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Ten People Dead in Biggest Single Attack by Iraqi Insurgents Since Return of Self-Rule Last Month
Aired July 14, 2004 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Violence in Baghdad. The biggest attack since Iraqis took over sovereignty. We're live from that city.
Is Tony Blair off the hook? A British investigation into pre-war Iraqi intelligence points out serious flaws, but no deliberate deceptions.
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Kyra. The Senate has just rejected the gay marriage amendment. We'll talk about that this hour.
PHILLIPS: Ed Henry thank you. And, in Wisconsin live this hour, President Bush takes his bus tour to voters in America's dairy land.
From the CNN Broadcast Center in Atlanta, hello everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips. Miles is off today.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm here for him. I'm Carol Lin; CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
PHILLIPS: We begin this hour with a bloody holiday in Iraq. Ten people are dead in the biggest single attack by Iraqi insurgents since the return of self-rule last month.
An SUV crammed with explosives went off near Baghdad's Green Zone on the day that marks a 1958 coup against Iraq's last king.
Hours later came word that the governor of the northern city of Mosul is critically wounded, possibly worse, after an ambush. We'll get the latest now on all of this from CNN's Baghdad bureau chief, Jane Arraf -- Jane.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Kyra, the governor's office in Mosul now says that he is dead.
The governor, Usama Kashmoula was traveling in a convoy with heavy security, as is normal, between Mosul and Baghdad when, according to his office, gunmen opened fire.
One report quotes interior ministry sources as saying that a car pulled up alongside him, a grenade was thrown at his vehicle, and then the gunfire ensued.
Two other people traveling with him believed to be his bodyguards also appear to be dead.
Now this would be one of the highest-level assassinations that we have seen in many months. He was the governor of a very important province, ethnically diverse. One that has been quite turbulent lately, the scene of multiple car bombs and attacks on Iraqi police and others.
Again, the assassination of the governor of Mosul in the north of Iraq. That follows, of course, a suicide bomb that went off early this morning on this holiday. Outside the so-called Green Zone, that area that is supposed to be protected and relatively safe.
Now this was near a parking lot where there is usually a long line of Iraqis and a long line of foreigners waiting to get into areas associated with the Iraqi interim government. The U.S. and other former coalition members.
Ten Iraqis were killed and dozens wounded in this car bomb and it broke a two-week lull that has had many Iraqis hoping that they'd seen an end to most of the violence -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Jane, just quickly -- Governor Kashmoula -- I remember members of the 101st Airborne telling me that they met with this governor during Operation Iraqi Freedom. This was someone that was in support of democracy.
How much of an effect is this going to make on the area of Mosul and other parts of Iraq as a leader and as someone that a number of people look up to?
ARRAF: Well it's been quite an uphill battle, as you know, Kyra, in Mosul. We were there when the city fell and we were there when they elected -- when they appointed the first city government, really. The first city council in all of Iraq, and at that time, it was really a model of stability and prosperity.
Since then it's declined, as have other parts of the country. While the U.S. forces, as you know, have gotten hold of some of the insurgents, and cracked down on the local insurgency, this very worrying combination of insurgents and foreign fighters has grabbed hold in the past year, particularly in places like Mosul, which has seen some of the worst attacks.
This governor, obviously, like many officials, like all officials, and everyone who goes to work every day in Iraq, obviously a very brave man. He knew he was targeted, as they all do. This appears to have been a very professional assassination that was carried out -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Jane Arraf, live from Baghdad. Thanks, Jane. Carol.
LIN: Kyra, want to bring people up to speed on what's happening with the hostages in Iraq. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is still going ahead and bringing Philippine troops home, a deal she is making with terrorists to save a Filipino hostages life. The Philippine president is defying Washington by making this deal. The Bush administration is pressuring her to not cave in to terrorist demands.
Now, essentially, the Philippines is simply choosing to bring some of their troops home a little early and that might be enough to meet the kidnappers demands.
Now at last word, Manila has lowered the head count in Iraq from 51 troops to 43.
And then consider the state of American Marine Wassef Hassoun, who is heading home tomorrow. Now he still says he was kidnapped. The military is still questioning him, but first he's going to go through something called a repatriation process, meaning keeping the questioning very basic with him.
Hassoun was scheduled to arrive back in the United States today, but now it won't be until tomorrow. They had some plane problems over there.
Meanwhile, after dealing with the heat from last week's Senate Intelligence report, President Bush is going to focus on the economy to win back a state he barely lost to the Democrats back in 2000.
He's on a bus tour of Wisconsin and right now he's in Fond du Lac, where he's going to take questions from people at an aluminum company. We're going to have that live right here on CNN around 11:35 Eastern.
