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380 Tons of Explosives Missing from a Facility in Iraq; Chief Justice William Rehnquist Hospitalized for Thyroid Cancer

Aired October 25, 2004 - 13:27   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: Now, getting President Clinton back on the campaign trail a pretty big deal. But will it help or hurt John Kerry when you really get down to it? Let's get some perspective from our political editor, John Mercurio. He's in Washington.
John, what do you think? We see the rally. We see the excited supporters. But when it comes down to it, is this definitely a good move for John Kerry?

JOHN MERCURIO, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: That's a good question. I think that's the question we're all asking. The Kerry campaign obviously believes so.

But you're right, I mean, the latest CNN poll done in July shows that Bill Clinton is only viewed favorably by 54 percent; unfavorably by 43 percent of Americans. It's slightly risky.

But what the Kerry campaign is trying to do here, I think, is turn out their base, turn out the base not just in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, but around the country.

This is not an event designed to appeal to swing voters, independent voters. This is designed for your base, for African- American voters, for Clinton loyalists, people who supported him through the impeachment saga and still view him quite favorably today.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's pretty interesting. As soon as he started that speech, he got right to it, talking about jobs, talking about tax cuts, what he did as president and that John Kerry's going to do exactly the same.

Do you think he was laying out more of "let's show you what I did and John Kerry will do the same?" Or do you think he was talking more about John Kerry independently as a leader?

MERCURIO: He was saying, "Look at how well we were doing back in the 1990s. Look at how well I, as a Democratic president, led you through -- led you to a strong economy, to a, you know, nation at peace. And then, you know, see what happened over the past four years. Well, let's end this four-year term of George Bush and go back to what we -- what we experienced in the 1990s."

Of course, he's not implying that he's going to be elected president. But that John Kerry would much more mirror his policies, his ideology, his philosophy and his priorities. I think that's what you saw. And I think that's what Kerry was expecting him -- expecting him to do.

PHILLIPS: We're going to bring our Frank Buckley back in here in just a second. But John, real quickly, Mike Brooks, our law enforcement analyst and Frank, you might even be able to address this, John, either one of you.

President Clinton, as you were talking about more jobs and tax cuts. He also talked about John Kerry adding more cops to the force. Well, our analysts here telling us that the Fraternal Order of Police not even supporting John Kerry but supporting George Bush.

MERCURIO: Are you asking me or Frank?

PHILLIPS: Go ahead. Frank.

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Go ahead.

PHILLIPS: Go ahead, John.

MERCURIO: Well, I was going to say that...

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: How about you guys both speak at -- John is insisting.

BUCKLEY: I will defer to the political editor, Mr. Mercurio, please.

PHILLIPS: How is that, John?

MERCURIO: That sounds wonderful. Thank you, Frank.

With no further ado I think obviously that might be the case, that's a very strong endorsement that the Bush campaign has been touting. Clinton I think lends a certain degree of credibility on the issue of cops, on the issue of community policing and on the issue of low crime rates that were obviously the case during his administration.

Crime remains low. But, you know, I think at this point, it sort of moved beyond the issue of specific police issues and to a larger issue of national security. We're not talking specifically about community policing, about violent crime in the United States, we're talking about national security, about terrorism; which I thought Clinton was going to make a stronger link to.

I actually didn't hear anything in his speech today, anything specific or extensive on the larger issue of national security that we're obviously going to have to vote on next Tuesday.

PHILLIPS: All right. Frank, you're right there live at the scene. How did everybody respond? You're probably hearing things there in the background. How did this go? And I thought it was going to go a little longer actually. but Clinton was pretty much straight to the point and moved on. BUCKLEY: Yes, we were surprised, of course. Bill Clinton famous for -- at a Democrat convention one year going on for so long that eventually when he said, "in summary," he got the biggest applause of his entire speech.

We thought Bill Clinton would go on longer as well but he didn't. We thought they would be late. They weren't. They were on time. And just to add to what John was saying in response to your question about how it is going over here. The Kerry campaign is hoping that people will see Bill Clinton up there standing next to John Kerry and think to themselves, gee, it used to feel different in this country. There were prosperous times. We were at peace. And they want to take people back to that spot in their minds with the appearance of Bill Clinton.

