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Iraqi Prime Minister Vows to Annihilate Terrorists; More Bombings in Iraq Despite Tough Talk

Aired July 15, 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: Violent attacks and a vow to annihilate the terrorists. A new plan from Iraq's interim prime minister.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, ACTING CIA DIRECTOR: This is a very serious threat we're facing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Terror threats and the American elections. The CIA's acting director talks with CNN about the possibilities.

PHILLIPS: NASA's missile defense is 100 feet tall, weighs four million pounds, and the U.S. government is betting $815 million it will work. A story you'll see only on CNN.

LIN: And motion for mistrial. Scott Peterson's attorney makes a case to dismiss the murder charges. We're LIVE FROM... the courthouse.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Carol Lin in for Miles O'Brien.

PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. CNN's LIVE FROM... starts right now.

LIN: Up first this hour, annihilation through intelligence. In Baghdad today, Iraq's prime minister vowed to annihilate terrorist groups with a new intelligence agency. And while he spoke, yet another car bomb exploded northwest of the capitol.

Yet another oil pipeline was shattered. CNN's Michael Holmes has more on all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just a day after the massive car bomb outside the Green Zone here in Baghdad, further north at Halabjah, there was another car bomb and another death toll.

There were ten people killed in this car bomb, it was a large bomb, more than 30 were injured, many of them critically injured. The target apparently a police station and, indeed, among the dead were four police. A bomb was so large, however, that several other buildings were severely damaged, as well.

Now in Kirkuk, also in the north, a tragic incident -- what happened there, apparently, was insurgents were firing mortars at a police station.

However, they missed their mark and two mortars crashed into a residential house. Five members of the same family were killed, including three children and two other members of that family were wounded as well.

Now in Baghdad a news conference by the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, in which he virtually said he was going to take the fight to the insurgents. He announced the setting up of a domestic intelligence agency.

AYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER (through interpreter): The security situation is into improvements as a result of the combined efforts of the ministries of defense, interior, and the national security adviser, and a great number of government institutions.

I have -- I have met with a number of sheikhs, tribal dignitaries, and I urged them to engage in the necessary cooperation with Iraqi security forces as a contribution to ensuring security for the Iraqi people.

HOLMES: The prime minister went out of his way to reassure Iraqis, long suspicious of intelligence services under Saddam Hussein, that this would be different, it would have much oversight, he said, civilian oversight, and his interior minister said everyone who would be hired to fulfill a role in this new spy agency -- domestically -- would have to have, in his words, "clean hands."

Michael Holmes, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: And two very startling, different, updates today in two foreign hostage cases.

Iraqi police say a decapitated body discovered on the outskirts of Mosul may -- may be one of the two Bulgarian truck drivers captured days earlier.

Now, supposedly, a video clip exists of one Bulgarian's execution, but Mosul police had insisted both were still alive.

And, there is a new clip today of the Filipino truck driver whose fate prompted Manila to begin pulling out its 51-member peacekeeping force.

According to Al-Jazeera television, Angelo de la Cruz thanks his country for complying with his captor's demands. Reportedly, his captors say de la Cruz will go free if and when the troop pullout concludes by the end of the month.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's not over yet, but it won't happen again.

That's the word today from the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee about the Iraqi prisoner abuse debacle that overshadowed the final weeks of the U.S. occupation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN WARNER (R) CHMN. ARMED SERVICES CMTE.: I want to draw a clear line between the past and the future. I'm addressing the future. We're still uncovering, as late as this morning, other incidents, other cases, that will be promptly investigated by the Department of Defense. Allegations relating to variances to the Geneva Convention, and indeed the rules and regulations of the Department of Defense as it regards the detainees. So each day new information...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Warner spoke after yet another hearing, this one behind closed doors on abuse cases centered at Abu Ghraib Prison just west of Baghdad.

As you may know, a half dozen GIs are still facing criminal charges and numerous investigations continue.

LIN: A U.S. Marine who disappeared in Fallujah and reappeared, somehow, in Beirut is back in the United States, or soon will be. Military experts will try to find out exactly what happened to Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, but it will be a slow process because the military is psychologically preparing him to return home.

Hassoun left Germany this morning after six days of exams and debriefing at a U.S. Army hospital.