And at 2 p.m. Eastern, we're going to bring you a Democratic event in Iowa. John Edwards will be rallying followers in Des Moines.
It's his first solo campaign appearance since he was named John Kerry's running mate last week, and that's less than 60 minutes away.
PHILLIPS: Well jitters, maybe; cold feet, possibly; but the U.S. Senate just minutes ago essentially said "I don't" to the question of a constitutional amendment that would outlaw same sex marriage.
The engaging Ed Henry brings us chapter and verse -- Ed.
HENRY: Good afternoon, Kyra. That long-awaited vote finally came.
It was rejected; it was a procedural vote, not a direct vote, on a ban on same-sex marriage. Instead, that procedural vote needing 60 votes to proceed to the actual ban on gay marriage.
It only received 48 votes to proceed, 50 against. There were six Republicans like Senator John McCain joining Democrats in rejecting this motion.
The bottom line here is that in the short term, this is a political problem for Republicans. They were hoping to really score some points against Democrats on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. Instead, Republicans were divided on which amendment, which of two amendments, to actually use in this debate.
Also prominent Republicans like McCain, like Lynn Cheney -- all came out and said that they did not believe this was the right way to proceed, that an amendment, a constitutional amendment, went too far.
We also saw in this debate Democrats being very harsh saying that they believe this was basically gay bashing. You also had Democrats like Edward Kennedy saying today that he believes the Senate should be focused on -- on more important issues, in his mind, like homeland security rather than working on the issue that was not going anywhere. But Republicans like John Cornyn said there's nothing more important than protecting -- protecting traditional marriage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D) MASSACHUSETTS: The leadership is engaging in the politics of mass distraction by bringing up a discriminatory marriage amendment to the United States constitution that a majority of Americans do not support.
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R) TEXAS: For someone to stand up here and say that preservation of the traditional -- traditional marriage is not important enough for us to talk about to me is -- is breathtaking in its audacity and its sense of obliviousness to what the concerns are of moms and dads and families all across this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now there are two senators not voting. Some high-profile names, John Kerry, John Edwards. Both on the campaign trail instead.
What Democrats are saying is that since this was a procedural vote that was going to fail with or without Kerry and Edwards, they did not need to be here, but I can tell you that Republicans are vowing that they will make a political issue out of the fact that Kerry and Edwards, in their estimation, are ducking this issue and that's why they did not vote, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Ed Henry live from Capitol Hill, thank you.
Well from the furor over same-sex marriage to nature's fury in the Northeast, bad weather is making things tough for some air travelers.
(WEATHER REPORT)
LIN: We've got a lot of news across America now we want to tell you about. Tarzan's tiger is dead -- shot -- in Florida.
Officials say Bobo -- that's the escaped tiger -- was lunging at an officer. Now get this, the tiger's owner, Steve Sipek, actually played Tarzan in the movies. He says someone may have let the big cat out.
STEVE SIPEK, TIGER'S OWNER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) over him right now because he's still under them bushes where he slept all day. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) raise his head, they shot him five times -- five.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Three counties in southern California are on fire. Eighty homes have been evacuated in the Angeles National Forest because firefighters don't know where the fire is heading next.
And, a Pennsylvania man is fighting to get his driver's license back. Keith Emerich told his doctor he drinks at least a six-pack of beer a day. The doctor's told authorities, who then yanked his license.
PHILLIPS: Serious flaws but no blame game. A new report critical of British intelligence leading up to Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq. We're live from London on that.
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Rusty Dornin in Redwood City, California where attorneys for the news media are battling to keep the doors open for a crucial hearing in the Scott Peterson case. More coming up.
PHILLIPS: And some sleepy people count sheep. One man is betting you'll count out cash and hand it over in order to catch a nap in his invention.
We're not dreaming it up, we promise, later on LIVE FROM.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Britain's Tony Blair says he's taking responsibility for intelligence mistakes in the run up to the Iraq war. A highly critical independent report finds serious flaws in British intelligence reports.
The latest now from CNN's Diana Muriel in London -- Diana.
DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, indeed, the Butler -- the long-awaited Butler Commission made it's report today for six months or just under six months in the making.
And rather than pointing the blame at any specific individuals, it offers general criticisms of the way in which intelligence was gathered and evaluated and indeed presented by those -- by the government and by those connected to the intelligence agencies.
But no -- no damning criticism -- no criticism of the same level that we saw coming out of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee just five days ago, which talked about a global intelligence failure.
Immediately after the report was made public, Tony Blair was in the House of Commons and he made a statement to the House of Commons on the report and from the tone of his speech there you could see that he was relieved that he to the great -- to a great extent had been exonerated by the Butler.
