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American Morning

Interview with Former White House Advisor David Gergen; '90- Second Tips'

Aired May 05, 2004 - 07:30   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.


HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: The White House is in crisis management mode over the pictures showing Iraqi prisoners being abused. Former White House advisor David Gergen is going to look at the president's extraordinary TV appearances today.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: You and I were talking about this yesterday at the end of our show. We're going to talk today about marital stress. It turns out that fighting with your spouse can have very serious medical consequences.

COLLINS: No, it can't.

HEMMER: No? It's healthy? We're going to get to that topic in the next 30 minutes also.

COLLINS: All right, very good. We want to hit the news this hour, though.

President Bush is expected to address the controversy over reports of Iraq prisoner mistreatment with two Arab-language networks. The president will conduct 10-minute interviews with Al Arabiya, a Saudi-owned station, and with U.S.-sponsored Al-Hurra network. White House spokesman Scott McClellan says the president will say the images of Iraqi prisoners being mistreated are -- quote -- "shameful and unacceptable." The interviews are scheduled to take place at about 10:00 Eastern this morning.

Thomas Hamill, the former American hostage held captive in Iraq, has been reunited with his wife. Hamill has been undergoing medical treatment at a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. His wife, Kellie, was finally able to see him today. The meeting was described as very emotional. The couple is expected to head back to the U.S. by the end of the week.

The so-called Middle East Quartet have met and are encouraging Israel to fully pull out from Gaza. Representatives of the U.S., the European Union and Russia met at the United Nations yesterday. Some senior officials called on Palestinians and Israelis to meet their obligations under the stalled peace plan.

And in sports, on the ice, the Philadelphia Flyers skate their way into the Eastern Conference finals. The Flyers finished off the Toronto Maple Leafs last night in overtime to ice the winning series, 3 games to 2. They advance to the finals Saturday in Tampa Bay. I always love hockey in Tampa Bay. Meanwhile, the San Jose Sharks beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-1 to win the Western Conference series, wrapping up their series. The Sharks will face Calgary.

HEMMER: I haven't paid much attention to the playoffs in the NHL. Have you?

COLLINS: Well, the Wild.

HEMMER: Yes, the Wild?

COLLINS: They're not so wild this time.

HEMMER: Not wild this year anyway.

COLLINS: Yes.

(WEATHER BREAK)

HEMMER: President Bush is going to face a critical audience a bit later today when he goes on TV networks in the Arab world to address the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal. The president is set to conduct two 10-minute interviews, one on the Al Arabiya network and the other on a U.S.-sponsored network that airs in Iraq. We'll talk about the administration's attempt at damage control in the Arab world in a moment.

First, though, a look at the White House's efforts so far. Here's David Ensor in D.C.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On Al-Jazeera television and other Arabic-language networks, Bush administration officials fanned out to limit the damage.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We have a democratic system for holding people.

ENSOR: People will see, said Condoleezza Rice, that we are determined to get to the bottom of what happened.

At the Pentagon briefing, Secretary Rumsfeld appeared aware his remarks were broadcasting live well beyond U.S. borders.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: The United States of America is a wonderful country and the overwhelming majority of the people...

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: There is a global response to these pictures, as there should be. I mean, they are terrible. They're terrible. That's all there is to it. And we will deal with this by telling the people of the world that this is an isolated incident.

ENSOR: But officials concede that the TV interviews are only damage control, and the damage will be great. REP. JANE HARMAN (D-CA), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: A picture is worth 1,000 words and this -- these pictures, these horrible, despicable pictures, have undone thousands of acts of kindness and courage in Iraq by American soldiers and civilians.

ENSOR (on camera): Administration officials concede America's reputation in the Mideast region is now at a low point. In Iraq, they say U.S. assistance will soon be creating 20,000 reconstruction jobs, and Iraqis will be running their country again. The hope is that the image of this country in that region will start to get better.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: David, thanks for that.

Now, how can the White House best deal with the widening prisoner abuse scandal?

Former White House advisor David Gergen, now a professor at Harvard's Kennedy's School of Government, with us today from Watertown, Massachusetts. And we welcome you back here to AMERICAN MORNING.

Some suggest, David, the president is wasting his time with these interviews today. Do you believe it? Is he?

DAVID GERGEN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR: I think the interviews are wise, and if he could apologize to the people in the Muslim world about this, I think that would also be wise, as Condi Rice did yesterday.

But this crisis has reached a stage now where words alone will not be enough. Decisive actions are needed, and so far the administration's actions have been quite modest in scope. It seems to me that he needs to bring down a hammer now on this situation. He closed down that darn prison. It's notorious, and for Americans even to be in there lends itself to this kind of misunderstanding about the nature of the American occupation there. Close down the darn prisons. Open up all the other prisons that America operates in Iraq for Red Cross. Make sure there are full inspections.

