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Eye on Iran; Immigration Debate Pits Church Against State

Aired April 10, 2006 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, Iran, presidential rumbling and potential U.S. war plans. Today Iran's president is quoted as saying he will announce good news about his country's nuclear program. That could be bad news for Washington, where the Bush administration is said to be planning military action as a last resort to keep Iran from building nukes.
From the White House, CNN's Elaine Quijano.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions growing and diplomatic discussions so far yielding little, one possibility the Bush administration has not ruled out is military action. But that option, say experts is fraught with difficulties.

ANTHONY ZINNI, FMR. CENTCOM COMMANDER: We should not fool ourselves to think it will just be a strike and then it will be over. The Iranians will retaliate and they have many possibilities in an area where there are many vulnerabilities from our troop positions to the oil and gas and the region that can be interrupted to a tax on Israel, to the conduct of terrorism.

QUIJANO: The White House insists it is focused on diplomacy, on working with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw echoed that saying the Bush administration is pursuing a diplomatic solution with Iran, flatly dismissing the negotiation of a U.S. military strike.

JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: It isn't on the agenda. I believe it's not on the agenda and they're very committed indeed to resolving this issue, which is a complicated issue by negotiation and, yes, by diplomatic pressure.

QUIJANO: But investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, writes in "The New Yorker" magazine, that according to a single unnamed source, the White House wants to keep not only a military operation on the table, but a nuclear option.

SEYMOUR HERSH, WRITER, "THE NEW YORKER": That doesn't mean it's going to happen. They refuse take it out and what I'm writing here is that if this isn't removed, and I say this very seriously, I've been around this town for 40 years, some senior officers are prepared to resign.

STRAW: The idea of a nuclear strike on Iran is completely nuts. QUIJANO: And a Pentagon spokesman would only say, quote, "Sey Hersh has a single anonymous source who is not in government and both Hersh and the source have made fantastic, unverified, and wrong allegations before."

(on camera): A senior administration official, while not denying the story outright, said people looking to draw broad conclusions based on military contingency planning were, quote, "ill informed or not knowledgeable about the administration's thinking."

Elaine Quijano, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: "Wild speculation," President Bush's two-word dismissal of Iranian war plan reports. President Bush says he only wants to stop Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and diplomacy is the weapon of choice.

Joining us now from Boston, international security expert Jim Walsh of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He traveled to Iran in February. We talked to him then.

And from Tucson, Arizona, CNN military analyst and retired Air Force Major General Don Shepherd.

Now I've selected, gentlemen, a couple parts of that interview with Hersh from this morning. But let me just get quick, first of all, a quick reaction.

Jim, let's start with you.

JIM WALSH, INTL. SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I think it's -- it wouldn't be surprising if some low-level plan had the nuclear option in it, because that's what planners do. They plan for all sorts of contingencies. That doesn't mean it's necessarily serious. Some people, though, are actually thinking about resigning, because this particular war plan has risen to a level and still substantially considers a nuclear option, that would be surprising and that would be troubling.

But, of course, the broader defense strategy that the president has pursued, strategy of preventative war and making more use of nuclear weapons, that sort of contingency is consistent with the strategy they've laid out in the pass.

PHILLIPS: Shep, what do you think, does Hersh have a solid article here with regard to intel?

GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: As usual, Kyra, I think part of Seymour Hersh's article is on the mark and part of it is indeed wild speculation.

What's on the mark the clearly the military is making contingency plans for military strikes against Iran. They would look at military strikes from the They would look at naval action. They would look at what would happen if we got engaged with ground troops. They would also look at the nuclear option and what that would be.

But all of these are political decisions, whether or not to do it. And I think the article indeed takes some big steps based on a single source in assuming that we are on the verge of going to a war with Iran, or people are thinking seriously about it.

We've got our hands full in Iraq right now. We need to get out of that one before we take on anybody else. And going to war against a Muslim nation, particularly if you are using -- or thinking about using nuclear weapons would be a very serious step indeed.

PHILLIPS: OK, Seymour Hersh on our network early this morning, he first talked about the president and making Iran a very important part of his mission. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HERSH: I think in the military, they take him very seriously. I quote a number of people who described the president as privately talking about the leadership of Iran, as being the president who has been so critical of Israel, Ahmadinejad, talks about the Holocaust not being a real thing. Bush thinks the leadership is Adolph Hitler. We're in 1935. He's messianic about it. It's amazing language I'm hearing from some of my military sources. Their view of this president is of somebody who actually thinks it's really his mission in life to get rid of the nuclear threat in Iran once and for all, something he doesn't think a Republican or a Democrat would do who follows him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Jim, is it the president's mission in life to deal with Iran?