This is what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: This report, like the Hatton Inquiry, like the report of the intelligence and security committee before it, and of the foreign affairs committee before that, has found the same thing -- no one lied, no one made up the intelligence. No one inserted things into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services.
Everyone genuinely tried to do their best in good faith to the country and circumstances (UNINTELLIGIBLE). That issue of good faith should now be at an end.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURIEL: Now this report, Sir Tony Blair conceded, will not end the arguments about whether or not it was justifiable to go war in Iraq. But Lord Butler in his report and his press conference skirted round the issue as to why his criticism of the intelligence-gathering operation here in the U.K. was not as damning as that of -- in the United States. He's answered specific questions on this and this was his reply to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LORD BUTLER, FMR. CABINET SECRETARY: We are less critical of the judgments, which were reached by the British intelligence machinery. That is correct. And the reason for that is that we think that those judgments were not unreasonable on the basis of the evidence.
Indeed, they were very widely shared by most other intelligence organizations in the world. But...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURIEL: Now, Lord Butler was interrupted at that point by hecklers and indeed it was the press that was at that conference and from the earlier press reports that are now being published in British newspapers, the "London Evening Standard," which is the main evening newspaper here in the capital which runs as its headlines, "Whitewash Two" the response seems to be that they are not very happy with the way in which Lord Butler has expressed his report.
They had been looking for more specific criticism to be leveled at individuals; the head of the joint intelligence committee, Sir John Scarlett, who helped put together this infamous dossier and others. That hasn't happened and the literal reaction has been one of unhappiness at the way in which Lord Butler presented his report. Back to you.
PHILLIPS: CNN's Diana Muriel live from London. Thank you. Carol. LIN: Well, Kyra, the Democratic ticket is using the bad intelligence reports to take on President Bush and both Kerry and Edwards like to talk about the two Americas, the haves and the have nots.
Well, it turns out democracy is more complicated than that. CNN's Tom Foreman takes a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The blockbuster movie "Passion of the Christ" supported strongly by conservative religious audiences has pulled in more than $600 million this year. At the same time, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the most successful documentary movie ever, heavily touted by urban liberal fans.
The twin accomplishments of these films offer a movie-going parallel to a theme of Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards. There are two Americas.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's one for all those families who have what ever they want, whenever they need it, and then there's one for everybody else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: Edwards is talking specifically about the economy, attacking a 20-year trend in which income for the wealthiest one percent of Americans has nearly tripled, while income for the poorest fifth has risen only 6 percent.
Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute does not believe this constitutes two Americas, but, he says, because some Americans are faring much better than others, many social divides have widened between races, genders, geographic regions as everyone competes.
JARED BERNSTEIN, ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE: I think the distribution of economic resources is a key factor explaining the kinds of divisions that we experience in this country.
In times when we're growing together --we -- I think there's a sense of shared purpose that alludes us when inequality is soaring.
FOREMAN: And then there is the big divide, values.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We stand for institutions like marriage and family, which are the foundations of our society.
FOREMAN: The ascendants of religious values as a decisive and divisive factor in politics is overwhelming, so much so that political analysts now say if a person regularly goes to a church, a synagogue, or a mosque, that person will probably vote Republican. WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POL. ANALYST: As the Republicans have assumed the mantle of speaking for what they call Americans of faith, all faiths, whereas Democrats have come to be the party that speaks for Americans for whom -- well religion is certainly important but not necessarily the central feature of their lives or politics.
FOREMAN: Does all of this make two Americas?
BERNSTEIN: I think there may be hundreds of Americas.
FOREMAN: What it certainly makes is a very hard time for moderate voters. Indeed, many moderates complain that extremists -- liberal and conservative and Democrat and Republican have hijacked the political process.
And those groups, moderates fear, will undermine whoever wins the election by defining him purely as one of us or one of them.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: And that's the debate here at home but overseas there was an angry reception to this country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty million loud.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: You're looking at the activists at the International AIDS Conference and they say they have 30 billion reasons to be critical of the United States. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta will have the story later on LIVE FROM.
Also ahead under a cloak of secrecy a football player speaks out to Congress about drugs in American athletics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: I'm Carol Lin, welcome back to LIVE FROM. Right now we're going to take you to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin where the president is talking with people there about terrorism and then the economy.
(LIVE EVENT)
BUSH: ... other nations to share intelligence, to cut off their money and to get them, bring them to justice.
Now, the other thing about being the president is when you say something you better mean it. I mean, one thing that is important about this job...
(APPLAUSE) ... so when I said if you harbor a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the terrorist, I meant it. In other words, part of making sure America's secure, is to deny the terrorists safe haven. And that's why I said to the Taliban, those are the folks that were running Afghanistan at the time, you know -- give up your -- give up al Qaeda. Get rid of the terrorist camps. They defied us.