So that's the message they're hoping to send out to the swing voters, to the people who haven't decided, to that small number of undecided voters to try to get them to think, remember the Clinton years, remember how it was for you then. It can be that way again if you agreed with those times and you liked those times.

And then to add to what John was saying, there's clearly an attempt here to reach the base, the Democratic base. And specifically the African-American community where there has been some polling that suggests that President Bush is going to do better this time than he did in 2000.

The Kerry campaign doesn't buy that. They believe that they're strong in the African-American community and will match if not better what Al Gore did in 2000. But still, it's a group of voters that the Democratic Party has to reach and has to be successful with if John Kerry's to be elected president.

PHILLIPS: Frank Buckley, live in Philadelphia there, where John Kerry is speaking right now along with former President Bill Clinton. Thank you so much. Also, political editor John Mercurio live out of Washington. Gentlemen, thank you so much.

Straight ahead we're going to be talking about the other big story of the day besides politics, and that's Iraq: 380 tons of explosives missing. Former General Don Shepperd here to talk about it right after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: One of the most disturbing stories yet to come out of post-war Iraq, the execution-like massacre of some 50 Iraqi soldiers and their drivers just east of Baghdad Saturday. Joining me to talk about what some believe is clearly an act of infiltration, CNN military analyst Major General Don Shepperd.

You even believe this is definitely an inside job.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's an inside job, Kyra. It's very disturbing. The people that did this had to know who they were, had to know that they were coming, had to do pre- planning, had this all staged. This is definitely infiltration of the Iraqi security forces and it is really, really disturbing.

PHILLIPS: And there has been a number of questions of how did they infiltrate, how did they get the police uniforms? Is there any type of screening or do they have to show papers, if indeed they want to become a part of the Iraqi police force?

SHEPPERD: Yes, all of that. If there are screening processes conducted by the Iraqis, because we're not really capable of doing it, they ask questions about where they served before, who they were loyal to. There are requests for papers, many of which do not exist anymore.

But there is a screening process. It's just that it is easy to slip though. The key about the screening is the Iraqis know who did this. And this is a message to the Iraqi forces out there that they had better tighten up from within as well as rely on the United States.

PHILLIPS: So you say Iraqis definitely know. Why are they doing this, because there are so many Iraqis that want this to work out and want to have a democratic country, but it seems like bribery is even more powerful right now?

SHEPPERD: Well, some of it is basically insurgents that believe that the former regime is better than the coalition and the American occupiers, if you will. Some of them are doing it for money. And some of them are also doing it for threat. If you don't give us this information we're going to take care of you and we're going to take care of your family. And this is an example. This is a widespread message by Zarqawi. And by the way, it is very, very effective in Iraq.

PHILLIPS: Now I was reading that these policemen, when they were executed, there were more policemen than there were infiltrators or insurgents. Why wouldn't -- they saw that they were in trouble, why wouldn't they fight back?

SHEPPERD: Well, that's why it has to be an inside job. Basically if you're out there on a bus, you are going to stop any time anybody in uniform jumps in front of your bus. And probably they had this all planned with the right words. They were armed. The people on the bus were not. They were not escorted, which is going to be a question of why weren't they escorted? What were you doing out there alone, sending these people out alone?

A lot of changes will be made because of this. But there is no big mystery. They were ambushed by people on the inside that knew they were coming, had the right equipment in place to do this.

PHILLIPS: And those convoys are so carefully orchestrated, just the intel that's done on routes. And like you said, I was shocked that they were unarmed because usually there's military police or the Iraqi police are armed themselves looking at how dangerous it is.

SHEPPERD: Yes. The key message to this is the insurgents have as good of intelligence as we do. And it's extremely disturbing. PHILLIPS: That's scary.

SHEPPERD: And this isn't going to stop, this isn't going to stop with this election. There's another election coming up. As long as we're there these ugly things are going to happen.

PHILLIPS: Is there anything that can be done -- I mean, it's awful to look at after the fact, but what needs to be done, what can be done? Does the U.S. military maybe have to get more involved once again? I know that the U.S. military has wanted to back out and kind of let them operate on their own.

