that instead a lot of people are going to start looking at him and wondering whether he can be thought of as sort of a competent and sort of coolheaded leader. I think that that's sort of sad, because what we're doing now is we're not thinking about the issues, instead we're talking about the presentation, sort of the pattern outside. But that's the nature of the sort of campaign trail.

PILGRIM: Tim, any thoughts on this?

TIM FERGUSON, FORBES GLOBAL: In New Hampshire, I think it will be interesting to see whether the traditional bent of the state for neo-liberal type candidates, this goes back all the way at least to Michael Dukakis in 1988, holds forth. And I think if Kerry can present himself as that, he'll come out OK.

PILGRIM: All right. Let's go to the State of the Union speech, another benchmark in the week, and Bush saying that he's going to cut the deficit in half in the next four years. How realistic is this? Any laughing or I mean... ELLIS: I'm laughing at it. I actually think that it's a great thing to say on the campaign trail, which he's definitely on, but it's not going to happen. I think the one thing that came out of the speech that was very good is that he's admitting that we don't have a short-term blip in the deficit now. The deficit is with us. There's a real danger of a structural deficit here that's going to take years to get rid of.

And we also saw today with the talk of bringing back the 20-year bond. I mean, we're going to now see deficit spending for a long, long time.

POWELL: And I think this matters, Kitty. I mean, I think -- I talked to a lot of Republicans who are very disquieted by the deficits as far as the eye can see. And when Howard Dean and all the other Democratic candidates get out on the stump, as they do, and when Dean says, you know, you can't trust Republicans with your money, that campaign line has some resonance now. And I think there's a lot of Republicans who very quietly would like to see some credible plan going forward to get the deficits under some control.

FERGUSON: There's no question somebody in Washington starts to -- will need to start saying no to some of these spending interests, as well as the pork barreling. That said, President Bush is blessed with the lowest interest rates around the world, in fact, that this economy has seen in quite a while. And there's a lot of room for error in that type of environment.

ELLIS: And he's definitely made a lot of errors. I think instead -- he came in saying he was a different type of Republican. That's quite true. Instead of being a sort of tax-and-spend Democrat, he's turned out to be a cut-taxes-and-spend Republican. That's not a good combination. I'm really worried about this. The deficit is basically mortgage in the the future of our children.

PILGRIM: We'll be talking about this deficit pretty much through the election cycle. Let's talk about the $820 billion catch-all spending bill. Some hilarious pieces of pork in them.

FERGUSON: Eight thousand of them, as a matter of fact. About $10 billion.

PILGRIM: Right.

FERGUSON: As I say, no one is saying no to practically anything.

PILGRIM: It seems odd to be talking about cutting the deficit in half over the next four years and then passing this -- it seems a bit duplicitious.

ELLIS: It's the only way you can get Congress to back it up. When everybody understand that there's no way we can get this done, so basically you keep throwing pork on the table, you put enough there and you can fry some bacon.

POWELL: What I would say is, if the parallels between now and 1984, are striking. When President Reagan went into '84 with the wind at his back economically, as President Bush arguably is this time. In 1986, as in 2006, I think you're going to see a grand compromise. They are going to do a deal on the deficit. They have to.

PILGRIM: All right. We leave it there. Bill Powell, Tim Ferguson and Jim Ellis. Thank you very, very much for joining us tonight.

Coming up, a very sick dog in Ohio. He follows his instincts right into the emergency room.

But first, an update on the list of companies our staff has confirmed to be exporting America. And these are either companies either sending American jobs overseas, or choosing to employ cheap foreign labor instead of American workers. And tonight's additions include Jabil Circuit and Netgear.

Do keep sending us the names of companies you know to be exporting America. And for the complete list, log on to cnn.com/lou. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PILGRIM: Now, some news just in. A senior U.S. official says coalition forces in Iraq have captured a senior operative with al Qaeda. His name is Hassan Ghul. There are no details about the circumstances of the man's capture or what he was doing in Iraq.

Earlier, the Pentagon said the United States has captured another man, a terrorist with links to the Ansar al-Islam group, that's an organization with close ties to al Qaeda.

Here are the results of our poll question tonight. We asked, do you vote? Ninety-six percent of you said yes; 4 percent of you said no.

Finally tonight, a sick stray dog in Ohio who knew just where to go to get some help. This Doberman walks through the snow and freezing cold into a local hospital, only to collapse on the floor of the emergency room. Doctors transferred him to a veterinarian, who removed a two-pound tumor. The dog is 40 pounds underweight, does not appear to have an owner, but veterinarians and local Doberman rescue center are working to nurse him back to health.

That is our show tonight. Thanks for being with us. Monday, Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, will join Lou, and we'll begin a series of special reports, "Exporting America," with a look at U.S. companies sending American jobs overseas. For all of us here, good night from New York. Have a great weekend. Anderson Cooper is next.

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

Kerry Rising in New Hampshire>

Aired January 23, 2004 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Tonight: John Kerry is on a roll in New Hampshire. His poll numbers are up and he is making patriotism a key part of his campaign.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're not going to take any lessons in patriotism from those who don't understand that the first definition of patriotism is keeping faith who those who wore the uniform of our country.

PILGRIM: In Iraq today, another U.S. helicopter is down. Two pilots are dead. Our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre, will report.

In "Overwhelmed America" tonight, new ideas to energize voters and convince them to take part in our great democracy. We will have a special report.

And in "Heroes," the dramatic story of an Army Reserve medic who gave his comrades first aid, even though he wounded and under enemy fire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You go there and you come back with something that you didn't expect, more stress, a little trauma. But it will just always kind of be there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Friday, January 23. Sitting in for Lou Dobbs, Kitty Pilgrim.

