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CNN Live Today

Wet West; Uniting the Divided; Iraqi Insurgency

Aired February 21, 2005 - 10:59   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: Let's take a look at what's happening "Now in the News."
Mending fences. President Bush is in Belgium, trying to smooth over differences with European allies, differences that run deep over the U.S.-led war in Iraq. In a major speech delivered in Brussels this morning, Mr. Bush called for democratic reforms in Russia and a two-state future for the Middle East.

Authorities in Texas have issued an Amber Alert for a pregnant Fort Worth woman and her 7-year-old son. Police say Lisa Underwood and her son Jayden were reported missing Saturday afternoon after she failed to show up for a baby shower. Investigators say evidence at the Underwood home suggests a crime.

Health officials in Florida are scrambling. Last Thursday, a worker in Palm Beach County accidentally e-mailed a confidential list containing the names of thousands of AIDS patients to county health workers across the state. Officials have reached most of those who received the file, and others will be contacted today.

No bail? A judge's decision for a Florida couple accused of beating and starving five of their adopted children. Jim and Linda Dollar are now in the Citrus County Jail. Over the weekend, the Dollars were extradited from Utah back to Florida to face child abuse charges.

Checking the clock, it is just a minute past 11:00 a.m. on the East Coast. It is soggy and just a minute past 8:00 on the West. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, good morning once again. I'm Daryn Kagan.

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Well said. And I'm Rick Sanchez.

And let's do that, let's get started out in the West. It's been really a record winter for southern California. And the storms, they just -- well, they keep coming.

A fresh one rolled in off the Pacific Coast last night, expected to bring three to four, maybe even five inches of rain, according to out last count. Mix in the thunder, the hail, the mudslides, possibly tornadoes, and you have a recipe for quite a mess. This is -- let's go to some pictures.

This is what that type of weather can do. This is a 40 by 100- foot sinkhole that really wreaked some havoc. This heavily-traveled road is in Sun Valley. A busted sewer line may have helped feed that hole. Firefighters are going to try and recover the body of a city worker who was killed when he fell into that crater you're seeing.

Mudslide advisories are now posted for as many as eight different counties this morning. And if you remember last month's disaster in La Conchita, you know that this can be a serious business.

CNN correspondent Miguel Marquez has been following the story. He's in Laguna Beach.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're in the hills of Laguna Beach above the ocean. You can see this house behind me. You can see that red tag right below the house number. This means this house has been evacuated. The problem is not this house but what's on the other side of it.

This is somebody's backyard whose come tumbling down into the street here. The plastic has now been laid out over the hillside, trying to protect the soil below it from getting anymore wet.

You can see the house just precariously perched up above there. At one point the -- on the corner, you can see right through the sub- floor and into the house itself. The people also hanging sandbags off the side, trying to keep those sheets down, those plastic sheets down so that the soil doesn't get any more soaked than it already is.

Three deaths are being blamed on this storm so far. And there is only more rain in the forecast.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, Laguna Beach, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: We're going to have a complete forecast for you of the situation right now in California and the states out West. Also the rest of the country. Jacqui Jeras will have that for us right here in just a couple of minutes.

KAGAN: President Bush is hoping to be a uniter, not a divider, of European allies at odds with him over some of his policies and the war in Iraq. Mr. Bush is in Brussels on a five-day trip to three European countries. He'll meet with many world leaders, including a dinner this evening with French President Jacques Chirac. During a speech three hours ago, Mr. Bush called for a new era of transatlantic unity and talked of the need for Europe to support the actions in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: All nations now have an interest in the success of a free and democratic Iraq which will fight terror, which will be a beacon of freedom, and which will be a true -- a source of true stability in the region.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KAGAN: President Bush's differences with European leaders are a matter of both style and substance. More now from our senior White House correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Off to Europe, where the goal is setting a new tone for the second term. The challenge rooted as much in a personality clash as it is in the many policy differences.

RICHARD PERLE, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: The Europeans don't like the president's style. They're comfortable with Jacques Chirac. OK. He's not my taste, but they've carried this disapproval of the president's style to an extreme.

