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Paula Zahn Now

Howard Dean In or Out?; Will Catholic Church Abuse Report Help or Hurt Victims?

Aired February 16, 2004 - 20:00   ET

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

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


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Daryn Kagan, in for Paula Zahn.
The world, the news, the names, the faces, and where we go from here Monday, February 16, 2004.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN (voice-over): "In Focus" tonight: the dimensions of sex abuse in the church, 11,000 allegations. Will the report from the Roman Catholic Church help the healing or further enrage the victims?

Also, on the eve of the Wisconsin primary, Howard Dean's campaign manager on whether he is in or out.

And they're screaming damn Yankees again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just want to swear, man. I can't be on camera. I just want to swear.

KAGAN: The curse of the Bambino hits Boston one more time, Alex Rodriguez.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Also tonight, the journalist who did time in Saddam's worst prison and the pharmacist who refused to dispense morning-after pills.

But first, here's what you need to know right now.

A security scare today along the U.S.-Canadian border between Washington and British Columbia. Officials stopped a woman when they found a grenade in the glove compartment of her car. They say they think it was an innocent mistake. The woman told them her the husband is in the service and just returned from Iraq.

On the eve of the Wisconsin primary, we are putting the Howard Dean campaign meltdown "In Focus." Today, campaign chairman Steve Grossman is out, ready, he tells a newspaper, to reach out to rival John Kerry. And then there's Dean's varied statements about whether he will stay in the race if he loses tomorrow.

Joining us, James Carville, co-host of "CROSSFIRE," and regular contributor and "TIME" magazine columnist Joe Klein.

Gentlemen, good evening. Thanks for being with us.

JOE KLEIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Hi.

JAMES CARVILLE, CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": All right.

KLEIN: Good to be here.

KAGAN: James, let's start with the campaign expert. I don't know. It doesn't look like a very good sign when your campaign chairman says, I'll be with the other guy.

CARVILLE: Well, it's not a very good sign. We've been through, what, something like 16 primaries and he has yet to win one. It's kind of redundant here.

I think the voters are kind of delivering their verdict here. And if Steve Grossman is out of the campaign or not -- I know Steve. He's a fine guy. But, I mean, a real point here is that Howard Dean can't win anything. So what -- that's what's causing all of this.

KAGAN: Well, that's Grossman's way of making that statement.

But, Joe, let's bring you in here. And you kind of need a scorecard to keep up with what Howard Dean intends to be to do here. Just over the last few days, February 5, Howard Dean says: "The entire race has come down to this. We must win Wisconsin. Anything less will put us out of the race." But, on the 15th, he says: "No, no, no, we're not dropping out after Wisconsin. We're in this for the long haul." And then today he says: "We're going to just see how we do. I'll have plenty to say after Wisconsin, whether we win or lose."

Will the real Howard Dean stand up and say what he's exactly plans to do?

CARVILLE: In a sense, I have sympathy for him, because he's been out there. He's been campaigning forever, long, hard. He's exhausted. He's tired. It just doesn't matter.

The voters are going to -- he's going to lose tomorrow. He's going to lose big. It doesn't matter if he stays in or gets out. He's not going to be the Democratic nominee. He's not going to have much of an effect on this race. I suspect, in the end, he will say, you know what? I'm going to get behind the nominee. I'm going to rally my people. I'm going to do this. I have a good future ahead of me in the politics. And he has. He's contributed a lot to the Democratic Party.

KAGAN: Let's bring Joe in from Madison, Wisconsin.

He has done a lot to invigorate this Democratic campaign, but is the way this is ending, with kind of the uncertain ending, is that kind of taking away from what Howard Dean has contributed?

KLEIN: Well, this is a really sad -- this is much more of a personal story at this point than a political story. I mean, this guy seems to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He was as high as you could possibly get as politician, what, four weeks ago, five weeks ago? And now he's about as low as you could possibly get. I've not seen a campaign before where the chairman quit the day before a primary. And you're right, I think that he did add an awful lot to this process. He was the speed horse in this race. He made everybody else run harder and faster.

I think he made John Kerry and John Edwards much better candidates. He really defined the issues. And it's kind of sad to see it go out in this kind of total mess.

KAGAN: Well, let's go ahead now and look at the guy who is in first place, Senator John Kerry. It looked like there was the potential for a scandal on Friday, when the senator came out and said, categorically no, he had not had an affair with an intern.

Today, we hear from the alleged young woman. She has put out a statement of her own. And we have that statement, where me says: "I have never had a relationship with Senator Kerry and the rumors in the press are completely false. Whoever is spreading these rumors and allegations does not know me, but they should know the pain they have caused my family." And, she adds, "It seems that efforts to peddle these lies continue, so I feel compelled to address them."

So now we've heard from the senator. We've heard from the woman who says she wasn't the lover. Does this put this one away forever?

KLEIN: It should never have come up in the first place. We have a new standard for sex scandals now.

I mean, you know, on Friday, there wasn't a scandal, because no one had made an accusation. It was just that it had come up in an Internet site. And the rest of the press kept its distance, although some people jumped on it. And, you know, this was never a real story. And it shouldn't be.

I don't care where it's Republican, Democrat, or Martian. Unless someone makes a real serious accusation, we in the press should stay away from this stuff.

KAGAN: Well, and, James, because the press is staying away from it, what about those that say this is a literal conspiracy, that they're not covering this like they should?

