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President Bush Set to Attend APEC Summit; Tensions Mount in Baghdad
Aired November 19, 2004 - 15:00 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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now in the news, more blood in the streets of Baghdad. A suicide car bomber kills five Iraqi police officers and wounds 10 other people at a security checkpoint.
And a street protest fueled by a cleric's sermon against the Falluja offensive leads to a shooting outside of Baghdad mosque. When some protesters shot at Iraqi National Guard members, they returned fire. Two civilians were killed and seven others wounded.
Outgoing South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle bids farewell to fellow lawmakers from the Senate floor today. The Democratic minority leader was the first party head to lose Senate reelection in more than 50 years. He was narrowly defeated by former Representative John Thune of South Dakota, one of four Republicans to claim Democratic seats in the Senate.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice out of surgery and reported to be resting comfortably at Georgetown University hospital at this hour. She underwent treatment this morning for uterine fibroids, a minimally invasive procedure that took about an hour and a half. Rice, nominated as the next secretary of state, is expected to go home tomorrow and be back on the job Monday.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Protests await President Bush at the Pacific Nation Summit in Chile. Mr. Bush will arrive at the summit this evening seeking broader support among Asian allies for pressuring North Korea about its nuclear weapons program.
CNN's Dana Bash, in Santiago already, she joins us to set the scene.
Hello, Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles.
And this is the president's first trip abroad since winning reelection, since winning what his outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell called a mandate they believe for an aggressive foreign policy. So Mr. Bush coming here to Santiago, as you mentioned, to meet with 21 leaders from APEC. This is for the annual summit that generally stresses economics and trade. That is what is at the heart.
But the Bush administration for the past several years has been pushing discussions on terrorism and security. And, as you mentioned, the primary focus for President Bush here will be on North Korea and trying to get that country to stop its nuclear program. Now, it is interesting to note that, if there had been a President Kerry, a president-elect Kerry, North Korea would be perhaps the most immediate and most obvious change in approach.
He favored on one-on-one bilateral negotiations with the United States and North Korea. That is something that the Bush administration has said that they don't agree with. And they have been pursuing what they call six-nation talks with the United States and some of North Korea's neighbors and those talks have been stalled for the past two years, but President Bush is going to meet with leaders from the other four countries.
He will have one-on-one discussions with leaders from Japan, South Korea, Russia and China over the weekend. And high on those talks, on the agenda of those talks, will be talking about North Korea. And in the lead-up to this summit, some of those leaders, for example, the president of South Korea, has expressed its frustration that the United States needs to be more flexible in those talks, that they need to make it clear to the North Koreans that they, that the United States will be willing to give security assurances, willing to give food and aid in exchange for North Korea stopping, dismantling its nuclear program.
But so far, the United States has been very staunch about not giving anything up before they get something in return from North Korea. Now, President Bush, as you mentioned, is on his way here to Santiago, but already here are some protesters, a couple thousand protesters we understand in the streets. Some are greeted with tear gas.
And there is minor violence. But others are quite peaceful. But this is something, Miles, that President Bush essentially has become used to when he goes on travels abroad, protests not just against his policies, but sometimes much more personal, against him and his approach as many see it as somebody who focuses more on war than on human rights.
Now, as I mentioned, this, of course, is at its heart an economic summit and Bush officials understand that they're going to face some complaints from some of the members here because of the weak dollar. That, some say, is hurting their economies. But the United States at this point has said that they're not going to change it because that also helps U.S. exports -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Dana Bash in Santiago, thank you very much.
Up, up, up goes the federal debt. Before he departed for Chile, President Bush OKed an extra $800 billion in government borrowing to finance overspending. Since entering office, Mr. Bush has approved nearly $2.25 trillion in borrowing. That's more than the government had to borrow from the time of the founding fathers up until 1986.
And a warning today from this powerful man. You know the face, Alan Greenspan, the mercurial chairman of the Federal Reserve. At a conference in Frankfurt, Germany, Mr. Greenspan hinted that overseas lenders could eventually shy away from lending America money to cover the trade deficit. That could lead to higher interest rates and another stock slump.
