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Fall of Baghdad, a Year Later; Documentary Examines Iraqi War Coverage; Teeing Off at Guantanamo; Designer Creates Wonderbutt Pants

Aired April 09, 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, CNN ANCHOR: A huge explosion rocked central Baghdad today. A mortar shell hit a shed near two hotels where western journalists and civilian contractors normally stay.
A U.S. soldier sent to investigate says a second mortar was fired but did not explode. No injuries are reported.

The White House is moving toward declassifying one of the president's daily intelligence briefings. The document in question is dated August 6, 2001, and it concerns the threat of attacks upon the U.S. by al Qaeda.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was questioned about the briefing by the 9/11 commission. Rice says there was nothing -- or nothing reassuring in that document.

A new CNN/"TIME" magazine poll done after Rice's testimony yesterday shows mixed results. It finds fewer Americans now think the Bush administration failed to do all it could to prevent the events of 9/11. But nearly two thirds think the White House had no strategy to take out al Qaeda before the attacks.

A year after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition is still trying to establish security and stability, anti-American sentiment is high and troops are facing constant danger. So what has changed in Iraq in the past year?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran has covered that war since day one for the "Washington Post." He joins us now live from Baghdad.

One year later, Rajiv, what's going through your mind?

RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN, "WASHINGTON POST": Well, it's a vastly different place. I rolled up here from Kuwait on April 10 to scenes of jubilant Iraqis celebrating their new-found freedom in the square behind me, as many of your viewers have seen time and time again. Those images of jubilant Iraqis with Americans helping to pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein.

Today, the capitol is such a different place, gripped by fear, many people staying indoors. Nobody really coming out to celebrate. If anything, angry calls from mosque minarets for an end to the occupation. Some scattered protests here and there.

You know, the U.S. military sealing off the square, the site of the great festivities a year ago today. Snipers on building tops. The soldiers and tanks guarding the area, threatening to shoot on sight people.

It's gone from a climate of happiness and relief a year ago to one of a lot of fear and uncertainty today. Iraqis aren't quite sure just what's going to be coming, be it next week or be it after this hand-over of sovereignty on June 30.

The U.S. is fighting this two-front war with Sunni insurgents to the west of Iraq and with Shiite militiamen, both in Baghdad and to the south of the capitol. And so it's a time of perhaps more uncertainty and fear than at any other point in the past year that I've been here.

PHILLIPS: You talk about uncertainty. But let's talk about the anti-American attitude.

I mean, I remember when the statue came down in Baghdad. I remember Iraqis and soldiers hugging each other and the Marines that were there in the square, rather, and the pictures of, you know, kissing each other. It was pretty incredible the images that we saw.

So where do you think all the anti-American type of attitude is coming from right now at this point?

CHANDRASEKARAN: Well, it's been a growing phenomenon. Truth be told, we started to detect some of it, you know, a week, a month after the liberation of the country, when Iraqis are frustrated that electricity wasn't coming on fast enough, frustrated at the lack of jobs.

There was a perception here that, once the Americans came in and toppled Saddam Hussein, that everything would return to normal or if not even better than normal, that they'd have jobs when they didn't. They'd have services that they never had for years.

And that started to build frustration. And then, you know, that's been sort of growing over these past many months.

And then in this sort of political vacuum, because it's still unclear just what sort of government will take over on June 30. Various forces are jockeying for power.

And one of the things that aspiring political and sort of other types of self-style leaders here, like this radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr have done, has been to try to inject themselves into the power vacuum by introducing a lot of anti-American rhetoric and trying to rally support and to show themselves as an alternative to the occupation.

Essentially saying to their followers and others, look, the Americans have been here for a year. What have they brought us? Our lives haven't improved. We need them out. We need a different form of government. We need to take charge of our own destiny.

That's coupled with a lot of calls from more hard line Muslim clerics, both Sunnis and Shiites, and including a handful of scattered sort of loyalists of former President Saddam Hussein.

So it's a volatile mix, all of these forces coming together. And it's just been building on each other month after month. And we've finally gotten to what seems to be sort of a breaking point today.

PHILLIPS: Rajiv Chandrasekaran with the "Washington Post," thanks for your insight today.

CHANDRASEKARAN: Sure.

PHILLIPS: Well, the deadly uprising in Iraq this week revealed the antagonism toward the U.S. -- We talked about that -- its allies and coalition policies.

On the first anniversary of Iraq's liberation, we examine the attitude a little more in depth of the entire Mideast region.

Professor Shibley Telhami is a Mideast scholar from the University of Maryland. He joins us now live from New York.

Sir, it's great to see you.

Let's talk about how you said we are still in this wishful thinking mindset. Tell us what you mean by that.

SHIBLEY TELHAMI, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: Well, you know, remember, I mean, aside from the attitude of Iraqis, which is obviously more problematic.

We had only one chance to make a good impression. We failed that. We weren't prepared for the day after. It's been an uphill battle.

But beyond that, regionally, remember, Iraq was supposed to be a model that inspires people, inspires democracy and also would demonstrate the U.S. is powerful and people would come to respect American power and, therefore, the U.S. would succeed politically in the region.

What's opened over the past year is that very few people believe that this was all about democracy. I mean, surveys I've conducted in the region believe most people don't trust American intention. Never believed this was about democracy to begin with.

And what they see in Iraq, despite the fact there are many good stories there, but what they see is the insecurity, the uncertainty, the bloodshed, the disintegration of the social order, all of which are frightening to them.

And no one wants to imitate that model. And authoritarian governments use that essentially to say "Is this what you want?" And I bet you very few people in the region want that model today.

PHILLIPS: Do you think it's less democratic than a year ago?

TELHAMI: Well, I think that if you ask Iraqis, and there have been surveys done, including by the State Department, there is no question that majority of the Iraqis are happy to rid themselves of Saddam Hussein, even with all the bloodshed that's going on right now.

But it's also clear that many don't. And we've seen that in some of the surveys, particularly in the Sunni Triangle.

The perception, nonetheless, in the region, not so much in outside, when we have a Hans Blix who is, of course, the arms inspector, Suede, highly respected, at least perceiving the situation in Iraq to be worse than it was under Saddam Hussein, regardless of the objective fact.

You understand, this is a prevalent perception. It's a prevalent perception in the Arab world. It's a prevalent perception in Europe and much of the rest of the world.

So it's not an inspiring model, and that's a problem for the U.S. right now.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's talk about perception. What about, from the aspect of Iran or Syria, another one, North Korea. Doesn't this war send a message to other countries that could be a threat internationally?

TELHAMI: Well, that's a really good question. And certainly that was one of the logic of this, that essentially the U.S. is asserting -- the U.S. is asserting its power in a way, going against the U.N. and still succeeding and removing a dictator. Doesn't that scare others?

And frankly, many governments were nervous, including governments in the Middle East were nervous to witness that. No one can see American power and not be somewhat nervous.

But more of them a year later are much more comfortable. They're comfortable because they see the U.S. as being actually weaker than it was a year ago. They see that we have over 100,000 troops.

We need other countries' help to help pacify Iraq. We're not about to engage in another war when we're spending $5 billion a month and a lot of troops. We're not about to engage in another war of choice.

No one doubts of our capacity to engage in a war of necessity, even under this environment. But the American public certainly isn't going to support another war of choice. And in that sense, most of them see the U.S. as being weaker and as needing them more than they need the U.S.

PHILLIPS: Mideast scholar Shibley Telhami, thank you for your time.

TELHAMI: Pleasure.

PHILLIPS: The war in Iraq differs from any other conflict in terms of its extensive coverage on television. But one television network has continued to be a thorn in the side of Washington for both its view and content.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wake up! Wake up! There's a war around you. Something is happening. This is the message of Al-Jazeera.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the Mideast everybody has a set of views of what's going on. And in the U.S. and the Western world there's a completely other view what's going on.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Al-Jazeera has a pattern of playing propaganda over and over and over again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rumsfeld is saying airing the footage of the captives is a violation of the Geneva Convention. What does he call Guantanamo Bay?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It benefits Al-Jazeera to play to their nationalism, because that's their audience, just like Fox plays to American patriotism for the exact same reason.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw a lot of journalists really struggling to try and figure out the truth and trying to figure out how to report in a way that was not biased.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't give you any better answer than that. Good try, though.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seems like there's an effort to manage the news in an unmanageable situation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We say it all the time. No spin. Don't spin in. and we catch ourselves doing it. I catch myself doing it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think every single journalist that I followed would say that they did have a point of view. But it's very, very difficult to report on a war without having a point of view.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am representing my station, but I am also representing my people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your journalists have a position on the war.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are any U.S. journalists objective about this war?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The debate and the discussion that happens after the film is just as important as the film itself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This word objectivity is almost a mirage.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, pars, birdies and grips. We'll tell you why this PGA golfer is taking time to tee up on the greens at Gitmo.

And this outspoken radio jock has been muted. But one company is sticking by his side.

Plus looking for ways to plump up your tush? The secret may be in the seams. We'll explore the lord of the pants when LIVE FROM returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANK LICKLITER, GOLFER: ... place better than that, right there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Teeing it up at Gitmo. We're used to seeing PGA Tour golfer Frank Lickliter at maybe Pebble Beach or the Masters. But he's been hitting back nines in some exotic locations.

He joins me now from Panderveger Beach (ph), Florida, to talk about the Masters tournament and just how many birdies he's nailed at Gitmo.

Good to see you, Frank.

LICKLITER: Nice to be here. Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's -- I think that's what caught our attention. I want to talk about the Masters, but let's talk about Guantanamo Bay and what got you there and why you decided to give a little golf clinic for the soldiers?

LICKLITER: A friend of mine was working down there. He was on six-week tours off and on every three months.

And you know he was telling me that he had a great little golf course down there: wasn't in great condition but it was a fantastic golf course. And how much that the guys loved playing.

And just, you know, they needed some sort of, you know, off time and that's one of the things, you know, that little golf course is very popular.

PHILLIPS: So did you let them beat you?

LICKLITER: No. No, I didn't.

PHILLIPS: You taught them a few things?

LICKLITER: Well, you know, we went out and had fun. And you know, we actually did work on some things, you know. Just subtle things, you know, around the greens. And you know, maybe a grip change here and there. Just, you know, to get them thinking about, you know, keeping it out of that deep rough gorse Bermuda where the lizards live down there.

PHILLIPS: Of course.

Then you headed over to play TPC at Sawgrass. You hooked up with another group of soldiers. Tell me about that. And I heard the custom camouflage Titleist caps are pretty cool, too.

LICKLITER: Yes, I had the Titleist hats made up a couple of months ago, and the guys that built TPC of Mosul were in town for about three or four days and had the opportunity to play with them out here two days after the tournament.

And I don't know which course is harder. But I think both golf courses impressed all the players.

Jesse, you know, the guy that built the course over there, fantastic guy. His commander and a couple of his friends, they just loved it, absolutely loved it. And the course was still playing about as hard as it did on Sunday at the TPC.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Well, talk about two different worlds: being a professional golfer and being in the military. Why do you admire those in the military so much? And make such an effort towards the men and women?

LICKLITER: Well, I have several friends that are actually in Iraq right now, and I actually got a call from one of them Sunday morning before I teed off, you know, just -- through my friends, I see what some of these guys go through, you know, with their families.

And it's just, you know, it's a small way for me to show my appreciation for how much these guys give up to protect us, to protect our freedoms.

And they allow me to live my dream, you know? Those guys are out there, doing what needs to be done to protect this country. And, you know, the American dream, I live it every day, you know? The opportunity to play golf for a living is just, you know, it is living a dream.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Talk about living a dream.

We'll switch gears a little bit and talk about the Masters coming up. You've had a chance to play in the Masters.

Tell our viewers just a significance, the history, and why it's such a wonderful experience to get a chance to play that course and be in that tournament?

LICKLITER: Well, the Masters was the idea of Bobby Jones, who was one of the...

PHILLIPS: That's one of our local guys here in Atlanta. LICKLITER: Sure. Sure. He's -- you know -- It was his idea -- for what his idea of what a fantastic golf tournament should be. And that's what it's been since -- since he built the golf course and started the Masters tournament.

After the sports writers coming up from spring training in Florida, it give them a chance to stop by and watch the best golfers in the world play on a magnificent golf course. It's a part of history.

PHILLIPS: All right, so finally, you know, I've got to ask you this. I kind of was ribbing you a little bit. Women at the Masters, what do you think?

LICKLITER: Well, with the way the rules are set up at the Masters, we might have a participant. Michelle Wie, she has a chance to win a men's event, and if she does, she will be a participant in the Masters.

PHILLIPS: There you go. Bolting that -- She can smack it plus 300, can't she?

LICKLITER: Yes, she can.

PHILLIPS: All right, now you promised me a lesson, so you'll come to Atlanta and help me out at some point?

LICKLITER: We can do that.

PHILLIPS: All right. That's a deal. And I promise I'll attempt to tee off from the whites, not the blues.

LICKLITER: You can play from whatever tees you want to.

PHILLIPS: All right. Frank Lickliter, thank you so much for joining us. Sure appreciate it.

LICKLITER: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Sayonara, Howard Stern. I hope that means good-bye to all his dorky little followers who like to prank the networks.

Clear Channel has permanently booted the shock jock from six of its nations. Clear Channel made the move after the FCC announced it would fine the company $495,000 for indecent content aired on his show. The decision won't affects Stern's program aired on stations owned by other companies.

Stern accuses the FCC of conducting a McCarthy type witch-hunt.

No stranger to controversy himself, Larry Flynt may be in for a fight in Ft. Lauderdale. City officials are upset because the owner of the "Hustler" magazine plans to open a store in a recently revitalized neighborhood.

The vice mayor says it would detract from the quality of life. City commissioners have changed zoning laws to make it harder for Flynt to open an adult-oriented store.

There's no comment from Flynt.

From zoning laws to the rear end zone. Is your derriere a little deflated? Or do you need more junk in your trunk? There's some new pants that can give your rear a pick me up.

CNN's Jeanne Moos shows off the Wonderbutt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You've heard of Wonder Bra and Wonder Bread. But Wonderbutt?

(on camera) Sort of a like a push-up bra for your butt?

(voice-over) Here is Jackie before she donned Wonderbutt pants, and here she is after.

Wonderbutt is being trademarked by the designers some call the lord of the pants, Alvin Valley.

ALVIN VALLEY, DESIGNER: They were actually christened Wonderbutt by Kate Winslet.

MOOS: The actress was trying on the pants when she came up with the name.

Do they live up to it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No butt is beautiful.

MOOS (on camera): Rate the rear end.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's nice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Curvaceous. Complete.

MOOS: All right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can I touch?

MOOS (voice-over): Nope, but you can check out the secret behind Wonderbutt.

VALLEY: A bubble at the butt by creating these darts.

MOOS (on camera): One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight darts and they're all kind of pushing...

VALLEY: Pushing the buttocks together.

MOOS (voice-over): Valley said he was inspired by the derriere of model Naomi Campbell. His background in architecture helped develop the darts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no added padding?

MOOS (on camera): No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, good.

MOOS: It's all real.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great.

MOOS (voice-over): But when the "before" is not bad it's hard to gauge the "after."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, they don't feel different at all.

MOOS: Wonderbutts won't be in stores until fall.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): You're a rich girl.

MOOS: You better be rich. Prices range from $350 to $800. A cheaper line of Wonderbutt denim will sell for 130 bucks.

Love saying that name.

VALLEY: Wonderbutt.

MOOS (on camera): Wonderbutt.

VALLEY: Alvin Valley -- Alvin Valley's Wonderbutt.

MOOS: Let's see your butt.

(voice-over) No wonder Valley is developing a line of Wonderbutts for men. No ifs, ands or Wonderbutts about it.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: All right. We're pulling up the rear here, second hour of LIVE FROM straight ahead.

His controversial conversation has gotten him booted off the air in some cities. But has the FCC gone too far? Don't tune us out. Indecency or freedom of speech? We'll have that debate coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Fighting and cease-fire in Iraq. The tricky battle to end rebellions. We're live from the Pentagon. SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Sean Callebs in Washington. The public reacts to Condoleezza Rice's three hours on the hot seat. We'll have that story coming up -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Shock jock Howard Stern yanked off six radio stations and slapped with a fine, but he's hitting back.

Fallen firefighters, why their families did not want Hollywood to tell their story.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

Our top story, the names and faces may change, but the story sometimes stays the same.

One year ago today, the world witnessed the symbolic toppling of Saddam Hussein when a statue fell in Baghdad. Today, it's Muqtada al- Sadr's turn. That his pictures are up in the first place is more symbolic than they're being taken down.

Al-Sadr's militia has been giving the U.S.-led coalition fits as the two sides clash in the battle for control of Iraq.

The uptake in violence this week seems to suggest that Iraq is more volatile than it was a year ago when Saddam's statue fell. For more, we're joined by Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you again, Kyra.

Well, the U.S. military saying it is bringing things under control in Iraq. But still plenty of areas of concern.

A couple of particular concerns. Indications now that the illegal militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, his forces are battling the illegal Badr Brigade, another illegal Shia militia in southern Iraq.

But in the city of al-Kut, that is the next city the U.S. says it is bringing under control in southern Iraq. Here, a number of strikes, but they now say they feel they will have control, coalition control of the city within the next several hours. That will be the next place to watch.