CARVILLE: Well, you could knock me over with a feather. I didn't know we were staying away from it. I thought you just had this big intro and asked me about it. How the hell are we staying away from it? We're right in the middle of the thing.

And the reason that this is happening is, is, you've got Matt Drudge, who is one of the slimiest, sleaziest, in my opinion, human beings that exists. He accused a dear friend of mine falsely of beating his wife. What else can you say?

(CROSSTALK) KAGAN: No, but he did...

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: Come on. You know, CNN, all these cable networks, everybody loves this kind of stuff and just looking for any kind of opening to throw anything out there.

I will tell you, this is a shame for this young woman. It's a shame for her parents. It's a shame for when we have deficits and we've got wars and we've got everything. And, no, the press can't give itself any credit in this, because they were just dying to get ahold of this issue.

KAGAN: All right, and that will be the last word. James Carville, Joe Klein, thank you, gentlemen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I absolutely do not feel betrayed by Steve Grossman. I consider him to have worked very, very hard for this campaign, including at times where we were not on the map. It's easy to work for a front-runner. Steve was there before we were anybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: And so now we're back to Howard Dean. He is parting ways with his campaign chairman.

We turn to Roy Neel, senior adviser to the Dean campaign. He's joining us from Burlington, Vermont this evening.

Roy, thanks for being with us.

ROY NEEL, HOWARD DEAN CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: Good evening.

KAGAN: As we watch Mr. Grossman, this pretty much is over, is it not? Is the Dean campaign all but done?

NEEL: No, not at all.

We wish Steve well. He has his own agenda now. He's up there in Boston. I'm sure he feels a lot of pressure from some of his friends in the Kerry campaign. And that's fine, whatever he wants to do. This campaign is moving forward. We've got a lot of energy in Wisconsin. We're going to surprise some people tomorrow night. And, as Governor Dean has said, we're going to move forward.

It's way too early to hold a coronation. We have got a lot of delegates yet to be chosen. There's a lot of voting left to be done. And Super Tuesday is a big day. And we'll be prepared to fight on for it.

KAGAN: Well, Roy, if you want to talk about surprises, you don't need to look much farther than what Governor Dean has to say. You saw the list of statements we put up just over the last week and a half. Governor Dean seems from day to day change his mind. He's in, he's out, he's in. How do you convince people to support you if you can't even get your message straight about whether you're sticking with your campaign or not?

NEEL: Well, I think you have both the chronology and the message not quite right. He has never said he's getting out of this campaign.

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: He did say that he was basing it all on Wisconsin. You're saying he didn't say that now?

NEEL: He did not say he's withdrawing from this campaign after Wisconsin at all. I mean, we put out an appeal, a fund-raising appeal to our grassroots.

We've got almost 400,000 donors that sent in $25, $30, $50. And they spoke up and they said, yes, fight on in Wisconsin. That was an enormously successful appeal and gratifying appeal. And it gave us the resources to be in Wisconsin right now and to do as well as we're going to do. I think we're going to surprise some people tomorrow night. This campaign is going to go on.

KAGAN: So it sounds like you're advising your man to stay in the race. But can you tell us candidly what kind of pressure you are getting from the Democratic Party for Governor Dean to get out?

NEEL: Oh, I'm not getting any pressure from anyone.

The only pressure that comes is from the kind of media drumbeat. Look, James and Joe are old friends of mine, but I think they've been talking into the microphone a little too long this season. This campaign is not over. This primary has been enormously successful in raising up the Democratic Party. We've come from nowhere in late 2002, when Howard Dean got in this race and has raised the energy of this campaign and has brought it to new highs.

And the Democratic Party is now held in regard twice as favorably in the American public as it was a little over a year ago. So there's no reason to stop this now. We've got a long way to go. It's helping the Democratic Party. It's been very positive. And there's just no reason to cut it off.

KAGAN: Well, you even heard your old friends giving credit to Howard Dean for invigorating the Democratic Party and for bringing interest into these primaries. But talk about no reason to get out. He hasn't won a single primary, and even tomorrow, it doesn't look very promising in Wisconsin.

NEEL: Well, we'll see.

This is a race to get the majority of the delegates to win the nomination. Now, I know people are saying, well, you won this many and so on, but, you know, look what happens in college basketball every year. I'm a big college basketball fan. And you've got lots of teams that win a lot of games early on and then, all of a sudden, you know, maybe they get into March madness and they collapse. Who knows what's going to happen.

Senator Kerry has run a good campaign. He's clearly the dominant front-runner. But John Edwards and Howard Dean are still in there. And I think they're both running vigorous campaigns. And we think ours is going to be successful tomorrow and will go on.

KAGAN: And so you're looking for Howard Dean to become the Cinderella story. The only problem, Roy, is that he went into this as a No. 1 seed and that's where the story goes.

We'll leave it with that, with the analogy of college basketball. Roy Neel, thank you so much.

NEEL: Thank you.

KAGAN: And we're going to invite you to join us tomorrow night for complete coverage of the Wisconsin primary, starting at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

What is next for the Catholic Church, in the face of report of 11,000 allegations of abuse against priests over the last 50 years?

And we'll talk to a pharmacist who says he was fired for refusing to fill a prescription for the morning-after pill.

Also, the rich get richer. Baseball's blockbuster trade leaves Boston fans out in the cold.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Startling numbers today in a draft report on the abuse in the Catholic Church. The report was commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Bishops. It lists widespread abuse allegations against clergy.

Our Jason Carroll is live with more from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, where the report was prepared.