WALSH: Well, it's true that he's made some statements that sound like that. In fact, his press conference shown on CNN earlier today when he was taking questions sort of evoked some of that. But I'm not a mind reader and I have no idea.

I think the more important point is that whether he likes Iran or doesn't like Iran, when he sits down with his military staff, and they show the costs involved, the risks, dangers, it would require that the U.S. increase troops in Iraq, extend U.S. deployment in Iraq, if only to prepare against an Iranian retaliation. When you start getting down to the nitty-gritty, these are a set of ugly, ugly options. And I assume sober heads would prevail, I hope.

PHILLIPS: Shep, when you were active military, were you ever sitting in briefs and the word "Iran" or both words, "Iran" and "war," ever come up? Was that a reality?

SHEPPERD: Oh, lots of times. Again, the military has contingency plans for trouble spots around the world. I would be astounded if the military wasn't deep into contingency planning. I would also be astounded if the military authors are sitting over there trying to second guess what the president is thinking. The military will follow its civilian leadership when the civilian leadership decides what to do.

Iran is clearly on the president's plate right now. It is the most dangerous thing going on in the world today. North Korea is dangerous, but it's lower level. Iraq is serious. But Iran and its nuclear ambitions are extremely serious should they get the bomb or should someone try to prevent them from getting the bomb.

PHILLIPS: All right, let's talk about the military in Iran if indeed that is true or not. I'll get you both to react to what Hersh said about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HERSH: We have men on the ground, not special forces, but regular armed military forces on the ground right now. Their job is to make contact with opposition groups, and also in case bombing happens, these are the guys that are going to paint the targets with lasers. We use laser-guided bombs. Bombing is very accurate within, you know, a few dozen feet. And the reason the bombs are so accurate, we have people on the ground painting the targets with lasers. These guys would be in position to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: All right, we'll get to the specifics about the lasers in a second. But, Jim, you were just in Iran in February. Did you see any American members, or members of the American military? Did you hear about it? Was anybody talking about that? I had a feeling you'd chuckle.

WALSH: No, there's no sense of that at all. Now, it might be true, but if it's being done, it's done at a high political risk, because if those people -- if any one of them gets captured, imagine what position the United States would be in at that point. So I hope it's not true.

Let me take one minute and respectfully disagree with Don, who I think has been right on in almost all his comments. But I do not think that Iran is the most pressing security threat in the world today. I mean, after, all Iran is anywhere from two, to five to 10 years away from a nuclear weapon. North Korea has a nuclear weapon, has had a nuclear weapon for as many as 10 years. So I think we don't want to get into exaggerating the Iranian threat and then somehow feeling like have to do something now or have no alternative. That is not the case here.

PHILLIPS: Shep, is there -- are there members of the military there in Iran? Or could it be CIA versus active special forces? And what do you think about actually turning to opposition forces to paint targets?

SHEPPERD: Kyra, I would not know whether forces are there or not, and neither would Seymour Hersh's sources. I would find it astounding if we had military personnel on the ground in Iran for just the reasons that Jim outlined. This would be a serious step toward war if these people were captured. And you always have to assume they would be.

On the other hand, I assume that the CIA is working hard to make contact with opposition groups in Iran, and outside of Iran and working with intelligence agencies from other countries.

Let me take a moment on the laser-guided weapons. You don't need laser-guided weapons to do many of the things that would be done. You'd be doing it with satellite-assisted weapons, GPS, JDAMs, that type of thing. So you need coordinates, which you can get from maps and satellite. The reason you need laser-guided bombs on the ground is when war starts, to hit things such as moving targets. But you would not have people on the ground now to designate and use lasers to do targets. That would come much later, if a military confrontation took place.

PHILLIPS: Shep, what about, let me go a step farther, about nuclear bombs? Could that even be in a U.S. military plan?

SHEPPERD: I want to be real carefully about laying out what capabilities are, Kyra. But clearly we have nuclear weapons. And clearly someone has to be looking at, OK, how would you use a nuclear weapon to go against a deeply buried underground target. Conventional weapons, as we read in open sources, will go down to about 100 feet. So if you've got something deeply buried below that, you could possibly think about using the nuclear weapon. But the idea of using a nuclear weapon against another Muslim nation, in Iran right now, to me, is very far fetched, although somebody has to look at it to say yes, we have these capabilities.