In this case, as we now know, the Red Cross was able to come in. They kept hiding the prisoners from them. They kept shifting them around. But make sure -- bring the Congress to the White House, the leadership of the Congress, and make sure they then get full disclosure and there are no questions to ask. Information is being pried out of the administration yet once again. Congress is -- many members of Congress are livid on both sides of the aisle.

Take a series of steps that make it -- that send a clear signal to Americans and to the Muslim world that not only do we not condone this, but we're going to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. And we are in the midst of trying to rebuild and reconstruct with these new jobs and that sort of thing. I think we have to start -- I think we have to take much more decisive action. Words will not suffice. As important as they are, they will not suffice in this environment.

HEMMER: Let me take that last part of your answer and go to Condoleezza Rice from yesterday. Here's how she described the president's feelings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICE: I think the president expressed the view of all Americans, indeed all people, when he said that it was sickening and outrageous. And I want you to know, he is personally outraged.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: What you are talking about, David, is actions and not words. How do you properly express the outrage in these interviews today?

GERGEN: You take actions. You go -- you show just how serious it is. This would be different had alarm bells gone off within the administration and things had immediately happened once they started getting reports. But we had a classified report in February, and the head of the joint chiefs in May says he hasn't read it. The president hasn't read it. The president wasn't briefed. I mean, the interval period here suggests, and that's what's -- it's not just the scope of what happened. It's the adequacy of the response that has undercut their attempt to deal with this by words, and why actions are so necessary now.

The response within the military suggests that it was treated as sort of standard fare. Alarm bells did not go off. They ordered up an investigation and then tried to contain everything. They tried to make sure nobody knew about it, including the Congress, and maybe even the White House for all we can tell.

Who saw these pictures? Why didn't they set off alarm bells? And why aren't some heads going to roll within the chain of command? There's clearly a collapse of leadership within pieces of the chain of command. And that's what the Congress is asking about, as well as what we know, and I think the administration has got to be extremely forthcoming now to deal with this and to show that it shares the sense of horror in more than words.

HEMMER: Donald Rumsfeld defending himself yesterday, saying they notified Congress in January that there are investigations under way right now for the military activity over in Iraq, but not details given because the investigation was yet to conclude.

Joe Biden, a senator from Delaware, said this yesterday: "The single most damaging act to our interests in the region in the last decade, and it will negatively affect our national security." Is that true or overstated, David?

GERGEN: I don't think we know the full scope of it yet. What we do know is that this is playing right into the hands of radicals in the Muslim world, that our soldiers are being discredited after doing this noble job that so many hundreds of thousand of American soldiers have done in Iraq. They are being discredited in a very, I think, a way that's unfair to the overall effort.

And that the headlines there are saying Saddam has been replaced by Bush. We've got a torture chamber here that was run by Saddam, and now it's being run by the Americans. And what's the difference? And that is exactly -- whether it will affect things in Iraq or not, it's too early to tell.

But we do know that the wider war on terrorism, the effort to contain this and win the war on terrorism over time, requires us to win converts in the Muslim world, to believe that America represents something good, that we're a good decent people, as we are.

And that we're -- this incident, this episode, which is now widening, is a terrible setback in the war of ideas and the effort to win hearts and mind. It plays right into the other side. It fuels our enemies. It means we're likely to have more people who hate us at a very time when opinions, as you've just reported, and the Pew Report and others show that opinion in the Muslim countries toward the United States is so low.

This is one of these incidents that come along that you just sort of say -- you just react and say, oh, my goodness. We have got to respond as a government in ways that are decisive. Standard operating words will not be sufficient.

HEMMER: Thank you, David. David Gergen in Watertown, Massachusetts -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Former Vice President Al Gore will launch a cable news network aimed at young adults. Gore has announced a deal to buy the News World International channel from Vivendi Universal Entertainment. The network will be revamped to offer programming for a target audience between ages 18 and 34, and Gore says it won't have a political edge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That we are starting a Democratic network or we're starting a liberal network. We're not. We've never said we were, and that is not our business plan. It's not our intention. It will not be a description of the network that we are going to launch.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Gore says he'll devote most of his time to the 24-hour news network.

HEMMER: Let's get a break here. In a moment, firefighters battling to get the upper hand on those fierce fires now in California. This is tape from yesterday. In a moment -- here's a live picture now, KABC in Corona, California. We'll get you there at the top of the hour in a moment. COLLINS: So, what's your financial grade point average? Do you know? How about your credit score? Our personal finance contributor is going to talk about that.

HEMMER: Also, can a stressful marriage lead to a heart attack? Some suggest that might be the case. We'll check it out today in our medical update in a moment here on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: It's called your credit risk score, and if you are applying for a loan or mortgage or any other line of credit, listen up today, because someone has been calculating your score every day, and the implications for your wallet could be huge.

