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American Morning
Are Terrorist Sympathizers Inside Security Force?; Are Bryant's Lawyers Trying to Redefine What Is, Is Not Sexual Assault?
Aired June 21, 2004 - 07:00 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Saudi security forces continue their hunt for terrorists inside the kingdom, but are terrorist sympathizers inside the security force?
Uncharted territory in the Kobe Bryant case. The NBA star returns to court today. Are his lawyers trying to redefine what is and is not sexual assault?
And leaving the Earth in a whole new way. The private passion for space that's finally taking off on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Ready to start another week on a Monday morning. Good morning, everyone. Nice to have you along with us today.
Good morning, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Thank you -- and likewise.
HEMMER: Good weekend?
O'BRIEN: Great weekend.
HEMMER: Excellent.
As we start this morning, Saudi authorities adamantly denying that traitors have infiltrated their security forces. That claim made by militants who say they were given police uniforms and cars to kidnap the American Paul Johnson who was later murdered.
Still a number of unanswered questions. We'll try to get some answers today when the Saudi foreign policy adviser joins us in a few minutes. We'll have that for you in a moment here.
O'BRIEN: Also this morning, lots going on in Iraq today. Reports of four more U.S. troops killed west of Baghdad. The circumstances, though, very unclear. We're going to get to that in just a moment.
Also Christiane Amanpour looking at a decision by a military judge that could effect the future of Abu Ghraib Prison. We'll talk about that. HEMMER: Also, today, the fan favorite Phil Mickelson was so close yesterday. Very familiar territory -- almost won his second major.
In the end, Retief Goosen pulled it out. He was like an ice cube yesterday -- Goosen was -- Mickelson had a tough putt there, obviously.
We'll get to that.
O'BRIEN: You were pulling for him, weren't you?
HEMMER: I was pulling for Phil the entire way. Almost did it. Very, very tough course, too. So.
Good morning, Jack.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: How are you, Bill?
"Sloppy, self-indulgent, and often eye-crossingly dull" -- that would be "The New York Times" writing a review on President Clinton's memoir. We'll take a look.
HEMMER: Lot to talk about on that.
O'BRIEN: Guess they didn't love it.
CAFFERTY: Apparently not.
HEMMER: Hit number one.
Al Qaeda this morning claiming its new leader in Saudi Arabia is a former prison guard. He would replace the man who was killed by Saudi police a short time after beheading American Paul Johnson.
This information, though, like many of the tales so far in this story does not come from official sources.
It comes off the Internet.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: An Islamic Web site claims security forces sympathetic to al Qaeda provided police uniforms and vehicles to the group that kidnapped Paul Johnson at a fake checkpoint and later executed him.
Saudi authorities meanwhile continue to search for Johnson's body and the militants involved in his death.
On Sunday, police stormed several buildings in the same area of Riyadh where al Qaeda cell leader Abdul Aziz Al Muqrin was killed in a shootout on Friday. Al Muqrin is believed responsible for Johnson's beheading.
His death came just hours after pictures of Paul Johnson's head and body were posted on the Web site. The Saudis say Al Muqrin's death dealt a serious blow to al Qaeda operations in Saudi Arabia, but it appears he's already been replaced as the group's leader by another of Saudi Arabia's most wanted terrorists.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: In a few minutes here on AMERICAN MORNING I'll be talking with Saudi foreign policy adviser Abdel al-Jubeir about the security situation now in that country, and the latest on that story in a matter of moments here -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: A military judge in the Abu Ghraib Prison abuse scandal today declared the site a crime scene, ordering that it not be destroyed for the duration of the trial.
Pretrial hearings have taken place for two of the American soldiers accused in that scandal. One was postponed until next month.
Chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour has the latest for us this morning. Christiane good morning.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
And you know, Abu Ghraib is notorious for many, many things throughout its history. President Bush a couple of months ago said that with the approval of the Iraqi government it would be torn down as a symbol of new hope, new progress.
But today the defense councils for three of those accused in the torture and abuse scandal said no, it should remain standing because it's a crime scene and the judge agreed with them that it will remain standing throughout these trials, he said.
The Iraqi government also has told us separately that they want it to remain standing. Now, in addition to that, defense councils for some of these accused -- Charles Graner, Ivan Frederick and Javal Davis -- who are associated with those images of abuse at the Abu Ghraib Prison -- they asked for a change of venue. The judge denied that for the moment. He said raise that again in the next venue, the next pre-trial hearing.
They said it was so dangerous here that civilians who were required to attend as witnesses would not come. That was the defense council's contention.
Then they also said that they wanted to subpoena, or rather to call and to have access to high-level memos between the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense and the White House, talking about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in interrogation processes.
The judge said that they could have access up to a certain level, one of the defense councils here told us that they wanted to depose Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in this case -- Soledad. O'BRIEN: Christiane Amanpour for us this morning on that news. Christiane thanks.
HEMMER: There is a report of new intelligence that links Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda. The evidence the 9/11 Commission did not get while doing its own initial investigation. Controversy surrounds that link supported by the vice president, Dick Cheney.
