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Iraqi Insurgent Strength; Army Recruiting Slump; Journalists to Jail?

Aired June 27, 2005 - 07:29   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody. It is just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING.
Coming up, as the military battles insurgents in Iraq, back home commanders are also fighting losses in the ranks in the way of recruiting shortfalls.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It probably won't come as a surprise to you when we say the Army has missed its goal four months in a row now. We'll talk to the Army's top recruiting commander about how bad the problem is getting, and whether it can be solved at all

S. O'BRIEN: Also this morning, we're going to check on the headlines with Carol Costello.

Good morning to you.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to all of you.

"Now in the News."

An autopsy is being planned today for a 14-year-old girl killed in a shark attack in Florida. Jamie Marie Daigle was swimming some 200 yards offshore when she was attacked. A nearby surfer tried to rescue her. A shark expert taking part in today's autopsy says the girl was most likely attacked by a bull shark.

In Aruba, authorities investigating the Natalee Holloway disappearance are expected to release another suspect today. The disk jockey, Steve Croes, was arrested more than a week ago. He'll be released. And an Aruban judge, Paul Van Der Sloot, was allowed to go home on Sunday. He's the father of one of the young men who is still in custody. In the meantime, the search for Natalee Holloway continues on land and in water. A team of U.S. divers with high-tech equipment arrived in Aruba over the weekend.

A prayer vigil is being held for three young boys who were found dead in the trunk of a car. The children were the focus of a massive two-day search in Camden, New Jersey. The father of one of the boys is angry that police failed to search the trunk of the car, which was parked just steps away from where the children were last seen playing.

President Bush is hosting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at the White House. The two leaders last met in February. Topping today's agenda: the war in Iraq and the expansion of the U.N. Security Council. CNN will have live coverage of a news conference following that meeting. It is set to begin at noon Eastern.

And the Reverend Billy Graham says he hopes he'll be back again someday. The 86-year-old wrapped up what could be his last crusade in the United States. Some 90,000 people turned out for the event on Sunday in New York. The reverend, who is battling Parkinson's disease, is apparently considering an invitation to preach in London. And somehow, I think he'll accept the invitation.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes. They said they were going to see how it went. They didn't want to commit to London until they saw how strong he was, because, as you can tell, it takes a lot of energy to be able to do that for 35-40 minutes three days in a row. But, you know, it seemed to go great.

COSTELLO: Oh, he sounded great, didn't he?

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, stronger every day.

M. O'BRIEN: He must draw quite a bit of energy from those crowds.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, one would think.

M. O'BRIEN: It's just incredible to see him up there. All right, thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says solid progress is being made against the Iraq insurgency, but he says the fight could last 5 to 12 more years.

Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon this morning for us.

Barbara -- good morning to you. These daily attacks, though, by the insurgents, does the secretary of defense see the Iraqi military getting the upper hand anytime soon?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Soledad that clearly is the strategy. The full-court press is now in week two in Washington.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and General John Abizaid making the Sunday talk show round, trying to press the point that they believe the United States does have a winning strategy in Iraq. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld emphasizing that in the case of Iraq that it is political progress that he believes will be the ultimate winning solution, and that as the insurgency, that political progress continuing to be made, there indeed may still be a rise in the violence in Iraq as they react to that.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld making a very interesting historic case that this insurgency does not have support inside Iraq. Here's what he had to say. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Think of Zarqawi. There is no Ho Chi Min or Mao there. There's a Jordanian terrorist who is killing Iraqi people. There is no national movement in that country. They don't have a vision. They're losers, and they're going to lose.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: But the top military general, General John Abizaid, expressing a lot of concern for the first time this past week or so about the question of troop morale as both he and the troops continue to see a decline in public support for the war. Here's what General Abizaid had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, CMDR., U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: We don't need to fight this war looking over our shoulder, worrying about support back home. We need to know we've got support back home. American soldiers fight best when they know the people back home are behind them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: (AUDIO GAP) Pentagon don't expect to see any change in strategy. The strategy will continue to be building up those Iraqi security forces to defend their country, continuing on the track for political progress in Iraq, getting a constitution written. But still underneath it all trying to shift those poll numbers, trying to lay the groundwork when President Bush speaks to the country later this week to lay out the continuing vision that the Bush administration has for Iraq -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon for us this morning. Barbara, thank you -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All of the grim news from Iraq is taking a toll on recruiting. Last month, the Army's goal was to bring in more than 8,000 new soldiers. Instead, they only got about 5,000.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked about recruiting on Sunday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUMSFELD: Well, we've missed the goals in recruiting previously in other years, and the world goes on. The Navy's recruiting and retention is fine. The Army recruiting -- correction -- the Air Force recruiting and retention is fine. The Marine Corps recruiting and retention is fine. The Army retention is fine. It's Army recruiting that's low.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: Major General Michael Rochelle is the U.S. Army's chief recruiter. He joins me from Louisville, Kentucky. General, good to have you with us.

