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In Baghdad, Talks Underway to End Fighting; Arms Inspector Report on Iraq Due Out Soon; America to Withdraw Troops from South Korea

Aired October 06, 2004 - 10:00   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.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We'll get started here from CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. Good morning, everyone. I'm Daryn Kagan. Let's take a look at the stories that are happening now in the news.
Two stories out of Iraq; talks are underway to end the fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City. A negotiator for rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr says an agreement with a top Iraqi government official is near. In another development today, 12 Iraqi National Guard troops were killed, another 25 wounded in a car bombing in western Iraq.

Senior officials with the Bush administration are offering a glimpse of the final report from investigators, who searched for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. It finds that while Saddam Hussein didn't have WMD stockpiles, there were plans for revving idle programs once the U.N. sanctions ended. The draft report also concludes that the former dictator believed the fear of such weapons prevented the U.S. from marching to Baghdad in the First Gulf War.

The U.S. has agreed to withdraw one-third of its troops from South Korea later than originally planned. Twelve thousand five hundred troops will be redeployed by 2008. Under the original plan, the forces would have been pulled out by the end of next year.

Here in the U.S., Mount St. Helens seems a bit quieter since it let out a cloud of ash and steam yesterday. The blast opened two new vents in the crater floor and it coated some areas miles away with ash. Since then, only mild quakes have been recorded inside the volcano.

An American is sharing this year's Noble Prize in chemistry with two Israelis. Irwin Rose and his colleagues, Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover, discovered a process that allows cells to destroy unwanted proteins. Their work, done in the 1970s and '80s, could help in developing therapies for hundreds of diseases such as cystic fibrosis and cervical cancer.

A lot to watch live this hour, including President Bush, he is in the battleground state of Pennsylvania this hour on this morning after the vice-presidential debate. In just about 10 minutes, he'll deliver what the White House is calling a major speech on terrorism and the economy. We'll have live coverage of the president's speech once it begins.

Today the vice-presidential candidates returned to the shadows of the running mates. And those presidential contenders ratchet up their message, as the campaign enters the final four weeks.

Our Elaine Quijano previews the Bush message. Our Frank Buckley, offering the view from the Kerry campaign.

Elaine, we're going to begin with you. President Bush about to give a speech in Wilks-Barre, Pennsylvania. Good morning.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Daryn. That's right. Originally, the president was to have focused on the topic of medical liability reform here in Pennsylvania. Instead, on Monday, the White House announced that the president would be delivering what aides are calling a significant speech, as you said, on the war on terrorism as well as the economy.

Now, why the change in topic? A Bush campaign official says that it's natural that just four weeks out from the Election Day that people are paying more and more attention. And the campaign believes that those are the two most important issues to voters. Now, this official also denies flatly that this topic, which has anything to do with the post presidential debate goals -- polls favoring John Kerry. As well as denying that it has anything to do with the new CIA report on WMDs.

Now it's unclear whether President Bush will have any new lines of attack against Senator Kerry. A senior administration official will only say that the president will drop, quote, 'starker contrasts," end quote, between the president's record and Senator Kerry's. Now, look for the president to say that John Kerry has a record of supporting measures that would derail the nation's economic recovery. Also look for him to say that John Kerry has a record of voting against measures that would keep the nation safer -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Elaine Quijano in Wilks-Barre, Pennsylvania, we'll be back to you and to that town, once the president begins his speech.

First though, on to the Kerry message and the Democratic candidate preparing for Friday's second debate with President Bush. Our national correspondent Frank Buckley is in Englewood, Colorado with more on that.

Frank, good morning.

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NAT'L. CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn. This will come as a huge surprise, but the Kerry campaign believes that John Edwards won the debate last night. Meanwhile, Senator Kerry is preparing for his next debate on Friday with the President Bush in a town hall style format. So his campaign is down for a couple of days here in the Denver, Colorado area while he prepares.

Senator Kerry arrived here in the Denver area yesterday afternoon to an airport rally. Colorado, a state that went to President Bush in 2000, but it's one of those battleground states that the Kerry campaign believes is in play this time. Last night, Senator Kerry watched the vice-presidential debate in his hotel suite with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. After that Senator Kerry called John Edwards to talk to him, clearly done for the benefit of the journalists in the room. And engaging in a little bit of post debate spin of his own.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The country tonight got a chance to feel the confidence that I have with you. And now they have confidence in you. They felt the strength. They felt clarity. You were so strong on correcting the facts. They keep distorting things. And I look forward to going out and just taking on those distortions.

