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Will Adding Troops Improve Situation in Iraq?; Rwanda Marks 10th Anniversary of Genocide; Lord's Gym Offers Christians a Workout Haven

Aired April 06, 2004 - 13:30   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.


KYRA PHILLIPS, ANCHOR: Headlines at the half hour.
The top allies in the Iraq war meet at the White House soon. The Bush administration tells CNN Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, will visit President Bush on April 16. The session has apparently been in the works for a number of weeks, but the current turmoil in Iraq will now top the talks.

Up in the sky, it's a plane? No, three planes. You might recognize these guys and gals. The Air National Guard flexes its muscle over Washington. Today's rare flyover in the usually restricted airspace was a show of reassurance that the guard is on duty, protecting D.C.

Military officials tell CNN the flights were also part of a recruitment campaign.

Whatever happened to Ken Starr? Well, the special prosecutor who dogged former President Clinton during Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky scandal is heading to Pepperdine Law School. The California university plans to officially announce the appointment later today. Starr will begin his job as dean on August 1.

Back to Iraq and the tense standoff between the U.S.-led coalition and a young radical Shiite cleric.

U.S. officials blame Moqtada al-Sadr for inciting violence against coalition forces. An aide to the wanted cleric says the uprising will continue until troops withdraw from populated areas and prisoners are released.

For the coalition, it's been one of the bloodiest three days of the war: 21 troops killed, all but one American.

Coalition officials say that while the situation may look chaotic in Iraq, make no mistake, they are in control. But with the upsurge in unrest, the commander in charge has raised the issue of dispatching more troop.

Let's turn to CNN military analyst and retired major general, Don Shepperd, who's in southern Arizona today.

General, good to see you.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Hello, Kyra. PHILLIPS: So does it necessarily mean that more troops equals combat effectiveness?

SHEPPERD: No, not necessarily, Kyra. I'll tell you, the person that needs to make this call is General Abizaid. Secretary Rumsfeld has made it clear if General Abizaid needs more troops, he'll get them.

But just adding more troops doesn't necessarily mean more security. There aren't enough troops in the American military to ensure security across Iraq. More troops requires more supply convoys to resupply them. It means more targets.

And so the commanders on the ground, starting with General Abizaid and down from there, need to tell the higher headquarters, the Pentagon do we or do we not need more troops to take care of the missions that we've been tasked with?

If it means preventing a civil war or keeping the sides separated, it may need more troops. Right now in Fallujah, and the Sadr City in Baghdad, you probably don't need more at this very instance, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, then how do you define combat effectiveness? You're saying don't send more troops, it's just more trouble, more targets, more deaths to follow.

Because the Iraqi police -- I mean how do you hand it over to the Iraqi police when they're running scared, to be quite frank?

SHEPPERD: Yes. Very carefully. The only long-term solution in this case is to train the Iraqi forces to take over their own security. And those Iraqi forces are composed of the police forces, the facilities protection service, the border guards, the Iraqi military.

Basically, those people have to be trained to take it over. And you've got to hand it over to them very slowly. And they've got to be not only trained but equipped. Equipping can be done very quickly. Training takes a little more time.

We have to stay there until they are strong enough to do it, and they will take over security of Iraq and then we need to get out, Kyra. That's going to take several years, but we need to stay with this plan, training them to take over their own security, not trying to provide it ourselves by the addition of troops.

PHILLIPS: Now, announcing this arrest warrant for Sadr, the cleric, do you think that happened too soon?

SHEPPERD: Well, one thing that you've got to do if you're going to turn over sovereignty for Iraq to the Iraqis on 30 June, is you've got to ensure that the militias that are left behind do not exercise their own will and become an entity unto themselves.

Al-Sadr has taken over police stations. He's installed his own people. He is a splinter group of the Shia movement, of the Shias in Iraq. And basically you've got to get control of his situation and make sure he doesn't run a country unto his own, within a country, because surely you'll have civil war between the Shias if that takes place.

So I don't know if it was too soon or not, but it certainly kicked off a hornet's nest that we're dealing with now, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: June 30, you say definitely that handover will take place but that doesn't mean troops are leaving the rest day. What will the role be for troops: preventing civil war, added security? Can you define that for us?

SHEPPERD: All of the above. The movement is basically to hand over sovereignty on 30 June. Now, it's been an unviable date so far. The president's words have changed this week to "it's a firm commitment."

