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Lou Dobbs Tonight
Secretary Powell Visits Tsunami Affected Area; Army Reserves Chief Criticizes System
Aired January 05, 2005 - 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, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, the shocking devastation of the tsunami disaster. In this one small part of Indonesia, nearly 100,000 people lost their lives.
GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: It's with a heavy heart that we're here. But we're friends forever.
DOBBS: Tonight, the head of the United Nations children's fund, Carol Bellamy, joins us live from Indonesia to tell us about the scale of this disaster and what can be done to help survivors.
Tonight, a blunt warning about our military preparedness. The head of the Army Reserve says his troops are unable to meet their commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in fact, are in danger of becoming a broken force.
The controversy over the Mexican government's guidebook for Mexican citizens to become illegal aliens is escalating. The Mexican government is helping illegal aliens cross our border. The U.S. government remains silent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They sort of tipped everybody off as to what the Mexican government's real intention is. And that is to continue to push people north.
DOBBS: Global nuclear proliferation is worsening. Does Egypt have the bomb? North Korea certainly does, and it says it's preparing for a nuclear confrontation with the United States.
Congressman Curt Weldon leads a congressional delegation to North Korea next week. He's our guest tonight.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Wednesday, January 5. Here now for an hour of news, debate and opinion is Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: Good evening.
Tonight, Secretary of State Colin Powell and other world leaders are preparing to meet in Indonesia to discuss the huge international effort required to help tsunami survivors.
The United States and other countries have already pledged more than $3 billion. At least 156,000 people were killed in the disaster, nearly 100,000 in western Indonesia alone.
The number of Americans presumed dead has risen to 36. More than 3,000 other Americans remain unaccounted for.
John King now reports from Banda Aceh in western Indonesia.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a stunning bird's eye view: the devastation of Banda Aceh stretching nearly 100 miles. Mud and water where roads and homes once stood. Other buildings ripped to pieces. Residents by the thousands washed away in the giant wave.
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I cannot begin to imagine the horror that went through the families and all of the people who heard this noise coming and then had their lives snuffed out by this wave.
KING: Ships tossed like toys, trees snapped like matchsticks. This pilot describes Secretary Powell as in shock as he looked down on a place where they are still counting the dead, still searching for bodies and still aching for food 10 days later.
On the ground, an update from relief workers on the humanitarian requirements. The displaced in Banda Aceh now number an estimated 400,000.
Secretary Powell was told desperately needed relief flights are slowed by air traffic control problems. With the permission of Indonesian officials, U.S. and Australian military units will rush to make improvements.
POWELL: We can increase the throughput, as it's called, the rate of arrival of planes and supplies, and that's what we'll be working on.
KING: U.S. officials have shipped 16,000 tons of rice and soybeans to Indonesia, but much of it is being trucked to Banda Aceh from three days away. And deliveries were suspended once already this week for eight hours because of a firefight between Indonesia troops and separatist rebels.
The emotional visit left the U.S. delegation stunned.
J. BUSH: It is with a heavy heart that we're here, but we're friends forever.
KING: Governor Bush is heading back to the United States. Next for Secretary Powell is a regional conference in Jakarta to coordinate relief and reconstruction, then a visit to Sri Lanka for another look at the tsunami's fury.
(on camera) Secretary Powell and his delegation were on the ground here less than two hours, rushing in and out so that their visit would not complicate or delay the urgent relief effort. In fact, while the delegation took its helicopter tour and met with relief workers here on the ground, Secretary Powell's plane circled the island overhead, so as to not clog this critical runway.
John King, Banda Aceh, Indonesia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Later I'll be joined by the head of UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund. Carol Bellamy will join us from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. She'll be talking to us about the most urgent needs of the survivors of the tsunami and how the rest of us can help.
Turning now to the war in Iraq.
Anti-Iraqi forces today launched a series new attacks trying to disrupt preparations for the elections scheduled for January 30. At least 15 people were killed in the attacks, 10 of them in a suicide bomb attack against Iraqi police officers in Hillah, south of Baghdad.
Nearly 100 people have been killed in insurgent attacks over the past four days now.
A blunt warning about the Army Reserve's ability to fulfill missions because of the strain of fighting the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army Reserve's own commander says his troops are rapidly degenerating into what he calls, quote, "a broken force."
The general's remarks appear to contradict repeated assertions by the Pentagon civilian and military leaders that indeed we have enough troops.
Senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the unvarnished view of its top commander. The U.S. Army Reserve is no longer able to meet its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan because of dysfunctional policies, not a lack of manpower.
In a December 20 memo to his bosses, Lieutenant General James Helmly wrote, "The Army Reserve is in grave danger of being unable to meet operational requirements and is rapidly degenerating into a broken force."
LT. GEN. JAMES HELMLY, CHIEF, ARMY RESERVE: Congressmen, Lieutenant General Helmly, the chief of the Army Reserves. Good to see you again. Sir, our recruiting is behind target this year.
MCINTYRE: General Helmly is known for privately sharing his pessimistic views with members of Congress, as he acknowledged in public testimony last November.
HELMLY: And as the chairman noted in his office, a couple of weeks ago, I did not sugar coat that.
MCINTYRE: In fact, Helmly is advocating policies that go directly against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's efforts to lessen the impact on reservists who don't want to deploy, victims of the so- called backdoor draft.
In his memo, Helmly complains about restrictive mobilization policies and demands to use only volunteers. This, he said, results in reservists who enjoy lesser responsible positions in civilian life. And he argues that $1,000 per month incentive pay risks sociological damage, by turning a volunteer force into a mercenary army.
And he advocates greater involuntary reassignment of obligated soldiers.
MAJ. GEN. DAVID BOCKEL, DIRECTOR, RESERVE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION: What Helmly would like to do is be able to have the authority to call these people to active duty. If he hasn't got the authority to call them into active duty, at least allow him to discharge them from the service.
MCINTYRE: General Helmly says he can't get rid of 16,000 reservists who are not meeting their obligations at a cost of $46 million in health and other benefits.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: What Helmly is arguing, essentially, is that the Pentagon has bent over too far backwards to coddle reservists who don't want to serve and in the process is undermining the core value of the force.
And, contrary to critics in Congress, he argues that the Reserves are losing as many soldiers because it doesn't use them as it is because of the fear of overusing them -- Lou.
DOBBS: Jamie, what is the reaction within the Pentagon itself, because the Pentagon has, for literally months now, been suggesting that everything is fine, if you will. The general's remarks suggesting anything but that direction.
MCINTYRE: Well, the reaction is that this is a problem that they've been working on for quite a long time, that this memo reflects the sort of internal debate.
But the interesting point here is that General Helmly is really talking about getting a freer hand to do things his way.
For instance, he objects very strongly to a proposal to cobble together a unit to go to Iraq that's made of volunteers from different services. He says if you're in the Reserves, you ought to be able to send those units. If you can't send them, then you ought to get them out of service and replace them with people who do want to serve.
He insists there are enough people who want to serve that they shouldn't have to go through all these gymnastics. DOBBS: That would seem to be logical, reasonable, rational. Why isn't the general's advice being followed?
MCINTYRE: Well, of course, the counterargument is that the force is being overstressed, and it's putting a lot of hardship on people who didn't think they were going to have to serve this much.
So the Pentagon has got a lot of policies to try to accommodate people, to try to get people who want to go Iraq, for instance, and not force too many people to go who are in the reserves in order to try to make sure that they don't have a dip in recruiting because people's morale goes down and they can't recruit.
So it's -- it's a balancing act and it's one that there's a vigorous debate going on in the Pentagon right now.
DOBBS: One that we all hope will be resolved soon for the benefit of everyone. Jamie McIntyre, thank you.
New evidence tonight, the spread of nuclear weapons around the world could be a much more serious problem than anyone has acknowledged. The International Atomic Energy Agency is now investigating reports that Egypt may have been conducting secret nuclear experiments.
Kitty Pilgrim reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The worry is Egypt has been running nuclear experiments and the IAEA has not reported it or discovered it.
Egypt's ambassador to the United States said today there is no secret Egyptian program and they are working with the IAEA.
The U.S. State Department said yesterday it does not know anything more than what's been reported in the press.
ADAM ERELI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We don't have anything definitive or authoritative from the IAEA. I expect we'll be discussing these press reports with them.
PILGRIM: But experts worry if the reports prove true, it suggests a disturbing pattern.
HENRY SOKOLSKI, NONPROLIFERATION POLICY EDUCATION CENTER: The news suggests that earlier reports that Mr. Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program, who had sold so many things to North Korea and Iran, had made visits also to Egypt. So this could be lifting the carpet on a lot of nuclear dirt in the region.
PILGRIM: Iran has run uranium enrichment programs in secret for nearly two decade, and experts say a potential nuclear weapons program could be located around the Parchin complex about 20 miles south of Tehran. Today, Mohamed ElBaradei says they hope to gain access to that facility within weeks.
GORDON G. CHANG, NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION EXPERT: It's not just Iran. It's Iran in connection with Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Pakistan and China. It is a very serious combination of countries, and the problem is that we're really receiving too many reports of problems in Egypt and in the surrounding countries to think that this is all just coincidence.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Now North Korea remains the biggest nuclear threat in the world. But, recently, new countries have admitted to secret experiments, such as South Korea staying conducted plutonium and uranium experiments, didn't report them, however. Now nuclear experts say the work for the IAEA is becoming increasingly broad and difficult -- Lou.
