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Rice Meets with European Leaders, Stands Firm on Iran; Italian Journalist Kidnapped in Iraq; Authorities Looking for Couple Suspected of "Disgusting" Abuse; Married Financial Experts to Host New Show; Children Increasingly Victims of Meth
Aired February 04, 2005 - 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.
TONY HARRIS, CO-HOST: Offering thanks and mending fences. The new secretary of state heads overseas and talks about the U.S. plan for Iran.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm John Zarrella. Authorities on Florida's west coast are calling a case of child abuse and torture involving seven kids both revolting and disgusting. I'll have that story coming up.
BETTY NGUYEN, CO-HOST: And meth addiction, fast becoming a problem nationwide. Our Randi Kaye looks at how kids could be the ones affected the most.
HARRIS: What at first seemed like an old coffeepot turns out to be a six-figure find. Who are you going to call? The dynamic duo of antique appraisers is back.
From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Tony Harris in for Miles O'Brien.
NGUYEN: And I'm Betty Nguyen in for Kyra Phillips today. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
Not on the agenda but not necessarily off the table. The subject is a U.S. attack on Iran, and the speaker is the new U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. The occasion is Rice's first trip abroad in her new capacity, and our reporter is CNN Elaine Quijano, at the White House with the latest.
Hi, there, Elaine.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Betty.
That's right. Secretary Rice made that comment while on a stop in London. And on her tour of Europe so far she's had some harsh words for Iran, saying that its activities, particularly the support of terrorism, are destabilizing to the region.
Now, when asked, however, about the U.S. attacking Iran, Secretary Rice said that, quote, "simply is not on the agenda at this point," end quote.
The secretary in Germany a short time ago appeared at a news conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. There, she continued her strong language against Iran and made clear she intends to speak forcefully in her new position.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: The behavior of the Iranian government, both internally and externally, is of concern to an international community that is increasingly unified around the view that values matter, that the Middle East is a place that is in need of reform and change, and I see no difficulty in continuing to say that and continuing to work for that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: Now, Secretary Rice is on a week-long tour that will take her through seven European capitals as well as meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. This, of course, Betty, one of the important -- one of the top priorities for the Bush administration on the foreign policy side, that is helping to move along a peace process, trying to find some kind of solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
NGUYEN: Elaine, let's talk domestic issues now. What is the president doing today to drum up support for his Social Security plan?
QUIJANO: Well, the president is continuing with his two-day campaign, if you will, to try to win over people on his ideas on Social Security. In fact, at this hour the president is speaking in Arkansas trying to spread the message that unless lawmakers act soon to overhaul the system, Social Security will run out of money by 2042.
As we know, the president has proposed a voluntary plan to allow those under 55 to take some of their withholdings and put them in private accounts. But with oppositions from -- opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans expressing reservations over adding more debt and cutting benefits, Mr. Bush earlier today in Omaha, Nebraska, said he is open to most ideas.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There have been some interesting suggestions, all of them on the table. I'm willing to work with anybody -- Republican, or Democrat, or independent -- who wants to come in and discuss ways to solve the problem. Everything is on the table, except raising payroll taxes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: And in the past couple of days the president has already taken his case to North Dakota, and Montana, Nebraska we told you about, Arkansas we saw the president. And later this afternoon to Tampa, Florida.
Now, these are all places where the president is trying to put pressure on vulnerable Democrats, states where the president feels he can try and convince people there that Social Security needs to be fixed. But Democrats so far are holding firm, although at least one Democrat is saying he needs to see more details on Social Security and trying to make changes to it certainly is a complicated issue -- Betty.
NGUYEN: CNN's Elaine Quijano at the White House. Thank you, Elaine -- Tony.
HARRIS: Another new member of President Bush's cabinet is getting his sea legs today. He's attorney general, former White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, seen here with the Justice Department just hours after his confirmation vote, which was decisive but highly partisan. All 36 of the no votes came from the Democrats and the chamber's lone independent.
In remarks this morning to his new staff, Gonzales pledged to uphold American values and legal obligations in conducting the war on terror.
A holdover from the president's first term -- a holdover from the president's first term says he offered to quit over Abu Ghraib. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told CNN's Larry King the notorious abuses at the notorious Iraqi prison couldn't be, in his words, "managed or dealt" with by officials in Washington. Still, he said, the responsibility lay with him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I submitted my resignation to President Bush twice during that period, and I told him that I felt that he ought to make the decision as to whether or not I stayed on. And he made that decision and said he did want me to stay on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Rumsfeld is one of only a half dozen cabinet members to keep their jobs when the president was reelected.
NGUYEN: Three more U.S. soldiers are dead in Iraq today after three separate attacks. The latest happened outside Tikrit: an improvised explosive device targeting members of Task Force Danger. Seven troops were hurt.
Now, earlier, a soldier working with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed south of Baghdad. Another died in a roadside bombing near Mosul.
Another brazen kidnapping is also in the news. The victim, an Italian newspaper reporter out and about near Baghdad University. CNN's Nic Robertson joins us now with that and with a widening lead for religious Shiites in last weekend's elections.
Hi, Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Betty. Well, Giuliana Sgrena was kidnapped in broad daylight about the middle of the day today. She'd been to Baghdad University. She'd been talking with residents of the town of Falluja who'd left the town during the offensive back in November. She'd been interviewing people there.