Our resident personal finance contributor, David Bach, author of the best-selling book, "The Automatic Millionaire," calls it your financial GPA. He's here to walk through it with us today.

I like that title, too -- your financial GPA. Good morning.

DAVID BACH, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE CONTRIBUTOR: Good morning, Bill.

HEMMER: I've got to think most people probably don't know what a credit report is. But what about a credit score?

BACH: Most people don't even know that these credit scores exist. When a company goes to loan you money -- a bank, credit cards, even if you go to lease an apartment -- what they want to know is, will you pay us back and will you pay us on time? So, they go to a company, and the main company that does this is a company called Fair, Isaac. And they pull your credit score, and the credit score is given to you. And based on your credit score, they determine whether or not to loan you money and what interest rate they're going to charge you.

Now, this is really important, because knowing the interest rate and knowing your credit score, if you can improve your credit score, which means you'll get a lower interest rate, it's like giving yourself a raise.

Now, we've got a little chart we can show you here that comes off today's Web site. This is MyFico.com. At MyFico.com, this shows you if you have a good credit score, and good credit scores are at the top there, 720 to 850, your interest rate or 30-year mortgage would be 5.48 percent. So, on $150,000, it's costing you 850 bucks a month.

What if you have a bad credit score? There at the bottom of that chart, 560, you would be paying 8.5 percent, almost $1,157. So, you can see right there, a person with bad credit scores is literally paying $300 or $400 more a month. The cost of their home is up 30, 40, 50 percent because they've got a bad credit score. So, you've got to know that credit score, and you've got to know what you can do to get it fixed.

HEMMER: Let's talk about some of the factors in calculating the score. On the screen for us, credit accounts. What's critical here?

BACH: Yes, the first thing you're going to notice when you get your credit score is they have all of the accounts you've ever opened listed. They go all the way back as far as 10 years. So, let's say you opened accounts when you were back in college and now you're in your 30s. They may show all of those accounts still being open.

Now, sometimes having a lot of accounts open is OK. In other words, if you have $25,000 and let's say you have 10 accounts and you are only using one card, the credit score can be high. A lot of times what people will do is they'll close down a bunch of credit cards at once and put all of their debt on one credit card. Let's say you have a $20,000 limit, but you're using almost all $20,000. That actually lowers your credit score.

So, there are a lot of myths out there. People think if I close all my accounts, that will raise my credit score. What it can actually do is lower your score.

HEMMER: That's on credit accounts. What about payment history?

BACH: Well, obviously they want to see if you've been paying your cards on time. Now, if you make one late payment, that's not the end of the world. But make two months of consecutive late payments and the credit card company shows that, your score starts to be lower.

Now, it's important for you to know, if you make payments on time for just six months, let's say you've got a bad credit score, but you get -- you know, you become well-behaved, you pay everything on time for six months, your credit score can go up as much as 50 points.

HEMMER: Wow!

BACH: And, again, that can save you hundreds of dollars.

HEMMER: What do we need to know about credit usage?

BACH: Well, when they say credit usage, how much credit, again, are you using? They'll go and they'll take a look at everything. Do you have a mortgage? Do you have a car loan? Do you have student loans? Do you have credit card loans? It's OK to have a lot of loans out there, but they don't want to see you using all of your debt. In other words, if you have access to $20,000 in credit card debt, are you using it all? They don't want you to use it all, because that's a warning sign.

HEMMER: You can go to a baseball game these days and fill out an application for a credit card, all over college campuses it's very popular.

BACH: Anywhere you go.

HEMMER: What's your advice about credit applications?

BACH: Well, first of all really, I think you need to be careful. You don't want to open up 10 credit card accounts. I recommend no more than three. Three is enough. You maintain those. And another thing, a lot of people will actually try to make good habits. They cut up their credit cards because they're trying to get out of credit card debts. As soon as those credit cards expire, they mail them back to you. And then guess what? People start using them again.

HEMMER: Good advice and well noted. Thank you, David. Good to see you again.

BACH: Good to see you, Bill.

HEMMER: David Bach here. David Bach is the host of a nationally-syndicated radio show. It airs Saturday afternoons on Sirius Satellite. And every Wednesday, including this Wednesday, catch David right here on AMERICAN MORNING for tips on how to improve your own financial life.

COLLINS: We want to check in now with Jack and the question of the day. We've got a little Michael Moore, a little Mickey Mouse going on here.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: I think I qualified for social security while that thing was playing there. It was 90-minute tips, right? Yes, the little sign was wrong, 90-minute tips. Man. Even World War II ended at some point.

The Walt Disney Company is blocking its Miramax films unit from distributing Michael Moore's latest documentary called "Fahrenheit 9/11." It links President Bush with powerful Saudi families, including Osama bin Laden's.

