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Lou Dobbs Tonight
Worst Drought in Centuries Ahead?; President Bush to Address Future of Iraq
Aired May 24, 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)
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Tonight, much of the Midwest under a tornado watch. More than 100 tornadoes hammered the Midwest over the weekend. Thunderstorms dumped nearly a foot of rain, causing massive flooding.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw the tornado coming and went downstairs, heard the house take off.
Western states are facing what could be the worst drought in centuries. Tonight, we begin a weeklong series on the battle among Western states for precious and scarce water in what could be a battle for survival.
With five weeks to go before the United States hands over sovereignty, President Bush tonight shares with the American people his vision and strategy for the future of Iraq.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The future of Iraq is going to be in the hands of the Iraqi people.
DOBBS: The United States has turned to the United Nations for help in Iraq, an organization the White House once declared to be all but irrelevant. Tonight, I'll be joined by Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum and Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation.
Free trade, the great American giveaway. Congressman Charlie Rangel says the new CAFTA agreement is unfair to American workers and businesses. Congressman Rangel is my guest tonight.
And the Department of Homeland Security is about to award a huge contract to strengthen border security. The contract could go to a foreign-based company, a company that exports American jobs to cheap overseas labor markets.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Monday, May 24. Here now for an hour of news, debate and opinion is Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: Good evening.
Two hours from now, President Bush will present what the White House is calling a clear strategy for Iraq. Mr. Bush will outline plans for the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30 in his prime-time speech tonight. The president's speech comes at a critical juncture for Iraq, just five weeks before the proposed handover of sovereignty and for the president's bid to win a second term with only five months remaining before the November election.
Dana Bash is at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where the president will give tonight's speech. Richard Roth is at the United Nations, where the United States and Britain today introduced a new resolution on Iraq.
We go first to Dana Bash -- Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, as you mentioned, it's five months and until the election and let's take a look at the president's approval rating on this day.
The latest CNN/"USA Today" Gallup poll has him at 47 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval. That is down considerably over the past few months and Bush campaign aides concede it is a dangerous place for their incumbent to be right now. And they blame a sense of confusion and even depression over what is going on in Iraq, the images and the news coming back from there.
So several Bush aides describe the goal for tonight as an attempt to cut through the clutter, as they describe it, to let Americans hear the president himself describe in a comprehensive way that there is a plan in Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCLELLAN: The president, when he speaks, is speaking to the entire world. And I'm sure that they will hear his remarks as well. So it's important that, as president of the United States, that he keep the American people informed. But he also will be keeping the world informed about the steps that we are taking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Now, here's what we'll hear from the president tonight. He'll talk about the political transfer of power, what the interim government will look like after June 30 in Iraq. He'll also talk about the move toward elections at the end of next year there. And he'll talk about the security issue, how the U.S. military will handle itself after June 30 and how they'll work vis-a-vis a multinational force and the Iraqi army.
And he'll also be talking about the U.N. role. The U.S. did propose a new U.N. resolution today. He'll be talking a lot about getting the international community involved. That is an implicit reply to criticism from Democrat John Kerry that his go-it-alone policy, Lou, just simply isn't working -- Lou.
DOBBS: Dana, what is the White House reaction there to the decisions of the ABC, CBS, NBC to not carry the president's prime-time remarks, as they did previously and with his press conference? Any reaction? BASH: Well, I've talked to a couple of Bush aides about that and they certainly are disappointed that the president won't get the wide audience that they'd hoped that he would get, but they certainly hope there will be coverage of it nonetheless and they're hoping that this is not just going to be a domestic audience, but a global audience as well. They're hoping that at least it will get the coverage that they hope it deserves -- Lou. DOBBS: And, of course, we'll be carrying the president's remarks live here on CNN beginning at 8:00.
As Dana Bash reported, the United States and Britain today introduced a draft United Nations resolution trying to win the Security Council's support for a new Iraqi government.
Richard Roth reports now from the United Nations -- Richard.
RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Lou, since the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. has been able to get support in the Security Council for other resolutions, but this time for the start of a transfer of power after June 30, the U.S. really needs the help of other countries here.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH (voice-over): One year later, the United States returned to the Security Council for urgent help in Iraq. This time, Washington is not threatening to go it alone. Instead, it's desperately requesting United Nations' involvement as control is turned over to Iraqi authorities.
JAMES CUNNINGHAM, U.S. DEPUTY AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: The resolution looks forward to the end of the Coalition Provisional Authority and the occupation and a leading role for the United Nations in Iraq.
ROTH: Knowing the U.S. is in a tight spot, Security Council members such as France and Germany angle to get as much authority for the Iraqis as possible and place limits on the extent of the U.S. political and military role.
GUNTER PLEUGER, GERMAN AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: We will have to make sure that this process provides Iraqi ownership for the political process, as well as for the process of economic reconstruction.
ROTH: So will there be the same showdown as before the war?
HERALDO MUNOZ, CHILEAN AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: There are differences, but at the same time, I have seen progress and growing agreements over the meetings that we have had informally.
ROTH: Debate is likely on key points in the resolution. A U.S.- led multinational force stays for a year only to then be reviewed, not necessarily withdrawn. The international military and the Iraqi military plan cooperation, but left unsaid is whether Iraqi troops can refuse an order from an American commander. And oil revenues will be controlled by Iraq, but an international monitoring board will remain in place to look for corruption.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH: It's not clearly defined in the resolution yet, but U.S. diplomats tell us that they foresee Iraqi authorities being allowed to not have their own troops go into combat in a certain zone despite the wishes of a U.S.-led multinational force.
It's one of the key areas still to be gone over in the weeks ahead, Lou. The U.S. wants a vote in early June. It may take a few more days after that -- back to you.
DOBBS: Richard Roth, reporting from the United Nations, thank you.
As President Bush prepared his speech, insurgents in Iraq today launched a brazen attack against a coalition convoy in Baghdad. The attack resulted in the death of two British civilians. Two others were wounded. Elsewhere, American troops launched new attacks on gunmen loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr.
Guy Raz reports from Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUY RAZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The burning carcass of an armored sport utility vehicle, inside, the charred remains of two British nationals, two others flown to an Army medical center. U.S. forces and Iraqi police quickly sealed off the area as forensic teams combed the site.
A senior U.S. military official at the scene told CNN the attack bore all of the hallmarks of a targeted killing, no collateral damage, no other vehicles hit and just steps away from the main entrance of the Green Zone, where the coalition authority is headquartered.
To the south, more clashes in the city of Kufa between U.S. forces and fighters from the radical Shiite Mahdi brigade. According to U.S. military officials, 32 suspected fighters were killed. U.S. troops entered a mosque where they found large stockpiles of artillery shells, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and weapons. Meanwhile, controversy still surrounds a U.S. attack on a site in western Iraq last week that left 45 people dead.
This video obtained by the Associated Press appears to show footage of a wedding party that was reportedly going on hours before the attacks. Neither CNN nor APTN can vouch for its authenticity and U.S. officials continue to insist that the location was a way station for foreign fighters.
BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. DEPUTY CHIEF OF OPERATIONS: There are inconsistencies. We will do an investigation, but at this point, we have seen really nothing that causes us to be significantly -- to change our minds.
RAZ: U.S. officials acknowledge a party may have been in progress at the site, but one said -- quote -- "Even bad guys have party, too."
(on camera): Baghdad is now a city where a day without violence or an explosion would almost shock its battered residents. And one senior Iraqi official now says, as the June 30 handover date approaches, violence will only get worse.
Guy Raz, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Still ahead here, U.S. strategy at a crossroads. I'll be joined by two critics of the administration's Iraq policies, Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation.
The United States preparing to sign yet another free trade agreement. Is it another mistake? Congressman Charlie Rangel joins us. He says free trade is unfair to American businesses and workers in Central America. He is my guest tonight.
And the federal government is about to spend billions of dollars to strengthen border security. Incredibly, this contract could go to a foreign company and a leading outsourcer of American jobs to cheap overseas labor markets.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The president's speech tonight intended to show the American people that the United States now has a clear strategy for Iraq, but critics say the United States has failed to accomplish its mission and it is time for the president to set a date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Some critics also say the handover of security to a new Iraqi force in Fallujah is a clear sign the administration is prepared to compromise with insurgents.
Joining me now, Daniel Pipes, who's director of the Middle East Forum and an authority on the Middle East, who says the United States should appoint a strongman, if you will, to take over in Iraq, and with him, Nile Gardiner, a fellow in Anglo-American security policy at the Heritage Foundation who says the United States has given too much power already to former Baathists in Fallujah.
Gentlemen, good to have you here.
Let me say first, Daniel Pipes, the idea of a strongman for many resonates with the suggestion of a despot like Saddam Hussein making a return. What do you mean when you say a strong leader in that vein?
DANIEL PIPES, DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST FORUM: I mean someone who doesn't have blood on his hands, who is not an ideological fanatic, but someone, perhaps a former general or colonel who is decent, who we can nudge towards an open political system over the years, someone who will have authority and standing in Iraq.
One slight misstep, I didn't mean that we would appoint him, that we would work with him. They would accept the emergence of such a personality.