MAJ. GEN. MICHAEL ROCHELLE, CMDR., U.S. ARMY RECRUITMENT: Good morning, Miles. Good to be with you.

M. O'BRIEN: What are you going to do about that shortfall?

ROCHELLE: Well, we're going to continue to work hard at it. Army recruiters are telling the story of what value is added from serving in America's Army every single day to young men and women.

Our challenge, as you and your viewers may know, is the attitude of influencers who are, if not discouraging, at least cautioning that others should wait, young Americans should wait and see how this thing plays out. But we're going to be at this for a while, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, general, let's look at those numbers. An Associated Press poll recently asked parents, who, of course, would be influencing many of these young men and women, would you encourage your son or daughter to enroll in the military? Thirty-two percent of them said yes, 55 percent of them said no. What does that tell you?

ROCHELLE: Well, it's problematic. It's not a surprise to us. As a matter of fact, Miles, I will tell you that we recently concluded a new recruit survey of 2,000 young men and women who recently joined America's army. They tell us two things. Looking back at 2002, 27.5 percent of those young men and women told us that they made that decision in order to serve their country. Today that number is up to 36 percent who tell us that that's the reason that they made the choice.

In addition to that, they also tell us that their parents 44 percent of the time were the major influencers. It tracks. And what we're trying to do is convince our influencers, their influencers, that their opinion matters.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, so you've got to really do some recruiting of the parents, if you will. Give us a sense of where this is headed then. You have a lot of young men and women who are very reluctant to go in. And, you know, a lot of people, when they hear this kind of thing, they think immediately of the draft, because you need a draft in a situation like this to keep the numbers in the ranks.

Well, there are two points I would differ with you on. First of all, the young millennial generation that we're recruiting from are indeed very patriotic. Our message resonates with them, the value of being a soldier, the honor and the pride of being a soldier. That's the first point I would differ on.

Secondly, no one in uniform would make a case that a draft Army is better than a volunteer Army. The quality of the young men and women we have serving in America's Army today surpasses anything we've ever seen in the history of the United States Army.

M. O'BRIEN: This puts an awful lot of pressure on the people that do the recruiting, though. And we've read some stories about them perhaps stepping over boundaries, encouraging people to get phony diplomas, how to circumvent drug testing types of situations in order to get into the military. What are you doing to try to make sure your folks are playing by the rules?

ROCHELLE: These are challenging times for Army recruiters, without a doubt. But I will tell you that there is no point in time in which our Army values -- loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage -- should be wavered from, should be moved from one bit in order to satisfy even a recruiting goal. That's what we focused on the 20th of May on our values stand- down day. I have every indication that that was highly successful.

M. O'BRIEN: Major General Michael Rochelle, top recruiter for the U.S. Army. Thank you for your time.

ROCHELLE: Thank you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Firefighters are preparing for another day of fierce battles as wildfires sweep through the American West. So far, more than 350 acres have burned. Fires are raging in Alaska and five other western states.

One of the most dangerous is in southwest Utah. The fast-moving fire quadrupled in size in just about 12 hours on Sunday from 2,000 acres to 8,000 acres. Lightning apparently starting it there.

In California, scorched land and charred trees are all that remain after a 52,000-acre fire passed through the Mojave National Preserve. Five homes and two cabins built in the late 1800s were destroyed.

The same story in Arizona, where the hilltops northeast of Phoenix are blackened, are smoldering still. Officials say they are worried about more thunderstorms since lightning could spark new fires there.

In Nevada, progress on more than an 31,000-acre blaze in the mountains southwest of Las Vegas. More than a dozen other fires are burning in the southern part of Nevada.

In Washington, grass and wheat fields are up in flames in Walla Walla County. Smoke was reported as far as 100 miles north in Spokane.

And finally, Alaska, as we mentioned, where fires have been burning for more than two weeks there, 80,000 acres have gone up in flames about 150 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska.

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Did you play some golf this weekend?

S. O'BRIEN: I did.

M. O'BRIEN: Did you? S. O'BRIEN: Well, no, I took a lesson. I hadn't really gotten off the mat yet. But I'm getting good.