DOBBS: And, of course, it's becoming increasingly threatening and -- in a far more dangerous world, and -- we're led to believe by the very agency that is responsible for conducting oversight. That is the IAEA.
PILGRIM: Well, nuclear experts we talked to today are very concerned, and they're doing a lot of the footwork on this piecing together little pieces of information and drawing conclusions that are never officially stated in any government agency.
DOBBS: And, of course, the question unasked here is: Where are U.S. intelligence agencies in all of this?
PILGRIM: We're just scratching the surface on this, Lou.
DOBBS: It is troubling to say the least.
Kitty, thank you very much.
Kitty Pilgrim.
North Korea has told people to be ready for a protracted war with the United States. The North Korean regime has issued orders how to stockpile weapons and how to use underground bunkers.
Tonight, there's new satellite imagery that shows the scale of North Korean military preparations for a possible war.
National Correspondent David Ensor reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The satellite pictures document North Korea's obsession with tunnels and underground facilities, like this air base with runways that run into tunnels under a mountain. The National Resources Defense Council team also used pictures taken from the shuttle.
But if the hidden bases made sense for North Korea when they were built, they are not save from today's American weapons.
JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: That might have worked back in the 1980s, but, with precision munitions today, the North Koreans have just narrowed down the number of aim points for our smart bombs.
ENSOR: And our D.C. scientists say the imagery suggests the earth-penetrating nuclear weapon the Bush administration wants to start research on would not be needed to stop North Korean underground weapons of any kind.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, basically, if there's something hidden under a mountain, you just blow up the entrance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blow up the entrance. Yes.
ENSOR: The satellite pictures also show North Korea's nuclear weapons facilities. The biggest threat to South Korea, say the experts, would be a nuclear weapon on its capital Seoul dropped from an aircraft.
But the pictures show North Korea's Air Force and Navy are antiquated and decrepit -- 48 small submarines, some Russian-made MiG jets -- but, believe it or not, most of the transport aircraft are biplanes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ENSOR: There were defense and intelligence officials in the audience today, and, once or twice, the presenters asked them to speak up if they knew something more from the much higher resolution imagery that the U.S. government has access to. They didn't speak up, but then, of course, that material is classified -- Lou.
DOBBS: David, thank you very much.
David Ensor.
Congressman Curt Weldon is about to lead a congressional delegation in North Korea. Later here, I'll be talking with Congressman Weldon about the magnitude of the North Korean military threat to this country and what the United States is doing to contain that threat.
Immigration reform on the agenda of Congress. Lawmakers make a new effort to stop illegal aliens from obtaining U.S. driver's licenses.
And the head of UNICEF, Carol Bellamy, joins us. She says children who survived the tsunami disaster are her top priority now. She'll join us from Indonesia.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The new 109th Congress is wasting no time returning to one of the most critical and most divisive issues facing the country, immigration reform. The influential chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Congressman James Sensenbrenner will introduce legislation that will deny licenses to illegal aliens. The fight over driver's licenses held up negotiations on the intelligence reform legislation recently signed into law by President Bush.
Ed Henry joins us now live from Capitol Hill -- Ed.
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Lou.
That's right. Jim Sensenbrenner did not succeed in getting his reform package attached to the 9/11 bill, but he appears to be picking up a little bit of momentum in the 109th Congress.
To open up the new Congress, Speaker Dennis Hastert in his first speech made a personal commitment to including immigration reform in the priority list for the new Congress, and in this bill -- with this bill, Jim Sensenbrenner now has 102 co-sponsors.
In addition to preventing illegal immigrants from getting driver's license, it would make it harder for illegal immigrants to get political asylum. It would also finish that wall between California and Mexico.
And there was another development today. The powerful chairman of the House rules committee, David Dreier, today announced he will introduce legislation in the new Congress that would create a counterfeit-proof Social Security card.
Applicants seeking employment would have to present this card to prospective employers, and, if prospective employers do not use these cards to check out whether or not these employees are -- have -- you know, can validly work in the United States, they could face a fine of up to $50,000 and up to five years in jail.
Here's David Dreier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DAVID DREIER (R-CA), HOUSE RULES COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: In this post-9/11 world in which we live, it is important for us to deal with the issue of document fraud. That's been one of the greatest faults.
Mohamed Atta who flew one of the planes into the World Trade Center was -- had a valid driver's license, and he was pulled over, and he was told to appear in court after 9/11.
And so this issue of document fraud is a serious one, and I think that the American people are going to understand.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now pieces of legislation that are introduced in the House get the title of HR 5 or HR 10. In this case, David Dreier has picked HR 98 because he says this legislation will crack down on 98 percent of illegal border crossings because 98 percent of those crossings are for people looking for work. It's also important to note that Jim Sensenbrenner is a co- sponsor of this new Dreier legislation, but he wants to keep it separate from his own reform package -- Lou.
DOBBS: The Sensenbrenner legislation dealing with driver's licenses, reforming asylum rules in this country, Ed, as you know, will be attached by agreement with the House leadership to must-pass legislation. What will be that legislation? Do we know that yet?
HENRY: House leadership has not officially confirmed what it will be, but we keep -- what we keep hearing from senior people is that it will be possibly the Iraq funding legislation. That, obviously, will be a major must-pass legislation. It could be a bill funding up to $80 billion or more for the war in Iraq, and we keep hearing from very senior people up here that they think it will be attached to that legislation, Lou.
DOBBS: This looks, Ed, as though it is a sea change on Capitol Hill. Congress now willing to deal with what is, in the terms of many, straightforwardly, an invasion across our borders of illegal aliens from both the North and the South.
HENRY: You could see it in the Speaker of the House's first remarks in the opening of the new Congress. He made it very clear it's a top priority, Lou.
DOBBS: Ed Henry reporting from Capitol Hill.
Thank you, Ed.
As many as 20 million illegal aliens are estimated to be living and working in this country. According to a stunning new report, those 10s of millions of workers make up a large portion of what is an underground economy.
It is an economy in which workers reap the benefits of this country without paying any part of a fair share of taxes, and this underground economy is not only large, it is booming.
Lisa Sylvester reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They have regular jobs, work eight-hour days and get paid in the form of cash, paid under the table in part of the shadow economy. The majority of those in this informal economy are in this country illegally.
A new study for the first time puts the estimate of illegal aliens in the United States as high as 20 million people, double the official Census estimates. The investment company Bear Stearns studied school enrollments, new housing permits and looked up remittance payments to Latin America in immigrant gateway cities in New Jersey, New York and North Carolina.
BOB JUSTICH, BEAR STEARNS: We see that the school enrollments there are there much higher than would have been suggested by the regular Census numbers. So there is a big disconnect.
SYLVESTER: You may wonder why an investment company would be interested in immigration trends. Because analysts worry the United States budget, productivity and inflation projections may be way off. It's estimated, for instance, the IRS should be receiving $400 billion a year more from tax evaders.
DONALD ALEXANDER FORMER IRS COMMISSIONER: We have a deficit of over $400 billion a year. If our tax laws actually worked fully, we'd almost be -- break even.
SYLVESTER: People working in the legitimate economy end up paying for those who don't pay income taxes. At least one congressman has proposed a national sales tax to replace the income tax to capture those in the underground economy.
REP. JOHN LINDER (R), GEORGIA: If they want to buy a car or house or loaf of bread, they're going to wind up paying taxes.
SYLVESTER: But, for now, the illegal workers stay in the shadows, working and receiving services, but not necessarily paying income taxes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVESTER: Another segment of the shadow economy is the American worker who has been downsized from his or her company. They leave the official labor market and work as an independent contractor, often avoiding paying taxes, Lou?
DOBBS: Lisa, thank you very much.
Lisa Sylvester from Washington.
Coming up next here tonight, searching for thousands of missing children in south Asia. Trying to reunite them with their families. I'll be talking with the head of UNICEF who says the most difficult work lies ahead. That's next.
And then, piles of snow in the West and Midwest have forced some people to find unique ways to get to work.
We'll have all of that and great deal more still ahead here tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT continues. Here now for more news, debate and opinion, Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: The State Department now says 36 Americans are presumed dead in the tsunami disaster. Thousands more are still unaccounted for, many of them children.
My guest tonight is among those leading the effort to care for all of the children who survived the disaster, trying to reunite them with their families. Carol Bellamy is executive director of UNICEF joining us tonight from Jakarta, Indonesia.
Carol, what percentage of the 10s of thousands of victims of this disaster are children?
CAROL BELLAMY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNICEF: Well, Lou, it's not easy to come up with specifics, but we think at least a third. If you take a look at the populations of the countries effected, the populations tend to be young, with at least 30 percent of the population under 18 and, in some cases, closer to 40 percent. So we think those victims, those who've died, as well as who've been displaced -- at least a third are kids.
DOBBS: And this is the most heart-rending scenes that one could imagine. I know that you've been traveling through the region, the most devastated areas from Sri Lanka to, of course, Indonesia where you are tonight. What is -- what did you find in Banda Aceh where you visited?
BELLAMY: Well, first, to set the scene, I've never seen anything so horrifying in my life. I mean, this 35-foot wave that came in and then just knocked everything in its wake must have been just the most horrific thing ever.
That being said, what I did find as well is that camps are being set up. People are, at least at this point, receiving food and water. The sanitary facilities leave a lot to be desired.
We have -- we've already started putting together a registration system for the children, so we know whether they still have parents or whether they've lost their parents, whether they have family members as well.
On the other hand, in the western part of Indonesia, some of the people who have been displaced and killed are only now -- the numbers and whatever happened is only now coming to be known. So there's still much that isn't known in Indonesia.