PHILLIPS: The CIA is between directors these days at what looks to be an especially sensitive time in the war on terror.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer sat down with the agency's acting director for a chat about threats, defenses, and the democratic process.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: By targeting commuter trains, only days before the national election and killing scores of people, al Qaeda terrorists successfully disrupted the Spanish election.

U.S. officials fear they might try to do the same thing in advance of the U.S. elections in November.

MCLAUGHLIN: This is a very serious threat we're facing.

BLITZER: How serious? MCLAUGHLIN: It's serious in the following sense: that I think the quality of the information we have is very good. We have a lot of experience now in terrorism, you ask...

BLITZER: McLaughlin, who succeeded George Tenet only days ago, declined to provide specific details of the intelligence that scares him.

Noting that those details could provide useful information to the terrorists.

MCLAUGHLIN: One of the important things terrorists do, I'll tell you, it's very simple. Very simple. They know how to keep a secret.

Their work is highly compartmented to a small group of people, probably living in a cave somewhere, and our country doesn't keep secrets very well.

So, we have to watch what we release about the details. This is a serious threat period.

BLITZER: He says Osama bin Laden is still very much a player against the United States.

MCLAUGHLIN: Is he sitting there behind some large console pulling wires and switches? I wouldn't say that but to be sure; he remains the leader of al Qaeda.

It's his guidance to his followers that's certainly inspires them to proceed with the attacks that we have seen in places like Istanbul and Morocco and Spain and so forth.

BLITZER: Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, fresh from an inspection tour of preparations for the Democratic convention in Boston, agrees with McLaughlin's assessment.

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Credible, trustworthy sources, not terribly specific in terms of who, what, when and where, but targeting an opportunity, targeting an attempt to undermine the Democratic process. Clearly part of that is the two conventions, but you have this period of several months upon which we need to heighten our alert, heighten our vigilance.

BLITZER: Still, he insists the overall situation is under control.

RIDGE: Get your reservations in early, great restaurants, great historic sites, the community has done everything they can to put people and technology in all the right places.

They've got a comprehensive plan overseeing a very complicated -- a very complex city, but go prepared to have a good time and enjoy the city and as the Democrats nominate their presidential and vice presidential candidates.

BLITZER: That's the mixed message of the federal government that has become part of the so-called new normal in this post-9/11 era.

Wolf Blitzer, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Future CIA management and maybe even its mission are matters of debate in the post-Tenet era.

We get some insights now from foreign policy analyst Michael O'Hanlon of The Brookings Institution. Michael, let's get right to the interview there with Wolf Blitzer.

McLaughlin, what did you think of the interview?

MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: He did a good job. He wasn't very specific about what had gone well and what didn't go well in regard to Iraq.

But in terms of looking ahead to possible future threats, I have to take him at his word. I think that there must be a lot of chatter among people that we think are positioned to attack us. I doubt we know what they're planning to attack or how. If we did we would probably take more precautions.

And I haven't heard any indication that we have specific information like that. But I think that we probably can expect something to be attempted at one of the next big events in the next four months and that's about all I think McLaughlin himself really knows.

PHILLIPS: You talked about sparing politicians by scapegoating spies, particularly the CIA. Let's talk about why you wrote about that in "The New York Times" and do you feel, then, that that's sort of what McLaughlin came -- or came to in this interview?

O'HANLON: Well, that's where I think he was mostly right. I was talking about the Iraq debate and the CIA's performance and the Senate report last week, and I think that the Senate report lumped everything together in a way that was unfair.

They basically blamed the CIA and other intelligence agencies for most of our problems in the debate before the war it seemed. I think the intelligence community did actually a very good job in showing that there was not a meaningful cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

On that point it was right, and the Bush administration exaggerated any links that might have allegedly existed.

On the issue of the nuclear program in Iraq, I think the intelligence community was wrong, and there it deserves some serious rebuke and the people who were involved there need to be held to account for what they got wrong because there was some sloppiness, not just being wrong.

Being wrong is an occupational hazard in intelligence. You have to look below the surface to see how badly wrong were they; what was realistic to know and conclude at the time and on that issue -- I think on chemical and biological weapons, even though the intelligence community was wrong, it's position was very reasonable.

Here was a man, Saddam Hussein, who had had these weapons, didn't want to give them up, he had used them before, he prevented our inspectors from verifying their elimination, and so to assume that he probably still had some was a reasonable assumption.