And so we sent a coalition of troops led by a fantastic United States military to liberate the people of Afghanistan.
(APPLAUSE)
It's hard work. It's not easy work. But America has done hard things in the past and this is necessary work. And I want you to think about Afghanistan today. Three years -- compared to what it was three years ago.
Three years ago we had people living in a country run by barbaric, dim-viewed, ideologues.
So backwards that they wouldn't let young girls go to school. So backwards that they would whip women in public. So backwards that if you had a view different from their own, you would face serious consequences. That's the country -- and so weak that they were becoming infested by al Qaeda.
Today, Afghanistan has got a strong president; they're going to have elections this fall for the presidency. Young girls are going to school; the country is being rebuilt, and we've got an ally in the war on terror.
(APPLAUSE)
Another lesson of September the 11th is that this country must deal with threats before they fully materialize. In other words, before we can say -- before September 11, it was assumed that when we saw a threat, you know, we may have to deal with it, may not have to deal with it because we never dreamt the threats would actually come to our own homeland.
Now we know the nature of the enemy and we know the capacity of the enemy and therefore when we see a threat, we got to deal with it. First choice is diplomatically.
That's the first choice of the president -- any president must do -- let's see if we can't convince a country, for example, to change it's ways.
I saw a threat in Iraq. I'll tell you why I saw the threat in Iraq. First they had a leader that hated America. A declared enemy of this country.
Secondly, they had attacked their neighbors.
Thirdly, they had used weapons of mass destruction on their own people. Fourthly, there were terrorist connections inside Iraq. I mean, there was terrorist organizations. For example, Abu Nadal was a known terrorist and his organization found safe haven there in Iraq. As has other people.
A guy named Zarqawi, whose name is in the news. He's the -- there was a car bomb today in Baghdad. I suspect that Zarqawi ordered it. I don't know, but that's the nature of Zarqawi.
See, he'll kill anybody anywhere anytime to try to create fear and confusion.
At any rate, we looked at the intelligence presented to us and we saw a threat. I want you to remember that the United States Congress looked at the very same intelligence. Members of both political parties looked at the intelligence and they saw a threat.
We remember the lesson of September the 11th, we knew threats must be dealt with before they materialized and we saw a threat. The U.N. Security Council looked at the same intelligence and it saw a threat.
Now you might remember in September of 2002, I went to the United Nations. I said you called the man a threat over and over again. You've had resolution after resolution after resolution after resolution. We hope you don't become an empty debating society, we hope your word means something, so -- and they listened and they -- and we passed another resolution on a 15 to 0 vote. In other words, nations of the world came together and said to Saddam Hussein disclose, disarm or face serious consequences.
And that's the history. In other words, we put together, we tried to convince them diplomatically. So the world spoke and we said let the inspectors go in and see whether or not he's conforming to the request of the free world and -- history has shown that he was deceiving. There was a systematic deception, a campaign of deception going on.
In other words, we knew that he was deceiving the inspectors and we wondered why. What did he have to hide? What did the man who had used weapons of mass destruction? What did the man who had declared his hatred for America have to hide?
In other words, I had a choice to make at this point in time in history. Do I forget the lessons of September 11 and hope for the best? Do I trust the actions of a madman? Or do I take the action necessary to defend America? And given that choice, I will defend our country every single time.
(APPLAUSE)
It's been hard work. It's been really hard work. We've lost brave troops, and we mourn for every troop. In order to make sure that those who have sacrificed for a better world and a safer America, to make sure their sacrifice means something, we will complete our mission in Iraq, because a free Iraq... (APPLAUSE)
... because a free Iraq is in this country's interests. A free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East is in the interest of the United States of America. It's in our security interests. That freedom take hold in a part of the world where there is hopelessness and resentment, the ingredients necessary for the enemy to attract terrorist killers. That's what we want.
See, the long-term solution in this fight against an ideology that is opposite of ours, is to spread democracy and freedom. That's the long-term solution. That's what you're seeing taking place. The world is changing, because the leadership of the United States of America. Think of the world three years ago, Afghanistan was troubled. It's now free. We got a great leader in Iraq named Prime Minister Allawi. He's a tough guy, and he believes in the hopes and aspirations of the Iraqi people.
PHILLIPS: All right, President Bush speaking to a crowd in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. This is a state where he lost just by a hair, under 6,000 votes, to Al Gore back in 2000. He's speaking in the conservative suburbs to try to shore up his support in that state. Want to let you know also, we're going to be hearing from John Edwards from the Democratic ticket, the vice presidential candidate, running with John Kerry, at 2:00 Eastern. He's going to be talking live on the courthouse steps -- rather the statehouse steps in Des Moines, Iowa.
