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Voters Going to Poll in Connecticut Senate Primary; The Shia Revival in the Middle East; New Orleans Prepares for One-Year Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

Aired August 08, 2006 - 14:30   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Win or lose, Joe Lieberman says this won't be his last election. The three-term senator from Connecticut may well lose today's Democratic primary, but vows to run in November anyway as an independent, if that happens.
In the thick of the fight, our Mary Snow. She joins us live from Hartford. Hey, Mary.

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Kyra. And it is some fight. You know, the interest in this race is so intense that Connecticut reports an unprecedented number of new Democrats registering, about 30,000 in the last three months. They're now eligible to vote in today's primary. Both candidates voting this morning, Senator Joseph Lieberman in New Haven, Connecticut, and his opponent Ned Lamont, a political novice who really gained momentum by his challenge of Senator Lieberman's support of the war in Iraq and his support of Bush administration policies.

Now, this race has been so close, too close to call. A poll just yesterday showed that Ned Lamont was only six points ahead and for Lieberman that was actually a positive thing because he had been trailing by 13 points just a week ago. Now, talking to voters when it comes down to it, they say that Iraq was the issue that brought them to the polls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was very annoyed. I guess annoyed is putting it lightly, but really disturbed by Joe Lieberman's persistence in keeping us at war. And the sole reason that I voted was to protest that decision.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I voted for Joe Lieberman.

SNOW: Why?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just think he's the best man for the job. You know, I haven't agreed with all of his issues, how he stands on all of the issues, but I think he represents us better than Lamont does. I think he's the best man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: And Kyra, talking to voters today coming out of the polls, they say that they see their state as a referendum on the war in Iraq. As you mentioned, Senator Lieberman has said that if he doesn't win, that he will run as an Independent. In order to do that, he will have to submit signatures by tomorrow. Kyra?

PHILLIPS: All right, what more do you know about his Web site going down, Mary and these allegations?

SNOW: Well the Lamont camp is saying it has nothing to do with it and then we saw a report on the Web saying that perhaps it was because the Lieberman camp didn't pay the bills. The Lieberman camp came out and said, that's not true, we pay the bills. But the Lieberman camp is very upset. They say that their Web site, e-mails have been disrupted for the past 24 hours. They say it's dirty political tricks on this final day of getting their message out, but the Lamont camp has said that it really does not support this and they were urging whoever is behind it to stop.

PHILLIPS: Mary Snow, we'll keep following it with you. Thanks so much.

Controversial congresswoman, disenchanted Democrats: is it an upset brewing in a big Georgia runoff? Well Representative Cynthia McKinney facing a stiff challenge from former county commissioner Hank Johnson. McKinney's well-publicized dust up with a Capitol Hill cop last March is expected to be a big factor in today's election. Hank Johnson admits that he's basically running on an anyone but Cynthia platform and if Johnson does win, it won't be the first time Georgia voters have sent McKinney packing. She lost a re-election bid in 2002 after insinuating that President Bush may have known about and failed to prevent the 9/11 attacks.

Straight ahead, has the U.S. war in Iraq empowered Iraqi Shiites? And what's the impact on the fighting in southern Lebanon? Shiite expert Vali Nasr joins is straight ahead on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: On one side a well-trained, well-armed battle tested army. On the other, a well funded, deeply rooted, highly motivated band of guerrilla fighters with powerful friends. After four weeks, the war between Israel and Hezbollah isn't looking nearly as lopsided as many may have expected.

CNN's Tom Foreman explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hezbollah may seem like many guerrilla armies, but military analysts say Hezbollah is much better prepared than most for open warfare. And its main strengths can be listed. Hezbollah is well trained and supplied by the Iranian military. Much has been made of its rockets, but the fighting has shown that Hezbollah also has plenty of quality rifles, anti-tank rockets, bomb-guidance systems, night-vision and communications gear, and its fighters know how to use them.

DAN BYMAN, CTR. FOR PEACE & SECURITY STUDIES: Hezbollah forces are brave. They know how to find cover. They know how to use their weapons effectively. Most guerrilla groups don't; they fight poorly, they run away in the face of danger.