DOBBS: Not an appointment, but rather an emergence, in your thinking, a fortuitous one.
Nile, your thoughts on that idea?
NILE GARDINER, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: I think the last thing we need in Iraq is a strong, centralized dictatorial-style government, actually.
I think that we certainly do not want to see the reemergence in any way of any elements linked to the former Baathist regime. I think we made some serious mistakes so far in Fallujah. We failed to stamp out the insurgency there. I believe that what we need in Iraq is a strong sense of regional government, devolution of power, not the centralization of political power.
DOBBS: It appears to me, gentlemen, that there is a great sort of movement right now in this country to rationalize where we are in Iraq in terms of both military strategy, in terms of the geopolitical strategy, the goals, the mission. It seems to be in total chaos.
Daniel Pipes, is there, in your judgment right now, a way in which the United States can emerge from Iraq intact, at least with some semblance of the very ambitious goals that were articulated by the administration a year ago?
PIPES: Let me start by saying that I support those goals. And if I'm wrong and they can be achieved, I will be delighted.
I think they cannot be achieved. So what I'm offering is a more modest ambition, something which is second or third best. It's better to have the strongman than to have the different parts of Iraq at war with each other, which I fear will be the result of devolution. It's better to have this than to have a radical Islamic take over by someone like Muqtada al-Sadr. It's better than the alternatives that I can find that are reasonably likely.
Nile, do you agree with that view, that one Iraq, effectively, if I'm correct in interpreting you, Daniel Pipes, one Iraq is better than three separate entities, that is, the Kurds, Sunnis and Shia?
GARDINER: Well, I was talking earlier, really, about a federal system of power in Iraq, keeping Iraq as a unitary state, but a state divided into three power structures.
I think that, in the past, Iraq has been too centralized in terms of political power. And this allowed the rise of the Sunni dictatorship led by Saddam Hussein. We want to avoid any recurrence of this sort of dictatorship again. And I believe it is imperative that we decentralize political power in Iraq, that we do strive at all costs for the establishment of a democratic society.
There is really no such thing as a benign dictatorship.
DOBBS: Let me ask you both to address this issue. The United States is now in heated combat against insurgents, whether they be Sunni, whether they be Shia. We are taking very bad wounds, quite literally. American lives are being lost. Goals are not being achieved, at least those enunciated to this point by the administration.
What is the impact on the global war on terror, in your view, the standing of the United States in that region, which is the origin, the source of radical Islamist terrorism.
Nile, could you address that?
GARDINER: Well, we certainly can't afford to lose the war on terror in Iraq. Iraq has become certainly the central front in the war against terror. The terrorists are certainly testing to the very limits America's power as a global superpower. It's imperative that we send a message to the world that the United States is committing to winning the war against terror on the ground in Iraq.
PIPES: Two points.
I would say we have got to win in Iraq. And the way we can more likely win is by having lesser goals, less ambitious goals. And, two, as you and I have discussed in the past, Lou, the war on terror is really a war on radical Islam. And it is separate, or at least it was separate, from the war against Saddam Hussein. And I think they really should be seen as different.
North Korea is separate from the war on militant Islam and the one is fundamentally different from the other. Of course they affect each other, but Iraq will not, in the end, determine up -- determine the outcome of the war on militant Islam.
DOBBS: Daniel Pipes, Nile Gardiner, we thank you both gentlemen for being with us.
GARDINER: Thank you.
DOBBS: Turning now to our poll question: Do you expect the president's speech tonight to significantly alter your view of the situation in Iraq, yes or no? Cast your vote at CNN.com/Lou. We'll have the results later in the broadcast.
Coming up next, the next free trade giveaway, the United States preparing to sign yet another free trade agreement. Congressman Charles Rangel says it will hurt American workers and business. He's our guest.
And "Broken Borders." A new system to track foreign visitors to the United States could be built by a foreign company, a foreign company exporting American jobs overseas. We'll have a special report.
And then wild weather sweeping across the Midwest, tornado warnings still in effect across much of the region. We'll have the very latest for you on the weather tonight affecting a large segment of the entire country. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Tonight, the free trade giveaway. The White House this week will sign yet another free trade agreement, this one with Central America, the so-called CAFTA agreement. It is the latest in a growing list of controversial trade pacts that appear to show free trade as anything, certainly, but free.
Kitty Pilgrim reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick is on a trade push. Free trade agreements have been negotiated with eight countries in the last six months, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Australia, and Morocco.
LAEL BRAINARD, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Since day one, the administration has been very clear that they were going to go full steam ahead in this very radically new direction for U.S. trade policy, which is to sign as many as bilateral free trade agreements as possible. What's interesting is that the economic benefits to the U.S. just aren't that big.
PILGRIM: CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, to be covered on Friday, will cover Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras,El Salvador, and Nicaragua.
CAFTA critics say the labor and environment provisions are not acceptable, among them, John Kerry and Dick Gephardt, who, while campaigning, accuse the Bush administration of -- quote -- "selling out American workers with a bad trade deal" -- unquote. The U.S. trade agenda suffered a setback with the collapse of global trade talks in Cancun, Mexico.
GARY HUFBAUER, INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS: It was a complete breakdown. You could not ask for a more complete breakdown. After Cancun, that was when the Zoellick, you know, enlarged the list of new bilateral free trade agreements. Looking at that, he said, let's make business where we can make business.
PILGRIM: The U.S. already has free trade agreements with Canada, Mexico, Israel, Jordan, Chile and Singapore. Last month, the United States started on a neighboring region to CAFTA. The first round of negotiations with Panama has started and also Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Negotiations with Bahrain have also begun and also five nations in Africa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Now, Congress has yet to sign off on these deals. The first test is the agreement with Australia. And it's generally accepted as a favorable deal for the United States, but few expect CAFTA to go before Congress in advance of the November election -- Lou. DOBBS: Thank you very much, Kitty.
My next guest has been one of the outspoken critics of CAFTA in Congress. And Congressman Charlie Rangel says this agreement is unfair to American workers and business. Congressman Rangel is the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.
And we thank you for being here.
REP. CHARLES RANGEL (D), NEW YORK: Thank you, Lou.
DOBBS: CAFTA is certainly controversial, but the president is going to sign it. What is your basic objection to it?
RANGEL: Well, you know, since they passed fast track, it meant the Congress was out of any input at all in any of these negotiations. So the private sector meets with our trade representatives. They meet with the foreigners. And the only thing we get a chance to do is to vote up or down. In Washington, when you say you're against a particular free trade agreement, you're an isolationist, you're unpatriotic, you're trying to stop jobs.
But one of the things that we protest is that the good old days used to say made in the USA and there was a sense of pride in what you were doing. People would want those things that were made there. And generations would work someplace and even the logo would be something that they would wear. In this particular agreement, we are being driven by the lowest price in labor. There are no standards over there in terms of what they can organize, whether this is going to be child labor.
We say the least that they can do is have the minimum international labor standards, so that there would be something for them to look for disposable income and buy from the USA.
DOBBS: Do you agree that with most of the people we've talked with that CAFTA hasn't a chance in the world of being passed this election year?
RANGEL: You're right. Even the president's people are beginning to say that this is a loser. The president signs it, but the committee hasn't got enough votes really to do anything with it.
DOBBS: You have -- you've been a supporter of free trade agreements over the years. We are seeing a gradual shift in this country, in my opinion, to people taking a new, harder look at free trade and the high cost of that free trade in terms of jobs in this country, in terms of the wages that have been depressed. Is that your sense of what is happening now with these free trade agreements, particularly NAFTA?
RANGEL: You know, there's always been the rhetoric that we get back more jobs than those that we're shipping abroad. But if you work in a community and the only industry is a factor there, they close down, hundreds, sometimes thousands of people are without salaries, pensions, health care. And the jobs that we get back are not necessarily to that community and they're not necessarily in any volume compared to what we are losing. And we are losing not only the jobs, but we're losing the technology. We're losing privacy. We're losing that sense of pride that Americans used to feel. And overseas, it's not even certain that the people are benefiting from it, that they're getting the minimum care.
DOBBS: In point of fact, as you know, Congressman, several recent studies have shown that, in Mexico, after NAFTA, a decade of NAFTA, Mexican wages are lower than they were when it began.
RANGEL: And do you than some of the people that we've talked with had been prepared to accept amendments in the agreements, where they would have minimum standards and it would be our trade representatives that would not want them there? And when you're dealing with international forces, then you can't bring up national pride anymore.
DOBBS: And the issue of lost sovereignty is another issue. I hope you'll come back and we can address that, Congressman.
RANGEL: Well, the World Trade organization is really the World Trade Organization. It's not ours.
DOBBS: Absolutely.
Congressman Charlie Rangel, glad you're ours. Thanks for being here.
RANGEL: Thanks for what you do, Lou.
Taking a look now at some of your thoughts. Many of you have written in about so-called free trade agreements.
Robin Shepherd of North Vernon, Indiana: "CAFTA, just like NAFTA, was created by big business in this country to exploit the American worker. Companies pay their top managers outrageous amounts of money and then want the American worker to do with less. When is enough enough?"