These guys can only resort to fear and distortion. And they are unwilling to live with the truth. So you held them accountable. You did a great, great job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BUCKLEY: That may be the last view we have of Senator Kerry for the next couple of days, as he prepares for the debate here at this resort just outside of Denver.

A little bit of detail on how that debate prep will take place. We're told that Greg Craig, who played President Bush in his preparation for his first debate, Greg Craig the attorney who helped President Clinton during the impeachment will once again play President Bush here during the debate prep.

And we know the focus, obviously, and also the briefing papers and that sort of thing will change slightly to include more domestic policy. Some of the domestic policy advisors here on the scene now in Colorado. And also, we're told that since Senator Kerry engages in these town hall style events so frequently, they believe he'll be prepared for Friday -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right. Frank Buckley, we'll let you get out of a little bit of the rain there, whatever is coming down there in Colorado. Thank you.

Right now, we're going to get back to the vice-presidential debate. From the opening bell the candidates came out swinging. Now, neither one scored a decisive knockout punch; both are sporting some bruises today. Our Judy Woodruff takes it round by round.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(APPLAUSE)

JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): No punches pulled around this debate table.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That was a complete distortion of my record. I know that may come as a shock.

DICK CHENEY (R), UNITED STATES VICE-PRESIDENT: Senator, frankly, you have a record in the Senate that's not very distinguished.

WOODRUFF: Dick Cheney and John Edwards trading stinging barbs throughout a 90-minute showdown, their only debate of the campaign. The vice president seeking to portray the North Carolina senator as inexperienced and ineffective.

CHENEY: Your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you Senator Gone. You have got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate.

Edwards trying to paint Cheney as a servant of big business, who lied to the American people about the war in Iraq.

EDWARDS: I want the American people to hear this very clearly. Listen carefully to what the vice president is saying. Because there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks much September 11. Period.

WOODRUFF: Iraq and the war on terror dominated the first half of the debate. But the candidates echoing charges leveled by their running mates.

CHENEY: You're not credible on Iraq because of the enormous inconsistencies that John Kerry and you have cited time after time, after time during the course of the campaign.

WOODRUFF: But other issues found their way into the discussion, like the Bush backed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage; something Cheney who has a lesbian daughter opposes.

EDWARDS: It is nothing but a political tool. And it is being used in an effort to divide this country.

WOODRUFF: The vice president was given an opportunity to respond to the comment. He declined. What Cheney did was fire back on another close to home matter, Halliburton.

EDWARDS: When the vice president was CEO of Halliburton, they took care of -- took advantage of every offshore loophole available.

CHENEY: The reason they keep trying to attack Halliburton is because they want to obscure their own record.

WOODRUFF: What of the reaction shots? Those pesky cut aways that bedeviled the president in his first debate with John Kerry. Both men kept their faces straight and their noses in their notes.

Judy Woodruff, CNN, Cleveland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Well let's check in with you the viewers. How did the vice president debate resonate with you? Depends on which survey you want to look at. An ABC News poll, conducted after the face-off, shows Dick Cheney the winner. According to a telephone survey of 509 registered voters, 43 percent said Cheney won, 35 percent gave the win to Edwards, 19 percent called it a tie.

A CBS poll of uncommitted voters showed just the opposite of the 178 surveyed, 41 percent declared Edwards the winner, 28 percent chose Cheney, and 31 percent said it was a tie.

So what does the vice-presidential debate mean in the long run? To answer that let's bring in our senior political analyst Bill Schneider.

Bill, good morning.

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Daryn.

KAGAN: If in fact it was a draw and if you look at the polls it would appear to be that, what does it mean to this campaign?

SCHNEIDER: I don't think it means a great deal. Dick Cheney clearly had a more impressive performance than President Bush's performance last week in the debate. But I'm not sure what that means for President Bush because a lot of people will say well, wait a minute; President Bush is the president, people vote for president not for vice president. And in some ways Cheney overshadows this president. So I'm not sure it's going to mean a great deal in terms of this campaign.

It does focus attention on Friday night's debate as absolutely critical, because that's the one debate in which ordinary viewers and voters will have a chance to pose questions to the presidential candidates.

KAGAN: Right. And let's talk about that format on Friday with the town hall. Who do you think that's going to benefit?