Former Navy Secretary and Republican, 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman, talked about that yesterday on the Sunday talk shows.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN LEHMAN, 9/11 COMMISSIONER, FROM "MEET THE PRESS," NBC: There's new intelligence and this has come since our staff report has been written because, as you know, new intelligence is coming in steadily from the interrogations in Guantanamo and in Iraq and from captured documents and some of these documents indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: Secretary Lehman with Tim Russert on "Meet the Press." He says there is still no evidence at this time of direct involvement between Saddam Hussein and the events of 9/11 -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Bill Clinton's autobiography won't be available for public consumption until tomorrow, but the reviews on "My Life" are already in.
"The New York Times," as Jack said, calls it "sloppy, self- indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull. "In many ways" -- this is a quote -- "the book is a mirror of Mr. Clinton's presidency: lack of discipline leading to squandered opportunities, high expectations, undermined by self-indulgence and scattered concentration."
Dan Rather interviewed Bill Clinton for "60 Minutes." He says this: "As Presidential memoirs go, on a five-star scale, I give it a five."
Michael Duffy and Joe Klein of "TIME Magazine" also spoke with the former president. Excerpts of their interview are in this week's issue.
Michael Duffy is "TIME'S" Washington bureau chief. He joins us this morning from Washington.
Nice to see you, Michael. Thanks for being with us.
MICHAEL DUFFY, TIME MAGAZINE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Good morning, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Wow, that "New York Times" review -- ouch. What did you think of it? DUFFY: I'm glad I don't have a book out there ready to be reviewed. You know, presidential memoirs probably are in a little different category than other books.
This one -- having read it last week -- strikes me as sort of two books in one. The first half is about his life before he became president, Arkansas, college, learning that he wants to be a politician. It's much more colorful and rich and funny, the first half.
The second half? Much more about the presidency which was a -- you know -- a difficult start and had great triumphs in the end, but also great tragedy.
And so it does have a sprawling quality, but if you're into -- if you're a political junkie and if you're kind of interested in how -- one of the most interesting public figures of our generation thinks and is thinking through his presidency, this is a must read, it seems to me.
O'BRIEN: Is it self-indulgent? Or I guess the question would be overly self-indulgent because one has to imagine something called "My Life" is going to be a little self-indulgent.
DUFFY: Well, yes, it's an autobiography so I think almost by definition self-indulgent.
What strikes me as interesting is about this is, you know, the second half of the book about his presidency is really kind of a -- an assault on Ken Starr. He thinks that the former independent counsel really set out to ruin his presidency in a hunt for evidence in any direction he could find it.
Later last week he called it actually a "right-wing coup attempt." So, I think this is a president who is probably going to write a bunch of books before, you know, he's through and this is really just the first one and to some extent like a first pancake it isn't perfect.
O'BRIEN: You went out to his house. For over 90 minutes you interviewed him. Give me a sense of what you found most surprising in the discussions that you had.
DUFFY: Well, he's very forthcoming I thought. I was -- you know I was prepared to have a long conversation about domestic policy and foreign policy but you know most of what we talked about was what happened in his personal life.
And how he coped with that, politically and personally and emotionally, and he was extremely forthcoming about it, quite voluble and where I get to points in the interview where I thought, OK, I think pretty much run this string out he'd of course say, well, I've got a few more things to say about this. So I found him quite forthcoming and open about that and that was surprising to me.
O'BRIEN: He talks a lot in what I thought sounded like psychoanalytical terms -- unresolved anger, things stemming back to his youth and how that played into some of his bad decisions about Monica Lewinsky. What did he say about that?
DUFFY: I think if there is a kind of -- you know -- when he pulls himself up on the couch he talks about when he was growing up, you know, he had an abusive step father and he learned from an early age to put the bad stuff in his life in a compartment and keep it there.
He talks about from a very early part of the book being a good secret keeper and of course he's setting the stage in the book for much later when he has to keep the really big secret of his presidency, which was his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
He says that he was perfectly prepared for those pathways because he'd learned them as a child and he also goes on to say and this is really the thing that's going to upset the most people about the book, I think, is that he says Ken Starr was so anxious to take him down and to ruin his presidency and to deprive the Democrats of the White House that he made Clinton very angry and he says at one point in the book, Soledad, that the anger -- I was holding inside me -- was eventually going to be self-destructive.
I was eventually going to do myself harm with all the anger I was holding inside about Starr. That's going to cause all kinds of conversations.
O'BRIEN: Ergo Ken Starr -- to some degree, he's saying, he claims in this book -- caused the Monica Lewinsky scandal to some way. All right, well, thanks for being with us this morning.
I think it's a really interesting book. Michael Duffy had a chance not only to read it, obviously but also talk to the former president. Thanks for being with us, Michael.
DUFFY: Thanks for that.
O'BRIEN: Let's turn right to Jack, "Question of the Day" -- good morning.
CAFFERTY: Good morning. "Question of the Day" is this. How much more do you want to hear about President Clinton's personal life? There's 950 pages of it out there if you're so inclined. am@cnn.com is the e-mail address.
HEMMER: What did Duffy say? It's like making a first pancake? Sometimes it's not perfect? We'll see how much syrup is thrown on top of that, too.
CAFFERTY: Right.
HEMMER: Thank you, Jack. A lot to talk about there.
Meanwhile, Kobe Bryant returns to court in Colorado today for another round of pretrial hearings. But a judge in Bryant's sexual assault case could set a trial date and is poised to rule on some critical legal issues.