PILGRIM: Good evening.

Tonight, the New Hampshire primary is just four days away. And Senator John Kerry is pulling away from his rivals in the tracking polls. A new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll says Kerry now has a lead of 12 percentage points over his nearest rival, Howard Dean.

Today, in Manchester, New Hampshire, Kerry took his message to an audience full of military veterans.

Bob Franken reports from Manchester -- Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And Kerry has always made the veterans part of what he's trying to claim as his constituency. And he is now at a position where he can sort of glide as he pulls away. He has a commanding lead. And what he's doing now, he is trying to run a campaign that is as noncontroversial as possible.

And he's piling up the endorsements. Probably the most noteworthy was Fritz Hollings. What's noteworthy about that is, Hollings is from South Carolina, which is the next bank of states, in addition to which, that is considered a state where John Edwards was expected to have quite a strength. Edwards has rather discounted that endorsement.

In addition to which, there is word out that, when the Minnesota State Democratic Political Committee meets tomorrow, there will be a split in the most famous party family in the state. Ted Mondale is a longtime Dean supporter. He will be speaking at that convention. But speaking for John Kerry will be Walter Mondale. As I said, Kitty, when things are going your way, they are going your way.

PILGRIM: You can't overemphasize that. Thanks very much, Bob Franken.

Well, Howard Dean today strongly criticized Washington insiders, as he tried to kick-start his faltering campaign. Early in the day, Dean appeared to call for the resignation of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. But he later backed away from those comments in a CNN interview.

Candy Crowley is in Keene, New Hampshire -- Candy.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi. I'm actually in Manchester, New Hampshire.

But you're right about Howard Dean, who has really spent the past couple of days in full damage control, after a devastating third in Iowa, followed then by a very controversial concession speech. Dean last night put in a very sedate debate performance.

He followed that up with an interview with his wife on national television, the first interview that Mrs. Dean has ever done. And then he did the David Letterman top 10, trying to show that he can make fun of himself. What he's trying to do, of course, is to stop the bleeding of his campaign. The question is whether or not it's worked.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We turned the corner and we're going to come back up. And the question is, can we close the gap between now and Tuesday? And I hope we can. We're going to do everything we can to try to close the gap.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: It looked for all the world like campaign as usual today, when Dean went about his business, town hall meetings. There were a couple of rounds inside an apple-selling mart. There were also some times he went into a guitar store and strummed the guitar. They tried very hard not to make any news during all of this. But the fact of the matter is, there was that little question about Alan Greenspan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: I think Alan Greenspan has become too political. If he lacks the political courage to criticize the deficits, if he was foolish enough -- and he is not a foolish man -- to support the outrageous tax cuts that George Bush put through here, then he has become too political and we need a new chairman of the Federal Reserve.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: The Dean campaign does believe it can turn this around. Certainly, it has the money and the passionate support to move on beyond New Hampshire. But what Dean really needs here is a win -- Kitty.

PILGRIM: Candy, you said they were trying very hard not to make news, but they are making a conscious effort, Howard Dean, to present a softer image. How are we seeing that?

CROWLEY: Absolutely.

And that's what you're seeing in certainly his appearances last night with his wife and the hand-holding, sweater-wearing. They are trying to show the softer image to counteract what some saw as such a fierce performance on Monday night.

Obviously, his supporters didn't see it that way. But a lot of people looked at it and found it a little disturbing. So now we're seeing an apple -- buying apples. He's playing the guitar. So there's a lot of that sort of picture to try to counteract. At the same time, though, as you can see with the Greenspan remark, he's really going back to the basics, which is, I'm the outsider; the rest of them are insiders.

And that's where the Greenspan remark came from.

PILGRIM: Well, he certainly looked very mellow today. Thanks very much, Candy Crowley.

Wesley Clark spent the day emphasizing what he believes is his most significant advantage over his rivals, his leadership qualities. And John Edwards again criticized President Bush on his economic policies.

Now, we have two reports, beginning with the Clark campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF: I'm Dan Lothian in Manchester, New Hampshire. Retired General Wesley Clark said he feels good about his performance at last night's debate. He believes he was able to make a clear case to the American people that he is electable. But Clark is still having to deal with that issue of his credentials as a Democrat. This is a question that came up when he first got into the race because of his support for Republicans in the past. It came up at last night's debate.

But today, Clark told me it is just not an issue.

WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think the voters understand I am a Democrat. And I think that the Republican Party understands that as well. And if you refer to Richard Cohen's latest column in "The Washington Post," he said I'm the one Democrat that Karl Rove has to fear.

And I looked at who asked the questions and, you know, I think that that's part of a Republican Party agenda in the debate.

LOTHIAN: In that last comment, Clark referring to a Fox News anchor who took part in the questioning last night. That comment could become quite controversial.

On the campaign trail today, Clark began by singing with kindergarten students.

CHILDREN (singing): God bless America, my home sweet home.

LOTHIAN: Later, speaking to supporters, Clark said, as president, he will focus on education, creating jobs, providing universal health care, and making America safer.

Now, the Clark campaign is expected to get some key endorsements over the next couple of days. Already today, they are being endorsed by the former attorney general of Florida, Bob Butterworth.

Dan Lothian, CNN, Manchester, New Hampshire.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I'm Jeanne Meserve covering the Edwards campaign.