DOBBS: The children who you're caring for, trying to reunite them with their families -- what is your sense of the progress in providing help for them, protection for them and your effort to reunite them with their families?
BELLAMY: Well, we're working very closely with the government authorities. I would say the good news is there has not been an outbreak of major disease either in Indonesia or Sri Lanka, the two most hard-hit countries.
DOBBS: Right.
BELLAMY: That being said, I mean, the kids are walking around really very -- you see the trauma in their eyes, and I think one of the most important things to happen will be to get the kids back in school as quickly as possible.
School is starting in this part of the world this week. Even in these disaster areas, we need to get kids back in school. It brings them into some normalcy.
DOBBS: And what can people do? Do you require more donations, more aid from governments?
BELLAMY: Well, I think still the most important thing is financial aid, financial aid from governments, from people, but, as was said as this piece was introduced, this is not something that's going to be over in a week or two. This is a rebuilding of societies, and so many countries hit.
So I hope what we also will give -- get from people is a long- term commitment. Stay interested. Stay involved.
DOBBS: Carol Bellamy, we wish you well in your important work, and we thank you.
Carol Bellamy, the director -- the executive director of UNICEF in Jakarta, Indonesia.
A deadly storm in this country tonight. The storm has led to dangerous driving conditions, canceled flights and downed power lines. Nine people have been killed. Three others are missing. Forecasters say the storm system is now heading east.
Christine Romans reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A sprawling winter storm is sweeping from the Rocky Mountains to the northeast, dumping snow, spitting ice and leaving more than 100,000 homes without power in Missouri and Kansas.
ROBERT KELLY, NOAA: This winter weather has been stretching from Oklahoma, across Kansas and Nebraska, across Iowa into Indiana and Illinois. It's really a very large area, covering almost all of the Midwest and the Southern portion of the Great Lakes states. We're expecting it in New York and New England as well. So it's a rather -- it's a really large part of the country.
ROMANS: In Chicago, more snow expect overnight, arriving flights are delay at least 4 hours at O'Hare airport, and snow canceled hundreds of outbound flights.
In Omaha, thousands of people this morning chipped off the snow and ice to get into their cars. Some gave up using skis to get to work.
In the northern plains, bitter cold, Grand Forks, North Dakota, 39 below zero. Embarrass, Minnesota, 43 below.
As the cold, snow and ice cripple the great plains, flooding was the danger further south. The National Weather Service warns flooding could threaten saturated areas from Texas to Ohio.
And this is Arizona, the snow dumped in Arizona's mountains rushed into the East Verde River. All the precipitation desperately needed in the parched southwest, but sometimes it can be too much of a good thing.
KELLY REDMOND, WESTERN REGIONAL CLIMATE CTR: If it comes too quickly, it is in a sense, wasted, because it runs off.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: By tomorrow, there could be a foot of snow in Iowa, Nebraska, Michigan and South Dakota. Wind gusts mean big drifts there. And all this is headed East as we speak, heavy snowfall in Manhattan. Here's a live picture of the Empire State Building in New York. We're going to expect a more moderate four to six inches of snow here by this time tomorrow. But Lou, it has started to snow very heavily on the East Coast.
DOBBS: Well, thank you very much. That weather report bringing us right up to date. You said it was headed here, it looks like it is definitely here.
ROMANS: I think it's here.
DOBBS: Thanks Christine Romans.
Tonight, growing, intensifying controversy over the Mexican government's publication of that guidebook we reported to you on Monday. The guidebook produced by the Mexican government is filled with tips for illegal aliens to enter this country safely and, of course, illegally.
Now some say the book could stall White House plans for its proposed guest worker program and accelerate immigration reform. Casey Wian reports from Los Angeles.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Mexican Migrant Guide may be just a how-to comic book, but it's quickly becomes a real life drama for the governments of Mexico and the United States. The Mexican government published guide offers border crossing tips to illegal aliens.
RICK OLTMAN, PED. FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM: It sort of tipped everybody off as to what the Mexican government's real intention is, and that is to continue to push people north, to assist them coming across the border.
WIAN: With a growing number of critics saying the book encourages illegal immigration, the link to the guide disappeared this morning from the Mexican foreign ministry's Web site.
(on camera): We called the Mexican embassy to ask if the guide had been removed, because of mounting political pressure. Within a half hour of our call, the guide was back up.
Later, a Mexican embassy spokesman claimed the guide had never been removed and that it was part of a group of five rotating icons.
(voice-over): However, a web master who tried to link to the guide disputes that saying he encountered an error message indicate the guide had been removed. The Arizona Republic wrote in an editorial "with this books, Mexican President Vicente Fox has unwittingly produced a powerful tool to undermine efforts by President Bush to win congressional support for a guest worker program." It added, "the booklet raises serious doubts about whether Mexico will ever help curb illegal immigration."
Meanwhile, Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo wants the White House, so far silent on the guide, to launch a form protest with the Mexican government.
REP. TOM TANCREDO, (R) COLORADO: I don't know who's the bigger dummy here, because frankly it is just simply outrageous. You know, you can use that word over and over again, but that's what they keep doing to us. This is not the action of a friendly government.
WIAN: Tancredo is considering using a bill that would cut U.S. aid to Mexico by the amount it receives from its citizen living here, about $15 billion last year.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIAN: Congressman Tancredo says he's going to try to distribute the Mexican Migrants Guide to every member of Congress in an effort to dissuade lawmakers from supporting the president's guest worker program -- Lou.
DOBBS: And to just button this up, Casey, no word, no mention, no statement at all from the U.S. State Department, any part of the federal government, nor the White House?
WIAN: Absolutely no word from the bush administration, any part of the Bush administration so far, and we've been calling them since Monday, Lou.
DOBBS: Casey Wian, thank you, reporting from Los Angeles.
Taking a look now at some of your thoughts. Many of you writing in about that guidebook, the Mexican government's guide book to help illegal aliens cross our borders. Lynn Ellis in Patterson, New York, wrote to say, "a guide for illegal aliens to cross over our border? What's next? We should be publishing a guide to transport them back immediately. What is wrong with us? I'm appalled."
A T. Black in Superior Iowa, "I guess we could send all of our jobs to China, then illegal aliens would have no reason to cross our border. Oh, wait, we're already doing that."
And Regina Panter in Flint, Michigan, "I am sickened by the fact that 96 percent of our clothing is made outside the United States, especially when they use the American symbols to sell them. Shame on those manufacturers who place their stock options and greed over the working class people of this country." We love hear you from you. E-mail us at loudobbs@snom.
Coming up next up here, jackpot justice, the frivolous lawsuits that are hurting Americans or helping Americans? Now President Bush plans to crack down on crackpot justice in this country. We'll have that for you.
And in our "Face-off" tonight, a debate on whether Iraq's first Democratic elections should be delayed? We'll have that spirited debate. It's becoming an increasingly emotional one. Election day is nearing in Iraq. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: All this week, we're reporting on tort reform. What we call here jackpot justice. Tonight, we find that doctors aren't the only ones targeted by attorneys and plaintiffs. In many of the country's judicial hell holes, companies have also become targets. Part of President Bush's tort reform effort includes making all large class action lawsuits federal, taking jurisdiction entirely away from the states. Bill Tucker reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's more going on in Madison County, Illinois than medical malpractice lawsuits. In 2004, there were 60 class-action lawsuits filed in the county, earning it the dubious distinction of being the No. 1 judicial hell hole in the country by the American Tort Reform Association.
Legal watchdog groups say the worst states for defendants facing class action claims are West Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, California, Texas and Illinois.
VICTOR SCHWARTZ, AMERICAN TORT REFORM ASSOCIATION: We call these little places hell holes, the plaintiffs' lawyers candidly call them magic jurisdictions.
TUCKER: For that reason, President Bush wants class action suits taken out of state's courts and put in federal courts.
LISA RICKARD, U.S. CHAMBER INST. FOR LEGAL REFORM: It will cut back on forum shopping by plaintiffs' lawyers where they file a lot of frivolous types of litigation in order to bring about large settlements and collect legal fees.
TUCKER: Proponents of the legislation point to a letter written by the head of Oklahoma's legislature to colleagues in the American Trial Lawyer's Association. The letter urges lawyers to consider Oklahoma as an alternative to Texas which had recently reformed its laws.
Hold on, say the trial lawyers, they argue that the proposed law would usurp a state's right to write and enforce its own laws.
TODD SMITH, AMERICAN TRIAL LAWYERS ASSN.: It takes away the rights of people in given states to bring their actions under various consumer statutes that exist in our state. I'm from Illinois, there's a consumer protection act -- consumer fraud act in Illinois. And the citizens of Illinois and other citizens that are affected ought to be able to bring their actions in their state courts.
TUCKER: While it's easy and socially acceptable to paint the lawyers as bad guys...
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(on camera): Remember corporate America is on the other side of this bill, and according to "Public Citizen," Lou, more than 475 lobbyists are actively pushing to get this bill through Congress. And this late word just in the White House announced it will be meeting tomorrow morning with bipartisan members of Congress to get this bill on through Congress.
DOBBS: It's a bipartisan effort now. You know what strikes me in all of this is there's really little discussion of the fact that in the White House and many members of Congress want to limit awards, damage awards, but no one wants to limit the amount of money an attorney can make in seeking those damages, many of those attorneys getting a third to 40 percent of the awards rather than the plaintiffs. I don't understand why there isn't an effort there to slow that down, to ask for an unsuccessful plaintiff to pay all the damages.