I don't know if we're really going to hand over on the 30th or not. People are questioning that.

But basically we will not leave. Our troop will there be. They will gradually withdraw outside of the city, gradually turn over security to the Iraqi forces as they become capable. And they will stand by to quell major uprising, such as Fallujah and also to prevent a civil war.

And it's a very difficult, fine line to walk, Kyra. This is a really dangerous place with many complex problems, as we are coming to understand.

PHILLIPS: General Don Shepperd, thanks for your time today.

SHEPPERD: Pleasure.

PHILLIPS: All eyes will be on National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice this Thursday. That's date she heads to Capitol Hill to testify before the 10-member 9/11 commission.

Commission member Bob Kerrey tells CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING" why her testimony is so vital.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB KERREY, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: It's not so much what we're going to learn. It's that we need to get her statement under oath, and we need to have a public statement in order to be able to get the complete picture out in front of the public.

We'll produce a report. But it's very important for the public to hear these statements as much as possible, especially from someone who was at the nexus, not just of foreign policy decisions, but also of domestic decisions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: CNN has live coverage of Rice's testimony Thursday beginning at 9 a.m. Eastern time.

Other news around the world now.

Protesters pronounced democracy dead in Hong Kong. They're reacting to Beijing's decision to take full control over changes to the territory's elections. Hong Kong returns to China in 1997 with the pledge that it would have 50 years of wide ranging autonomy.

Lithuania sacks its president over corruption charges. The parliament voted to impeach President Rolandas Paksas, a first ever for a European leader. The parliament speaker, what was also the president's arch rival, will serve as interim president.

Ten years after the so-called 100 days of blood-letting, Rwanda prepare to look back. Eight-hundred thousand people were exterminated during the period that began on April 7, 1994.

Much of that has improved in the Central African nation since then.

But as Jeff Koinange reports, the scars are deep. A warning to you: the images you're about to see are very graphic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The green hills of Gikongoru (ph), a three-hour drive from the Rwandan capital, Kigali, bear some of the deepest scars of the country's past.

Thousands of people, mostly Tutsis, were lured into this technical school being by Hutu officials with promises of safe haven from Hutu extremists, known as the Interahamway (ph), a term loosely translated as those who kill together.

But it was a trap. Without warning, the attackers struck in a killing spree that lasted two days. Local people estimate that more than 50,000 were killed.

Most were left to rot in these killing fields. The bodies of others were unceremoniously tossed into mass graves.

Only after the Interahamway (ph) was driven from the country by the Rwandan Patriotic Front were the bodies exhumed. They were sprinkled with limestone dust for preservation and placed inside these classrooms.

The result, a macabre memorial, where the stench of death still lingers and pain is seemingly frozen on the victims' faces.

And this is where we find 48-year-old Imanuel Morangora (ph). He comes here every day to be, in his words, with his wife and five children. They were among the thousands hiding here when the attack began.

He bears the scar of a bullet that struck him in the head. It probably saved his life. The rebels mistook him for dead. When he regained consciousness a day later, his whole family had been slaughtered.

"I feel so much pain," he says. "My family died here, along with our friends, and we couldn't do anything about it. All we had were sticks and stones, and they had guns and grenades and other weapons."

In the capital, Kigali, another memorial, the largest in the country, where the remains of more than a quarter of a million people have been found.

Thirty-year-old Henriette Mutegwaraba guides visitors through the maze of graves. She lost 16 members of her immediate family in the genocide.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I remember everything about genocide and the -- I still remember how I lose my family, my sisters, brothers and parents. And it was a bad time to me. But it happened.

KOINANGE: Jeff Koinange, CNN, Kiboya (ph), Rwanda.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: What do you get when you mix religion and heavy metal? Well, it's not an Ozzie Osbourne rendition of "Onward Christian Soldiers," we can tell you that.

Bruce Burkhardt found a place where you can tighten up that Bible belt, though.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If it's true that our bodies are our temple, than this is the place to worship: The Lord's Gym, Claremont (ph), Florida, outside Orlando.

PAUL SORCHY, OWNER, THE LORD'S GYM: Although salvation is free it will cost you $34 a month to work out at lord's gym.

All right. Let's get the neck to move.

BURKHARDT: Paul Sorchy, a chiropractor who makes adjustments on patients, would like to adjust the way many Americans work out.