John Edwards has moved up in the polls here since his strong performance in Iowa, but not a lot. He is still in fourth place. But the senator, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, says he's noticing a lot of people coming to his events who were Dean supporters. And he thinks he's beginning to see in New Hampshire what he saw in Iowa, a late surge.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What is happening here in New Hampshire in the last few days is what I saw in the last week in Iowa. The events I go to, I'm expecting 100 or 150. And we had an event in Portsmouth, there were 600 people, 100 more outside who couldn't get in. Had the same thing in Dartmouth yesterday, 400 or so and another couple of hundred who couldn't get in.

So this is the same kind of momentum that I saw there. And I just have to keep it going and keep moving.

MESERVE: Edwards made only one campaign appearance in New Hampshire today. And last night's debate may well have been his last chance to make a big splash with the state's voters.

Interestingly, when Edwards was asked about his vote against an $87 billion expenditure for Iraq, he aligned himself with the man who is currently leading the pack here.

EDWARDS: There are two of us on this stage, Senator Kerry and myself, both voted against it. And I know that both of us felt we needed to say loud and clear to President Bush that what he was doing was wrong and we thought he needed to change course.

MESERVE: One of the hallmarks of Edwards campaign has been his refusal to snipe at other candidates. He stuck to that successful strategy last night, but so did virtually everyone else, which could make it harder for Edwards to stand out.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Manchester, New Hampshire.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: The big question tonight is whether anyone can beat John Kerry in Tuesday's primary.

And joining me now are Drew Cline, who is the editorial page editor of "The Union Leader" newspaper and our own Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst.

And thank you both for joining us.

Bill, let's start with you. And what do you make of the latest tracking polls? Quite a difference from a month ago.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Quite a difference from a few days ago, Kitty.

What we're seeing is a big surge by John Kerry. He's now 12 points ahead of Howard Dean. It's Kerry 34, Dean 22. And Dean is only five points ahead of Wesley Clark. There is a real danger that, if Dean continues to drop, he could come out third in this primary. John Edwards has picked up a few points. He's now at 12 percent. Joe Lieberman stuck at No. 5, 8 point.

This shows that the Kerry lead is continuing, though, I add, all these interviews were conducted after the Iowa caucuses, but before last night's debate.

PILGRIM: Now, we look at trends, Bill. What's the trend you're seeing?

SCHNEIDER: Well, we're seeing sort of four trends going on. One I call the big mo, which is the Kerry trend, up, up, and very high, been going on now for a couple of weeks. Look at that yellow line. We see a smaller trend for Edwards. He's been improving slowly, just a bit. That's the little mo. Then we have the big whoa. That is Howard Dean, that green line. That is just going down and down and down. We'll see if he was able to arrest that decline with the debate and his interview on "Primetime" last night.

And we see the little whoa, which is Wesley Clark, who is also losing support, because a lot of people who were thinking about voting for Clark seem to be switching to John Kerry. We don't see Joe Lieberman. He's sort of the no-mo. He's stuck in the bottom and not showing much movement at all.

PILGRIM: He doesn't even deserve a line on that chart.

Let's talk about presidential personality. And that's a really interesting poll.

SCHNEIDER: Yes, we did ask people if each of the contenders has the personality you want to see in a president. And they all overwhelmingly said yes, with one exception, Howard Dean. Democrats were split just about 50/50 in the case of Howard Dean. Look at this. Just 50 percent said Dean has the kind of personality a president should have.

That, you see in front of you, is the damage inflicted by the tirade on Monday night, the damage he tried to stem with his performance last night, with his very subdued campaign now here in New Hampshire. But that was the first impression a lot of voters got of Howard Dean around the country. And, obviously, it changed the view of Howard Dean here in New Hampshire, where, just a few weeks ago, he was running 25 points ahead.

It's a new Howard Dean and a new John Kerry.

PILGRIM: All right, Bill, let's bring in Drew Cline of "The Union Leader."

And, Drew, New Hampshire is an interesting state, so many independent voters. And I understand, they make up their mind at the very last second. It's almost hard to call this, isn't it?

DREW CLINE, EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR, "THE UNION LEADER": It's impossible to call. And that's true. The voters do make up their minds mostly at the very last minute, a lot of them not until they get into the booth.

So I think any smart person in New Hampshire who is asked whether they are going to make a prediction about this will say no, because it's absolutely impossible.

PILGRIM: Yes.

But 37 percent are undeclared at this point. That's a pretty high percentage. What was your view, seeing it through the eyes of where you sit, of last night's debate? Some suggest that it was very sedate. No one was really willing to take very many risks.

CLINE: I think that's true. Nobody wanted to take a lot of risks.

I think the real loser in that debate was Clark. He answered questions terribly. He really did a very awful job. And what that lost him was the people who are wavering from Dean. There are people who looked at Monday night's tirade and said, I don't know if this guy is electable. I don't know. I think I might want to go to Clark, because Dean supporters are people who didn't want to go to Edwards, they didn't want to go to Kerry, the establishment candidates. They wanted somebody who was an outsider.

And when Clark just botched almost every question last night, I think that made a lot of Dean supporters say, maybe I'll stick with Dean or maybe Edwards and maybe Kerry aren't that bad after all.

PILGRIM: Let's get Bill Schneider in on this.

What were your impressions, Bill?

SCHNEIDER: I think that Drew is exactly right. I thought that Clark's performance was quite disappointing. He had very poor answers, particularly to questions about domestic policy.

If there was one candidate who I thought made a positive impression, it was John Edwards. And I would suggest that we keep a close eye on John Edwards. He's drawing a very positive response. His numbers, we just saw, are creeping up slowly. But he says he sees a late surge. John Edwards is a very affable campaigner. He's very positive. A lot of people are impressed by him. Watch John Edwards. He may surprise everybody on Tuesday.