In the south, however, the cities of Karbala and Najaf still not under coalition control. The U.S. moved about 1,000 troops into southern Iraq from Baghdad to help with that.

In the west, in Fallujah, the Sunni heartland, the U.S. has indeed called a halt to offensive operations around Fallujah to allow humanitarian medical assistance into the city, allow the people of Fallujah to deal with their dead and their wounded but still there was trouble. Insurgents apparently attacking a convoy of the Red Crescent here that was trying to bring assistance into the city.

General John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, was in the Fallujah area earlier talking about the entire situation. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND CMDR.: One year later, we've got clearly a good size fight going on here in Fallujah with the Marine Corps and we've got other operations going on throughout the country against Sadr's militia.

It's certainly not the same level of intensity that we had during the movement phase of the war but it is a counter insurgency operation up here and it's an operation against an illegal militia force down in the south, a lot of military activity going on but still a level of activity that can be handled with the troops available.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: So, with all of this, Kyra, are more U.S. troops needed in Iraq? Well, every indication now that at least some elements of the 1st Armored Division, which were scheduled to return to their home base within weeks, it looks now like they may be staying an additional three months until they can deal with this situation -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Meanwhile, Barbara Starr, have you heard anything more about the mortar attack on the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad?

STARR: Well, that was a very loud bang, if you will, but thank goodness no one apparently injured in that, this mortar hitting next to a sports facility, at a sports facility next to the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad where, of course, much of the International Press Corps stays along with the Palestine Hotel nearby.

As you can see it impacted, created a big stir but no one hurt and not totally unexpected. Baghdad on quite the edge today as the Shia holidays approach, as tension remains very high in the capital.

PHILLIPS: Barbara Starr, live from the Pentagon thank you.

This has been a trying week for military families. News of U.S. casualties streams in daily.

National Correspondent Frank Buckley reports now from Fort Hood in Texas where people are feeling an enormous sense of loss.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was the single worst day of the war so far for Kaleen, Texas because it's home to Fort Hood, which lost seven of its soldiers in a single day in combat. Specialist Israel Garza won't be coming home to his wife and three children.

FRANK MATA, GARZA'S UNCLE: His 9-year-old son is having a hard time comprehending that he will no longer be seeing his father.

BUCKLEY: On Tuesday, an eighth Fort Hood soldier, Sergeant Herardo Mareno (ph) was killed. His mother... UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He told me that he knew he wasn't coming back. He had already prepared for that. He was going to be back but he was going to be back in a coffin.

BUCKLEY: It is the worst of times for a community that just a few months ago celebrated the best.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And guess what, they caught Saddam.

BUCKLEY: Soldiers from Fort Hood were credited with capturing Saddam Hussein. It was a high point of the war for people here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They caught Saddam.

BUCKLEY: Now a new low and an awful reminder that every soldier is potentially in harm's way.

LT. COL. BOB FORRESTER, U.S. ARMY: I'm not sure you ever can prepare anybody for an event like this when it happens and what you've got to fall back on is the training that you've received over the years.

BUCKLEY (on camera): That training for soldiers and their families, who learn in pre-deployment briefings, what they can expect in the event of a combat death. In all, 65 soldiers from Fort Hood have been killed since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Frank Buckley CNN, Fort Hood, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Don't say the 9/11 commission hasn't been busy. In just over a year its members have interviewed more than 1,000 people. Yesterday, of course, the president's national security adviser testified. How did she do?

CNN's Sean Callebs is here with that out of Washington, D.C. Sean, what's the word?

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, you mentioned a year's worth of work but arguably none got more attention than the three hours yesterday, Condoleezza Rice spending time trying to knock down the criticism of the Bush administration, how it reacted to terrorism before and after 9/11.

And, if numbers out in a new CNN-Time poll are accurate, the number of people in the United States who believe the administration did all it could are going up. At the same time, however, a full 60 percent of the people polled in the U.S. believe the White House did not have an al Qaeda strategy in place before the attacks.

Condoleezza Rice, generally receiving high marks in D.C. for the way she handled her testimony yesterday. Let's take a look at some of the numbers backing that up. Forty-one percent favorable, now look only 13 percent unfavorable but 43 percent of those people questioned unsure and why is that? Well, the next numbers tell the answer. What have you heard about Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission? One in five a great deal but only a little and not at all, add those two up, it is 56 percent of those questioned -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: What do you think, what will people remember most?

CALLEBS: Well it's interesting because a lot of people certainly are going to remember the testy give and take between Rice and some of the Democratic members of the commission but a lot of people will say the broadcast networks taking the unusual step to surrender the hours of lucrative morning TV. It allowed people to watch this unfold right in front of their eyes. The stakes are raised for the administration.

In large part, however, some media observers are saying the enduring image will be that of a cool, collected national security adviser defending the way the Bush administration did its job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD KURTZ, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Condoleezza Rice by and large looked confident and she made the common sense case, whether you agree with it or not, that there was no way for any administration to have anticipated these attacks on September 11, that yes, they didn't do all they could because there were problems in the functioning of the government.

The fine print and the caveats are going to get lost. What's going to last is the image and the image was of a national security adviser handling those questions, not getting rattled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CALLEBS: What's interesting, I called the Nielson folks today trying to find out the number of people in the U.S. who watched this on the broadcast networks yesterday and they said they don't keep a tab of the ratings for that because it's called sustained coverage, meaning no spots are going to interrupt this.

They said that the networks, the broadcast networks, ABC, NBC, CBS have to ask for this specifically. Only one did and that number, the Nielson folks say, will remain private.

PHILLIPS: Well, Sean, a number of people testified, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, did you get any scoop on what was asked or maybe what they said?

CALLEBS: Well, we can tell you the commission spent this morning talking to former Vice President Al Gore but yesterday spent three hours with former President Bill Clinton and the commission said they were pleased with the way he answered the questions, very useful information and we can tell you, Kyra, that we know the commission repeatedly asked about the way the Clinton administration responded to the attack on the USS Cole but what specifically came out of that we don't know.

PHILLIPS: All right, our Sean Callebs (unintelligible) on Washington there, thank you.

Now meet four widows who are driving the 9/11 investigation, turning their grief into action, demanding to know who left the country open to Osama bin Laden's message of death. Alina Cho visited them in East Brunswick, New Jersey.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You may think they're lifelong friends. They are not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know what, you have homework.

CHO: The four mothers never knew each other before September 11 but when all of them lost their husbands that day...

MINDY KLEINBERG, 9/11 WIDOW: We wanted to know how could this have happened, how could we live here and have been taken over by 19 terrorists from another country?

LORI VAN AUKEN, 9/11 WIDOW: 9/11 for us was a colossal failure, a failure of defense, security.

PATTY CASAZZA, 9/11 WIDOW: We reached out and found each other because we were like minded. We had burning questions.

CHO: Patty Casazza and Mindy Kleinberg joined with Kristen Breitweiser and Lori Van Auken to form a group of 9/11 families determined to find answers. The women hardly knew where to begin, hardly knew how government worked.

VAN AUKEN: I knew there were a couple of Houses. I knew the Congress was split between the Senate and the House but I didn't know which one had more, you know, members and now I know.

VAN AUKEN: We schooled ourselves. We have binders and binders of information filled with articles that we read on all of these subjects and nobody told us anything.

CHO: They lobbied hard for the creation of the 9/11 commission.

THOMAS KEAN, 9/11 COMMISSION CHAIRMAN: They're influential in everything. They really are. They're there. They work. When we need something they're on the spot.

CHO: They also pressed for the best witnesses and staged a walkout when Richard Armitage testified instead of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. When Rice finally came before the commission they were there. Now they want the president and vice president to testify before the American public.

CASAZZA: In a crisis situation, we need to know what the leadership of our nation was doing on that day.

CHO: The woman continue their work even though it means precious time away from their children. KLEINBERG: If we go to Washington we go for the day. We leave at four o'clock in the morning so that we could be back that night.

KRISTEN BREITWEISER, 9/11 WIDOW: We really did lose two and a half years with our kids.

CHO: This is their life now.

CASAZZA: We all take some measure of responsibility of what happened on September 11, you know, because we as citizens weren't watching our leaders. We weren't holding them accountable to us and in the future we can't ever let that happen again.

CHO: Alina Cho, CNN, East Brunswick, New Jersey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Other news across America, federal investigators called in today to help determine the cause of a gas refinery fire. An initial explosion triggered a secondary blast at the facility east of Gallup, New Mexico. Two workers remain hospitalized today in critical condition.

The best laid plans cannot prevent a flood in the mountains of Utah. After summer's wildfires scorched a nearby mountainside, the Forest Service coughed up $40,000 to try to prevent erosion. The plan was undone by several inches of rain on Tuesday. It flooded one basement and covered three yards with mud.

A freeway in Colorado rocked by an avalanche, Interstate 70 was closed for several hours as workers removed some healthy size boulders. No one was hurt by an 18-wheeler had to leave the road to avoid being hit.

Another amazing rescue only this time amateurs sprang into action.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were just hanging up there for the longest time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Parasailers in a panic after their rope snaps. We'll show you what happened later on LIVE FROM.

And we're covering the front lines in the fight for Iraq. Just ahead we'll talk with a former general about how U.S. forces can gain the upper hand.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

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(WEATHER FORECAST)

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PHILLIPS: One year ago it looked like the beginning of the end of a war in Iraq but today fighting has flared again with coalition forces battling insurgents in a number of cities.

Retired Air Force Major General George Harrison joins me now with a look at the hot spots. Let's start there and look at the hot spots, sir.

MAJ. GEN. GEORGE HARRISON, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): OK. As we look at the map, and I think that we can get a good picture of what's going on. The Sunni Triangle is the area that's been of most concern in the recent past.

But further on down south, Karbala of course is where we had the unfortunate situation with the American contractors who were killed and mutilated. Najaf is of great interest. Kut has some activity. Curiously enough the activity in Baghdad has been very quiet.

The northern third of the country, Tikrit, Kirkuk, Mosul, those areas have all been very calm and we heard in the briefing this morning that things are proceeding very well in those areas. What has not gone well, obviously as we've seen in the news, is the activity against the militia sponsored by the Shiite al-Sadr.

PHILLIPS: Let's talk about combating Sunnis and combating Shiites and if, indeed, you do that differently or do you do that in the same way?

HARRISON: Well, I think we do that in about, or the coalition is doing that in about the same fashion. It's still a security problem regardless of whether a Shiite or a Sunni is creating the issue.

There was some concern, of course, that there might be unification or unified action between the Shiites and the Sunnis. That does not appear to be coalescing. That doesn't appear to be happening.

Furthermore, the Shiites, as a group and of course they are the majority group in Iraq, the Shiites don't appear to be unifying themselves around al-Sadr. In fact, he appears to be a minority voice in the entire operation, even though with his reasonably well- coordinated militia he can generate significant security problems for the coalition as he works his thing.

PHILLIPS: General, there's been talk that the Shiites and Sunnis for the first time are coming together in this fight. Do you agree with that?

HARRISON: No. I personally don't see that happening. It would take some extraordinary events to see unified action between Shiites and Sunnis. The divisions between Shiites and Sunnis are significant and deep, intensified probably by the Sunni domination of Iraq during the Saddam Hussein regime. The Shiites were -- considered themselves and were, in fact, repressed and oppressed. As a matter of fact, we will see a holiday coming up. It's in progress now but the major portions of the holiday, the pilgrimage associated with the holiday are coming up this weekend and that's a holiday that really has not been permitted to be celebrated in Iraq for the last 20 or 30 years, about the last 30 years.

The holiday itself celebrates the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a grandson of Mohammed. This took place in the Christian era of the year 680, so it's an old holiday. It's an old celebration of this martyrdom and that demonstrates the fact that there is some degree of religious freedom going on now that's not been experienced in Iraq for the last three decades.

PHILLIPS: Well, we'll definitely be keeping an eye on the security situation with the holiday just around the corner, Retired Air Force Major General George Harrison, thank you.

HARRISON: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Other news around the world now making good or marking Good Friday rather. At St. Peter's Basilica, Pope John Paul II hears confessions and presides over Stations of the Cross symbolizing Christ's path to crucifixion.

In the Philippines, the suffering of the death of Jesus and real life passion, men willingly (unintelligible) nailed to a cross. This man has been doing it for 17 years. He says to atone, to purify and to honor a vow he took in 1989 after surviving a three-story fall.

And in Tokyo, protesters gathered outside the Japanese Parliament distressed by the kidnapping of three Japanese civilians in Iraq. They want Japanese troops to come home. The Japanese government says it won't give in to cowardly threats. Japan's troops are in southern Iraq to purify water and rebuild schools.

So how will the current flare-ups in Iraq affect the rest of the Middle East? We'll look at the big picture of the battle to win, not only a war, but the hearts and minds of a region.

And later at the end of their rope but at the mercy of the wind, parasailers in trouble when their cord snaps, we'll show you what happens.

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PHILLIPS: Iraq is in flux right now. Insurgents and coalition troops locked in a fight for control of that country. And, while U.S. troops work to restore order, the casualties are mounting. So, we want to back up, take a look at the bigger picture.

We're joined by Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, Michael good to see you.

MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Nice to be with you. PHILLIPS: You tell me you are a lot more nervous than you were a year ago, why?

O'HANLON: Well, I suppose all of us were nervous but clearly there was hope that as we got basic systems working in Iraq and Baghdad, electricity turned on, water working, that the population would be grateful for getting rid of Saddam and also for the restitution of some basic services and then we would get some of the bad actors, you know, arrest the people in the deck of cards and then things would start to turn.

That was the philosophy to which I ascribed my thinking back in the summer and early fall and some of that did happen and economic trends are actually pretty good in Iraq and I think the politics are actually going to proceed better than many fear.

However, the security situation just refuses to improve and, of course, in many ways it's gotten worse and without a good security environment it's hard to think that anything else is going to prevail so my optimism is very shaky right now.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's true. I mean looking at this video now, we remember when the statue was brought down there in the square, the statue of Saddam Hussein and we saw the images of the soldiers and Iraqis hugging and kissing and you saw such a unification and you were seeing a lot of positive images.

Now, it's a lot of death. It's a lot of demonstrations. What happened? Were there some mistakes made on behalf of politicians, military, where were the mistakes? I mean there had to have been some mistakes made somewhere.

O'HANLON: Yes. Well, first I want to say I think this would have been hard no matter what. But, secondly, yes there were bad mistakes made and the irony here is we went almost overnight from some of the most brilliant performance of our troops and their commanders and civilian leadership up until April 9 of last year.

From that date we went to some of the worst performance of the modern American military and its leadership in the couple, three months that followed the capture of Baghdad and the falling of Saddam.

We did not restore order on the streets. We let go of the initiative. We let Iraqis feel that this country was going to be a chaotic place that gave perhaps some motivation and encouragement to those who wanted to disrupt things. We really lost the momentum and momentum matters in counter insurgency operations.

Then, of course, we disbanded the Iraqi Army and didn't try to reconstitute it. We insisted on keeping control of Iraq ourselves instead of bringing the U.N. in. That fed into a lot of these Arab insecurities about the United States wanting to dominate the region.

It fed into a lot of conspiracy theories, which may be wrong, but they're quite prevalent and so the psychology of Iraq really went to a very brittle state almost in the immediate aftermath of the successful invasion. So, it was really from the very best to the very worst in a short period of time in the performance of the American military and the American government.

PHILLIPS: You mention the psychology of this. Let's talk about psychology back here in the United States and the thought process within the minds of Americans. One of your articles here talks about Central Command estimating or CENTCOM estimating the number of hardened insurgents at 3,000 to 5,000. However, coalition forces said to be killing or arresting more than 50 insurgents a day.

Now that's up considerably since the capture of Saddam Hussein. Do Americans understand that the numbers are still in favor of the U.S.?

O'HANLON: Well, I don't know but to be honest with you even though those are the numbers, the Pentagon doesn't fully believe them itself because if you just do the math and you say we have 3,000 to 5,000 hardened insurgents but we're arresting or killing 50 to 100 per day, you should win the war in a couple months. You should run out of enemy within a fairly short time.

That clearly has not happened, so either we're arresting some of the wrong people or there are more insurgents than we thought or a lot of the people that we're arresting are the ones just being paid $100 to go out and fire a rifle or fire an RPG. They aren't really the core of the resistance.

So, even if we're whittling away in some sense at the resistance, a lot of the hardened core remains and I'm afraid that may be a lot of what's going on here that we are arresting a lot of people but it's often just the opportunists who, the young men who have no jobs and no real hope and will do something nasty for $50 or $100 and meanwhile the real instigators remain elusive and hard to capture or kill.

PHILLIPS: Michael O'Hanlon with the Brookings Institution thanks for your insight.

O'HANLON: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Our fight for Iraq does continue with many new developments, a massive explosion in Baghdad to the heavy fighting in Kut, all the latest news from Iraq right after a break.

Also one town's fight to stop a movie about a deadly fire and why the movie company finally gave in.

You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Welcome back from the CNN Center in Atlanta. This is LIVE FROM. I'm Kyra Phillips.

Here's what all new this half-hour. Fighting fire and Hollywood. Families of fallen firefighters won a battle to keep their story out of movie theaters. Radio shock jock silenced, why some of you won't be hearing Howard Stern anymore. But he's not going away quietly.