SORCHY: The dress code simply says if you're wearing some pants that are a little bit too tight, just please let your T-shirt hang over your heinie.

BURKHARDT: That's only one of the things that separates the Lord's Gym from other workout places. There's the Garden of Eden, where smoothies with names like Land of Milk and Honey come in two sizes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David, Goliath.

BURKHARDT (on camera): David and Goliath? (voice-over) How about an energy or power bar? Make that a Bible Bar.

The spinning class is called Chariots of Fire. And here it's not yoga, but yo-God.

SORCHY: Yoga itself, as far as an exercise, wonderful. As a philosophy, we don't allow that here.

BURKHARDT (on camera): How do you make this thing work?

(voice-over) And for those who have never darkened the door of a gym, this place is a bit less intimidating. It's supposed to be that way.

(on camera) Why is it better than a regular gym?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because a regular gym, it's nothing but -- it's more like a meat market than it is a gym.

BURKHARDT: A meat market?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BURKHARDT: I see women around here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, but it's a Christian atmosphere. Christians are supposed to act a certain way.

BURKHARDT: Come here often? What's your sign?

(voice-over) But pickup lines here are scarcer than cuss words. Christian and non-Christian alike say the same thing. Here, there's no posing, just working out.

Some 3,000 members sweat it out here. And being Christian is not required for membership.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE; No, but it agrees with my lifestyle, maybe not my theology, but my lifestyle.

BURKHARDT: Though the walls are covered in scripture.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I read it all the time.

BURKHARDT (on camera): Do you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just like walking through the Bible.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): No one is in your face preaching.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's no pressure. They don't question what religion you are. They just let you be.

BURKHARDT: And the Lord's Gym may be coming to a strip mall near you. Sorchy and his partners, who own a Lord's Gym in Jacksonville, are in the process of franchising the idea.

And though cussing is frowned upon around here, a tough workout can bring forth some un-Christian-like sentiments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Increase resistance.

BURKHARDT (on camera): I don't want to.

(voice-over) Bruce Burkhardt, CNN, Claremont, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(STOCK REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Well, they're crucial to a woman's image: cute shoes. But if wearing six-inch stiletto is causing your dogs to bark, there's an alternative to making those puppies smile.

And you may want to think twice next time you super size your fries. The potatoes are packed in something more than just fat. We'll expand on the details, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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 April 6, 2004 - 13:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, ANCHOR: Headlines at the half hour.
The top allies in the Iraq war meet at the White House soon. The Bush administration tells CNN Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, will visit President Bush on April 16. The session has apparently been in the works for a number of weeks, but the current turmoil in Iraq will now top the talks.

Up in the sky, it's a plane? No, three planes. You might recognize these guys and gals. The Air National Guard flexes its muscle over Washington. Today's rare flyover in the usually restricted airspace was a show of reassurance that the guard is on duty, protecting D.C.

Military officials tell CNN the flights were also part of a recruitment campaign.

Whatever happened to Ken Starr? Well, the special prosecutor who dogged former President Clinton during Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky scandal is heading to Pepperdine Law School. The California university plans to officially announce the appointment later today. Starr will begin his job as dean on August 1.

Back to Iraq and the tense standoff between the U.S.-led coalition and a young radical Shiite cleric.

U.S. officials blame Moqtada al-Sadr for inciting violence against coalition forces. An aide to the wanted cleric says the uprising will continue until troops withdraw from populated areas and prisoners are released.

For the coalition, it's been one of the bloodiest three days of the war: 21 troops killed, all but one American.

Coalition officials say that while the situation may look chaotic in Iraq, make no mistake, they are in control. But with the upsurge in unrest, the commander in charge has raised the issue of dispatching more troop.

Let's turn to CNN military analyst and retired major general, Don Shepperd, who's in southern Arizona today.

General, good to see you.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Hello, Kyra. PHILLIPS: So does it necessarily mean that more troops equals combat effectiveness?

SHEPPERD: No, not necessarily, Kyra. I'll tell you, the person that needs to make this call is General Abizaid. Secretary Rumsfeld has made it clear if General Abizaid needs more troops, he'll get them.

But just adding more troops doesn't necessarily mean more security. There aren't enough troops in the American military to ensure security across Iraq. More troops requires more supply convoys to resupply them. It means more targets.

And so the commanders on the ground, starting with General Abizaid and down from there, need to tell the higher headquarters, the Pentagon do we or do we not need more troops to take care of the missions that we've been tasked with?