Jason, good evening.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good evening to you, Daryn.

As you said, that draft report was put together by some of the researches here at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. We have been able to look at the major portions of the report. Here are some of the key figures that we were able to find in this report.

Church records indicate that 4,450 priests were accused of sexual abuse between 1950 and 2002. The survey also found that some 11,000 abuse claims were filed during that same period, many of the victims under the age of 11. The report also found that most of the abuse took place before 1980. The head of the U.S. Conference of Bishops released a statement today saying that he had not seen a draft report. But he did say that he expected the report's numbers to be sobering.

Again, this is a draft report, Daryn, so we are going to expect there to be several changes to this report before it is finally released to the public on February 27 -- Daryn.

KAGAN: As you said, the some of the numbers are absolutely staggering, especially the recidivism rate, Jason. Does it address how that happened and how so many priests who had these allegations against them were allowed to continue in their positions and, according to this report, allowed to continue to abuse other victims?

CARROLL: Well, that's interesting.

The report will go into or did go into why this abuse was allowed to go on for such a long period of time. Some of the examples that they found, for one, failure to grasp the gravity of the problem. Another point here, an overemphasis on trying to avoid scandal, trying to keep it hidden, also the use of unqualified treatment centers for some of these priests that were accused of abuse -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Jason Carroll, giving us our first look at that report, thank you very much.

Let's get some reaction now on the church abuse report. From Saint Louis, I'm joined by David Clohessy, national director of SNAP. That's Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. And joining us from Philadelphia is associate professor of theology at DeSales University Larry Chapp, who, we must say, does not represent the Catholic Church.

Gentlemen, good evening. Thank you for joining us this evening.

LARRY CHAPP, ASSOC. THEOLOGY PROFESSOR, DESALES UNIVERSITY: Thank you.

DAVID CLOHESSY, NATIONAL DIRECTOR, SNAP: Thank you, Daryn.

KAGAN: David, I'd like to go ahead and start with you.

The numbers can be jaw-dropping and yet you suspect they don't even come close to the abuse you suspect that has taken place in the church.

CLOHESSY: Sure.

We have to look at history and look at common sense. This is a survey, a voluntary self-survey of bishops, the men who got us into this problem to begin with and the men who spent millions of dollars over decades to try to keep all this hidden. So it's naive to think that somehow bishops have done a complete turnaround and are voluntarily telling the whole truth.

And these are also credible allegations, by the bishop's own admission. In the survey, it said don't respond if you think the allegations are not credible. So we think the numbers are very, very low. KAGAN: Let's bring Larry Chapp in here.

What's your take on this latest survey?

CHAPP: Well, my take is that I am, too, surprised by the high number. I was anticipating that the number would be less, around 2 percent of the total number of priests. It turns out to have been about 4 percent of the total number of priests.

However, I don't agree with David Clohessy. I think that the bishops at the point have no real vested interest in hiding anything further. They've been caught short. They realize they've done terrible things and they've made some very bad judgments. And right now, it is in the bishops' best interests to come clean. And I think that they are really making a very good-faith effort to do that.

Now, it might be that the numbers are slightly under-reported. But I don't think it's because of any past pattern that he's suggesting. I think it does have to do with the survey nature of this report. I think the numbers are pretty accurate.

KAGAN: And, David, before we let you get back in there, I want to go ahead and, for our audience, bring back some of these numbers, again the recidivism rate; 25 percent of those in the report had two or three allegations; 13 percent had four to nine allegations.

Part of the problem, as you see it, not just that this alleged abuse took place, but that it was allowed to take place over and over again.

CLOHESSY: Exactly.

The problem with the report is that it focuses, again, on the bad apples in the barrel and not on the men overseeing the barrel. Let's face it. There always has been and always will be abusers in every walk of life. The issue is, what do you do when the allegations come forward? And this report suggests that, in better than half of the cases, there were multiple allegations. And, to be honest, we still see that today.

We see 10 priests serving right now in Los Angeles who are facing civil lawsuits. We see three priests in Brooklyn serving despite civil lawsuits.

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: But let me just ask you this, David.

And, Larry, I'll bring you back in a second.

CHAPP: Sure.

KAGAN: But do you see progress in this? It's not that long ago. Can you think back to the day when, even to see a report like this, the church doing their own report and their own admission, you would never have expected this to happen. CLOHESSY: No, there certainly has been progress.

The sad truth, though, Daryn, is that it's come only because of external pressure. And the bulk of the progress is in the secular world, the police, the prosecutors, the judges, lawmakers. They take this much more seriously. And that's why we encourage victims to report to secular authorities, civil authorities, not to church officials.

KAGAN: And, Larry, on that note, can you see David's point, that it has been outside the church, the pressure, that has brought along this process, and that's why those people can't let up at this point?

CHAPP: Oh, I agree. I think that, really, the problem may have been ongoing if external pressure had not been brought to bear on the bishops.

But, as you noted earlier, the cases -- most of the cases that were reported on today were cases that took place before 1980. And whether or not there are still some anomalies in the way that the new charter is being applied or not is an open question. And we can debate that. But I don't think there's any doubt that, over the past 10 years in particular, the bishops have made great strides in policing themselves and in upgrading the manner in which the Catholic Church goes about dealing with this issue.

I don't know of any other institutions in the United States right now that is being as aggressive in terms of implementing new policies for weeding these things out. As he noted, there's no profession in the United States that is free of this sort of problem. And yet I don't know of any other organization in the United States that has gone to this length to sort of examine itself publicly.