Now the top stories we're following for you.

A mortar round rocks the heart of Baghdad near two hotels where Western journalists and civilian contractors normally stay. A U.S. soldier sent to investigate. A second mortar was fired, but it did not explode. No injuries are reported.

U.S. troops continue fighting to retake the Iraqi city of Kut. Two days ago, coalition forces withdrew after clashes with militiamen loyal to a radical cleric who launched a bloody uprising across Southern Iraq this week. In Fallujah, the fighting has stopped, at least for now. The suspension is to allow for talks between the coalition and fighters loyal to the radical Shiite cleric behind this week's spike in violence.

One U.S. soldier killed along with an Iraqi civilian when a fuel truck convy was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades. Later, a U.S. military supply has been ambushed on the road to Baghdad Airport. No word on casualties.

A top British official expressing dismay today at the state of affairs in Iraq a year after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is quoted as saying, "The lid has come off." In the past week, more than 50 American fighters have died in the past week in scenes reminiscent of the battles which preceded Saddam's ouster.

CNN's Stephen Frazier looks back to April 9, 2002, a day of triumph that hinted at the challenge to come home.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Goodbye, Saddam!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When the statue fell, that was when Iraqis started to believe, hey, it might be the end. Many people deep inside, they wanted to scream out and shout, viva, America! But that didn't happen because everyone was -- and they were all afraid, hey, he's coming back.

STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the streets of Baghdad, rumbling tanks, jubilant crowds, celebration, liberation, and chaos.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was an extraordinary sight for one who had covered Iraq in the past to see the center of the city teeming with American tanks and Marines.

FRAZIER: So far, so fast. It wasn't supposed to be this way. The battle for Baghdad was expected to be the big one. By April 9, however, U.S. tanks and armor were in the center of the Iraqi capital, taking charge and already running out of targets.

In the end, one image told the entire story. Saddam's rule was all but over. The noose has tightened, literally and figuratively. But even this poignant moment was open to interpretation. One simple gesture exposed the thin line between liberation and the fears of occupation.

FAWAZ GERGES, SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE: Many Arabs and Muslims, I would argue, were happy to see the tyranny is over. Yet, they were not convinced, because on Arab television stations, we saw an American man wrapping an American flag on -- around Saddam Hussein's face.

FRAZIER: The symbolism was not lost on the Pentagon either.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It was sort of uh-oh moment. Uh-oh, that's not the picture that we want to send. On the other hand, nobody was really too upset about it. That's what Marines do.

FRAZIER: While there was jubilation in some quarters of Baghdad, there was open warfare, even anarchy in others.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There was a certain euphoria that was contagious, that was passing from the people of the streets to the Marines in their vehicles, and then we came around one corner. And then suddenly, sideways, off to our left, there were several explosions. And those were RPG rounds or missiles coming, and then gunfire.

FRAZIER: Just blocks away from the dancing in Firdos Square, the 1st Battalion 7th Marines were engaged in a blistering firefight at Baghdad University.

SAVIDGE: It was just so odd to hear all the while in my earpiece people cheering, people celebrating and yet I thought from where we were at that moment, we stood a very good chance of dying amidst all of that joy.

FRAZIER: In the early hours of the new Iraq, Baghdad was a city of extremes, euphoria and firefights, life and death. Beyond the loss of life, there was another casualty of war, law and order. Baghdad descended into chaos.

AMANPOUR: It was wild that first week. Anything that anybody could get their hands on was taken. Even the soldiers we spoke to were quite stunned by what they had seen. They destroyed ministries. They destroyed warehouses. They destroyed all sorts of places, including hospitals. It was very violent in its intensity.

FRAZIER: Nothing seemed safe or sacred in Baghdad, not even history. In the orgy of looting, mobs ransacked the Iraqi National Museum, leaving Iraq's cultural heritage in pieces on the ground.

GERGES: These images have done a great deal of damage to America's campaign in Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back up, back up, back up.

GERGES: Why did the United States, many Iraqis and Arabs argue, make sure that the oil ministry is well-guarded and preserved? Couldn't the United States do the same thing to Iraqi museums?

MCINTYRE: This was one of the functions of succeeding faster than they expected. They didn't have enough troops on the ground to prevent all this looting. But a lot of that looting that took place took place while there was still fighting going on in the city.

SAVIDGE: In three short days, American troops had gone from heroes to reluctant policemen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only other way I could have stopped it was to start using force. And I'm not going to start using force on these people. I think they've had enough of that.

SAVIDGE: The battle for Baghdad was over, but the battle to win the peace had only just begun.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, you can see all the "CNN PRESENTS: The Road to Baghdad" this Sunday. It airs at 8:00 p.m.

And this just into CNN. We are being told that one U.S. soldier has been killed in Taji, just north of Baghdad. That's coming from the U.S. Army. In addition, we are also getting word that three more U.S. Marines have been killed west of Baghdad. That also coming to us from the military. Once again, three more U.S. Marines killed, one more Army soldier. We'll continue to follow all the news, of course, as it comes out of Iraq.

Well, cries of witch-hunt and government interference aside, the bottom line is, Clear Channel Communications has ditched shock jock Howard Stern. That moves comes after the FCC fined the company nearly a half-million dollars for indecent content.

Now more from financial correspondent Chris Huntington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Howard Stern's incessant banter about sex often with sound effects has earned him and the radio stations that carry him hundreds of millions of dollars.

HOWARD STERN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Beth said, first of all she said that she was in some pain for me (EXPLETIVE DELETED) her too hard.

HUNTINGTON: But the FCC said enough is enough and slapped a $495,000 fine on the nation's largest radio company, Clear Channel Communications, for Stern's remarks about anal sex carried on six clear channel stations in April of last year.

Stern reacted in a statement saying: This is not a surprise. This is a follow up to the McCarthy type witch hunt of the administration and the activities of this group of presidential appointees in the FCC, led by "Colin Powell, Jr." and his band of players. They and other are expressing and imposing their opinions and rights to tell us all who and what we may listen to and watch and how we should think about our lives. Stern has never been shy about lashing out on his program.

STERN: The people who are against us are organized. They have a clear agenda. They're as smart as Nazis.

HUNTINGTON: Clear Channel suspended Stern from its stations in February but dropped him completely after the FCC ruling. CEO John Hogan saying: Mr. Stern's show has created a great liability for us and that's a risk we're just not willing to take.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell was not in Washington for the ruling but fellow Commissioner Michael Copps said: Today's decision is a step forward towards imposing meaningful fines. For the first time, the commission assesses a fine against more than a single utterance, rather than counting an entire program as one utterance.

(on camera): The FCC also indicated in its ruling that it plans to seek enforcement action against Infinity Broadcasting. That's the Viacom unit that own "The Howard Stern Show" and puts it out on 35 radio stations. That fine could add up to $2.8 million. Infinity simply says it has no plans to take Howard Stern off the radio.

Chris Huntington, CNN Financial News, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Fear of the flu was spreading faster than germs last fall. Coming up, a look at how bad flu season turned out this year. Also:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was a horrific night. They lost their dads. Is it worth it? Is it worth to upset somebody's lives? And, you know, we didn't think so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: How a small town fought to stop a new movie about a fire that killed six firefighters.

And later, live from the Masters, the latest on Tiger Woods trying to crawl his way back into contention.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Moviegoers won't see the book "3,000 Degrees" come to screen on the big screen. It's the true story about six Massachusetts firefighters who were killed in a 1999 blaze. Hollywood executives scrapped the movie under pressure from the victims' families and other firefighters.

Reporter Jack Harper with affiliate WCVB has the story from Worcester, Massachusetts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't want to go back there. You know, that was a horrific night. They lost their dads. Is it worth it? Is it worth it to upset somebody's lives? You know, we didn't think so.

JACK HARPER, WCBV REPORTER (voice-over): The 1999 warehouse fire killed six Worcester firefighters and spawned the book "3,000 Degrees." Warner Brothers was planning a movie, but producers have caved in to pressure from firefighters.

FRANK RAFFA, WORCESTER FIREFIGHTER UNION LEADER: Our first step was on May 10, we were going to be up in Toronto and probably set up a picket line. And I don't know if there would have been quiet on the set.

HARPER: Raffa urged union brothers not to help in the production, not to lease equipment to moviemakers. Warner Brothers gave up, conceding, "Due to circumstances beyond our control, we no longer have such support."

(on camera): For some people here in Worcester over the past few years, since the fire, memories have faded away, but certainly not for the families. They're concerned the movie will bring back a lot of pain, especially for the children.

(voice-over): Michelle Lucy (ph) the day they buried her husband, Jerimiah (ph). She says her kids are her only concern now and she's glad the movie's been canceled.

RAFFA: You know, you have two firefighter in distress asking for help. I mean, you know, I don't know how they portray that on the big screen, but we don't need to go there. And the kids don't need to hear that.

HARPER: Raffa says the union may change its position when the children are grown. Then again, maybe not.

Jack Harper, Newscenter 5, Worcester.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Checking health headlines this April 9, remember lining up for those flew shots last fall and worries about vaccine shortages? Well, the CDC says the flu season was the worst in four years, but despite an alarming start, it tapered off quickly. And while deaths were above average, the CDC says the flu season was within the range expected.

Illinois may be ready to sue the Food and Drug Administration over prescription drugs. The state wants to import cheaper drugs from Canada to state employees and seniors. So far, the FDA has not responded to the state's request. Meanwhile, Iowa Senator Charles Grassley says he will introduce a bill to allow all Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canada.

And a new fertility technique might increase the chance of pregnancy and reduce the possibility of multiple births. Researchers are experimenting with implanting one slightly older embryo into the womb instead of multiple newly formed embryos.

When last scene at the Augusta National, Tiger Woods was crouched beneath a magnolia trying to hack his way out. Well, that was Thursday. This is Friday, round two of the Masters.

CNN's Josie Burke is there to give us the latest -- hi, Josie.

JOSIE BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra.

You can tell the weather's a lot nicer today. And Tiger's playing has been a lot nicer as well. Yesterday, very disappointing for him. He goes out and on the front nine, shoots a 40. He's already four over par at that point in time. He had to finish up his first round this morning. But his play has been a lot steadier. At this point in time, he's picked up a couple shots. He's two over par.

Yesterday, we were wondering if he was going to miss the cut. It looks like we can say safely now that Tiger will definitely be around this weekend. But 74-year-old Arnold Palmer will not. He's playing in his 50th consecutive Masters. He said before going into this it would be his last. And he is the big story today.

I can tell you out on the first fairway after he teed off this afternoon, there was thunderous applause as he made his way up the fairway. We were just watching him. He's going around the course acting exactly like Arnold Palmer has always acted here at Augusta. He is tipping his cap. He's waving. He's going over to the gallery. He's shaking hands. He's talking to people. He's clearly enjoying this.

And there are so many people who are following him right now, wanting to get that last glimpse of history as they watch him for the very last time on the Augusta National Course. There is a chance we could see him in the future, though, of course, because Hootie Johnson, the chairman of Augusta National, said that he would like to have him back as an honorary starter.

I can give you a little update on the leader board right now. Chris DiMarco is in the lead. He's still out on the course at six under. Justin Rose, the 23-year-old from England, who was the big story yesterday, he has fallen a stroke back, but he is still in the thick of things -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, what happened to K.J. Choi, one of the up- and-coming players doing well? And, as we know in golf, everything can really take a drastic turn, can't it?

BURKE: It has been a tale of two nines for K.J. Choi today. He goes out and he shoots, tying a record 30 on the front nine. And then he's made four bogeys on the back nine. So he's still under par, but it has been a real up and down day for him, the obvious high at the beginning and the low coming now. But he'll certainly be in the thick of things as well this weekend -- Kyra. PHILLIPS: Just quickly, how is Tom Watson doing, you know, with the death of his caddy? As we all know, they were extremely tight. He was a big influence in his life.

BURKE: Exactly. And his play hasn't improved much since yesterday. He was well over par yesterday for his round. With the death of Bruce Edwards, certainly an emotional time for him. He would have to scramble, but there's a chance he could still make the cut -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, Josie Burke live from the Masters, Thanks so much.

Well, a rescue effort at the bottom of the world. Coming up, the efforts to save Americans who are suffering serious health problems while stationed in Antarctica.

Also, a vacation goes poorly horribly for these two teenage girls. The parasail rescue efforts in Florida after a cable snapped.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Live pictures out of Washington, D.C. at the Basilica at the National Shine of the Immaculate Conception. It's good Friday, meditations and services taking place like this all across the world.

A daring mission under way to rescue sick Americans in Antarctica. Several Americans have fallen ill at McMurdo Station, the main U.S. research facility on the frozen continent. A U.S. transport plane is now in New Zealand. two crew will try to take off from McMurdo later today and eventually make its way back to the U.S. Travel to and from Antarctica is especially dangerous right now because of the extreme cold weather.

A scary rescue for two spring breakers in that Florida. Two Atlanta area girls were parasailing near Saint Petersburg yesterday when something apparently went terribly wrong.

John Thomas of CNN affiliate WFTS has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN THOMAS, WFTS REPORTER: What were you thinking when it snapped?

THERESA BLANEFORD, SURVIVED PARASAIL ACCIDENT: That I was going to die. I really did.

THOMAS (voice-over): This home video tells the story. The parasail Chelsea Waddell and Theresa Blaneford were on had broken away and was flying on its own.

THOMAS (on camera): When it snapped and whiplashed, what were you thinking?

BLANEFORD: I want down, pretty much. Like I was saying that pretty much the whole ride because it was really windy.

CHELSEA WADDELL, SURVIVED PARASAIL ACCIDENT: I fell off and the rope went around her leg.

THOMAS: You had to be terrified.

WADDELL: Oh, yes, very scared.

THOMAS (voice-over): But on the beach, people who saw what had happened started to react. Tim Vandort and one of his sons were two of the first to grab the line.

TIM VANDORT, RESCUER: My oldest son is -- he's 15. And he grabbed the front of it in front of me. And he was actually lifted right off the ground.

THOMAS: And then more came.

THOMAS (on camera): Looking down, seeing those people there...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was a relief.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like there were a 100 maybe, 100 people, like, you could see these people running from hotels, running from parking lots.

THOMAS (voice-over): The parasail operation is run we Get Wet Parasail or Gator Parasail. Other operators were amazed that they were actually flying on such a windy day.

(on camera): Were you shocked when you saw them still flying?

VICTOR RONCHETTI, FLY-N-HIGH: Yes, I was. They should not have been out there in the first place.

THOMAS: Were you surprised by what happened?

RONCHETTI: No.

THOMAS (voice-over): But everyone was surprised and very pleased at the joyous ending, especially the girls. And they had this message for all those who came to their rescue.

WADDELL: Thank you.

BLANEFORD: Thank you so much.

WADDELL: Really.

BLANEFORD: They saved our lives.

WADDELL: They really did.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Wow.

Well, there's much more ahead in the next hour of LIVE FROM, a soldier's sacrifice, how his family and community are dealing with the loss of life and a loved one.

Also, the sight and sounds of a tornado causes fear across the Midwest. What action some homeowners are trying in hopes of being able to survive a tornado.

And later, movie star Nia Vardalos from the film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," well, joins me on set to talk about her new movie getting rave reviews. And it's hysterical.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Welcome back to LIVE FROM. I'm Kyra Phillips.

Here's what happening this hour. A mortar was fired into central Baghdad today. It landed near the Sheraton Hotel and caused a large explosion. The hotel's tennis court area was damaged. No one was injured.

Fighting al-Sadr's forces in southern Iraq. Coalition troops continue to battle the militia of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in a handful of cities. An Army spokesperson say offensive operations are going well. He predicts U.S. forces will regain control of Kut within hours.

Candid and forthcoming, that is how the 9/11 Commission is describing its three-hour meeting with former Vice President Al Gore. The private talks came one day after former President Clinton appeared before the panel.

Double the time in space. NASA is considering a Russian proposal to increase the length of missions to the International Space Station. If approved, the two-person missions would last a year instead of the usual six months. The Russians came with the idea after President Bush proposed manned missions to Mars, which would require extend stays in space.

Our top story now, more casualties for the U.S. and Iraq. The U.S. military reports two more soldiers and a civilian truck driver were killed by insurgents.

Three more Marines were killed just west of Baghdad . With more now, here's CNN's Jim Clancy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Today, one year later, Firdos Square, where that statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled, things could be only described as quiet, well, almost quiet all day long, because it seems in mid-afternoon, a .120-millimeter mortar was fire by insurgents who wanted to make a point, and the point is that one year after toppling Saddam Hussein, the U.S. and the coalition cannot guarantee security even in the capital.

That they dropped that .120-millimeter mortar in the sporting club next to the Sheraton Hotel and the Palestinian Hotel that really serve as the headquarters for international media here was no mistake. It was meant to send a message that would be carried by the media, a message of defiance.

Meantime, a message of hope perhaps in Fallujah as the U.S. declared a unilateral cessation of offensive operations in that city. It is allowing time for negotiations to take place that might diffuse the situation. It also allowed the residents of Fallujah to bring in much-needed supplies of food, water and medical aid and in the words of the military commander here on the ground, it also allowed them time to tend to their dead and wounded.