PILGRIM: We certainly will. Thanks very much, Bill Schneider and Drew Cline of "The Union Leader." Thanks very much for joining us this evening and have a great weekend.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHNEIDER: You're welcome.

CLINE: OK.

PILGRIM: Coming up next, another deadly day for American troops in Iraq.

And also, Halliburton admits what it calls an irregularity. Critics call it a scandal. We'll have the details.

Then, in search of Spirit. NASA's rover checks in, but only for a moment. And the drama continues on Mars.

And "Broken Borders" tonight, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher on why he says the president's immigration plan will only lead to more illegal immigration.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PILGRIM: Two Army pilots were killed in Iraq today when their helicopter crashed near the northern city of Mosul. The military said it does not know if the crash was caused by hostile fire or mechanical problems.

Senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre reports -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kitty.

The helicopter crash happened about 8:30 at night local time in Iraq. And OH-58 observation helicopter, a Kiowa Warrior, was flying in the area South of Mosul when it crashed. These were two helicopters at the time like this. The one that was accompanying the helicopter did not give any indication of hostile activity. So, at this time, they don't know if the helicopter was shot down or had a mechanical problem.

Overall, the number of attacks against Americans in Iraq has been going down. But, lately, commanders have been citing what they believe is an al Qaeda influence, the latest statement of that coming today in an interview that the top commander on the ground there, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, gave to CNN's Sheila MacVicar, in which he said he saw the fingerprints of al Qaeda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ, U.S. COMMANDER IN IRAQ: We believe that there's training that's been conducted for some of the terrorists.

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In Iraq?

SANCHEZ: No, not conducted in Iraq, but training provided to those elements that are operating in here. And we think that there's also financing that has been taking place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCINTYRE: As if to underscore what General Sanchez was saying, Pentagon sources today confirmed that the U.S. has captured what they believe is a key lieutenant to one of the key people in the Ansar al- Islam group, a group that is connected to al Qaeda, the suspect identified as Husam al-Yemeni, captured last week, along with other suspects in a raid near Fallujah. He is believed to be a key lieutenant to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is seen as having links to Osama bin Laden.

PILGRIM: Jamie, a quick follow-up on another issue.

The Army chief of staff, General Schoomaker, put forward a fairly radical plan to reorganize the Army and increase the number of combat brigades. And what precisely is the Army chief of staff proposing?

MCINTYRE: We'll he's talking right now at this hour with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And he's pushing a plan to essentially eliminate the Army's 10 divisions and replace them with smaller, more deployable brigades, maybe 45 or 46 of those smaller units, as a way to make the Army more deployable, but without increasing end strength.

And you may recall, both Secretary Rumsfeld and now the Army chief are saying they don't want any more troops. That would be a temporary fix, they say, despite congressional calls. And I should mention that, even though the Pentagon is not asking for any more troops, they are asking for more money. The Pentagon, just a few moments ago, put out its budget request for next year, $401.7 billion. That's an increase of 7 percent -- Kitty.

PILGRIM: All right, thanks very much, Jamie McIntyre. Thanks, Jamie.

More trouble tonight for Halliburton. Now, the company was once led by Vice President Dick Cheney. Halliburton is already under investigation for allegedly overcharging the Army for fuel in Iraq. And now the company says officials from one of its subsidiaries may have accepted kickbacks.

Lisa Sylvester reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Halliburton's internal auditors caught the violation and reported it to the Pentagon's inspector general.

A Kuwaiti-based subcontractor providing support service in Iraq overcharged the U.S. government $6.3 million, part of that money allegedly pay for kickbacks to two employees of Halliburton's KBR subsidiary in exchange for the contract. This latest disclosure has given new ammunition to Halliburton's critics, who contend, the company has been getting special consideration for work in Iraq because of Vice President Dick Cheney's ties to the company.

REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: To me, it would be a real light flashing, saying, you better investigate the matter, because, if they are admitting this, maybe there is more to it.

SYLVESTER: Halliburton says it should be given credit for disclosing.

In a statement, KBR said it is "conducting an investigation and will cooperate with the Department of Defense inspector general. Those individuals involved are no longer employed by the company. None of Halliburton's senior officers were involved."

But KBR is already under fire. Last year, Pentagon auditors found, the subsidiary overbilled the U.S. government $61 million to bring in gasoline for Kuwait. The Pentagon's inspector general is weighing whether to open a criminal investigation looking into the matter. But critics say there's a larger problem that is not being addressed. DANIELLE BRIAN, PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT: The government essentially has developed a system over the last 10 years where, remarkably, there's very little competition for contracts anymore. And we have very little transparency in really getting to see exactly how our dollars are being spent.

SYLVESTER: Adding to the debate, last week, Halliburton was awarded another contract to rebuild Iraq's oil fields, after it beat out several competitors. That contract is worth $1.2 billion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SYLVESTER: Today, Halliburton reimbursed the government the $6.3 million to cover the overbilling and will in turn seek reimbursement from the Kuwaiti subcontractor -- Kitty.

PILGRIM: All right, thanks very much, Lisa Sylvester.

Coming up next, signs of life on Mars, at least from NASA's wayward rover, that is. Scientists are not ready to give up on Spirit quite yet.

And solutions for an "Overwhelmed America," motivating a disgruntled population back into action.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PILGRIM: NASA's Spirit rover today delighted scientists by sending its first signal from Mars in two days. Spirit transmitted data to Earth two different times today. But NASA says Spirit is skill in -- quote -- "critical condition." It could take weeks to repair.

Miles O'Brien is live at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and has the very latest on that -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And the very latest, Kitty, includes another communication pass, which would make it the third since the wee hours of this morning, this one, perhaps, much more significant.