SHEPPERD: Well, what needs to be done and what can be done are two different things. What needs to be done is for the Iraqis to say, we've had enough of this. The insurgents are killing us, they're not killing the coalition, the American occupiers, if you will. And have the Iraqis take over and say, this is enough of this, we're going to throw these insurgents out. That has not happened.

Clearly we're trying to train the Iraqi forces quickly, which is one of the problems with vetting and trying to get them to take over more responsibility so they can take part in operations such as in Falluja and this type of thing. But it's a very, very tough sell. And many miles to go here.

PHILLIPS: All right, Major (ph) Don Shepperd, thank you so much, General. Appreciate your time today.

Well, we're working two stories, actually, in Iraq. And the other is the perspective on those missing explosives. We talked a little bit about that, General. Two of the compounds are key ingredients in so-called plastic explosives like the ones that brought down Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. That attack involved about a pound of ordnance -- some 380 tons of HMX, RDX, and PETN are unaccounted for now in Iraq.

CNN law enforcement analyst Mike Brooks joins us now with some more insights on this. Boy, 380 tons -- how does that go missing?

MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, that's a lot of -- lot of lot of explosives, Kyra. And I was just talking with General Shepperd just a moment ago, and is there a possible that that could too could be an inside job?

The IAEA knew about it years ago. They said a senior official told CNN that Condoleezza Rice knew about this about a month ago. Should it have been guarded better? Well, there are so many bunkers throughout the country. And the military and the coalition forces are coming across these caches, if you will, on a regular basis.

I just spoke to a source today who just got back from that region. He says the -- also run across these kinds of things in Afghanistan. Now, you go back to the first Gulf War and other bombings that have taken place. You go back to Khobar Towers in 1996. That was ordnance -- U.S. ordnance that was used to blow up ours buildings against us. Now where did that come from? It came from stockpiles that were just left there after the war. Some were destroyed; some were not destroyed. Some were just left out in the desert.

PHILLIPS: But evidently, these explosives were at a base where Saddam loyalists operated out of.

BROOKS: Right, a bunker site. Right.

PHILLIPS: So, they knew the explosives were there. Isn't that -- now that the U.S. Military is there, shouldn't everyone know that they're there and shouldn't it have tight security and know that this could be a risk that insurgents could infiltrate and get those out of there?

BROOKS: It should. But as I said, there are a number of bunkers like this all around the country. You know, whether or not they have 380 tons, that remains to be seen. But we've already seen -- explosives such as these used against U.S. forces by insurgents early on.

PHILLIPS: So, insurgents could have their hands on this 380 tons or explosives?

BROOKS: Absolutely. And again, it's -- some explosives, and also it could be some warheads from regular military ordnance, artillery pieces those kind of things that are included in this. Because that's the kind of explosives that are in the warheads of some artillery pieces. All you need a fuse well, you add a detonator to that, and you've got an anti-personal device, high explosive with shrapnel.

PHILLIPS: All right. Let's put it in perspective. We've been talking about HMX, RDX. Now, you know these types of explosives well, because you -- when you were with the FBI -- for example, Pan Am, that flight, this is the same type of explosives that brought down that airliner.

BROOKS: Right. There were some traces of RDX and PETN, two of the compounds that are missing right now. But they believe that may have been synthetics. They were never able to say for sure whether is was because it was around a pound or so that was stuffed into a Toshiba radio cassette recorder put into a piece of luggage and then transferred eventually onto Pan Am 103 and it detonated over Lockerbie, Scotland. That was just a very, very small amount.

But we've looked at other incidents.

PHILLIPS: Well, that's pretty scary if you think a small amount versus 380 tons, I mean, getting in the hands of insurgents. That's a frightening thought.

BROOKS: It's very frightening -- 380 tons is amazing. You've got: 194.7 metric tons of HMX, which is used in military warheads; 141.2 metric tons of RDX, which are used in det cord and other plastic explosives -- high explosives, if you will; and 5.8 metric tons of PETN. That is just an unbelievable amount of ordnance.

I talked to someone today, an explosives expert with the federal law enforcement agency. And I said, "Did you hear about this?" He said, "Yes, 380 tons." He said, "That's one hell of a lot of explosives."