LIN: A suicide bombing, a firefight after Friday prayers. The tensions mount in Iraq's capital as insurgents forced out of Falluja take aim elsewhere.
Our senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, is back in Baghdad for us right now.
Nic, what happened today?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, that spike in violence coming in just a few hours in the early afternoon in Baghdad.
About 3:30 in the afternoon, a couple of hours after the Friday prayers had finished, a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden Mercedes car into a police checkpoint. There were at least three police vehicles making up that checkpoint in the middle of the road. When his vehicle collided with them, he detonated the car. Five of the policemen there were killed, four policemen wounded. And six civilians nearby were also injured.
There were a lot of police on the scene very quickly afterwards to try and help their injured comrades, but that coming right in the middle of the afternoon, a time when there's a lot of traffic out on the streets, a lot of people out on the streets of Baghdad. Just a few hours earlier, at the Abu Hanifa Mosque, a mosque that is in a very -- a staunchly anti-American neighborhood of Baghdad, the Aadhamiya neighborhood.
Outside that mosque, after prayers, about 200 to 300 Iraqi National Guard, backed by U.S. troops, showed up. It's not clear exactly what happened after that. But when the prayer-goers began to leave the mosque, shots were fired. Two people leaving the mosque were killed. Seven of them were wounded. Now, some bystanders believe what was going to happen was that the security forces were going to go in and detain the imam, the preacher at the mosque, detain two of his deputies for perhaps preaching anti-government, an anti- government message.
Just a few days ago in Mosul, in the north of the country, the government had indeed arrested some imams it believed were preaching against the Iraqi government and against the stability of Iraq -- Carol.
LIN: All right, thank you very much, Nic Robertson, reporting now live in Baghdad.
O'BRIEN: The city of Falluja said to be secure, no longer a haven for insurgents.
But make no mistake. It is still a scene of a great deal of combat. That and has civilians who survived the offensive on guard now.
CNN's Jane Arraf is there. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: As fighting subsides in Falluja, more and more civilians are venturing out of their homes.
There weren't a lot to begin with. According to officials here, less than 5 percent of the population has stayed in Falluja. That's perhaps just a little more than 10,000 people. But some of those we saw today in the center of the city venturing out into the streets, waving white flags so soldiers and Marines wouldn't shoot them.
Some of them have been congregating at a mosque that the Marines have set up as a distribution and aid center. There are about 115 men there, most of them the sole members of their families left behind to guard their homes. They've come there for food, water and shelter. But others came in distress for medical treatment.
We saw two women with two young children accompanied by a young man. They say that they were members of a families who a week ago heard a call from a mosque to go out, to go to the mosque for help. But when they did, they were shot. They're not sure by whom. One of the babies has a large wound in his arm treated by the Iraqi doctors and by the Marines there. And they're continuing to see wounded civilians who are coming out of their homes to seek help for the first time.
Other chilling discoveries as well. An Iraqi general tells us that as his forces go through the streets in Falluja, they are finding Iraqi prisoners, hostages, being helped after their captors had fled. He says they are rescuing them, but still (INAUDIBLE) more.
Jane Arraf, CNN, reporting from Falluja.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: The Spanish journalist who interviewed Osama bin Laden only weeks before 9/11 is back in Spanish custody today. Tayssir Alouni works for Al-Jazeera. He was indicted 14 months ago for allegedly belonging to a terrorist group with links to al Qaeda. Alouni later was released for medical reasons. But he remained under indictment and was rearrested last night after the charges were upheld.
Also today, another promise to end the civil war in Sudan. Officials of the government and the southern Sudanese rebels pledged in writing to end the fighting by January. The agreement was signed in Kenya at a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council, which promised its support.
And Iran says Secretary of State Colin Powell's accusation is simply not true, disturbing claims and counterclaims about nuclear ambitions in the country President Bush labeled part of an axis of evil. We're going to sort all that out just ahead.