FOREMAN: Hezbollah is disciplined like an army. Unlike Hamas, which analysts say is only now developing that sort of organization, Hezbollah has a well-established command structure. Intelligence analysts say the 3,000 or so full-time fighters are directed by field commanders who have studied countless attacks on the Israeli military.

(on camera): Another thing Hezbollah has going for it is sheer geography. Their homeland here in Southern Lebanon is full of mountains, and trails and little villages, and they have had almost 25 years to dig in, to build tunnels and weapons caches and secret caves from which they can pop out and strike, and then, once again, disappear.

MIRI EISEN, ISRAELI GOVT. SPOKESPERSON: They've booby-trapped the entire area. They want us to walk into those booby-traps.

FOREMAN (voice-over): And Hezbollah has help. Decades of running social programs, hospitals and schools for Shiite Muslims have produced allies, willing to provide a haven for Hezbollah.

BYMAN: When Israel goes en masse to fight Hezbollah, Hezbollah disappears among the Lebanese, as we seen right now.

FOREMAN: And that is just the kind of tactic, just the kind of fight for which the army of Hezbollah has trained for many years.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, they rule in Iran, they're predominant in Iraq and they make up Hezbollah. Shiite Muslims are a driving force -- maybe the driving force -- in Middle East conflicts and politics.

Joining me with his insights, Vali Nasr is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of the book "The Shia Revival." He joins me live from Washington.

Interesting read for sure, Vali. And maybe we should start with -- just backtracking to Iraq, the fall of Saddam Hussein. You have basically said this is where it started.

VALI NASR, AUTHOR, "THE SHIA REVIVAL": Yes. This is where it started, because for the first time in the Arab world you had Shiites coming to power through elections and because of the fall of Sunnis. So, this is what has energized this movement in the Arab world.

PHILLIPS: And tell me how that then moves into Lebanon and the connection there.

NASR: Well, Lebanese Shiites and Iraqi Shiites have a long history together. There are family ties, there are cultural ties, there are religious ties. And the fact that the Shiites in Iraq came to power has energized Hezbollah. It made it make more claims to having greater power in Lebanon. And also, the kind of violence we see in Iraq has led Hezbollah to think that taking on Israel may help bridge -- build bridges with the Sunnis in the region.

PHILLIPS: So, with regard to the U.S. and the role that it should be playing, I mean, there were a lot of factors to consider here. Overall, not just getting involved with Lebanon, but just dealing with the Iran factor and that government and the supply for Hezbollah. Because in Iraq, I mean, the U.S. works with the Shias, right?

NASR: Exactly. And in fact, the Lebanon war has certain risks for the U.S. because the Iraqi Shias feel very strongly about what's happening in Lebanon. And particularly we saw Muqtada Sadr's group come out in support of Hezbollah. And also because the -- in both Lebanon and Iraq, the Shiites have very strong ties to Iran, and how this thing goes down with Iran will have a great deal of impact on Iraq, as well.

PHILLIPS: And Iran's nuclear program, of course -- I mean, there have been -- there has been talk that well, what if the U.S. doesn't get involved in Lebanon, but somehow beefs up efforts to somehow get involved with dealing with Iran first?

NASR: Well, that's -- the question is how to deal with Iran. There's always been talk of military action against Iran, but I think the war on Hezbollah has shown that that's going to be quite tough. There's the issue of getting sanctions at the U.N., so we have to see what the U.N. would do. The other is that you might want to try to find ways to create incentives for the Iranians to try to slow down the program.

PHILLIPS: So, let's say -- and tell me if this -- if you think this would ever happen at all -- the mullahs become more moderate. If that happens, that totally plays a huge impact on the capability of Hezbollah and what Hezbollah does throughout the region.

NASR: Well, they're not likely to become moderate any time soon. In fact, they're becoming more bullish. They see that, you know, from conflict to conflict, they've been able to survive and have gained strength. And they have certain demands that, you know, they don't want to give up on the nuclear issue. They want to -- their regional power to be recognized and they are becoming more assertive and it's going to be more difficult to deal with that.

PHILLIPS: So, if you look at recent history then, and you hear Israelis say we're not going to stop until Hezbollah is dismantled, that actually seems absolutely impossible.