She had gotten into her vehicle, was driving away, according to security guards, when the road was blocked. Gunmen pulled up alongside her vehicle, fired shots in the air, pulled her driver and translator out of the way, grabbed her and put her in their vehicle and drove off.
Now, according to her editors in Rome, she is very experienced. She has been to Iraq many times before. They say that they are now working the phones, calling aid organizations and others here in Iraq to try and find out who has kidnapped her to try to get her release.
According to the police in Baghdad earlier on today, they had no information yet on exactly who had kidnapped her.
The electoral commission here in Baghdad today has now announced that it has counted another one-quarter of all of the electoral polling stations in Iraq. They have counted 3.3 million votes. So far, however, they've only counted the votes from 10 of the provinces, predominantly in the south of Iraq, predominantly Shiite provinces. The electoral commission says, therefore, from these results you cannot predict the overall outcome of the voting.
So far, the majority Sunni Muslim provinces in the center of the country and the majority Kurdish provinces in the north of the country haven't been counted.
But what is becoming very, very clear from those predominantly Shiite provinces in the south, the religious -- the religious list of parties, the United Iraqi Alliance that has given the support of the most senior religious leader here, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is way out ahead of other parties, way out ahead of the more secular list of parties that Iraq's prime minister, Ayad Allawi, is a member of.
And at this time, it does seem the United Iraqi Alliance really does have a lead, a lead they may well maintain, a lead they've been expected to maintain. But again, the electoral commission cautioning against reading too much into these partial results so far, Betty.
NGUYEN: Right. And that overall result is expected sometime next week. Nic Robertson in Baghdad for us today. Thank you, Nic -- Tony.
HARRIS: In Florida, authorities are getting tips from around the country as they search for a couple accused in a horrific case of child abuse involving torture and starvation. Police say some of the children were so malnourished they looked like pictures from Auschwitz.
CNN's John Zarrella joins us from Miami with an update on the search. And John, maybe you can update the condition of the children, who I understand are now in state custody.
ZARRELLA: That's correct. And I can tell you that the state authorities, because of the nature of the case and because these are, of course, all minors, all they will tell us is that, quote, "under the circumstances, the kids are OK." Those circumstances, as you pointed out, as we've been pointing out all day, absolutely horrific.
The children are all in the custody now of Florida's Department of Children and Family, but police in Citrus County, in Florida's west coast, north of Tampa, say five of the seven children experienced horrific conditions, malnourishment, electric shock treatment. Their hands were bound. They were put in closets. Their fingernails may even have been pulled out. This is what the kids are telling the authorities in Citrus County.
It all began about two weeks ago. Police, emergency technicians, called to a house in Citrus County in the town of Beverly Hills. They got a 911 call. It came in from a 16-year-old. When they got there, they found the 16-year-old bleeding. They also found that at 16 years old he weighed 59 pounds. They also found two 14-year-old twins who weighed less than 40 pounds each.
Eventually all of the kids were taken into the custody of the Department of Children and Families. And before these two people could be brought to court for a hearing, they ended up leaving. And police are now looking for John and Linda Dollar. These two people charged with aggravated child abuse and torture.
They are not -- and police are telling us they are not the parents, the biological parents of these children. They may not even be the legal guardians of these children or foster parents.
So it is a very confusing story even at this moment. But authorities are saying that what happened to these children was both, quote -- quote, "revolting and disgusting."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GAIL TIERNEY, CITRUS COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: I've seen pictures of the children that have been taken in connection with this case, and you know, they have very sweet faces, but when you look at their bodies, I mean, it looks like Auschwitz.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARRELLA: Now, the latest information that we have from authorities, again, is that the kids are OK, under the circumstances, and that perhaps back in 1995 in Hillsboro County, which is just in Tampa, Tampa area, the two people may have had a license to care for foster kids for a short period of time in 1995. And that is coming from the Department of Children and Families in Hillsboro County.
Now, police are looking for two vehicles. One vehicle is a motor home with a Florida tag. Well, that's the Lexus, a gold Lexus. The Florida tag: DH41D. It may be behind a motor home, being pulled by a motor home with a tag number of U06YAC. And again, they're getting lots of tips coming into them now and, obviously, for very obvious reasons, they really do want to get their hands on these people, Tony, very quickly.
HARRIS: We just need one of those tips to pan out. John, we appreciate it. John Zarrella in Miami.
NGUYEN: Well, we have some other sad news today from Florida. Actor Ossie Davis has died. He was found this morning by his grandson in his Miami hotel room.
Davis, 87, was one of the most respected actors of his or any other generation. Here we see him in Spike Lee's 1989 movie, "Do the Right Thing."
In a career that included writing, directing and producing, as well as acting, Davis was considered a pioneer among African-American artists. Davis was also deeply involved with the civil rights struggle. He gave eulogies to both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
He and his longtime wife and acting partner, Ruby Dee, received Kennedy Center honors just is past December.
And look at this. Here is some video shot just yesterday in Miami by our affiliate, WSDN. After a career of more than 50 years, Ossie Davis was still at work, making a movie called "Retirement," along with Peter Falk, George Segal and Rip Torn.