Adrian Baschuk is live in Eagle, Colorado for us this morning. Good morning, Adrian.
ADRIAN BASCHUK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning not you, Bill. You know Kobe Bryant has opted out of his contract with the L.A. Lakers next season but before he can entertain any offers to play, he's got to secure his freedom in this Colorado courtroom behind me.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASCHUK: Kobe Bryant and his defense team head back to court, armed with the alleged victim's AT&T text messaging records.
CRAIG SILVERMAN, FORMER DENVER DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: We know that they contain information passed between the alleged victim and her ex-boyfriend within an hour or so of the alleged attack by Kobe Bryant.
BASCHUK: The records remain sealed. And so far, Judge Terry Ruckriegle has not disclosed whether he will allow details of the accusers sexual past into trial evidence. That decision, though, is poised to come by this hearings end.
But Judge Ruckriegle did rule against a defense motion arguing Colorado's rape shield law was unconstitutional. That law prevents disclosure of an alleged victim's sexual past, unless the defense can show its relevance.
Victim advocates have attacked the defense's tactics.
CYNTHIA STONE, COLORADO COALITION AGAINST SEXUAL ASSAULT: It's a fishing expedition instead of trying to discredit this woman in the court of public opinion.
BASCHUK: But lawyers understand the defense tactics.
SILVERMAN: If team Kobe can put on evidence that this young lady had sex with another man after Kobe Bryant but before she went to the cops, the prosecution probably cannot prevail.
BASCHUK: Also unclear is how last week's Colorado supreme court's ruling permitting jurors to ask questions of witnesses during trial will effect Bryant's case.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we're after the truth, I think it's an appropriate way to go.
BASCHUK: However, with the trial date not yet set, the truth is still a long way off.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASCHUK: Now, legal analysts say that the judge will not set a trial date until both sides complete and submit separate independent DNA tests. However, DNA tests remain incomplete and both sides are blaming each other for the delays -- Bill.
HEMMER: Adrian with all that as a backdrop, then, what do we expect this week?
BASCHUK: Well, it's going to be two days of hearings. Normally, these hearing rounds have lasted about three days. There are a lot of pivotal rulings. Also, the judge, the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that jurors are going to be able to ask questions -- those are going to be talked bout in this round of hearings -- what questions the jurors are going to be able to be asking.
They want to re -- the defense wants to redefine the parameters of sexual assault saying that the jury must acquit Kobe Bryant if the -- they rule that the accuser consented to submit to him. It's going to be an interesting round of hearings to watch.
HEMMER: That it is. Adrian, thanks for that. Up early in Colorado -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Fourteen minutes past the hour. Now time to take a look at some of the other stories that are making headlines this morning. With Daryn Kagan.
Hi Daryn, good morning.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, Soledad. Let's go ahead and start in Iraq where there is word this morning of an attack on American soldiers.
Witnesses say that four U.S. troops reportedly have been killed west of Baghdad. It's an attack by Iraqi insurgents reportedly. Their bodies were found in Ramadi. The U.S. military has not confirmed that attack.
South Korean officials say they are going ahead with plans to deploy more troops to Iraq. This despite a threat to a South Korean man who is being held hostage there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAGAN: He is heard on the tape pleading for his life. His captives warn that he will be beheaded unless South Korea withdraws troops from Iraq. A videotape aired on Arab television over the weekend.
South Korea is dispatching a delegation to Jordan to deal with the hostage situation.
There's new information about detainees being held at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. According to sources cited by "The New York Times" none of the nearly 600 detainees ranks as leaders or senior operatives of al Qaeda. The newspaper also says the detainees have not provided intelligence that enabled officials to foil imminent attacks.
Police in Wisconsin identified three bodies that washed up on a shore of Lake Michigan over the weekend. Police say the bodies of a father and his two sons were found bound together with rope and tied to bags filled with sand.
The victims had been reported missing from Chicago last month. Police say they're handling the case as a homicide. We'll have a live report from Wisconsin coming up in the next hour.
And how about this in the world of sports? For the record books. Ken Griffey, Jr. now the 20th Major League Baseball player to hit 500 career home runs.
The Cincinnati Reds slugger slammed number 500 yesterday against St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Matt Morris. He hugged his dad after the hit, probably one of the best Father's Day presents ever.
And yet, Bill, he said when it first happened he actually thought of his mom because his mom is the one who told him Sunday was the day number 500 was going to happen.
HEMMER: Wow.
KAGAN: Don't need to tell you that he's the first Reds player ever to hit 500 home runs.
HEMMER: He says it beats another gift of Old Spice for Father's Day.
KAGAN: Yes. But his dad says he wasn't off the hook. He still expected another present after number 500.
HEMMER: Thank you, Daryn. Good to see you on a Monday morning here.
There could be another major milestone today for everyday people who want to blast into space. This morning in California's Mojave Desert, the history of space flight may change forever.
Here's Miles O'Brien on that story this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Aviation legend Burt Rutan has always aimed high and most often reached his lofty goals.
BURT RUTAN, ROCKET DESIGNER: Our goal is to show that you can develop a robust, safe manned space program and to do it at extremely low cost.
MILES O'BRIEN: So far, Rutan's team has given no reason to doubt they can pull it off. RUTAN: I think it's -- it is time that -- that the commercial guys get aggressive on manned space flight. Rather than waiting for NASA.