Moore's agent told "The New York Times," Disney's CEO Michael Eisner expressed concern that the film would endanger tax breaks that Disney gets for its properties in Florida, where -- here's a coincidence -- the president's brother is the governor. Disney says the film could alienate families of different political backgrounds who visit the parks. On Moore's Web site, he says he's the victim of censorship.

Our question is this, besides Disney going out of its way to make Michael Moore look good, which is no easy feat, here's the question: Are they making a mistake in blocking the distribution of a Michael Moore film? We're getting some great stuff.

John in Madison, Wisconsin: "Michael Moore is such a Mickey Mouse producer, he should find a home at Disney." I love this story. "If I were Disney, I would be concerned about the libelous content of Moore's film, not if it would endanger my tax breaks."

Belver from the Bronx writes: "It's weird. Disney doesn't mind shocking its viewers releasing movies with gratuitous sex and violence but we can't see a movie that is politically-based? I think Disney should stick to making cartoons with Mickey Mouse and Goofy."

And Joy in Iowa writes: "Perhaps Disney should rename "Fahrenheit 9/11" "The Alamo." Then no one would go see it, and Disney interests would remain the same, making as little money as possible for the stockholders and ripping off the people who visit the theme parks."

HEMMER: Yes, you are getting some good ones, you're right about that.

(CROSSTALK)

HEMMER: And you made Lou (ph) (UNINTELLIGIBLE) actually laugh out loud over there on the first one.

COLLINS: That's not easy.

HEMMER: Not easy to do.

CAFFERTY: It's a great story.

HEMMER: In a moment here, there's this big fight apparently with your spouse that could be heartbreaking. Could it also be harmful to your health? We'll examine the possibility of that right after the break here on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Well, we know married people tend to live longer and healthier lives. But what does the quality of a marriage mean to your health? A Harvard University study links marital stress to heart disease.

Helen Fisher is the author of "Why We Love." She's joining us this morning to talk about the relationship between heartache and heart problems. A very interesting study here.

HELEN FISHER, AUTHOR, "WHY WE LOVE": Yes.

COLLINS: Thanks for being with us this morning. Should (AUDIO GAP) small study. But we want to go ahead and put on the screen quickly some of the affects that this study did find from marital stress: increased risk of chronic pain, slow the healing of -- slow the healing process, that is, and it can even cause heart attacks.

Was it surprising to you at all that this marital stress could actually be worse than job-related stress?

FISHER: No, not at all. And the reason is that it's the most important contract that you have in your life. I mean, for millions of years, the most important thing to do was to form a peer bond with somebody and raise your children as a team. And when this is not going well, there's a great deal at stake here. I mean, in the marriage you know, there's kin connections and social connections and monetary web and all kinds of emotions. I mean, you have fallen in love with this person. You feel a deep adjustment.

COLLINS: You can get a new job, but you can't really get a new marriage just like that.

FISHER: Well, you can get a new marriage, too, but to get out of a marriage is a lot harder than to get out of a job. And there's all kinds of, you know, feelings of guilt and honor and responsibility and networks and connections and children. And that's your DNA. That's your future. So, this particular contract is going to rev up the brain much more than others.

COLLINS: In the research that you did for your book, tell me, who suffers more physically from marital stress? Would that be the men or the women?

FISHER: That study didn't seem to say, but my guess would say that it would be men actually, because, you know, the autonomic nervous system gives you that pounding heart and sweaty palms and heavy breathing and high blood pressure. And men have a lower threshold for galvanizing that system. This is one of the reasons that men do what we call stonewalling.

COLLINS: I've never heard of that.

FISHER: What they'll do is they will avoid an emotional conversation.

COLLINS: No!

FISHER: And the reason is, is because their autonomic nervous system gets triggered faster, and they go into this high state of fury often. And then it takes men longer to come back down to normal. So, they're more likely to just try to avoid all that stress.

COLLINS: Well, we know that even happily married couples fight.

FISHER: Right.

COLLINS: It's just not a walk in the park every single day.

FISHER: Right, no.

COLLINS: How do you know, though, that you are beyond sort of that line of normal, if you will, and that your marital stress is really something you need to pay attention to?

FISHER: I don't know. I'm not a doctor, but I would certainly say that your body is going to give you a very good indication. And I think that that's the whole point of this; that the body has evolved in order to give you some really strong signals so that you can realize that this is a bad match and that it's time for you to seriously think about this.

COLLINS: All right, we will listen to our bodies on that one. Helen Fisher, author of "Why We Love," thanks so much for your time this morning.

FISHER: Thank you.

COLLINS: Bill.

HEMMER: Heidi, in a moment here, southern California is burning again today. Thousands of acres already in flames. A live picture now from KABC in southern California, above Corona. Back in a moment here after this on AMERICAN MORNING.