So, again, you got to be fair to the CIA, they were not equally wrong on all things.

PHILLIPS: All right, you give, you know, good points for the al Qaeda information. More bad points with regard to nuclear weapons when it's talking about WMD.

Now, you mention the word sloppy. Is it fair to say the CIA was also gullible?

O'HANLON: Yes, I think it was gullible. It listened to some sources they should not have. Defectors or other Iraqis who may have been drunken, who may not have been well informed, may have been out of the loop inside of Iraq.

May have had their own agenda -- trying to convince the United States in their own small way to go ahead with the invasion because they stood to benefit or their group stood to benefit.

For example, some of the people associated with Mr. Chalabi, a Pentagon favorite and exile who obviously wanted the invasion. So the CIA may have been gullible to listen to what it expected to hear and give that kind of intelligence more credence than it deserved in many cases.

PHILLIPS: All right, you've basically given us a short list. We've thrown out a number of names of possible replacements to head the CIA. We've already talked about acting director McLaughlin.

What would be your second pick as someone that's a pretty close contender out there?

O'HANLON: Well, if you want to do a nice political move and take some of the politics out of this, someone like Sam Nunn could be a very good choice because...

PHILLIPS: But he's come forward and said that he doesn't want to be a part of this.

O'HANLON: Exactly, and so since you don't have that kind of choice and you -- so someone like a Brent Scowcroft would be very good but of course he deserves to retire at some point. He's about 80- years-old.

Some of the obvious big bipartisan sort of choices you could make may not be available to you likewise some of the key people in the Bush administration like Paul Wolfowitz or Rich Armitage, the deputies at Defense and State, either don't seem that interested in staying in the administration or in the case of Wolfowitz have been somewhat tainted by this Iraq experience.

So, it's going to be a tough -- a tough call to find the right person and McLaughlin may wind up being the choice.

PHILLIPS: What about Porter Goss?

O'HANLON: He's well thought of in the Congress, but he's also thought to have been very partisan.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee doesn't like the choice. He may respect Goss, but he doesn't think that he's sufficiently apolitical. This is a job like Greenspan's job at the Fed where you don't want somebody who is serving the president's own pre-determined agenda and Porter Goss has been a very partisan defender of the president on Capitol Hill, at least in the eyes of Senator Rockefeller so there's a very good chance that he would not be a good kind of candidate in this election season in particular.

PHILLIPS: Michael O'Hanlon, The Brookings Institution. Thank you so much.

O'HANLON: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Carol.

LIN: Another Saudi militant, Kyra, surrenders. Saudi security sources say Ibrahim al-Harbi gave himself up to the Saudi embassy in Syria. He is said to have been with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan after 9/11, but is not believed to be an al Qaeda member.

Now just two days ago, another Saudi militant from the same tribe, Khalid al-Harbi surrendered to the Saudi embassy in Tehran. The two are said to be taking advantage of a leniency offer by the Saudi government, which expires in about a week.

PHILLIPS: An airline-screening program that would give way to some of the most personal information may be grounded. The Capps II, or commuter assistance passenger pre-screening system, came under fire from privacy advocates.

It would require airlines to share passenger background information, including birth dates, and have their names run through a federal law enforcement database.

Now a government source tells CNN the program has been abandoned. The Homeland Security Department has already spent $40 million on CAPPS. The department says it's moving forward with an alternate passenger-screening program.

LIN: It happened to ten million Americans last year and now there's a new weapon to fight identity theft. Ahead a live report.

And weight isn't the only thing comedienne Whoopi Goldberg is losing. A weight loss company dumps her over some controversial remarks.

And, one little pill saving lives and simplifying treatment for people with the AIDS virus. That is after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: In Bangkok today, former South African president Nelson Mandela urged governments and every single person in the world to donate more money to fight AIDS.

Mandela spoke at the International AIDS Conference and he also called for more resources to control tuberculosis, a disease he survived.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NELSON MANDELA, FMR. SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT: We are all here because of our commitment to fighting AIDS, but we cannot win the battle against AIDS if we do not also fight TB.

TB is too often a death sentence for people with AIDS.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Today's focus was largely on women who comprise nearly half the worlds 38 million people living with AIDS.

Now in many countries, their infection rates are climbing much faster than men's. But there might be some good news on the horizon; many people with AIDS or HIV are staying alive through a complicated regimen sometimes involving dozens of pills every day.