And cross-dressing apparently crosses the line at a Texas school. It decides to hang up a gender-bending tradition.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(WEATHER UPDATE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Well, the same week he announced he will resign, Secretary of State Colin Powell has made an alarming charge concerning Iran. Speaking with reporter, Powell said Tehran is working to develop a missile to carry a nuclear warhead.
But if this part sounds familiar, questions are being raised already about the U.S. allegation and the source of Powell's information.
Sorting through it all, our national security correspondent David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Knowledgeable sources tell CNN there are questions about the reliability of the source of the intelligence Powell referred to Wednesday when he spoke of evidence Iran is working on delivery systems for nuclear weapons.
At the same time, U.S. officials are angered by a "Washington Post" report quoting two unnamed sources as saying the information Secretary of State Powell shared with reporters Wednesday came from an unvetted single source, a walk-in.
While declining to say whether "The Washington Post" report is accurate or not, one official said -- quote -- "Public discussion of the details of the human source of intelligence is irresponsible and a remarkably bad idea." Some are even talking of a leak investigation. "The Washington Post" article said that a walk-in source approached U.S. intelligence earlier this month with more then 1,000 pages of Iranian drawings and technical documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to deliver an atomic strike.
The Iranians last month did test a new Shahab-3 missile, which is said to have a range of 2,000 kilometers and would be the missile in question. In Chile, Secretary Powell spoke to major television network there about his comments Wednesday.
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I made a statement yesterday that said we have some information -- I've seen some information, and the dissidents have put out more information, that suggest that the Iranians are also working on designs one would have to have for putting such a warhead into a missile.
This shouldn't be brand new news. This shouldn't surprise anybody. If they had been working on a nuclear weapon and designed a warhead, certainly they were also trying to figure out how they would deliver such a warhead.
ENSOR: Back before the Iraq war, it was Powell who went to the United Nations to discuss intelligence evidence suggesting Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The evidence now appears to have been wrong.
Officials are now expressing dismay that Powell may once again have been let down by less-than-sure intelligence. Other officials are expressing even more dismay that he mentioned what they say was supposed to be highly classified information.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Well, a group of Iranian-Americans took to the streets of Washington today ostensibly to protest Tehran's nuclear push.
Not much natural sound there, but today demonstrations -- there it is -- was called to coincide with a meeting next week of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA will consider the recent claims that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Checking the headlines from across America, authorities in Florida are trying to determine what caused a man to open fire in a Saint Petersburg electronics store, killing two employees there before turning the gun on himself.
Police say the man had been involved in some kind of road rage incident a few hours earlier, had some mental issues, according to his family.
Georgia crematory owner Ray Brent Marsh faces up to 12 years in prison after he pleaded guilty today to 787 counts against him. Authorities say Marsh failed to cremate the bodies of about 300 people whose corpses were found scattered around the grounds of his crematorium.
And it's the end of a school tradition in Spurger, Texas. Students there usually switch gender roles for one day during homecoming week, complete with the commensurate wardrobe changes. But one parent's complaint that such a move had homosexual overtones prompted the school to change cross-dressing day to something more American, camouflage day.
LIN: Right, because we would much rather have our children wage war than wear a dress.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Could we please get our sense of humor back in this country?
(FINANCIAL UPDATE)
LIN: Well, critics call it the most scintillating 60 seconds on television.
O'BRIEN: But -- and who would that be? (LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: That would be Sandy (ph), my wife. Anyway, "Mars Minute" is ahead.
(LAUGHTER)
LIN: A smart man, you are.
O'BRIEN: And you will be amazed at what the Europeans are seeing on the surface of the red planet, le planete rouge, I suppose.
(LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right, time now for the "Mars Minute." Or today -- and you'll know why in just a moment -- we're going to call it le minute de Mars, le minute de Mars. Yes, it is a continental "Mars Minute."