Elsewhere around Iraq, more violence associated with Muqtada al- Sadr, the fiery young Shia cleric who has challenged the U.S. and coalition in so many cities across the south and even in parts of Baghdad. Those parts of Baghdad were calm, but U.S. forces counterattacked against his al-Mahdi Army, as he calls it, in the city of Kut. That engagement was going on but the U.S. coalition says that it believes it has the upper hand there.

In Nasiriyah, Italian forces are reinforcing their positions as well against the al-Mahdi Army. And it appears that another Shia militia that was also banned has been given the green light to engage the al-Mahdi Army in Karbala or Najaf. This is the Badr Brigades. It is a group that was formerly based in Iran and is well trained, well able to take on the forces of the al-Mahdi Army.

Many people in the south fed up they say with the unruliness, the unpredictability of Muqtada al-Sadr's militia. They are not happy with the way things are developing there at all. It could be that all of this is going to backfire on that young Shia militant because so many people in the south do not see him as an effective leader bringing about an improvement in their lives. That could be good news for the coalition. It remains to be seen what will come out of the talks in Fallujah, but U.S. military officials made it very clear, if those talks do not produce substantial results, they are going to resume the U.S. Marines' offensive in Fallujah.

That's the news from Baghdad for now. I'm Jim Clancy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, what a difference a year makes, sort of. It was one year ago today the world saw a statue of Saddam Hussein come tumbling down in Baghdad. Now fast-forward one year. The statue is still gone, but anti-U.S. Iraqi posted pictures of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in its place. U.S. soldiers later pulled them down. Al-Sadr has been a thorn in the coalition's side. U.S. troops have been facing off with his militia in Baghdad and southern Iraqi cities.

Oftentimes, all you hear are numbers, so many coalition troops killed, so much any wounded. Every one of them, though, someone's son or daughter, husband or wife. Army Sergeant Gerardo Moreno died on Tuesday, one of eight soldiers from Fort Hood killed this week.

His family talked with reporter Bert Lozano folks affiliate WFAA.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERT LOZANO, WFAA REPORTER (voice-over): Teresa Moreno made a promise to her husband, Sergeant Gerardo Moreno, that their two small children, Marisol (ph) and Dominique (ph), would always remember their father.

TERESA MORENO, WIDOW: He was truly dedicated to the service and to the Army. And he really wanted to go and be over there. His only concern was to make sure the kids were taken care of.

LOZANO: The 23-year-old died in Iraq by a rocket-propelled grenade in a battle to stop a growing anti-American insurgency.

SANDRA IRACHETA, MOTHER OF SGT. MORENO: Before he left over there, he told me that he knew he wasn't coming back. He had already prepared us for that, that he was going to be back, but he was going to be back in a coffin.

LOZANO: As family members recite the soldier's prayer, they find comfort knowing Gerardo died defending his country. Those who knew him say he had always dreamed of being in the Army and becoming a sergeant.

SHARON SYPERT, TEACHER OF SGT. MORENO: He was ready to fight for his country and he was ready to do anything and everything he could, but he didn't want his kids to be away from him for long.

LOZANO: Gerardo feared he would miss out on their childhood. Now Teresa will have to explain to them why their father will never come home.

MORENO: That was the only thing he really stressed before he left, is to make sure that they always remembered him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, 24 other soldiers from Fort Hood wounded Sunday in a firefight in Baghdad are expected home later today. President Bush is scheduled to spend part of Easter Sunday at that base.

News across America now.

Talk about a scary rescue. A woman in Southern California hurt her ankle and had to be carried to safety over some dangerous cliffs and raging waters. Luckily, no one else was injured.

Well, the cleanup isn't over yet in Utah. Heavy rains triggered mudslides near Salt Lake City this week. Some yards are still submerged in several feet of muck. Farther south, damage is being assessed after tornadoes swept through New Mexico. One twister touched down outside Roswell last night. At least one home was destroyed. No word of any injuries.

Finding a safe hideout when weather turns deadly is critical, especially if you live in a state where tornadoes are common.

Our Keith Oppenheim has more on the booming underground shelter business.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED BROWN, STORMESCAPE: When it really gets busy, I quit carrying it. I just can't.

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ed Brown says he can barely keep pace with all the calls.

BROWN: I had one lady tell me she'd pay me an extra $500 if I'd put her shelter in the next day.

OPPENHEIM: Brown's crew is putting in storm shelters nearly every day. That means cutting into the garage floor.

BROWN: How is that space over there?

OPPENHEIM: Then inserting a large tub in the hole.

(on camera): It's not a huge amount of space. About 7 feet long, five feet deep, but a shelter like this is big enough for up to eight people to climb down, huddle and wait unharmed as a raging tornado passes by. In Moore, Oklahoma, violent tornadoes hit twice in the past five years. In 1999, 44 people were killed.

DONI STEWART, HOMEOWNER: Saved lives of seven families.

OPPENHEIM: Doni Stewart was lucky to have a basement during that storm. Today she has a new house, but no cellar. So she's getting a shelter.

STEWART: One saved my life once before, and it's just peace of mind, comfort.

OPPENHEIM: The state of Oklahoma is offering some financial assistance to homeowners who install shelters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to be ready for it. It can happen at any time, during any time of the year. That's what most people don't realize.

OPPENHEIM: As for Ed Brown, he believes by protecting people from impact, he's making an impact.

BROWN: One young man called me, just almost in tears. He said, I want you to know your shelter saved my wife and I and our two babies lives last night. It's not just a job, it's saving people's lives. OPPENHEIM: Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Oklahoma City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Ceremonies marking one of the holiest days for the Catholic Church are taking place in Rome. Coming up, live coverage of the stations of the cross.

And later, switching gears, the star of one of the biggest movies of all time -- isn't that right, Nia?

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: She's talking about her new film based on the experience of, I guess you could say singing and dancing in a very unique way.

And one of prime-time's top stars has a baby. The latest on Debra Messing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: It's called PDB, the president's daily intelligence briefing. The 9/11 Commission yesterday questioned National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice about a PDB from August 2001. Now the White House is working to declassify that August 6 memo. Former CIA Director James Woolsey says declassifying the president's daily briefing is not a decision to make lightly.

He spoke on CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: The reason that the president's daily brief is so highly classified is that we always used to -- and I'm sure they've done this for years -- put a lot of material in it where it would help the president understand material about the source and the method by which the intelligence was collected. And most intelligence material doesn't have that. But you can understand a lot of things better if you know how it was obtained and exactly who it came from.

So, presumably, they will edit out anything that

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, on the same day Rice testified, former President Bill Clinton also found himself on the hot seat before the panel. Commissioner Tim Roemer says that President Clinton was very forthcoming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIMOTHY ROEMER, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR NATIONAL POLICY: The former president was very helpful, very effusive in recommending to us some major policies that we might look at to move forward toward a new paradigm against this jihadist threat. He was very open to some of our tough questions toward him as to what the Clinton administration did right and wrong. Some of us pressed him very hard on the USS Cole, or what they may have done right in terms of striking back after the African bombings in 1998.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: President Clinton testified for more than three hours during a closed-door session.

Perhaps no one listened to Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission than many of the relatives of the September 11 victims. While some were satisfied, others were clearly disappointed.

CNN's Kelly Wallace has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The only sound as Condoleezza Rice entered the packed hearing room, cameras capturing her every move. Families who lost loved ones listened intently, some not hiding their frustration. And then...

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE, 9/11 COMMISSIONER: Did you tell the president?

RICE: But it's important - it's important that I also address...

WALLACE: ...a handful of eruptions of applause from families who say they wanted more answers, like Henry and Elaine Hughes, whose son Chris worked in the World Trade Center.

ELAINE HUGHES, MOTHER OF 9/11 VICTIM: To say she's - they're the new kids on the block, they were only there for 233 days, that was the poorest excuse that I've ever heard.

WALLACE: Like the Hugheses, Mary Fetchet lost her son in New York and wanted to hear Rice take responsibility.

MARY FETCHET, MOTHER OF 9/11 VICTIM: She wasn't willing to admit that she had failed. I think it was shocking. Of course, every government agency failed.

WALLACE: But Rice had her supporters, like Hamilton Peterson, whose father and stepmother were on Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.

HAMILTON PETERSON, SON OF 9/11 VICTIM: It was evident that she truly was doing her best, at least to me, to tell the truth.

WALLACE: After Rice finished, families surrounded her, a few, like Peterson, thanking her for coming; others sending a very different message.

HUGHES: To tell her that her government wasn't doing enough, didn't do enough, and she didn't have a response. WALLACE: For some, many questions still unanswered.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Jessica Simpson at the top of the list. Coming up, find out exactly who thinks she's No. 1. It's kind of distracting. Wow, she looks like Faith Hill. Look at this.

And the big star from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," Nia Vardalos, joins me to talk about her new movie that's getting rave reviews.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right, you've witnessed a murder. Where do you go to hideout? How about a drag queen bar?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "CONNIE AND CARLA")

TONI COLLETTE, ACTRESS: Are you crazy!

NIA VARDALOS, ACTRESS: Why not?

COLLETTE: Because we're women.

VARDALOS: No one needs to know that.

COLLETTE: No way, Connie, no way.

VARDALOS: Ready? Smile.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: Ready or not, here they come. That's a scene from the movie "Connie and Carla," debuting in theaters across the country today. It's the brainchild of the woman behind the hugely successful "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," writer, executive producer, actress, now drag queen?

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: Nia Vardalos.

Great to see you.

VARDALOS: You, too. Thank you for having me here.

PHILLIPS: I hope we won't get in trouble, because you and I already have been kind of stirring things up here.

VARDALOS: I know. We've been very giddy over here. It actually opens April 16, the day after taxes.

PHILLIPS: Perfect timing.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: We'll all be depressed.

VARDALOS: Yes. And then you'll go, oh, I'm so Sadr. I wrote this check. Hey, wait, let's go laugh the next day. And it's my sister's birthday.

PHILLIPS: Happy birthday to your sis.

VARDALOS: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Is she with us here today?

VARDALOS: No, she's actually in L.A. waiting for me. My whole big fat Greek family is in Los Angeles. And they're waiting for me. I'm going to get off the plane and have Easter dinner with them.

PHILLIPS: And, by the way, she's not fat. You want me to actually get you to stand up?

VARDALOS: That's super nice. That's nice.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: All right, let's talk about the Oklahoma dinner theater that you used to work in. Is this sort of where the whole idea stems from?

VARDALOS: Actually, exactly from there.

I thought, I used to do dinner theater. My job was, I would bring everybody their rib eye steak and chicken pot pie and then get on stage and do "Oklahoma." And then during intermission, I had to get off stage with the rest of the cast and bus the tables and then bring them their choice of red, green or yellow dessert and whip cream it. And I thought, I should write about this some day. And I found out everybody loves a show tune.

PHILLIPS: Isn't that the truth?

So when did you write it? Was it at that time period? You just shoved it in a drawer, right? Then, all of a sudden, hey, Nia, what you got?

(CROSSTALK)

VARDALOS: I have a grocery list and this. You want to buy it? It was really -- I wrote it after "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," after I wrote "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," but before it was made. And I just kind of put it in a drawer and thought, no one's ever going to want to make the movie.

PHILLIPS: They wanted more. VARDALOS: Yes. And then we got to make it. And Toni Collette and I couldn't believe it. We were on the set every day dancing and singing. And it was so much fun.

PHILLIPS: Look at her.

All right, now, what was it like to dress in drag? You're looking a little sexy here. You feel a little more you?

VARDALOS: Yes, I love my curves. I love being, you know, a round girl, and I love the corset.

I loved -- I felt really sexy. I was walking across the set and the Teamsters...

PHILLIPS: A lot of lipstick..

VARDALOS: Yes. The Teamsters were like, woo-hoo, and I was like, I have glittery lipstick on, flirting with them. I didn't understand. I would rather be called funny than pretty. And in this movie, I found it was fun to be sexy. It was really fun.

PHILLIPS: Big hair, big eyelashes.

VARDALOS: Yes. Yes.

PHILLIPS: All right, also a very unique cameo. We want to roll a little something here and get to you react.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "CONNIE AND CARLA")

COLLETTE: Will you please be in our show?

VARDALOS: Yes, will you please be in our show? We open tonight so there's not a lot of time to rehearse.

DEBBIE REYNOLDS, ACTRESS: Oh, honey, I've got sheet music and gorgeous gowns and a good underwire bra. I could go on now. So, chins up, boobs up, it's showtime!

(singing): Even though the neighborhood thinks I'm trashy and no good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: What's it like to work with Debbie Reynolds? She is a hoot.

VARDALOS: Yes, she's really fun. We were going to try and keep it a secret, but I think once the drag community found out Debbie Reynolds is in the movie, it's out and everybody knows.

PHILLIPS: Really?

VARDALOS: Yes. She's an icon and she was really fun. She worked until 4:00 in the morning. We were dancing and singing. It was really a lot of work. And at one point, I was kind of like, whew, because the director said, OK, let's go again. And she was sitting in the audience as I was on the stage part of the set. And she went, so, Nia, you had to do a musical, huh?

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: That is great. Do you guys do lunch now? Do you hang out, do you sing together, do you do karaoke together?

VARDALOS: I would like to. Apparently, there's a restraining order. I'm not allowed to be that close to her house. Whatever.

PHILLIPS: You're stalking her. You're driving by, beep, beep.

VARDALOS: Oh, yes, she's a very generous, warm woman. This woman was a strong female before that was generally accepted in Hollywood and she is just one of my idols and I loved working with her.

PHILLIPS: And we were all talking about this. You do your own singing, right?

VARDALOS: Yes, we do our own singing, all us, yes.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: OK, so, we're going to roll a little clip here. We found this little karaoke number here. And let's see. There we go. Now, I'm going to test you. Let's hear it, sister.

VARDALOS (singing): I'm in a terrible fix. I always say come on, let's go, just when I ought to say nix. When a person tries to kiss a girl -- I can't hear it.

PHILLIPS: I love it. Are you kidding me? You are right on.

You've got to tell me, what kind of -- how is this going to compare to "Big Fat Greek Wedding"? Because that -- you just came out with a huge bang. And looking at this, this is absolutely hysterical. I can't wait to see the whole movie. Are you a little worried that maybe -- no.

VARDALOS: I don't live that way?

PHILLIPS: Is this going to be bigger and better?

VARDALOS: No, I don't even worry about that. I don't try to surpass "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." I feel like that happened to us, and it's this gorgeous thing that we just, we look at it, the whole cast, Tom and Rita, and we just can't believe it happened.

But with this, I just wrote from my heart with this. I wanted to do something about musical theater. And I found out that, during the test market screenings, we had guys with like a T-shirt and tattoo going, sure, I'd recommend this to my friends. And I thought, you know what? Everybody loves a show tune. I just hope the audience likes it.

And I really, really, I just don't live in a place of, you know, fear. I fear the real things, like losing my health and a family member and being on live TV without pants.

PHILLIPS: We weren't supposed to tell anybody about that.

VARDALOS: No one can see under here.

PHILLIPS: If you guys only knew.

Do you ever get sad? Are you always like this?

VARDALOS: You know, of course. Looking at the news and the state of the world, of course.

PHILLIPS: Yes.

VARDALOS: We're living in a state of absolute reality being in our faces everyday. People are living in real poverty and real despair. And I'm just trying to offer an hour and a half of an escape and go to a movie and laugh. And I'm not saying that we can solve the world's ills and problems with films, but I can offer you a bit of an escape.

PHILLIPS: Absolutely. And we can compartmentalize and have some fun. That's what your last movie did. I can't wait to see this one. Thanks so much for being with us.

VARDALOS: Thank you so much for having me here.

Now,, everybody, because I couldn't hear the other one, everybody at home, let's just sing a rousing rendition of "Tomorrow." Ready?

PHILLIPS: She's going to take us to break.

VARDALOS (singing): Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow. You're only a day away.

(LAUGHTER)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, it's Good Friday, a day of atonement and penance for Christians as they mark the suffering and death of Jesus.

We go now to the Vatican, where thousands of pilgrims and tourists gather to hear Pope John Paul II preside over the stations of the cross, live pictures now from the Coliseum in Rome, what an incredible picture.

CNN's Delia Gallagher joins me now by phone from Vatican City.

I know you can see these live pictures, Delia. Tell us what's going on and what's taking place now.

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good evening to you, Kyra.

This is the annual commemoration of the last hours of Jesus's life, otherwise known as the passion, which most people probably are familiar with by now. It's really a series of 14 meditations on the different stages of Jesus's -- leading up to his crucifixion, so when he carries the cross, when he meets his mother, when he falls with the cross, etcetera.

And what happens here is, the cross is carried through the Coliseum and up to the steps where the pope is sitting. And during that time, there's singing and a series of prayers being said. The people that are carrying the cross are representative of different nations, from Burundi, from the Caribbean, from all over the world. And the American representative is from Orange County in California, a priest from there.

And in the final station, you'll have a young girl from Madrid, of course, in a nod to the terrorist attacks there last month. She will be the last person to bring the cross to the foot of the pope, and he will do the last station -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Amazing pictures, Delia Gallagher joining us live from Vatican City, as we continue to watch these live pictures on Good Friday, the commemoration of the lord's passion. This is the Church of God in Rome guided by its pastor, a devotional practice of the way of the cross at the Coliseum. Pilgrims come from all over the world.