KAGAN: And I'm sorry. That's going to have to be the last word. Sorry, David. I appreciate it. David Clohessy, Larry Chapp, thank you for joining us, giving us your first take on this draft report. We do expect the final draft to be coming by the end of the month. Gentlemen, thank you.

CHAPP: Thank you.

CLOHESSY: Thank you, Daryn.

KAGAN: We're going to show you rare pictures of the new face of power in Iraq, a reclusive religious leader.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID PHILLIPS, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: If Ayatollah Sistani were to issue a fatwa against the United States, he could have a million people in the streets of Najaf and elsewhere around Iraq overnight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: And a chilling look inside what was Saddam Hussein's most feared prison from a jailed journalist who lived to tell his story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: His appearance brings back chilling memories of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. And observers say, the wrong word from him could bring American efforts in Iraq to a humiliating end.

Brent Sadler now has a profile of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Iraqi holy man who no one wants to cross.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rare pictures of one of Iraq's most influential religious leaders, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Devotees beat a path to his humble gate, near the golden dome of the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf. Gun-toting guards control the crowds and protect him from rivals. Sistani is a reclusive Shia Muslim cleric whose fatwas, or religious rulings, are rigorously obeyed, wielding a certain kind of new Iraqi power.

PHILLIPS: If Ayatollah Sistani were to issue a fatwa against the United States, he could have a million people in the streets of Najaf and elsewhere around Iraq overnight.

SADLER: Iraq's Shia, brutally repressed by Saddam Hussein, are now marshaling their majority to take power in direct elections, "not in an occupied state," Sistani told a United Nations team last week, "but in a sovereign Iraq," a politically savvy move, says this lawyer.

CHIBLI MALLAT, CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER: And the fact that, six months ago, nobody had heard of him and today he calls the shots in Iraq, suggests that he's much more in touch than the image he's projecting of a recluse, bearded old man, gives to an American public.

SADLER (on camera): The grand ayatollah is difficult, if not impossible, for most people to see. And he is often a puzzle to understand. But his words, mostly written, not spoken, especially in public, can sway the Shiite masses.

(voice-over): Some U.S. and Iraqi officials worry that Iranian- style governance, defined by late Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution, could gain ground in Iraq, but not with Sistani, they hope, even though the grand ayatollah has strong religious ties to Iran.

HOSHYAR ZEBARI, IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL: Even Sistani really is not that type of Khomeini revolutionary cleric. In fact, he's been moderate in his views and considerate.

SADLER: The Iraqi Shia have the winds in their sails. Sistani seems to be their captain, navigating a boiling sea in American waters.

MALLAT: Any breakdown of the relationship between the Americans and Sistani will mean that it will be unsustainable for the Americans to remain in Iraq and that civil war is inevitable.

SADLER: So, when Sistani makes declarations these days, everyone listens.

Brent Sadler, CNN, Najaf.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: A pharmacist cites his religious beliefs for refusing to fill a prescription for the morning-after pill. Now he's been fired. We'll meet him.

Also, the curse of the Bambino strikes again, as the Yankees close a deal for Alex Rodriguez and Red Sox fans weep away.

And tomorrow, could it be the end for Howard Dean's presidential campaign? Our coverage of the Wisconsin primary begins at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Here's what you need to know right now; 300 cruise ship passengers are recovering from a stomach bug on a Valentine's cruise to Mexico. This is the latest of several virus outbreaks on cruise ships over the last couple of years. What can you do to avoid a wasted vacation?

Joining us from Atlanta is Dr. Phyllis Kozarsky of the Emory University School of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Doctor, good evening. Thanks for being with us.

DR. PHYLLIS KOZARSKY, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE: Thank you.

KAGAN: This sounds like an absolutely miserable cruise; 21 percent of the passengers were infected with the norovirus. What is it and how do you get it?

KOZARSKY: Well, norovirus is a part of a family of viruses called Caliciviridae. And it's probably one of the most common causes of food-borne illness nowadays. And you can get it, unfortunately, a number of ways. It can be transmitted by contaminated food and water. And unfortunately it can also be transmitted by contaminated surfaces. And it can live on these surfaces for a while, so that it's very, very easily transmitted and it takes...

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: I'm sorry, doctor.

What is it about these cruise ships that just looks like it's love boat but for the germs?

KOZARSKY: Well, it isn't actually just the cruise ships. It's anywhere. Vacationers going on cruise ships, restaurants, military units, this virus is really present everywhere. It's unfortunate that it's obvious when you have a group of a few thousand people or even a few hundred people together on a cruise ship that it would be more obvious when an outbreak occurs.

KAGAN: So, how do you protect yourself and would you go on a cruise, knowing what you know about all of these people getting off the boat so sick?

KOZARSKY: First of all, yes, I would very much go on a cruise. I don't think it's isolated to the cruise industry, certainly. And that's very important, is to be -- enable people to go on these cruises and not say people shouldn't go. One of the more important things that we tell people when they travel or when they're at home is that they should wash their hands much more frequently than they do. First of all, people should not be traveling or go on a cruise if they're ill. If they become ill, they should let the cruise physicians, the medical department know. Often times it's helpful to segregate people who might be ill in their cabins, where they can remain until they're well, or unfortunately, sometimes they should disembark at the next place where the cruise ship is going.

KAGAN: Giving us the best advice -- the actually advice that our mothers all did, just wash your hands and take care of yourself.