KING: Not that there aren't numerous policy divides that make fence-mending difficult. Lingering tensions over the Iraq war, Mr. Bush won't join negotiations about Iran's nuclear program and wants the Europeans involved in those talks to take a tougher line. The White House opposes European plans to resume arm sales to China. And Europeans can't fathom why Mr. Bush won't join the Kyoto climate change treaty.

Just back from a big conference in Germany, Senator John McCain sees a desire on both sides of the Atlantic for a more friendly tone, yet he sees little movement on the policy divides with France and Germany.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: In the case of the Germans, Mr. Schroeder -- a little straight talk -- is interested in his re- election. He played an anti-American card last time and it helped him, so it shouldn't surprise me (ph). In the case of the French, as long as many French leaders believe in their words that they are counterweight to the United States of America, it's hard to forge a close alliance.

KAGAN: The Iraq war is the biggest but not the only source of anti-Bush sentiment across much of Europe.

WOLFGANG ISCHINGER, GERMAN AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: Some of it has to do with style. Europeans, Germans and others may have some difficulty with this open, frank manner.

KING: How these differences are conveyed can be remarkably personal, portrayed as an ape in Britain's guardian newspaper. Elsewhere in Europe, flipping a coin before marching or dancing off to the next war. Or in this German cartoon, as a biblical figure bent on reshaping the world.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: They've got to stop scapegoating George Bush as a person. They've got to deal with America.

He's the president of the United States. He's been re-elected. His policies reflect more or less the will of the majority of the American people, and the Europeans have to deal with that.

KING: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was well received on her recent trip to Europe. And in Germany, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld tried humor to remove his controversial labels of Iraq war critics as old Europe.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Oh, that was old Rumsfeld.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Now Mr. Bush takes his turn. One goal in Europe, narrowing the policy divide. The other, recasting or at least softening his image.

John King, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Meanwhile, the tapes. Tapes from the past apparently show glimpses of a would-be future president, George Bush. Bush friend and author Doug Wead says he secretly recorded the tapes in the two years before the 2000 election. On these tapes, a then Governor Bush acknowledged trying marijuana in the past.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

BUSH: Well, Doug, but it's not -- it just doesn't matter, cocaine. It would be the same with marijuana. I wouldn't answer the marijuana question.

You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried.

DOUG WEAD, AUTHOR: Yes, and it never stops.

BUSH: But you've got to understand, I want to be president. I want to lead. I want to set -- do you want your little kid to say, "Hey, Daddy, President Bush tried marijuana, I think I will?"

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KAGAN: In another tape Bush explains that he told a prominent evangelical that he would not "kick gays because I'm a sinner. How can I differentiate between sins?"

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

WEAD: And he's saying that you promised you would not appoint gays to office.

BUSH: No. What I said was I wouldn't fire gays. See, I'm not going to discriminate against people.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KAGAN: Doug Wead recorded the conversation, says it was never his expressed intention for the tapes to become public.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WEAD: I didn't want them to become public.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not?

WEAD: Well, they're personal. They were a personal record for me.

I started taking notes on the recordings. At one point he said -- or in the conversations. At one point he said, "You can write a book in 30 days, can't you?" I had ghost written a book for his father, I thought that might be coming. I thought I better get started.

And he was having me run interference on some news stories. And I wanted a record of that so I could play it back and hear exactly what he wanted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: The White House says the tapes were of casual conversations with someone Mr. Bush considered a friend. CNN has not independently authenticated the tapes.

SANCHEZ: We take you now to Iraq. It's been another day of violence there, with kidnappings and attacks as well. Let's do this, let's go to Baghdad now with the introduction of this music and senior international correspondent Nic Robertson who is standing by. Some politics we're going to be talking about as well.

Nic, set the scene for us.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rick, a journalist working for an Iraqi television station in Mosul was kidnapped. I was in Mosul talking to some of those journalists about a month ago. They told me they received death threats. Indeed, I met a technician who had only escaped kidnapping by jumping off a roof.

They have received death threats. Many of them have stayed away from work. But now it seems one of them has been kidnapped. Other members of the television station, they're very concerned about what her fate may be.

There have been attacks in and around Iraq. A group of drivers driving supplies in for U.S. troops was attacked as air convoy approached a U.S. base late yesterday evening. You also heard of an attack on a U.S. patrol in the southern outskirts of Baghdad this morning. Still, details not clear on exactly what happened there.