And Russel Schmidt in Troy, Michigan: "Corporate rights have grown to the point where they exceed those of real people. It's about time for the voters to take back America."
Meredith Holland in Dalzell, South Carolina: "Lou, it saddens my heart to see so many jobs being outsourced for the sake of a company making a profit. Where in the world will America be in a few years? Outsourced, I suppose."
Send us your e-mails at LouDobbs@CNN.com. We'll share more of your thoughts later in the broadcast; 100,000 SBC Communication workers are prepared to return to work tomorrow after the first strike against the exporting of American jobs to cheap overseas labor market, a central issue in that dispute with SBC. Talks between SBC and the union that represents the employees continued throughout the weekend. Both sides tonight say they are making progress.
Peter Viles has the report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Passion on the picket line, but there was progress at the bargaining table. Talks in the SBC strike continued around the clock Sunday into Monday against a backdrop that is brand new to the baby bells. If they anger their customers with poor service, the customers now can leave.
JEFF KAGAN, INDEPENDENT TELECOM ANALYST: Customers were captive the last time around and the last many times around. For decades, if the customers were upset because the unions were striking or because there was a threat or uncertainty, they still had to stay. Now they don't. So for the first time ever, there's a real risk.
VILES: Major issue, health care costs, exact terms of a three- year job guarantee and the wild card, union access to of high tech jobs going to nonunion workers and sometimes to even cheaper labor overseas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you have a salaried insurance here, they're up shipping the jobs overseas, but they're not paying them half that.
VILES: Analysts doubt SBC will make an across the board pledge to stop using overseas labor.
LARRY IRVING, IRVING INFORMATION GROUP: I don't know how any company that is a publicly-traded company says they won't move any jobs overseas. The pressure on the street, the pressure from the analyst, the pressure from stock holders is such is that you've got to increase your margin and decrease your cost. And people see outsourcing as a viable way of doing.
VILES: It union SBC is loaded eight and half billion in profits last year, but investors see trouble spots, competition from wireless and cable companies, hurt by the jobless recovery, revenue have declined nearly 10 percent in five years. The stock has fallen 55 percent.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VILES: Both sides agree the vast majority of the new jobs are not going overseas, the problem and the sticking point is right now they're not going to union members either -- Lou.
DOBBS: Lost jobs, lost phones, do you have to draw the picture for people?
VILES: Sure, when the economy creates job, businesses add phone lines. When we lose two or three million job, in which we did, businesses turns off phone lines. That hurts SBC.
DOBBS: Imagine that. And yet this company is also showing rising profits with the declining stock price.
VILES: They sure are.
DOBBS: Peter Viles, thank you, sir.
The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Visit Program is a controversial plan to say the least. It would use virtual security along this nation's borders. The plan would use technology to track potential visitors to the country before they even cross our borders. And three major companies are vying for a multibillion contract to develop the technology. One of those companies, however is not based in the United States and one of its main jobs is to export American jobs.
Bill Tucker, reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Imagine knowing who's coming to visit before they each get here. Imagining such a program is about all you can do right now because it doesn't exist. However, the Department of Homeland Security is willing to spend at least $10 billion to bring it into existence.
DAN STEIN, FAIR: This is a very expensive proposal. We're talking about billions and billions of dollar. But the practical matter is there are a lot of financial stocks who make money off immigration. A lot of people who make money off foreign visitors. And they don't want to sacrifice anything so the result is the taxpayer having to pay for the introduction of an elaborate new system to verify identification and frankly no guarantee that it's even going to work. In addition, Border Patrol Agents are leery that the technology could become an excuse for hiding the real problem which they say is understaffing.
In Washington, there's another controversy brewing. There are three companies in the running for the contract, Computer Sciences Corporation, Lockheed Martin and Accenture. Two of those companies are based in the United States. Accenture is not and that's not going over well with some who believe taxpayer dollars especially that many taxpayer dollars, especially that many tax payer dollars, should be going to a company not based in America. Representative Lloyd Doggett puts it in rather plain and pointed language. "If they want to slice of the American Pie," he says, "They'd better help bake it."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TUCKER: Everyone concerned with border control agrees, 20 years behind the times and we do need to catch up, but who gets the work -- Lou.
DOBBS: The central issue and all three of those companies by the way, are on our list of companies exporting American jobs and cheap overseas labor market, but Accenture, in its case based in Bermuda avoiding U.S. taxes, I didn't say evade, avoiding U.S. taxes by reason of incorporation there and enabling encouraging and driving American jobs overseas to cheap labor markets by advising corporations all over the country to do it. That's my opinion.
Bill Tucker, thank you very much. Peter Viles, thank you very much. As this gets more and more complex, but the solutions are getting a little clearer. Thank you, gentlemen.
Coming up next, President Bush hopes to boost support for his strategy in Iraq tonight with the first of what will be six major speeches on Iraq's future. Two of the best political journalists in the country join me next.
Also tonight, wild weather striking the Midwest. Thunderstorms and flooding hitting much of the region. But in the West, an entirely different story. What could be the worst drought some fear in this country in centuries. We begin a special report tonight that will run throughout the week on the battle for the scarce, precious resource, water.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: President Bush's speech tonight on Iraq comes as has approval rating is near an all-time low. A new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll finds 47 percent of Americans surveyed approving of the way President Bush's handling his job as president, 49 percent disapprove.
Joining me now Ron Brownstein, the national political correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times."
Roger Simon, political editor "U.S. News and World" report both joining us tonight from Washington.
Let me begin, Roger, with you, what does the president have to do tonight now that a process of communicating a strategy has DNA begin?
ROGER SIMON, "U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT: He has a plan for winning the occupation of Iraq and getting the troops home. That is acting as a millstone around his neck in terms of reelection and he needs to show that he is in charge -- at least this administration is in charge of the situation in Iraq. Something it has failed to do ever since the successful military phase ended and an unsuccessful occupation begins.
DOBBS: Do you concur, Ron?
RON BROWNSTEIN, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": I do think the key requirement for the president tonight is to show people that he has a plan. That is the biggest vulnerability he has in the polls. Two to one in one survey, that came out today. Americans do not believe he has a clear plan. But Lou, he may have a few good days coming. It's been a long time coming in Iraq. He has a few things moving in his direction. Special envoy Brahimi is nearing the completion of trying to pick the interim Iraqi government. That could come within days. The reaction to the resolution today. The U.N. resolution was surprisingly muted to positive, from some of the nations that we've had problems with in the past. And there is some evidence of military success against Sadr. So in that way there may be a little bit of upswing, but he still faces the long-term problem of ensuring less stability, less violence and fewer American casualties.
DOBBS: Scott Clellan, the White House press secretary saying, the president will not be talking tonight about any further advance in the democratization of Iraq. Are expectations so high as far as what the administration started talking about a year ago, that it's going to be difficult to overcome the disappointment meeting those expectations?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, actually think, the American people and certainly in Washington, the expectations have been dampened significantly, as you know. There are many voices now saying that the president's hopes were extravagant, that we need look at less -- the best outcome would be and more at avoiding what the worst outcome would be. People talking about a loose central government with a lot of power dispersed to the three regions, the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites. And even the public, Lou, would accept stability if it means that American troops are facing less violence in Iraq?
DOBBS: Roger, the president's approval ratings as we just reported, 47 percent. CBS is survey showing 41 percent.
How much trouble in your judgment, is the president in?
SIMON: Well, all you can really say is it's good news for him that it's May and not November. Those are not good numbers. Forty- one is obviously a terrible number. Forty-seven is not a great number because this is an incumbent, wartime president presiding over what some say is a booming economy, and up against an opponent who has not exactly been on a house of fire out on the hustings. And yet President Bush is trailing in these polls. True in your poll he's trailing narrowly and true, he does have until November to come back, but the signs are troubling and that is why the White House is putting the president out on a series of major speeches like the one tonight. And what they may have done was raised expectations very high tonight for how good this speech has to be.
DOBBS: I keep thinking back to the last time the networks ABC, CBS, NBC, those three networks gave the president his primetime coverage and the subsequent press conference and he was generally not regarded to have done well. The same thing with his appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." High stakes approaches that have not to this point paid off. What are your thoughts about the risks the president is taking tonight and the potential reward?
BROWNSTEIN: That's a good point, Lou. I think, look, the reason why those did not pay off so well in large part was because it did not result in improvement on the ground. What you've got is the risk of the president being out there saying things are getting better and we have a plan and then people don't see it day to day. So on the one hand he has to try to shore up public support, on the other hand he can't get too detached from where events are or else he opens up a whole new problem, questions of credibility.
DOBBS: Roger, your thoughts are the last word tonight.
SIMON: The president campaigns for reelection by his public appearances, including major speeches like the one tonight. Ron is quite right that he can't outstrip reality but his last public appearances have not been good and this is the most troubling thing to his political staff.
DOBBS: And the most encouraging must be that Senator John Kerry has not performed particularly well in the polls either. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Roger Simon, Ron Brownstein, good to have you with us.
BROWNSTEIN: Thank you, Lou.
DOBBS: Tonight's thought is on democracy. "Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people." Those the words of American clergyman Harry Emerson Fosdick.