We'll have more on the life and career of Ossie Davis a little bit later on, right here on LIVE FROM.
HARRIS: Strong, dignified. Full of character.
The ripple effects of adults addicted to chasing the high.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUDGE PEGGY WALKER, DOUGLASVILLE, GEORGIA: We see it over and over and over again, and I'm sick of it. I'm angry. I'm tired of it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: How children who aren't even old enough to walk are being damaged by the nation's growing methamphetamine addiction.
NGUYEN: Plus, why you need to hear this woman's story if you think your heart is healthy.
HARRIS: And up next, you know, it's not surprising to find financial experts disagree over the future of Social Security. But what happens when those experts are husband and wife?
NGUYEN: Watch out.
HARRIS: Find out when LIVE FROM continues right after this break.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: U.S. unemployment rolls dropped by 146,000 last month, and the jobless rate dropped a little, too. The stats don't always move in tandem, though. But for January the hiring increase comes as official unemployment dips from 5.4 to 5.2 percent.
Economists had banked on a bigger spike in jobs and no change in the rates.
HARRIS: Well, anyone from Dr. Phil to your Aunt Mavis -- not aunt, Aunt Mavis -- will tell you that e of the things that couples argue about most is money. So do Ken and Daria Dolan. But they've argued about money on radio and television every day for almost two decades and have still managed to stay married.
KEN DOLAN, CO-HOST, "DOLANS UNSCRIPTED": Are we married?
HARRIS: I think that's the first question. The Dolans are bringing their financial acumen to CNN this Saturday, following "CNN SATURDAY MORNING" with Betty Nguyen and Tony Harris. They're joining us now from New York with a preview of "DOLANS UNSCRIPTED."
Good to talk to you both.
K. DOLAN: Hold on, Tony Harris. The first thing I want to say is I can't wait to see Larry King and Snoop Doggy Dog.
HARRIS: That's going to happen. That's going to happen.
Well, it's good to see you both. And you know, for folks who haven't seen -- caught the act when you were on CNNfn and haven't heard the radio show, you really do, you just go at it about everything. Do you agree on much at all?
K. DOLAN: We agree -- we agree on very, very little. One of the jobs on this show is to try to bring my wife around to be thinking much more clearly.
HARRIS: And Daria, that was a question to you, by the way.
DARIA DOLAN, CO-HOST, "DOLANS UNSCRIPTED": Thank you so much. No. The problem we have with this -- this issue is Social Security. We have not agreed on...
HARRIS: You want to get right to the issues. OK.
DOLAN: We have not agreed all the years of our marriage.
HARRIS: OK, so all right. So where do you stand on Social Security? You know what the president is doing. He's in Arkansas. He was somewhere in Omaha a little earlier today. D. DOLAN: Yes.
HARRIS: And he is pushing this notion of private investment accounts. Where do you stand on this?
D. DOLAN: Well, let me just come back to the point that I do agree with the president that there are problems with Social Security and the longer we put off trying to fix them, the worse it's going to get.
Whether private accounts are the answer, first off, Tony, let's be rational here.
HARRIS: OK.
D. DOLAN: At a thousand bucks, which is the maximum, four percent, nobody is going to be able to fund any better than Social Security currently is. So something needs to get done.
HARRIS: So Ken, what do you -- what do you do?
K. DOLAN: Tony, Tony, Tony.
HARRIS: Yes? Talk to me, doctor.
K. DOLAN: One of the things Daria wants to do is one thing she thinks is going to help Social Security. I say -- I say that's much less of a problem. Blah, blah, blah, Tony about the plan. OK? Let's do this...
D. DOLAN: When you bring in the morons in Congress...
HARRIS: Oh! Oh!
K. DOLAN: Can I talk to Tony just for two seconds here, my friend Tony Harris?
Tony...
HARRIS: Yes.
K. DOLAN: Let's make the retirement age a little older. Maybe let's cut a little bit of the benefits. Maybe that's a way to do it. And let's index it to inflation instead of wages. And my knucklehead wife, right?
HARRIS: Oh, my!
K. DOLAN: My knucklehead wife says, you know what she says?
HARRIS: What does she say?
K. DOLAN: She said -- I'm glad you asked me, Tony. I will tell you.
D. DOLAN: After this show she's not going to be saying much of anything.
K. DOLAN: She's talking about means testing, which means...
HARRIS: Means testing. Hey!
K. DOLAN: ... if I'm smart enough to have invested along the way and done very well in retirement, making X numbers of dollars in retirement, what my wife wants to do is one of the solutions is she wants to say, "Ken, you've done very well. You're doing very well in retirement. We're going to stop your benefits and we're going to give it to Jay Conroy, our floor manager, who failed all through his life and has no money." What a stupid idea. I'll talk about it Saturday.
HARRIS: Daria, are you going to let him -- are you going to let him do that and say that?
D. DOLAN: You know what? I take it as a compliment coming from him. The fact of the matter is, the way it is structured right now, something is going to have to give. Either we stop giving people who are earning $200,000 and $300,000 and $400,000 in retirement benefits and use it as the insurance policy or we're going to have to raise the taxes, neither of which is very palatable to any member of Congress. But somebody's going to have to touch the third rail.