But now there is hope that things will get at least a little simpler. Here's CNN's medical correspondent Christy Feig.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTY FEIG, MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Dr. Bruce Rashbaum has been on the frontline of the fight against HIV-AIDS for years, both as a doctor and a patient. He knows first hand the pain of battling the disease and the complications of treating it.

DR. BRUCE RASHBAUM, INTERNAL MEDICINE: In 1997, I took 20 pills. Other patients certainly could have taken more than that. Some people probably took 30 pills.

FEIG: That's every day. But now that's changing. Pharmaceutical companies are combining the drug cocktail into fewer pills, so patient's could get the same powerful medicine with only one or two pills a day.

There are currently three of these combined pills in the U.S. waiting for FDA approval and there is talk several different pharmaceutical companies could join forces and combine their drugs and create even more.

But it wasn't the big U.S. pharmaceutical companies that spurred this trend of combining medicine. It started with the generic drug companies in Asia and Africa that were making cheaper versions of the U.S. drugs for countries most desperate for them.

However, in those developing countries many people can't read and experts say some are not taking the complicated drug regimens properly.

Now the goal is to combine simplicity and safety.

DR. JIM KIM, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: That's the holy grail in terms of chronic treatment is you try to get a one a day pill that you can give to -- to patients.

RASHBAUM: These make it very simple. Once a day with or without food, minimal side effects lessens the chance of resistance.

FEIG: And less resistance to medicine means patient's can live longer better lives.

Christy Feig, CNN, Bangkok.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: And in other health news, a new super Kleenex may actually be coming to you in a box. It's an antiviral tissue. The Texas-based Kimberly-Clark says they'll be in stores in time for the next cold and flu season. The antiviral Kleenex won't benefit the sneezer but it should help stop the spread of viruses.

PHILLIPS: Will Scott Peterson go free? Well his attorney asked the judge to throw the murder charges out. We're going to take you live to the courthouse.

Destroyed homes and devastated neighborhoods. A community deals with the aftermath of a powerful storm.

And a powerful tool designed to defend America against a missile attack. Will it work in the real world? A look at this huge radar that you'll only see on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MARKET REPORT)

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Aired July 15, 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: Violent attacks and a vow to annihilate the terrorists. A new plan from Iraq's interim prime minister.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, ACTING CIA DIRECTOR: This is a very serious threat we're facing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Terror threats and the American elections. The CIA's acting director talks with CNN about the possibilities.

PHILLIPS: NASA's missile defense is 100 feet tall, weighs four million pounds, and the U.S. government is betting $815 million it will work. A story you'll see only on CNN.

LIN: And motion for mistrial. Scott Peterson's attorney makes a case to dismiss the murder charges. We're LIVE FROM... the courthouse.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Carol Lin in for Miles O'Brien.

PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. CNN's LIVE FROM... starts right now.

LIN: Up first this hour, annihilation through intelligence. In Baghdad today, Iraq's prime minister vowed to annihilate terrorist groups with a new intelligence agency. And while he spoke, yet another car bomb exploded northwest of the capitol.

Yet another oil pipeline was shattered. CNN's Michael Holmes has more on all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just a day after the massive car bomb outside the Green Zone here in Baghdad, further north at Halabjah, there was another car bomb and another death toll.

There were ten people killed in this car bomb, it was a large bomb, more than 30 were injured, many of them critically injured. The target apparently a police station and, indeed, among the dead were four police. A bomb was so large, however, that several other buildings were severely damaged, as well.

Now in Kirkuk, also in the north, a tragic incident -- what happened there, apparently, was insurgents were firing mortars at a police station.

However, they missed their mark and two mortars crashed into a residential house. Five members of the same family were killed, including three children and two other members of that family were wounded as well.

Now in Baghdad a news conference by the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, in which he virtually said he was going to take the fight to the insurgents. He announced the setting up of a domestic intelligence agency.

AYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER (through interpreter): The security situation is into improvements as a result of the combined efforts of the ministries of defense, interior, and the national security adviser, and a great number of government institutions.

I have -- I have met with a number of sheikhs, tribal dignitaries, and I urged them to engage in the necessary cooperation with Iraqi security forces as a contribution to ensuring security for the Iraqi people.