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Aired May 5, 2004 - 07:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: The White House is in crisis management mode over the pictures showing Iraqi prisoners being abused. Former White House advisor David Gergen is going to look at the president's extraordinary TV appearances today.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: You and I were talking about this yesterday at the end of our show. We're going to talk today about marital stress. It turns out that fighting with your spouse can have very serious medical consequences.

COLLINS: No, it can't.

HEMMER: No? It's healthy? We're going to get to that topic in the next 30 minutes also.

COLLINS: All right, very good. We want to hit the news this hour, though.

President Bush is expected to address the controversy over reports of Iraq prisoner mistreatment with two Arab-language networks. The president will conduct 10-minute interviews with Al Arabiya, a Saudi-owned station, and with U.S.-sponsored Al-Hurra network. White House spokesman Scott McClellan says the president will say the images of Iraqi prisoners being mistreated are -- quote -- "shameful and unacceptable." The interviews are scheduled to take place at about 10:00 Eastern this morning.

Thomas Hamill, the former American hostage held captive in Iraq, has been reunited with his wife. Hamill has been undergoing medical treatment at a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. His wife, Kellie, was finally able to see him today. The meeting was described as very emotional. The couple is expected to head back to the U.S. by the end of the week.

The so-called Middle East Quartet have met and are encouraging Israel to fully pull out from Gaza. Representatives of the U.S., the European Union and Russia met at the United Nations yesterday. Some senior officials called on Palestinians and Israelis to meet their obligations under the stalled peace plan.

And in sports, on the ice, the Philadelphia Flyers skate their way into the Eastern Conference finals. The Flyers finished off the Toronto Maple Leafs last night in overtime to ice the winning series, 3 games to 2. They advance to the finals Saturday in Tampa Bay. I always love hockey in Tampa Bay. Meanwhile, the San Jose Sharks beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-1 to win the Western Conference series, wrapping up their series. The Sharks will face Calgary.

HEMMER: I haven't paid much attention to the playoffs in the NHL. Have you?

COLLINS: Well, the Wild.

HEMMER: Yes, the Wild?

COLLINS: They're not so wild this time.

HEMMER: Not wild this year anyway.

COLLINS: Yes.

(WEATHER BREAK)

HEMMER: President Bush is going to face a critical audience a bit later today when he goes on TV networks in the Arab world to address the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal. The president is set to conduct two 10-minute interviews, one on the Al Arabiya network and the other on a U.S.-sponsored network that airs in Iraq. We'll talk about the administration's attempt at damage control in the Arab world in a moment.

First, though, a look at the White House's efforts so far. Here's David Ensor in D.C.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On Al-Jazeera television and other Arabic-language networks, Bush administration officials fanned out to limit the damage.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We have a democratic system for holding people.

ENSOR: People will see, said Condoleezza Rice, that we are determined to get to the bottom of what happened.

At the Pentagon briefing, Secretary Rumsfeld appeared aware his remarks were broadcasting live well beyond U.S. borders.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: The United States of America is a wonderful country and the overwhelming majority of the people...

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: There is a global response to these pictures, as there should be. I mean, they are terrible. They're terrible. That's all there is to it. And we will deal with this by telling the people of the world that this is an isolated incident.

ENSOR: But officials concede that the TV interviews are only damage control, and the damage will be great. REP. JANE HARMAN (D-CA), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: A picture is worth 1,000 words and this -- these pictures, these horrible, despicable pictures, have undone thousands of acts of kindness and courage in Iraq by American soldiers and civilians.

ENSOR (on camera): Administration officials concede America's reputation in the Mideast region is now at a low point. In Iraq, they say U.S. assistance will soon be creating 20,000 reconstruction jobs, and Iraqis will be running their country again. The hope is that the image of this country in that region will start to get better.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: David, thanks for that.

Now, how can the White House best deal with the widening prisoner abuse scandal?

Former White House advisor David Gergen, now a professor at Harvard's Kennedy's School of Government, with us today from Watertown, Massachusetts. And we welcome you back here to AMERICAN MORNING.

Some suggest, David, the president is wasting his time with these interviews today. Do you believe it? Is he?

DAVID GERGEN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR: I think the interviews are wise, and if he could apologize to the people in the Muslim world about this, I think that would also be wise, as Condi Rice did yesterday.

But this crisis has reached a stage now where words alone will not be enough. Decisive actions are needed, and so far the administration's actions have been quite modest in scope. It seems to me that he needs to bring down a hammer now on this situation. He closed down that darn prison. It's notorious, and for Americans even to be in there lends itself to this kind of misunderstanding about the nature of the American occupation there. Close down the darn prisons. Open up all the other prisons that America operates in Iraq for Red Cross. Make sure there are full inspections.