Joining us to talk about it is the associate administrator for science at NASA headquarters in Washington, Ed Weiler.

Ed, you have gotten a tremendous amount of data back. Why don't you just tell us what the team has learned just within the past few minutes.

ED WEILER, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR SCIENCE, NASA: Well the surprising thing is, Miles, about four or five hours, we sent a command to turn off the spacecraft, to utilize save power, and the spacecraft received the command, but then it kept beeping at us, basically telling us it was ignoring the command. That was about noon.

And then, about 1:00, 2:00 Pacific time, the spacecraft turned on and sent about 80 megabytes of data to the Odyssey spacecraft, which it hasn't done in like 2 1/2 days. Now, most of the data was garbage, but, by pure coincidence, some of the frames, as we call them, had data in them. And they just happened to be power system data. And they show that the power system was totally nominal, totally in working order, no problems at all, which was really good news.

O'BRIEN: All right, so that's a significant amount of data, much more than you have gotten heretofore since this problem occurred, 80 megabytes.

(CROSSTALK)

WEILER: But most of it was garbage.

O'BRIEN: But most of it garbage. Nevertheless, to be able to say that the power system is A-OK is a big step for this engineering team, as they try to figure out what has gone wrong.

WEILER: Right.

As you heard this morning from the project, one of the things we want to do now is really, hopefully, put the satellite to sleep, the spacecraft to sleep, for a few days to let the engineers catch up with the data as it comes in now and understand what they have to do. Plus, we have a small little event occurring tomorrow which we need to concentrate on called the second landing.

O'BRIEN: The second landing, yes. And the word we got earlier was that, with the team having a stable spacecraft, Spirit, they could focus on this.

But given what is happening now with this additional information coming in, does that change the focus at all back to Spirit? Or is it

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: ... on Opportunity?

WEILER: It actually helps us move the focus away from Spirit, because, if we know we have a stable power system that can survive the night and day cycles and all that, we can leave that spacecraft sit there for days at a time and not have to worry about it.

O'BRIEN: All right, so do you feel you have turned a corner here?

WEILER: I'm feeling a lot better than I did yesterday.

O'BRIEN: All right, Ed Weiler, we appreciate you being with us, the associate administrator for space science at NASA headquarters. Thanks very much.

Kitty, we're going to keep you posted. Slowly, but surely, the communication not only keeps going, but it seems to be getting -- well, actually is getting a lot better moment by moment -- Kitty.

PILGRIM: Miles, we're hanging by our fingernails on this one. We know you'll track it. Thanks, Miles.

Still to come, "Broken Borders." Tonight, I will be joined by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a forceful critic of President Bush's new immigration plan.

In "Overwhelmed America," new ways to energize voters and encourage them to take control of their lives and their communities.

And in "Heroes," the remarkable story of an Army Reserve medic who looked after wounded troops in Iraq while wounded himself.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PILGRIM: President Bush's new immigration plan would give temporary legal status to an estimated 10 million illegal aliens in this country. My guest tonight says that would have many dangerous effects, especially on our healthcare system and also national security.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher is a member of the International Relations Committee. He joins us tonight from Irvine, California. And thanks very much for joining us.

Congressman, you say that the Bush plan is really a defacto amnesty and you don't like it at all. Explain to us why.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER, (R) CALIFORNIA: Well, first of all, let me note I think President Bush has a very good heart and I think that he's motivated because of the predicament that we have with so many people in our country, illegally, who are being exploited and live in very bad conditions.

And I think the try to normalize the situation, the president is trying to reach out for a solution, but I don't think that solution will be very good for the rest of us. I think it will have dramatically bad impact on people's wages and on our social services.

PILGRIM: One of the things you object to is giving Social Security to illegal alien workers and you have proposed an alternative to that. Tell us a little bit about it.

ROHRABACHER: Well, let's put it this way. If we start providing that people in our country illegally can be part of our Social Security system, there is going to be no end to it. It will just -- most countries in the world do not have retirement plans for their people. And if they learn all over the world and third world countries that they get to the United States, that they could be part of our Social Security system, it is going to have a horrendous damage.

I'll give you this one example. Our people today don't pay into Social Security as much as they get out. After a few years, it becomes a city penned from the government to help people live well or live better when they are older. Well, if we extend that same courtesy to tens of millions of people who come from foreign countries. When they go back to their own country, we are going to be providing retirement benefits for millions and millions of people all over the world. It will break the system.

PILGRIM: One of the other things you take on is healthcare and you basically were opposed to voting for the Medicare Reform Bill because of a billion dollars that was in it to take care of healthcare needs of illegal aliens in this country. You ultimately went with the bill, but came up with a plan of your own. Tell us a little bit about that one.

ROHRABACHER: Well, surely. I voted for the Medicare bill. The president was strongly pushing that to make sure, again taking care of our seniors. But while that bill was in the Senate, somebody added an extraneous provision, it was a good friend of mine, Senator Kyl, that extraneous position -- addition was that there was a billion dollars added to the bill to provide emergency healthcare for illegal immigrants.

Well, my bill -- I was not going to vote for the bill, but to get my vote they agreed that we would have some legislation that I would write that would mitigate the bad impact of having the taxpayers officially picking up the medical costs, emergency medical costs, for illegal immigrants.

What my bill says is that if an illegal immigrant comes in for emergency healthcare. Yes we're going to treat him if it's an emergency, but we are not going to be treating him, and it does define what an emergency is, for conditions that he had when he came into this country.