HOLMES: The prime minister went out of his way to reassure Iraqis, long suspicious of intelligence services under Saddam Hussein, that this would be different, it would have much oversight, he said, civilian oversight, and his interior minister said everyone who would be hired to fulfill a role in this new spy agency -- domestically -- would have to have, in his words, "clean hands."

Michael Holmes, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: And two very startling, different, updates today in two foreign hostage cases.

Iraqi police say a decapitated body discovered on the outskirts of Mosul may -- may be one of the two Bulgarian truck drivers captured days earlier.

Now, supposedly, a video clip exists of one Bulgarian's execution, but Mosul police had insisted both were still alive.

And, there is a new clip today of the Filipino truck driver whose fate prompted Manila to begin pulling out its 51-member peacekeeping force.

According to Al-Jazeera television, Angelo de la Cruz thanks his country for complying with his captor's demands. Reportedly, his captors say de la Cruz will go free if and when the troop pullout concludes by the end of the month.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's not over yet, but it won't happen again.

That's the word today from the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee about the Iraqi prisoner abuse debacle that overshadowed the final weeks of the U.S. occupation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN WARNER (R) CHMN. ARMED SERVICES CMTE.: I want to draw a clear line between the past and the future. I'm addressing the future. We're still uncovering, as late as this morning, other incidents, other cases, that will be promptly investigated by the Department of Defense. Allegations relating to variances to the Geneva Convention, and indeed the rules and regulations of the Department of Defense as it regards the detainees. So each day new information...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Warner spoke after yet another hearing, this one behind closed doors on abuse cases centered at Abu Ghraib Prison just west of Baghdad.

As you may know, a half dozen GIs are still facing criminal charges and numerous investigations continue.

LIN: A U.S. Marine who disappeared in Fallujah and reappeared, somehow, in Beirut is back in the United States, or soon will be. Military experts will try to find out exactly what happened to Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, but it will be a slow process because the military is psychologically preparing him to return home.

Hassoun left Germany this morning after six days of exams and debriefing at a U.S. Army hospital.

PHILLIPS: The CIA is between directors these days at what looks to be an especially sensitive time in the war on terror.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer sat down with the agency's acting director for a chat about threats, defenses, and the democratic process.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: By targeting commuter trains, only days before the national election and killing scores of people, al Qaeda terrorists successfully disrupted the Spanish election.

U.S. officials fear they might try to do the same thing in advance of the U.S. elections in November.

MCLAUGHLIN: This is a very serious threat we're facing.

BLITZER: How serious? MCLAUGHLIN: It's serious in the following sense: that I think the quality of the information we have is very good. We have a lot of experience now in terrorism, you ask...

BLITZER: McLaughlin, who succeeded George Tenet only days ago, declined to provide specific details of the intelligence that scares him.

Noting that those details could provide useful information to the terrorists.

MCLAUGHLIN: One of the important things terrorists do, I'll tell you, it's very simple. Very simple. They know how to keep a secret.

Their work is highly compartmented to a small group of people, probably living in a cave somewhere, and our country doesn't keep secrets very well.

So, we have to watch what we release about the details. This is a serious threat period.

BLITZER: He says Osama bin Laden is still very much a player against the United States.

MCLAUGHLIN: Is he sitting there behind some large console pulling wires and switches? I wouldn't say that but to be sure; he remains the leader of al Qaeda.

It's his guidance to his followers that's certainly inspires them to proceed with the attacks that we have seen in places like Istanbul and Morocco and Spain and so forth.

BLITZER: Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, fresh from an inspection tour of preparations for the Democratic convention in Boston, agrees with McLaughlin's assessment.

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Credible, trustworthy sources, not terribly specific in terms of who, what, when and where, but targeting an opportunity, targeting an attempt to undermine the Democratic process. Clearly part of that is the two conventions, but you have this period of several months upon which we need to heighten our alert, heighten our vigilance.

BLITZER: Still, he insists the overall situation is under control.

RIDGE: Get your reservations in early, great restaurants, great historic sites, the community has done everything they can to put people and technology in all the right places.

They've got a comprehensive plan overseeing a very complicated -- a very complex city, but go prepared to have a good time and enjoy the city and as the Democrats nominate their presidential and vice presidential candidates.

BLITZER: That's the mixed message of the federal government that has become part of the so-called new normal in this post-9/11 era.