KOZARSKY: Absolutely.

KAGAN: Dr. thank you for that advice. And we hope you get an invitation for that cruise very soon.

Dr. Phyllis Kozarsky, of the Emory University School of Medicine and Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

The battle over abortion tonight centers on the morning-after pill. Eckerd corporation has fired three pharmacists who refuse to give the pill two a woman who was raped. Why, well, joining us from Dallas, Hiram Sasser the director of Litigation for Liberty Legal Institution, a pro-life public interest law firm. Also we have one of the pharmacists who was let go, Gene Herr, he joins us from Dallas.

And joining us from New York, Destiny Lopez director from Emergency Contraceptive Access Campaign.

KAGAN: Good evening to all of you, and thank you for being with us.

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: I want to go right to you, Mr. Heir, because you're one of the pharmacist whose made that decision, who are you and who gives you the right to make a decision not just for any woman but a woman who had already been through the trauma of rape?

GENE HERR, FIRED PHARMACIST: My name is Gene and I was there and a patient generally brought in a prescription, and basically in this case, the doctor made a moral decision to dispense the medication, but I don't feel that it's his right to impose that morality on to anybody else. And basically, I didn't make any decision for the woman. The only decision I made was for myself and the other pharmacists, did the same thing, we didn't want to be participating in a chain of events that could take a child's life.

KAGAN: According to -- we looked up the statutes in the state of Texas and it says that when you look at individual providers for contraception, you actually aren't supposed to fill that role, you're supposed to fill the prescription for the medication, that that's not supposed to happen at your level.

HERR: Well, like I say, I don't feel that anybody -- I mean, she has the right to choose to take this medication. But in the same way, everybody has the right to refuse to participate in an abortion.

KAGAN: Destiny, do you want to jump in on this? There are those who would say the morning after pill is not an abortion, that it actually prevents conception from taking place in the first place.

DESTINY LOPEZ, EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION ACCESS CAMPAIGN: That's right. Emergency contraception is a method to prevent pregnancy. And just as Mr. Heir thinks that he has the right to deny a woman, a woman should have a right to walk into a pharmacy with a valid prescription from a licensed prescriber and except that prescription to be filled without any question as to what her intention is with that medication. She's had a decision made by a medical doctor. She's been through a traumatic event in this case, and she should expect to that have prescription filled. And in fact, Mr. Herr, as you said, was obligated not only by state law but by his own company's policy to provide that medication to the woman upon receipt of that prescription.

KAGAN: Mr. Sasser, I want you to talk about, I guess you wouldn't be representing your client if you didn't think he was legally wrong by being fired?

HIRAM SASSER, LIBERTY LEGAL INSTITUTE: That's right. There's no law that requires a pharmacist to dispense any particular type of medication. As a matter of fact, there is a law that Congress passed called the Civil Rights Act that protects all employee that would like to have some sort of religious accommodation from their employer. And in this case, Eckerd was required by federal law to accommodate Mr. Herr's belief that he doesn't want to participate in an abortion procedure. That's all we're talking about here, is everybody should really have the right to choose. And in this case, every pharmacist has a right to choose whether or not they want to participate in a abortion procedure.

KAGAN: So, Mr. Herr, just so I understand it, you feel like your civil rights were violated but you don't feel like you violated the civil rights of the woman that had already been through this rape, that was just looking to prevent a pregnancy?

HERR: Right. Though the medication does prevent ovulation, there's no way to know that the patient hadn't already conceived. And if the patient had already conceived, this medication would kill the child. And I'm just not willing to play Russian roulette with a human's life.

KAGAN: And some people would suggest the woman is a life to be dealt with here, too. But Mr. Sasser, I want to bring you here to look at if legal aspects of this with just one final question. Where does this end, if the pharmacist in this case doesn't want to dispense this medication, what then if a cancer person comes in, and that pharmacist says, I don't like how that research as done, that's using stem cell research. Are you not putting too much power in the hands of the pharmacist when really that belongs with the doctors and the patients?

SASSER: Well, I think we have to realize that all healthcare professionals are a team and working together and everybody has a right to choose in what they're going to participate in. Here's the over arching concern you point out is really simply dealt with at the employer level. The employer -- they understand what the Civil Rights Act is and what the requirements are. They need to put safeguards in place to make sure when patients come in such as this poor girl here that really needed this medication for what she thought she needed, it's really something that the employer should put into place in order to make sure those patients are accommodated.

LOPEZ: Daryn, may I speak to that?

KAGAN: One final question for Destiny. What's the future for this medication? They're talking at putting it over the counter and it would take the power out of the pharmacist, like Mr. Herr?

LOPEZ: The FDA is actually considering proposal right now emergency contraception or Plan B one of the dedicated products available over the counter. The FDA actually came out with a ruling saying they were going to delay their decision for 90 days. It's imperative that they act to make this more readily available over the counter. It's a pregnancy prevention method that provides up to 1.5 million pregnancies, and up to 800,000 abortions each year. And that should be something that both sides can agree on.

KAGAN: Gene Herr, Hiram Sasser, Destiny Lopez, thank you all for the discussion tonight. Much appreciated.

HERR: Thank you for having us.

KAGAN: Much, much lighter conversation ahead. The richest player in baseball traded to the richest team? What's, the a poor Red Sox fan to do? They were so close to getting Alex Rodriguez.