TUCKER: "Public Citizen" says the problem is not that complicated. That's one of the solutions they propose. Limit the fees to their lawyers.
DOBBS: By golly, it's amazing though that that isn't being discussed. Well, maybe, maybe it will be coming up soon. Thanks a lot, Bill Tucker.
That brings us to the subject of tonight's poll, do you believe damages awarded for malpractice pain and suffering should be limited to $250,000? Do you think that's the way to solve it? Yes or no. Cast your vote at CNN.com/lou. We'll have the results later here.
Still ahead, our face-off on whether Iraq has become too dangerous to hold its first elections this month. That's next.
And nuclear threats. Why North Korea says it's afraid the United States will soon invade it. We'll be talking with a congressman making a rare visit to North Korea at the invitation of Pyongyang. All of that, a great deal more still ahead here. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: In our faceoff tonight Iraq's first election since the fall of Saddam Hussein expected to take place in 25 days. However daily insurgent attacks, the announcement that a major Sunni party says it will skip the elections have caused many to call for a delay in the elections. Patrick Basham, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, among those. He says Iraqis can't vote if they're too afraid to leave their homes. Radwan Masmoudi says that delaying the elections will only make it more difficult to hold those elections later. He is the founder and president of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. Both joining us tonight from Washington.
Radwan, let me begin with you. With the instability, the violence that we're seeing, the unrelenting attacks, how can those elections be held?
RADWAN MASMOUDI, CTR. FOR THE STUDY OF ISLAM & DEMOCRACY: Hi, Lou. First of all, I would like to remind everybody that we had elections in Afghanistan few months ago, and 25 days before the elections everybody was predicting and saying that we could never have elections in Afghanistan. And the elections went fairly well, there was almost no violence. There was a little bit of violence. But more than 70 percent of the Afghani people participated in the elections.
DOBBS: That's Afghanistan, not Iraq. Quite a different place, as you well know.
MASMOUDI: That is true. But I think postponing the elections is going to cause actually more violence, and is going to make it more difficult to have elections later on.
DOBBS: Patrick?
PATRICK BASHAM, CATO INSTITUTE: I disagree completely. I think that having the elections prematurely is what is going to cause an uptick, a significant uptick in violence, because what's going to happen is that rightly or wrongly, most Sunni will not participate. They will therefore be lacking representation in the new assembly, and they'll consider the new Iraqi government to be illegitimate. This is the biggest gift that we can give to the insurgents in Iraq right now. We need the first Iraqi government to be considered legitimate by everyone in Iraq that's not going to happen, and therefore, the Sunni will be able to argue that they have no choice but to take up arms.
MASMOUDI: I agree with Patrick that we need the Arab Sunnis to participate in this election, it's very important that they do so for the elections to be credible, and there are intense negotiations going on right now between the government of Iraq and the various Sunni groups to get them to participate in this election, and if that means delaying the election by a few weeks, I don't think that will be a big problem.
DOBBS: Let me ask you both something. If the Sunnis choose to forfeit their representation in this government, who cares? I mean that's part of democracy if you don't have the sense to vote, you don't have the right to participate in governance?
BASHAM: See, this isn't an election in New York City or North or South Dakota.
DOBBS: Really? I didn't know that, Patrick.
BASHAM: Here is a news flash for you. This is an election taking place in a sea of violence, OK? And we are not going to be able to remove ourselves probably from that context, until the situation is more secure, and until we are confident that we're leaving behind...
DOBBS: As you say, it isn't New York City, and we're not likely to be getting resorts built any time soon, when would you like to see the elections, Patrick, when would you be comfortable with them?
BASHAM: I don't think we can put a date on it because...
DOBBS: That's not particularly inspiring. Radwan at least you have the benefit of having a date certain. If not a serious threat to carrying out successful election. How serious is the lack of Sunni participation?
MASMOUDI: I think in the end the majority of the Sunnis will participate in the election. I think they have some reservations and concerns about the way the elections are going to take place, and there are intense negotiations now to try to solve those problems, and I'm very confident that the elections will take place, that the majority of Iraqis will participate in this election, because they realize there is no other option. Other option is chaos. The other option is more violence, and we cannot afford that. Neither can the Iraqi people afford that.
So I think it's in our interest and in the interest of the Iraqi people to have a legitimate election. A legitimate political process take place. And elections are not going to solve all these problems, but they will lead to a legitimate process.
DOBBS: Patrick, you get the last word.
BASHAM: What we have to remember, for example, is that the international observers who were there to see that this is a free and fair election, they're not in Iraq, and won't be in Iraq on election day, they're in Jordan, because the situation is so bad in Iraq.
DOBBS: Patrick Basham, we thank you for being here, Radwan Masmoudi, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
Still ahead, millions of tsunami survivors begin the long process of recovery, Anderson Cooper reports live from Sri Lanka next, and a rising nuclear threat on the Korean peninsula. Congressman Curt Weldon joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Our special coverage of the tsunami disaster begins in just a few minutes here on CNN. Anderson Cooper among those leading our coverage, he's in one of the hardest hit areas, joining us, tonight from Barawala, Sri Lanka to preview tonight's coverage -- Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Lou, at the top of the hour tonight at 7:00 Eastern time. We're going look at effects of the tsunami in one small village in Western Sri Lanka. You know, Sri Lanka, what a lot of people probably don't realize is that it's a land of extend families, and multigenerations live in the same house or in the same small village. Their houses next to one another. So, when something like a tsunami hits it can wipe out entire generations of a family, it can take away the heart of a village.
We're going to take to you the town where a tsunami struck a Buddhist temple at the height of a ceremony in a small room, 59 people, packed, only one of them survived. 50 people killed in this one room, 15 of them children. We're going to show you how the town is devastated -- Lou.
DOBBS: Anderson, thank you very much. Looking forward to that coverage beginning at 7:00 Eastern here on CNN.
Turning now to another of the top stories of the day, the rising nuclear threat from North Korea. North Korea has issued guidelines to its citizens to prepare for war with the United States. Those guidelines, published today on a South Korean newspaper suggest the United States is plotting an invasion of North Korea, because of its refusal to participate in talks on its nuclear program.
Congressman Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania is vice chairman of the Armed Service Committee, a member of the Homeland Security Committee and will lead a congressional delegation to North Korea this Sunday along with four other nations. Joining us tonight from Capitol Hill.
Congressman, good to have you with us.
You and your delegation will be with the North Koreans trying to energize, to restart those 6 party talks. What is your first assessment of the prospect of success?
REP. CURT WELDON, (R) PENNSYLVANIA; Well, we've got a real challenge. This is perhaps the most difficult challenge that the new administration faces. We go as Democrats and Republicans together in full support of our president's policy, the need for resolution of the Korean nuclear crisis to the 6 nation talk. And as we stop in Haverask (ph) Russia and spend 4 days in Pyongyang, Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing in meeting with all the leaders of those countries, we'll be reinforcing the fact that these 6 party talks have to get back on track again.
I have a relationship with the North Koreans. I took the first delegation in 18 months ago. I've had meetings with foreign ministry officials, twice in the U.S. since that time. And I'm cautiously optimistic that we can convince them they've got to move forward.
DOBBS: The North Koreans are notoriously unpredictable in what is an assessment what is their best interest. The fact that China, which is their principal power in the region, their principal supporter. If it can't move Pyongyang toward a rational discussion on the issues of nuclear weapons, what are the prospects that the United States can do so?
WELDON: Well, we need China's involvement. Hu Jintao and President Putin have both said publicly that they will not tolerate a nuclear capability on the Korean peninsula. And we'll remind Kim Jong-il of that.
But we'll also remind Hu Jintao in China that we need him to be more aggressive, although we'll thank them for their current efforts, but ask them to do more to convince the north Koreans they have to move, get back into the 6 party process and help us find a common solution.
Nobody wants war here. And in fact, there is a solution possible and that's what we're going to try to help encourage, through the president's vision, the president's leadership.
DOBBS: Are you convinced the North Koreans do not want a confrontation, even war?
WELDON: I'm convinced that they want a peaceful resolution of the problem. The difficulty is getting the parameters to have them give up all of their nuclear capability in a transparent way.
We know they have 2 to 6 weapons now. They have admitted that to my delegation a year and a half ago. But they've also said to us on our last trip that they want to find a peaceful resolution. They want to be assured that we don't want regime change, and we're not going to preemptively attack them. The president said both of those things publicly.
So, we're putting a human face on America. We're going in not as diplomats. We're not there to negotiate. We're going to reinforce and support our president as Democrats and Republican, and most importantly, the need to solve this problem without war.
DOBBS: Absolutely, Congressman Curt Weldon, we thank you for being here. We wish you success on your trip which will include bringing with you offers of aid to the stricken, the tsunami stricken countries in the region as well. Thank you very much for being here.
WELDON: Thank you.
DOBBS: Still ahead, the results of our poll tonight. We'll have a preview of what's ahead tomorrow. Please stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The results now of our poll. 79 percent of you say damages awarded for malpractice pain and suffering should not be limited to $250,000.
Thanks for being with us tonight. Please join us here tomorrow. Why a former homeland security official is calling a new Pentagon plan utter madness. He's our guest tomorrow.
And one of two Hispanic senators in the new 109th Congress will be here talking about how he won a red state as a Democrat.