If it means preventing a civil war or keeping the sides separated, it may need more troops. Right now in Fallujah, and the Sadr City in Baghdad, you probably don't need more at this very instance, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, then how do you define combat effectiveness? You're saying don't send more troops, it's just more trouble, more targets, more deaths to follow.

Because the Iraqi police -- I mean how do you hand it over to the Iraqi police when they're running scared, to be quite frank?

SHEPPERD: Yes. Very carefully. The only long-term solution in this case is to train the Iraqi forces to take over their own security. And those Iraqi forces are composed of the police forces, the facilities protection service, the border guards, the Iraqi military.

Basically, those people have to be trained to take it over. And you've got to hand it over to them very slowly. And they've got to be not only trained but equipped. Equipping can be done very quickly. Training takes a little more time.

We have to stay there until they are strong enough to do it, and they will take over security of Iraq and then we need to get out, Kyra. That's going to take several years, but we need to stay with this plan, training them to take over their own security, not trying to provide it ourselves by the addition of troops.

PHILLIPS: Now, announcing this arrest warrant for Sadr, the cleric, do you think that happened too soon?

SHEPPERD: Well, one thing that you've got to do if you're going to turn over sovereignty for Iraq to the Iraqis on 30 June, is you've got to ensure that the militias that are left behind do not exercise their own will and become an entity unto themselves.

Al-Sadr has taken over police stations. He's installed his own people. He is a splinter group of the Shia movement, of the Shias in Iraq. And basically you've got to get control of his situation and make sure he doesn't run a country unto his own, within a country, because surely you'll have civil war between the Shias if that takes place.

So I don't know if it was too soon or not, but it certainly kicked off a hornet's nest that we're dealing with now, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: June 30, you say definitely that handover will take place but that doesn't mean troops are leaving the rest day. What will the role be for troops: preventing civil war, added security? Can you define that for us?

SHEPPERD: All of the above. The movement is basically to hand over sovereignty on 30 June. Now, it's been an unviable date so far. The president's words have changed this week to "it's a firm commitment."

I don't know if we're really going to hand over on the 30th or not. People are questioning that.

But basically we will not leave. Our troop will there be. They will gradually withdraw outside of the city, gradually turn over security to the Iraqi forces as they become capable. And they will stand by to quell major uprising, such as Fallujah and also to prevent a civil war.

And it's a very difficult, fine line to walk, Kyra. This is a really dangerous place with many complex problems, as we are coming to understand.

PHILLIPS: General Don Shepperd, thanks for your time today.

SHEPPERD: Pleasure.

PHILLIPS: All eyes will be on National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice this Thursday. That's date she heads to Capitol Hill to testify before the 10-member 9/11 commission.

Commission member Bob Kerrey tells CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING" why her testimony is so vital.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB KERREY, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: It's not so much what we're going to learn. It's that we need to get her statement under oath, and we need to have a public statement in order to be able to get the complete picture out in front of the public.

We'll produce a report. But it's very important for the public to hear these statements as much as possible, especially from someone who was at the nexus, not just of foreign policy decisions, but also of domestic decisions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: CNN has live coverage of Rice's testimony Thursday beginning at 9 a.m. Eastern time.

Other news around the world now.

Protesters pronounced democracy dead in Hong Kong. They're reacting to Beijing's decision to take full control over changes to the territory's elections. Hong Kong returns to China in 1997 with the pledge that it would have 50 years of wide ranging autonomy.

Lithuania sacks its president over corruption charges. The parliament voted to impeach President Rolandas Paksas, a first ever for a European leader. The parliament speaker, what was also the president's arch rival, will serve as interim president.

Ten years after the so-called 100 days of blood-letting, Rwanda prepare to look back. Eight-hundred thousand people were exterminated during the period that began on April 7, 1994.

Much of that has improved in the Central African nation since then.

But as Jeff Koinange reports, the scars are deep. A warning to you: the images you're about to see are very graphic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The green hills of Gikongoru (ph), a three-hour drive from the Rwandan capital, Kigali, bear some of the deepest scars of the country's past.

Thousands of people, mostly Tutsis, were lured into this technical school being by Hutu officials with promises of safe haven from Hutu extremists, known as the Interahamway (ph), a term loosely translated as those who kill together.