Still ahead, the Midwest bracing for more severe weather tonight. That after a weekend of thunderstorms, flooding, and more than a hundred tornadoes. And water wars. More than 25 million people are absolutely dependent upon the Colorado River for their water. But as drought grips much of the Midwest and fears rise that this drought could be the worst in centuries, the river's water levels are falling and fast.
Also tonight the nation's largest retailer has low prices, but you're certainly paying a high price for those savings in some very unusual ways. We'll have that story coming right up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: There are reports tonight that a tornado has touched down outside Des Moines, Iowa. There is no word on either injuries or damage. Much of the Midwest is on alert tonight for severe storms after a weekend of wild weather. Dozens of tornadoes touching down in the region causing large, widespread destruction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS (voice-over): This tornado hit Furnace county, Nebraska, and it is one of 100 twisters that ravaged must of the Midwest over the weekend. There are tornado watches tonight in effect for parts of Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. The Storm Prediction Center says the highlighted portion of the map you're looking at represents the highest risk of severe weather including tornadoes tonight.
JOE SCHAFFER, STORM PREDICTION CTR.: Two greater tornadoes, the 10 percent of the tornadoes that account for 80, 90 percent of the damage. Also some major straight-lined winds in the order of 70 to 80 miles an hour winds.
DOBBS: The dozens of sports that set down this weekend left a wake of destruction and ruin. Iowa's Governor Tom Vilsack declared 17 counties to be in a state of emergency and asked President Bush to declare them federal disaster areas.
GOV. TOM VILSACK (D), IOWA: I don't think I've ever season a community devastated to this extent.
DOBBS: Nebraska is already in a state of emergency after 18 tornadoes ripped through the state. The tornado that hit Hallam, Nebraska, was one of the strongest to set down. A woman was killed, ten others were injured and late today the Weather Service upgraded its classification of the storm that hit Hallam, Nebraska, classifying it as an F-4 with winds rising as high as 260 miles an hour. That tornado destroyed more than 88 homes in the town of 300 people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw the tornado coming, went downstairs and heard the house take off.
DOBBS: Clusters of tornadoes like these normally move through a region rapidly. However this storm system didn't and it pounded the same area relentlessly.
HOWARD BROOKS, NATL. SEVERE STORMS LABORATORY: Storms are constantly going over the same areas and they may be getting many, many inches of rain, maybe even a third of their annual total happening in 72 hours.
DOBBS: The upper Midwest has been hit hard by flooding. As much as nine inches of rain fell on parts of Iowa over the weekend, forcing some Des Moines residents from their homes. Parts of northern Illinois are also underwater and the Des Plains River is expected to hit a record five feet above flood stage. And tonight, more than 20 Michigan counties are under flood warnings. Several rivers are already over the flood stage.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: The severe storm system is expected to move further east into Pennsylvania and New York later this week.
The southwest, meanwhile is battling wildfires, at least half a dozen fires are now burning in New Mexico and Arizona. The Pepin (ph) fire in central New Mexico has more than tripled in size overnight because of high winds. That fire is now burning through 8,000 acres. Residents of two dozen homes in the Capitan Mountains have been evacuated.
Wildfires in the west are being exacerbated by the severe drought. Tonight, we begin a series of special reports on the drought that grips much of the western United States. We'll be following through this week, the Colorado River from its head waters in the mountains to the arid cities that are dependent upon it. We'll also look at the impact on communities along the way and the battle among states for an increasingly scarce resource. Casey Wian reports from Rocky Mountain National Park.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is where the Colorado River begins, a continental divide nearly 11,000 feet high in the Rocky Mountains. Snow melts, flows past herds of elk and the Colorado gathers strength, but lately the snow hasn't lasted very long.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd like to welcome everybody to the water availability task force. As we all know it's been a dry few years.
WIAN: USDA snow pack expert Mike Gillespie (ph) has more bad news.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have no improvement at all in the Colorado Basin. We have a pretty bad situation. The situation is continuously getting worse.
WIAN: Six straight years of drought and warm weather cut snow pack levels to 20 percent of average this spring. Here, near its head waters, the Colorado didn't look like much more than a stream, but it provides water to 25 million people in seven states from Denver to Phoenix to Los Angeles. Now water levels in lakes downriver are shrinking. Aurora Colorado's reservoirs are only half full, so the city is rationing water.
PETER BINNEY, UTILITIES DIRECTOR, AURORA COLORADO: We only allow our customers to water their lawns twice per week. We have water monitors to ensure compliance with our water conservation program and we also have a pricing structure where the more water you use, the more you will pay for it.
WIAN: In two years, Aurora has cut water use 30 percent, still it needs more so it's paying farmers not to water crops and charging $11,000 per home to connect to its water system. Meanwhile, the forest service is bracing for another potentially destructive summer. Decades of fire fighting have allowed trees to grow nearly unchecked. Now the drought is killing them, creating fuel for historic blazes.
RICK CABLES, U.S. FOREST SERVICE: What we call mega fires and we've never seen fire behavior like this. It's unnatural and it's predicated on overstocked forests that are not natural. I don't have any doubt that we're going to have a difficult fire season unless we get moist through the spring.
WIAN: No one knows if this is the end of a typical dry spell occurring every two decades or so or the beginning of the worst drought in centuries. Casey Wian, CNN, Rocky Mountain National Park.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Coming up next, your hard-earned money financing the world's biggest retailer. Why taxpayers are footing the bill for Wal- Mart. Those prices are just so cheap. We'll tell you at least part of the reason why.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: You may be helping Wal-Mart with those low prices. A new report says the world's largest retailer has received more than a billion dollars in tax breaks. That report says Wal-Mart received government subsidies in the form of income tax credits and property tax rebates. Lisa Sylvester reports. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Wal-Mart has been on a roll. The company made more than $9 billion in net income last year and has more than 3,000 stores in the United States. So it might be surprising that the corporation received more than $1 billion in tax breaks and subsidies from state and local governments paid by taxpayers.
PHILLIP MATTERA, GOOD JOBS FIRST: You may be saving money at the cash register, but because of the subsidies that Wal-Mart's getting, for example, property tax breaks and so forth you may pay more when your property tax bill comes.
SYLVESTER: According to a report by the group Good Jobs First, the company received more than $48 billion to build a distribution center in Illinois, $46 million to locate in Sharon Springs, New York, and $33 million to move to Louisiana. Local and state communities hope the subsidies translate into new jobs. But as Rosetta Brown found out those jobs don't pay well. She's a full-time employee at the Sam's Club and makes less than $400 a week.
ROSETTA BROWN, SAM'S CLUB EMPLOYEE: You got people that have been there 12, 13 years still at the same position. It's just not what everybody think it is.
SYLVESTER: Wal-Mart says the pay off is worth it. Over the last ten years, Wal-Mart claims it collected more than $52 billion in sales taxes and paid $192 million in income taxes, wage withholding and unemployment taxes and paid $4 billion in local property taxes, but what's not known is how much a community lost when other stores were forced to close after Wal-Mart moved in.
TOM SCHATZ, CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE: Without knowing whether that's a net benefit, there's no way to know what that number really means. Is that $52 million above what the communities would have received? Is it more or less than they had previously and where is that distributed?
SYLVESTER: Wal-Mart, a longtime fixture in the suburbs is now moving into the cities. The latest fight is in Chicago where labor union groups hope to stop the retail giant in its tracks.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVESTER: There's not a lot of transparency when it comes to how much local governments are subsidizing Wal-Marts and other companies. There are no disclosure requirements and no central database that keeps track of all of the tax breaks and subsidies -- Lou.
DOBBS: Lisa, thank you very much.
An incredible report. Lisa Sylvester.
The National Trust for Historic Places says Wal-Mart's expansion has made the state of Vermont, the entire state of Vermont an endangered place. The group dedicated to preserving historic sites says an onslaught of Wal-Mart stores will forever change the landscape of Vermont. Wal-Mart has plans to build seven new super stores in the Green Mountain state. Preservationists say the solution is simple. Wal-Mart should change to fit Vermont, not the other way around. They're hoping to persuade Wal-Mart to build smaller stores on existing retail sites.
Taking a look at some of your thoughts. Richard Mealy of Hawaii. "Lou, Congress, the White House, and corporations are failing us daily and need to be reined in and retrained to understand that they are obliged to serve Americans not the World Trade Organization, foreign bankers, the United Nations, and other countries."
And D.J. in Florida. "Lou, NAFTA, CAFTA, it all means the American people are getting the SHAFTA. If our elected officials will not represent the people then we need to remove them from office."
Send us your e-mails at loudobbs@CNN.com. CNN White House staff have confirmed that the United States -- we have just received this word -- have confirmed that the United States will demolish the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. All of that, we are told as a result of consultations with a new Iraqi government.
Still ahead, the results of tonight's poll. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The results of our poll, 99 percent of you do not expect the president's speech tonight to significantly alter your view of the situation in Iraq. Thanks for being with us, please join us tomorrow. Congressman Kevin Brady of Texas, the Republican leading the fight for CAFTA, Professor Fouad Ajami, the leading authority on the Middle East. They're our guests. Please be with us. For all of here, good night from New York. "ANDERSON COOPER 360" 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
Aired May 24, 2004 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Tonight, much of the Midwest under a tornado watch. More than 100 tornadoes hammered the Midwest over the weekend. Thunderstorms dumped nearly a foot of rain, causing massive flooding.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw the tornado coming and went downstairs, heard the house take off.