PHILLIPS: Well, it'll be interesting what the administration knew, knows. And we'll follow that part of the story, too. Mike Brooks, thanks a lot.

BROOKS: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Well, up next, more on Chief Justice Rehnquist's thyroid cancer treatment. LIVE FROM continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Well, we want to get an update on Chief Justice William Rehnquist's condition. As you know, the chief justice was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. We want to talk now to Robert Zimmerman. He's the associate program director of the Cleveland Clinic Department of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism.

Dr. Zimmerman, thanks for joining us.

DR. ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, CLEVELAND CLINIC: How are you?

HARRIS: Very well, thank you. Can you give us just the sort of basic nuts and bolts of thyroid cancer?

ZIMMERMAN: Well, thyroid cancer is a condition that is fairly common, but it's -- in most case patients who develop thyroid cancer, it really has a very good prognosis. That is, most people who develop thyroid cancer usually can be either cured or it can be controlled.

But there are some cases of thyroid cancer that don't have a good prognosis. And it really depends on the type of thyroid cancer that a patient has.

HARRIS: And Dr. Zimmerman, can you give us a sense given the age and the gender of the chief justice what type, what form of thyroid cancer he is most likely to have?

ZIMMERMAN: Well, for most patients, the most common type of thyroid cancer is called is papillary thyroid cancer. And if a patient has papillary thyroid cancer and it is relatively small and in the thyroid gland and not spread in other parts of the body, then the prognosis would be very good.

There are a few patients, very small number of patients that have a kind of thyroid cancer that's called anaplastic thyroid cancer. And that would have, you know, not as good a prognosis. But you know, most commonly patients have what's called papillary thyroid cancer. Another type is called follicular thyroid cancer and then medullary thyroid cancer. And each of these have sort of different types of prognoses, depending on, you know, what it is.

HARRIS: Give us a sense of the -- how you would go about curing this, the treatment regiment for these types of cancers that you're talking about.

ZIMMERMAN: If it's a papillary thyroid cancer, which is the most common type, generally patients would undergo a thyroidectomy, meaning that their thyroid gland is taken out. And then, depending on the size of it or whether it's in more than one site, usually they would then be treated with a dose of radioactive iodine, which then basically kills any other normal thyroid tissue or tissue that has little bits of thyroid cancer that are left after the surgery.

And basically, then the patients are usually followed in either a six-month or yearly intervals with either scans of the thyroid using radioactive iodine to scan for it. And then, also they use a measurement of thyroglobulin, which is a protein that's produced by the thyroid gland and thyroid tissue and not by other glands in the body.

And so, if you have thyroglobulin around, then it indicates that you have perhaps thyroid activity or thyroid cancer activity.

HARRIS: OK. Dr. Zimmerman, we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Thank you.

ZIMMERMAN: OK.

HARRIS: And up next on LIVE FROM, from health issues to money matters.

RHONDA SCHAFFLER, CNN SR. BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: ... at the New York Stock Exchange, there's a new shortage pushing up prices. I'll tell what you the latest commodity is after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: You like Jimmy Buffett, right?

HARRIS: I do. I do. "Margaritaville" -- margaritas.

PHILLIPS: There you go. Margaritas, pure party. Period.

Well, your "Cheeseburger in Paradise" may soon be missing a slice of something a little important.

HARRIS: Rhonda Schaffler has the story for us from the New York Stock Exchange. Hi, Rhonda.

(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Rhonda.

All right. Coming up in the second hour of LIVE FROM, the weapons worry in Iraq -- 380 tons of explosives gone.

HARRIS: Who has them, and what can they do with them? LIVE FROM's hour of power begins after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM CLINTON (D), FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If this isn't good for my heart, I don't know what is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Kerry campaign bets former President Clinton will win the hearts of undecided voters.

HARRIS: President Bush heads west, planning to call on another political star to help him shine in the last days of the campaign.

PHILLIPS: Chief Justice William Rehnquist undergoing treatment for cancer, We're live on that story.

HARRIS: And have they fallen into enemy hands? Tons on powerful explosives held at a facility near Baghdad simply disappear.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Tony Harris, in for Miles O'Brien.