Jackpot justice, we continue our series of special reports on reforming torts. and tomorrow, how huge settlements are being spent in your state by your state officials. Please join us. For all of us here, good night from New York. CNN's special report, "Turning the Tide" 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 January 5, 2005 - 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, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, the shocking devastation of the tsunami disaster. In this one small part of Indonesia, nearly 100,000 people lost their lives.
GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: It's with a heavy heart that we're here. But we're friends forever.
DOBBS: Tonight, the head of the United Nations children's fund, Carol Bellamy, joins us live from Indonesia to tell us about the scale of this disaster and what can be done to help survivors.
Tonight, a blunt warning about our military preparedness. The head of the Army Reserve says his troops are unable to meet their commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in fact, are in danger of becoming a broken force.
The controversy over the Mexican government's guidebook for Mexican citizens to become illegal aliens is escalating. The Mexican government is helping illegal aliens cross our border. The U.S. government remains silent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They sort of tipped everybody off as to what the Mexican government's real intention is. And that is to continue to push people north.
DOBBS: Global nuclear proliferation is worsening. Does Egypt have the bomb? North Korea certainly does, and it says it's preparing for a nuclear confrontation with the United States.
Congressman Curt Weldon leads a congressional delegation to North Korea next week. He's our guest tonight.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT for Wednesday, January 5. Here now for an hour of news, debate and opinion is Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: Good evening.
Tonight, Secretary of State Colin Powell and other world leaders are preparing to meet in Indonesia to discuss the huge international effort required to help tsunami survivors.
The United States and other countries have already pledged more than $3 billion. At least 156,000 people were killed in the disaster, nearly 100,000 in western Indonesia alone.
The number of Americans presumed dead has risen to 36. More than 3,000 other Americans remain unaccounted for.
John King now reports from Banda Aceh in western Indonesia.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a stunning bird's eye view: the devastation of Banda Aceh stretching nearly 100 miles. Mud and water where roads and homes once stood. Other buildings ripped to pieces. Residents by the thousands washed away in the giant wave.
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I cannot begin to imagine the horror that went through the families and all of the people who heard this noise coming and then had their lives snuffed out by this wave.
KING: Ships tossed like toys, trees snapped like matchsticks. This pilot describes Secretary Powell as in shock as he looked down on a place where they are still counting the dead, still searching for bodies and still aching for food 10 days later.
On the ground, an update from relief workers on the humanitarian requirements. The displaced in Banda Aceh now number an estimated 400,000.
Secretary Powell was told desperately needed relief flights are slowed by air traffic control problems. With the permission of Indonesian officials, U.S. and Australian military units will rush to make improvements.
POWELL: We can increase the throughput, as it's called, the rate of arrival of planes and supplies, and that's what we'll be working on.
KING: U.S. officials have shipped 16,000 tons of rice and soybeans to Indonesia, but much of it is being trucked to Banda Aceh from three days away. And deliveries were suspended once already this week for eight hours because of a firefight between Indonesia troops and separatist rebels.
The emotional visit left the U.S. delegation stunned.
J. BUSH: It is with a heavy heart that we're here, but we're friends forever.
KING: Governor Bush is heading back to the United States. Next for Secretary Powell is a regional conference in Jakarta to coordinate relief and reconstruction, then a visit to Sri Lanka for another look at the tsunami's fury.
(on camera) Secretary Powell and his delegation were on the ground here less than two hours, rushing in and out so that their visit would not complicate or delay the urgent relief effort. In fact, while the delegation took its helicopter tour and met with relief workers here on the ground, Secretary Powell's plane circled the island overhead, so as to not clog this critical runway.
John King, Banda Aceh, Indonesia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOBBS: Later I'll be joined by the head of UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund. Carol Bellamy will join us from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. She'll be talking to us about the most urgent needs of the survivors of the tsunami and how the rest of us can help.
Turning now to the war in Iraq.
Anti-Iraqi forces today launched a series new attacks trying to disrupt preparations for the elections scheduled for January 30. At least 15 people were killed in the attacks, 10 of them in a suicide bomb attack against Iraqi police officers in Hillah, south of Baghdad.
Nearly 100 people have been killed in insurgent attacks over the past four days now.
A blunt warning about the Army Reserve's ability to fulfill missions because of the strain of fighting the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army Reserve's own commander says his troops are rapidly degenerating into what he calls, quote, "a broken force."
The general's remarks appear to contradict repeated assertions by the Pentagon civilian and military leaders that indeed we have enough troops.
Senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the unvarnished view of its top commander. The U.S. Army Reserve is no longer able to meet its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan because of dysfunctional policies, not a lack of manpower.
In a December 20 memo to his bosses, Lieutenant General James Helmly wrote, "The Army Reserve is in grave danger of being unable to meet operational requirements and is rapidly degenerating into a broken force."
LT. GEN. JAMES HELMLY, CHIEF, ARMY RESERVE: Congressmen, Lieutenant General Helmly, the chief of the Army Reserves. Good to see you again. Sir, our recruiting is behind target this year.
MCINTYRE: General Helmly is known for privately sharing his pessimistic views with members of Congress, as he acknowledged in public testimony last November.
HELMLY: And as the chairman noted in his office, a couple of weeks ago, I did not sugar coat that.
MCINTYRE: In fact, Helmly is advocating policies that go directly against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's efforts to lessen the impact on reservists who don't want to deploy, victims of the so- called backdoor draft.
In his memo, Helmly complains about restrictive mobilization policies and demands to use only volunteers. This, he said, results in reservists who enjoy lesser responsible positions in civilian life. And he argues that $1,000 per month incentive pay risks sociological damage, by turning a volunteer force into a mercenary army.
And he advocates greater involuntary reassignment of obligated soldiers.
MAJ. GEN. DAVID BOCKEL, DIRECTOR, RESERVE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION: What Helmly would like to do is be able to have the authority to call these people to active duty. If he hasn't got the authority to call them into active duty, at least allow him to discharge them from the service.
MCINTYRE: General Helmly says he can't get rid of 16,000 reservists who are not meeting their obligations at a cost of $46 million in health and other benefits.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: What Helmly is arguing, essentially, is that the Pentagon has bent over too far backwards to coddle reservists who don't want to serve and in the process is undermining the core value of the force.
And, contrary to critics in Congress, he argues that the Reserves are losing as many soldiers because it doesn't use them as it is because of the fear of overusing them -- Lou.
DOBBS: Jamie, what is the reaction within the Pentagon itself, because the Pentagon has, for literally months now, been suggesting that everything is fine, if you will. The general's remarks suggesting anything but that direction.
MCINTYRE: Well, the reaction is that this is a problem that they've been working on for quite a long time, that this memo reflects the sort of internal debate.
But the interesting point here is that General Helmly is really talking about getting a freer hand to do things his way.
For instance, he objects very strongly to a proposal to cobble together a unit to go to Iraq that's made of volunteers from different services. He says if you're in the Reserves, you ought to be able to send those units. If you can't send them, then you ought to get them out of service and replace them with people who do want to serve.
He insists there are enough people who want to serve that they shouldn't have to go through all these gymnastics. DOBBS: That would seem to be logical, reasonable, rational. Why isn't the general's advice being followed?
MCINTYRE: Well, of course, the counterargument is that the force is being overstressed, and it's putting a lot of hardship on people who didn't think they were going to have to serve this much.
So the Pentagon has got a lot of policies to try to accommodate people, to try to get people who want to go Iraq, for instance, and not force too many people to go who are in the reserves in order to try to make sure that they don't have a dip in recruiting because people's morale goes down and they can't recruit.
So it's -- it's a balancing act and it's one that there's a vigorous debate going on in the Pentagon right now.
DOBBS: One that we all hope will be resolved soon for the benefit of everyone. Jamie McIntyre, thank you.
New evidence tonight, the spread of nuclear weapons around the world could be a much more serious problem than anyone has acknowledged. The International Atomic Energy Agency is now investigating reports that Egypt may have been conducting secret nuclear experiments.
Kitty Pilgrim reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The worry is Egypt has been running nuclear experiments and the IAEA has not reported it or discovered it.
Egypt's ambassador to the United States said today there is no secret Egyptian program and they are working with the IAEA.
The U.S. State Department said yesterday it does not know anything more than what's been reported in the press.
ADAM ERELI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We don't have anything definitive or authoritative from the IAEA. I expect we'll be discussing these press reports with them.
PILGRIM: But experts worry if the reports prove true, it suggests a disturbing pattern.
HENRY SOKOLSKI, NONPROLIFERATION POLICY EDUCATION CENTER: The news suggests that earlier reports that Mr. Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program, who had sold so many things to North Korea and Iran, had made visits also to Egypt. So this could be lifting the carpet on a lot of nuclear dirt in the region.
PILGRIM: Iran has run uranium enrichment programs in secret for nearly two decade, and experts say a potential nuclear weapons program could be located around the Parchin complex about 20 miles south of Tehran. Today, Mohamed ElBaradei says they hope to gain access to that facility within weeks.
GORDON G. CHANG, NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION EXPERT: It's not just Iran. It's Iran in connection with Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Pakistan and China. It is a very serious combination of countries, and the problem is that we're really receiving too many reports of problems in Egypt and in the surrounding countries to think that this is all just coincidence.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Now North Korea remains the biggest nuclear threat in the world. But, recently, new countries have admitted to secret experiments, such as South Korea staying conducted plutonium and uranium experiments, didn't report them, however. Now nuclear experts say the work for the IAEA is becoming increasingly broad and difficult -- Lou.
DOBBS: And, of course, it's becoming increasingly threatening and -- in a far more dangerous world, and -- we're led to believe by the very agency that is responsible for conducting oversight. That is the IAEA.