That does it for us here on LIVE FROM.

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 9, 2004 - 13:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A huge explosion rocked central Baghdad today. A mortar shell hit a shed near two hotels where western journalists and civilian contractors normally stay.
A U.S. soldier sent to investigate says a second mortar was fired but did not explode. No injuries are reported.

The White House is moving toward declassifying one of the president's daily intelligence briefings. The document in question is dated August 6, 2001, and it concerns the threat of attacks upon the U.S. by al Qaeda.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was questioned about the briefing by the 9/11 commission. Rice says there was nothing -- or nothing reassuring in that document.

A new CNN/"TIME" magazine poll done after Rice's testimony yesterday shows mixed results. It finds fewer Americans now think the Bush administration failed to do all it could to prevent the events of 9/11. But nearly two thirds think the White House had no strategy to take out al Qaeda before the attacks.

A year after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition is still trying to establish security and stability, anti-American sentiment is high and troops are facing constant danger. So what has changed in Iraq in the past year?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran has covered that war since day one for the "Washington Post." He joins us now live from Baghdad.

One year later, Rajiv, what's going through your mind?

RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN, "WASHINGTON POST": Well, it's a vastly different place. I rolled up here from Kuwait on April 10 to scenes of jubilant Iraqis celebrating their new-found freedom in the square behind me, as many of your viewers have seen time and time again. Those images of jubilant Iraqis with Americans helping to pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein.

Today, the capitol is such a different place, gripped by fear, many people staying indoors. Nobody really coming out to celebrate. If anything, angry calls from mosque minarets for an end to the occupation. Some scattered protests here and there.

You know, the U.S. military sealing off the square, the site of the great festivities a year ago today. Snipers on building tops. The soldiers and tanks guarding the area, threatening to shoot on sight people.

It's gone from a climate of happiness and relief a year ago to one of a lot of fear and uncertainty today. Iraqis aren't quite sure just what's going to be coming, be it next week or be it after this hand-over of sovereignty on June 30.

The U.S. is fighting this two-front war with Sunni insurgents to the west of Iraq and with Shiite militiamen, both in Baghdad and to the south of the capitol. And so it's a time of perhaps more uncertainty and fear than at any other point in the past year that I've been here.

PHILLIPS: You talk about uncertainty. But let's talk about the anti-American attitude.

I mean, I remember when the statue came down in Baghdad. I remember Iraqis and soldiers hugging each other and the Marines that were there in the square, rather, and the pictures of, you know, kissing each other. It was pretty incredible the images that we saw.

So where do you think all the anti-American type of attitude is coming from right now at this point?

CHANDRASEKARAN: Well, it's been a growing phenomenon. Truth be told, we started to detect some of it, you know, a week, a month after the liberation of the country, when Iraqis are frustrated that electricity wasn't coming on fast enough, frustrated at the lack of jobs.

There was a perception here that, once the Americans came in and toppled Saddam Hussein, that everything would return to normal or if not even better than normal, that they'd have jobs when they didn't. They'd have services that they never had for years.

And that started to build frustration. And then, you know, that's been sort of growing over these past many months.

And then in this sort of political vacuum, because it's still unclear just what sort of government will take over on June 30. Various forces are jockeying for power.

And one of the things that aspiring political and sort of other types of self-style leaders here, like this radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr have done, has been to try to inject themselves into the power vacuum by introducing a lot of anti-American rhetoric and trying to rally support and to show themselves as an alternative to the occupation.

Essentially saying to their followers and others, look, the Americans have been here for a year. What have they brought us? Our lives haven't improved. We need them out. We need a different form of government. We need to take charge of our own destiny.

That's coupled with a lot of calls from more hard line Muslim clerics, both Sunnis and Shiites, and including a handful of scattered sort of loyalists of former President Saddam Hussein.

So it's a volatile mix, all of these forces coming together. And it's just been building on each other month after month. And we've finally gotten to what seems to be sort of a breaking point today.

PHILLIPS: Rajiv Chandrasekaran with the "Washington Post," thanks for your insight today.

CHANDRASEKARAN: Sure.

PHILLIPS: Well, the deadly uprising in Iraq this week revealed the antagonism toward the U.S. -- We talked about that -- its allies and coalition policies.

On the first anniversary of Iraq's liberation, we examine the attitude a little more in depth of the entire Mideast region.

Professor Shibley Telhami is a Mideast scholar from the University of Maryland. He joins us now live from New York.

Sir, it's great to see you.

Let's talk about how you said we are still in this wishful thinking mindset. Tell us what you mean by that.

SHIBLEY TELHAMI, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: Well, you know, remember, I mean, aside from the attitude of Iraqis, which is obviously more problematic.

We had only one chance to make a good impression. We failed that. We weren't prepared for the day after. It's been an uphill battle.

But beyond that, regionally, remember, Iraq was supposed to be a model that inspires people, inspires democracy and also would demonstrate the U.S. is powerful and people would come to respect American power and, therefore, the U.S. would succeed politically in the region.

What's opened over the past year is that very few people believe that this was all about democracy. I mean, surveys I've conducted in the region believe most people don't trust American intention. Never believed this was about democracy to begin with.

And what they see in Iraq, despite the fact there are many good stories there, but what they see is the insecurity, the uncertainty, the bloodshed, the disintegration of the social order, all of which are frightening to them.

And no one wants to imitate that model. And authoritarian governments use that essentially to say "Is this what you want?" And I bet you very few people in the region want that model today.

PHILLIPS: Do you think it's less democratic than a year ago?

TELHAMI: Well, I think that if you ask Iraqis, and there have been surveys done, including by the State Department, there is no question that majority of the Iraqis are happy to rid themselves of Saddam Hussein, even with all the bloodshed that's going on right now.

But it's also clear that many don't. And we've seen that in some of the surveys, particularly in the Sunni Triangle.

The perception, nonetheless, in the region, not so much in outside, when we have a Hans Blix who is, of course, the arms inspector, Suede, highly respected, at least perceiving the situation in Iraq to be worse than it was under Saddam Hussein, regardless of the objective fact.

You understand, this is a prevalent perception. It's a prevalent perception in the Arab world. It's a prevalent perception in Europe and much of the rest of the world.

So it's not an inspiring model, and that's a problem for the U.S. right now.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's talk about perception. What about, from the aspect of Iran or Syria, another one, North Korea. Doesn't this war send a message to other countries that could be a threat internationally?

TELHAMI: Well, that's a really good question. And certainly that was one of the logic of this, that essentially the U.S. is asserting -- the U.S. is asserting its power in a way, going against the U.N. and still succeeding and removing a dictator. Doesn't that scare others?

And frankly, many governments were nervous, including governments in the Middle East were nervous to witness that. No one can see American power and not be somewhat nervous.

But more of them a year later are much more comfortable. They're comfortable because they see the U.S. as being actually weaker than it was a year ago. They see that we have over 100,000 troops.

We need other countries' help to help pacify Iraq. We're not about to engage in another war when we're spending $5 billion a month and a lot of troops. We're not about to engage in another war of choice.

No one doubts of our capacity to engage in a war of necessity, even under this environment. But the American public certainly isn't going to support another war of choice. And in that sense, most of them see the U.S. as being weaker and as needing them more than they need the U.S.

PHILLIPS: Mideast scholar Shibley Telhami, thank you for your time.

TELHAMI: Pleasure.

PHILLIPS: The war in Iraq differs from any other conflict in terms of its extensive coverage on television. But one television network has continued to be a thorn in the side of Washington for both its view and content.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wake up! Wake up! There's a war around you. Something is happening. This is the message of Al-Jazeera.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the Mideast everybody has a set of views of what's going on. And in the U.S. and the Western world there's a completely other view what's going on.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Al-Jazeera has a pattern of playing propaganda over and over and over again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rumsfeld is saying airing the footage of the captives is a violation of the Geneva Convention. What does he call Guantanamo Bay?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It benefits Al-Jazeera to play to their nationalism, because that's their audience, just like Fox plays to American patriotism for the exact same reason.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw a lot of journalists really struggling to try and figure out the truth and trying to figure out how to report in a way that was not biased.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't give you any better answer than that. Good try, though.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seems like there's an effort to manage the news in an unmanageable situation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We say it all the time. No spin. Don't spin in. and we catch ourselves doing it. I catch myself doing it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think every single journalist that I followed would say that they did have a point of view. But it's very, very difficult to report on a war without having a point of view.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am representing my station, but I am also representing my people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your journalists have a position on the war.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are any U.S. journalists objective about this war?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The debate and the discussion that happens after the film is just as important as the film itself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This word objectivity is almost a mirage.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, pars, birdies and grips. We'll tell you why this PGA golfer is taking time to tee up on the greens at Gitmo.

And this outspoken radio jock has been muted. But one company is sticking by his side.

Plus looking for ways to plump up your tush? The secret may be in the seams. We'll explore the lord of the pants when LIVE FROM returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANK LICKLITER, GOLFER: ... place better than that, right there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Teeing it up at Gitmo. We're used to seeing PGA Tour golfer Frank Lickliter at maybe Pebble Beach or the Masters. But he's been hitting back nines in some exotic locations.

He joins me now from Panderveger Beach (ph), Florida, to talk about the Masters tournament and just how many birdies he's nailed at Gitmo.

Good to see you, Frank.

LICKLITER: Nice to be here. Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's -- I think that's what caught our attention. I want to talk about the Masters, but let's talk about Guantanamo Bay and what got you there and why you decided to give a little golf clinic for the soldiers?

LICKLITER: A friend of mine was working down there. He was on six-week tours off and on every three months.

And you know he was telling me that he had a great little golf course down there: wasn't in great condition but it was a fantastic golf course. And how much that the guys loved playing.

And just, you know, they needed some sort of, you know, off time and that's one of the things, you know, that little golf course is very popular.

PHILLIPS: So did you let them beat you?

LICKLITER: No. No, I didn't.

PHILLIPS: You taught them a few things?

LICKLITER: Well, you know, we went out and had fun. And you know, we actually did work on some things, you know. Just subtle things, you know, around the greens. And you know, maybe a grip change here and there. Just, you know, to get them thinking about, you know, keeping it out of that deep rough gorse Bermuda where the lizards live down there.

PHILLIPS: Of course.

Then you headed over to play TPC at Sawgrass. You hooked up with another group of soldiers. Tell me about that. And I heard the custom camouflage Titleist caps are pretty cool, too.

LICKLITER: Yes, I had the Titleist hats made up a couple of months ago, and the guys that built TPC of Mosul were in town for about three or four days and had the opportunity to play with them out here two days after the tournament.

And I don't know which course is harder. But I think both golf courses impressed all the players.

Jesse, you know, the guy that built the course over there, fantastic guy. His commander and a couple of his friends, they just loved it, absolutely loved it. And the course was still playing about as hard as it did on Sunday at the TPC.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Well, talk about two different worlds: being a professional golfer and being in the military. Why do you admire those in the military so much? And make such an effort towards the men and women?

LICKLITER: Well, I have several friends that are actually in Iraq right now, and I actually got a call from one of them Sunday morning before I teed off, you know, just -- through my friends, I see what some of these guys go through, you know, with their families.

And it's just, you know, it's a small way for me to show my appreciation for how much these guys give up to protect us, to protect our freedoms.

And they allow me to live my dream, you know? Those guys are out there, doing what needs to be done to protect this country. And, you know, the American dream, I live it every day, you know? The opportunity to play golf for a living is just, you know, it is living a dream.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Talk about living a dream.

We'll switch gears a little bit and talk about the Masters coming up. You've had a chance to play in the Masters.

Tell our viewers just a significance, the history, and why it's such a wonderful experience to get a chance to play that course and be in that tournament?

LICKLITER: Well, the Masters was the idea of Bobby Jones, who was one of the...

PHILLIPS: That's one of our local guys here in Atlanta. LICKLITER: Sure. Sure. He's -- you know -- It was his idea -- for what his idea of what a fantastic golf tournament should be. And that's what it's been since -- since he built the golf course and started the Masters tournament.

After the sports writers coming up from spring training in Florida, it give them a chance to stop by and watch the best golfers in the world play on a magnificent golf course. It's a part of history.

PHILLIPS: All right, so finally, you know, I've got to ask you this. I kind of was ribbing you a little bit. Women at the Masters, what do you think?

LICKLITER: Well, with the way the rules are set up at the Masters, we might have a participant. Michelle Wie, she has a chance to win a men's event, and if she does, she will be a participant in the Masters.

PHILLIPS: There you go. Bolting that -- She can smack it plus 300, can't she?

LICKLITER: Yes, she can.

PHILLIPS: All right, now you promised me a lesson, so you'll come to Atlanta and help me out at some point?

LICKLITER: We can do that.

PHILLIPS: All right. That's a deal. And I promise I'll attempt to tee off from the whites, not the blues.

LICKLITER: You can play from whatever tees you want to.

PHILLIPS: All right. Frank Lickliter, thank you so much for joining us. Sure appreciate it.

LICKLITER: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Sayonara, Howard Stern. I hope that means good-bye to all his dorky little followers who like to prank the networks.

Clear Channel has permanently booted the shock jock from six of its nations. Clear Channel made the move after the FCC announced it would fine the company $495,000 for indecent content aired on his show. The decision won't affects Stern's program aired on stations owned by other companies.

Stern accuses the FCC of conducting a McCarthy type witch-hunt.

No stranger to controversy himself, Larry Flynt may be in for a fight in Ft. Lauderdale. City officials are upset because the owner of the "Hustler" magazine plans to open a store in a recently revitalized neighborhood.

The vice mayor says it would detract from the quality of life. City commissioners have changed zoning laws to make it harder for Flynt to open an adult-oriented store.

There's no comment from Flynt.

From zoning laws to the rear end zone. Is your derriere a little deflated? Or do you need more junk in your trunk? There's some new pants that can give your rear a pick me up.

CNN's Jeanne Moos shows off the Wonderbutt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You've heard of Wonder Bra and Wonder Bread. But Wonderbutt?

(on camera) Sort of a like a push-up bra for your butt?

(voice-over) Here is Jackie before she donned Wonderbutt pants, and here she is after.

Wonderbutt is being trademarked by the designers some call the lord of the pants, Alvin Valley.

ALVIN VALLEY, DESIGNER: They were actually christened Wonderbutt by Kate Winslet.

MOOS: The actress was trying on the pants when she came up with the name.

Do they live up to it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No butt is beautiful.

MOOS (on camera): Rate the rear end.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's nice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Curvaceous. Complete.

MOOS: All right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can I touch?

MOOS (voice-over): Nope, but you can check out the secret behind Wonderbutt.

VALLEY: A bubble at the butt by creating these darts.

MOOS (on camera): One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight darts and they're all kind of pushing...

VALLEY: Pushing the buttocks together.

MOOS (voice-over): Valley said he was inspired by the derriere of model Naomi Campbell. His background in architecture helped develop the darts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no added padding?

MOOS (on camera): No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, good.

MOOS: It's all real.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great.

MOOS (voice-over): But when the "before" is not bad it's hard to gauge the "after."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, they don't feel different at all.

MOOS: Wonderbutts won't be in stores until fall.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): You're a rich girl.

MOOS: You better be rich. Prices range from $350 to $800. A cheaper line of Wonderbutt denim will sell for 130 bucks.

Love saying that name.

VALLEY: Wonderbutt.

MOOS (on camera): Wonderbutt.

VALLEY: Alvin Valley -- Alvin Valley's Wonderbutt.

MOOS: Let's see your butt.

(voice-over) No wonder Valley is developing a line of Wonderbutts for men. No ifs, ands or Wonderbutts about it.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: All right. We're pulling up the rear here, second hour of LIVE FROM straight ahead.

His controversial conversation has gotten him booted off the air in some cities. But has the FCC gone too far? Don't tune us out. Indecency or freedom of speech? We'll have that debate coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Fighting and cease-fire in Iraq. The tricky battle to end rebellions. We're live from the Pentagon. SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Sean Callebs in Washington. The public reacts to Condoleezza Rice's three hours on the hot seat. We'll have that story coming up -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Shock jock Howard Stern yanked off six radio stations and slapped with a fine, but he's hitting back.

Fallen firefighters, why their families did not want Hollywood to tell their story.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

Our top story, the names and faces may change, but the story sometimes stays the same.

One year ago today, the world witnessed the symbolic toppling of Saddam Hussein when a statue fell in Baghdad. Today, it's Muqtada al- Sadr's turn. That his pictures are up in the first place is more symbolic than they're being taken down.

Al-Sadr's militia has been giving the U.S.-led coalition fits as the two sides clash in the battle for control of Iraq.

The uptake in violence this week seems to suggest that Iraq is more volatile than it was a year ago when Saddam's statue fell. For more, we're joined by Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you again, Kyra.

Well, the U.S. military saying it is bringing things under control in Iraq. But still plenty of areas of concern.

A couple of particular concerns. Indications now that the illegal militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, his forces are battling the illegal Badr Brigade, another illegal Shia militia in southern Iraq.

But in the city of al-Kut, that is the next city the U.S. says it is bringing under control in southern Iraq. Here, a number of strikes, but they now say they feel they will have control, coalition control of the city within the next several hours. That will be the next place to watch.