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

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 October 25, 2004 - 13:27   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, getting President Clinton back on the campaign trail a pretty big deal. But will it help or hurt John Kerry when you really get down to it? Let's get some perspective from our political editor, John Mercurio. He's in Washington.
John, what do you think? We see the rally. We see the excited supporters. But when it comes down to it, is this definitely a good move for John Kerry?

JOHN MERCURIO, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: That's a good question. I think that's the question we're all asking. The Kerry campaign obviously believes so.

But you're right, I mean, the latest CNN poll done in July shows that Bill Clinton is only viewed favorably by 54 percent; unfavorably by 43 percent of Americans. It's slightly risky.

But what the Kerry campaign is trying to do here, I think, is turn out their base, turn out the base not just in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, but around the country.

This is not an event designed to appeal to swing voters, independent voters. This is designed for your base, for African- American voters, for Clinton loyalists, people who supported him through the impeachment saga and still view him quite favorably today.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's pretty interesting. As soon as he started that speech, he got right to it, talking about jobs, talking about tax cuts, what he did as president and that John Kerry's going to do exactly the same.

Do you think he was laying out more of "let's show you what I did and John Kerry will do the same?" Or do you think he was talking more about John Kerry independently as a leader?

MERCURIO: He was saying, "Look at how well we were doing back in the 1990s. Look at how well I, as a Democratic president, led you through -- led you to a strong economy, to a, you know, nation at peace. And then, you know, see what happened over the past four years. Well, let's end this four-year term of George Bush and go back to what we -- what we experienced in the 1990s."

Of course, he's not implying that he's going to be elected president. But that John Kerry would much more mirror his policies, his ideology, his philosophy and his priorities. I think that's what you saw. And I think that's what Kerry was expecting him -- expecting him to do.

PHILLIPS: We're going to bring our Frank Buckley back in here in just a second. But John, real quickly, Mike Brooks, our law enforcement analyst and Frank, you might even be able to address this, John, either one of you.

President Clinton, as you were talking about more jobs and tax cuts. He also talked about John Kerry adding more cops to the force. Well, our analysts here telling us that the Fraternal Order of Police not even supporting John Kerry but supporting George Bush.

MERCURIO: Are you asking me or Frank?

PHILLIPS: Go ahead. Frank.

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Go ahead.

PHILLIPS: Go ahead, John.

MERCURIO: Well, I was going to say that...

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: How about you guys both speak at -- John is insisting.

BUCKLEY: I will defer to the political editor, Mr. Mercurio, please.

PHILLIPS: How is that, John?

MERCURIO: That sounds wonderful. Thank you, Frank.

With no further ado I think obviously that might be the case, that's a very strong endorsement that the Bush campaign has been touting. Clinton I think lends a certain degree of credibility on the issue of cops, on the issue of community policing and on the issue of low crime rates that were obviously the case during his administration.

Crime remains low. But, you know, I think at this point, it sort of moved beyond the issue of specific police issues and to a larger issue of national security. We're not talking specifically about community policing, about violent crime in the United States, we're talking about national security, about terrorism; which I thought Clinton was going to make a stronger link to.

I actually didn't hear anything in his speech today, anything specific or extensive on the larger issue of national security that we're obviously going to have to vote on next Tuesday.

PHILLIPS: All right. Frank, you're right there live at the scene. How did everybody respond? You're probably hearing things there in the background. How did this go? And I thought it was going to go a little longer actually. but Clinton was pretty much straight to the point and moved on. BUCKLEY: Yes, we were surprised, of course. Bill Clinton famous for -- at a Democrat convention one year going on for so long that eventually when he said, "in summary," he got the biggest applause of his entire speech.

We thought Bill Clinton would go on longer as well but he didn't. We thought they would be late. They weren't. They were on time. And just to add to what John was saying in response to your question about how it is going over here. The Kerry campaign is hoping that people will see Bill Clinton up there standing next to John Kerry and think to themselves, gee, it used to feel different in this country. There were prosperous times. We were at peace. And they want to take people back to that spot in their minds with the appearance of Bill Clinton.