SCHNEIDER: Well, not clear. It rewards anyone that can connect well with voters. Kerry does a lot of town halls. But Bush has a relaxed engaging style, as we saw in the debate last week. He's not always comfortable in a lectern format. And he has some experience connecting with people.

Although he has to be careful not to make the mistake his father made in 1992 in a town hall, when someone asked his father a question about the national debt, and his father seemed uncomprehending of the question and really failed to connect at all. And the then Democratic candidate, Bill Clinton, really zoomed in and focused directly on the voter (AUDIO GAP) format.

The rules this time are a bit limiting, because the candidates cannot leave the lectern and walk up to the voters, the way Bill Clinton did in 1992. And voters cannot stray from the pre-submitted questions and they cannot ask any follow-ups. So they're kind of stray -- there are sort of strict rules in this debate.

KAGAN: And now, any minute now we expect to hear from President Bush giving a speech in Pennsylvania, speaking on the war on terror, on the economy. A change of topics for this president; he was supposed to speak on medical liability. What do you make of this campaign strategy?

SCHNEIDER: Well, a lot of Democrats are very upset about this. They call it a Mulligan, which is a golf term, a do over for the president. They say his performance in that first debate last week was dismaying. And he wants to try to make over that performance with this speech today, which is built as a speech on the economy and the war on terror.

The agenda is moving towards domestic issues right now, which is not where Bush has shown up as relatively strong. That's Kerry's strength: the economy, healthcare, other domestic agenda items. President Bush may very well try to connect to the domestic agenda to 9/11, the war on terror. Which is what the Republican convention did back at the end of August. He may want to try to set the agenda so that everything in this campaign, including the economy, is seen through the lens of the war on terror.

KAGAN: But how much can you make of the change of topics? Is that a big deal? Or is that just you have to keep your knees bent and be able to kind of go with the flow this late in the campaign?

SCHNEIDER: Well, I think it is an effort by the president to frame the agenda. Not medical malpractice but terrorism. The president, clearly the Republican Party at their convention, wants everything in this campaign to be seen through the lens of 9/11 and the war on terror. So I think that was a deliberate effort to reframe this agenda as we go into the domestic part of the debate.

KAGAN: And Bill, it looks like President Bush has stepped up to the podium.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired October 6, 2004 - 10:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We'll get started here from CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. Good morning, everyone. I'm Daryn Kagan. Let's take a look at the stories that are happening now in the news.
Two stories out of Iraq; talks are underway to end the fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City. A negotiator for rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr says an agreement with a top Iraqi government official is near. In another development today, 12 Iraqi National Guard troops were killed, another 25 wounded in a car bombing in western Iraq.

Senior officials with the Bush administration are offering a glimpse of the final report from investigators, who searched for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. It finds that while Saddam Hussein didn't have WMD stockpiles, there were plans for revving idle programs once the U.N. sanctions ended. The draft report also concludes that the former dictator believed the fear of such weapons prevented the U.S. from marching to Baghdad in the First Gulf War.

The U.S. has agreed to withdraw one-third of its troops from South Korea later than originally planned. Twelve thousand five hundred troops will be redeployed by 2008. Under the original plan, the forces would have been pulled out by the end of next year.

Here in the U.S., Mount St. Helens seems a bit quieter since it let out a cloud of ash and steam yesterday. The blast opened two new vents in the crater floor and it coated some areas miles away with ash. Since then, only mild quakes have been recorded inside the volcano.

An American is sharing this year's Noble Prize in chemistry with two Israelis. Irwin Rose and his colleagues, Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover, discovered a process that allows cells to destroy unwanted proteins. Their work, done in the 1970s and '80s, could help in developing therapies for hundreds of diseases such as cystic fibrosis and cervical cancer.

A lot to watch live this hour, including President Bush, he is in the battleground state of Pennsylvania this hour on this morning after the vice-presidential debate. In just about 10 minutes, he'll deliver what the White House is calling a major speech on terrorism and the economy. We'll have live coverage of the president's speech once it begins.

Today the vice-presidential candidates returned to the shadows of the running mates. And those presidential contenders ratchet up their message, as the campaign enters the final four weeks.

Our Elaine Quijano previews the Bush message. Our Frank Buckley, offering the view from the Kerry campaign.