HARRIS: All right. Daria, can I move on just a moment here? I want to ask you the question of who came up with the bright idea of Medicare covering Viagra?
D. DOLAN: Another one of our favorite topics, Tony.
HARRIS: It is?
D. DOLAN: Oh, yes.
HARRIS: Funny that I stumbled on it.
K. DOLAN: Oh, man. Now, let me read something to you, Tony Harris...
HARRIS: Yes.
K. DOLAN: ... and to my wife. The law says if it's an FDA approved -- I'm reading this verbatim.
HARRIS: Right.
K. DOLAN: If the law says it's an FDA approved drug and it is medically necessary -- doctor's prescription, Tony...
HARRIS: Yes.
K. DOLAN: ... then it has to be covered. Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. They're going to be covered whether you like it or not.
HARRIS: Daria -- Daria, I know it doesn't happen at home often. So it's going to have to happen here. Ken's going to have to get the last word.
D. DOLAN: Oh, no.
HARRIS: I know -- you want to have a say?
D. DOLAN: I just want to say that if men can get Viagra, then women ought to get all the things that they need which right now are hardly ever covered by anybody anywhere.
HARRIS: There you go. There it is. That's the way it works in my house.
D. DOLAN: I did it.
HARRIS: Wife gets the last word.
K. DOLAN: Ten o'clock, Tony, Saturday. Be here tomorrow morning.
HARRIS: We'll be there. Be sure to catch the debut of the "DOLANS UNSCRIPTED" tomorrow morning at 10 Eastern. And they'll be taking your phone calls live.
NGUYEN: It's amazing that they're still married, those two, I'll tell you.
HARRIS: Thirty-three years.
NGUYEN: I know; 33 long years.
HARRIS: Come on.
NGUYEN: Well, the pope's plans for Sunday's mass, we'll be talking about that. Find out what the Vatican is saying today about the pontiff's bout with the flu.
HARRIS: Plus, our in-depth look at America's growing methamphetamine problem, how children are being trapped by their parents' addiction.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Well, a quick scan of the national news every day turns up more deaths, fires and arrests from the dangerous and illegal drug trade. Today alone authorities in Tennessee, Ohio and Washington state are dealing with the discoveries of methamphetamine labs and people caught in that drug's insidious grip.
As Randi Kaye reports, even the most innocent lives get swept up in chasing the high.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thornton, Colorado, 10 miles outside Denver, a drug raid under way. But this bust will reveal more than just drugs. A victim, one you wouldn't expect. His name is Brandon, just 18 months, exposed to a world no child should ever see. Brandon and his mother are in this home where the drug methamphetamine is being made. It is a meth lab. Right next to Brandon's toys, deadly chemicals.
His mother reaches out to him to assure him. But it's too late. His mother is arrested, later convicted for drug possession and child abuse.
This little boy now faces a tough journey. He's not the only one.
WALKER: We see it over and over and over again, and I'm sick of it. I'm angry. I'm tired of it.
KAYE: Meth use is spiking across the country, and children are suffering.
WALKER: Who's going to raise their children? Who's going to care for these children?
KAYE: Juvenile court Judge Peggy Walker sees it in her Douglasville, Georgia, courtroom every day.
WALKER: It's the most addictive drug I have ever seen.
KAYE: Meth is made using every day household items like hydrochloric acid, found in toilet bowl cleaner. The chemicals are used to convert common cold medicines containing suphedrine into meth. That process creates toxic fumes that are especially harmful to children.
(on camera) According to the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children, kids are found in more than 30 percent of meth labs raided nationwide. It also says most women who are meth cooks are of child-bearing age, and when a pregnant woman gets high on meth, so does her baby.
(voice-over) Dr. Rizwan Shah is a pediatrician who studies the effects of meth on children.
DR. RIZWAN SHAH, PEDIATRICIAN: Methamphetamine in the placenta (ph) can cause a sudden rise in the blood pressure of the brain, and that can cause a stroke in an unborn child resulting in convulsions, muscle tone problems, tremors and sometimes even paralysis.
KAYE: This is what a meth baby looks like: premature, hooked on meth and suffering the pangs of withdrawal. They don't want to eat or sleep, and the simplest things cause great pain.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She would cry when she would have her diaper changed because it was so tender and sore.
KAYE: This baby's bottom is burned. When her mother inhaled meth, so did she. Now every time the baby goes to the bathroom, the acids from the meth in her system burn her own skin. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The buttocks actually is bleeding.
KAYE: Ron Mullins is a cop turned coordinator with the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children. During his years on the street, he shut down hundreds of meth labs. Today he helps state care for children of meth.
RON MULLINS, NADEC: These children are being raised in homes that are absolutely filthy. There's rotting food everywhere. There's animal and human feces everywhere. It's deplorable conditions.
WALKER: Parents are walking away from their children. They walk away from their spouses. They walk away from their home. They walk away from their jobs. They walk away from their life as they knew it.
KAYE: No one knows that more than this woman. Her name is Tiffany (ph). She's a meth addict and a mom. Her life offers a glimpse at the power of meth. It's so powerful it can pull a mother away from her child.