M. O'BRIEN: You can change your name to bogey. Bogey O'Brien.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: We'll tell you about two breathtaking tournament winning golf shots. The first from a golfer who changed her name to birdie. Yes, Birdie Kim sank a 30-foot bunker shot. Check it out. Yes, oh my god!

S. O'BRIEN: Wow!

M. O'BRIEN: And while it wasn't a birdie, of course, she won the U.S. Women's Open on Sunday. The shot on the 18th hole kept her out of a playoff with 17-year-old amateur Morgan Pressel (ph). All of these young women...

S. O'BRIEN: That's (INAUDIBLE).

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, my gosh! Yes, she's 23, which makes her, like, you know, an old lady.

S. O'BRIEN: Right, the old lady of golf.

M. O'BRIEN: You know, maybe you're past your prime for golf, because if you don't try by 15 or 16...

S. O'BRIEN: What do you mean? I'm 23, too.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, that's right, yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles, thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: And another big finish, Patrick Harrington, the win at the Barclay's Classic in New York.

(CROSSTALK)

S. O'BRIEN: Look at that.

M. O'BRIEN: Sweet. You do that all the time, right?

S. O'BRIEN: I do nothing like that, actually.

M. O'BRIEN: Harrington -- yes, it goes in that direction. It just misses. It goes down the green.

S. O'BRIEN: Hey, hey, hey.

M. O'BRIEN: Harrington sank a 65-foot eagle putt in the final hole, beating Jim Ferret (ph) by a single stroke. It is Harrington's second PGA tour victory this season. And it's exciting stuff.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes. M. O'BRIEN: So how is it going? Is it going well?

S. O'BRIEN: I haven't left the mats yet. So, so far, so good, you know.

M. O'BRIEN: It's good.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: That's fun. That's fun.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Now might be the time to start shopping around for new car insurance. Andy tells us why rates are dropping in "Minding Your Business" coming up.

S. O'BRIEN: Also this morning, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist faces prison now over a story that she never wrote. Judith Miller talks about her Supreme Court fight. It's a story you'll only see on CNN. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Two high-profile journalists could learn today whether they will go to jail. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce whether it will hear the cases of Judith Miller of "The New York Times" and Matthew Cooper of "TIME" magazine. A federal judge ruled that the two journalists should be held in contempt and jailed for refusing to reveal their sources to the federal grand jury. Miller and Cooper lost in federal appeals court, so they took their fight to the highest court in the land.

National correspondent Kelly Wallace has more this morning.

It's a complicated story. Walk us through this.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's very complicated, and the stakes are very high for journalists, as well as for this federal investigation.

And we spent some time with Judith Miller last week. In an interview you will see only on CNN, she says this is not about her, but about protecting confidential sources. So, they will continue to come forward and help journalists uncover stories that the public would not otherwise know about.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE (voice over): His name is Hamlet, and investigative reporter Judith Miller is relying on him a lot.

JUDITH MILLER, "NEW YORK TIMES" REPORTER: I brought Hamlet in case I'm not here. I got Hamlet for my husband, and I hope that Hamlet won't be necessary for that purpose. But, you know, things -- you know, you go on. You try and just pretend that things are normal. WALLACE: But life has certainly been anything but normal for "The New York Times" Pulitzer prize-winning journalist. For refusing to reveal her confidential sources to a federal grand jury, she could spend 18 months behind bars, a sentence that could begin as early as next month, unless the U.S. Supreme Court decides to hear her case.

(on camera): There have to be conversations of the potential of going to prison.

MILLER: We try not to talk about that. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

WALLACE: Did you ever think it would come to this?

MILLER: I guess not. I think if -- I think I didn't think at this point that a pledge of confidentiality that I gave to a source would endanger my freedom.

WALLACE (voice over): The case against Miller and another reporter, Matthew Cooper of "TIME" magazine, stems from a column in July 2003 in which syndicated columnist Robert Novak identified a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame, indicating he had spoken to two senior administration officials about her. Novak is also a regular CNN contributor.

Six months after Novak's column, a federal special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, started a wide-ranging investigation to determine who revealed Plame's identity, issuing subpoenas to several administration officials and reporters, because it can be a crime for a government official to name covert agents.

What makes Miller's case unusual is she never wrote about Plame, although she says she did contemplate writing a story and talked with one or more sources, whose identities she agreed to keep secret.

(on camera): And that's what some people when they hear your story find it hard to understand how you could be facing jail time...