Western states are facing what could be the worst drought in centuries. Tonight, we begin a weeklong series on the battle among Western states for precious and scarce water in what could be a battle for survival.
With five weeks to go before the United States hands over sovereignty, President Bush tonight shares with the American people his vision and strategy for the future of Iraq.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The future of Iraq is going to be in the hands of the Iraqi people.
DOBBS: The United States has turned to the United Nations for help in Iraq, an organization the White House once declared to be all but irrelevant. Tonight, I'll be joined by Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum and Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation.
Free trade, the great American giveaway. Congressman Charlie Rangel says the new CAFTA agreement is unfair to American workers and businesses. Congressman Rangel is my guest tonight.
And the Department of Homeland Security is about to award a huge contract to strengthen border security. The contract could go to a foreign-based company, a company that exports American jobs to cheap overseas labor markets.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Monday, May 24. Here now for an hour of news, debate and opinion is Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: Good evening.
Two hours from now, President Bush will present what the White House is calling a clear strategy for Iraq. Mr. Bush will outline plans for the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30 in his prime-time speech tonight. The president's speech comes at a critical juncture for Iraq, just five weeks before the proposed handover of sovereignty and for the president's bid to win a second term with only five months remaining before the November election.
Dana Bash is at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where the president will give tonight's speech. Richard Roth is at the United Nations, where the United States and Britain today introduced a new resolution on Iraq.
We go first to Dana Bash -- Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, as you mentioned, it's five months and until the election and let's take a look at the president's approval rating on this day.
The latest CNN/"USA Today" Gallup poll has him at 47 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval. That is down considerably over the past few months and Bush campaign aides concede it is a dangerous place for their incumbent to be right now. And they blame a sense of confusion and even depression over what is going on in Iraq, the images and the news coming back from there.
So several Bush aides describe the goal for tonight as an attempt to cut through the clutter, as they describe it, to let Americans hear the president himself describe in a comprehensive way that there is a plan in Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCLELLAN: The president, when he speaks, is speaking to the entire world. And I'm sure that they will hear his remarks as well. So it's important that, as president of the United States, that he keep the American people informed. But he also will be keeping the world informed about the steps that we are taking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Now, here's what we'll hear from the president tonight. He'll talk about the political transfer of power, what the interim government will look like after June 30 in Iraq. He'll also talk about the move toward elections at the end of next year there. And he'll talk about the security issue, how the U.S. military will handle itself after June 30 and how they'll work vis-a-vis a multinational force and the Iraqi army.
And he'll also be talking about the U.N. role. The U.S. did propose a new U.N. resolution today. He'll be talking a lot about getting the international community involved. That is an implicit reply to criticism from Democrat John Kerry that his go-it-alone policy, Lou, just simply isn't working -- Lou.
DOBBS: Dana, what is the White House reaction there to the decisions of the ABC, CBS, NBC to not carry the president's prime-time remarks, as they did previously and with his press conference? Any reaction? BASH: Well, I've talked to a couple of Bush aides about that and they certainly are disappointed that the president won't get the wide audience that they'd hoped that he would get, but they certainly hope there will be coverage of it nonetheless and they're hoping that this is not just going to be a domestic audience, but a global audience as well. They're hoping that at least it will get the coverage that they hope it deserves -- Lou. DOBBS: And, of course, we'll be carrying the president's remarks live here on CNN beginning at 8:00.
As Dana Bash reported, the United States and Britain today introduced a draft United Nations resolution trying to win the Security Council's support for a new Iraqi government.
Richard Roth reports now from the United Nations -- Richard.
RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Lou, since the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. has been able to get support in the Security Council for other resolutions, but this time for the start of a transfer of power after June 30, the U.S. really needs the help of other countries here.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH (voice-over): One year later, the United States returned to the Security Council for urgent help in Iraq. This time, Washington is not threatening to go it alone. Instead, it's desperately requesting United Nations' involvement as control is turned over to Iraqi authorities.
JAMES CUNNINGHAM, U.S. DEPUTY AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: The resolution looks forward to the end of the Coalition Provisional Authority and the occupation and a leading role for the United Nations in Iraq.
ROTH: Knowing the U.S. is in a tight spot, Security Council members such as France and Germany angle to get as much authority for the Iraqis as possible and place limits on the extent of the U.S. political and military role.
GUNTER PLEUGER, GERMAN AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: We will have to make sure that this process provides Iraqi ownership for the political process, as well as for the process of economic reconstruction.
ROTH: So will there be the same showdown as before the war?
HERALDO MUNOZ, CHILEAN AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: There are differences, but at the same time, I have seen progress and growing agreements over the meetings that we have had informally.
ROTH: Debate is likely on key points in the resolution. A U.S.- led multinational force stays for a year only to then be reviewed, not necessarily withdrawn. The international military and the Iraqi military plan cooperation, but left unsaid is whether Iraqi troops can refuse an order from an American commander. And oil revenues will be controlled by Iraq, but an international monitoring board will remain in place to look for corruption.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH: It's not clearly defined in the resolution yet, but U.S. diplomats tell us that they foresee Iraqi authorities being allowed to not have their own troops go into combat in a certain zone despite the wishes of a U.S.-led multinational force.
It's one of the key areas still to be gone over in the weeks ahead, Lou. The U.S. wants a vote in early June. It may take a few more days after that -- back to you.
DOBBS: Richard Roth, reporting from the United Nations, thank you.
As President Bush prepared his speech, insurgents in Iraq today launched a brazen attack against a coalition convoy in Baghdad. The attack resulted in the death of two British civilians. Two others were wounded. Elsewhere, American troops launched new attacks on gunmen loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr.
Guy Raz reports from Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUY RAZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The burning carcass of an armored sport utility vehicle, inside, the charred remains of two British nationals, two others flown to an Army medical center. U.S. forces and Iraqi police quickly sealed off the area as forensic teams combed the site.
A senior U.S. military official at the scene told CNN the attack bore all of the hallmarks of a targeted killing, no collateral damage, no other vehicles hit and just steps away from the main entrance of the Green Zone, where the coalition authority is headquartered.
To the south, more clashes in the city of Kufa between U.S. forces and fighters from the radical Shiite Mahdi brigade. According to U.S. military officials, 32 suspected fighters were killed. U.S. troops entered a mosque where they found large stockpiles of artillery shells, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and weapons. Meanwhile, controversy still surrounds a U.S. attack on a site in western Iraq last week that left 45 people dead.
This video obtained by the Associated Press appears to show footage of a wedding party that was reportedly going on hours before the attacks. Neither CNN nor APTN can vouch for its authenticity and U.S. officials continue to insist that the location was a way station for foreign fighters.
BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. DEPUTY CHIEF OF OPERATIONS: There are inconsistencies. We will do an investigation, but at this point, we have seen really nothing that causes us to be significantly -- to change our minds.
RAZ: U.S. officials acknowledge a party may have been in progress at the site, but one said -- quote -- "Even bad guys have party, too."
(on camera): Baghdad is now a city where a day without violence or an explosion would almost shock its battered residents. And one senior Iraqi official now says, as the June 30 handover date approaches, violence will only get worse.
Guy Raz, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Still ahead here, U.S. strategy at a crossroads. I'll be joined by two critics of the administration's Iraq policies, Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation.
The United States preparing to sign yet another free trade agreement. Is it another mistake? Congressman Charlie Rangel joins us. He says free trade is unfair to American businesses and workers in Central America. He is my guest tonight.
And the federal government is about to spend billions of dollars to strengthen border security. Incredibly, this contract could go to a foreign company and a leading outsourcer of American jobs to cheap overseas labor markets.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The president's speech tonight intended to show the American people that the United States now has a clear strategy for Iraq, but critics say the United States has failed to accomplish its mission and it is time for the president to set a date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Some critics also say the handover of security to a new Iraqi force in Fallujah is a clear sign the administration is prepared to compromise with insurgents.
Joining me now, Daniel Pipes, who's director of the Middle East Forum and an authority on the Middle East, who says the United States should appoint a strongman, if you will, to take over in Iraq, and with him, Nile Gardiner, a fellow in Anglo-American security policy at the Heritage Foundation who says the United States has given too much power already to former Baathists in Fallujah.
Gentlemen, good to have you here.
Let me say first, Daniel Pipes, the idea of a strongman for many resonates with the suggestion of a despot like Saddam Hussein making a return. What do you mean when you say a strong leader in that vein?
DANIEL PIPES, DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST FORUM: I mean someone who doesn't have blood on his hands, who is not an ideological fanatic, but someone, perhaps a former general or colonel who is decent, who we can nudge towards an open political system over the years, someone who will have authority and standing in Iraq.
One slight misstep, I didn't mean that we would appoint him, that we would work with him. They would accept the emergence of such a personality.
DOBBS: Not an appointment, but rather an emergence, in your thinking, a fortuitous one.