We can't have people coming here and expecting to be treated for genetic conditions, for cancer, for long-term healthcare problems. No, we will treat someone if they are in an emergency, if their life is threatened at that moment and only to the degree that they can then get back to their home country.

Furthermore, the hospitals will be required to get the names and ask the legal status of the people they are treating. Then make that available to the INS.

PILGRIM: So it really -- I was about to ask you, it really makes the hospital responsible for reporting an illegal alien in this country, does it not?

ROHRABACHER: No, what it does is it require the hospitals to ask questions as they have to ask right now. They ask a lot of questions. It just means they have to ask is the person here legally? And if not, who -- where they live and who their employer is.

And what my bill does, if they are here illegally, and the employer has not called to try to confirm whether they are here illegally, the medicare costs will then be picked up not by the taxpayers for that emergency healthcare, but by the employer.

PILGRIM: All right. Very interesting proposals. Thank you very much for explaining them to us.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, thanks for being with us.

Let's take a look at some of your e-mails. And let's turn to Barbara from California. Barbara writes, "I am tired of hearing about illegal immigrants working in jobs that American's do not want. There are plenty of unemployed Americans who would love to work in construction, landscaping and restaurant industries for a decent wage. Unfortunately, employers would rather hire illegal immigrants to do this work so they can pay them off the books.

Janet from South Carolina wrote about the strain on this country's National Guard and reserves. She writes, "If our regular military were sufficiently staffed, our National Guard and reserves could protect our home borders, U.S. citizens and other legal residence, not to mention our nation overall would be much better off than we are today."

And Dave Jack wrote, "I don't understand the criticism of the Bush administration that they are not creating jobs. They've created millions of jobs in China, India, Mexico, Indonesia, Hoduras and a host of other countries."

We do love hearing from you. E-mail us at loudobbs@CNN.com.

Now for our series of special report, "Overwhelmed America." This week we've been reporting on the many Americans who are too busy with work and their own lives to try to help make this country a better place. And today we look at some possible solutions, attempts to re-engage the American people.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM (voice-over): Welcome to the new way of campaigning. It's not a party, this group in Atlanta is meeting to talk politics. Attracting even Democratic national committee chairman, Terry McAuliffe.

TERRY MCAULIFFE, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Events like this are critical to get people energized.

PILGRIM: All across the country organizations are trying to excite voters at events like this "MeetUp" in New York.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seems like there's a lot of energy in the room and it's a great turn out.

SCOTT HEIFERMAN, FOUNDER MEETUP.COM: The Kerry campaign, Kucinich, Clark, Dean, the Democratic Party, conservative organizations, the fastest growing Meet-ups actually, ever are the conservative Meet-Ups. And there are George Bush supporter meet-ups.

PILGRIM: Democratic hopeful Howard Dean showing in Iowa have raised questions how new recruiting tools, like the Internet can be. And with nearly half the country not voting in the last presidential election, experts say a new approach is needed. BOB HANSAN, PARTICIPATE AMERICAN FOUNDATION: We have been spending millions and millions of dollars in this country trying to get people to vote, but they are not doing it.

PILGRIM: On the local level, political experts say, if you can hook people with just one issue they will become involved in politics.

RICHARD HARWOOD, HARWOOD INST. FOR PUBLIC INNOVATION: The way to get people involved is to make the process relevant to them, to talk about issues that they care about in ways that give people a sense of possibility.

PILGRIM: In communities like Lexington, Kentucky, groups like Newcities Foundation, organize town hall events.

SYLVIA LOVELY, PRESIDENT NEWCITIES FOUNDATION: I think because they are so busy and they are so overwrought with all their experiences, just keeping up with the kids schedule is a nightmare.

We believe it's real important to show the result because the payoff is there.

PILGRIM: The key, they say, is to show that political activism can make a difference.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: Voter participation researchers say many of the past solutions have had success in the short term, the Motor Voter Initiative for example, "Rock the Vote," but they don't often retain people's interest over time.

And that brings us to our poll question tonight. "Do you vote, yes or no?" By the way, you can vote on our Web site, CNN.com/lou. We'll share the results later in the show.

Coming up, our feature series "Heroes". Tonight an army medical specialist whose surgical team was attacked in Iraq. We'll have his amazing story of survival and dedication.

And then...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just enjoy being able to contribute at my advanced age.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PILGRIM: Another American who has dedicated his life and transformed part of the USO. That and a great deal more. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PILGRIM: Four U.S. marines are dead after their helicopter crashed in Camp Pendleton, California last night. Marine investigators are trying to determine if the helicopter hit power lines.

A new government campaign says taking too much over the counter drug Acetaminophen can damage your liver. Overdoses of Acetaminophen found in Tylenol are blamed for more than 56,000 emergency room visits and 100 deaths each year.

Turning now to heroes tonight. An army reservist is adjusting after a year of tremendous changes in his life. Last January Jeremy Wellman received the call to be ready for war in Iraq. That was the beginning of several life altering events. Casey Wian has the story from Vancouver, Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Army medical specialist Jeremy Wellman went to Iraq to look after wounded American troops. But when mortars rained down on his surgical team he found himself treating fellow doctors and nurses while suffering shrapnel wounds himself.

SPC. JEREMY WELLMAN, ARMY RESERVE: I took some shrapnel on my leg and back. It wasn't bad. I didn't really notice it until after I already helped assess a patient or two. And looked down and felt a sting in my leg and had some blood come out of there.

WIAN: It was a life-altering experience.

WELLMAN: I'm pretty young. I'm pretty -- and, you know, I want to go over there and want to be bad and tough. Everybody wants that, first bullet whizzes by your head and first bomb goes off nearby that goes away and you realize your own mortality.