But it was a trap. Without warning, the attackers struck in a killing spree that lasted two days. Local people estimate that more than 50,000 were killed.

Most were left to rot in these killing fields. The bodies of others were unceremoniously tossed into mass graves.

Only after the Interahamway (ph) was driven from the country by the Rwandan Patriotic Front were the bodies exhumed. They were sprinkled with limestone dust for preservation and placed inside these classrooms.

The result, a macabre memorial, where the stench of death still lingers and pain is seemingly frozen on the victims' faces.

And this is where we find 48-year-old Imanuel Morangora (ph). He comes here every day to be, in his words, with his wife and five children. They were among the thousands hiding here when the attack began.

He bears the scar of a bullet that struck him in the head. It probably saved his life. The rebels mistook him for dead. When he regained consciousness a day later, his whole family had been slaughtered.

"I feel so much pain," he says. "My family died here, along with our friends, and we couldn't do anything about it. All we had were sticks and stones, and they had guns and grenades and other weapons."

In the capital, Kigali, another memorial, the largest in the country, where the remains of more than a quarter of a million people have been found.

Thirty-year-old Henriette Mutegwaraba guides visitors through the maze of graves. She lost 16 members of her immediate family in the genocide.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I remember everything about genocide and the -- I still remember how I lose my family, my sisters, brothers and parents. And it was a bad time to me. But it happened.

KOINANGE: Jeff Koinange, CNN, Kiboya (ph), Rwanda.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: What do you get when you mix religion and heavy metal? Well, it's not an Ozzie Osbourne rendition of "Onward Christian Soldiers," we can tell you that.

Bruce Burkhardt found a place where you can tighten up that Bible belt, though.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If it's true that our bodies are our temple, than this is the place to worship: The Lord's Gym, Claremont (ph), Florida, outside Orlando.

PAUL SORCHY, OWNER, THE LORD'S GYM: Although salvation is free it will cost you $34 a month to work out at lord's gym.

All right. Let's get the neck to move.

BURKHARDT: Paul Sorchy, a chiropractor who makes adjustments on patients, would like to adjust the way many Americans work out.

SORCHY: The dress code simply says if you're wearing some pants that are a little bit too tight, just please let your T-shirt hang over your heinie.

BURKHARDT: That's only one of the things that separates the Lord's Gym from other workout places. There's the Garden of Eden, where smoothies with names like Land of Milk and Honey come in two sizes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David, Goliath.

BURKHARDT (on camera): David and Goliath? (voice-over) How about an energy or power bar? Make that a Bible Bar.

The spinning class is called Chariots of Fire. And here it's not yoga, but yo-God.

SORCHY: Yoga itself, as far as an exercise, wonderful. As a philosophy, we don't allow that here.

BURKHARDT (on camera): How do you make this thing work?

(voice-over) And for those who have never darkened the door of a gym, this place is a bit less intimidating. It's supposed to be that way.

(on camera) Why is it better than a regular gym?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because a regular gym, it's nothing but -- it's more like a meat market than it is a gym.

BURKHARDT: A meat market?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BURKHARDT: I see women around here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, but it's a Christian atmosphere. Christians are supposed to act a certain way.

BURKHARDT: Come here often? What's your sign?

(voice-over) But pickup lines here are scarcer than cuss words. Christian and non-Christian alike say the same thing. Here, there's no posing, just working out.

Some 3,000 members sweat it out here. And being Christian is not required for membership.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE; No, but it agrees with my lifestyle, maybe not my theology, but my lifestyle.

BURKHARDT: Though the walls are covered in scripture.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I read it all the time.

BURKHARDT (on camera): Do you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just like walking through the Bible.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): No one is in your face preaching.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's no pressure. They don't question what religion you are. They just let you be.

BURKHARDT: And the Lord's Gym may be coming to a strip mall near you. Sorchy and his partners, who own a Lord's Gym in Jacksonville, are in the process of franchising the idea.

And though cussing is frowned upon around here, a tough workout can bring forth some un-Christian-like sentiments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Increase resistance.

BURKHARDT (on camera): I don't want to.

(voice-over) Bruce Burkhardt, CNN, Claremont, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(STOCK REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Well, they're crucial to a woman's image: cute shoes. But if wearing six-inch stiletto is causing your dogs to bark, there's an alternative to making those puppies smile.

And you may want to think twice next time you super size your fries. The potatoes are packed in something more than just fat. We'll expand on the details, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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