TIFFANY: I felt so ashamed and so guilty. And I almost just wanted to die because of what I'd done to my kids.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Wow. Our in-depth look at America's methamphetamine addiction continues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIFFANY: I think I was almost three months pregnant when I found out I was pregnant, and I had been using pretty heavily.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: After the break, one mother's story of addiction and redemption.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired February 4, 2005 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CO-HOST: Offering thanks and mending fences. The new secretary of state heads overseas and talks about the U.S. plan for Iran.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm John Zarrella. Authorities on Florida's west coast are calling a case of child abuse and torture involving seven kids both revolting and disgusting. I'll have that story coming up.
BETTY NGUYEN, CO-HOST: And meth addiction, fast becoming a problem nationwide. Our Randi Kaye looks at how kids could be the ones affected the most.
HARRIS: What at first seemed like an old coffeepot turns out to be a six-figure find. Who are you going to call? The dynamic duo of antique appraisers is back.
From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Tony Harris in for Miles O'Brien.
NGUYEN: And I'm Betty Nguyen in for Kyra Phillips today. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
Not on the agenda but not necessarily off the table. The subject is a U.S. attack on Iran, and the speaker is the new U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. The occasion is Rice's first trip abroad in her new capacity, and our reporter is CNN Elaine Quijano, at the White House with the latest.
Hi, there, Elaine.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Betty.
That's right. Secretary Rice made that comment while on a stop in London. And on her tour of Europe so far she's had some harsh words for Iran, saying that its activities, particularly the support of terrorism, are destabilizing to the region.
Now, when asked, however, about the U.S. attacking Iran, Secretary Rice said that, quote, "simply is not on the agenda at this point," end quote.
The secretary in Germany a short time ago appeared at a news conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. There, she continued her strong language against Iran and made clear she intends to speak forcefully in her new position.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: The behavior of the Iranian government, both internally and externally, is of concern to an international community that is increasingly unified around the view that values matter, that the Middle East is a place that is in need of reform and change, and I see no difficulty in continuing to say that and continuing to work for that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: Now, Secretary Rice is on a week-long tour that will take her through seven European capitals as well as meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. This, of course, Betty, one of the important -- one of the top priorities for the Bush administration on the foreign policy side, that is helping to move along a peace process, trying to find some kind of solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
NGUYEN: Elaine, let's talk domestic issues now. What is the president doing today to drum up support for his Social Security plan?
QUIJANO: Well, the president is continuing with his two-day campaign, if you will, to try to win over people on his ideas on Social Security. In fact, at this hour the president is speaking in Arkansas trying to spread the message that unless lawmakers act soon to overhaul the system, Social Security will run out of money by 2042.
As we know, the president has proposed a voluntary plan to allow those under 55 to take some of their withholdings and put them in private accounts. But with oppositions from -- opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans expressing reservations over adding more debt and cutting benefits, Mr. Bush earlier today in Omaha, Nebraska, said he is open to most ideas.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There have been some interesting suggestions, all of them on the table. I'm willing to work with anybody -- Republican, or Democrat, or independent -- who wants to come in and discuss ways to solve the problem. Everything is on the table, except raising payroll taxes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: And in the past couple of days the president has already taken his case to North Dakota, and Montana, Nebraska we told you about, Arkansas we saw the president. And later this afternoon to Tampa, Florida.
Now, these are all places where the president is trying to put pressure on vulnerable Democrats, states where the president feels he can try and convince people there that Social Security needs to be fixed. But Democrats so far are holding firm, although at least one Democrat is saying he needs to see more details on Social Security and trying to make changes to it certainly is a complicated issue -- Betty.
NGUYEN: CNN's Elaine Quijano at the White House. Thank you, Elaine -- Tony.
HARRIS: Another new member of President Bush's cabinet is getting his sea legs today. He's attorney general, former White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, seen here with the Justice Department just hours after his confirmation vote, which was decisive but highly partisan. All 36 of the no votes came from the Democrats and the chamber's lone independent.
In remarks this morning to his new staff, Gonzales pledged to uphold American values and legal obligations in conducting the war on terror.
A holdover from the president's first term -- a holdover from the president's first term says he offered to quit over Abu Ghraib. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told CNN's Larry King the notorious abuses at the notorious Iraqi prison couldn't be, in his words, "managed or dealt" with by officials in Washington. Still, he said, the responsibility lay with him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I submitted my resignation to President Bush twice during that period, and I told him that I felt that he ought to make the decision as to whether or not I stayed on. And he made that decision and said he did want me to stay on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Rumsfeld is one of only a half dozen cabinet members to keep their jobs when the president was reelected.
NGUYEN: Three more U.S. soldiers are dead in Iraq today after three separate attacks. The latest happened outside Tikrit: an improvised explosive device targeting members of Task Force Danger. Seven troops were hurt.
Now, earlier, a soldier working with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed south of Baghdad. Another died in a roadside bombing near Mosul.
Another brazen kidnapping is also in the news. The victim, an Italian newspaper reporter out and about near Baghdad University. CNN's Nic Robertson joins us now with that and with a widening lead for religious Shiites in last weekend's elections.
Hi, Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Betty. Well, Giuliana Sgrena was kidnapped in broad daylight about the middle of the day today. She'd been to Baghdad University. She'd been talking with residents of the town of Falluja who'd left the town during the offensive back in November. She'd been interviewing people there.