The political process still going on. It seems to be going on very, very slowly. They appeared -- politicians appeared to be close to finding agreement on who could be prime minister this morning.

This evening, we're hearing it still could be several more days. It seems deep divisions on deciding the country's new political chiefs -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: And there's a possibility that it could be Chalabi, of WMD and American soldiers will be welcome with flowers fame?

ROBERTSON: You know, if you listen to the spokesperson from his party here right now, then that's what you would believe. One of his spokesmen earlier today says he has -- he has sort of 80 to 140 people backing him within this new Iraqi religious alliance that won most of the seats. But there are other politicians, other spokesmen, at least, or coming out and saying, no, their candidate, Ibrahim al- Jaafari, the current -- current vice president, seen as a moderate, seen as a unifying figure, is far more likely to win than Ahmed Chalabi.

But interestingly, late this afternoon the current prime minister actually said on the record, on camera that he would be throwing his hat back in the ring, possibly for the position of prime minister. So it really seems that everyone's playing a very tough game here in the negotiations.

Ahmed Chalabi apparently not backing down. Jaafari not backing down. And Allawi throwing his hat in the ring. So it really is anybody's guess at the moment -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Certainly a newsworthy event when we find out who it is. Certainly if is, indeed, Chalabi as well. Nic Robertson bringing us up to date on events in Baghdad today. We thank you.

KAGAN: President Bush wants them out, and now thousands of Lebanese are demanding the same thing, for Syrian troops to leave. We'll have reaction in a live report from Damascus.

SANCHEZ: And then, parents, listen up. How well do you know the signs of developmental delays? Would you be able to recognize them in your child, for example? Well, we're going to talk to some CDC directors about what you need to know to make sure your children are OK.

KAGAN: And we'll have more on the destructive weather in California as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: We welcome you back. In today's "Daily Dose," how to spot signs of a developmental disorder in your child. This is one that worries parents.

The Centers for Disease Control has a new campaign out to try and help. They help parents identify childhood development problems like autism and Attention Deficit Disorder early on.

Dr. Julie Gerberding is the director of the CDC, Dr. Jose Cordero is the assistant surgeon general and director there as well. They are both in Washington.

Doctor, doctor, thank you for joining us. It sounds a lot like a movie now, doesn't it?

What do we need to know as parents? Because this really is something we think about an awful lot during pregnancy, and then when the child is very young. What do we need to look out for?

DR. JULIE GERBERDING, DIRECTOR, CDC: Well, you know, this is a very common problem. In fact, it's often unrecognized until children are in school. So part of our campaign is to help parents understand the earliest signs of a developmental delay so that they can get information from their pediatrician and check it out while there's still time to intervene early.

SANCHEZ: Well, can you intervene? For example, autism is one of the things that's mentioned here, Dr. Cordero. Can you do something to either -- I'm sure you can't cure it, but to change the way it will affect child?

DR. JOSE CORDERO, CDC: Actually, although there might not be a cure, we do know that children that are recognized early, say before age three, have a much better opportunity of typical and optimal development than those that are diagnosed late, say, age five or after school age. So that's why it's so important to have this campaign.

We call it Learn the Signs, Act Early. Because we know that through early intervention and early beginnings, we could really help children have optimal development.

SANCHEZ: Let's talk about some of those. Dr. Gerberding, if you would, what are some of the signs for parents out there watching right now?

GERBERDING: Well, the kinds of things that parents should be looking for depend on the age of the child. So for very early children, we'll be looking for things that indicate their beginning language development, that their social skills are evolving, that they can play with imagination. They're all very specific things, and we have some tips for parents that are specific to each age group to really help them.

SANCHEZ: You know, I know a lot of parents who my wife and I have talked to who have gone through this situation and have told us, "Our child was perfectly fine until the age of X." And I'm not going to put a number on it, because I can't recall. But then it seemed like everything changed.

Is that true with a lot of the developmental problems?

GERBERDING: No, like everything there's a spectrum of onset. So there are children who have all normal signs up until a point. Sometimes in retrospect, though, you can realize that things maybe weren't so normal at the beginning as they seemed to be at the time. What we're trying to do here is to help alert parents to the possibility of the earliest signs so that they can get professional advice and help and make a decision whether this is just normal for their child or whether something else needs to be done.