Let's start le clock. All right, first of all, this is the Mars Express you're seeing right here, animation of its solar panel unfurling there, which occurred back in January. The Mars Express is funded and flown by ESA.
Carol, you know what ESA stands for?
LIN: ESA.
O'BRIEN: ESA.
Yes, thank you, the European Space Agency. Well, it's been up there taking pictures, got about 1,000 in the magazine, so to speak, already. Take a look at what they have got going there, high-res images. This is cool. Albor Tholus, it's called. This is a caldera, or a crater, for a volcano.
Now, the volcano extends all the way around here. The caldera itself is -- it goes down two miles down to the bottom and is 20 miles across. This is big stuff. And here's the interesting thing. I don't know if you can see this very well, Carol. But there's like a waterfall of dust there, OK? And the question is, does it go up or does it go down? In other words, does wind flow in and send it up or is it just streaming down?
All right, let's go to next image.
(BELL RINGING)
O'BRIEN: Oh, gosh. Here's another volcano. That's where the actual crater that we were just showing you was. That's pretty cool.
And I want to show you there, this, the Olympus Mons, the largest mountain in the solar system, which is how far? It's 13.5 miles high. That's the caldera for it. All kinds of cool patterns there to look at.
And finally, we move on, there is another crater which has actually some cool sand dunes in it right there. Look at those sand dunes.
All right, let's go -- we've got to look back at that first image one more time. I want you to take a look at it. Scientists have poring over it. They're looking for signs of water on Mars. And as they've been looking at this image and carefully looking, watch closely and see what they've been seeing. Oh, yes, there it is. It's a face on Mars. And it's proof-positive, apparently, that there was, in fact, and may be currently water on Mars.
(BELL RINGING)
LIN: And life beyond belief. All right.
O'BRIEN: All right.
Time now to get a crabby patty and get out of here.
(LAUGHTER)
LIN: So excited about four holes in the ground.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
LIN: And on that note, we are going to leave you on this Friday edition of LIVE FROM.
O'BRIEN: She's Carol Lin. I'm Miles O'Brien.
LIN: Always.
O'BRIEN: The weekend is here.
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 November 19, 2004 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now in the news, more blood in the streets of Baghdad. A suicide car bomber kills five Iraqi police officers and wounds 10 other people at a security checkpoint.
And a street protest fueled by a cleric's sermon against the Falluja offensive leads to a shooting outside of Baghdad mosque. When some protesters shot at Iraqi National Guard members, they returned fire. Two civilians were killed and seven others wounded.
Outgoing South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle bids farewell to fellow lawmakers from the Senate floor today. The Democratic minority leader was the first party head to lose Senate reelection in more than 50 years. He was narrowly defeated by former Representative John Thune of South Dakota, one of four Republicans to claim Democratic seats in the Senate.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice out of surgery and reported to be resting comfortably at Georgetown University hospital at this hour. She underwent treatment this morning for uterine fibroids, a minimally invasive procedure that took about an hour and a half. Rice, nominated as the next secretary of state, is expected to go home tomorrow and be back on the job Monday.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Protests await President Bush at the Pacific Nation Summit in Chile. Mr. Bush will arrive at the summit this evening seeking broader support among Asian allies for pressuring North Korea about its nuclear weapons program.
CNN's Dana Bash, in Santiago already, she joins us to set the scene.
Hello, Dana.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles.
And this is the president's first trip abroad since winning reelection, since winning what his outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell called a mandate they believe for an aggressive foreign policy. So Mr. Bush coming here to Santiago, as you mentioned, to meet with 21 leaders from APEC. This is for the annual summit that generally stresses economics and trade. That is what is at the heart.
But the Bush administration for the past several years has been pushing discussions on terrorism and security. And, as you mentioned, the primary focus for President Bush here will be on North Korea and trying to get that country to stop its nuclear program. Now, it is interesting to note that, if there had been a President Kerry, a president-elect Kerry, North Korea would be perhaps the most immediate and most obvious change in approach.