MILES O'BRIEN: So for the past three years he has been designing, building, test flying and tweaking a craft he calls space ship one. Carried off the ground by an odd seagull-like jet called White Knight, SpaceShipOne is released about 11 miles up; that's about four miles higher than an airliners highest altitudes.
MIKE MELVILL, TEST PILOT: It's a quicker than most fighters -- a nervous little airplane.
MILES O'BRIEN: Pilot Mike Melvill has now logged eight Space Ship One flights, straight up for a wild blistering fast ride, getting closer and closer to the official gateway of space, 100 kilometers or 62 and a half miles.
MELVILL: Two and a half times the speed of sound, mach two point five, and then it comes to a stop up there and you're weightless.
MILES O'BRIEN: After three minutes or so in weightlessness, what goes up will succumb to the grip of gravity, plummeting to earth almost as fast, entering the atmosphere at twice the speed of sound.
SpaceShipOne is designed to drop like a shuttlecock and then when speed permits, transform into a glider for 100-mile-an-hour touchdown on the Mojave Runway.
Rutan's group is the clear leader in the quest for the X Prize, a $10 million privately funded purse that will go to the first civilian team to fly to space in the vehicle capable of carrying three people, then repeat the feat within two weeks.
RUTAN: We are interested in winning that because it's money and we want to win it.
MILES O'BRIEN: Burt says it's high time entrepreneurs like him made it to space. He means it. He's already grabbed the first passenger seat on SpaceShipOne for himself.
Miles O'Brien, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: And the pilot, Mike Melvill, boldly plans to blast into space later today about 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
You can watch developments live here on CNN and Miles will be with us throughout the morning as well. Interesting stuff -- Soledad.
(WEATHER REPORT)
HEMMER: Newspapers report all the time about companies cooking the books. Now one major paper is accused of doing some creative accounting itself. Andy has that in a moment here. O'BRIEN: Also ahead this morning, the mysterious encounter between Juror Number Five and Scott Peterson. What the judge in the case is expected to do about it.
HEMMER: Also in sports, Tiger Woods was certainly happy after this shot here, but was it enough to break out of his so-called slump? No way. U.S. Open results in a moment on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: The winner of the U.S. Open, Retief Goosen of South Africa. This guy was so smooth and so cool, especially on the back nine yesterday. Sitting on a two-shot lead, Goosen made a short put at 18 to capture his second Open championship.
Got a bit of help from two of his closest rivals as well yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RETIEF GOOSEN, WINNER, U.S. OPEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) it came down to really Ernie and Phil. Those were going to be the two guys I'm going to need to beat and I'm just very lucky to stand here with this trophy again. It's a great feeling.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: Lucky indeed. His winning putt yesterday very different from the 2001 Open, when he blew a short putt before finally winning in an 18-hole play off. That victory worth about $1 million yesterday.
The greens at Shinnecock over the weekend -- I think they paved them with asphalt. They were extremely hard and difficult, especially on Saturday and yesterday on Sunday's -- so -- great tournament, tough way to go for Phil Mickelson.
O'BRIEN: Wouldn't it be fun to see like a golfer instead of just waving his little cap like they did -- go crazy? Jump around. They take their cap and they go good day.
HEMMER: Mickelson went nuts in Augusta when he won as far as a two-foot jump off the ground can be in terms of defining going nuts, so. Great tournament and a very, very big test for those golfers out there.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk business news now, shall we?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Talk about cooking the books this morning, accounting scandals, hitting some local newsstands, believe it or not. Andy Serwer is here to "Minding Your Business" -- got some details on that.
What are we talking about?
SERWER: Sure do. I mean, cooking the books has become a great American business past time, Soledad, sad to say.
Now news that a couple large newspaper companies are involved. The "Chicago Sun Times" acknowledging that it's overstated its circulation. How many newspapers it's out there selling. This is big stuff because advertisers rely on those numbers when they get charged for ads.
Let's check out some of the specs here. Created bogus sales accounts. Counted unsold papers as sold. And here you go -- had distributors trash -- trash -- 30,000 papers daily. This according to the "Wall Street Journal." Now we also learned the "Tribune" company doing it as well for "Newsday" the large newspaper on Long Island.
Five to 10 percent of its circulation may be bogus. "Chicago Sun Times" by the way owned by Hollinger, that troubled media company controlled by Canadian Black, a lot of stuff going on there.
Let's quickly talk about the markets as well. Last week a mixed one for the markets. Futures up this morning, though, Soledad. A big bank deal happening right now. Wachovia is buying SouthTrust in the Southeast for $14.3 billion.
HEMMER: Wachovia is getting bigger.
SERWER: Yes, fourth biggest in the country now.
O'BRIEN: Wow, it's growing fast, isn't it?
SERWER: Yes, it sure did, absolutely.
O'BRIEN: All right, Andy thanks.
SERWER: You're welcome.
O'BRIEN: Oh, we're going to do "90-Second Pop" just ahead. Still to come this morning some fun to kickstart your busy Monday morning. It's "90-Second Pop."
She has an injured knee and a canceled summer tour but Brittany's love live seems to be blossoming. Do we hear wedding bells?