PILGRIM: Well, nuclear experts we talked to today are very concerned, and they're doing a lot of the footwork on this piecing together little pieces of information and drawing conclusions that are never officially stated in any government agency.
DOBBS: And, of course, the question unasked here is: Where are U.S. intelligence agencies in all of this?
PILGRIM: We're just scratching the surface on this, Lou.
DOBBS: It is troubling to say the least.
Kitty, thank you very much.
Kitty Pilgrim.
North Korea has told people to be ready for a protracted war with the United States. The North Korean regime has issued orders how to stockpile weapons and how to use underground bunkers.
Tonight, there's new satellite imagery that shows the scale of North Korean military preparations for a possible war.
National Correspondent David Ensor reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The satellite pictures document North Korea's obsession with tunnels and underground facilities, like this air base with runways that run into tunnels under a mountain. The National Resources Defense Council team also used pictures taken from the shuttle.
But if the hidden bases made sense for North Korea when they were built, they are not save from today's American weapons.
JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: That might have worked back in the 1980s, but, with precision munitions today, the North Koreans have just narrowed down the number of aim points for our smart bombs.
ENSOR: And our D.C. scientists say the imagery suggests the earth-penetrating nuclear weapon the Bush administration wants to start research on would not be needed to stop North Korean underground weapons of any kind.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, basically, if there's something hidden under a mountain, you just blow up the entrance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blow up the entrance. Yes.
ENSOR: The satellite pictures also show North Korea's nuclear weapons facilities. The biggest threat to South Korea, say the experts, would be a nuclear weapon on its capital Seoul dropped from an aircraft.
But the pictures show North Korea's Air Force and Navy are antiquated and decrepit -- 48 small submarines, some Russian-made MiG jets -- but, believe it or not, most of the transport aircraft are biplanes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ENSOR: There were defense and intelligence officials in the audience today, and, once or twice, the presenters asked them to speak up if they knew something more from the much higher resolution imagery that the U.S. government has access to. They didn't speak up, but then, of course, that material is classified -- Lou.
DOBBS: David, thank you very much.
David Ensor.
Congressman Curt Weldon is about to lead a congressional delegation in North Korea. Later here, I'll be talking with Congressman Weldon about the magnitude of the North Korean military threat to this country and what the United States is doing to contain that threat.
Immigration reform on the agenda of Congress. Lawmakers make a new effort to stop illegal aliens from obtaining U.S. driver's licenses.
And the head of UNICEF, Carol Bellamy, joins us. She says children who survived the tsunami disaster are her top priority now. She'll join us from Indonesia.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The new 109th Congress is wasting no time returning to one of the most critical and most divisive issues facing the country, immigration reform. The influential chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Congressman James Sensenbrenner will introduce legislation that will deny licenses to illegal aliens. The fight over driver's licenses held up negotiations on the intelligence reform legislation recently signed into law by President Bush.
Ed Henry joins us now live from Capitol Hill -- Ed.
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Lou.
That's right. Jim Sensenbrenner did not succeed in getting his reform package attached to the 9/11 bill, but he appears to be picking up a little bit of momentum in the 109th Congress.
To open up the new Congress, Speaker Dennis Hastert in his first speech made a personal commitment to including immigration reform in the priority list for the new Congress, and in this bill -- with this bill, Jim Sensenbrenner now has 102 co-sponsors.
In addition to preventing illegal immigrants from getting driver's license, it would make it harder for illegal immigrants to get political asylum. It would also finish that wall between California and Mexico.
And there was another development today. The powerful chairman of the House rules committee, David Dreier, today announced he will introduce legislation in the new Congress that would create a counterfeit-proof Social Security card.
Applicants seeking employment would have to present this card to prospective employers, and, if prospective employers do not use these cards to check out whether or not these employees are -- have -- you know, can validly work in the United States, they could face a fine of up to $50,000 and up to five years in jail.
Here's David Dreier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DAVID DREIER (R-CA), HOUSE RULES COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: In this post-9/11 world in which we live, it is important for us to deal with the issue of document fraud. That's been one of the greatest faults.
Mohamed Atta who flew one of the planes into the World Trade Center was -- had a valid driver's license, and he was pulled over, and he was told to appear in court after 9/11.
And so this issue of document fraud is a serious one, and I think that the American people are going to understand.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now pieces of legislation that are introduced in the House get the title of HR 5 or HR 10. In this case, David Dreier has picked HR 98 because he says this legislation will crack down on 98 percent of illegal border crossings because 98 percent of those crossings are for people looking for work. It's also important to note that Jim Sensenbrenner is a co- sponsor of this new Dreier legislation, but he wants to keep it separate from his own reform package -- Lou.
DOBBS: The Sensenbrenner legislation dealing with driver's licenses, reforming asylum rules in this country, Ed, as you know, will be attached by agreement with the House leadership to must-pass legislation. What will be that legislation? Do we know that yet?
HENRY: House leadership has not officially confirmed what it will be, but we keep -- what we keep hearing from senior people is that it will be possibly the Iraq funding legislation. That, obviously, will be a major must-pass legislation. It could be a bill funding up to $80 billion or more for the war in Iraq, and we keep hearing from very senior people up here that they think it will be attached to that legislation, Lou.
DOBBS: This looks, Ed, as though it is a sea change on Capitol Hill. Congress now willing to deal with what is, in the terms of many, straightforwardly, an invasion across our borders of illegal aliens from both the North and the South.
HENRY: You could see it in the Speaker of the House's first remarks in the opening of the new Congress. He made it very clear it's a top priority, Lou.
DOBBS: Ed Henry reporting from Capitol Hill.
Thank you, Ed.
As many as 20 million illegal aliens are estimated to be living and working in this country. According to a stunning new report, those 10s of millions of workers make up a large portion of what is an underground economy.
It is an economy in which workers reap the benefits of this country without paying any part of a fair share of taxes, and this underground economy is not only large, it is booming.
Lisa Sylvester reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They have regular jobs, work eight-hour days and get paid in the form of cash, paid under the table in part of the shadow economy. The majority of those in this informal economy are in this country illegally.
A new study for the first time puts the estimate of illegal aliens in the United States as high as 20 million people, double the official Census estimates. The investment company Bear Stearns studied school enrollments, new housing permits and looked up remittance payments to Latin America in immigrant gateway cities in New Jersey, New York and North Carolina.
BOB JUSTICH, BEAR STEARNS: We see that the school enrollments there are there much higher than would have been suggested by the regular Census numbers. So there is a big disconnect.
SYLVESTER: You may wonder why an investment company would be interested in immigration trends. Because analysts worry the United States budget, productivity and inflation projections may be way off. It's estimated, for instance, the IRS should be receiving $400 billion a year more from tax evaders.
DONALD ALEXANDER FORMER IRS COMMISSIONER: We have a deficit of over $400 billion a year. If our tax laws actually worked fully, we'd almost be -- break even.
SYLVESTER: People working in the legitimate economy end up paying for those who don't pay income taxes. At least one congressman has proposed a national sales tax to replace the income tax to capture those in the underground economy.
REP. JOHN LINDER (R), GEORGIA: If they want to buy a car or house or loaf of bread, they're going to wind up paying taxes.
SYLVESTER: But, for now, the illegal workers stay in the shadows, working and receiving services, but not necessarily paying income taxes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVESTER: Another segment of the shadow economy is the American worker who has been downsized from his or her company. They leave the official labor market and work as an independent contractor, often avoiding paying taxes, Lou?
DOBBS: Lisa, thank you very much.
Lisa Sylvester from Washington.
Coming up next here tonight, searching for thousands of missing children in south Asia. Trying to reunite them with their families. I'll be talking with the head of UNICEF who says the most difficult work lies ahead. That's next.
And then, piles of snow in the West and Midwest have forced some people to find unique ways to get to work.
We'll have all of that and great deal more still ahead here tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT continues. Here now for more news, debate and opinion, Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: The State Department now says 36 Americans are presumed dead in the tsunami disaster. Thousands more are still unaccounted for, many of them children.
My guest tonight is among those leading the effort to care for all of the children who survived the disaster, trying to reunite them with their families. Carol Bellamy is executive director of UNICEF joining us tonight from Jakarta, Indonesia.
Carol, what percentage of the 10s of thousands of victims of this disaster are children?
CAROL BELLAMY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNICEF: Well, Lou, it's not easy to come up with specifics, but we think at least a third. If you take a look at the populations of the countries effected, the populations tend to be young, with at least 30 percent of the population under 18 and, in some cases, closer to 40 percent. So we think those victims, those who've died, as well as who've been displaced -- at least a third are kids.
DOBBS: And this is the most heart-rending scenes that one could imagine. I know that you've been traveling through the region, the most devastated areas from Sri Lanka to, of course, Indonesia where you are tonight. What is -- what did you find in Banda Aceh where you visited?
BELLAMY: Well, first, to set the scene, I've never seen anything so horrifying in my life. I mean, this 35-foot wave that came in and then just knocked everything in its wake must have been just the most horrific thing ever.
That being said, what I did find as well is that camps are being set up. People are, at least at this point, receiving food and water. The sanitary facilities leave a lot to be desired.
We have -- we've already started putting together a registration system for the children, so we know whether they still have parents or whether they've lost their parents, whether they have family members as well.
On the other hand, in the western part of Indonesia, some of the people who have been displaced and killed are only now -- the numbers and whatever happened is only now coming to be known. So there's still much that isn't known in Indonesia.