Wolf Blitzer, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Future CIA management and maybe even its mission are matters of debate in the post-Tenet era.

We get some insights now from foreign policy analyst Michael O'Hanlon of The Brookings Institution. Michael, let's get right to the interview there with Wolf Blitzer.

McLaughlin, what did you think of the interview?

MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: He did a good job. He wasn't very specific about what had gone well and what didn't go well in regard to Iraq.

But in terms of looking ahead to possible future threats, I have to take him at his word. I think that there must be a lot of chatter among people that we think are positioned to attack us. I doubt we know what they're planning to attack or how. If we did we would probably take more precautions.

And I haven't heard any indication that we have specific information like that. But I think that we probably can expect something to be attempted at one of the next big events in the next four months and that's about all I think McLaughlin himself really knows.

PHILLIPS: You talked about sparing politicians by scapegoating spies, particularly the CIA. Let's talk about why you wrote about that in "The New York Times" and do you feel, then, that that's sort of what McLaughlin came -- or came to in this interview?

O'HANLON: Well, that's where I think he was mostly right. I was talking about the Iraq debate and the CIA's performance and the Senate report last week, and I think that the Senate report lumped everything together in a way that was unfair.

They basically blamed the CIA and other intelligence agencies for most of our problems in the debate before the war it seemed. I think the intelligence community did actually a very good job in showing that there was not a meaningful cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

On that point it was right, and the Bush administration exaggerated any links that might have allegedly existed.

On the issue of the nuclear program in Iraq, I think the intelligence community was wrong, and there it deserves some serious rebuke and the people who were involved there need to be held to account for what they got wrong because there was some sloppiness, not just being wrong.

Being wrong is an occupational hazard in intelligence. You have to look below the surface to see how badly wrong were they; what was realistic to know and conclude at the time and on that issue -- I think on chemical and biological weapons, even though the intelligence community was wrong, it's position was very reasonable.

Here was a man, Saddam Hussein, who had had these weapons, didn't want to give them up, he had used them before, he prevented our inspectors from verifying their elimination, and so to assume that he probably still had some was a reasonable assumption.

So, again, you got to be fair to the CIA, they were not equally wrong on all things.

PHILLIPS: All right, you give, you know, good points for the al Qaeda information. More bad points with regard to nuclear weapons when it's talking about WMD.

Now, you mention the word sloppy. Is it fair to say the CIA was also gullible?

O'HANLON: Yes, I think it was gullible. It listened to some sources they should not have. Defectors or other Iraqis who may have been drunken, who may not have been well informed, may have been out of the loop inside of Iraq.

May have had their own agenda -- trying to convince the United States in their own small way to go ahead with the invasion because they stood to benefit or their group stood to benefit.

For example, some of the people associated with Mr. Chalabi, a Pentagon favorite and exile who obviously wanted the invasion. So the CIA may have been gullible to listen to what it expected to hear and give that kind of intelligence more credence than it deserved in many cases.

PHILLIPS: All right, you've basically given us a short list. We've thrown out a number of names of possible replacements to head the CIA. We've already talked about acting director McLaughlin.

What would be your second pick as someone that's a pretty close contender out there?

O'HANLON: Well, if you want to do a nice political move and take some of the politics out of this, someone like Sam Nunn could be a very good choice because...

PHILLIPS: But he's come forward and said that he doesn't want to be a part of this.

O'HANLON: Exactly, and so since you don't have that kind of choice and you -- so someone like a Brent Scowcroft would be very good but of course he deserves to retire at some point. He's about 80- years-old.

Some of the obvious big bipartisan sort of choices you could make may not be available to you likewise some of the key people in the Bush administration like Paul Wolfowitz or Rich Armitage, the deputies at Defense and State, either don't seem that interested in staying in the administration or in the case of Wolfowitz have been somewhat tainted by this Iraq experience.

So, it's going to be a tough -- a tough call to find the right person and McLaughlin may wind up being the choice.

PHILLIPS: What about Porter Goss?

O'HANLON: He's well thought of in the Congress, but he's also thought to have been very partisan.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee doesn't like the choice. He may respect Goss, but he doesn't think that he's sufficiently apolitical. This is a job like Greenspan's job at the Fed where you don't want somebody who is serving the president's own pre-determined agenda and Porter Goss has been a very partisan defender of the president on Capitol Hill, at least in the eyes of Senator Rockefeller so there's a very good chance that he would not be a good kind of candidate in this election season in particular.