So that's the message they're hoping to send out to the swing voters, to the people who haven't decided, to that small number of undecided voters to try to get them to think, remember the Clinton years, remember how it was for you then. It can be that way again if you agreed with those times and you liked those times.

And then to add to what John was saying, there's clearly an attempt here to reach the base, the Democratic base. And specifically the African-American community where there has been some polling that suggests that President Bush is going to do better this time than he did in 2000.

The Kerry campaign doesn't buy that. They believe that they're strong in the African-American community and will match if not better what Al Gore did in 2000. But still, it's a group of voters that the Democratic Party has to reach and has to be successful with if John Kerry's to be elected president.

PHILLIPS: Frank Buckley, live in Philadelphia there, where John Kerry is speaking right now along with former President Bill Clinton. Thank you so much. Also, political editor John Mercurio live out of Washington. Gentlemen, thank you so much.

Straight ahead we're going to be talking about the other big story of the day besides politics, and that's Iraq: 380 tons of explosives missing. Former General Don Shepperd here to talk about it right after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: One of the most disturbing stories yet to come out of post-war Iraq, the execution-like massacre of some 50 Iraqi soldiers and their drivers just east of Baghdad Saturday. Joining me to talk about what some believe is clearly an act of infiltration, CNN military analyst Major General Don Shepperd.

You even believe this is definitely an inside job.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's an inside job, Kyra. It's very disturbing. The people that did this had to know who they were, had to know that they were coming, had to do pre- planning, had this all staged. This is definitely infiltration of the Iraqi security forces and it is really, really disturbing.

PHILLIPS: And there has been a number of questions of how did they infiltrate, how did they get the police uniforms? Is there any type of screening or do they have to show papers, if indeed they want to become a part of the Iraqi police force?

SHEPPERD: Yes, all of that. If there are screening processes conducted by the Iraqis, because we're not really capable of doing it, they ask questions about where they served before, who they were loyal to. There are requests for papers, many of which do not exist anymore.

But there is a screening process. It's just that it is easy to slip though. The key about the screening is the Iraqis know who did this. And this is a message to the Iraqi forces out there that they had better tighten up from within as well as rely on the United States.

PHILLIPS: So you say Iraqis definitely know. Why are they doing this, because there are so many Iraqis that want this to work out and want to have a democratic country, but it seems like bribery is even more powerful right now?

SHEPPERD: Well, some of it is basically insurgents that believe that the former regime is better than the coalition and the American occupiers, if you will. Some of them are doing it for money. And some of them are also doing it for threat. If you don't give us this information we're going to take care of you and we're going to take care of your family. And this is an example. This is a widespread message by Zarqawi. And by the way, it is very, very effective in Iraq.

PHILLIPS: Now I was reading that these policemen, when they were executed, there were more policemen than there were infiltrators or insurgents. Why wouldn't -- they saw that they were in trouble, why wouldn't they fight back?

SHEPPERD: Well, that's why it has to be an inside job. Basically if you're out there on a bus, you are going to stop any time anybody in uniform jumps in front of your bus. And probably they had this all planned with the right words. They were armed. The people on the bus were not. They were not escorted, which is going to be a question of why weren't they escorted? What were you doing out there alone, sending these people out alone?

A lot of changes will be made because of this. But there is no big mystery. They were ambushed by people on the inside that knew they were coming, had the right equipment in place to do this.

PHILLIPS: And those convoys are so carefully orchestrated, just the intel that's done on routes. And like you said, I was shocked that they were unarmed because usually there's military police or the Iraqi police are armed themselves looking at how dangerous it is.

SHEPPERD: Yes. The key message to this is the insurgents have as good of intelligence as we do. And it's extremely disturbing. PHILLIPS: That's scary.

SHEPPERD: And this isn't going to stop, this isn't going to stop with this election. There's another election coming up. As long as we're there these ugly things are going to happen.

PHILLIPS: Is there anything that can be done -- I mean, it's awful to look at after the fact, but what needs to be done, what can be done? Does the U.S. military maybe have to get more involved once again? I know that the U.S. military has wanted to back out and kind of let them operate on their own.