Also, what one journalist witnessed when he was locked up in Saddam Hussein's most feared prison. He'll tell us his story heralding just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: The New York Yankees capped off one of the biggest trades in history today getting Alex Rodriguez from the Texas Rangers. Seeing A-Rod in pinstripes is a tough pill to swallow for Red Sox fans who were this close to signing but now Beantown has to deal with yet another crushing blow to its bitter rival. More now from Matt Morrison.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT MORRISON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Boston Red Sox fans have been convinced their team is cursed since the Sox sold the great Babe Ruth to the Yankees nearly 85 years ago. Now that Alex Rodriguez has slipped through their hands they're more certain than ever of the curse and are committed than ever to their hatred of the Yankees.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They buy their players, they buy a baseball team and they put it all together and it's just every -- I just want to swear, man.

MORRISON: Since the Babe left New England for New York in 1919 the Red Sox have not won a single world championship while the Yankees have won 26. Attempts to break the curse have been futile. A team of scientists recently tried to raise a piano supposedly dumped into a Boston area pond by Ruth in 1918. Attempts to provoke the Yankees haven't had much success either. Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino dubbed the Yankees the evil empire. Before last fall's American League Championship series he said, quote, "I think we know whom the force will be with," unquote.

It appeared Lucchino was on to something when Boston came within five outs of the World Series but then destiny stepped in and light- hitting Yankee third baseman Aaron Boone smacked a game-winning home run to send the Sox home. But it is the man who will replace Boone at third base who has the Red Sox nation hurting now. Boston was tantalizingly close to trading for Rodriguez in December and more importantly to getting one over on the hated Yankees. Instead, A-Rod will wear Yankee pinstripes, reinforcing Boston fans' belief that eventually all of baseball will turn to the dark side. I'm Matt Morrison.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Are the Yankees the evil empire and is the trade for A- Rod the latest chapter in the Boston curse? To talk about that, I'm joined from Watertown, Massachusetts, by Howie Carr coming out of mourning just for a moment to talk about this, a "Boston Herald" columnist and radio talk show hose and from Albany, New York, former Yankees pitchers, Jim Bowden, author of "Balfour and the new look" (ph). Gentlemen, good evening.

I've been spending all day in New York City in the glow of this trade. Give the word from Boston. Are people just beside themselves?

HOWIE CARR, COLUMNIST, "BOSTON HERALD": Yes, I think they're a little disappointed. Everybody thought this was the year that the so- called curse was going to end. Red Sox haven't won a championship since 1918. You know, it's sort of a pathology to be a Red Sox fan. You see things in a conspiratorial way, karma, unseen forces. And when Aaron Boone, the guy who beat the Red Sox last October, he was injured in an pick-up basketball game and suddenly it seemed like he was being punished by one of these unseen forces. And now it turns out that's what got the Yankees calling the Texas Rangers and that's the genesis of this A-Rod deal. It's really rubbing salt in the wounds of Red Sox fans.

KAGAN: You think Boone's knee hurts. This deal really hurts for Boston fans. Jim, we'll go ahead and bring you in. That third base position opens up the way for Alex Rodriguez to make the switch from short stop to third base and leads to one of the most incredible line- ups in the history of baseball. What are you going to say except it's sick how strong the Yankees are. Even Bud Selig, the commissioner said, you know, the math on this, I really don't like how it works out, there's so much cash involved, but, you know what, go ahead and make the deal.

JIM BOWDEN, FMR. YANKEE'S PITCHER: Well, I'm waiting for that first ground ball that gets by Jeter and A-Rod walks over and said, I could have had that.

KAGAN: Hey, bud, I have my two golden gloves. How many do you have? It will be interesting to see the competition that goes on between those two. But let's talk about this. It appears to be good for the Yankees because they're gloating. It appears to be good for A-Rod because he gets off of a last place team on to a championship contender. But, Jim, tell me this and put aside, if you can, your Yankee pinstripes. Is this good for baseball?

BOWDEN: Well, I mean, it's good in a sense that everybody's going to be talking about it now and it may be good for the Red Sox. Imagine if they had gotten A-Rod and still not won it? Boy, that would be really tough.

KAGAN: Do you want to pick up on that one, Howie?

CARR: I don't think we could imagine that happening, really. The only thing that the Red Sox fans have to sort of fall back on is that we go by all of these statistics that you read in the leagues. And no team has ever lost three 15-game winners like the Yankees did this winter and done anything afterwards. That's our only consolation here.

KAGAN: Well, here are some other numbers to throw at you. There are eight players in the major leagues making over $100 million. Four of them will now play for the New York Yankees. Even with all that, and you look at what they had last season, they did not win the World Series. You had the Florida Marlins winning and the year before that, the Anaheim Angels. So there still is a chance, perhaps, for those smaller market teams to pull it through.

BOWDEN: How about Texas?

KAGAN: How about Texas?

BOWDEN: Wouldn't it be great if they came on and won it?

CARR: I think one of the problems the Red Sox are going to have now is that their two top everyday players, Nomar and Manny Ramirez, they basically tried to unload them in their quest for A-Rod. So there's sort of that underlying tension remaining in the dugout. It's like the Red Sox grabbed for the main chance and now they're on the sidelines again. And it's just -- it's tough to swallow if you're a Red Sox fan.

KAGAN: Let me just throw one more thing out there. As many Yankee lovers as there are here in New York City and the surrounding area, there are plenty of Yankee haters out there. And this is just going to add more fuel to their fire.

CARR: How about the Mets? Didn't the Mets want A-Rod, Jim?