We have much more, so stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired July 14, 2004 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Violence in Baghdad. The biggest attack since Iraqis took over sovereignty. We're live from that city.
Is Tony Blair off the hook? A British investigation into pre-war Iraqi intelligence points out serious flaws, but no deliberate deceptions.
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Kyra. The Senate has just rejected the gay marriage amendment. We'll talk about that this hour.
PHILLIPS: Ed Henry thank you. And, in Wisconsin live this hour, President Bush takes his bus tour to voters in America's dairy land.
From the CNN Broadcast Center in Atlanta, hello everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips. Miles is off today.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm here for him. I'm Carol Lin; CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
PHILLIPS: We begin this hour with a bloody holiday in Iraq. Ten people are dead in the biggest single attack by Iraqi insurgents since the return of self-rule last month.
An SUV crammed with explosives went off near Baghdad's Green Zone on the day that marks a 1958 coup against Iraq's last king.
Hours later came word that the governor of the northern city of Mosul is critically wounded, possibly worse, after an ambush. We'll get the latest now on all of this from CNN's Baghdad bureau chief, Jane Arraf -- Jane.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Kyra, the governor's office in Mosul now says that he is dead.
The governor, Usama Kashmoula was traveling in a convoy with heavy security, as is normal, between Mosul and Baghdad when, according to his office, gunmen opened fire.
One report quotes interior ministry sources as saying that a car pulled up alongside him, a grenade was thrown at his vehicle, and then the gunfire ensued.
Two other people traveling with him believed to be his bodyguards also appear to be dead.
Now this would be one of the highest-level assassinations that we have seen in many months. He was the governor of a very important province, ethnically diverse. One that has been quite turbulent lately, the scene of multiple car bombs and attacks on Iraqi police and others.
Again, the assassination of the governor of Mosul in the north of Iraq. That follows, of course, a suicide bomb that went off early this morning on this holiday. Outside the so-called Green Zone, that area that is supposed to be protected and relatively safe.
Now this was near a parking lot where there is usually a long line of Iraqis and a long line of foreigners waiting to get into areas associated with the Iraqi interim government. The U.S. and other former coalition members.
Ten Iraqis were killed and dozens wounded in this car bomb and it broke a two-week lull that has had many Iraqis hoping that they'd seen an end to most of the violence -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Jane, just quickly -- Governor Kashmoula -- I remember members of the 101st Airborne telling me that they met with this governor during Operation Iraqi Freedom. This was someone that was in support of democracy.
How much of an effect is this going to make on the area of Mosul and other parts of Iraq as a leader and as someone that a number of people look up to?
ARRAF: Well it's been quite an uphill battle, as you know, Kyra, in Mosul. We were there when the city fell and we were there when they elected -- when they appointed the first city government, really. The first city council in all of Iraq, and at that time, it was really a model of stability and prosperity.
Since then it's declined, as have other parts of the country. While the U.S. forces, as you know, have gotten hold of some of the insurgents, and cracked down on the local insurgency, this very worrying combination of insurgents and foreign fighters has grabbed hold in the past year, particularly in places like Mosul, which has seen some of the worst attacks.
This governor, obviously, like many officials, like all officials, and everyone who goes to work every day in Iraq, obviously a very brave man. He knew he was targeted, as they all do. This appears to have been a very professional assassination that was carried out -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Jane Arraf, live from Baghdad. Thanks, Jane. Carol.
LIN: Kyra, want to bring people up to speed on what's happening with the hostages in Iraq. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is still going ahead and bringing Philippine troops home, a deal she is making with terrorists to save a Filipino hostages life. The Philippine president is defying Washington by making this deal. The Bush administration is pressuring her to not cave in to terrorist demands.
Now, essentially, the Philippines is simply choosing to bring some of their troops home a little early and that might be enough to meet the kidnappers demands.
Now at last word, Manila has lowered the head count in Iraq from 51 troops to 43.
And then consider the state of American Marine Wassef Hassoun, who is heading home tomorrow. Now he still says he was kidnapped. The military is still questioning him, but first he's going to go through something called a repatriation process, meaning keeping the questioning very basic with him.
Hassoun was scheduled to arrive back in the United States today, but now it won't be until tomorrow. They had some plane problems over there.
Meanwhile, after dealing with the heat from last week's Senate Intelligence report, President Bush is going to focus on the economy to win back a state he barely lost to the Democrats back in 2000.
He's on a bus tour of Wisconsin and right now he's in Fond du Lac, where he's going to take questions from people at an aluminum company. We're going to have that live right here on CNN around 11:35 Eastern.
And at 2 p.m. Eastern, we're going to bring you a Democratic event in Iowa. John Edwards will be rallying followers in Des Moines.