Plus, who's strong enough to be the man of steel? Hollywood looks for the next Superman. "90-Second Pop" coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired June 21, 2004 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Saudi security forces continue their hunt for terrorists inside the kingdom, but are terrorist sympathizers inside the security force?
Uncharted territory in the Kobe Bryant case. The NBA star returns to court today. Are his lawyers trying to redefine what is and is not sexual assault?
And leaving the Earth in a whole new way. The private passion for space that's finally taking off on this AMERICAN MORNING.
ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Ready to start another week on a Monday morning. Good morning, everyone. Nice to have you along with us today.
Good morning, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Thank you -- and likewise.
HEMMER: Good weekend?
O'BRIEN: Great weekend.
HEMMER: Excellent.
As we start this morning, Saudi authorities adamantly denying that traitors have infiltrated their security forces. That claim made by militants who say they were given police uniforms and cars to kidnap the American Paul Johnson who was later murdered.
Still a number of unanswered questions. We'll try to get some answers today when the Saudi foreign policy adviser joins us in a few minutes. We'll have that for you in a moment here.
O'BRIEN: Also this morning, lots going on in Iraq today. Reports of four more U.S. troops killed west of Baghdad. The circumstances, though, very unclear. We're going to get to that in just a moment.
Also Christiane Amanpour looking at a decision by a military judge that could effect the future of Abu Ghraib Prison. We'll talk about that. HEMMER: Also, today, the fan favorite Phil Mickelson was so close yesterday. Very familiar territory -- almost won his second major.
In the end, Retief Goosen pulled it out. He was like an ice cube yesterday -- Goosen was -- Mickelson had a tough putt there, obviously.
We'll get to that.
O'BRIEN: You were pulling for him, weren't you?
HEMMER: I was pulling for Phil the entire way. Almost did it. Very, very tough course, too. So.
Good morning, Jack.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: How are you, Bill?
"Sloppy, self-indulgent, and often eye-crossingly dull" -- that would be "The New York Times" writing a review on President Clinton's memoir. We'll take a look.
HEMMER: Lot to talk about on that.
O'BRIEN: Guess they didn't love it.
CAFFERTY: Apparently not.
HEMMER: Hit number one.
Al Qaeda this morning claiming its new leader in Saudi Arabia is a former prison guard. He would replace the man who was killed by Saudi police a short time after beheading American Paul Johnson.
This information, though, like many of the tales so far in this story does not come from official sources.
It comes off the Internet.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: An Islamic Web site claims security forces sympathetic to al Qaeda provided police uniforms and vehicles to the group that kidnapped Paul Johnson at a fake checkpoint and later executed him.
Saudi authorities meanwhile continue to search for Johnson's body and the militants involved in his death.
On Sunday, police stormed several buildings in the same area of Riyadh where al Qaeda cell leader Abdul Aziz Al Muqrin was killed in a shootout on Friday. Al Muqrin is believed responsible for Johnson's beheading.
His death came just hours after pictures of Paul Johnson's head and body were posted on the Web site. The Saudis say Al Muqrin's death dealt a serious blow to al Qaeda operations in Saudi Arabia, but it appears he's already been replaced as the group's leader by another of Saudi Arabia's most wanted terrorists.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: In a few minutes here on AMERICAN MORNING I'll be talking with Saudi foreign policy adviser Abdel al-Jubeir about the security situation now in that country, and the latest on that story in a matter of moments here -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: A military judge in the Abu Ghraib Prison abuse scandal today declared the site a crime scene, ordering that it not be destroyed for the duration of the trial.
Pretrial hearings have taken place for two of the American soldiers accused in that scandal. One was postponed until next month.
Chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour has the latest for us this morning. Christiane good morning.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
And you know, Abu Ghraib is notorious for many, many things throughout its history. President Bush a couple of months ago said that with the approval of the Iraqi government it would be torn down as a symbol of new hope, new progress.
But today the defense councils for three of those accused in the torture and abuse scandal said no, it should remain standing because it's a crime scene and the judge agreed with them that it will remain standing throughout these trials, he said.
The Iraqi government also has told us separately that they want it to remain standing. Now, in addition to that, defense councils for some of these accused -- Charles Graner, Ivan Frederick and Javal Davis -- who are associated with those images of abuse at the Abu Ghraib Prison -- they asked for a change of venue. The judge denied that for the moment. He said raise that again in the next venue, the next pre-trial hearing.
They said it was so dangerous here that civilians who were required to attend as witnesses would not come. That was the defense council's contention.
Then they also said that they wanted to subpoena, or rather to call and to have access to high-level memos between the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense and the White House, talking about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in interrogation processes.
The judge said that they could have access up to a certain level, one of the defense councils here told us that they wanted to depose Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in this case -- Soledad. O'BRIEN: Christiane Amanpour for us this morning on that news. Christiane thanks.
HEMMER: There is a report of new intelligence that links Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda. The evidence the 9/11 Commission did not get while doing its own initial investigation. Controversy surrounds that link supported by the vice president, Dick Cheney.