Big political decision if you ever decided to do it.

PHILLIPS: And, Jim, if indeed that option was executed, that would just be disastrous, yes, for relations with the Middle East?

WALSH: I couldn't begin to describe how horrific it would be. Obviously, the Iranians would go nuts and they would hit us everywhere they could. What about the fall-out?

We talk about the little nukes. But, the studies from National Academy of Sciences and elsewhere show that even a little nuke generates a lot of fallout, a lot of destruction. Thousands of casualties. What about fallout floating into Iraq? The nuclear nonproliferation regime would suddenly be as risk of collapsing. It is too horrible to imagine.

PHILLIPS: Jim Walsh, General Don Sheppard. Great discussion, gentlemen, thank you.

The poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles County. Today it's a major voice in the national debate on immigration. From coast to coast rallies in dozens of cities. This is a live picture of The Mall in Washington, D.C., we expect all that green space to be filled with people protesting later this afternoon. Our live coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: About 70 immigration reform protests going on across the country. These live pictures from our affiliate KHOU out of Houston, Texas. Today being dubbed the National Day of Action for Immigration Justice. And we are told there are about 30 marches in the South alone. All the way from Texas across the country. Even into Philadelphia, Columbia, South Carolina, Los Angeles, Washington. We're trying to check in on all of them and bring you the latest information on all those protests.

We're talking about church versus state, divided by constitutional mandate, really divided by the immigration debate. The Catholic Church is welcoming illegal immigrants, which means priests could become lawbreakers. CNN's Kareen Wynter has that story for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAREEN WYNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the closest thing to home for those who have entered the United States illegally from Mexico and find life on this side of the border even more challenging. A place to bathe. Sleep and enjoy the simple pleasure of watching television.

This isn't your typical shelter. The Delores Mission and Catholic Church in East Los Angeles is a sanctuary for the homeless. Many of them illegal immigrants.

FR. SEAN CARROLL, DELORES MISSION: They are not just people who are here with us, but they really do become people who are part of our community.

WYNTER: The poorest Catholic parish in L.A. County has been feeding the hungry since 1985. Father Sean Carroll worries about the stringent legislative proposals in Washington to crackdown on illegals and those who help them.

CARROLL: Those who are undocumented in our country are some of the people who are most in need. So we will be faithful to that call and will continue to be faithful to that call come what may.

WYNTER: Los Angeles is a nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese. Its cardinal, Roger Mahoney, is urging his priest to defy any law that punishes immigration assistant.

SISTER PAT REINHART, DELORES MISSION: The fact that our own government, for the sake of considering us criminals because we assist people who is hungry or needs a place to stay or needs medical attention, to me is horrific.

WYNTER: This past Friday a small army of parishioners from this East L.A church combined a Catholic ritual with protests against the bill before Congress.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Immigrants are being treated like slaves.

WYNTER: A dress rehearsals of sorts for a march Monday. One of numerous planned across the country as part of a national effort to rally for more liberal immigration policies.

JUAN VICENTE, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT (through translator): I'm going to keep marching and doing everything possible to make sure that good immigration reform is passed.

JORGE FRANCO, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT (through translator): I'm very proud to be here. To be in the United States. And to be in this church. And believe that God will work in this whole immigration debate.

WYNTER Church leaders say this is the Catholic community's call to action. And that it's not a matter of politics but a moral response to make room for those who are already here. Kareen Wynter, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well those protests against a new French labor law appeared to have paid off. President Jacques Chirac today threw out the laws most hated provision, the one allowing employers to more easily fire younger workers. The laws defenders say the goal was exactly the opposite. To help young people find jobs. Still, it hit a nerve in a country where many people have jobs for life. Students had planned another rally tomorrow but it may be called off.

President Bush could be losing an ally in Italy. Exit polls in that country's parliamentary election show that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi trailing Romano Prodi and his coalition. Official results are due by the end of the day. Berlusconi strongly supported the war in Iraq, despite overwhelming opposition at home. Prodi has promised to tone down Italy's relationship with Washington.