In this case, as we now know, the Red Cross was able to come in. They kept hiding the prisoners from them. They kept shifting them around. But make sure -- bring the Congress to the White House, the leadership of the Congress, and make sure they then get full disclosure and there are no questions to ask. Information is being pried out of the administration yet once again. Congress is -- many members of Congress are livid on both sides of the aisle.

Take a series of steps that make it -- that send a clear signal to Americans and to the Muslim world that not only do we not condone this, but we're going to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. And we are in the midst of trying to rebuild and reconstruct with these new jobs and that sort of thing. I think we have to start -- I think we have to take much more decisive action. Words will not suffice. As important as they are, they will not suffice in this environment.

HEMMER: Let me take that last part of your answer and go to Condoleezza Rice from yesterday. Here's how she described the president's feelings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICE: I think the president expressed the view of all Americans, indeed all people, when he said that it was sickening and outrageous. And I want you to know, he is personally outraged.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: What you are talking about, David, is actions and not words. How do you properly express the outrage in these interviews today?

GERGEN: You take actions. You go -- you show just how serious it is. This would be different had alarm bells gone off within the administration and things had immediately happened once they started getting reports. But we had a classified report in February, and the head of the joint chiefs in May says he hasn't read it. The president hasn't read it. The president wasn't briefed. I mean, the interval period here suggests, and that's what's -- it's not just the scope of what happened. It's the adequacy of the response that has undercut their attempt to deal with this by words, and why actions are so necessary now.

The response within the military suggests that it was treated as sort of standard fare. Alarm bells did not go off. They ordered up an investigation and then tried to contain everything. They tried to make sure nobody knew about it, including the Congress, and maybe even the White House for all we can tell.

Who saw these pictures? Why didn't they set off alarm bells? And why aren't some heads going to roll within the chain of command? There's clearly a collapse of leadership within pieces of the chain of command. And that's what the Congress is asking about, as well as what we know, and I think the administration has got to be extremely forthcoming now to deal with this and to show that it shares the sense of horror in more than words.

HEMMER: Donald Rumsfeld defending himself yesterday, saying they notified Congress in January that there are investigations under way right now for the military activity over in Iraq, but not details given because the investigation was yet to conclude.

Joe Biden, a senator from Delaware, said this yesterday: "The single most damaging act to our interests in the region in the last decade, and it will negatively affect our national security." Is that true or overstated, David?

GERGEN: I don't think we know the full scope of it yet. What we do know is that this is playing right into the hands of radicals in the Muslim world, that our soldiers are being discredited after doing this noble job that so many hundreds of thousand of American soldiers have done in Iraq. They are being discredited in a very, I think, a way that's unfair to the overall effort.

And that the headlines there are saying Saddam has been replaced by Bush. We've got a torture chamber here that was run by Saddam, and now it's being run by the Americans. And what's the difference? And that is exactly -- whether it will affect things in Iraq or not, it's too early to tell.

But we do know that the wider war on terrorism, the effort to contain this and win the war on terrorism over time, requires us to win converts in the Muslim world, to believe that America represents something good, that we're a good decent people, as we are.

And that we're -- this incident, this episode, which is now widening, is a terrible setback in the war of ideas and the effort to win hearts and mind. It plays right into the other side. It fuels our enemies. It means we're likely to have more people who hate us at a very time when opinions, as you've just reported, and the Pew Report and others show that opinion in the Muslim countries toward the United States is so low.

This is one of these incidents that come along that you just sort of say -- you just react and say, oh, my goodness. We have got to respond as a government in ways that are decisive. Standard operating words will not be sufficient.

HEMMER: Thank you, David. David Gergen in Watertown, Massachusetts -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Former Vice President Al Gore will launch a cable news network aimed at young adults. Gore has announced a deal to buy the News World International channel from Vivendi Universal Entertainment. The network will be revamped to offer programming for a target audience between ages 18 and 34, and Gore says it won't have a political edge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That we are starting a Democratic network or we're starting a liberal network. We're not. We've never said we were, and that is not our business plan. It's not our intention. It will not be a description of the network that we are going to launch.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Gore says he'll devote most of his time to the 24-hour news network.

HEMMER: Let's get a break here. In a moment, firefighters battling to get the upper hand on those fierce fires now in California. This is tape from yesterday. In a moment -- here's a live picture now, KABC in Corona, California. We'll get you there at the top of the hour in a moment. COLLINS: So, what's your financial grade point average? Do you know? How about your credit score? Our personal finance contributor is going to talk about that.

HEMMER: Also, can a stressful marriage lead to a heart attack? Some suggest that might be the case. We'll check it out today in our medical update in a moment here on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: It's called your credit risk score, and if you are applying for a loan or mortgage or any other line of credit, listen up today, because someone has been calculating your score every day, and the implications for your wallet could be huge.