In the south, however, the cities of Karbala and Najaf still not under coalition control. The U.S. moved about 1,000 troops into southern Iraq from Baghdad to help with that.

In the west, in Fallujah, the Sunni heartland, the U.S. has indeed called a halt to offensive operations around Fallujah to allow humanitarian medical assistance into the city, allow the people of Fallujah to deal with their dead and their wounded but still there was trouble. Insurgents apparently attacking a convoy of the Red Crescent here that was trying to bring assistance into the city.

General John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, was in the Fallujah area earlier talking about the entire situation. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND CMDR.: One year later, we've got clearly a good size fight going on here in Fallujah with the Marine Corps and we've got other operations going on throughout the country against Sadr's militia.

It's certainly not the same level of intensity that we had during the movement phase of the war but it is a counter insurgency operation up here and it's an operation against an illegal militia force down in the south, a lot of military activity going on but still a level of activity that can be handled with the troops available.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: So, with all of this, Kyra, are more U.S. troops needed in Iraq? Well, every indication now that at least some elements of the 1st Armored Division, which were scheduled to return to their home base within weeks, it looks now like they may be staying an additional three months until they can deal with this situation -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Meanwhile, Barbara Starr, have you heard anything more about the mortar attack on the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad?

STARR: Well, that was a very loud bang, if you will, but thank goodness no one apparently injured in that, this mortar hitting next to a sports facility, at a sports facility next to the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad where, of course, much of the International Press Corps stays along with the Palestine Hotel nearby.

As you can see it impacted, created a big stir but no one hurt and not totally unexpected. Baghdad on quite the edge today as the Shia holidays approach, as tension remains very high in the capital.

PHILLIPS: Barbara Starr, live from the Pentagon thank you.

This has been a trying week for military families. News of U.S. casualties streams in daily.

National Correspondent Frank Buckley reports now from Fort Hood in Texas where people are feeling an enormous sense of loss.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was the single worst day of the war so far for Kaleen, Texas because it's home to Fort Hood, which lost seven of its soldiers in a single day in combat. Specialist Israel Garza won't be coming home to his wife and three children.

FRANK MATA, GARZA'S UNCLE: His 9-year-old son is having a hard time comprehending that he will no longer be seeing his father.

BUCKLEY: On Tuesday, an eighth Fort Hood soldier, Sergeant Herardo Mareno (ph) was killed. His mother... UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He told me that he knew he wasn't coming back. He had already prepared for that. He was going to be back but he was going to be back in a coffin.

BUCKLEY: It is the worst of times for a community that just a few months ago celebrated the best.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And guess what, they caught Saddam.

BUCKLEY: Soldiers from Fort Hood were credited with capturing Saddam Hussein. It was a high point of the war for people here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They caught Saddam.

BUCKLEY: Now a new low and an awful reminder that every soldier is potentially in harm's way.

LT. COL. BOB FORRESTER, U.S. ARMY: I'm not sure you ever can prepare anybody for an event like this when it happens and what you've got to fall back on is the training that you've received over the years.

BUCKLEY (on camera): That training for soldiers and their families, who learn in pre-deployment briefings, what they can expect in the event of a combat death. In all, 65 soldiers from Fort Hood have been killed since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Frank Buckley CNN, Fort Hood, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Don't say the 9/11 commission hasn't been busy. In just over a year its members have interviewed more than 1,000 people. Yesterday, of course, the president's national security adviser testified. How did she do?

CNN's Sean Callebs is here with that out of Washington, D.C. Sean, what's the word?

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, you mentioned a year's worth of work but arguably none got more attention than the three hours yesterday, Condoleezza Rice spending time trying to knock down the criticism of the Bush administration, how it reacted to terrorism before and after 9/11.

And, if numbers out in a new CNN-Time poll are accurate, the number of people in the United States who believe the administration did all it could are going up. At the same time, however, a full 60 percent of the people polled in the U.S. believe the White House did not have an al Qaeda strategy in place before the attacks.

Condoleezza Rice, generally receiving high marks in D.C. for the way she handled her testimony yesterday. Let's take a look at some of the numbers backing that up. Forty-one percent favorable, now look only 13 percent unfavorable but 43 percent of those people questioned unsure and why is that? Well, the next numbers tell the answer. What have you heard about Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission? One in five a great deal but only a little and not at all, add those two up, it is 56 percent of those questioned -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: What do you think, what will people remember most?

CALLEBS: Well it's interesting because a lot of people certainly are going to remember the testy give and take between Rice and some of the Democratic members of the commission but a lot of people will say the broadcast networks taking the unusual step to surrender the hours of lucrative morning TV. It allowed people to watch this unfold right in front of their eyes. The stakes are raised for the administration.

In large part, however, some media observers are saying the enduring image will be that of a cool, collected national security adviser defending the way the Bush administration did its job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD KURTZ, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Condoleezza Rice by and large looked confident and she made the common sense case, whether you agree with it or not, that there was no way for any administration to have anticipated these attacks on September 11, that yes, they didn't do all they could because there were problems in the functioning of the government.

The fine print and the caveats are going to get lost. What's going to last is the image and the image was of a national security adviser handling those questions, not getting rattled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CALLEBS: What's interesting, I called the Nielson folks today trying to find out the number of people in the U.S. who watched this on the broadcast networks yesterday and they said they don't keep a tab of the ratings for that because it's called sustained coverage, meaning no spots are going to interrupt this.

They said that the networks, the broadcast networks, ABC, NBC, CBS have to ask for this specifically. Only one did and that number, the Nielson folks say, will remain private.

PHILLIPS: Well, Sean, a number of people testified, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, did you get any scoop on what was asked or maybe what they said?

CALLEBS: Well, we can tell you the commission spent this morning talking to former Vice President Al Gore but yesterday spent three hours with former President Bill Clinton and the commission said they were pleased with the way he answered the questions, very useful information and we can tell you, Kyra, that we know the commission repeatedly asked about the way the Clinton administration responded to the attack on the USS Cole but what specifically came out of that we don't know.

PHILLIPS: All right, our Sean Callebs (unintelligible) on Washington there, thank you.

Now meet four widows who are driving the 9/11 investigation, turning their grief into action, demanding to know who left the country open to Osama bin Laden's message of death. Alina Cho visited them in East Brunswick, New Jersey.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You may think they're lifelong friends. They are not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know what, you have homework.

CHO: The four mothers never knew each other before September 11 but when all of them lost their husbands that day...

MINDY KLEINBERG, 9/11 WIDOW: We wanted to know how could this have happened, how could we live here and have been taken over by 19 terrorists from another country?

LORI VAN AUKEN, 9/11 WIDOW: 9/11 for us was a colossal failure, a failure of defense, security.

PATTY CASAZZA, 9/11 WIDOW: We reached out and found each other because we were like minded. We had burning questions.

CHO: Patty Casazza and Mindy Kleinberg joined with Kristen Breitweiser and Lori Van Auken to form a group of 9/11 families determined to find answers. The women hardly knew where to begin, hardly knew how government worked.

VAN AUKEN: I knew there were a couple of Houses. I knew the Congress was split between the Senate and the House but I didn't know which one had more, you know, members and now I know.

VAN AUKEN: We schooled ourselves. We have binders and binders of information filled with articles that we read on all of these subjects and nobody told us anything.

CHO: They lobbied hard for the creation of the 9/11 commission.

THOMAS KEAN, 9/11 COMMISSION CHAIRMAN: They're influential in everything. They really are. They're there. They work. When we need something they're on the spot.

CHO: They also pressed for the best witnesses and staged a walkout when Richard Armitage testified instead of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. When Rice finally came before the commission they were there. Now they want the president and vice president to testify before the American public.

CASAZZA: In a crisis situation, we need to know what the leadership of our nation was doing on that day.

CHO: The woman continue their work even though it means precious time away from their children. KLEINBERG: If we go to Washington we go for the day. We leave at four o'clock in the morning so that we could be back that night.

KRISTEN BREITWEISER, 9/11 WIDOW: We really did lose two and a half years with our kids.

CHO: This is their life now.

CASAZZA: We all take some measure of responsibility of what happened on September 11, you know, because we as citizens weren't watching our leaders. We weren't holding them accountable to us and in the future we can't ever let that happen again.

CHO: Alina Cho, CNN, East Brunswick, New Jersey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Other news across America, federal investigators called in today to help determine the cause of a gas refinery fire. An initial explosion triggered a secondary blast at the facility east of Gallup, New Mexico. Two workers remain hospitalized today in critical condition.

The best laid plans cannot prevent a flood in the mountains of Utah. After summer's wildfires scorched a nearby mountainside, the Forest Service coughed up $40,000 to try to prevent erosion. The plan was undone by several inches of rain on Tuesday. It flooded one basement and covered three yards with mud.

A freeway in Colorado rocked by an avalanche, Interstate 70 was closed for several hours as workers removed some healthy size boulders. No one was hurt by an 18-wheeler had to leave the road to avoid being hit.

Another amazing rescue only this time amateurs sprang into action.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were just hanging up there for the longest time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Parasailers in a panic after their rope snaps. We'll show you what happened later on LIVE FROM.

And we're covering the front lines in the fight for Iraq. Just ahead we'll talk with a former general about how U.S. forces can gain the upper hand.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER FORECAST)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: One year ago it looked like the beginning of the end of a war in Iraq but today fighting has flared again with coalition forces battling insurgents in a number of cities.

Retired Air Force Major General George Harrison joins me now with a look at the hot spots. Let's start there and look at the hot spots, sir.

MAJ. GEN. GEORGE HARRISON, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): OK. As we look at the map, and I think that we can get a good picture of what's going on. The Sunni Triangle is the area that's been of most concern in the recent past.

But further on down south, Karbala of course is where we had the unfortunate situation with the American contractors who were killed and mutilated. Najaf is of great interest. Kut has some activity. Curiously enough the activity in Baghdad has been very quiet.

The northern third of the country, Tikrit, Kirkuk, Mosul, those areas have all been very calm and we heard in the briefing this morning that things are proceeding very well in those areas. What has not gone well, obviously as we've seen in the news, is the activity against the militia sponsored by the Shiite al-Sadr.

PHILLIPS: Let's talk about combating Sunnis and combating Shiites and if, indeed, you do that differently or do you do that in the same way?

HARRISON: Well, I think we do that in about, or the coalition is doing that in about the same fashion. It's still a security problem regardless of whether a Shiite or a Sunni is creating the issue.

There was some concern, of course, that there might be unification or unified action between the Shiites and the Sunnis. That does not appear to be coalescing. That doesn't appear to be happening.

Furthermore, the Shiites, as a group and of course they are the majority group in Iraq, the Shiites don't appear to be unifying themselves around al-Sadr. In fact, he appears to be a minority voice in the entire operation, even though with his reasonably well- coordinated militia he can generate significant security problems for the coalition as he works his thing.

PHILLIPS: General, there's been talk that the Shiites and Sunnis for the first time are coming together in this fight. Do you agree with that?

HARRISON: No. I personally don't see that happening. It would take some extraordinary events to see unified action between Shiites and Sunnis. The divisions between Shiites and Sunnis are significant and deep, intensified probably by the Sunni domination of Iraq during the Saddam Hussein regime. The Shiites were -- considered themselves and were, in fact, repressed and oppressed. As a matter of fact, we will see a holiday coming up. It's in progress now but the major portions of the holiday, the pilgrimage associated with the holiday are coming up this weekend and that's a holiday that really has not been permitted to be celebrated in Iraq for the last 20 or 30 years, about the last 30 years.

The holiday itself celebrates the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a grandson of Mohammed. This took place in the Christian era of the year 680, so it's an old holiday. It's an old celebration of this martyrdom and that demonstrates the fact that there is some degree of religious freedom going on now that's not been experienced in Iraq for the last three decades.

PHILLIPS: Well, we'll definitely be keeping an eye on the security situation with the holiday just around the corner, Retired Air Force Major General George Harrison, thank you.

HARRISON: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Other news around the world now making good or marking Good Friday rather. At St. Peter's Basilica, Pope John Paul II hears confessions and presides over Stations of the Cross symbolizing Christ's path to crucifixion.

In the Philippines, the suffering of the death of Jesus and real life passion, men willingly (unintelligible) nailed to a cross. This man has been doing it for 17 years. He says to atone, to purify and to honor a vow he took in 1989 after surviving a three-story fall.

And in Tokyo, protesters gathered outside the Japanese Parliament distressed by the kidnapping of three Japanese civilians in Iraq. They want Japanese troops to come home. The Japanese government says it won't give in to cowardly threats. Japan's troops are in southern Iraq to purify water and rebuild schools.

So how will the current flare-ups in Iraq affect the rest of the Middle East? We'll look at the big picture of the battle to win, not only a war, but the hearts and minds of a region.

And later at the end of their rope but at the mercy of the wind, parasailers in trouble when their cord snaps, we'll show you what happens.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Iraq is in flux right now. Insurgents and coalition troops locked in a fight for control of that country. And, while U.S. troops work to restore order, the casualties are mounting. So, we want to back up, take a look at the bigger picture.

We're joined by Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, Michael good to see you.

MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Nice to be with you. PHILLIPS: You tell me you are a lot more nervous than you were a year ago, why?

O'HANLON: Well, I suppose all of us were nervous but clearly there was hope that as we got basic systems working in Iraq and Baghdad, electricity turned on, water working, that the population would be grateful for getting rid of Saddam and also for the restitution of some basic services and then we would get some of the bad actors, you know, arrest the people in the deck of cards and then things would start to turn.

That was the philosophy to which I ascribed my thinking back in the summer and early fall and some of that did happen and economic trends are actually pretty good in Iraq and I think the politics are actually going to proceed better than many fear.

However, the security situation just refuses to improve and, of course, in many ways it's gotten worse and without a good security environment it's hard to think that anything else is going to prevail so my optimism is very shaky right now.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's true. I mean looking at this video now, we remember when the statue was brought down there in the square, the statue of Saddam Hussein and we saw the images of the soldiers and Iraqis hugging and kissing and you saw such a unification and you were seeing a lot of positive images.

Now, it's a lot of death. It's a lot of demonstrations. What happened? Were there some mistakes made on behalf of politicians, military, where were the mistakes? I mean there had to have been some mistakes made somewhere.

O'HANLON: Yes. Well, first I want to say I think this would have been hard no matter what. But, secondly, yes there were bad mistakes made and the irony here is we went almost overnight from some of the most brilliant performance of our troops and their commanders and civilian leadership up until April 9 of last year.

From that date we went to some of the worst performance of the modern American military and its leadership in the couple, three months that followed the capture of Baghdad and the falling of Saddam.

We did not restore order on the streets. We let go of the initiative. We let Iraqis feel that this country was going to be a chaotic place that gave perhaps some motivation and encouragement to those who wanted to disrupt things. We really lost the momentum and momentum matters in counter insurgency operations.

Then, of course, we disbanded the Iraqi Army and didn't try to reconstitute it. We insisted on keeping control of Iraq ourselves instead of bringing the U.N. in. That fed into a lot of these Arab insecurities about the United States wanting to dominate the region.

It fed into a lot of conspiracy theories, which may be wrong, but they're quite prevalent and so the psychology of Iraq really went to a very brittle state almost in the immediate aftermath of the successful invasion. So, it was really from the very best to the very worst in a short period of time in the performance of the American military and the American government.

PHILLIPS: You mention the psychology of this. Let's talk about psychology back here in the United States and the thought process within the minds of Americans. One of your articles here talks about Central Command estimating or CENTCOM estimating the number of hardened insurgents at 3,000 to 5,000. However, coalition forces said to be killing or arresting more than 50 insurgents a day.

Now that's up considerably since the capture of Saddam Hussein. Do Americans understand that the numbers are still in favor of the U.S.?

O'HANLON: Well, I don't know but to be honest with you even though those are the numbers, the Pentagon doesn't fully believe them itself because if you just do the math and you say we have 3,000 to 5,000 hardened insurgents but we're arresting or killing 50 to 100 per day, you should win the war in a couple months. You should run out of enemy within a fairly short time.

That clearly has not happened, so either we're arresting some of the wrong people or there are more insurgents than we thought or a lot of the people that we're arresting are the ones just being paid $100 to go out and fire a rifle or fire an RPG. They aren't really the core of the resistance.

So, even if we're whittling away in some sense at the resistance, a lot of the hardened core remains and I'm afraid that may be a lot of what's going on here that we are arresting a lot of people but it's often just the opportunists who, the young men who have no jobs and no real hope and will do something nasty for $50 or $100 and meanwhile the real instigators remain elusive and hard to capture or kill.

PHILLIPS: Michael O'Hanlon with the Brookings Institution thanks for your insight.

O'HANLON: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Our fight for Iraq does continue with many new developments, a massive explosion in Baghdad to the heavy fighting in Kut, all the latest news from Iraq right after a break.

Also one town's fight to stop a movie about a deadly fire and why the movie company finally gave in.

You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Welcome back from the CNN Center in Atlanta. This is LIVE FROM. I'm Kyra Phillips.

Here's what all new this half-hour. Fighting fire and Hollywood. Families of fallen firefighters won a battle to keep their story out of movie theaters. Radio shock jock silenced, why some of you won't be hearing Howard Stern anymore. But he's not going away quietly.

Now the top stories we're following for you.