SHEPPERD: Well, what needs to be done and what can be done are two different things. What needs to be done is for the Iraqis to say, we've had enough of this. The insurgents are killing us, they're not killing the coalition, the American occupiers, if you will. And have the Iraqis take over and say, this is enough of this, we're going to throw these insurgents out. That has not happened.

Clearly we're trying to train the Iraqi forces quickly, which is one of the problems with vetting and trying to get them to take over more responsibility so they can take part in operations such as in Falluja and this type of thing. But it's a very, very tough sell. And many miles to go here.

PHILLIPS: All right, Major (ph) Don Shepperd, thank you so much, General. Appreciate your time today.

Well, we're working two stories, actually, in Iraq. And the other is the perspective on those missing explosives. We talked a little bit about that, General. Two of the compounds are key ingredients in so-called plastic explosives like the ones that brought down Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. That attack involved about a pound of ordnance -- some 380 tons of HMX, RDX, and PETN are unaccounted for now in Iraq.

CNN law enforcement analyst Mike Brooks joins us now with some more insights on this. Boy, 380 tons -- how does that go missing?

MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, that's a lot of -- lot of lot of explosives, Kyra. And I was just talking with General Shepperd just a moment ago, and is there a possible that that could too could be an inside job?

The IAEA knew about it years ago. They said a senior official told CNN that Condoleezza Rice knew about this about a month ago. Should it have been guarded better? Well, there are so many bunkers throughout the country. And the military and the coalition forces are coming across these caches, if you will, on a regular basis.

I just spoke to a source today who just got back from that region. He says the -- also run across these kinds of things in Afghanistan. Now, you go back to the first Gulf War and other bombings that have taken place. You go back to Khobar Towers in 1996. That was ordnance -- U.S. ordnance that was used to blow up ours buildings against us. Now where did that come from? It came from stockpiles that were just left there after the war. Some were destroyed; some were not destroyed. Some were just left out in the desert.

PHILLIPS: But evidently, these explosives were at a base where Saddam loyalists operated out of.

BROOKS: Right, a bunker site. Right.

PHILLIPS: So, they knew the explosives were there. Isn't that -- now that the U.S. Military is there, shouldn't everyone know that they're there and shouldn't it have tight security and know that this could be a risk that insurgents could infiltrate and get those out of there?

BROOKS: It should. But as I said, there are a number of bunkers like this all around the country. You know, whether or not they have 380 tons, that remains to be seen. But we've already seen -- explosives such as these used against U.S. forces by insurgents early on.

PHILLIPS: So, insurgents could have their hands on this 380 tons or explosives?

BROOKS: Absolutely. And again, it's -- some explosives, and also it could be some warheads from regular military ordnance, artillery pieces those kind of things that are included in this. Because that's the kind of explosives that are in the warheads of some artillery pieces. All you need a fuse well, you add a detonator to that, and you've got an anti-personal device, high explosive with shrapnel.

PHILLIPS: All right. Let's put it in perspective. We've been talking about HMX, RDX. Now, you know these types of explosives well, because you -- when you were with the FBI -- for example, Pan Am, that flight, this is the same type of explosives that brought down that airliner.

BROOKS: Right. There were some traces of RDX and PETN, two of the compounds that are missing right now. But they believe that may have been synthetics. They were never able to say for sure whether is was because it was around a pound or so that was stuffed into a Toshiba radio cassette recorder put into a piece of luggage and then transferred eventually onto Pan Am 103 and it detonated over Lockerbie, Scotland. That was just a very, very small amount.

But we've looked at other incidents.

PHILLIPS: Well, that's pretty scary if you think a small amount versus 380 tons, I mean, getting in the hands of insurgents. That's a frightening thought.

BROOKS: It's very frightening -- 380 tons is amazing. You've got: 194.7 metric tons of HMX, which is used in military warheads; 141.2 metric tons of RDX, which are used in det cord and other plastic explosives -- high explosives, if you will; and 5.8 metric tons of PETN. That is just an unbelievable amount of ordnance.

I talked to someone today, an explosives expert with the federal law enforcement agency. And I said, "Did you hear about this?" He said, "Yes, 380 tons." He said, "That's one hell of a lot of explosives."