Nile, your thoughts on that idea?
NILE GARDINER, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: I think the last thing we need in Iraq is a strong, centralized dictatorial-style government, actually.
I think that we certainly do not want to see the reemergence in any way of any elements linked to the former Baathist regime. I think we made some serious mistakes so far in Fallujah. We failed to stamp out the insurgency there. I believe that what we need in Iraq is a strong sense of regional government, devolution of power, not the centralization of political power.
DOBBS: It appears to me, gentlemen, that there is a great sort of movement right now in this country to rationalize where we are in Iraq in terms of both military strategy, in terms of the geopolitical strategy, the goals, the mission. It seems to be in total chaos.
Daniel Pipes, is there, in your judgment right now, a way in which the United States can emerge from Iraq intact, at least with some semblance of the very ambitious goals that were articulated by the administration a year ago?
PIPES: Let me start by saying that I support those goals. And if I'm wrong and they can be achieved, I will be delighted.
I think they cannot be achieved. So what I'm offering is a more modest ambition, something which is second or third best. It's better to have the strongman than to have the different parts of Iraq at war with each other, which I fear will be the result of devolution. It's better to have this than to have a radical Islamic take over by someone like Muqtada al-Sadr. It's better than the alternatives that I can find that are reasonably likely.
Nile, do you agree with that view, that one Iraq, effectively, if I'm correct in interpreting you, Daniel Pipes, one Iraq is better than three separate entities, that is, the Kurds, Sunnis and Shia?
GARDINER: Well, I was talking earlier, really, about a federal system of power in Iraq, keeping Iraq as a unitary state, but a state divided into three power structures.
I think that, in the past, Iraq has been too centralized in terms of political power. And this allowed the rise of the Sunni dictatorship led by Saddam Hussein. We want to avoid any recurrence of this sort of dictatorship again. And I believe it is imperative that we decentralize political power in Iraq, that we do strive at all costs for the establishment of a democratic society.
There is really no such thing as a benign dictatorship.
DOBBS: Let me ask you both to address this issue. The United States is now in heated combat against insurgents, whether they be Sunni, whether they be Shia. We are taking very bad wounds, quite literally. American lives are being lost. Goals are not being achieved, at least those enunciated to this point by the administration.
What is the impact on the global war on terror, in your view, the standing of the United States in that region, which is the origin, the source of radical Islamist terrorism.
Nile, could you address that?
GARDINER: Well, we certainly can't afford to lose the war on terror in Iraq. Iraq has become certainly the central front in the war against terror. The terrorists are certainly testing to the very limits America's power as a global superpower. It's imperative that we send a message to the world that the United States is committing to winning the war against terror on the ground in Iraq.
PIPES: Two points.
I would say we have got to win in Iraq. And the way we can more likely win is by having lesser goals, less ambitious goals. And, two, as you and I have discussed in the past, Lou, the war on terror is really a war on radical Islam. And it is separate, or at least it was separate, from the war against Saddam Hussein. And I think they really should be seen as different.
North Korea is separate from the war on militant Islam and the one is fundamentally different from the other. Of course they affect each other, but Iraq will not, in the end, determine up -- determine the outcome of the war on militant Islam.
DOBBS: Daniel Pipes, Nile Gardiner, we thank you both gentlemen for being with us.
GARDINER: Thank you.
DOBBS: Turning now to our poll question: Do you expect the president's speech tonight to significantly alter your view of the situation in Iraq, yes or no? Cast your vote at CNN.com/Lou. We'll have the results later in the broadcast.
Coming up next, the next free trade giveaway, the United States preparing to sign yet another free trade agreement. Congressman Charles Rangel says it will hurt American workers and business. He's our guest.
And "Broken Borders." A new system to track foreign visitors to the United States could be built by a foreign company, a foreign company exporting American jobs overseas. We'll have a special report.
And then wild weather sweeping across the Midwest, tornado warnings still in effect across much of the region. We'll have the very latest for you on the weather tonight affecting a large segment of the entire country. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Tonight, the free trade giveaway. The White House this week will sign yet another free trade agreement, this one with Central America, the so-called CAFTA agreement. It is the latest in a growing list of controversial trade pacts that appear to show free trade as anything, certainly, but free.
Kitty Pilgrim reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick is on a trade push. Free trade agreements have been negotiated with eight countries in the last six months, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Australia, and Morocco.
LAEL BRAINARD, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Since day one, the administration has been very clear that they were going to go full steam ahead in this very radically new direction for U.S. trade policy, which is to sign as many as bilateral free trade agreements as possible. What's interesting is that the economic benefits to the U.S. just aren't that big.
PILGRIM: CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, to be covered on Friday, will cover Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras,El Salvador, and Nicaragua.
CAFTA critics say the labor and environment provisions are not acceptable, among them, John Kerry and Dick Gephardt, who, while campaigning, accuse the Bush administration of -- quote -- "selling out American workers with a bad trade deal" -- unquote. The U.S. trade agenda suffered a setback with the collapse of global trade talks in Cancun, Mexico.
GARY HUFBAUER, INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS: It was a complete breakdown. You could not ask for a more complete breakdown. After Cancun, that was when the Zoellick, you know, enlarged the list of new bilateral free trade agreements. Looking at that, he said, let's make business where we can make business.
PILGRIM: The U.S. already has free trade agreements with Canada, Mexico, Israel, Jordan, Chile and Singapore. Last month, the United States started on a neighboring region to CAFTA. The first round of negotiations with Panama has started and also Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Negotiations with Bahrain have also begun and also five nations in Africa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Now, Congress has yet to sign off on these deals. The first test is the agreement with Australia. And it's generally accepted as a favorable deal for the United States, but few expect CAFTA to go before Congress in advance of the November election -- Lou. DOBBS: Thank you very much, Kitty.
My next guest has been one of the outspoken critics of CAFTA in Congress. And Congressman Charlie Rangel says this agreement is unfair to American workers and business. Congressman Rangel is the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.
And we thank you for being here.
REP. CHARLES RANGEL (D), NEW YORK: Thank you, Lou.
DOBBS: CAFTA is certainly controversial, but the president is going to sign it. What is your basic objection to it?
RANGEL: Well, you know, since they passed fast track, it meant the Congress was out of any input at all in any of these negotiations. So the private sector meets with our trade representatives. They meet with the foreigners. And the only thing we get a chance to do is to vote up or down. In Washington, when you say you're against a particular free trade agreement, you're an isolationist, you're unpatriotic, you're trying to stop jobs.
But one of the things that we protest is that the good old days used to say made in the USA and there was a sense of pride in what you were doing. People would want those things that were made there. And generations would work someplace and even the logo would be something that they would wear. In this particular agreement, we are being driven by the lowest price in labor. There are no standards over there in terms of what they can organize, whether this is going to be child labor.
We say the least that they can do is have the minimum international labor standards, so that there would be something for them to look for disposable income and buy from the USA.
DOBBS: Do you agree that with most of the people we've talked with that CAFTA hasn't a chance in the world of being passed this election year?
RANGEL: You're right. Even the president's people are beginning to say that this is a loser. The president signs it, but the committee hasn't got enough votes really to do anything with it.
DOBBS: You have -- you've been a supporter of free trade agreements over the years. We are seeing a gradual shift in this country, in my opinion, to people taking a new, harder look at free trade and the high cost of that free trade in terms of jobs in this country, in terms of the wages that have been depressed. Is that your sense of what is happening now with these free trade agreements, particularly NAFTA?
RANGEL: You know, there's always been the rhetoric that we get back more jobs than those that we're shipping abroad. But if you work in a community and the only industry is a factor there, they close down, hundreds, sometimes thousands of people are without salaries, pensions, health care. And the jobs that we get back are not necessarily to that community and they're not necessarily in any volume compared to what we are losing. And we are losing not only the jobs, but we're losing the technology. We're losing privacy. We're losing that sense of pride that Americans used to feel. And overseas, it's not even certain that the people are benefiting from it, that they're getting the minimum care.
DOBBS: In point of fact, as you know, Congressman, several recent studies have shown that, in Mexico, after NAFTA, a decade of NAFTA, Mexican wages are lower than they were when it began.
RANGEL: And do you than some of the people that we've talked with had been prepared to accept amendments in the agreements, where they would have minimum standards and it would be our trade representatives that would not want them there? And when you're dealing with international forces, then you can't bring up national pride anymore.
DOBBS: And the issue of lost sovereignty is another issue. I hope you'll come back and we can address that, Congressman.
RANGEL: Well, the World Trade organization is really the World Trade Organization. It's not ours.
DOBBS: Absolutely.
Congressman Charlie Rangel, glad you're ours. Thanks for being here.
RANGEL: Thanks for what you do, Lou.
Taking a look now at some of your thoughts. Many of you have written in about so-called free trade agreements.
Robin Shepherd of North Vernon, Indiana: "CAFTA, just like NAFTA, was created by big business in this country to exploit the American worker. Companies pay their top managers outrageous amounts of money and then want the American worker to do with less. When is enough enough?"
And Russel Schmidt in Troy, Michigan: "Corporate rights have grown to the point where they exceed those of real people. It's about time for the voters to take back America."