It's his first solo campaign appearance since he was named John Kerry's running mate last week, and that's less than 60 minutes away.
PHILLIPS: Well jitters, maybe; cold feet, possibly; but the U.S. Senate just minutes ago essentially said "I don't" to the question of a constitutional amendment that would outlaw same sex marriage.
The engaging Ed Henry brings us chapter and verse -- Ed.
HENRY: Good afternoon, Kyra. That long-awaited vote finally came.
It was rejected; it was a procedural vote, not a direct vote, on a ban on same-sex marriage. Instead, that procedural vote needing 60 votes to proceed to the actual ban on gay marriage.
It only received 48 votes to proceed, 50 against. There were six Republicans like Senator John McCain joining Democrats in rejecting this motion.
The bottom line here is that in the short term, this is a political problem for Republicans. They were hoping to really score some points against Democrats on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. Instead, Republicans were divided on which amendment, which of two amendments, to actually use in this debate.
Also prominent Republicans like McCain, like Lynn Cheney -- all came out and said that they did not believe this was the right way to proceed, that an amendment, a constitutional amendment, went too far.
We also saw in this debate Democrats being very harsh saying that they believe this was basically gay bashing. You also had Democrats like Edward Kennedy saying today that he believes the Senate should be focused on -- on more important issues, in his mind, like homeland security rather than working on the issue that was not going anywhere. But Republicans like John Cornyn said there's nothing more important than protecting -- protecting traditional marriage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D) MASSACHUSETTS: The leadership is engaging in the politics of mass distraction by bringing up a discriminatory marriage amendment to the United States constitution that a majority of Americans do not support.
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R) TEXAS: For someone to stand up here and say that preservation of the traditional -- traditional marriage is not important enough for us to talk about to me is -- is breathtaking in its audacity and its sense of obliviousness to what the concerns are of moms and dads and families all across this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now there are two senators not voting. Some high-profile names, John Kerry, John Edwards. Both on the campaign trail instead.
What Democrats are saying is that since this was a procedural vote that was going to fail with or without Kerry and Edwards, they did not need to be here, but I can tell you that Republicans are vowing that they will make a political issue out of the fact that Kerry and Edwards, in their estimation, are ducking this issue and that's why they did not vote, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Ed Henry live from Capitol Hill, thank you.
Well from the furor over same-sex marriage to nature's fury in the Northeast, bad weather is making things tough for some air travelers.
(WEATHER REPORT)
LIN: We've got a lot of news across America now we want to tell you about. Tarzan's tiger is dead -- shot -- in Florida.
Officials say Bobo -- that's the escaped tiger -- was lunging at an officer. Now get this, the tiger's owner, Steve Sipek, actually played Tarzan in the movies. He says someone may have let the big cat out.
STEVE SIPEK, TIGER'S OWNER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) over him right now because he's still under them bushes where he slept all day. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) raise his head, they shot him five times -- five.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Three counties in southern California are on fire. Eighty homes have been evacuated in the Angeles National Forest because firefighters don't know where the fire is heading next.
And, a Pennsylvania man is fighting to get his driver's license back. Keith Emerich told his doctor he drinks at least a six-pack of beer a day. The doctor's told authorities, who then yanked his license.
PHILLIPS: Serious flaws but no blame game. A new report critical of British intelligence leading up to Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq. We're live from London on that.
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Rusty Dornin in Redwood City, California where attorneys for the news media are battling to keep the doors open for a crucial hearing in the Scott Peterson case. More coming up.
PHILLIPS: And some sleepy people count sheep. One man is betting you'll count out cash and hand it over in order to catch a nap in his invention.
We're not dreaming it up, we promise, later on LIVE FROM.
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PHILLIPS: Britain's Tony Blair says he's taking responsibility for intelligence mistakes in the run up to the Iraq war. A highly critical independent report finds serious flaws in British intelligence reports.
The latest now from CNN's Diana Muriel in London -- Diana.
DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, indeed, the Butler -- the long-awaited Butler Commission made it's report today for six months or just under six months in the making.
And rather than pointing the blame at any specific individuals, it offers general criticisms of the way in which intelligence was gathered and evaluated and indeed presented by those -- by the government and by those connected to the intelligence agencies.
But no -- no damning criticism -- no criticism of the same level that we saw coming out of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee just five days ago, which talked about a global intelligence failure.
Immediately after the report was made public, Tony Blair was in the House of Commons and he made a statement to the House of Commons on the report and from the tone of his speech there you could see that he was relieved that he to the great -- to a great extent had been exonerated by the Butler.
This is what he had to say.
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TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: This report, like the Hatton Inquiry, like the report of the intelligence and security committee before it, and of the foreign affairs committee before that, has found the same thing -- no one lied, no one made up the intelligence. No one inserted things into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services.