Former Navy Secretary and Republican, 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman, talked about that yesterday on the Sunday talk shows.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN LEHMAN, 9/11 COMMISSIONER, FROM "MEET THE PRESS," NBC: There's new intelligence and this has come since our staff report has been written because, as you know, new intelligence is coming in steadily from the interrogations in Guantanamo and in Iraq and from captured documents and some of these documents indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: Secretary Lehman with Tim Russert on "Meet the Press." He says there is still no evidence at this time of direct involvement between Saddam Hussein and the events of 9/11 -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Bill Clinton's autobiography won't be available for public consumption until tomorrow, but the reviews on "My Life" are already in.
"The New York Times," as Jack said, calls it "sloppy, self- indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull. "In many ways" -- this is a quote -- "the book is a mirror of Mr. Clinton's presidency: lack of discipline leading to squandered opportunities, high expectations, undermined by self-indulgence and scattered concentration."
Dan Rather interviewed Bill Clinton for "60 Minutes." He says this: "As Presidential memoirs go, on a five-star scale, I give it a five."
Michael Duffy and Joe Klein of "TIME Magazine" also spoke with the former president. Excerpts of their interview are in this week's issue.
Michael Duffy is "TIME'S" Washington bureau chief. He joins us this morning from Washington.
Nice to see you, Michael. Thanks for being with us.
MICHAEL DUFFY, TIME MAGAZINE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Good morning, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Wow, that "New York Times" review -- ouch. What did you think of it? DUFFY: I'm glad I don't have a book out there ready to be reviewed. You know, presidential memoirs probably are in a little different category than other books.
This one -- having read it last week -- strikes me as sort of two books in one. The first half is about his life before he became president, Arkansas, college, learning that he wants to be a politician. It's much more colorful and rich and funny, the first half.
The second half? Much more about the presidency which was a -- you know -- a difficult start and had great triumphs in the end, but also great tragedy.
And so it does have a sprawling quality, but if you're into -- if you're a political junkie and if you're kind of interested in how -- one of the most interesting public figures of our generation thinks and is thinking through his presidency, this is a must read, it seems to me.
O'BRIEN: Is it self-indulgent? Or I guess the question would be overly self-indulgent because one has to imagine something called "My Life" is going to be a little self-indulgent.
DUFFY: Well, yes, it's an autobiography so I think almost by definition self-indulgent.
What strikes me as interesting is about this is, you know, the second half of the book about his presidency is really kind of a -- an assault on Ken Starr. He thinks that the former independent counsel really set out to ruin his presidency in a hunt for evidence in any direction he could find it.
Later last week he called it actually a "right-wing coup attempt." So, I think this is a president who is probably going to write a bunch of books before, you know, he's through and this is really just the first one and to some extent like a first pancake it isn't perfect.
O'BRIEN: You went out to his house. For over 90 minutes you interviewed him. Give me a sense of what you found most surprising in the discussions that you had.
DUFFY: Well, he's very forthcoming I thought. I was -- you know I was prepared to have a long conversation about domestic policy and foreign policy but you know most of what we talked about was what happened in his personal life.
And how he coped with that, politically and personally and emotionally, and he was extremely forthcoming about it, quite voluble and where I get to points in the interview where I thought, OK, I think pretty much run this string out he'd of course say, well, I've got a few more things to say about this. So I found him quite forthcoming and open about that and that was surprising to me.
O'BRIEN: He talks a lot in what I thought sounded like psychoanalytical terms -- unresolved anger, things stemming back to his youth and how that played into some of his bad decisions about Monica Lewinsky. What did he say about that?
DUFFY: I think if there is a kind of -- you know -- when he pulls himself up on the couch he talks about when he was growing up, you know, he had an abusive step father and he learned from an early age to put the bad stuff in his life in a compartment and keep it there.
He talks about from a very early part of the book being a good secret keeper and of course he's setting the stage in the book for much later when he has to keep the really big secret of his presidency, which was his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
He says that he was perfectly prepared for those pathways because he'd learned them as a child and he also goes on to say and this is really the thing that's going to upset the most people about the book, I think, is that he says Ken Starr was so anxious to take him down and to ruin his presidency and to deprive the Democrats of the White House that he made Clinton very angry and he says at one point in the book, Soledad, that the anger -- I was holding inside me -- was eventually going to be self-destructive.
I was eventually going to do myself harm with all the anger I was holding inside about Starr. That's going to cause all kinds of conversations.
O'BRIEN: Ergo Ken Starr -- to some degree, he's saying, he claims in this book -- caused the Monica Lewinsky scandal to some way. All right, well, thanks for being with us this morning.
I think it's a really interesting book. Michael Duffy had a chance not only to read it, obviously but also talk to the former president. Thanks for being with us, Michael.
DUFFY: Thanks for that.
O'BRIEN: Let's turn right to Jack, "Question of the Day" -- good morning.
CAFFERTY: Good morning. "Question of the Day" is this. How much more do you want to hear about President Clinton's personal life? There's 950 pages of it out there if you're so inclined. am@cnn.com is the e-mail address.
HEMMER: What did Duffy say? It's like making a first pancake? Sometimes it's not perfect? We'll see how much syrup is thrown on top of that, too.
CAFFERTY: Right.
HEMMER: Thank you, Jack. A lot to talk about there.
Meanwhile, Kobe Bryant returns to court in Colorado today for another round of pretrial hearings. But a judge in Bryant's sexual assault case could set a trial date and is poised to rule on some critical legal issues.
Adrian Baschuk is live in Eagle, Colorado for us this morning. Good morning, Adrian.