He favored on one-on-one bilateral negotiations with the United States and North Korea. That is something that the Bush administration has said that they don't agree with. And they have been pursuing what they call six-nation talks with the United States and some of North Korea's neighbors and those talks have been stalled for the past two years, but President Bush is going to meet with leaders from the other four countries.
He will have one-on-one discussions with leaders from Japan, South Korea, Russia and China over the weekend. And high on those talks, on the agenda of those talks, will be talking about North Korea. And in the lead-up to this summit, some of those leaders, for example, the president of South Korea, has expressed its frustration that the United States needs to be more flexible in those talks, that they need to make it clear to the North Koreans that they, that the United States will be willing to give security assurances, willing to give food and aid in exchange for North Korea stopping, dismantling its nuclear program.
But so far, the United States has been very staunch about not giving anything up before they get something in return from North Korea. Now, President Bush, as you mentioned, is on his way here to Santiago, but already here are some protesters, a couple thousand protesters we understand in the streets. Some are greeted with tear gas.
And there is minor violence. But others are quite peaceful. But this is something, Miles, that President Bush essentially has become used to when he goes on travels abroad, protests not just against his policies, but sometimes much more personal, against him and his approach as many see it as somebody who focuses more on war than on human rights.
Now, as I mentioned, this, of course, is at its heart an economic summit and Bush officials understand that they're going to face some complaints from some of the members here because of the weak dollar. That, some say, is hurting their economies. But the United States at this point has said that they're not going to change it because that also helps U.S. exports -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Dana Bash in Santiago, thank you very much.
Up, up, up goes the federal debt. Before he departed for Chile, President Bush OKed an extra $800 billion in government borrowing to finance overspending. Since entering office, Mr. Bush has approved nearly $2.25 trillion in borrowing. That's more than the government had to borrow from the time of the founding fathers up until 1986.
And a warning today from this powerful man. You know the face, Alan Greenspan, the mercurial chairman of the Federal Reserve. At a conference in Frankfurt, Germany, Mr. Greenspan hinted that overseas lenders could eventually shy away from lending America money to cover the trade deficit. That could lead to higher interest rates and another stock slump.
LIN: A suicide bombing, a firefight after Friday prayers. The tensions mount in Iraq's capital as insurgents forced out of Falluja take aim elsewhere.
Our senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, is back in Baghdad for us right now.
Nic, what happened today?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, that spike in violence coming in just a few hours in the early afternoon in Baghdad.
About 3:30 in the afternoon, a couple of hours after the Friday prayers had finished, a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden Mercedes car into a police checkpoint. There were at least three police vehicles making up that checkpoint in the middle of the road. When his vehicle collided with them, he detonated the car. Five of the policemen there were killed, four policemen wounded. And six civilians nearby were also injured.
There were a lot of police on the scene very quickly afterwards to try and help their injured comrades, but that coming right in the middle of the afternoon, a time when there's a lot of traffic out on the streets, a lot of people out on the streets of Baghdad. Just a few hours earlier, at the Abu Hanifa Mosque, a mosque that is in a very -- a staunchly anti-American neighborhood of Baghdad, the Aadhamiya neighborhood.
Outside that mosque, after prayers, about 200 to 300 Iraqi National Guard, backed by U.S. troops, showed up. It's not clear exactly what happened after that. But when the prayer-goers began to leave the mosque, shots were fired. Two people leaving the mosque were killed. Seven of them were wounded. Now, some bystanders believe what was going to happen was that the security forces were going to go in and detain the imam, the preacher at the mosque, detain two of his deputies for perhaps preaching anti-government, an anti- government message.
Just a few days ago in Mosul, in the north of the country, the government had indeed arrested some imams it believed were preaching against the Iraqi government and against the stability of Iraq -- Carol.
LIN: All right, thank you very much, Nic Robertson, reporting now live in Baghdad.
O'BRIEN: The city of Falluja said to be secure, no longer a haven for insurgents.
But make no mistake. It is still a scene of a great deal of combat. That and has civilians who survived the offensive on guard now.