She had gotten into her vehicle, was driving away, according to security guards, when the road was blocked. Gunmen pulled up alongside her vehicle, fired shots in the air, pulled her driver and translator out of the way, grabbed her and put her in their vehicle and drove off.
Now, according to her editors in Rome, she is very experienced. She has been to Iraq many times before. They say that they are now working the phones, calling aid organizations and others here in Iraq to try and find out who has kidnapped her to try to get her release.
According to the police in Baghdad earlier on today, they had no information yet on exactly who had kidnapped her.
The electoral commission here in Baghdad today has now announced that it has counted another one-quarter of all of the electoral polling stations in Iraq. They have counted 3.3 million votes. So far, however, they've only counted the votes from 10 of the provinces, predominantly in the south of Iraq, predominantly Shiite provinces. The electoral commission says, therefore, from these results you cannot predict the overall outcome of the voting.
So far, the majority Sunni Muslim provinces in the center of the country and the majority Kurdish provinces in the north of the country haven't been counted.
But what is becoming very, very clear from those predominantly Shiite provinces in the south, the religious -- the religious list of parties, the United Iraqi Alliance that has given the support of the most senior religious leader here, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is way out ahead of other parties, way out ahead of the more secular list of parties that Iraq's prime minister, Ayad Allawi, is a member of.
And at this time, it does seem the United Iraqi Alliance really does have a lead, a lead they may well maintain, a lead they've been expected to maintain. But again, the electoral commission cautioning against reading too much into these partial results so far, Betty.
NGUYEN: Right. And that overall result is expected sometime next week. Nic Robertson in Baghdad for us today. Thank you, Nic -- Tony.
HARRIS: In Florida, authorities are getting tips from around the country as they search for a couple accused in a horrific case of child abuse involving torture and starvation. Police say some of the children were so malnourished they looked like pictures from Auschwitz.
CNN's John Zarrella joins us from Miami with an update on the search. And John, maybe you can update the condition of the children, who I understand are now in state custody.
ZARRELLA: That's correct. And I can tell you that the state authorities, because of the nature of the case and because these are, of course, all minors, all they will tell us is that, quote, "under the circumstances, the kids are OK." Those circumstances, as you pointed out, as we've been pointing out all day, absolutely horrific.
The children are all in the custody now of Florida's Department of Children and Family, but police in Citrus County, in Florida's west coast, north of Tampa, say five of the seven children experienced horrific conditions, malnourishment, electric shock treatment. Their hands were bound. They were put in closets. Their fingernails may even have been pulled out. This is what the kids are telling the authorities in Citrus County.
It all began about two weeks ago. Police, emergency technicians, called to a house in Citrus County in the town of Beverly Hills. They got a 911 call. It came in from a 16-year-old. When they got there, they found the 16-year-old bleeding. They also found that at 16 years old he weighed 59 pounds. They also found two 14-year-old twins who weighed less than 40 pounds each.
Eventually all of the kids were taken into the custody of the Department of Children and Families. And before these two people could be brought to court for a hearing, they ended up leaving. And police are now looking for John and Linda Dollar. These two people charged with aggravated child abuse and torture.
They are not -- and police are telling us they are not the parents, the biological parents of these children. They may not even be the legal guardians of these children or foster parents.
So it is a very confusing story even at this moment. But authorities are saying that what happened to these children was both, quote -- quote, "revolting and disgusting."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GAIL TIERNEY, CITRUS COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: I've seen pictures of the children that have been taken in connection with this case, and you know, they have very sweet faces, but when you look at their bodies, I mean, it looks like Auschwitz.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARRELLA: Now, the latest information that we have from authorities, again, is that the kids are OK, under the circumstances, and that perhaps back in 1995 in Hillsboro County, which is just in Tampa, Tampa area, the two people may have had a license to care for foster kids for a short period of time in 1995. And that is coming from the Department of Children and Families in Hillsboro County.
Now, police are looking for two vehicles. One vehicle is a motor home with a Florida tag. Well, that's the Lexus, a gold Lexus. The Florida tag: DH41D. It may be behind a motor home, being pulled by a motor home with a tag number of U06YAC. And again, they're getting lots of tips coming into them now and, obviously, for very obvious reasons, they really do want to get their hands on these people, Tony, very quickly.
HARRIS: We just need one of those tips to pan out. John, we appreciate it. John Zarrella in Miami.
NGUYEN: Well, we have some other sad news today from Florida. Actor Ossie Davis has died. He was found this morning by his grandson in his Miami hotel room.
Davis, 87, was one of the most respected actors of his or any other generation. Here we see him in Spike Lee's 1989 movie, "Do the Right Thing."
In a career that included writing, directing and producing, as well as acting, Davis was considered a pioneer among African-American artists. Davis was also deeply involved with the civil rights struggle. He gave eulogies to both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
He and his longtime wife and acting partner, Ruby Dee, received Kennedy Center honors just is past December.
And look at this. Here is some video shot just yesterday in Miami by our affiliate, WSDN. After a career of more than 50 years, Ossie Davis was still at work, making a movie called "Retirement," along with Peter Falk, George Segal and Rip Torn.
We'll have more on the life and career of Ossie Davis a little bit later on, right here on LIVE FROM.
HARRIS: Strong, dignified. Full of character.