Our resident personal finance contributor, David Bach, author of the best-selling book, "The Automatic Millionaire," calls it your financial GPA. He's here to walk through it with us today.

I like that title, too -- your financial GPA. Good morning.

DAVID BACH, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE CONTRIBUTOR: Good morning, Bill.

HEMMER: I've got to think most people probably don't know what a credit report is. But what about a credit score?

BACH: Most people don't even know that these credit scores exist. When a company goes to loan you money -- a bank, credit cards, even if you go to lease an apartment -- what they want to know is, will you pay us back and will you pay us on time? So, they go to a company, and the main company that does this is a company called Fair, Isaac. And they pull your credit score, and the credit score is given to you. And based on your credit score, they determine whether or not to loan you money and what interest rate they're going to charge you.

Now, this is really important, because knowing the interest rate and knowing your credit score, if you can improve your credit score, which means you'll get a lower interest rate, it's like giving yourself a raise.

Now, we've got a little chart we can show you here that comes off today's Web site. This is MyFico.com. At MyFico.com, this shows you if you have a good credit score, and good credit scores are at the top there, 720 to 850, your interest rate or 30-year mortgage would be 5.48 percent. So, on $150,000, it's costing you 850 bucks a month.

What if you have a bad credit score? There at the bottom of that chart, 560, you would be paying 8.5 percent, almost $1,157. So, you can see right there, a person with bad credit scores is literally paying $300 or $400 more a month. The cost of their home is up 30, 40, 50 percent because they've got a bad credit score. So, you've got to know that credit score, and you've got to know what you can do to get it fixed.

HEMMER: Let's talk about some of the factors in calculating the score. On the screen for us, credit accounts. What's critical here?

BACH: Yes, the first thing you're going to notice when you get your credit score is they have all of the accounts you've ever opened listed. They go all the way back as far as 10 years. So, let's say you opened accounts when you were back in college and now you're in your 30s. They may show all of those accounts still being open.

Now, sometimes having a lot of accounts open is OK. In other words, if you have $25,000 and let's say you have 10 accounts and you are only using one card, the credit score can be high. A lot of times what people will do is they'll close down a bunch of credit cards at once and put all of their debt on one credit card. Let's say you have a $20,000 limit, but you're using almost all $20,000. That actually lowers your credit score.

So, there are a lot of myths out there. People think if I close all my accounts, that will raise my credit score. What it can actually do is lower your score.

HEMMER: That's on credit accounts. What about payment history?

BACH: Well, obviously they want to see if you've been paying your cards on time. Now, if you make one late payment, that's not the end of the world. But make two months of consecutive late payments and the credit card company shows that, your score starts to be lower.

Now, it's important for you to know, if you make payments on time for just six months, let's say you've got a bad credit score, but you get -- you know, you become well-behaved, you pay everything on time for six months, your credit score can go up as much as 50 points.

HEMMER: Wow!

BACH: And, again, that can save you hundreds of dollars.

HEMMER: What do we need to know about credit usage?

BACH: Well, when they say credit usage, how much credit, again, are you using? They'll go and they'll take a look at everything. Do you have a mortgage? Do you have a car loan? Do you have student loans? Do you have credit card loans? It's OK to have a lot of loans out there, but they don't want to see you using all of your debt. In other words, if you have access to $20,000 in credit card debt, are you using it all? They don't want you to use it all, because that's a warning sign.

HEMMER: You can go to a baseball game these days and fill out an application for a credit card, all over college campuses it's very popular.

BACH: Anywhere you go.

HEMMER: What's your advice about credit applications?

BACH: Well, first of all really, I think you need to be careful. You don't want to open up 10 credit card accounts. I recommend no more than three. Three is enough. You maintain those. And another thing, a lot of people will actually try to make good habits. They cut up their credit cards because they're trying to get out of credit card debts. As soon as those credit cards expire, they mail them back to you. And then guess what? People start using them again.

HEMMER: Good advice and well noted. Thank you, David. Good to see you again.

BACH: Good to see you, Bill.

HEMMER: David Bach here. David Bach is the host of a nationally-syndicated radio show. It airs Saturday afternoons on Sirius Satellite. And every Wednesday, including this Wednesday, catch David right here on AMERICAN MORNING for tips on how to improve your own financial life.

COLLINS: We want to check in now with Jack and the question of the day. We've got a little Michael Moore, a little Mickey Mouse going on here.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: I think I qualified for social security while that thing was playing there. It was 90-minute tips, right? Yes, the little sign was wrong, 90-minute tips. Man. Even World War II ended at some point.

The Walt Disney Company is blocking its Miramax films unit from distributing Michael Moore's latest documentary called "Fahrenheit 9/11." It links President Bush with powerful Saudi families, including Osama bin Laden's.