PHILLIPS: Michael O'Hanlon, The Brookings Institution. Thank you so much.

O'HANLON: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Carol.

LIN: Another Saudi militant, Kyra, surrenders. Saudi security sources say Ibrahim al-Harbi gave himself up to the Saudi embassy in Syria. He is said to have been with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan after 9/11, but is not believed to be an al Qaeda member.

Now just two days ago, another Saudi militant from the same tribe, Khalid al-Harbi surrendered to the Saudi embassy in Tehran. The two are said to be taking advantage of a leniency offer by the Saudi government, which expires in about a week.

PHILLIPS: An airline-screening program that would give way to some of the most personal information may be grounded. The Capps II, or commuter assistance passenger pre-screening system, came under fire from privacy advocates.

It would require airlines to share passenger background information, including birth dates, and have their names run through a federal law enforcement database.

Now a government source tells CNN the program has been abandoned. The Homeland Security Department has already spent $40 million on CAPPS. The department says it's moving forward with an alternate passenger-screening program.

LIN: It happened to ten million Americans last year and now there's a new weapon to fight identity theft. Ahead a live report.

And weight isn't the only thing comedienne Whoopi Goldberg is losing. A weight loss company dumps her over some controversial remarks.

And, one little pill saving lives and simplifying treatment for people with the AIDS virus. That is after a break.

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LIN: In Bangkok today, former South African president Nelson Mandela urged governments and every single person in the world to donate more money to fight AIDS.

Mandela spoke at the International AIDS Conference and he also called for more resources to control tuberculosis, a disease he survived.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NELSON MANDELA, FMR. SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT: We are all here because of our commitment to fighting AIDS, but we cannot win the battle against AIDS if we do not also fight TB.

TB is too often a death sentence for people with AIDS.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Today's focus was largely on women who comprise nearly half the worlds 38 million people living with AIDS.

Now in many countries, their infection rates are climbing much faster than men's. But there might be some good news on the horizon; many people with AIDS or HIV are staying alive through a complicated regimen sometimes involving dozens of pills every day.

But now there is hope that things will get at least a little simpler. Here's CNN's medical correspondent Christy Feig.

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CHRISTY FEIG, MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Dr. Bruce Rashbaum has been on the frontline of the fight against HIV-AIDS for years, both as a doctor and a patient. He knows first hand the pain of battling the disease and the complications of treating it.

DR. BRUCE RASHBAUM, INTERNAL MEDICINE: In 1997, I took 20 pills. Other patients certainly could have taken more than that. Some people probably took 30 pills.

FEIG: That's every day. But now that's changing. Pharmaceutical companies are combining the drug cocktail into fewer pills, so patient's could get the same powerful medicine with only one or two pills a day.

There are currently three of these combined pills in the U.S. waiting for FDA approval and there is talk several different pharmaceutical companies could join forces and combine their drugs and create even more.

But it wasn't the big U.S. pharmaceutical companies that spurred this trend of combining medicine. It started with the generic drug companies in Asia and Africa that were making cheaper versions of the U.S. drugs for countries most desperate for them.

However, in those developing countries many people can't read and experts say some are not taking the complicated drug regimens properly.

Now the goal is to combine simplicity and safety.

DR. JIM KIM, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: That's the holy grail in terms of chronic treatment is you try to get a one a day pill that you can give to -- to patients.

RASHBAUM: These make it very simple. Once a day with or without food, minimal side effects lessens the chance of resistance.

FEIG: And less resistance to medicine means patient's can live longer better lives.

Christy Feig, CNN, Bangkok.

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LIN: And in other health news, a new super Kleenex may actually be coming to you in a box. It's an antiviral tissue. The Texas-based Kimberly-Clark says they'll be in stores in time for the next cold and flu season. The antiviral Kleenex won't benefit the sneezer but it should help stop the spread of viruses.

PHILLIPS: Will Scott Peterson go free? Well his attorney asked the judge to throw the murder charges out. We're going to take you live to the courthouse.

Destroyed homes and devastated neighborhoods. A community deals with the aftermath of a powerful storm.

And a powerful tool designed to defend America against a missile attack. Will it work in the real world? A look at this huge radar that you'll only see on CNN.

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