SANCHEZ: This seems to be a wonderful idea, and I think it's going to help a lot of parents.

Dr. Cordero if you would, finishing off, if parents want more information, where is it going to be available for them? What should they do?

CORDERO: Well, we have quite a bit of information. If you call 800-CDC-INFO, or our Web site, which is cdc.gov/actearly, and there you can get information, like, for example, this handy one-pager that describes some of the things that you should be looking for in your children at different ages that would be helpful to begin the dialogue with your health care provider.

SANCHEZ: You know, what's interesting, too? (SPEAKING SPANISH), right? You're doing this in Spanish as well. I was looking at the sign there.

CORDERO: I've been doing this in Spanish. And this is actually -- one side is Spanish and one side is English.

SANCHEZ: Well, good luck. Buena suerte. We appreciate your work, and certainly we thank you for being on and sharing that with us.

CORDERO: Thank you.

GERBERDING: Thank you.

KAGAN: Very important for parents out there.

SANCHEZ: Oh, boy, is it.

KAGAN: To keep an eye on things.

Also, we're seeing how the weather is developing, especially in the West. Jacqui Jeras, a parent herself.

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: Some significant celebrity deaths that we need to mark coming up ahead, including the man who began gonzo journalism. He has died. Hunter S. Thompson died Sunday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Thompson was famous for such books as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" in '72. He was 67 years old.

SANCHEZ: Also, Sandra Dee has died. Dee is seen here in "A Summer Place." She's best known for playing "Gidget" on the big screen and for her marriage to singer Bobby Darin. She died Sunday of complications from kidney disease and pneumonia. Dee was 63 years old, according to her son, and leaves behind some real devoted followers for whom she was an idol.

KAGAN: And Broadway star John Raitt died Sunday. Raitt, the star of such Broadway musicals as "The Pajama Game" and "Annie Get Your Gun," was also the father of blues rocker Bonnie Raitt. He was 88.

SANCHEZ: Those are some of the big losses. And we'll have more news right after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired February 21, 2005 - 10:59   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's take a look at what's happening "Now in the News."
Mending fences. President Bush is in Belgium, trying to smooth over differences with European allies, differences that run deep over the U.S.-led war in Iraq. In a major speech delivered in Brussels this morning, Mr. Bush called for democratic reforms in Russia and a two-state future for the Middle East.

Authorities in Texas have issued an Amber Alert for a pregnant Fort Worth woman and her 7-year-old son. Police say Lisa Underwood and her son Jayden were reported missing Saturday afternoon after she failed to show up for a baby shower. Investigators say evidence at the Underwood home suggests a crime.

Health officials in Florida are scrambling. Last Thursday, a worker in Palm Beach County accidentally e-mailed a confidential list containing the names of thousands of AIDS patients to county health workers across the state. Officials have reached most of those who received the file, and others will be contacted today.

No bail? A judge's decision for a Florida couple accused of beating and starving five of their adopted children. Jim and Linda Dollar are now in the Citrus County Jail. Over the weekend, the Dollars were extradited from Utah back to Florida to face child abuse charges.

Checking the clock, it is just a minute past 11:00 a.m. on the East Coast. It is soggy and just a minute past 8:00 on the West. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, good morning once again. I'm Daryn Kagan.

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Well said. And I'm Rick Sanchez.

And let's do that, let's get started out in the West. It's been really a record winter for southern California. And the storms, they just -- well, they keep coming.

A fresh one rolled in off the Pacific Coast last night, expected to bring three to four, maybe even five inches of rain, according to out last count. Mix in the thunder, the hail, the mudslides, possibly tornadoes, and you have a recipe for quite a mess. This is -- let's go to some pictures.

This is what that type of weather can do. This is a 40 by 100- foot sinkhole that really wreaked some havoc. This heavily-traveled road is in Sun Valley. A busted sewer line may have helped feed that hole. Firefighters are going to try and recover the body of a city worker who was killed when he fell into that crater you're seeing.

Mudslide advisories are now posted for as many as eight different counties this morning. And if you remember last month's disaster in La Conchita, you know that this can be a serious business.