ADRIAN BASCHUK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning not you, Bill. You know Kobe Bryant has opted out of his contract with the L.A. Lakers next season but before he can entertain any offers to play, he's got to secure his freedom in this Colorado courtroom behind me.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASCHUK: Kobe Bryant and his defense team head back to court, armed with the alleged victim's AT&T text messaging records.
CRAIG SILVERMAN, FORMER DENVER DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: We know that they contain information passed between the alleged victim and her ex-boyfriend within an hour or so of the alleged attack by Kobe Bryant.
BASCHUK: The records remain sealed. And so far, Judge Terry Ruckriegle has not disclosed whether he will allow details of the accusers sexual past into trial evidence. That decision, though, is poised to come by this hearings end.
But Judge Ruckriegle did rule against a defense motion arguing Colorado's rape shield law was unconstitutional. That law prevents disclosure of an alleged victim's sexual past, unless the defense can show its relevance.
Victim advocates have attacked the defense's tactics.
CYNTHIA STONE, COLORADO COALITION AGAINST SEXUAL ASSAULT: It's a fishing expedition instead of trying to discredit this woman in the court of public opinion.
BASCHUK: But lawyers understand the defense tactics.
SILVERMAN: If team Kobe can put on evidence that this young lady had sex with another man after Kobe Bryant but before she went to the cops, the prosecution probably cannot prevail.
BASCHUK: Also unclear is how last week's Colorado supreme court's ruling permitting jurors to ask questions of witnesses during trial will effect Bryant's case.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we're after the truth, I think it's an appropriate way to go.
BASCHUK: However, with the trial date not yet set, the truth is still a long way off.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASCHUK: Now, legal analysts say that the judge will not set a trial date until both sides complete and submit separate independent DNA tests. However, DNA tests remain incomplete and both sides are blaming each other for the delays -- Bill.
HEMMER: Adrian with all that as a backdrop, then, what do we expect this week?
BASCHUK: Well, it's going to be two days of hearings. Normally, these hearing rounds have lasted about three days. There are a lot of pivotal rulings. Also, the judge, the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that jurors are going to be able to ask questions -- those are going to be talked bout in this round of hearings -- what questions the jurors are going to be able to be asking.
They want to re -- the defense wants to redefine the parameters of sexual assault saying that the jury must acquit Kobe Bryant if the -- they rule that the accuser consented to submit to him. It's going to be an interesting round of hearings to watch.
HEMMER: That it is. Adrian, thanks for that. Up early in Colorado -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Fourteen minutes past the hour. Now time to take a look at some of the other stories that are making headlines this morning. With Daryn Kagan.
Hi Daryn, good morning.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, Soledad. Let's go ahead and start in Iraq where there is word this morning of an attack on American soldiers.
Witnesses say that four U.S. troops reportedly have been killed west of Baghdad. It's an attack by Iraqi insurgents reportedly. Their bodies were found in Ramadi. The U.S. military has not confirmed that attack.
South Korean officials say they are going ahead with plans to deploy more troops to Iraq. This despite a threat to a South Korean man who is being held hostage there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAGAN: He is heard on the tape pleading for his life. His captives warn that he will be beheaded unless South Korea withdraws troops from Iraq. A videotape aired on Arab television over the weekend.
South Korea is dispatching a delegation to Jordan to deal with the hostage situation.
There's new information about detainees being held at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. According to sources cited by "The New York Times" none of the nearly 600 detainees ranks as leaders or senior operatives of al Qaeda. The newspaper also says the detainees have not provided intelligence that enabled officials to foil imminent attacks.
Police in Wisconsin identified three bodies that washed up on a shore of Lake Michigan over the weekend. Police say the bodies of a father and his two sons were found bound together with rope and tied to bags filled with sand.
The victims had been reported missing from Chicago last month. Police say they're handling the case as a homicide. We'll have a live report from Wisconsin coming up in the next hour.
And how about this in the world of sports? For the record books. Ken Griffey, Jr. now the 20th Major League Baseball player to hit 500 career home runs.
The Cincinnati Reds slugger slammed number 500 yesterday against St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Matt Morris. He hugged his dad after the hit, probably one of the best Father's Day presents ever.
And yet, Bill, he said when it first happened he actually thought of his mom because his mom is the one who told him Sunday was the day number 500 was going to happen.
HEMMER: Wow.
KAGAN: Don't need to tell you that he's the first Reds player ever to hit 500 home runs.
HEMMER: He says it beats another gift of Old Spice for Father's Day.
KAGAN: Yes. But his dad says he wasn't off the hook. He still expected another present after number 500.
HEMMER: Thank you, Daryn. Good to see you on a Monday morning here.
There could be another major milestone today for everyday people who want to blast into space. This morning in California's Mojave Desert, the history of space flight may change forever.
Here's Miles O'Brien on that story this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Aviation legend Burt Rutan has always aimed high and most often reached his lofty goals.
BURT RUTAN, ROCKET DESIGNER: Our goal is to show that you can develop a robust, safe manned space program and to do it at extremely low cost.
MILES O'BRIEN: So far, Rutan's team has given no reason to doubt they can pull it off. RUTAN: I think it's -- it is time that -- that the commercial guys get aggressive on manned space flight. Rather than waiting for NASA.