Meredith Holland in Dalzell, South Carolina: "Lou, it saddens my heart to see so many jobs being outsourced for the sake of a company making a profit. Where in the world will America be in a few years? Outsourced, I suppose."
Send us your e-mails at LouDobbs@CNN.com. We'll share more of your thoughts later in the broadcast; 100,000 SBC Communication workers are prepared to return to work tomorrow after the first strike against the exporting of American jobs to cheap overseas labor market, a central issue in that dispute with SBC. Talks between SBC and the union that represents the employees continued throughout the weekend. Both sides tonight say they are making progress.
Peter Viles has the report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Passion on the picket line, but there was progress at the bargaining table. Talks in the SBC strike continued around the clock Sunday into Monday against a backdrop that is brand new to the baby bells. If they anger their customers with poor service, the customers now can leave.
JEFF KAGAN, INDEPENDENT TELECOM ANALYST: Customers were captive the last time around and the last many times around. For decades, if the customers were upset because the unions were striking or because there was a threat or uncertainty, they still had to stay. Now they don't. So for the first time ever, there's a real risk.
VILES: Major issue, health care costs, exact terms of a three- year job guarantee and the wild card, union access to of high tech jobs going to nonunion workers and sometimes to even cheaper labor overseas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you have a salaried insurance here, they're up shipping the jobs overseas, but they're not paying them half that.
VILES: Analysts doubt SBC will make an across the board pledge to stop using overseas labor.
LARRY IRVING, IRVING INFORMATION GROUP: I don't know how any company that is a publicly-traded company says they won't move any jobs overseas. The pressure on the street, the pressure from the analyst, the pressure from stock holders is such is that you've got to increase your margin and decrease your cost. And people see outsourcing as a viable way of doing.
VILES: It union SBC is loaded eight and half billion in profits last year, but investors see trouble spots, competition from wireless and cable companies, hurt by the jobless recovery, revenue have declined nearly 10 percent in five years. The stock has fallen 55 percent.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VILES: Both sides agree the vast majority of the new jobs are not going overseas, the problem and the sticking point is right now they're not going to union members either -- Lou.
DOBBS: Lost jobs, lost phones, do you have to draw the picture for people?
VILES: Sure, when the economy creates job, businesses add phone lines. When we lose two or three million job, in which we did, businesses turns off phone lines. That hurts SBC.
DOBBS: Imagine that. And yet this company is also showing rising profits with the declining stock price.
VILES: They sure are.
DOBBS: Peter Viles, thank you, sir.
The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Visit Program is a controversial plan to say the least. It would use virtual security along this nation's borders. The plan would use technology to track potential visitors to the country before they even cross our borders. And three major companies are vying for a multibillion contract to develop the technology. One of those companies, however is not based in the United States and one of its main jobs is to export American jobs.
Bill Tucker, reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Imagine knowing who's coming to visit before they each get here. Imagining such a program is about all you can do right now because it doesn't exist. However, the Department of Homeland Security is willing to spend at least $10 billion to bring it into existence.
DAN STEIN, FAIR: This is a very expensive proposal. We're talking about billions and billions of dollar. But the practical matter is there are a lot of financial stocks who make money off immigration. A lot of people who make money off foreign visitors. And they don't want to sacrifice anything so the result is the taxpayer having to pay for the introduction of an elaborate new system to verify identification and frankly no guarantee that it's even going to work. In addition, Border Patrol Agents are leery that the technology could become an excuse for hiding the real problem which they say is understaffing.
In Washington, there's another controversy brewing. There are three companies in the running for the contract, Computer Sciences Corporation, Lockheed Martin and Accenture. Two of those companies are based in the United States. Accenture is not and that's not going over well with some who believe taxpayer dollars especially that many taxpayer dollars, especially that many tax payer dollars, should be going to a company not based in America. Representative Lloyd Doggett puts it in rather plain and pointed language. "If they want to slice of the American Pie," he says, "They'd better help bake it."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TUCKER: Everyone concerned with border control agrees, 20 years behind the times and we do need to catch up, but who gets the work -- Lou.
DOBBS: The central issue and all three of those companies by the way, are on our list of companies exporting American jobs and cheap overseas labor market, but Accenture, in its case based in Bermuda avoiding U.S. taxes, I didn't say evade, avoiding U.S. taxes by reason of incorporation there and enabling encouraging and driving American jobs overseas to cheap labor markets by advising corporations all over the country to do it. That's my opinion.
Bill Tucker, thank you very much. Peter Viles, thank you very much. As this gets more and more complex, but the solutions are getting a little clearer. Thank you, gentlemen.
Coming up next, President Bush hopes to boost support for his strategy in Iraq tonight with the first of what will be six major speeches on Iraq's future. Two of the best political journalists in the country join me next.
Also tonight, wild weather striking the Midwest. Thunderstorms and flooding hitting much of the region. But in the West, an entirely different story. What could be the worst drought some fear in this country in centuries. We begin a special report tonight that will run throughout the week on the battle for the scarce, precious resource, water.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: President Bush's speech tonight on Iraq comes as has approval rating is near an all-time low. A new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll finds 47 percent of Americans surveyed approving of the way President Bush's handling his job as president, 49 percent disapprove.
Joining me now Ron Brownstein, the national political correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times."
Roger Simon, political editor "U.S. News and World" report both joining us tonight from Washington.
Let me begin, Roger, with you, what does the president have to do tonight now that a process of communicating a strategy has DNA begin?
ROGER SIMON, "U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT: He has a plan for winning the occupation of Iraq and getting the troops home. That is acting as a millstone around his neck in terms of reelection and he needs to show that he is in charge -- at least this administration is in charge of the situation in Iraq. Something it has failed to do ever since the successful military phase ended and an unsuccessful occupation begins.
DOBBS: Do you concur, Ron?
RON BROWNSTEIN, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": I do think the key requirement for the president tonight is to show people that he has a plan. That is the biggest vulnerability he has in the polls. Two to one in one survey, that came out today. Americans do not believe he has a clear plan. But Lou, he may have a few good days coming. It's been a long time coming in Iraq. He has a few things moving in his direction. Special envoy Brahimi is nearing the completion of trying to pick the interim Iraqi government. That could come within days. The reaction to the resolution today. The U.N. resolution was surprisingly muted to positive, from some of the nations that we've had problems with in the past. And there is some evidence of military success against Sadr. So in that way there may be a little bit of upswing, but he still faces the long-term problem of ensuring less stability, less violence and fewer American casualties.
DOBBS: Scott Clellan, the White House press secretary saying, the president will not be talking tonight about any further advance in the democratization of Iraq. Are expectations so high as far as what the administration started talking about a year ago, that it's going to be difficult to overcome the disappointment meeting those expectations?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, actually think, the American people and certainly in Washington, the expectations have been dampened significantly, as you know. There are many voices now saying that the president's hopes were extravagant, that we need look at less -- the best outcome would be and more at avoiding what the worst outcome would be. People talking about a loose central government with a lot of power dispersed to the three regions, the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites. And even the public, Lou, would accept stability if it means that American troops are facing less violence in Iraq?
DOBBS: Roger, the president's approval ratings as we just reported, 47 percent. CBS is survey showing 41 percent.
How much trouble in your judgment, is the president in?
SIMON: Well, all you can really say is it's good news for him that it's May and not November. Those are not good numbers. Forty- one is obviously a terrible number. Forty-seven is not a great number because this is an incumbent, wartime president presiding over what some say is a booming economy, and up against an opponent who has not exactly been on a house of fire out on the hustings. And yet President Bush is trailing in these polls. True in your poll he's trailing narrowly and true, he does have until November to come back, but the signs are troubling and that is why the White House is putting the president out on a series of major speeches like the one tonight. And what they may have done was raised expectations very high tonight for how good this speech has to be.
DOBBS: I keep thinking back to the last time the networks ABC, CBS, NBC, those three networks gave the president his primetime coverage and the subsequent press conference and he was generally not regarded to have done well. The same thing with his appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." High stakes approaches that have not to this point paid off. What are your thoughts about the risks the president is taking tonight and the potential reward?
BROWNSTEIN: That's a good point, Lou. I think, look, the reason why those did not pay off so well in large part was because it did not result in improvement on the ground. What you've got is the risk of the president being out there saying things are getting better and we have a plan and then people don't see it day to day. So on the one hand he has to try to shore up public support, on the other hand he can't get too detached from where events are or else he opens up a whole new problem, questions of credibility.
DOBBS: Roger, your thoughts are the last word tonight.
SIMON: The president campaigns for reelection by his public appearances, including major speeches like the one tonight. Ron is quite right that he can't outstrip reality but his last public appearances have not been good and this is the most troubling thing to his political staff.
DOBBS: And the most encouraging must be that Senator John Kerry has not performed particularly well in the polls either. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Roger Simon, Ron Brownstein, good to have you with us.
BROWNSTEIN: Thank you, Lou.
DOBBS: Tonight's thought is on democracy. "Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people." Those the words of American clergyman Harry Emerson Fosdick.