CNN correspondent Miguel Marquez has been following the story. He's in Laguna Beach.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're in the hills of Laguna Beach above the ocean. You can see this house behind me. You can see that red tag right below the house number. This means this house has been evacuated. The problem is not this house but what's on the other side of it.

This is somebody's backyard whose come tumbling down into the street here. The plastic has now been laid out over the hillside, trying to protect the soil below it from getting anymore wet.

You can see the house just precariously perched up above there. At one point the -- on the corner, you can see right through the sub- floor and into the house itself. The people also hanging sandbags off the side, trying to keep those sheets down, those plastic sheets down so that the soil doesn't get any more soaked than it already is.

Three deaths are being blamed on this storm so far. And there is only more rain in the forecast.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, Laguna Beach, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: We're going to have a complete forecast for you of the situation right now in California and the states out West. Also the rest of the country. Jacqui Jeras will have that for us right here in just a couple of minutes.

KAGAN: President Bush is hoping to be a uniter, not a divider, of European allies at odds with him over some of his policies and the war in Iraq. Mr. Bush is in Brussels on a five-day trip to three European countries. He'll meet with many world leaders, including a dinner this evening with French President Jacques Chirac. During a speech three hours ago, Mr. Bush called for a new era of transatlantic unity and talked of the need for Europe to support the actions in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: All nations now have an interest in the success of a free and democratic Iraq which will fight terror, which will be a beacon of freedom, and which will be a true -- a source of true stability in the region.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KAGAN: President Bush's differences with European leaders are a matter of both style and substance. More now from our senior White House correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Off to Europe, where the goal is setting a new tone for the second term. The challenge rooted as much in a personality clash as it is in the many policy differences.

RICHARD PERLE, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: The Europeans don't like the president's style. They're comfortable with Jacques Chirac. OK. He's not my taste, but they've carried this disapproval of the president's style to an extreme.

KING: Not that there aren't numerous policy divides that make fence-mending difficult. Lingering tensions over the Iraq war, Mr. Bush won't join negotiations about Iran's nuclear program and wants the Europeans involved in those talks to take a tougher line. The White House opposes European plans to resume arm sales to China. And Europeans can't fathom why Mr. Bush won't join the Kyoto climate change treaty.

Just back from a big conference in Germany, Senator John McCain sees a desire on both sides of the Atlantic for a more friendly tone, yet he sees little movement on the policy divides with France and Germany.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: In the case of the Germans, Mr. Schroeder -- a little straight talk -- is interested in his re- election. He played an anti-American card last time and it helped him, so it shouldn't surprise me (ph). In the case of the French, as long as many French leaders believe in their words that they are counterweight to the United States of America, it's hard to forge a close alliance.

KAGAN: The Iraq war is the biggest but not the only source of anti-Bush sentiment across much of Europe.

WOLFGANG ISCHINGER, GERMAN AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: Some of it has to do with style. Europeans, Germans and others may have some difficulty with this open, frank manner.

KING: How these differences are conveyed can be remarkably personal, portrayed as an ape in Britain's guardian newspaper. Elsewhere in Europe, flipping a coin before marching or dancing off to the next war. Or in this German cartoon, as a biblical figure bent on reshaping the world.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: They've got to stop scapegoating George Bush as a person. They've got to deal with America.

He's the president of the United States. He's been re-elected. His policies reflect more or less the will of the majority of the American people, and the Europeans have to deal with that.

KING: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was well received on her recent trip to Europe. And in Germany, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld tried humor to remove his controversial labels of Iraq war critics as old Europe.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Oh, that was old Rumsfeld.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Now Mr. Bush takes his turn. One goal in Europe, narrowing the policy divide. The other, recasting or at least softening his image.

John King, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Meanwhile, the tapes. Tapes from the past apparently show glimpses of a would-be future president, George Bush. Bush friend and author Doug Wead says he secretly recorded the tapes in the two years before the 2000 election. On these tapes, a then Governor Bush acknowledged trying marijuana in the past.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

BUSH: Well, Doug, but it's not -- it just doesn't matter, cocaine. It would be the same with marijuana. I wouldn't answer the marijuana question.

You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried.