A mortar round rocks the heart of Baghdad near two hotels where Western journalists and civilian contractors normally stay. A U.S. soldier sent to investigate. A second mortar was fired, but it did not explode. No injuries are reported.

U.S. troops continue fighting to retake the Iraqi city of Kut. Two days ago, coalition forces withdrew after clashes with militiamen loyal to a radical cleric who launched a bloody uprising across Southern Iraq this week. In Fallujah, the fighting has stopped, at least for now. The suspension is to allow for talks between the coalition and fighters loyal to the radical Shiite cleric behind this week's spike in violence.

One U.S. soldier killed along with an Iraqi civilian when a fuel truck convy was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades. Later, a U.S. military supply has been ambushed on the road to Baghdad Airport. No word on casualties.

A top British official expressing dismay today at the state of affairs in Iraq a year after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is quoted as saying, "The lid has come off." In the past week, more than 50 American fighters have died in the past week in scenes reminiscent of the battles which preceded Saddam's ouster.

CNN's Stephen Frazier looks back to April 9, 2002, a day of triumph that hinted at the challenge to come home.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Goodbye, Saddam!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When the statue fell, that was when Iraqis started to believe, hey, it might be the end. Many people deep inside, they wanted to scream out and shout, viva, America! But that didn't happen because everyone was -- and they were all afraid, hey, he's coming back.

STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the streets of Baghdad, rumbling tanks, jubilant crowds, celebration, liberation, and chaos.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was an extraordinary sight for one who had covered Iraq in the past to see the center of the city teeming with American tanks and Marines.

FRAZIER: So far, so fast. It wasn't supposed to be this way. The battle for Baghdad was expected to be the big one. By April 9, however, U.S. tanks and armor were in the center of the Iraqi capital, taking charge and already running out of targets.

In the end, one image told the entire story. Saddam's rule was all but over. The noose has tightened, literally and figuratively. But even this poignant moment was open to interpretation. One simple gesture exposed the thin line between liberation and the fears of occupation.

FAWAZ GERGES, SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE: Many Arabs and Muslims, I would argue, were happy to see the tyranny is over. Yet, they were not convinced, because on Arab television stations, we saw an American man wrapping an American flag on -- around Saddam Hussein's face.

FRAZIER: The symbolism was not lost on the Pentagon either.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It was sort of uh-oh moment. Uh-oh, that's not the picture that we want to send. On the other hand, nobody was really too upset about it. That's what Marines do.

FRAZIER: While there was jubilation in some quarters of Baghdad, there was open warfare, even anarchy in others.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There was a certain euphoria that was contagious, that was passing from the people of the streets to the Marines in their vehicles, and then we came around one corner. And then suddenly, sideways, off to our left, there were several explosions. And those were RPG rounds or missiles coming, and then gunfire.

FRAZIER: Just blocks away from the dancing in Firdos Square, the 1st Battalion 7th Marines were engaged in a blistering firefight at Baghdad University.

SAVIDGE: It was just so odd to hear all the while in my earpiece people cheering, people celebrating and yet I thought from where we were at that moment, we stood a very good chance of dying amidst all of that joy.

FRAZIER: In the early hours of the new Iraq, Baghdad was a city of extremes, euphoria and firefights, life and death. Beyond the loss of life, there was another casualty of war, law and order. Baghdad descended into chaos.

AMANPOUR: It was wild that first week. Anything that anybody could get their hands on was taken. Even the soldiers we spoke to were quite stunned by what they had seen. They destroyed ministries. They destroyed warehouses. They destroyed all sorts of places, including hospitals. It was very violent in its intensity.

FRAZIER: Nothing seemed safe or sacred in Baghdad, not even history. In the orgy of looting, mobs ransacked the Iraqi National Museum, leaving Iraq's cultural heritage in pieces on the ground.

GERGES: These images have done a great deal of damage to America's campaign in Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back up, back up, back up.

GERGES: Why did the United States, many Iraqis and Arabs argue, make sure that the oil ministry is well-guarded and preserved? Couldn't the United States do the same thing to Iraqi museums?

MCINTYRE: This was one of the functions of succeeding faster than they expected. They didn't have enough troops on the ground to prevent all this looting. But a lot of that looting that took place took place while there was still fighting going on in the city.

SAVIDGE: In three short days, American troops had gone from heroes to reluctant policemen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only other way I could have stopped it was to start using force. And I'm not going to start using force on these people. I think they've had enough of that.

SAVIDGE: The battle for Baghdad was over, but the battle to win the peace had only just begun.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, you can see all the "CNN PRESENTS: The Road to Baghdad" this Sunday. It airs at 8:00 p.m.

And this just into CNN. We are being told that one U.S. soldier has been killed in Taji, just north of Baghdad. That's coming from the U.S. Army. In addition, we are also getting word that three more U.S. Marines have been killed west of Baghdad. That also coming to us from the military. Once again, three more U.S. Marines killed, one more Army soldier. We'll continue to follow all the news, of course, as it comes out of Iraq.

Well, cries of witch-hunt and government interference aside, the bottom line is, Clear Channel Communications has ditched shock jock Howard Stern. That moves comes after the FCC fined the company nearly a half-million dollars for indecent content.

Now more from financial correspondent Chris Huntington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Howard Stern's incessant banter about sex often with sound effects has earned him and the radio stations that carry him hundreds of millions of dollars.

HOWARD STERN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Beth said, first of all she said that she was in some pain for me (EXPLETIVE DELETED) her too hard.

HUNTINGTON: But the FCC said enough is enough and slapped a $495,000 fine on the nation's largest radio company, Clear Channel Communications, for Stern's remarks about anal sex carried on six clear channel stations in April of last year.

Stern reacted in a statement saying: This is not a surprise. This is a follow up to the McCarthy type witch hunt of the administration and the activities of this group of presidential appointees in the FCC, led by "Colin Powell, Jr." and his band of players. They and other are expressing and imposing their opinions and rights to tell us all who and what we may listen to and watch and how we should think about our lives. Stern has never been shy about lashing out on his program.

STERN: The people who are against us are organized. They have a clear agenda. They're as smart as Nazis.

HUNTINGTON: Clear Channel suspended Stern from its stations in February but dropped him completely after the FCC ruling. CEO John Hogan saying: Mr. Stern's show has created a great liability for us and that's a risk we're just not willing to take.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell was not in Washington for the ruling but fellow Commissioner Michael Copps said: Today's decision is a step forward towards imposing meaningful fines. For the first time, the commission assesses a fine against more than a single utterance, rather than counting an entire program as one utterance.

(on camera): The FCC also indicated in its ruling that it plans to seek enforcement action against Infinity Broadcasting. That's the Viacom unit that own "The Howard Stern Show" and puts it out on 35 radio stations. That fine could add up to $2.8 million. Infinity simply says it has no plans to take Howard Stern off the radio.

Chris Huntington, CNN Financial News, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Fear of the flu was spreading faster than germs last fall. Coming up, a look at how bad flu season turned out this year. Also:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was a horrific night. They lost their dads. Is it worth it? Is it worth to upset somebody's lives? And, you know, we didn't think so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: How a small town fought to stop a new movie about a fire that killed six firefighters.

And later, live from the Masters, the latest on Tiger Woods trying to crawl his way back into contention.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Moviegoers won't see the book "3,000 Degrees" come to screen on the big screen. It's the true story about six Massachusetts firefighters who were killed in a 1999 blaze. Hollywood executives scrapped the movie under pressure from the victims' families and other firefighters.

Reporter Jack Harper with affiliate WCVB has the story from Worcester, Massachusetts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't want to go back there. You know, that was a horrific night. They lost their dads. Is it worth it? Is it worth it to upset somebody's lives? You know, we didn't think so.

JACK HARPER, WCBV REPORTER (voice-over): The 1999 warehouse fire killed six Worcester firefighters and spawned the book "3,000 Degrees." Warner Brothers was planning a movie, but producers have caved in to pressure from firefighters.

FRANK RAFFA, WORCESTER FIREFIGHTER UNION LEADER: Our first step was on May 10, we were going to be up in Toronto and probably set up a picket line. And I don't know if there would have been quiet on the set.

HARPER: Raffa urged union brothers not to help in the production, not to lease equipment to moviemakers. Warner Brothers gave up, conceding, "Due to circumstances beyond our control, we no longer have such support."

(on camera): For some people here in Worcester over the past few years, since the fire, memories have faded away, but certainly not for the families. They're concerned the movie will bring back a lot of pain, especially for the children.

(voice-over): Michelle Lucy (ph) the day they buried her husband, Jerimiah (ph). She says her kids are her only concern now and she's glad the movie's been canceled.

RAFFA: You know, you have two firefighter in distress asking for help. I mean, you know, I don't know how they portray that on the big screen, but we don't need to go there. And the kids don't need to hear that.

HARPER: Raffa says the union may change its position when the children are grown. Then again, maybe not.

Jack Harper, Newscenter 5, Worcester.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Checking health headlines this April 9, remember lining up for those flew shots last fall and worries about vaccine shortages? Well, the CDC says the flu season was the worst in four years, but despite an alarming start, it tapered off quickly. And while deaths were above average, the CDC says the flu season was within the range expected.

Illinois may be ready to sue the Food and Drug Administration over prescription drugs. The state wants to import cheaper drugs from Canada to state employees and seniors. So far, the FDA has not responded to the state's request. Meanwhile, Iowa Senator Charles Grassley says he will introduce a bill to allow all Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canada.

And a new fertility technique might increase the chance of pregnancy and reduce the possibility of multiple births. Researchers are experimenting with implanting one slightly older embryo into the womb instead of multiple newly formed embryos.

When last scene at the Augusta National, Tiger Woods was crouched beneath a magnolia trying to hack his way out. Well, that was Thursday. This is Friday, round two of the Masters.

CNN's Josie Burke is there to give us the latest -- hi, Josie.

JOSIE BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra.

You can tell the weather's a lot nicer today. And Tiger's playing has been a lot nicer as well. Yesterday, very disappointing for him. He goes out and on the front nine, shoots a 40. He's already four over par at that point in time. He had to finish up his first round this morning. But his play has been a lot steadier. At this point in time, he's picked up a couple shots. He's two over par.

Yesterday, we were wondering if he was going to miss the cut. It looks like we can say safely now that Tiger will definitely be around this weekend. But 74-year-old Arnold Palmer will not. He's playing in his 50th consecutive Masters. He said before going into this it would be his last. And he is the big story today.

I can tell you out on the first fairway after he teed off this afternoon, there was thunderous applause as he made his way up the fairway. We were just watching him. He's going around the course acting exactly like Arnold Palmer has always acted here at Augusta. He is tipping his cap. He's waving. He's going over to the gallery. He's shaking hands. He's talking to people. He's clearly enjoying this.

And there are so many people who are following him right now, wanting to get that last glimpse of history as they watch him for the very last time on the Augusta National Course. There is a chance we could see him in the future, though, of course, because Hootie Johnson, the chairman of Augusta National, said that he would like to have him back as an honorary starter.

I can give you a little update on the leader board right now. Chris DiMarco is in the lead. He's still out on the course at six under. Justin Rose, the 23-year-old from England, who was the big story yesterday, he has fallen a stroke back, but he is still in the thick of things -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, what happened to K.J. Choi, one of the up- and-coming players doing well? And, as we know in golf, everything can really take a drastic turn, can't it?

BURKE: It has been a tale of two nines for K.J. Choi today. He goes out and he shoots, tying a record 30 on the front nine. And then he's made four bogeys on the back nine. So he's still under par, but it has been a real up and down day for him, the obvious high at the beginning and the low coming now. But he'll certainly be in the thick of things as well this weekend -- Kyra. PHILLIPS: Just quickly, how is Tom Watson doing, you know, with the death of his caddy? As we all know, they were extremely tight. He was a big influence in his life.

BURKE: Exactly. And his play hasn't improved much since yesterday. He was well over par yesterday for his round. With the death of Bruce Edwards, certainly an emotional time for him. He would have to scramble, but there's a chance he could still make the cut -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, Josie Burke live from the Masters, Thanks so much.

Well, a rescue effort at the bottom of the world. Coming up, the efforts to save Americans who are suffering serious health problems while stationed in Antarctica.

Also, a vacation goes poorly horribly for these two teenage girls. The parasail rescue efforts in Florida after a cable snapped.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Live pictures out of Washington, D.C. at the Basilica at the National Shine of the Immaculate Conception. It's good Friday, meditations and services taking place like this all across the world.

A daring mission under way to rescue sick Americans in Antarctica. Several Americans have fallen ill at McMurdo Station, the main U.S. research facility on the frozen continent. A U.S. transport plane is now in New Zealand. two crew will try to take off from McMurdo later today and eventually make its way back to the U.S. Travel to and from Antarctica is especially dangerous right now because of the extreme cold weather.

A scary rescue for two spring breakers in that Florida. Two Atlanta area girls were parasailing near Saint Petersburg yesterday when something apparently went terribly wrong.

John Thomas of CNN affiliate WFTS has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN THOMAS, WFTS REPORTER: What were you thinking when it snapped?

THERESA BLANEFORD, SURVIVED PARASAIL ACCIDENT: That I was going to die. I really did.

THOMAS (voice-over): This home video tells the story. The parasail Chelsea Waddell and Theresa Blaneford were on had broken away and was flying on its own.

THOMAS (on camera): When it snapped and whiplashed, what were you thinking?

BLANEFORD: I want down, pretty much. Like I was saying that pretty much the whole ride because it was really windy.

CHELSEA WADDELL, SURVIVED PARASAIL ACCIDENT: I fell off and the rope went around her leg.

THOMAS: You had to be terrified.

WADDELL: Oh, yes, very scared.

THOMAS (voice-over): But on the beach, people who saw what had happened started to react. Tim Vandort and one of his sons were two of the first to grab the line.

TIM VANDORT, RESCUER: My oldest son is -- he's 15. And he grabbed the front of it in front of me. And he was actually lifted right off the ground.

THOMAS: And then more came.

THOMAS (on camera): Looking down, seeing those people there...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was a relief.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like there were a 100 maybe, 100 people, like, you could see these people running from hotels, running from parking lots.

THOMAS (voice-over): The parasail operation is run we Get Wet Parasail or Gator Parasail. Other operators were amazed that they were actually flying on such a windy day.

(on camera): Were you shocked when you saw them still flying?

VICTOR RONCHETTI, FLY-N-HIGH: Yes, I was. They should not have been out there in the first place.

THOMAS: Were you surprised by what happened?

RONCHETTI: No.

THOMAS (voice-over): But everyone was surprised and very pleased at the joyous ending, especially the girls. And they had this message for all those who came to their rescue.

WADDELL: Thank you.

BLANEFORD: Thank you so much.

WADDELL: Really.

BLANEFORD: They saved our lives.

WADDELL: They really did.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Wow.

Well, there's much more ahead in the next hour of LIVE FROM, a soldier's sacrifice, how his family and community are dealing with the loss of life and a loved one.

Also, the sight and sounds of a tornado causes fear across the Midwest. What action some homeowners are trying in hopes of being able to survive a tornado.

And later, movie star Nia Vardalos from the film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," well, joins me on set to talk about her new movie getting rave reviews. And it's hysterical.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Welcome back to LIVE FROM. I'm Kyra Phillips.

Here's what happening this hour. A mortar was fired into central Baghdad today. It landed near the Sheraton Hotel and caused a large explosion. The hotel's tennis court area was damaged. No one was injured.

Fighting al-Sadr's forces in southern Iraq. Coalition troops continue to battle the militia of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in a handful of cities. An Army spokesperson say offensive operations are going well. He predicts U.S. forces will regain control of Kut within hours.

Candid and forthcoming, that is how the 9/11 Commission is describing its three-hour meeting with former Vice President Al Gore. The private talks came one day after former President Clinton appeared before the panel.

Double the time in space. NASA is considering a Russian proposal to increase the length of missions to the International Space Station. If approved, the two-person missions would last a year instead of the usual six months. The Russians came with the idea after President Bush proposed manned missions to Mars, which would require extend stays in space.

Our top story now, more casualties for the U.S. and Iraq. The U.S. military reports two more soldiers and a civilian truck driver were killed by insurgents.

Three more Marines were killed just west of Baghdad . With more now, here's CNN's Jim Clancy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Today, one year later, Firdos Square, where that statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled, things could be only described as quiet, well, almost quiet all day long, because it seems in mid-afternoon, a .120-millimeter mortar was fire by insurgents who wanted to make a point, and the point is that one year after toppling Saddam Hussein, the U.S. and the coalition cannot guarantee security even in the capital.

That they dropped that .120-millimeter mortar in the sporting club next to the Sheraton Hotel and the Palestinian Hotel that really serve as the headquarters for international media here was no mistake. It was meant to send a message that would be carried by the media, a message of defiance.

Meantime, a message of hope perhaps in Fallujah as the U.S. declared a unilateral cessation of offensive operations in that city. It is allowing time for negotiations to take place that might diffuse the situation. It also allowed the residents of Fallujah to bring in much-needed supplies of food, water and medical aid and in the words of the military commander here on the ground, it also allowed them time to tend to their dead and wounded.