NASR: Yes, it's extremely difficult without a full-scale land invasion and long-term occupation of Lebanon, which is very costly, and I'm sure Israel probably would not want to get entangled in that. And that's exactly the kind of thing that makes Iran feel very confident, because if Lebanon is that difficult, Iran will be that much more difficult. PHILLIPS: So, is the U.S. -- the U.S. now talking about asking for funds to support the Lebanese army to train the Lebanese army. Is that the wrong focus? Should the U.S. shift its focus more on Iran and what it's doing to support Hezbollah?

NASR: Well, building armies is a long-run project. As we're seeing in Iraq, it's going to take time to build a very good army. And in the very short run, that army is not going to be effective on the ground. We have to find ways to stop the hostilities on the Hezbollah/Israel border to bring security to that region, and that means dealing with Iran. It means both confronting Iran directly, but it also means to try to find diplomatic channels where we can address some of the issues that we want to achieve in that area.

PHILLIPS: Vali Nasr. The book is "The Shia Revival." Appreciate your time.

NASR: Thank you.

Sky-high stress, rocket-bottom morale. A U.S. soldier testified to both today in a hearing to determine whether a group of G.I.s will be court-martialed in the rape of an Iraqi teenager and the murders of her and her family. Private First Class Justin Cross, said combat, quote, "drives you nuts. You feel like every step, you might get blown up." He told a hearing in Baghdad that soldiers often drank whiskey and took pain killers to relieve the stress.

Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr will join us for more on the case in the next hour of LIVE FROM.

Still hush hush in Havana. Eight days after Fidel Castro put his brother, Raul, temporarily in charge, well, no public word or sign from either of them. The Cuban newspapers are warning the U.S. to respect Cuba's independence. And on a Venezuelan TV station during an interview, Cuba's parliament speaker warns the U.S. would face hell if it meddled with Cuba while its leader is indisposed. The Bush administration says it's not planning any invasion, but does plan to increase the output from the its Miami-based TV Marti from one to six broadcasts a week.

Coming up, back to the scene of a dramatic rescue under way in Phoenix right now. A 28-year-old worker trapped in this rubble. His father among the co-workers waiting for word above ground. We're going to get back to that story, live.

Also ahead, memorial or celebration? An unconventional proposal upsetting some in New Orleans. We'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, the Tom DeLay saga continues, on the ballot or not. As you know, yesterday SCOTUS blocked his bid it get off the ballot.

Dana Bash live in D.C. with more on this.

I guess it's getting, well -- is it getting less confusing?

DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It depends who...

PHILLIPS: Make sense of it. Yes, it depends who are, right?

BASH: It depends who you are and depends how you're looking at it. The bottom line is, Kyra, as you said, last night the Supreme Court basically dealt Tom DeLay the final blow in getting his name off the ballot for this November. He had been trying to do that. He said he does not want to run reelection.

But we have now -- we just sort of backed up. Again, this is a little bit complicated. Following that Supreme Court decision, it left Tom DeLay with two options, essentially. One is to continue and make a run for it, even though he has said he doesn't want to run for reelection. Or to bow out and allow Republicans in his state to launch a write-in campaign, which is very costly and something that is pretty hard to do.

But we're now told that Tom DeLay -- from three Republican sources, Tom DeLay will not seek reelection. Now, despite the fact that he lost his legal bid to take his name off the ballot in Texas, he is not going to run for reelection. So what that essentially means is that Republicans in his state are going to have to probably do just what I just described, probably launch a write-in campaign, which is going to cost money. They're going to have to rally around a Republican candidate in order to do this.

Now, just to give you a little bit of the back story, just to remind our viewers, Tom DeLay back in June said he wasn't going to run, essentially, because he had already stepped down as majority leader because of allegations that he was involved -- or at least staff was involved -- with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and perhaps, most importantly, he had been indicted in the state of Texas.

So it is for that reason, Kyra, that Democrats wanted him to stay on the ballot because for them, he had become a symbol of what they were running against this November, which is what they call the culture of corruption. So they had launched a bid to keep Tom DeLay on the ballot.

He lost that bid but now he's saying regardless of that, he still does not intend to run. That is from three Republican sources. We do expect to hear from Tom DeLay, a statement from him, sometime later today -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, Dana Bash, thanks.