CNN's Jane Arraf is there. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: As fighting subsides in Falluja, more and more civilians are venturing out of their homes.
There weren't a lot to begin with. According to officials here, less than 5 percent of the population has stayed in Falluja. That's perhaps just a little more than 10,000 people. But some of those we saw today in the center of the city venturing out into the streets, waving white flags so soldiers and Marines wouldn't shoot them.
Some of them have been congregating at a mosque that the Marines have set up as a distribution and aid center. There are about 115 men there, most of them the sole members of their families left behind to guard their homes. They've come there for food, water and shelter. But others came in distress for medical treatment.
We saw two women with two young children accompanied by a young man. They say that they were members of a families who a week ago heard a call from a mosque to go out, to go to the mosque for help. But when they did, they were shot. They're not sure by whom. One of the babies has a large wound in his arm treated by the Iraqi doctors and by the Marines there. And they're continuing to see wounded civilians who are coming out of their homes to seek help for the first time.
Other chilling discoveries as well. An Iraqi general tells us that as his forces go through the streets in Falluja, they are finding Iraqi prisoners, hostages, being helped after their captors had fled. He says they are rescuing them, but still (INAUDIBLE) more.
Jane Arraf, CNN, reporting from Falluja.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: The Spanish journalist who interviewed Osama bin Laden only weeks before 9/11 is back in Spanish custody today. Tayssir Alouni works for Al-Jazeera. He was indicted 14 months ago for allegedly belonging to a terrorist group with links to al Qaeda. Alouni later was released for medical reasons. But he remained under indictment and was rearrested last night after the charges were upheld.
Also today, another promise to end the civil war in Sudan. Officials of the government and the southern Sudanese rebels pledged in writing to end the fighting by January. The agreement was signed in Kenya at a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council, which promised its support.
And Iran says Secretary of State Colin Powell's accusation is simply not true, disturbing claims and counterclaims about nuclear ambitions in the country President Bush labeled part of an axis of evil. We're going to sort all that out just ahead.
And cross-dressing apparently crosses the line at a Texas school. It decides to hang up a gender-bending tradition.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(WEATHER UPDATE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Well, the same week he announced he will resign, Secretary of State Colin Powell has made an alarming charge concerning Iran. Speaking with reporter, Powell said Tehran is working to develop a missile to carry a nuclear warhead.
But if this part sounds familiar, questions are being raised already about the U.S. allegation and the source of Powell's information.
Sorting through it all, our national security correspondent David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Knowledgeable sources tell CNN there are questions about the reliability of the source of the intelligence Powell referred to Wednesday when he spoke of evidence Iran is working on delivery systems for nuclear weapons.
At the same time, U.S. officials are angered by a "Washington Post" report quoting two unnamed sources as saying the information Secretary of State Powell shared with reporters Wednesday came from an unvetted single source, a walk-in.
While declining to say whether "The Washington Post" report is accurate or not, one official said -- quote -- "Public discussion of the details of the human source of intelligence is irresponsible and a remarkably bad idea." Some are even talking of a leak investigation. "The Washington Post" article said that a walk-in source approached U.S. intelligence earlier this month with more then 1,000 pages of Iranian drawings and technical documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to deliver an atomic strike.
The Iranians last month did test a new Shahab-3 missile, which is said to have a range of 2,000 kilometers and would be the missile in question. In Chile, Secretary Powell spoke to major television network there about his comments Wednesday.
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I made a statement yesterday that said we have some information -- I've seen some information, and the dissidents have put out more information, that suggest that the Iranians are also working on designs one would have to have for putting such a warhead into a missile.
This shouldn't be brand new news. This shouldn't surprise anybody. If they had been working on a nuclear weapon and designed a warhead, certainly they were also trying to figure out how they would deliver such a warhead.
ENSOR: Back before the Iraq war, it was Powell who went to the United Nations to discuss intelligence evidence suggesting Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The evidence now appears to have been wrong.