Elsewhere around Iraq, more violence associated with Muqtada al- Sadr, the fiery young Shia cleric who has challenged the U.S. and coalition in so many cities across the south and even in parts of Baghdad. Those parts of Baghdad were calm, but U.S. forces counterattacked against his al-Mahdi Army, as he calls it, in the city of Kut. That engagement was going on but the U.S. coalition says that it believes it has the upper hand there.

In Nasiriyah, Italian forces are reinforcing their positions as well against the al-Mahdi Army. And it appears that another Shia militia that was also banned has been given the green light to engage the al-Mahdi Army in Karbala or Najaf. This is the Badr Brigades. It is a group that was formerly based in Iran and is well trained, well able to take on the forces of the al-Mahdi Army.

Many people in the south fed up they say with the unruliness, the unpredictability of Muqtada al-Sadr's militia. They are not happy with the way things are developing there at all. It could be that all of this is going to backfire on that young Shia militant because so many people in the south do not see him as an effective leader bringing about an improvement in their lives. That could be good news for the coalition. It remains to be seen what will come out of the talks in Fallujah, but U.S. military officials made it very clear, if those talks do not produce substantial results, they are going to resume the U.S. Marines' offensive in Fallujah.

That's the news from Baghdad for now. I'm Jim Clancy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, what a difference a year makes, sort of. It was one year ago today the world saw a statue of Saddam Hussein come tumbling down in Baghdad. Now fast-forward one year. The statue is still gone, but anti-U.S. Iraqi posted pictures of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in its place. U.S. soldiers later pulled them down. Al-Sadr has been a thorn in the coalition's side. U.S. troops have been facing off with his militia in Baghdad and southern Iraqi cities.

Oftentimes, all you hear are numbers, so many coalition troops killed, so much any wounded. Every one of them, though, someone's son or daughter, husband or wife. Army Sergeant Gerardo Moreno died on Tuesday, one of eight soldiers from Fort Hood killed this week.

His family talked with reporter Bert Lozano folks affiliate WFAA.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERT LOZANO, WFAA REPORTER (voice-over): Teresa Moreno made a promise to her husband, Sergeant Gerardo Moreno, that their two small children, Marisol (ph) and Dominique (ph), would always remember their father.

TERESA MORENO, WIDOW: He was truly dedicated to the service and to the Army. And he really wanted to go and be over there. His only concern was to make sure the kids were taken care of.

LOZANO: The 23-year-old died in Iraq by a rocket-propelled grenade in a battle to stop a growing anti-American insurgency.

SANDRA IRACHETA, MOTHER OF SGT. MORENO: Before he left over there, he told me that he knew he wasn't coming back. He had already prepared us for that, that he was going to be back, but he was going to be back in a coffin.

LOZANO: As family members recite the soldier's prayer, they find comfort knowing Gerardo died defending his country. Those who knew him say he had always dreamed of being in the Army and becoming a sergeant.

SHARON SYPERT, TEACHER OF SGT. MORENO: He was ready to fight for his country and he was ready to do anything and everything he could, but he didn't want his kids to be away from him for long.

LOZANO: Gerardo feared he would miss out on their childhood. Now Teresa will have to explain to them why their father will never come home.

MORENO: That was the only thing he really stressed before he left, is to make sure that they always remembered him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, 24 other soldiers from Fort Hood wounded Sunday in a firefight in Baghdad are expected home later today. President Bush is scheduled to spend part of Easter Sunday at that base.

News across America now.

Talk about a scary rescue. A woman in Southern California hurt her ankle and had to be carried to safety over some dangerous cliffs and raging waters. Luckily, no one else was injured.

Well, the cleanup isn't over yet in Utah. Heavy rains triggered mudslides near Salt Lake City this week. Some yards are still submerged in several feet of muck. Farther south, damage is being assessed after tornadoes swept through New Mexico. One twister touched down outside Roswell last night. At least one home was destroyed. No word of any injuries.

Finding a safe hideout when weather turns deadly is critical, especially if you live in a state where tornadoes are common.

Our Keith Oppenheim has more on the booming underground shelter business.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED BROWN, STORMESCAPE: When it really gets busy, I quit carrying it. I just can't.

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ed Brown says he can barely keep pace with all the calls.

BROWN: I had one lady tell me she'd pay me an extra $500 if I'd put her shelter in the next day.

OPPENHEIM: Brown's crew is putting in storm shelters nearly every day. That means cutting into the garage floor.

BROWN: How is that space over there?

OPPENHEIM: Then inserting a large tub in the hole.

(on camera): It's not a huge amount of space. About 7 feet long, five feet deep, but a shelter like this is big enough for up to eight people to climb down, huddle and wait unharmed as a raging tornado passes by. In Moore, Oklahoma, violent tornadoes hit twice in the past five years. In 1999, 44 people were killed.

DONI STEWART, HOMEOWNER: Saved lives of seven families.

OPPENHEIM: Doni Stewart was lucky to have a basement during that storm. Today she has a new house, but no cellar. So she's getting a shelter.

STEWART: One saved my life once before, and it's just peace of mind, comfort.

OPPENHEIM: The state of Oklahoma is offering some financial assistance to homeowners who install shelters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to be ready for it. It can happen at any time, during any time of the year. That's what most people don't realize.

OPPENHEIM: As for Ed Brown, he believes by protecting people from impact, he's making an impact.

BROWN: One young man called me, just almost in tears. He said, I want you to know your shelter saved my wife and I and our two babies lives last night. It's not just a job, it's saving people's lives. OPPENHEIM: Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Oklahoma City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Ceremonies marking one of the holiest days for the Catholic Church are taking place in Rome. Coming up, live coverage of the stations of the cross.

And later, switching gears, the star of one of the biggest movies of all time -- isn't that right, Nia?

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: She's talking about her new film based on the experience of, I guess you could say singing and dancing in a very unique way.

And one of prime-time's top stars has a baby. The latest on Debra Messing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: It's called PDB, the president's daily intelligence briefing. The 9/11 Commission yesterday questioned National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice about a PDB from August 2001. Now the White House is working to declassify that August 6 memo. Former CIA Director James Woolsey says declassifying the president's daily briefing is not a decision to make lightly.

He spoke on CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: The reason that the president's daily brief is so highly classified is that we always used to -- and I'm sure they've done this for years -- put a lot of material in it where it would help the president understand material about the source and the method by which the intelligence was collected. And most intelligence material doesn't have that. But you can understand a lot of things better if you know how it was obtained and exactly who it came from.

So, presumably, they will edit out anything that

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, on the same day Rice testified, former President Bill Clinton also found himself on the hot seat before the panel. Commissioner Tim Roemer says that President Clinton was very forthcoming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIMOTHY ROEMER, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR NATIONAL POLICY: The former president was very helpful, very effusive in recommending to us some major policies that we might look at to move forward toward a new paradigm against this jihadist threat. He was very open to some of our tough questions toward him as to what the Clinton administration did right and wrong. Some of us pressed him very hard on the USS Cole, or what they may have done right in terms of striking back after the African bombings in 1998.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: President Clinton testified for more than three hours during a closed-door session.

Perhaps no one listened to Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission than many of the relatives of the September 11 victims. While some were satisfied, others were clearly disappointed.

CNN's Kelly Wallace has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The only sound as Condoleezza Rice entered the packed hearing room, cameras capturing her every move. Families who lost loved ones listened intently, some not hiding their frustration. And then...

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE, 9/11 COMMISSIONER: Did you tell the president?

RICE: But it's important - it's important that I also address...

WALLACE: ...a handful of eruptions of applause from families who say they wanted more answers, like Henry and Elaine Hughes, whose son Chris worked in the World Trade Center.

ELAINE HUGHES, MOTHER OF 9/11 VICTIM: To say she's - they're the new kids on the block, they were only there for 233 days, that was the poorest excuse that I've ever heard.

WALLACE: Like the Hugheses, Mary Fetchet lost her son in New York and wanted to hear Rice take responsibility.

MARY FETCHET, MOTHER OF 9/11 VICTIM: She wasn't willing to admit that she had failed. I think it was shocking. Of course, every government agency failed.

WALLACE: But Rice had her supporters, like Hamilton Peterson, whose father and stepmother were on Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.

HAMILTON PETERSON, SON OF 9/11 VICTIM: It was evident that she truly was doing her best, at least to me, to tell the truth.

WALLACE: After Rice finished, families surrounded her, a few, like Peterson, thanking her for coming; others sending a very different message.

HUGHES: To tell her that her government wasn't doing enough, didn't do enough, and she didn't have a response. WALLACE: For some, many questions still unanswered.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Jessica Simpson at the top of the list. Coming up, find out exactly who thinks she's No. 1. It's kind of distracting. Wow, she looks like Faith Hill. Look at this.

And the big star from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," Nia Vardalos, joins me to talk about her new movie that's getting rave reviews.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right, you've witnessed a murder. Where do you go to hideout? How about a drag queen bar?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "CONNIE AND CARLA")

TONI COLLETTE, ACTRESS: Are you crazy!

NIA VARDALOS, ACTRESS: Why not?

COLLETTE: Because we're women.

VARDALOS: No one needs to know that.

COLLETTE: No way, Connie, no way.

VARDALOS: Ready? Smile.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: Ready or not, here they come. That's a scene from the movie "Connie and Carla," debuting in theaters across the country today. It's the brainchild of the woman behind the hugely successful "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," writer, executive producer, actress, now drag queen?

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: Nia Vardalos.

Great to see you.

VARDALOS: You, too. Thank you for having me here.

PHILLIPS: I hope we won't get in trouble, because you and I already have been kind of stirring things up here.

VARDALOS: I know. We've been very giddy over here. It actually opens April 16, the day after taxes.

PHILLIPS: Perfect timing.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: We'll all be depressed.

VARDALOS: Yes. And then you'll go, oh, I'm so Sadr. I wrote this check. Hey, wait, let's go laugh the next day. And it's my sister's birthday.

PHILLIPS: Happy birthday to your sis.

VARDALOS: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Is she with us here today?

VARDALOS: No, she's actually in L.A. waiting for me. My whole big fat Greek family is in Los Angeles. And they're waiting for me. I'm going to get off the plane and have Easter dinner with them.

PHILLIPS: And, by the way, she's not fat. You want me to actually get you to stand up?

VARDALOS: That's super nice. That's nice.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: All right, let's talk about the Oklahoma dinner theater that you used to work in. Is this sort of where the whole idea stems from?

VARDALOS: Actually, exactly from there.

I thought, I used to do dinner theater. My job was, I would bring everybody their rib eye steak and chicken pot pie and then get on stage and do "Oklahoma." And then during intermission, I had to get off stage with the rest of the cast and bus the tables and then bring them their choice of red, green or yellow dessert and whip cream it. And I thought, I should write about this some day. And I found out everybody loves a show tune.

PHILLIPS: Isn't that the truth?

So when did you write it? Was it at that time period? You just shoved it in a drawer, right? Then, all of a sudden, hey, Nia, what you got?

(CROSSTALK)

VARDALOS: I have a grocery list and this. You want to buy it? It was really -- I wrote it after "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," after I wrote "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," but before it was made. And I just kind of put it in a drawer and thought, no one's ever going to want to make the movie.

PHILLIPS: They wanted more. VARDALOS: Yes. And then we got to make it. And Toni Collette and I couldn't believe it. We were on the set every day dancing and singing. And it was so much fun.

PHILLIPS: Look at her.

All right, now, what was it like to dress in drag? You're looking a little sexy here. You feel a little more you?

VARDALOS: Yes, I love my curves. I love being, you know, a round girl, and I love the corset.

I loved -- I felt really sexy. I was walking across the set and the Teamsters...

PHILLIPS: A lot of lipstick..

VARDALOS: Yes. The Teamsters were like, woo-hoo, and I was like, I have glittery lipstick on, flirting with them. I didn't understand. I would rather be called funny than pretty. And in this movie, I found it was fun to be sexy. It was really fun.

PHILLIPS: Big hair, big eyelashes.

VARDALOS: Yes. Yes.

PHILLIPS: All right, also a very unique cameo. We want to roll a little something here and get to you react.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "CONNIE AND CARLA")

COLLETTE: Will you please be in our show?

VARDALOS: Yes, will you please be in our show? We open tonight so there's not a lot of time to rehearse.

DEBBIE REYNOLDS, ACTRESS: Oh, honey, I've got sheet music and gorgeous gowns and a good underwire bra. I could go on now. So, chins up, boobs up, it's showtime!

(singing): Even though the neighborhood thinks I'm trashy and no good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: What's it like to work with Debbie Reynolds? She is a hoot.

VARDALOS: Yes, she's really fun. We were going to try and keep it a secret, but I think once the drag community found out Debbie Reynolds is in the movie, it's out and everybody knows.

PHILLIPS: Really?

VARDALOS: Yes. She's an icon and she was really fun. She worked until 4:00 in the morning. We were dancing and singing. It was really a lot of work. And at one point, I was kind of like, whew, because the director said, OK, let's go again. And she was sitting in the audience as I was on the stage part of the set. And she went, so, Nia, you had to do a musical, huh?

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: That is great. Do you guys do lunch now? Do you hang out, do you sing together, do you do karaoke together?

VARDALOS: I would like to. Apparently, there's a restraining order. I'm not allowed to be that close to her house. Whatever.

PHILLIPS: You're stalking her. You're driving by, beep, beep.

VARDALOS: Oh, yes, she's a very generous, warm woman. This woman was a strong female before that was generally accepted in Hollywood and she is just one of my idols and I loved working with her.

PHILLIPS: And we were all talking about this. You do your own singing, right?

VARDALOS: Yes, we do our own singing, all us, yes.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: OK, so, we're going to roll a little clip here. We found this little karaoke number here. And let's see. There we go. Now, I'm going to test you. Let's hear it, sister.

VARDALOS (singing): I'm in a terrible fix. I always say come on, let's go, just when I ought to say nix. When a person tries to kiss a girl -- I can't hear it.

PHILLIPS: I love it. Are you kidding me? You are right on.

You've got to tell me, what kind of -- how is this going to compare to "Big Fat Greek Wedding"? Because that -- you just came out with a huge bang. And looking at this, this is absolutely hysterical. I can't wait to see the whole movie. Are you a little worried that maybe -- no.

VARDALOS: I don't live that way?

PHILLIPS: Is this going to be bigger and better?

VARDALOS: No, I don't even worry about that. I don't try to surpass "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." I feel like that happened to us, and it's this gorgeous thing that we just, we look at it, the whole cast, Tom and Rita, and we just can't believe it happened.

But with this, I just wrote from my heart with this. I wanted to do something about musical theater. And I found out that, during the test market screenings, we had guys with like a T-shirt and tattoo going, sure, I'd recommend this to my friends. And I thought, you know what? Everybody loves a show tune. I just hope the audience likes it.

And I really, really, I just don't live in a place of, you know, fear. I fear the real things, like losing my health and a family member and being on live TV without pants.

PHILLIPS: We weren't supposed to tell anybody about that.

VARDALOS: No one can see under here.

PHILLIPS: If you guys only knew.

Do you ever get sad? Are you always like this?

VARDALOS: You know, of course. Looking at the news and the state of the world, of course.

PHILLIPS: Yes.

VARDALOS: We're living in a state of absolute reality being in our faces everyday. People are living in real poverty and real despair. And I'm just trying to offer an hour and a half of an escape and go to a movie and laugh. And I'm not saying that we can solve the world's ills and problems with films, but I can offer you a bit of an escape.

PHILLIPS: Absolutely. And we can compartmentalize and have some fun. That's what your last movie did. I can't wait to see this one. Thanks so much for being with us.

VARDALOS: Thank you so much for having me here.

Now,, everybody, because I couldn't hear the other one, everybody at home, let's just sing a rousing rendition of "Tomorrow." Ready?

PHILLIPS: She's going to take us to break.

VARDALOS (singing): Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow. You're only a day away.

(LAUGHTER)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, it's Good Friday, a day of atonement and penance for Christians as they mark the suffering and death of Jesus.

We go now to the Vatican, where thousands of pilgrims and tourists gather to hear Pope John Paul II preside over the stations of the cross, live pictures now from the Coliseum in Rome, what an incredible picture.

CNN's Delia Gallagher joins me now by phone from Vatican City.

I know you can see these live pictures, Delia. Tell us what's going on and what's taking place now.

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good evening to you, Kyra.

This is the annual commemoration of the last hours of Jesus's life, otherwise known as the passion, which most people probably are familiar with by now. It's really a series of 14 meditations on the different stages of Jesus's -- leading up to his crucifixion, so when he carries the cross, when he meets his mother, when he falls with the cross, etcetera.

And what happens here is, the cross is carried through the Coliseum and up to the steps where the pope is sitting. And during that time, there's singing and a series of prayers being said. The people that are carrying the cross are representative of different nations, from Burundi, from the Caribbean, from all over the world. And the American representative is from Orange County in California, a priest from there.

And in the final station, you'll have a young girl from Madrid, of course, in a nod to the terrorist attacks there last month. She will be the last person to bring the cross to the foot of the pope, and he will do the last station -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Amazing pictures, Delia Gallagher joining us live from Vatican City, as we continue to watch these live pictures on Good Friday, the commemoration of the lord's passion. This is the Church of God in Rome guided by its pastor, a devotional practice of the way of the cross at the Coliseum. Pilgrims come from all over the world.

That does it for us here on LIVE FROM.

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