Moore's agent told "The New York Times," Disney's CEO Michael Eisner expressed concern that the film would endanger tax breaks that Disney gets for its properties in Florida, where -- here's a coincidence -- the president's brother is the governor. Disney says the film could alienate families of different political backgrounds who visit the parks. On Moore's Web site, he says he's the victim of censorship.

Our question is this, besides Disney going out of its way to make Michael Moore look good, which is no easy feat, here's the question: Are they making a mistake in blocking the distribution of a Michael Moore film? We're getting some great stuff.

John in Madison, Wisconsin: "Michael Moore is such a Mickey Mouse producer, he should find a home at Disney." I love this story. "If I were Disney, I would be concerned about the libelous content of Moore's film, not if it would endanger my tax breaks."

Belver from the Bronx writes: "It's weird. Disney doesn't mind shocking its viewers releasing movies with gratuitous sex and violence but we can't see a movie that is politically-based? I think Disney should stick to making cartoons with Mickey Mouse and Goofy."

And Joy in Iowa writes: "Perhaps Disney should rename "Fahrenheit 9/11" "The Alamo." Then no one would go see it, and Disney interests would remain the same, making as little money as possible for the stockholders and ripping off the people who visit the theme parks."

HEMMER: Yes, you are getting some good ones, you're right about that.

(CROSSTALK)

HEMMER: And you made Lou (ph) (UNINTELLIGIBLE) actually laugh out loud over there on the first one.

COLLINS: That's not easy.

HEMMER: Not easy to do.

CAFFERTY: It's a great story.

HEMMER: In a moment here, there's this big fight apparently with your spouse that could be heartbreaking. Could it also be harmful to your health? We'll examine the possibility of that right after the break here on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Well, we know married people tend to live longer and healthier lives. But what does the quality of a marriage mean to your health? A Harvard University study links marital stress to heart disease.

Helen Fisher is the author of "Why We Love." She's joining us this morning to talk about the relationship between heartache and heart problems. A very interesting study here.

HELEN FISHER, AUTHOR, "WHY WE LOVE": Yes.

COLLINS: Thanks for being with us this morning. Should (AUDIO GAP) small study. But we want to go ahead and put on the screen quickly some of the affects that this study did find from marital stress: increased risk of chronic pain, slow the healing of -- slow the healing process, that is, and it can even cause heart attacks.

Was it surprising to you at all that this marital stress could actually be worse than job-related stress?

FISHER: No, not at all. And the reason is that it's the most important contract that you have in your life. I mean, for millions of years, the most important thing to do was to form a peer bond with somebody and raise your children as a team. And when this is not going well, there's a great deal at stake here. I mean, in the marriage you know, there's kin connections and social connections and monetary web and all kinds of emotions. I mean, you have fallen in love with this person. You feel a deep adjustment.

COLLINS: You can get a new job, but you can't really get a new marriage just like that.

FISHER: Well, you can get a new marriage, too, but to get out of a marriage is a lot harder than to get out of a job. And there's all kinds of, you know, feelings of guilt and honor and responsibility and networks and connections and children. And that's your DNA. That's your future. So, this particular contract is going to rev up the brain much more than others.

COLLINS: In the research that you did for your book, tell me, who suffers more physically from marital stress? Would that be the men or the women?

FISHER: That study didn't seem to say, but my guess would say that it would be men actually, because, you know, the autonomic nervous system gives you that pounding heart and sweaty palms and heavy breathing and high blood pressure. And men have a lower threshold for galvanizing that system. This is one of the reasons that men do what we call stonewalling.

COLLINS: I've never heard of that.

FISHER: What they'll do is they will avoid an emotional conversation.

COLLINS: No!

FISHER: And the reason is, is because their autonomic nervous system gets triggered faster, and they go into this high state of fury often. And then it takes men longer to come back down to normal. So, they're more likely to just try to avoid all that stress.

COLLINS: Well, we know that even happily married couples fight.

FISHER: Right.

COLLINS: It's just not a walk in the park every single day.

FISHER: Right, no.

COLLINS: How do you know, though, that you are beyond sort of that line of normal, if you will, and that your marital stress is really something you need to pay attention to?

FISHER: I don't know. I'm not a doctor, but I would certainly say that your body is going to give you a very good indication. And I think that that's the whole point of this; that the body has evolved in order to give you some really strong signals so that you can realize that this is a bad match and that it's time for you to seriously think about this.

COLLINS: All right, we will listen to our bodies on that one. Helen Fisher, author of "Why We Love," thanks so much for your time this morning.

FISHER: Thank you.

COLLINS: Bill.

HEMMER: Heidi, in a moment here, southern California is burning again today. Thousands of acres already in flames. A live picture now from KABC in southern California, above Corona. Back in a moment here after this on AMERICAN MORNING.

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