DOBBS: The children who you're caring for, trying to reunite them with their families -- what is your sense of the progress in providing help for them, protection for them and your effort to reunite them with their families?
BELLAMY: Well, we're working very closely with the government authorities. I would say the good news is there has not been an outbreak of major disease either in Indonesia or Sri Lanka, the two most hard-hit countries.
DOBBS: Right.
BELLAMY: That being said, I mean, the kids are walking around really very -- you see the trauma in their eyes, and I think one of the most important things to happen will be to get the kids back in school as quickly as possible.
School is starting in this part of the world this week. Even in these disaster areas, we need to get kids back in school. It brings them into some normalcy.
DOBBS: And what can people do? Do you require more donations, more aid from governments?
BELLAMY: Well, I think still the most important thing is financial aid, financial aid from governments, from people, but, as was said as this piece was introduced, this is not something that's going to be over in a week or two. This is a rebuilding of societies, and so many countries hit.
So I hope what we also will give -- get from people is a long- term commitment. Stay interested. Stay involved.
DOBBS: Carol Bellamy, we wish you well in your important work, and we thank you.
Carol Bellamy, the director -- the executive director of UNICEF in Jakarta, Indonesia.
A deadly storm in this country tonight. The storm has led to dangerous driving conditions, canceled flights and downed power lines. Nine people have been killed. Three others are missing. Forecasters say the storm system is now heading east.
Christine Romans reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A sprawling winter storm is sweeping from the Rocky Mountains to the northeast, dumping snow, spitting ice and leaving more than 100,000 homes without power in Missouri and Kansas.
ROBERT KELLY, NOAA: This winter weather has been stretching from Oklahoma, across Kansas and Nebraska, across Iowa into Indiana and Illinois. It's really a very large area, covering almost all of the Midwest and the Southern portion of the Great Lakes states. We're expecting it in New York and New England as well. So it's a rather -- it's a really large part of the country.
ROMANS: In Chicago, more snow expect overnight, arriving flights are delay at least 4 hours at O'Hare airport, and snow canceled hundreds of outbound flights.
In Omaha, thousands of people this morning chipped off the snow and ice to get into their cars. Some gave up using skis to get to work.
In the northern plains, bitter cold, Grand Forks, North Dakota, 39 below zero. Embarrass, Minnesota, 43 below.
As the cold, snow and ice cripple the great plains, flooding was the danger further south. The National Weather Service warns flooding could threaten saturated areas from Texas to Ohio.
And this is Arizona, the snow dumped in Arizona's mountains rushed into the East Verde River. All the precipitation desperately needed in the parched southwest, but sometimes it can be too much of a good thing.
KELLY REDMOND, WESTERN REGIONAL CLIMATE CTR: If it comes too quickly, it is in a sense, wasted, because it runs off.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: By tomorrow, there could be a foot of snow in Iowa, Nebraska, Michigan and South Dakota. Wind gusts mean big drifts there. And all this is headed East as we speak, heavy snowfall in Manhattan. Here's a live picture of the Empire State Building in New York. We're going to expect a more moderate four to six inches of snow here by this time tomorrow. But Lou, it has started to snow very heavily on the East Coast.
DOBBS: Well, thank you very much. That weather report bringing us right up to date. You said it was headed here, it looks like it is definitely here.
ROMANS: I think it's here.
DOBBS: Thanks Christine Romans.
Tonight, growing, intensifying controversy over the Mexican government's publication of that guidebook we reported to you on Monday. The guidebook produced by the Mexican government is filled with tips for illegal aliens to enter this country safely and, of course, illegally.
Now some say the book could stall White House plans for its proposed guest worker program and accelerate immigration reform. Casey Wian reports from Los Angeles.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Mexican Migrant Guide may be just a how-to comic book, but it's quickly becomes a real life drama for the governments of Mexico and the United States. The Mexican government published guide offers border crossing tips to illegal aliens.
RICK OLTMAN, PED. FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM: It sort of tipped everybody off as to what the Mexican government's real intention is, and that is to continue to push people north, to assist them coming across the border.
WIAN: With a growing number of critics saying the book encourages illegal immigration, the link to the guide disappeared this morning from the Mexican foreign ministry's Web site.
(on camera): We called the Mexican embassy to ask if the guide had been removed, because of mounting political pressure. Within a half hour of our call, the guide was back up.
Later, a Mexican embassy spokesman claimed the guide had never been removed and that it was part of a group of five rotating icons.
(voice-over): However, a web master who tried to link to the guide disputes that saying he encountered an error message indicate the guide had been removed. The Arizona Republic wrote in an editorial "with this books, Mexican President Vicente Fox has unwittingly produced a powerful tool to undermine efforts by President Bush to win congressional support for a guest worker program." It added, "the booklet raises serious doubts about whether Mexico will ever help curb illegal immigration."
Meanwhile, Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo wants the White House, so far silent on the guide, to launch a form protest with the Mexican government.
REP. TOM TANCREDO, (R) COLORADO: I don't know who's the bigger dummy here, because frankly it is just simply outrageous. You know, you can use that word over and over again, but that's what they keep doing to us. This is not the action of a friendly government.
WIAN: Tancredo is considering using a bill that would cut U.S. aid to Mexico by the amount it receives from its citizen living here, about $15 billion last year.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIAN: Congressman Tancredo says he's going to try to distribute the Mexican Migrants Guide to every member of Congress in an effort to dissuade lawmakers from supporting the president's guest worker program -- Lou.
DOBBS: And to just button this up, Casey, no word, no mention, no statement at all from the U.S. State Department, any part of the federal government, nor the White House?
WIAN: Absolutely no word from the bush administration, any part of the Bush administration so far, and we've been calling them since Monday, Lou.
DOBBS: Casey Wian, thank you, reporting from Los Angeles.
Taking a look now at some of your thoughts. Many of you writing in about that guidebook, the Mexican government's guide book to help illegal aliens cross our borders. Lynn Ellis in Patterson, New York, wrote to say, "a guide for illegal aliens to cross over our border? What's next? We should be publishing a guide to transport them back immediately. What is wrong with us? I'm appalled."
A T. Black in Superior Iowa, "I guess we could send all of our jobs to China, then illegal aliens would have no reason to cross our border. Oh, wait, we're already doing that."
And Regina Panter in Flint, Michigan, "I am sickened by the fact that 96 percent of our clothing is made outside the United States, especially when they use the American symbols to sell them. Shame on those manufacturers who place their stock options and greed over the working class people of this country." We love hear you from you. E-mail us at loudobbs@snom.
Coming up next up here, jackpot justice, the frivolous lawsuits that are hurting Americans or helping Americans? Now President Bush plans to crack down on crackpot justice in this country. We'll have that for you.
And in our "Face-off" tonight, a debate on whether Iraq's first Democratic elections should be delayed? We'll have that spirited debate. It's becoming an increasingly emotional one. Election day is nearing in Iraq. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: All this week, we're reporting on tort reform. What we call here jackpot justice. Tonight, we find that doctors aren't the only ones targeted by attorneys and plaintiffs. In many of the country's judicial hell holes, companies have also become targets. Part of President Bush's tort reform effort includes making all large class action lawsuits federal, taking jurisdiction entirely away from the states. Bill Tucker reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's more going on in Madison County, Illinois than medical malpractice lawsuits. In 2004, there were 60 class-action lawsuits filed in the county, earning it the dubious distinction of being the No. 1 judicial hell hole in the country by the American Tort Reform Association.
Legal watchdog groups say the worst states for defendants facing class action claims are West Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, California, Texas and Illinois.
VICTOR SCHWARTZ, AMERICAN TORT REFORM ASSOCIATION: We call these little places hell holes, the plaintiffs' lawyers candidly call them magic jurisdictions.
TUCKER: For that reason, President Bush wants class action suits taken out of state's courts and put in federal courts.
LISA RICKARD, U.S. CHAMBER INST. FOR LEGAL REFORM: It will cut back on forum shopping by plaintiffs' lawyers where they file a lot of frivolous types of litigation in order to bring about large settlements and collect legal fees.
TUCKER: Proponents of the legislation point to a letter written by the head of Oklahoma's legislature to colleagues in the American Trial Lawyer's Association. The letter urges lawyers to consider Oklahoma as an alternative to Texas which had recently reformed its laws.
Hold on, say the trial lawyers, they argue that the proposed law would usurp a state's right to write and enforce its own laws.
TODD SMITH, AMERICAN TRIAL LAWYERS ASSN.: It takes away the rights of people in given states to bring their actions under various consumer statutes that exist in our state. I'm from Illinois, there's a consumer protection act -- consumer fraud act in Illinois. And the citizens of Illinois and other citizens that are affected ought to be able to bring their actions in their state courts.
TUCKER: While it's easy and socially acceptable to paint the lawyers as bad guys...
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(on camera): Remember corporate America is on the other side of this bill, and according to "Public Citizen," Lou, more than 475 lobbyists are actively pushing to get this bill through Congress. And this late word just in the White House announced it will be meeting tomorrow morning with bipartisan members of Congress to get this bill on through Congress.
DOBBS: It's a bipartisan effort now. You know what strikes me in all of this is there's really little discussion of the fact that in the White House and many members of Congress want to limit awards, damage awards, but no one wants to limit the amount of money an attorney can make in seeking those damages, many of those attorneys getting a third to 40 percent of the awards rather than the plaintiffs. I don't understand why there isn't an effort there to slow that down, to ask for an unsuccessful plaintiff to pay all the damages.