Everyone genuinely tried to do their best in good faith to the country and circumstances (UNINTELLIGIBLE). That issue of good faith should now be at an end.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURIEL: Now this report, Sir Tony Blair conceded, will not end the arguments about whether or not it was justifiable to go war in Iraq. But Lord Butler in his report and his press conference skirted round the issue as to why his criticism of the intelligence-gathering operation here in the U.K. was not as damning as that of -- in the United States. He's answered specific questions on this and this was his reply to that.
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LORD BUTLER, FMR. CABINET SECRETARY: We are less critical of the judgments, which were reached by the British intelligence machinery. That is correct. And the reason for that is that we think that those judgments were not unreasonable on the basis of the evidence.
Indeed, they were very widely shared by most other intelligence organizations in the world. But...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURIEL: Now, Lord Butler was interrupted at that point by hecklers and indeed it was the press that was at that conference and from the earlier press reports that are now being published in British newspapers, the "London Evening Standard," which is the main evening newspaper here in the capital which runs as its headlines, "Whitewash Two" the response seems to be that they are not very happy with the way in which Lord Butler has expressed his report.
They had been looking for more specific criticism to be leveled at individuals; the head of the joint intelligence committee, Sir John Scarlett, who helped put together this infamous dossier and others. That hasn't happened and the literal reaction has been one of unhappiness at the way in which Lord Butler presented his report. Back to you.
PHILLIPS: CNN's Diana Muriel live from London. Thank you. Carol. LIN: Well, Kyra, the Democratic ticket is using the bad intelligence reports to take on President Bush and both Kerry and Edwards like to talk about the two Americas, the haves and the have nots.
Well, it turns out democracy is more complicated than that. CNN's Tom Foreman takes a look.
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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The blockbuster movie "Passion of the Christ" supported strongly by conservative religious audiences has pulled in more than $600 million this year. At the same time, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the most successful documentary movie ever, heavily touted by urban liberal fans.
The twin accomplishments of these films offer a movie-going parallel to a theme of Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards. There are two Americas.
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SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's one for all those families who have what ever they want, whenever they need it, and then there's one for everybody else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: Edwards is talking specifically about the economy, attacking a 20-year trend in which income for the wealthiest one percent of Americans has nearly tripled, while income for the poorest fifth has risen only 6 percent.
Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute does not believe this constitutes two Americas, but, he says, because some Americans are faring much better than others, many social divides have widened between races, genders, geographic regions as everyone competes.
JARED BERNSTEIN, ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE: I think the distribution of economic resources is a key factor explaining the kinds of divisions that we experience in this country.
In times when we're growing together --we -- I think there's a sense of shared purpose that alludes us when inequality is soaring.
FOREMAN: And then there is the big divide, values.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We stand for institutions like marriage and family, which are the foundations of our society.
FOREMAN: The ascendants of religious values as a decisive and divisive factor in politics is overwhelming, so much so that political analysts now say if a person regularly goes to a church, a synagogue, or a mosque, that person will probably vote Republican. WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POL. ANALYST: As the Republicans have assumed the mantle of speaking for what they call Americans of faith, all faiths, whereas Democrats have come to be the party that speaks for Americans for whom -- well religion is certainly important but not necessarily the central feature of their lives or politics.
FOREMAN: Does all of this make two Americas?
BERNSTEIN: I think there may be hundreds of Americas.
FOREMAN: What it certainly makes is a very hard time for moderate voters. Indeed, many moderates complain that extremists -- liberal and conservative and Democrat and Republican have hijacked the political process.
And those groups, moderates fear, will undermine whoever wins the election by defining him purely as one of us or one of them.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
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LIN: And that's the debate here at home but overseas there was an angry reception to this country.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty million loud.
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LIN: You're looking at the activists at the International AIDS Conference and they say they have 30 billion reasons to be critical of the United States. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta will have the story later on LIVE FROM.
Also ahead under a cloak of secrecy a football player speaks out to Congress about drugs in American athletics.
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LIN: I'm Carol Lin, welcome back to LIVE FROM. Right now we're going to take you to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin where the president is talking with people there about terrorism and then the economy.
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BUSH: ... other nations to share intelligence, to cut off their money and to get them, bring them to justice.
Now, the other thing about being the president is when you say something you better mean it. I mean, one thing that is important about this job...
(APPLAUSE) ... so when I said if you harbor a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the terrorist, I meant it. In other words, part of making sure America's secure, is to deny the terrorists safe haven. And that's why I said to the Taliban, those are the folks that were running Afghanistan at the time, you know -- give up your -- give up al Qaeda. Get rid of the terrorist camps. They defied us.