MILLER: For a story I didn't write. Well, the law doesn't distinguish between knowing something and writing it. I think we do. I think people do. But for the government and for the special prosecutor, the issue is what I knew, what I might know, what he suspects I might know. But I think to some of us, it's positively Orwellian.

WALLACE (voice over): She's been called a martyr for the First Amendment, a title she vigorously rejects.

MILLER: I keep saying this is not about me. And it's not about me. And it's not about Matt. And it's about the kind of news that people are going to get. It's about whether or not there could be a "Deep Throat" today.

WALLACE: Miller's critics, while applauding her decision to protect her sources, still question her reporting before the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, reporting which turned out to be wrong.

(on camera): This isn't to repair Judy Miller's image after criticism over WMD?

MILLER: No. Every journalist gets something wrong. And, you know, I'm very comfortable with my record. Sometimes if your sources are right, you're going to be right. If they're wrong, you're going to get stories wrong.

WALLACE: Facing a possible prison sentence, she says she's less concerned about herself than her loved ones.

MILLER: The emotional toll on them has been substantial. And for that, I'm really, really sorry.

WALLACE: And now Miller, who has worked throughout her career to get the story, can only wait to learn how this one will end.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

And how this story ends could have an impact on other journalists around the country. Miller says more than 30 reporters are facing federal subpoenas, compared to a handful 10 years ago.

Meanwhile, the federal prosecutor in the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, is urging the Supreme Court not to hear it. In a brief, he said that it was time to bring his investigation, Soledad -- started in December 2003 -- to -- quote -- "as swift a conclusion as possible."

S. O'BRIEN: Well, in the piece you mentioned Bob Novak. Why is he not facing possible jail time?

WALLACE: His role in all of this, in the investigation, is still somewhat of a mystery. Judith Miller as well as Matthew Cooper have been urging Bob Novak to come forward, to say if he's cooperated, what role he's playing. I can tell you I spoke to Novak's attorney on Friday, and he says that right now he and his client just are not commenting at this time.

S. O'BRIEN: But he's not facing any prison time, as far as we know.

WALLACE: As far as we know.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. We should mention, Kelly -- and thanks. A terrific spot. One final note: CNN and "TIME" magazine are both owned by the same company, Time Warner. CNN, along with several other news organizations, filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the position of the two reporters, citing the right of privilege for journalists -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on the program, attention, car owners, who may soon notice yet another change on your insurance bill. We're "Minding Your Business" next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Our insurance, as they say in the south, is going down. And the case of mad cow disease is raising questions about the safety of America's agriculture products.

Andy Serwer is here, giving us the full panoply of morning business news.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: That's it, Miles. Thank you very much.

Of course, with gas prices going up, car owners are a little bit concerned about all of the money they're spending on their cars. But, as Miles said, insurance prices seem to be going down.

Now, we have the numbers for the state of New York. They are broken out. And overall, it appears that car insurance rates for car owners appears to be dropping between 4 percent and 6 percent this year. Nationwide, it could be even more than that.

Why is that? Because anti-fraud programs by insurance companies appear to be working very well. That's what the insurance companies are suggesting. Also, it's likely that less cars are being stolen these days with falling crime rates.

So, if your insurance bills are not falling, it might be a good time to shop around.

Meanwhile, we should talk about mad cow.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Now, this happened back in November.

SERWER: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: A pet food plant, and we're just now discovering this publicly. Why is that?

SERWER: Well, here's what's going on. And this happened at a pet food plant in Texas in November, as you said. There were some preliminary tests that indicated that this cow did have mad cow disease. But the...

M. O'BRIEN: Not that cow there.

SERWER: Not that cow.

M. O'BRIEN: We don't know, yes.

SERWER: That's what we call file footage, I think, in the business.

M. O'BRIEN: OK.

SERWER: But there was a preliminary test, and the USDA wanted to be very careful obviously. So, there was a lot of retesting done. And they finally resorted to a test that's used in Europe. And that proved conclusively just over the past couple of days that this cow, in fact, was stricken with that disease.

M. O'BRIEN: So, the consequences are what now?

SERWER: Well, that's unclear. The cow, obviously, was destroyed. They're examining the facility. The only thing I know for sure is that it's very likely that the prices for beef will be falling this morning. And we'll be watching stocks of companies that are involved. It's also likely that restrictions on American beef that some companies imposed after December '03 will not be lifted anytime soon.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Andy Serwer, thank you very much.

SERWER: You're welcome, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Today's top stories are straight ahead. We'll also be "Paging Dr. Gupta" today. What you think you know about cancer could be all wrong, folks. Sanjay is exposing five common myths surrounding the disease. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

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