The ripple effects of adults addicted to chasing the high.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUDGE PEGGY WALKER, DOUGLASVILLE, GEORGIA: We see it over and over and over again, and I'm sick of it. I'm angry. I'm tired of it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: How children who aren't even old enough to walk are being damaged by the nation's growing methamphetamine addiction.
NGUYEN: Plus, why you need to hear this woman's story if you think your heart is healthy.
HARRIS: And up next, you know, it's not surprising to find financial experts disagree over the future of Social Security. But what happens when those experts are husband and wife?
NGUYEN: Watch out.
HARRIS: Find out when LIVE FROM continues right after this break.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: U.S. unemployment rolls dropped by 146,000 last month, and the jobless rate dropped a little, too. The stats don't always move in tandem, though. But for January the hiring increase comes as official unemployment dips from 5.4 to 5.2 percent.
Economists had banked on a bigger spike in jobs and no change in the rates.
HARRIS: Well, anyone from Dr. Phil to your Aunt Mavis -- not aunt, Aunt Mavis -- will tell you that e of the things that couples argue about most is money. So do Ken and Daria Dolan. But they've argued about money on radio and television every day for almost two decades and have still managed to stay married.
KEN DOLAN, CO-HOST, "DOLANS UNSCRIPTED": Are we married?
HARRIS: I think that's the first question. The Dolans are bringing their financial acumen to CNN this Saturday, following "CNN SATURDAY MORNING" with Betty Nguyen and Tony Harris. They're joining us now from New York with a preview of "DOLANS UNSCRIPTED."
Good to talk to you both.
K. DOLAN: Hold on, Tony Harris. The first thing I want to say is I can't wait to see Larry King and Snoop Doggy Dog.
HARRIS: That's going to happen. That's going to happen.
Well, it's good to see you both. And you know, for folks who haven't seen -- caught the act when you were on CNNfn and haven't heard the radio show, you really do, you just go at it about everything. Do you agree on much at all?
K. DOLAN: We agree -- we agree on very, very little. One of the jobs on this show is to try to bring my wife around to be thinking much more clearly.
HARRIS: And Daria, that was a question to you, by the way.
DARIA DOLAN, CO-HOST, "DOLANS UNSCRIPTED": Thank you so much. No. The problem we have with this -- this issue is Social Security. We have not agreed on...
HARRIS: You want to get right to the issues. OK.
DOLAN: We have not agreed all the years of our marriage.
HARRIS: OK, so all right. So where do you stand on Social Security? You know what the president is doing. He's in Arkansas. He was somewhere in Omaha a little earlier today. D. DOLAN: Yes.
HARRIS: And he is pushing this notion of private investment accounts. Where do you stand on this?
D. DOLAN: Well, let me just come back to the point that I do agree with the president that there are problems with Social Security and the longer we put off trying to fix them, the worse it's going to get.
Whether private accounts are the answer, first off, Tony, let's be rational here.
HARRIS: OK.
D. DOLAN: At a thousand bucks, which is the maximum, four percent, nobody is going to be able to fund any better than Social Security currently is. So something needs to get done.
HARRIS: So Ken, what do you -- what do you do?
K. DOLAN: Tony, Tony, Tony.
HARRIS: Yes? Talk to me, doctor.
K. DOLAN: One of the things Daria wants to do is one thing she thinks is going to help Social Security. I say -- I say that's much less of a problem. Blah, blah, blah, Tony about the plan. OK? Let's do this...
D. DOLAN: When you bring in the morons in Congress...
HARRIS: Oh! Oh!
K. DOLAN: Can I talk to Tony just for two seconds here, my friend Tony Harris?
Tony...
HARRIS: Yes.
K. DOLAN: Let's make the retirement age a little older. Maybe let's cut a little bit of the benefits. Maybe that's a way to do it. And let's index it to inflation instead of wages. And my knucklehead wife, right?
HARRIS: Oh, my!
K. DOLAN: My knucklehead wife says, you know what she says?
HARRIS: What does she say?
K. DOLAN: She said -- I'm glad you asked me, Tony. I will tell you.
D. DOLAN: After this show she's not going to be saying much of anything.
K. DOLAN: She's talking about means testing, which means...
HARRIS: Means testing. Hey!
K. DOLAN: ... if I'm smart enough to have invested along the way and done very well in retirement, making X numbers of dollars in retirement, what my wife wants to do is one of the solutions is she wants to say, "Ken, you've done very well. You're doing very well in retirement. We're going to stop your benefits and we're going to give it to Jay Conroy, our floor manager, who failed all through his life and has no money." What a stupid idea. I'll talk about it Saturday.
HARRIS: Daria, are you going to let him -- are you going to let him do that and say that?
D. DOLAN: You know what? I take it as a compliment coming from him. The fact of the matter is, the way it is structured right now, something is going to have to give. Either we stop giving people who are earning $200,000 and $300,000 and $400,000 in retirement benefits and use it as the insurance policy or we're going to have to raise the taxes, neither of which is very palatable to any member of Congress. But somebody's going to have to touch the third rail.
HARRIS: All right. Daria, can I move on just a moment here? I want to ask you the question of who came up with the bright idea of Medicare covering Viagra?
D. DOLAN: Another one of our favorite topics, Tony.
HARRIS: It is?