Well, cribs of their own for the first time in their lives -- 4- year-old Kendra and Maliyah Herrin are sleeping separately today after day-long surgery in Utah. The girls were born joined at the midsection with only one kidney with between them. They also shared one set of lungs, one pair of legs, a pelvis and liver. Doctors say so far so good.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DR. REBECCA MYERS, SURGEON: Kendra and Maliyah are now back in the ICU in separate beds and they're doing very, very well. The surgery went extremely smoothly. It was long, but no surprises. I don't think it could have gone better, and we're thrilled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, the girls already have undergone some reconstructive surgery. There's more to come. First though, a bit of a recovery.

Well, granted they played jazz at funerals but many people in New Orleans aren't quite ready to celebrate the first anniversary of the catastrophe that was Katrina.

Here's CNN's Gulf Coast correspondent Susan Roesgen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN GULF COAST CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You expect fireworks on the Fourth of July, but on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina? That's what city leaders were planning. And that's not all.

(on camera): How about a talent show, an auction of Hollywood celebrity jewelry, even a comedy night? When the mayor's office released those plans recently, some people were shocked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just can't imagine it. You know, it's too solemn an occasion.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are some who have lost everything, and I don't think it's quite that type of thing to celebrate, you know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most of us just don't have the spirit for it, anyway.

MALCOLM SUBER, COMMUNITY ACTIVIST: Not only was it wrong, but he's not man enough to even admit today that it was a wrong conception.

ROESGEN (voice-over): Community activist Malcolm Suber says the mayor shouldn't be planning a party, he should be planning a memorial to pay respect to the more than 1,300 people who were killed in New Orleans. And he should be helping those who have come back rebuild their lives.

But when we asked the mayor whether the anniversary would be a memorial or a celebration, he seemed to say it would be a little of both.

MAYOR RAY NAGIN (D), NEW ORLEANS: It's a memorial event celebrating that we have survived one year after Katrina.

ROESGEN: Nagin says a city committee is planning the anniversary events with financial support from Harrah's Casino. Now, Harrah's says the festivities have been scaled back for logistical reasons. The fireworks idea has also fizzled.

Other communities are marking the anniversary in other ways. Welder Vincent LaBruzzo is making a stainless steel cross. This is what officials in St. Bernard Parish have asked for. No talent show, no fireworks, just a cross capable of withstanding 170-mile-an-hour winds, a permanent and solemn reminder of Katrina's wrath.

Susan Roesgen, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: "AMERICAN MORNING" continues to keep an eye on the Gulf Coast recovery efforts. Join Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien every weekday morning, 6:00 Eastern.

Once again, we're monitoring this rescue effort underway via our affiliate KDBK out of Phoenix, Arizona. The search or actually the rescue operation to try and pull out a construction worker that is under tons of concrete right now. This has been going on for seven- plus hours at this point.

Don't know the condition of this 28-year-old worker, but firefighters say they hope to have him out within an hour. It's been a very intricate process. The accident happened above ground in the above ground portion of this parking garage, and dozens of firefighters and construction workers could be seen just scrambling all over the debris as they work to free this man.

Now it looks calm on the outside but it's anything but that for these rescue workers trying to reach this 28-year-old worker that is beneath that rubble. We'll bring you that live rescue as soon as it happens.

NICOLE LAPIN, CNN ANCHOR: We all know gas prices continue to go up. It's nothing new, but a lot of the details might go unnoticed. Turn to CNN.com for more a more in-depth report.

The economics of the oil industry can sometimes seep over into politics, so we're showing you which companies are donated thousands of dollars to the political battle, with Republicans receiving most of that money.

And with the debate turning to alternative fuels, we're going to detail the sources being tested right now in cars, like hydrogen fuel. It's the lightest fuel source, and it's the one backed by President Bush.

If you're someone who thinks energy conservation is just too tough, check out this interactive, because it provides solutions to your everyday energy problems, and it's really easy stuff like a bath wastes almost double the amount of water used in a shower. And turning your computer monitor off can help save some energy.

Few analysts expect the days of cheap oil to come back, so if you want some lasting savings, go to CNN.com/fuel. For the .com desk, I'm Nicole Lapin.

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