DOUG WEAD, AUTHOR: Yes, and it never stops.

BUSH: But you've got to understand, I want to be president. I want to lead. I want to set -- do you want your little kid to say, "Hey, Daddy, President Bush tried marijuana, I think I will?"

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KAGAN: In another tape Bush explains that he told a prominent evangelical that he would not "kick gays because I'm a sinner. How can I differentiate between sins?"

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

WEAD: And he's saying that you promised you would not appoint gays to office.

BUSH: No. What I said was I wouldn't fire gays. See, I'm not going to discriminate against people.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KAGAN: Doug Wead recorded the conversation, says it was never his expressed intention for the tapes to become public.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WEAD: I didn't want them to become public.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not?

WEAD: Well, they're personal. They were a personal record for me.

I started taking notes on the recordings. At one point he said -- or in the conversations. At one point he said, "You can write a book in 30 days, can't you?" I had ghost written a book for his father, I thought that might be coming. I thought I better get started.

And he was having me run interference on some news stories. And I wanted a record of that so I could play it back and hear exactly what he wanted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: The White House says the tapes were of casual conversations with someone Mr. Bush considered a friend. CNN has not independently authenticated the tapes.

SANCHEZ: We take you now to Iraq. It's been another day of violence there, with kidnappings and attacks as well. Let's do this, let's go to Baghdad now with the introduction of this music and senior international correspondent Nic Robertson who is standing by. Some politics we're going to be talking about as well.

Nic, set the scene for us.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rick, a journalist working for an Iraqi television station in Mosul was kidnapped. I was in Mosul talking to some of those journalists about a month ago. They told me they received death threats. Indeed, I met a technician who had only escaped kidnapping by jumping off a roof.

They have received death threats. Many of them have stayed away from work. But now it seems one of them has been kidnapped. Other members of the television station, they're very concerned about what her fate may be.

There have been attacks in and around Iraq. A group of drivers driving supplies in for U.S. troops was attacked as air convoy approached a U.S. base late yesterday evening. You also heard of an attack on a U.S. patrol in the southern outskirts of Baghdad this morning. Still, details not clear on exactly what happened there.

The political process still going on. It seems to be going on very, very slowly. They appeared -- politicians appeared to be close to finding agreement on who could be prime minister this morning.

This evening, we're hearing it still could be several more days. It seems deep divisions on deciding the country's new political chiefs -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: And there's a possibility that it could be Chalabi, of WMD and American soldiers will be welcome with flowers fame?

ROBERTSON: You know, if you listen to the spokesperson from his party here right now, then that's what you would believe. One of his spokesmen earlier today says he has -- he has sort of 80 to 140 people backing him within this new Iraqi religious alliance that won most of the seats. But there are other politicians, other spokesmen, at least, or coming out and saying, no, their candidate, Ibrahim al- Jaafari, the current -- current vice president, seen as a moderate, seen as a unifying figure, is far more likely to win than Ahmed Chalabi.

But interestingly, late this afternoon the current prime minister actually said on the record, on camera that he would be throwing his hat back in the ring, possibly for the position of prime minister. So it really seems that everyone's playing a very tough game here in the negotiations.

Ahmed Chalabi apparently not backing down. Jaafari not backing down. And Allawi throwing his hat in the ring. So it really is anybody's guess at the moment -- Rick.

SANCHEZ: Certainly a newsworthy event when we find out who it is. Certainly if is, indeed, Chalabi as well. Nic Robertson bringing us up to date on events in Baghdad today. We thank you.

KAGAN: President Bush wants them out, and now thousands of Lebanese are demanding the same thing, for Syrian troops to leave. We'll have reaction in a live report from Damascus.

SANCHEZ: And then, parents, listen up. How well do you know the signs of developmental delays? Would you be able to recognize them in your child, for example? Well, we're going to talk to some CDC directors about what you need to know to make sure your children are OK.

KAGAN: And we'll have more on the destructive weather in California as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: We welcome you back. In today's "Daily Dose," how to spot signs of a developmental disorder in your child. This is one that worries parents.

The Centers for Disease Control has a new campaign out to try and help. They help parents identify childhood development problems like autism and Attention Deficit Disorder early on.