And so we sent a coalition of troops led by a fantastic United States military to liberate the people of Afghanistan.
(APPLAUSE)
It's hard work. It's not easy work. But America has done hard things in the past and this is necessary work. And I want you to think about Afghanistan today. Three years -- compared to what it was three years ago.
Three years ago we had people living in a country run by barbaric, dim-viewed, ideologues.
So backwards that they wouldn't let young girls go to school. So backwards that they would whip women in public. So backwards that if you had a view different from their own, you would face serious consequences. That's the country -- and so weak that they were becoming infested by al Qaeda.
Today, Afghanistan has got a strong president; they're going to have elections this fall for the presidency. Young girls are going to school; the country is being rebuilt, and we've got an ally in the war on terror.
(APPLAUSE)
Another lesson of September the 11th is that this country must deal with threats before they fully materialize. In other words, before we can say -- before September 11, it was assumed that when we saw a threat, you know, we may have to deal with it, may not have to deal with it because we never dreamt the threats would actually come to our own homeland.
Now we know the nature of the enemy and we know the capacity of the enemy and therefore when we see a threat, we got to deal with it. First choice is diplomatically.
That's the first choice of the president -- any president must do -- let's see if we can't convince a country, for example, to change it's ways.
I saw a threat in Iraq. I'll tell you why I saw the threat in Iraq. First they had a leader that hated America. A declared enemy of this country.
Secondly, they had attacked their neighbors.
Thirdly, they had used weapons of mass destruction on their own people. Fourthly, there were terrorist connections inside Iraq. I mean, there was terrorist organizations. For example, Abu Nadal was a known terrorist and his organization found safe haven there in Iraq. As has other people.
A guy named Zarqawi, whose name is in the news. He's the -- there was a car bomb today in Baghdad. I suspect that Zarqawi ordered it. I don't know, but that's the nature of Zarqawi.
See, he'll kill anybody anywhere anytime to try to create fear and confusion.
At any rate, we looked at the intelligence presented to us and we saw a threat. I want you to remember that the United States Congress looked at the very same intelligence. Members of both political parties looked at the intelligence and they saw a threat.
We remember the lesson of September the 11th, we knew threats must be dealt with before they materialized and we saw a threat. The U.N. Security Council looked at the same intelligence and it saw a threat.
Now you might remember in September of 2002, I went to the United Nations. I said you called the man a threat over and over again. You've had resolution after resolution after resolution after resolution. We hope you don't become an empty debating society, we hope your word means something, so -- and they listened and they -- and we passed another resolution on a 15 to 0 vote. In other words, nations of the world came together and said to Saddam Hussein disclose, disarm or face serious consequences.
And that's the history. In other words, we put together, we tried to convince them diplomatically. So the world spoke and we said let the inspectors go in and see whether or not he's conforming to the request of the free world and -- history has shown that he was deceiving. There was a systematic deception, a campaign of deception going on.
In other words, we knew that he was deceiving the inspectors and we wondered why. What did he have to hide? What did the man who had used weapons of mass destruction? What did the man who had declared his hatred for America have to hide?
In other words, I had a choice to make at this point in time in history. Do I forget the lessons of September 11 and hope for the best? Do I trust the actions of a madman? Or do I take the action necessary to defend America? And given that choice, I will defend our country every single time.
(APPLAUSE)
It's been hard work. It's been really hard work. We've lost brave troops, and we mourn for every troop. In order to make sure that those who have sacrificed for a better world and a safer America, to make sure their sacrifice means something, we will complete our mission in Iraq, because a free Iraq... (APPLAUSE)
... because a free Iraq is in this country's interests. A free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East is in the interest of the United States of America. It's in our security interests. That freedom take hold in a part of the world where there is hopelessness and resentment, the ingredients necessary for the enemy to attract terrorist killers. That's what we want.
See, the long-term solution in this fight against an ideology that is opposite of ours, is to spread democracy and freedom. That's the long-term solution. That's what you're seeing taking place. The world is changing, because the leadership of the United States of America. Think of the world three years ago, Afghanistan was troubled. It's now free. We got a great leader in Iraq named Prime Minister Allawi. He's a tough guy, and he believes in the hopes and aspirations of the Iraqi people.
PHILLIPS: All right, President Bush speaking to a crowd in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. This is a state where he lost just by a hair, under 6,000 votes, to Al Gore back in 2000. He's speaking in the conservative suburbs to try to shore up his support in that state. Want to let you know also, we're going to be hearing from John Edwards from the Democratic ticket, the vice presidential candidate, running with John Kerry, at 2:00 Eastern. He's going to be talking live on the courthouse steps -- rather the statehouse steps in Des Moines, Iowa.
We have much more, so stay right there.
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