PHILLIPS: Well, it'll be interesting what the administration knew, knows. And we'll follow that part of the story, too. Mike Brooks, thanks a lot.

BROOKS: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Well, up next, more on Chief Justice Rehnquist's thyroid cancer treatment. LIVE FROM continues right after this.

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HARRIS: Well, we want to get an update on Chief Justice William Rehnquist's condition. As you know, the chief justice was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. We want to talk now to Robert Zimmerman. He's the associate program director of the Cleveland Clinic Department of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism.

Dr. Zimmerman, thanks for joining us.

DR. ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, CLEVELAND CLINIC: How are you?

HARRIS: Very well, thank you. Can you give us just the sort of basic nuts and bolts of thyroid cancer?

ZIMMERMAN: Well, thyroid cancer is a condition that is fairly common, but it's -- in most case patients who develop thyroid cancer, it really has a very good prognosis. That is, most people who develop thyroid cancer usually can be either cured or it can be controlled.

But there are some cases of thyroid cancer that don't have a good prognosis. And it really depends on the type of thyroid cancer that a patient has.

HARRIS: And Dr. Zimmerman, can you give us a sense given the age and the gender of the chief justice what type, what form of thyroid cancer he is most likely to have?

ZIMMERMAN: Well, for most patients, the most common type of thyroid cancer is called is papillary thyroid cancer. And if a patient has papillary thyroid cancer and it is relatively small and in the thyroid gland and not spread in other parts of the body, then the prognosis would be very good.

There are a few patients, very small number of patients that have a kind of thyroid cancer that's called anaplastic thyroid cancer. And that would have, you know, not as good a prognosis. But you know, most commonly patients have what's called papillary thyroid cancer. Another type is called follicular thyroid cancer and then medullary thyroid cancer. And each of these have sort of different types of prognoses, depending on, you know, what it is.

HARRIS: Give us a sense of the -- how you would go about curing this, the treatment regiment for these types of cancers that you're talking about.

ZIMMERMAN: If it's a papillary thyroid cancer, which is the most common type, generally patients would undergo a thyroidectomy, meaning that their thyroid gland is taken out. And then, depending on the size of it or whether it's in more than one site, usually they would then be treated with a dose of radioactive iodine, which then basically kills any other normal thyroid tissue or tissue that has little bits of thyroid cancer that are left after the surgery.

And basically, then the patients are usually followed in either a six-month or yearly intervals with either scans of the thyroid using radioactive iodine to scan for it. And then, also they use a measurement of thyroglobulin, which is a protein that's produced by the thyroid gland and thyroid tissue and not by other glands in the body.

And so, if you have thyroglobulin around, then it indicates that you have perhaps thyroid activity or thyroid cancer activity.

HARRIS: OK. Dr. Zimmerman, we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Thank you.

ZIMMERMAN: OK.

HARRIS: And up next on LIVE FROM, from health issues to money matters.

RHONDA SCHAFFLER, CNN SR. BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: ... at the New York Stock Exchange, there's a new shortage pushing up prices. I'll tell what you the latest commodity is after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: You like Jimmy Buffett, right?

HARRIS: I do. I do. "Margaritaville" -- margaritas.

PHILLIPS: There you go. Margaritas, pure party. Period.

Well, your "Cheeseburger in Paradise" may soon be missing a slice of something a little important.

HARRIS: Rhonda Schaffler has the story for us from the New York Stock Exchange. Hi, Rhonda.

(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Rhonda.

All right. Coming up in the second hour of LIVE FROM, the weapons worry in Iraq -- 380 tons of explosives gone.

HARRIS: Who has them, and what can they do with them? LIVE FROM's hour of power begins after this.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM CLINTON (D), FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If this isn't good for my heart, I don't know what is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Kerry campaign bets former President Clinton will win the hearts of undecided voters.

HARRIS: President Bush heads west, planning to call on another political star to help him shine in the last days of the campaign.

PHILLIPS: Chief Justice William Rehnquist undergoing treatment for cancer, We're live on that story.

HARRIS: And have they fallen into enemy hands? Tons on powerful explosives held at a facility near Baghdad simply disappear.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Tony Harris, in for Miles O'Brien.

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

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