D. DOLAN: Oh, yes.
HARRIS: Funny that I stumbled on it.
K. DOLAN: Oh, man. Now, let me read something to you, Tony Harris...
HARRIS: Yes.
K. DOLAN: ... and to my wife. The law says if it's an FDA approved -- I'm reading this verbatim.
HARRIS: Right.
K. DOLAN: If the law says it's an FDA approved drug and it is medically necessary -- doctor's prescription, Tony...
HARRIS: Yes.
K. DOLAN: ... then it has to be covered. Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. They're going to be covered whether you like it or not.
HARRIS: Daria -- Daria, I know it doesn't happen at home often. So it's going to have to happen here. Ken's going to have to get the last word.
D. DOLAN: Oh, no.
HARRIS: I know -- you want to have a say?
D. DOLAN: I just want to say that if men can get Viagra, then women ought to get all the things that they need which right now are hardly ever covered by anybody anywhere.
HARRIS: There you go. There it is. That's the way it works in my house.
D. DOLAN: I did it.
HARRIS: Wife gets the last word.
K. DOLAN: Ten o'clock, Tony, Saturday. Be here tomorrow morning.
HARRIS: We'll be there. Be sure to catch the debut of the "DOLANS UNSCRIPTED" tomorrow morning at 10 Eastern. And they'll be taking your phone calls live.
NGUYEN: It's amazing that they're still married, those two, I'll tell you.
HARRIS: Thirty-three years.
NGUYEN: I know; 33 long years.
HARRIS: Come on.
NGUYEN: Well, the pope's plans for Sunday's mass, we'll be talking about that. Find out what the Vatican is saying today about the pontiff's bout with the flu.
HARRIS: Plus, our in-depth look at America's growing methamphetamine problem, how children are being trapped by their parents' addiction.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Well, a quick scan of the national news every day turns up more deaths, fires and arrests from the dangerous and illegal drug trade. Today alone authorities in Tennessee, Ohio and Washington state are dealing with the discoveries of methamphetamine labs and people caught in that drug's insidious grip.
As Randi Kaye reports, even the most innocent lives get swept up in chasing the high.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thornton, Colorado, 10 miles outside Denver, a drug raid under way. But this bust will reveal more than just drugs. A victim, one you wouldn't expect. His name is Brandon, just 18 months, exposed to a world no child should ever see. Brandon and his mother are in this home where the drug methamphetamine is being made. It is a meth lab. Right next to Brandon's toys, deadly chemicals.
His mother reaches out to him to assure him. But it's too late. His mother is arrested, later convicted for drug possession and child abuse.
This little boy now faces a tough journey. He's not the only one.
WALKER: We see it over and over and over again, and I'm sick of it. I'm angry. I'm tired of it.
KAYE: Meth use is spiking across the country, and children are suffering.
WALKER: Who's going to raise their children? Who's going to care for these children?
KAYE: Juvenile court Judge Peggy Walker sees it in her Douglasville, Georgia, courtroom every day.
WALKER: It's the most addictive drug I have ever seen.
KAYE: Meth is made using every day household items like hydrochloric acid, found in toilet bowl cleaner. The chemicals are used to convert common cold medicines containing suphedrine into meth. That process creates toxic fumes that are especially harmful to children.
(on camera) According to the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children, kids are found in more than 30 percent of meth labs raided nationwide. It also says most women who are meth cooks are of child-bearing age, and when a pregnant woman gets high on meth, so does her baby.
(voice-over) Dr. Rizwan Shah is a pediatrician who studies the effects of meth on children.
DR. RIZWAN SHAH, PEDIATRICIAN: Methamphetamine in the placenta (ph) can cause a sudden rise in the blood pressure of the brain, and that can cause a stroke in an unborn child resulting in convulsions, muscle tone problems, tremors and sometimes even paralysis.
KAYE: This is what a meth baby looks like: premature, hooked on meth and suffering the pangs of withdrawal. They don't want to eat or sleep, and the simplest things cause great pain.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She would cry when she would have her diaper changed because it was so tender and sore.
KAYE: This baby's bottom is burned. When her mother inhaled meth, so did she. Now every time the baby goes to the bathroom, the acids from the meth in her system burn her own skin. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The buttocks actually is bleeding.
KAYE: Ron Mullins is a cop turned coordinator with the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children. During his years on the street, he shut down hundreds of meth labs. Today he helps state care for children of meth.
RON MULLINS, NADEC: These children are being raised in homes that are absolutely filthy. There's rotting food everywhere. There's animal and human feces everywhere. It's deplorable conditions.
WALKER: Parents are walking away from their children. They walk away from their spouses. They walk away from their home. They walk away from their jobs. They walk away from their life as they knew it.
KAYE: No one knows that more than this woman. Her name is Tiffany (ph). She's a meth addict and a mom. Her life offers a glimpse at the power of meth. It's so powerful it can pull a mother away from her child.
TIFFANY: I felt so ashamed and so guilty. And I almost just wanted to die because of what I'd done to my kids.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Wow. Our in-depth look at America's methamphetamine addiction continues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIFFANY: I think I was almost three months pregnant when I found out I was pregnant, and I had been using pretty heavily.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: After the break, one mother's story of addiction and redemption.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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