MILES O'BRIEN: So for the past three years he has been designing, building, test flying and tweaking a craft he calls space ship one. Carried off the ground by an odd seagull-like jet called White Knight, SpaceShipOne is released about 11 miles up; that's about four miles higher than an airliners highest altitudes.
MIKE MELVILL, TEST PILOT: It's a quicker than most fighters -- a nervous little airplane.
MILES O'BRIEN: Pilot Mike Melvill has now logged eight Space Ship One flights, straight up for a wild blistering fast ride, getting closer and closer to the official gateway of space, 100 kilometers or 62 and a half miles.
MELVILL: Two and a half times the speed of sound, mach two point five, and then it comes to a stop up there and you're weightless.
MILES O'BRIEN: After three minutes or so in weightlessness, what goes up will succumb to the grip of gravity, plummeting to earth almost as fast, entering the atmosphere at twice the speed of sound.
SpaceShipOne is designed to drop like a shuttlecock and then when speed permits, transform into a glider for 100-mile-an-hour touchdown on the Mojave Runway.
Rutan's group is the clear leader in the quest for the X Prize, a $10 million privately funded purse that will go to the first civilian team to fly to space in the vehicle capable of carrying three people, then repeat the feat within two weeks.
RUTAN: We are interested in winning that because it's money and we want to win it.
MILES O'BRIEN: Burt says it's high time entrepreneurs like him made it to space. He means it. He's already grabbed the first passenger seat on SpaceShipOne for himself.
Miles O'Brien, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: And the pilot, Mike Melvill, boldly plans to blast into space later today about 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
You can watch developments live here on CNN and Miles will be with us throughout the morning as well. Interesting stuff -- Soledad.
(WEATHER REPORT)
HEMMER: Newspapers report all the time about companies cooking the books. Now one major paper is accused of doing some creative accounting itself. Andy has that in a moment here. O'BRIEN: Also ahead this morning, the mysterious encounter between Juror Number Five and Scott Peterson. What the judge in the case is expected to do about it.
HEMMER: Also in sports, Tiger Woods was certainly happy after this shot here, but was it enough to break out of his so-called slump? No way. U.S. Open results in a moment on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: The winner of the U.S. Open, Retief Goosen of South Africa. This guy was so smooth and so cool, especially on the back nine yesterday. Sitting on a two-shot lead, Goosen made a short put at 18 to capture his second Open championship.
Got a bit of help from two of his closest rivals as well yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RETIEF GOOSEN, WINNER, U.S. OPEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) it came down to really Ernie and Phil. Those were going to be the two guys I'm going to need to beat and I'm just very lucky to stand here with this trophy again. It's a great feeling.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: Lucky indeed. His winning putt yesterday very different from the 2001 Open, when he blew a short putt before finally winning in an 18-hole play off. That victory worth about $1 million yesterday.
The greens at Shinnecock over the weekend -- I think they paved them with asphalt. They were extremely hard and difficult, especially on Saturday and yesterday on Sunday's -- so -- great tournament, tough way to go for Phil Mickelson.
O'BRIEN: Wouldn't it be fun to see like a golfer instead of just waving his little cap like they did -- go crazy? Jump around. They take their cap and they go good day.
HEMMER: Mickelson went nuts in Augusta when he won as far as a two-foot jump off the ground can be in terms of defining going nuts, so. Great tournament and a very, very big test for those golfers out there.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk business news now, shall we?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Talk about cooking the books this morning, accounting scandals, hitting some local newsstands, believe it or not. Andy Serwer is here to "Minding Your Business" -- got some details on that.
What are we talking about?
SERWER: Sure do. I mean, cooking the books has become a great American business past time, Soledad, sad to say.
Now news that a couple large newspaper companies are involved. The "Chicago Sun Times" acknowledging that it's overstated its circulation. How many newspapers it's out there selling. This is big stuff because advertisers rely on those numbers when they get charged for ads.
Let's check out some of the specs here. Created bogus sales accounts. Counted unsold papers as sold. And here you go -- had distributors trash -- trash -- 30,000 papers daily. This according to the "Wall Street Journal." Now we also learned the "Tribune" company doing it as well for "Newsday" the large newspaper on Long Island.
Five to 10 percent of its circulation may be bogus. "Chicago Sun Times" by the way owned by Hollinger, that troubled media company controlled by Canadian Black, a lot of stuff going on there.
Let's quickly talk about the markets as well. Last week a mixed one for the markets. Futures up this morning, though, Soledad. A big bank deal happening right now. Wachovia is buying SouthTrust in the Southeast for $14.3 billion.
HEMMER: Wachovia is getting bigger.
SERWER: Yes, fourth biggest in the country now.
O'BRIEN: Wow, it's growing fast, isn't it?
SERWER: Yes, it sure did, absolutely.
O'BRIEN: All right, Andy thanks.
SERWER: You're welcome.
O'BRIEN: Oh, we're going to do "90-Second Pop" just ahead. Still to come this morning some fun to kickstart your busy Monday morning. It's "90-Second Pop."
She has an injured knee and a canceled summer tour but Brittany's love live seems to be blossoming. Do we hear wedding bells?
Plus, who's strong enough to be the man of steel? Hollywood looks for the next Superman. "90-Second Pop" coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.
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