Elaine, we're going to begin with you. President Bush about to give a speech in Wilks-Barre, Pennsylvania. Good morning.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Daryn. That's right. Originally, the president was to have focused on the topic of medical liability reform here in Pennsylvania. Instead, on Monday, the White House announced that the president would be delivering what aides are calling a significant speech, as you said, on the war on terrorism as well as the economy.

Now, why the change in topic? A Bush campaign official says that it's natural that just four weeks out from the Election Day that people are paying more and more attention. And the campaign believes that those are the two most important issues to voters. Now, this official also denies flatly that this topic, which has anything to do with the post presidential debate goals -- polls favoring John Kerry. As well as denying that it has anything to do with the new CIA report on WMDs.

Now it's unclear whether President Bush will have any new lines of attack against Senator Kerry. A senior administration official will only say that the president will drop, quote, 'starker contrasts," end quote, between the president's record and Senator Kerry's. Now, look for the president to say that John Kerry has a record of supporting measures that would derail the nation's economic recovery. Also look for him to say that John Kerry has a record of voting against measures that would keep the nation safer -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Elaine Quijano in Wilks-Barre, Pennsylvania, we'll be back to you and to that town, once the president begins his speech.

First though, on to the Kerry message and the Democratic candidate preparing for Friday's second debate with President Bush. Our national correspondent Frank Buckley is in Englewood, Colorado with more on that.

Frank, good morning.

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NAT'L. CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn. This will come as a huge surprise, but the Kerry campaign believes that John Edwards won the debate last night. Meanwhile, Senator Kerry is preparing for his next debate on Friday with the President Bush in a town hall style format. So his campaign is down for a couple of days here in the Denver, Colorado area while he prepares.

Senator Kerry arrived here in the Denver area yesterday afternoon to an airport rally. Colorado, a state that went to President Bush in 2000, but it's one of those battleground states that the Kerry campaign believes is in play this time. Last night, Senator Kerry watched the vice-presidential debate in his hotel suite with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. After that Senator Kerry called John Edwards to talk to him, clearly done for the benefit of the journalists in the room. And engaging in a little bit of post debate spin of his own.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The country tonight got a chance to feel the confidence that I have with you. And now they have confidence in you. They felt the strength. They felt clarity. You were so strong on correcting the facts. They keep distorting things. And I look forward to going out and just taking on those distortions.

These guys can only resort to fear and distortion. And they are unwilling to live with the truth. So you held them accountable. You did a great, great job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BUCKLEY: That may be the last view we have of Senator Kerry for the next couple of days, as he prepares for the debate here at this resort just outside of Denver.

A little bit of detail on how that debate prep will take place. We're told that Greg Craig, who played President Bush in his preparation for his first debate, Greg Craig the attorney who helped President Clinton during the impeachment will once again play President Bush here during the debate prep.

And we know the focus, obviously, and also the briefing papers and that sort of thing will change slightly to include more domestic policy. Some of the domestic policy advisors here on the scene now in Colorado. And also, we're told that since Senator Kerry engages in these town hall style events so frequently, they believe he'll be prepared for Friday -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right. Frank Buckley, we'll let you get out of a little bit of the rain there, whatever is coming down there in Colorado. Thank you.

Right now, we're going to get back to the vice-presidential debate. From the opening bell the candidates came out swinging. Now, neither one scored a decisive knockout punch; both are sporting some bruises today. Our Judy Woodruff takes it round by round.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(APPLAUSE)

JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): No punches pulled around this debate table.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That was a complete distortion of my record. I know that may come as a shock.

DICK CHENEY (R), UNITED STATES VICE-PRESIDENT: Senator, frankly, you have a record in the Senate that's not very distinguished.

WOODRUFF: Dick Cheney and John Edwards trading stinging barbs throughout a 90-minute showdown, their only debate of the campaign. The vice president seeking to portray the North Carolina senator as inexperienced and ineffective.

CHENEY: Your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you Senator Gone. You have got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate.

Edwards trying to paint Cheney as a servant of big business, who lied to the American people about the war in Iraq.

EDWARDS: I want the American people to hear this very clearly. Listen carefully to what the vice president is saying. Because there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks much September 11. Period.

WOODRUFF: Iraq and the war on terror dominated the first half of the debate. But the candidates echoing charges leveled by their running mates.

CHENEY: You're not credible on Iraq because of the enormous inconsistencies that John Kerry and you have cited time after time, after time during the course of the campaign.