Officials are now expressing dismay that Powell may once again have been let down by less-than-sure intelligence. Other officials are expressing even more dismay that he mentioned what they say was supposed to be highly classified information.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Well, a group of Iranian-Americans took to the streets of Washington today ostensibly to protest Tehran's nuclear push.
Not much natural sound there, but today demonstrations -- there it is -- was called to coincide with a meeting next week of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA will consider the recent claims that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Checking the headlines from across America, authorities in Florida are trying to determine what caused a man to open fire in a Saint Petersburg electronics store, killing two employees there before turning the gun on himself.
Police say the man had been involved in some kind of road rage incident a few hours earlier, had some mental issues, according to his family.
Georgia crematory owner Ray Brent Marsh faces up to 12 years in prison after he pleaded guilty today to 787 counts against him. Authorities say Marsh failed to cremate the bodies of about 300 people whose corpses were found scattered around the grounds of his crematorium.
And it's the end of a school tradition in Spurger, Texas. Students there usually switch gender roles for one day during homecoming week, complete with the commensurate wardrobe changes. But one parent's complaint that such a move had homosexual overtones prompted the school to change cross-dressing day to something more American, camouflage day.
LIN: Right, because we would much rather have our children wage war than wear a dress.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Could we please get our sense of humor back in this country?
(FINANCIAL UPDATE)
LIN: Well, critics call it the most scintillating 60 seconds on television.
O'BRIEN: But -- and who would that be? (LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: That would be Sandy (ph), my wife. Anyway, "Mars Minute" is ahead.
(LAUGHTER)
LIN: A smart man, you are.
O'BRIEN: And you will be amazed at what the Europeans are seeing on the surface of the red planet, le planete rouge, I suppose.
(LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right, time now for the "Mars Minute." Or today -- and you'll know why in just a moment -- we're going to call it le minute de Mars, le minute de Mars. Yes, it is a continental "Mars Minute."
Let's start le clock. All right, first of all, this is the Mars Express you're seeing right here, animation of its solar panel unfurling there, which occurred back in January. The Mars Express is funded and flown by ESA.
Carol, you know what ESA stands for?
LIN: ESA.
O'BRIEN: ESA.
Yes, thank you, the European Space Agency. Well, it's been up there taking pictures, got about 1,000 in the magazine, so to speak, already. Take a look at what they have got going there, high-res images. This is cool. Albor Tholus, it's called. This is a caldera, or a crater, for a volcano.
Now, the volcano extends all the way around here. The caldera itself is -- it goes down two miles down to the bottom and is 20 miles across. This is big stuff. And here's the interesting thing. I don't know if you can see this very well, Carol. But there's like a waterfall of dust there, OK? And the question is, does it go up or does it go down? In other words, does wind flow in and send it up or is it just streaming down?
All right, let's go to next image.
(BELL RINGING)
O'BRIEN: Oh, gosh. Here's another volcano. That's where the actual crater that we were just showing you was. That's pretty cool.
And I want to show you there, this, the Olympus Mons, the largest mountain in the solar system, which is how far? It's 13.5 miles high. That's the caldera for it. All kinds of cool patterns there to look at.
And finally, we move on, there is another crater which has actually some cool sand dunes in it right there. Look at those sand dunes.
All right, let's go -- we've got to look back at that first image one more time. I want you to take a look at it. Scientists have poring over it. They're looking for signs of water on Mars. And as they've been looking at this image and carefully looking, watch closely and see what they've been seeing. Oh, yes, there it is. It's a face on Mars. And it's proof-positive, apparently, that there was, in fact, and may be currently water on Mars.
(BELL RINGING)
LIN: And life beyond belief. All right.
O'BRIEN: All right.
Time now to get a crabby patty and get out of here.
(LAUGHTER)
LIN: So excited about four holes in the ground.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
LIN: And on that note, we are going to leave you on this Friday edition of LIVE FROM.
O'BRIEN: She's Carol Lin. I'm Miles O'Brien.
LIN: Always.
O'BRIEN: The weekend is here.
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