Dr. Julie Gerberding is the director of the CDC, Dr. Jose Cordero is the assistant surgeon general and director there as well. They are both in Washington.

Doctor, doctor, thank you for joining us. It sounds a lot like a movie now, doesn't it?

What do we need to know as parents? Because this really is something we think about an awful lot during pregnancy, and then when the child is very young. What do we need to look out for?

DR. JULIE GERBERDING, DIRECTOR, CDC: Well, you know, this is a very common problem. In fact, it's often unrecognized until children are in school. So part of our campaign is to help parents understand the earliest signs of a developmental delay so that they can get information from their pediatrician and check it out while there's still time to intervene early.

SANCHEZ: Well, can you intervene? For example, autism is one of the things that's mentioned here, Dr. Cordero. Can you do something to either -- I'm sure you can't cure it, but to change the way it will affect child?

DR. JOSE CORDERO, CDC: Actually, although there might not be a cure, we do know that children that are recognized early, say before age three, have a much better opportunity of typical and optimal development than those that are diagnosed late, say, age five or after school age. So that's why it's so important to have this campaign.

We call it Learn the Signs, Act Early. Because we know that through early intervention and early beginnings, we could really help children have optimal development.

SANCHEZ: Let's talk about some of those. Dr. Gerberding, if you would, what are some of the signs for parents out there watching right now?

GERBERDING: Well, the kinds of things that parents should be looking for depend on the age of the child. So for very early children, we'll be looking for things that indicate their beginning language development, that their social skills are evolving, that they can play with imagination. They're all very specific things, and we have some tips for parents that are specific to each age group to really help them.

SANCHEZ: You know, I know a lot of parents who my wife and I have talked to who have gone through this situation and have told us, "Our child was perfectly fine until the age of X." And I'm not going to put a number on it, because I can't recall. But then it seemed like everything changed.

Is that true with a lot of the developmental problems?

GERBERDING: No, like everything there's a spectrum of onset. So there are children who have all normal signs up until a point. Sometimes in retrospect, though, you can realize that things maybe weren't so normal at the beginning as they seemed to be at the time. What we're trying to do here is to help alert parents to the possibility of the earliest signs so that they can get professional advice and help and make a decision whether this is just normal for their child or whether something else needs to be done.

SANCHEZ: This seems to be a wonderful idea, and I think it's going to help a lot of parents.

Dr. Cordero if you would, finishing off, if parents want more information, where is it going to be available for them? What should they do?

CORDERO: Well, we have quite a bit of information. If you call 800-CDC-INFO, or our Web site, which is cdc.gov/actearly, and there you can get information, like, for example, this handy one-pager that describes some of the things that you should be looking for in your children at different ages that would be helpful to begin the dialogue with your health care provider.

SANCHEZ: You know, what's interesting, too? (SPEAKING SPANISH), right? You're doing this in Spanish as well. I was looking at the sign there.

CORDERO: I've been doing this in Spanish. And this is actually -- one side is Spanish and one side is English.

SANCHEZ: Well, good luck. Buena suerte. We appreciate your work, and certainly we thank you for being on and sharing that with us.

CORDERO: Thank you.

GERBERDING: Thank you.

KAGAN: Very important for parents out there.

SANCHEZ: Oh, boy, is it.

KAGAN: To keep an eye on things.

Also, we're seeing how the weather is developing, especially in the West. Jacqui Jeras, a parent herself.

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: Some significant celebrity deaths that we need to mark coming up ahead, including the man who began gonzo journalism. He has died. Hunter S. Thompson died Sunday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Thompson was famous for such books as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" in '72. He was 67 years old.

SANCHEZ: Also, Sandra Dee has died. Dee is seen here in "A Summer Place." She's best known for playing "Gidget" on the big screen and for her marriage to singer Bobby Darin. She died Sunday of complications from kidney disease and pneumonia. Dee was 63 years old, according to her son, and leaves behind some real devoted followers for whom she was an idol.

KAGAN: And Broadway star John Raitt died Sunday. Raitt, the star of such Broadway musicals as "The Pajama Game" and "Annie Get Your Gun," was also the father of blues rocker Bonnie Raitt. He was 88.

SANCHEZ: Those are some of the big losses. And we'll have more news right after a break.

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