TUCKER: "Public Citizen" says the problem is not that complicated. That's one of the solutions they propose. Limit the fees to their lawyers.
DOBBS: By golly, it's amazing though that that isn't being discussed. Well, maybe, maybe it will be coming up soon. Thanks a lot, Bill Tucker.
That brings us to the subject of tonight's poll, do you believe damages awarded for malpractice pain and suffering should be limited to $250,000? Do you think that's the way to solve it? Yes or no. Cast your vote at CNN.com/lou. We'll have the results later here.
Still ahead, our face-off on whether Iraq has become too dangerous to hold its first elections this month. That's next.
And nuclear threats. Why North Korea says it's afraid the United States will soon invade it. We'll be talking with a congressman making a rare visit to North Korea at the invitation of Pyongyang. All of that, a great deal more still ahead here. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: In our faceoff tonight Iraq's first election since the fall of Saddam Hussein expected to take place in 25 days. However daily insurgent attacks, the announcement that a major Sunni party says it will skip the elections have caused many to call for a delay in the elections. Patrick Basham, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, among those. He says Iraqis can't vote if they're too afraid to leave their homes. Radwan Masmoudi says that delaying the elections will only make it more difficult to hold those elections later. He is the founder and president of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. Both joining us tonight from Washington.
Radwan, let me begin with you. With the instability, the violence that we're seeing, the unrelenting attacks, how can those elections be held?
RADWAN MASMOUDI, CTR. FOR THE STUDY OF ISLAM & DEMOCRACY: Hi, Lou. First of all, I would like to remind everybody that we had elections in Afghanistan few months ago, and 25 days before the elections everybody was predicting and saying that we could never have elections in Afghanistan. And the elections went fairly well, there was almost no violence. There was a little bit of violence. But more than 70 percent of the Afghani people participated in the elections.
DOBBS: That's Afghanistan, not Iraq. Quite a different place, as you well know.
MASMOUDI: That is true. But I think postponing the elections is going to cause actually more violence, and is going to make it more difficult to have elections later on.
DOBBS: Patrick?
PATRICK BASHAM, CATO INSTITUTE: I disagree completely. I think that having the elections prematurely is what is going to cause an uptick, a significant uptick in violence, because what's going to happen is that rightly or wrongly, most Sunni will not participate. They will therefore be lacking representation in the new assembly, and they'll consider the new Iraqi government to be illegitimate. This is the biggest gift that we can give to the insurgents in Iraq right now. We need the first Iraqi government to be considered legitimate by everyone in Iraq that's not going to happen, and therefore, the Sunni will be able to argue that they have no choice but to take up arms.
MASMOUDI: I agree with Patrick that we need the Arab Sunnis to participate in this election, it's very important that they do so for the elections to be credible, and there are intense negotiations going on right now between the government of Iraq and the various Sunni groups to get them to participate in this election, and if that means delaying the election by a few weeks, I don't think that will be a big problem.
DOBBS: Let me ask you both something. If the Sunnis choose to forfeit their representation in this government, who cares? I mean that's part of democracy if you don't have the sense to vote, you don't have the right to participate in governance?
BASHAM: See, this isn't an election in New York City or North or South Dakota.
DOBBS: Really? I didn't know that, Patrick.
BASHAM: Here is a news flash for you. This is an election taking place in a sea of violence, OK? And we are not going to be able to remove ourselves probably from that context, until the situation is more secure, and until we are confident that we're leaving behind...
DOBBS: As you say, it isn't New York City, and we're not likely to be getting resorts built any time soon, when would you like to see the elections, Patrick, when would you be comfortable with them?
BASHAM: I don't think we can put a date on it because...
DOBBS: That's not particularly inspiring. Radwan at least you have the benefit of having a date certain. If not a serious threat to carrying out successful election. How serious is the lack of Sunni participation?
MASMOUDI: I think in the end the majority of the Sunnis will participate in the election. I think they have some reservations and concerns about the way the elections are going to take place, and there are intense negotiations now to try to solve those problems, and I'm very confident that the elections will take place, that the majority of Iraqis will participate in this election, because they realize there is no other option. Other option is chaos. The other option is more violence, and we cannot afford that. Neither can the Iraqi people afford that.
So I think it's in our interest and in the interest of the Iraqi people to have a legitimate election. A legitimate political process take place. And elections are not going to solve all these problems, but they will lead to a legitimate process.
DOBBS: Patrick, you get the last word.
BASHAM: What we have to remember, for example, is that the international observers who were there to see that this is a free and fair election, they're not in Iraq, and won't be in Iraq on election day, they're in Jordan, because the situation is so bad in Iraq.
DOBBS: Patrick Basham, we thank you for being here, Radwan Masmoudi, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
Still ahead, millions of tsunami survivors begin the long process of recovery, Anderson Cooper reports live from Sri Lanka next, and a rising nuclear threat on the Korean peninsula. Congressman Curt Weldon joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Our special coverage of the tsunami disaster begins in just a few minutes here on CNN. Anderson Cooper among those leading our coverage, he's in one of the hardest hit areas, joining us, tonight from Barawala, Sri Lanka to preview tonight's coverage -- Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Lou, at the top of the hour tonight at 7:00 Eastern time. We're going look at effects of the tsunami in one small village in Western Sri Lanka. You know, Sri Lanka, what a lot of people probably don't realize is that it's a land of extend families, and multigenerations live in the same house or in the same small village. Their houses next to one another. So, when something like a tsunami hits it can wipe out entire generations of a family, it can take away the heart of a village.
We're going to take to you the town where a tsunami struck a Buddhist temple at the height of a ceremony in a small room, 59 people, packed, only one of them survived. 50 people killed in this one room, 15 of them children. We're going to show you how the town is devastated -- Lou.
DOBBS: Anderson, thank you very much. Looking forward to that coverage beginning at 7:00 Eastern here on CNN.
Turning now to another of the top stories of the day, the rising nuclear threat from North Korea. North Korea has issued guidelines to its citizens to prepare for war with the United States. Those guidelines, published today on a South Korean newspaper suggest the United States is plotting an invasion of North Korea, because of its refusal to participate in talks on its nuclear program.
Congressman Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania is vice chairman of the Armed Service Committee, a member of the Homeland Security Committee and will lead a congressional delegation to North Korea this Sunday along with four other nations. Joining us tonight from Capitol Hill.
Congressman, good to have you with us.
You and your delegation will be with the North Koreans trying to energize, to restart those 6 party talks. What is your first assessment of the prospect of success?
REP. CURT WELDON, (R) PENNSYLVANIA; Well, we've got a real challenge. This is perhaps the most difficult challenge that the new administration faces. We go as Democrats and Republicans together in full support of our president's policy, the need for resolution of the Korean nuclear crisis to the 6 nation talk. And as we stop in Haverask (ph) Russia and spend 4 days in Pyongyang, Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing in meeting with all the leaders of those countries, we'll be reinforcing the fact that these 6 party talks have to get back on track again.
I have a relationship with the North Koreans. I took the first delegation in 18 months ago. I've had meetings with foreign ministry officials, twice in the U.S. since that time. And I'm cautiously optimistic that we can convince them they've got to move forward.
DOBBS: The North Koreans are notoriously unpredictable in what is an assessment what is their best interest. The fact that China, which is their principal power in the region, their principal supporter. If it can't move Pyongyang toward a rational discussion on the issues of nuclear weapons, what are the prospects that the United States can do so?
WELDON: Well, we need China's involvement. Hu Jintao and President Putin have both said publicly that they will not tolerate a nuclear capability on the Korean peninsula. And we'll remind Kim Jong-il of that.
But we'll also remind Hu Jintao in China that we need him to be more aggressive, although we'll thank them for their current efforts, but ask them to do more to convince the north Koreans they have to move, get back into the 6 party process and help us find a common solution.
Nobody wants war here. And in fact, there is a solution possible and that's what we're going to try to help encourage, through the president's vision, the president's leadership.
DOBBS: Are you convinced the North Koreans do not want a confrontation, even war?
WELDON: I'm convinced that they want a peaceful resolution of the problem. The difficulty is getting the parameters to have them give up all of their nuclear capability in a transparent way.
We know they have 2 to 6 weapons now. They have admitted that to my delegation a year and a half ago. But they've also said to us on our last trip that they want to find a peaceful resolution. They want to be assured that we don't want regime change, and we're not going to preemptively attack them. The president said both of those things publicly.
So, we're putting a human face on America. We're going in not as diplomats. We're not there to negotiate. We're going to reinforce and support our president as Democrats and Republican, and most importantly, the need to solve this problem without war.
DOBBS: Absolutely, Congressman Curt Weldon, we thank you for being here. We wish you success on your trip which will include bringing with you offers of aid to the stricken, the tsunami stricken countries in the region as well. Thank you very much for being here.
WELDON: Thank you.
DOBBS: Still ahead, the results of our poll tonight. We'll have a preview of what's ahead tomorrow. Please stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: The results now of our poll. 79 percent of you say damages awarded for malpractice pain and suffering should not be limited to $250,000.
Thanks for being with us tonight. Please join us here tomorrow. Why a former homeland security official is calling a new Pentagon plan utter madness. He's our guest tomorrow.
And one of two Hispanic senators in the new 109th Congress will be here talking about how he won a red state as a Democrat.
Jackpot justice, we continue our series of special reports on reforming torts. and tomorrow, how huge settlements are being spent in your state by your state officials. Please join us. For all of us here, good night from New York. CNN's special report, "Turning the Tide" is next.
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