BOWDEN: Yes, they wanted him. You've got -- Mets fans are furious with the Mets front office. So you've got a lot of people angry about this trade. And if A-Rod doesn't come through, you'll have Yankee fans angry, too.

CARR: I think the Red Sox fans, too, the papers today have been doing the math and the way it works out is if the Red Sox owners had been willing to spend I think between $13 and $15 million more they could have had A-Rod. You know, I hear people on my show tonight saying, well, if they had $600 million to buy the team a couple years ago, they should have been able to come up with this extra 13 to get the best player in baseball to Fenway Park.

KAGAN: What do they say, that that's peanuts? And then just to wrap it all around for Chris (UNINTELLIGIBLE), Alex Rodriguez will give up number 3 because as Yankee fans know, that belongs to Babe Ruth. Thanks for being with us. Howie Carr and Jim Bowden. Spring training. We're on the eve. We'll see how the season plays out.

One man's chilling account of captivity inside Saddam Hussein's most feared prison will join us with his story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: For eight terrifying days last March while Baghdad was ablaze with bombs, a journalist and four other Westerners were Saddam Hussein's unwilling guests in the most horrific prison in the Mideast. It's called Abu Ghraib. That journalist was "Newsday's" prize-winning U.N. bureau chief and Middle East correspondent, Matthew McAllester. He's here to talk about his ordeal and his book, which is entitled "Blinded by the Sunlight." Matthew McAllester back from yet another visit to Iraq just five days ago, is with us this evening. Good evening, thanks for being with us.

MATTHEW MCALLESTER, AUTHOR: Thanks, Daryn.

KAGAN: Our time is so short and so many questions. I want to go back to when that ominous knock on the door came in that Baghdad hotel. Did you know you were in trouble right from the start?

MCALLESTER: I looked through the peep hole in the door and saw a bunch of men dressed -- some dressed in uniform, some in suits. And I thought this was trouble, but I didn't quite realize how troubling it was. It went on for a few hours, and ultimately it really sank in when they handcuffed me to my photographer colleague, Moises Saman, and then I thought we're really in trouble now. KAGAN: When you were taken to this prison, this is a notorious prison within Iraq, or around Baghdad, you knew, in fact, you told some of your companions, this is where we are, and this really is a bad deal.

MCALLESTER: Yeah, I had been there a few months earlier, with Moises, actually, when Saddam released all the prisoners in Iraq. So I knew its reputation. And they, I think, didn't. And so I tried sort of to quietly get the word to them, even though we had been told not to speak to each other, where we were.

KAGAN: And of those eight days, what was just the most awful moment that you know you'll never be able to shake the rest of your life?

MCALLESTER: I think it was, you know, the suffering of someone else that could have been us. And that was a prisoner who was on the same block. And he was being beaten very badly. And ultimately, all of the Iraqi or Arab prisoners on our block, there were 15 cells, five of us, and 10 of them, and they were all executed. And after the war, about 10 days after the war, I went back and saw them being dug up from a shallow grave just outside where we were held. So I think the combination of those two moments made it sort of sink in rather profoundly.

KAGAN: When people say eight days, what's eight days when you compare the years that many people, Iraqis, spent in this time. But you couldn't know at any point in those eight days that it was going to soon end.

MCALLESTER: No, but it is a good point. Eight days was nothing compared to 20 years in torture that many people went through. What I've tried to do in the book is to use that as a window. I mean, I'm -- not many Westerners got to see inside Saddam's regime of terror, and I saw it in its last few days. And it was a glimpse that hopefully has enabled me to shed some light on what, you know, millions, hundreds of thousands of people went through, pure hell.

KAGAN: And you've since been back. Was it hard to go back, or knowing that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power?

MCALLESTER: It was a little hard immediately after the war and after prison. I was feeling a little bit shaky, I suppose. But no, I'm fine now. So, you know, this recent trip was just fascinating. I mean, to see how the country's changing. And you know, it is changing in fits and starts in some level, but quite radically in others.

KAGAN: And scary for a whole other reason, because you don't know where suicide attacks are going to take place at any given time.

MCALLESTER: Yeah, I mean, the enemy is sort of different, of a different nature. And some of your colleagues, CNN colleagues, were very tragically killed.

KAGAN: Lost two. MCALLESTER: And so I think journalists now are targets, which oddly, under -- in spite of what happened to us, under Saddam we were not, you know, targeted for that kind of, you know, terrible killing. So there are other concerns.

KAGAN: It's a dangerous time. And it's brave people like you who go and tell the stories. Matthew McAllester, thank you.

MCALLESTER: Thank you.

KAGAN: Good luck with the book. Appreciate it.

MCALLESTER: Thanks.

KAGAN: When the mess takes over your life, we'll show you the serious problem of people who hoard.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: If you have piles of newspapers you haven't read yet can't throw away, or closets full of clothes that you never wear but can't bear to part with, you're probably just a harmless clutterer. But taken to the extreme, it can cross over into a psychological illness. Our Jeanne Moos has a story that may make you feel a bit less guilty about the mess in your house.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you think you have trouble throwing stuff away, try finding your remote in this living room.

DR. RANDY FROST, CONSULTANT, NYC TASK FORCE ON HOARDING: This is where they sat during the evening and watched TV.

MOOS: And Martha Stewart wouldn't approve of this kitchen.

FROST: Every surface is covered.

MOOS: Psychologists call it hoarding.

FROST: The woman whose home we toured saved the inside cardboard of toilet paper rolls.