Still ahead, the Midwest bracing for more severe weather tonight. That after a weekend of thunderstorms, flooding, and more than a hundred tornadoes. And water wars. More than 25 million people are absolutely dependent upon the Colorado River for their water. But as drought grips much of the Midwest and fears rise that this drought could be the worst in centuries, the river's water levels are falling and fast.
Also tonight the nation's largest retailer has low prices, but you're certainly paying a high price for those savings in some very unusual ways. We'll have that story coming right up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: There are reports tonight that a tornado has touched down outside Des Moines, Iowa. There is no word on either injuries or damage. Much of the Midwest is on alert tonight for severe storms after a weekend of wild weather. Dozens of tornadoes touching down in the region causing large, widespread destruction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS (voice-over): This tornado hit Furnace county, Nebraska, and it is one of 100 twisters that ravaged must of the Midwest over the weekend. There are tornado watches tonight in effect for parts of Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. The Storm Prediction Center says the highlighted portion of the map you're looking at represents the highest risk of severe weather including tornadoes tonight.
JOE SCHAFFER, STORM PREDICTION CTR.: Two greater tornadoes, the 10 percent of the tornadoes that account for 80, 90 percent of the damage. Also some major straight-lined winds in the order of 70 to 80 miles an hour winds.
DOBBS: The dozens of sports that set down this weekend left a wake of destruction and ruin. Iowa's Governor Tom Vilsack declared 17 counties to be in a state of emergency and asked President Bush to declare them federal disaster areas.
GOV. TOM VILSACK (D), IOWA: I don't think I've ever season a community devastated to this extent.
DOBBS: Nebraska is already in a state of emergency after 18 tornadoes ripped through the state. The tornado that hit Hallam, Nebraska, was one of the strongest to set down. A woman was killed, ten others were injured and late today the Weather Service upgraded its classification of the storm that hit Hallam, Nebraska, classifying it as an F-4 with winds rising as high as 260 miles an hour. That tornado destroyed more than 88 homes in the town of 300 people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw the tornado coming, went downstairs and heard the house take off.
DOBBS: Clusters of tornadoes like these normally move through a region rapidly. However this storm system didn't and it pounded the same area relentlessly.
HOWARD BROOKS, NATL. SEVERE STORMS LABORATORY: Storms are constantly going over the same areas and they may be getting many, many inches of rain, maybe even a third of their annual total happening in 72 hours.
DOBBS: The upper Midwest has been hit hard by flooding. As much as nine inches of rain fell on parts of Iowa over the weekend, forcing some Des Moines residents from their homes. Parts of northern Illinois are also underwater and the Des Plains River is expected to hit a record five feet above flood stage. And tonight, more than 20 Michigan counties are under flood warnings. Several rivers are already over the flood stage.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: The severe storm system is expected to move further east into Pennsylvania and New York later this week.
The southwest, meanwhile is battling wildfires, at least half a dozen fires are now burning in New Mexico and Arizona. The Pepin (ph) fire in central New Mexico has more than tripled in size overnight because of high winds. That fire is now burning through 8,000 acres. Residents of two dozen homes in the Capitan Mountains have been evacuated.
Wildfires in the west are being exacerbated by the severe drought. Tonight, we begin a series of special reports on the drought that grips much of the western United States. We'll be following through this week, the Colorado River from its head waters in the mountains to the arid cities that are dependent upon it. We'll also look at the impact on communities along the way and the battle among states for an increasingly scarce resource. Casey Wian reports from Rocky Mountain National Park.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is where the Colorado River begins, a continental divide nearly 11,000 feet high in the Rocky Mountains. Snow melts, flows past herds of elk and the Colorado gathers strength, but lately the snow hasn't lasted very long.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd like to welcome everybody to the water availability task force. As we all know it's been a dry few years.
WIAN: USDA snow pack expert Mike Gillespie (ph) has more bad news.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have no improvement at all in the Colorado Basin. We have a pretty bad situation. The situation is continuously getting worse.
WIAN: Six straight years of drought and warm weather cut snow pack levels to 20 percent of average this spring. Here, near its head waters, the Colorado didn't look like much more than a stream, but it provides water to 25 million people in seven states from Denver to Phoenix to Los Angeles. Now water levels in lakes downriver are shrinking. Aurora Colorado's reservoirs are only half full, so the city is rationing water.
PETER BINNEY, UTILITIES DIRECTOR, AURORA COLORADO: We only allow our customers to water their lawns twice per week. We have water monitors to ensure compliance with our water conservation program and we also have a pricing structure where the more water you use, the more you will pay for it.
WIAN: In two years, Aurora has cut water use 30 percent, still it needs more so it's paying farmers not to water crops and charging $11,000 per home to connect to its water system. Meanwhile, the forest service is bracing for another potentially destructive summer. Decades of fire fighting have allowed trees to grow nearly unchecked. Now the drought is killing them, creating fuel for historic blazes.
RICK CABLES, U.S. FOREST SERVICE: What we call mega fires and we've never seen fire behavior like this. It's unnatural and it's predicated on overstocked forests that are not natural. I don't have any doubt that we're going to have a difficult fire season unless we get moist through the spring.
WIAN: No one knows if this is the end of a typical dry spell occurring every two decades or so or the beginning of the worst drought in centuries. Casey Wian, CNN, Rocky Mountain National Park.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Coming up next, your hard-earned money financing the world's biggest retailer. Why taxpayers are footing the bill for Wal- Mart. Those prices are just so cheap. We'll tell you at least part of the reason why.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: You may be helping Wal-Mart with those low prices. A new report says the world's largest retailer has received more than a billion dollars in tax breaks. That report says Wal-Mart received government subsidies in the form of income tax credits and property tax rebates. Lisa Sylvester reports. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Wal-Mart has been on a roll. The company made more than $9 billion in net income last year and has more than 3,000 stores in the United States. So it might be surprising that the corporation received more than $1 billion in tax breaks and subsidies from state and local governments paid by taxpayers.
PHILLIP MATTERA, GOOD JOBS FIRST: You may be saving money at the cash register, but because of the subsidies that Wal-Mart's getting, for example, property tax breaks and so forth you may pay more when your property tax bill comes.
SYLVESTER: According to a report by the group Good Jobs First, the company received more than $48 billion to build a distribution center in Illinois, $46 million to locate in Sharon Springs, New York, and $33 million to move to Louisiana. Local and state communities hope the subsidies translate into new jobs. But as Rosetta Brown found out those jobs don't pay well. She's a full-time employee at the Sam's Club and makes less than $400 a week.
ROSETTA BROWN, SAM'S CLUB EMPLOYEE: You got people that have been there 12, 13 years still at the same position. It's just not what everybody think it is.
SYLVESTER: Wal-Mart says the pay off is worth it. Over the last ten years, Wal-Mart claims it collected more than $52 billion in sales taxes and paid $192 million in income taxes, wage withholding and unemployment taxes and paid $4 billion in local property taxes, but what's not known is how much a community lost when other stores were forced to close after Wal-Mart moved in.
TOM SCHATZ, CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE: Without knowing whether that's a net benefit, there's no way to know what that number really means. Is that $52 million above what the communities would have received? Is it more or less than they had previously and where is that distributed?
SYLVESTER: Wal-Mart, a longtime fixture in the suburbs is now moving into the cities. The latest fight is in Chicago where labor union groups hope to stop the retail giant in its tracks.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVESTER: There's not a lot of transparency when it comes to how much local governments are subsidizing Wal-Marts and other companies. There are no disclosure requirements and no central database that keeps track of all of the tax breaks and subsidies -- Lou.
DOBBS: Lisa, thank you very much.
An incredible report. Lisa Sylvester.
The National Trust for Historic Places says Wal-Mart's expansion has made the state of Vermont, the entire state of Vermont an endangered place. The group dedicated to preserving historic sites says an onslaught of Wal-Mart stores will forever change the landscape of Vermont. Wal-Mart has plans to build seven new super stores in the Green Mountain state. Preservationists say the solution is simple. Wal-Mart should change to fit Vermont, not the other way around. They're hoping to persuade Wal-Mart to build smaller stores on existing retail sites.
Taking a look at some of your thoughts. Richard Mealy of Hawaii. "Lou, Congress, the White House, and corporations are failing us daily and need to be reined in and retrained to understand that they are obliged to serve Americans not the World Trade Organization, foreign bankers, the United Nations, and other countries."
And D.J. in Florida. "Lou, NAFTA, CAFTA, it all means the American people are getting the SHAFTA. If our elected officials will not represent the people then we need to remove them from office."
Send us your e-mails at loudobbs@CNN.com. CNN White House staff have confirmed that the United States -- we have just received this word -- have confirmed that the United States will demolish the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. All of that, we are told as a result of consultations with a new Iraqi government.
Still ahead, the results of tonight's poll. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The results of our poll, 99 percent of you do not expect the president's speech tonight to significantly alter your view of the situation in Iraq. Thanks for being with us, please join us tomorrow. Congressman Kevin Brady of Texas, the Republican leading the fight for CAFTA, Professor Fouad Ajami, the leading authority on the Middle East. They're our guests. Please be with us. For all of here, good night from New York. "ANDERSON COOPER 360" is next.
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