WIAN: But it wasn't the first surprise for Wellman since he'd been away. A middle of the night phone call in April confirmed that life at home would never be the same either.

WELLMAN: What do you do when you're 5,000 miles away and you learn that your girlfriend's pregnant and you know you're not coming home for at least three or four, six months, maybe even longer. And, I mean, pretty much overwhelming at that time.

WIAN: In September Wellman returned home. He married Samantha (ph) in October, son Braden (ph) was born in December. Now back at work at the southwest Washington Medical Center, Wellman adjusts from being a soldier to being a family man.

WELLMAN: You go there and you come back with something that you didn't expect. And -- oh, more stressful, trauma, it will always kind of be there. It's been there ever since I got back. Once a week I have a nightmare that wakes me up out of a dead sleep.

WIAN: Still he'd return to Iraq if the call came.

WELLMAN: I'd love to go back. You don't hear a lot of people saying that, but I just was excited about the effort and excited about what we were doing over there.

WIAN: Samantha and Braden are supportive but hope it doesn't happen too soon. Casey Wian, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: For troops like Jeremy Wellman who have just returned from overseas or for those about to ship out, the USO is a valuable source of help and support. There are more than 12,000 volunteers all over the world working hard for the troops and families. Among those volunteers one man's dedication stands out. Jen Rogers has the story of Michael Pileman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEN ROGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is probably what comes to mind when you think of the USO. Stars like Bruce Willis, Mariah Carey, and Robin Williams entertaining troops around the globe.

ROBIN WILLIAMS, ACTOR: Good morning, Baghdad!

ROGERS: While big names get the cheers, it's the USO's smaller programs that may make the biggest difference. The 63-year-old nonprofit offers childcare, an emergency travel fund, and over 120 centers that are safe havens for military men and women all over the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it is like a home away from home. For real.

ROGERS: Since 9/11 military deployments have increased substantially, putting pressure on the USO to respond as well.

MICHAEL TEILMANN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE BOB HOPE USO AT LAX: When I first joined the board of the USO I would say, gee, you guys are only open two or three day as week down there and only for several hours a day, I think you ought to do this and that and the other. Pretty soon I got a call from one of the guys on the board saying, you talk a good game, Teilmann, why don't you go out and do something about it.

ROGERS: So he did. Under Retired Brigadier General Michael Teilmann's management, the USO center at Los Angeles International Airport expanded its hours to seven days a week, 18 hours a day.

TEILMANN: Where you headed off to?

ROGERS: Keeping this USO running is just his day job. He also moonlights as a producer for USO events overseas.

TEILMANN: They are out in the field or wherever and all of a sudden they see this group of very famous people coming by, it's a great morale booster.

ROGERS: For Teilman, it's a way to stay active without being on active duty. TEILMANN: I just enjoy being able to still contribute at my advanced age.

ROGERS: These young guys seem pretty grateful for that contribution. Jen Rogers, CNN financial news. Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: On Wall Street the Dow broke an eight-week winning streak. The Dow lost almost 55 points on the day. The Nasdaq rose five and the S&P 500 lost two. And Christine Romans is here with "The Market." Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kitty, the Dow was lower on the day on the week but the S&P 500 managed to match another weekly advance. A nice week high in a row. That hasn't happened since 1989. Meanwhile, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange the investigation into the Stock Exchange specialist heats up.

Several of those firms have been put on notice by the SEC that they may be disciplined. Action is also expected by the NYSE itself. At issue the allegation of the five biggest specialist firms got in the way of stock trades to line their own pocket. That is something that could have cost investigators $155 million, Kitty, over the past three years. This investigation continues.

PILGRIM: I have to ask you about Harvard. They had a pretty good year.

ROMANS: Absolutely. $101 million, Harvard five fund managers were paid for the performance that they gave for Harvard's big endowment helping grow Harvard's nest egg. One fund manager got $34 million, another money manager, $35 million. Harvard says that those two accounted for $700 million in gains to its already huge endowment.

Some alumni, Kitty, are screaming. They call the payout obscenely high. After all, the fund managers took home 2,700 years worth of Harvard tuition. Harvard says it will re-examine its pay policies and come up with a pay ceiling from now on, a maximum, if you will. Harvard says it's a fortunate problem to have because these money managers made a lot of money for the Harvard endowment and so they were paid quite well in turn.

PILGRIM: Nobody says they weren't smart. Thanks very much.

Now a reminder, do vote in our poll, question tonight. We're asking, "Do you vote? Yes or no." You can vote on our website CNN.com/lou. We'll share the results later in the show.

Coming up next, this week's news makers and also a nose for trouble. A dog with uncanny instincts. He knows just where to turn in an emergency. That and -- all that and more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PILGRIM: It's been a pretty busy week in politics with the Iowa caucuses and the president's State of the Union address. And next week brings the nation's first state-wide primary in New Hampshire. And to discuss all of this and much more, I am joined by the editors of the nation's leading business magazines. We have Tim Ferguson, editor of "Forbes" global, Bill Powell, managing editor of "Fortune," and Jim Ellis, chief of correspondents at "BusinessWeek." And thank you for sharing your Friday evening with us. And let's start with you, Bill. You were in Iowa, what is your version of what happened there, and the Kerry upset?

BILL POWELL, FORTUNE: It's not entirely different, I think, from what a lot of us have heard since then. I think one of the things that gets a little bit overlooked in particularly in the case of Howard Dean in the wake of the Monday night performance is that earlier the previous week, the tape that had come out in which he dissed the Iowa caucuses pretty severely. I found, just talking to Iowa voters, that really hurt him. It really, you know, put a lid on his support.