WOODRUFF: But other issues found their way into the discussion, like the Bush backed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage; something Cheney who has a lesbian daughter opposes.

EDWARDS: It is nothing but a political tool. And it is being used in an effort to divide this country.

WOODRUFF: The vice president was given an opportunity to respond to the comment. He declined. What Cheney did was fire back on another close to home matter, Halliburton.

EDWARDS: When the vice president was CEO of Halliburton, they took care of -- took advantage of every offshore loophole available.

CHENEY: The reason they keep trying to attack Halliburton is because they want to obscure their own record.

WOODRUFF: What of the reaction shots? Those pesky cut aways that bedeviled the president in his first debate with John Kerry. Both men kept their faces straight and their noses in their notes.

Judy Woodruff, CNN, Cleveland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Well let's check in with you the viewers. How did the vice president debate resonate with you? Depends on which survey you want to look at. An ABC News poll, conducted after the face-off, shows Dick Cheney the winner. According to a telephone survey of 509 registered voters, 43 percent said Cheney won, 35 percent gave the win to Edwards, 19 percent called it a tie.

A CBS poll of uncommitted voters showed just the opposite of the 178 surveyed, 41 percent declared Edwards the winner, 28 percent chose Cheney, and 31 percent said it was a tie.

So what does the vice-presidential debate mean in the long run? To answer that let's bring in our senior political analyst Bill Schneider.

Bill, good morning.

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Daryn.

KAGAN: If in fact it was a draw and if you look at the polls it would appear to be that, what does it mean to this campaign?

SCHNEIDER: I don't think it means a great deal. Dick Cheney clearly had a more impressive performance than President Bush's performance last week in the debate. But I'm not sure what that means for President Bush because a lot of people will say well, wait a minute; President Bush is the president, people vote for president not for vice president. And in some ways Cheney overshadows this president. So I'm not sure it's going to mean a great deal in terms of this campaign.

It does focus attention on Friday night's debate as absolutely critical, because that's the one debate in which ordinary viewers and voters will have a chance to pose questions to the presidential candidates.

KAGAN: Right. And let's talk about that format on Friday with the town hall. Who do you think that's going to benefit?

SCHNEIDER: Well, not clear. It rewards anyone that can connect well with voters. Kerry does a lot of town halls. But Bush has a relaxed engaging style, as we saw in the debate last week. He's not always comfortable in a lectern format. And he has some experience connecting with people.

Although he has to be careful not to make the mistake his father made in 1992 in a town hall, when someone asked his father a question about the national debt, and his father seemed uncomprehending of the question and really failed to connect at all. And the then Democratic candidate, Bill Clinton, really zoomed in and focused directly on the voter (AUDIO GAP) format.

The rules this time are a bit limiting, because the candidates cannot leave the lectern and walk up to the voters, the way Bill Clinton did in 1992. And voters cannot stray from the pre-submitted questions and they cannot ask any follow-ups. So they're kind of stray -- there are sort of strict rules in this debate.

KAGAN: And now, any minute now we expect to hear from President Bush giving a speech in Pennsylvania, speaking on the war on terror, on the economy. A change of topics for this president; he was supposed to speak on medical liability. What do you make of this campaign strategy?

SCHNEIDER: Well, a lot of Democrats are very upset about this. They call it a Mulligan, which is a golf term, a do over for the president. They say his performance in that first debate last week was dismaying. And he wants to try to make over that performance with this speech today, which is built as a speech on the economy and the war on terror.

The agenda is moving towards domestic issues right now, which is not where Bush has shown up as relatively strong. That's Kerry's strength: the economy, healthcare, other domestic agenda items. President Bush may very well try to connect to the domestic agenda to 9/11, the war on terror. Which is what the Republican convention did back at the end of August. He may want to try to set the agenda so that everything in this campaign, including the economy, is seen through the lens of the war on terror.

KAGAN: But how much can you make of the change of topics? Is that a big deal? Or is that just you have to keep your knees bent and be able to kind of go with the flow this late in the campaign?

SCHNEIDER: Well, I think it is an effort by the president to frame the agenda. Not medical malpractice but terrorism. The president, clearly the Republican Party at their convention, wants everything in this campaign to be seen through the lens of 9/11 and the war on terror. So I think that was a deliberate effort to reframe this agenda as we go into the domestic part of the debate.

KAGAN: And Bill, it looks like President Bush has stepped up to the podium.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com