Straight ahead, when celebrities have babies, it often is the publicists who have to watch what they say. But mom-to-be Katie Holmes is reportedly planning to keep her own mouth shut. All right, kill the music. Her own mouth shut during delivery. It's the talk of Hollywood. Look it's so quiet. Can you hear them gossiping? You're going to hear all about it when LIVE FROM returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: An alarming report about shockwaves used against kidney stones. "The New York Times" cites a Mayo Clinic study that shows lithotripsy can sharply raise patients' risk of diabetes and high blood pressure. The study says that patients whose kidney stones were pulverized by shock show four times the rate of diabetes and a 50 percent higher rate of hypertension. Researchers theorize the shockwaves damage cells that produce insulin and affect releases of hormones that affect blood pressure.

Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, pregnancy, Scientology and silence. Well, if you picked silence, as the term that doesn't belong, I regret to say that you're wrong. The latest buzz in Tom and Katie's overly public courtship is strictly hush-hush, but we can say it has nothing to do with Oprah or South Park.

Brooke Anderson filed this report for CNN's "PAULA ZAHN NOW."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It will be the birth heard or not heard around the world. For months, many have eagerly awaited the offspring of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Speculation has been rampant that Katie will deliver her baby via silent birth, a tradition encouraged by Cruise's religion, Scientology.

If Katie, a Catholic, does have a silent birth, she'll join a growing list of celebrities who have done the same, including actresses Anne Archer and Leah Remini, who actually allowed cameras inside the delivery room, providing these rare silent birth images for VH1's "Inside Out: Leah Remini, the Baby Special."

(on camera): But the notion of birthing a child while being completely silent leaves many scratching their heads. So we went straight to the source, the Church of Scientology, to find out about this unusual practice.

(voice-over): Michelle Seward is an active Scientologist. Five years ago, she gave birth to son Sage (ph), following the church's guidelines and her belief.

MICHELLE SEWARD: The least amount of words said, as quiet as it can be, having the most natural childbirth as possible will create a great experience for a mother and for a baby.

ANDERSON: Seward and the Church of Scientology calls silent birth a media misnomer. They say it's really a quiet birth they strive for.

SEWARD: If a noise is made or if a moan is done, it's OK.

ANDERSON: Church officials released this statement to CNN. "Chatty doctors and nurses, shouts to 'PUSH, PUSH,' and loud or laughing remarks to 'encourage' by attending husbands are the types of noises that are meant to be avoided. Words spoken during moments of pain and unconsciousness can have adverse effects on an individual later in life."

SEWARD: I don't want to be told, push, Michelle, push harder. Come on, push. And then we fast forward to three years later, and Sage is riding a bike and I say, Sage, push, push harder, Sage. And all of a sudden, he's got a headache and he's crying and he doesn't like the bike.

ANDERSON: But what does the medical community say about quiet birth? The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has no official position on the subject, and some doctors, like Beverly Hills OBGYN Dr. Peter Weiss question how a loud delivery room could lead to any problems. DR. PETER WEISS, OBGYN: If that were the case, all the boys who have had circumcision in this country over the last 30 years would be on a major rampage, and it would be like Paris, France right now.

ANDERSON: Of course, Scientologists don't claim the benefits of quiet birth as medical fact, and even Dr. Weiss, who is not a Scientologist but has performed numerous quiet births over the years, sees no harm in the process.

WEISS: I think any time you're in a stressful situation, that puts everyone in a more calm environment I think only can be beneficial.

SEWARD: The moment that he was delivered, he was actually wrapped in a blanket and on my chest for a good hour.

ANDERSON; But while the birth of Tom and Katie's baby may be a quiet one, newborn babies, like that of Leah Remini's tend to be the opposite.

Brooke Anderson, CNN, Hollywood.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And be sure to watch "PAULA ZAHN NOW" weeknights 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 pacific.

If you drink diet sodas sweetened with aspartame, well, bottoms up. Scientists say there's no evidence that you're raising your risk of cancer. An Italian study conducted last year suggested a link between aspartame and cancer in lab rats, but now the National Cancer Institute has done a study showing no link in humans. The Center for Science in the Public Interest says that the new finding goes quote, "a fair way toward allaying concerns about aspartame."

Fizz, sweetener. What else is in your soda? How about cancer- causing benzene and more of it than is generally considered safe in tap water. That's a word from the Food and Drug Administration just last month. The agency said that benzene levels in soft drinks were insignificant. It still says there's nothing to worry about, though.

Immigration rallies across the nation. Live pictures right now. Huge waves of people pushing for immigrant reforms. This is from Houston via our affiliate KHOU.

The news keeps coming. We'll keep bringing it to you. The second hour of LIVE FROM straight ahead.

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