Going forward to New Hampshire, I understand among my political reporter friends it's, you know, one doesn't make predictions now because God knows anything can happen, but since I'm not a political reporter I will say I think Dean is finished. I think Kerry and Edwards from here on out will -- is the competition. And we'll see.

PILGRIM: The latest CNN-"USA Today" poll has Kerry at 34 percent, Dean at 22, Clark at 17 and Edwards at 12. Jim, we have seen -- we are talking about one tape where he dissed Iowa, but another tape we have seen ad nauseum, and that's the ...

JIM ELLIS, BUSINESSWEEK: The screech tape there.

PILGRIM: Right.

ELLIS: I think it was -- it's been a pretty deep blow for him. I also think that the comment today about Alan Greenspan was probably not the best thing to say, either. I think that instead a lot of people are going to start looking at him and wondering whether he can be thought of as sort of a competent and sort of coolheaded leader. I think that that's sort of sad, because what we're doing now is we're not thinking about the issues, instead we're talking about the presentation, sort of the pattern outside. But that's the nature of the sort of campaign trail.

PILGRIM: Tim, any thoughts on this?

TIM FERGUSON, FORBES GLOBAL: In New Hampshire, I think it will be interesting to see whether the traditional bent of the state for neo-liberal type candidates, this goes back all the way at least to Michael Dukakis in 1988, holds forth. And I think if Kerry can present himself as that, he'll come out OK.

PILGRIM: All right. Let's go to the State of the Union speech, another benchmark in the week, and Bush saying that he's going to cut the deficit in half in the next four years. How realistic is this? Any laughing or I mean... ELLIS: I'm laughing at it. I actually think that it's a great thing to say on the campaign trail, which he's definitely on, but it's not going to happen. I think the one thing that came out of the speech that was very good is that he's admitting that we don't have a short-term blip in the deficit now. The deficit is with us. There's a real danger of a structural deficit here that's going to take years to get rid of.

And we also saw today with the talk of bringing back the 20-year bond. I mean, we're going to now see deficit spending for a long, long time.

POWELL: And I think this matters, Kitty. I mean, I think -- I talked to a lot of Republicans who are very disquieted by the deficits as far as the eye can see. And when Howard Dean and all the other Democratic candidates get out on the stump, as they do, and when Dean says, you know, you can't trust Republicans with your money, that campaign line has some resonance now. And I think there's a lot of Republicans who very quietly would like to see some credible plan going forward to get the deficits under some control.

FERGUSON: There's no question somebody in Washington starts to -- will need to start saying no to some of these spending interests, as well as the pork barreling. That said, President Bush is blessed with the lowest interest rates around the world, in fact, that this economy has seen in quite a while. And there's a lot of room for error in that type of environment.

ELLIS: And he's definitely made a lot of errors. I think instead -- he came in saying he was a different type of Republican. That's quite true. Instead of being a sort of tax-and-spend Democrat, he's turned out to be a cut-taxes-and-spend Republican. That's not a good combination. I'm really worried about this. The deficit is basically mortgage in the the future of our children.

PILGRIM: We'll be talking about this deficit pretty much through the election cycle. Let's talk about the $820 billion catch-all spending bill. Some hilarious pieces of pork in them.

FERGUSON: Eight thousand of them, as a matter of fact. About $10 billion.

PILGRIM: Right.

FERGUSON: As I say, no one is saying no to practically anything.

PILGRIM: It seems odd to be talking about cutting the deficit in half over the next four years and then passing this -- it seems a bit duplicitious.

ELLIS: It's the only way you can get Congress to back it up. When everybody understand that there's no way we can get this done, so basically you keep throwing pork on the table, you put enough there and you can fry some bacon.

POWELL: What I would say is, if the parallels between now and 1984, are striking. When President Reagan went into '84 with the wind at his back economically, as President Bush arguably is this time. In 1986, as in 2006, I think you're going to see a grand compromise. They are going to do a deal on the deficit. They have to.

PILGRIM: All right. We leave it there. Bill Powell, Tim Ferguson and Jim Ellis. Thank you very, very much for joining us tonight.

Coming up, a very sick dog in Ohio. He follows his instincts right into the emergency room.

But first, an update on the list of companies our staff has confirmed to be exporting America. And these are either companies either sending American jobs overseas, or choosing to employ cheap foreign labor instead of American workers. And tonight's additions include Jabil Circuit and Netgear.

Do keep sending us the names of companies you know to be exporting America. And for the complete list, log on to cnn.com/lou. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PILGRIM: Now, some news just in. A senior U.S. official says coalition forces in Iraq have captured a senior operative with al Qaeda. His name is Hassan Ghul. There are no details about the circumstances of the man's capture or what he was doing in Iraq.

Earlier, the Pentagon said the United States has captured another man, a terrorist with links to the Ansar al-Islam group, that's an organization with close ties to al Qaeda.

Here are the results of our poll question tonight. We asked, do you vote? Ninety-six percent of you said yes; 4 percent of you said no.

Finally tonight, a sick stray dog in Ohio who knew just where to go to get some help. This Doberman walks through the snow and freezing cold into a local hospital, only to collapse on the floor of the emergency room. Doctors transferred him to a veterinarian, who removed a two-pound tumor. The dog is 40 pounds underweight, does not appear to have an owner, but veterinarians and local Doberman rescue center are working to nurse him back to health.

That is our show tonight. Thanks for being with us. Monday, Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, will join Lou, and we'll begin a series of special reports, "Exporting America," with a look at U.S. companies sending American jobs overseas. For all of us here, good night from New York. Have a great weekend. Anderson Cooper is next.

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