MOOS: Dr. Randy Frost was the keynote speaker at a conference on hoarding at Cardozo Law School, a conference held just weeks after a Bronx man was buried under his belongings, trapped for two days until neighbors found him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I saw was the guy's head, covered with old books and everything, piles and piles of stuff on top of him.

MOOS: New York's most famous hoarders were the well-to-do Collyer brothers. Both brothers were found dead in 1947. One was trapped under junk, the other starved. New York firemen still refer to any call to a junk-filled apartment as a Collyer. And then there's animal hoarding.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's hard to walk in this apartment.

MOOS: This woman faced eviction, along with her nearly 100 cats.

(on camera): Some people are going to say, there's that like nutty cat lady.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I know. They always, you know, there's the weirdo going, the one that likes the cats. Well.

MOOS (voice-over): Hoarders think they're saving animals. They tend to be in denial about the squalor they live in. True hoarders find comfort in their possessions. The occupant of this house started to cry when she tried to throw away an old ATM slip with errands scribbled on the back saying...

FROST: If I throw this away, I'll lose this day.

MOOS: Hoarders tend to be intelligent yet unable to make decisions. They think spatially.

FROST: So if were to ask her where her telephone bill is, she might be able to say, well, it's about a foot down in the pile and a little over to the left.

MOOS: This hallway holds a decade worth of wrapped gifts that the occupant bought but couldn't part with. Hoarders' homes tend to be laced with goat trails.

FROST: A small pathway through the home, about one foot wide.

MOOS (on camera): But just because you can't bring yourself to throw out a pile of magazines doesn't necessarily make you a hoarder.

Hi, Mike.

(voice-over): The difference between a hoarder and a clutterer?

FROST: When the clutter begins to interfere with the ability to function. So if you can't cook because your stove is covered with things...

MOOS: Clutter like the cat in a hot tin pot.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: All right, that's our clue. Time for us to clean up our clutter from the evening. Thanks for being with us tonight. Tomorrow, join us at 8:00 p.m. Eastern for coverage of the Wisconsin primary. I'll also see you at 10:00 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning. "LARRY KING LIVE" is up next. Good night.

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





Help or Hurt Victims?>


Aired February 16, 2004 - 20:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Daryn Kagan, in for Paula Zahn.
The world, the news, the names, the faces, and where we go from here Monday, February 16, 2004.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN (voice-over): "In Focus" tonight: the dimensions of sex abuse in the church, 11,000 allegations. Will the report from the Roman Catholic Church help the healing or further enrage the victims?

Also, on the eve of the Wisconsin primary, Howard Dean's campaign manager on whether he is in or out.

And they're screaming damn Yankees again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just want to swear, man. I can't be on camera. I just want to swear.

KAGAN: The curse of the Bambino hits Boston one more time, Alex Rodriguez.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Also tonight, the journalist who did time in Saddam's worst prison and the pharmacist who refused to dispense morning-after pills.

But first, here's what you need to know right now.

A security scare today along the U.S.-Canadian border between Washington and British Columbia. Officials stopped a woman when they found a grenade in the glove compartment of her car. They say they think it was an innocent mistake. The woman told them her the husband is in the service and just returned from Iraq.

On the eve of the Wisconsin primary, we are putting the Howard Dean campaign meltdown "In Focus." Today, campaign chairman Steve Grossman is out, ready, he tells a newspaper, to reach out to rival John Kerry. And then there's Dean's varied statements about whether he will stay in the race if he loses tomorrow.

Joining us, James Carville, co-host of "CROSSFIRE," and regular contributor and "TIME" magazine columnist Joe Klein.

Gentlemen, good evening. Thanks for being with us.

JOE KLEIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Hi.

JAMES CARVILLE, CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": All right.

KLEIN: Good to be here.

KAGAN: James, let's start with the campaign expert. I don't know. It doesn't look like a very good sign when your campaign chairman says, I'll be with the other guy.

CARVILLE: Well, it's not a very good sign. We've been through, what, something like 16 primaries and he has yet to win one. It's kind of redundant here.

I think the voters are kind of delivering their verdict here. And if Steve Grossman is out of the campaign or not -- I know Steve. He's a fine guy. But, I mean, a real point here is that Howard Dean can't win anything. So what -- that's what's causing all of this.

KAGAN: Well, that's Grossman's way of making that statement.

But, Joe, let's bring you in here. And you kind of need a scorecard to keep up with what Howard Dean intends to be to do here. Just over the last few days, February 5, Howard Dean says: "The entire race has come down to this. We must win Wisconsin. Anything less will put us out of the race." But, on the 15th, he says: "No, no, no, we're not dropping out after Wisconsin. We're in this for the long haul." And then today he says: "We're going to just see how we do. I'll have plenty to say after Wisconsin, whether we win or lose."

Will the real Howard Dean stand up and say what he's exactly plans to do?

CARVILLE: In a sense, I have sympathy for him, because he's been out there. He's been campaigning forever, long, hard. He's exhausted. He's tired. It just doesn't matter.

The voters are going to -- he's going to lose tomorrow. He's going to lose big. It doesn't matter if he stays in or gets out. He's not going to be the Democratic nominee. He's not going to have much of an effect on this race. I suspect, in the end, he will say, you know what? I'm going to get behind the nominee. I'm going to rally my people. I'm going to do this. I have a good future ahead of me in the politics. And he has. He's contributed a lot to the Democratic Party.

KAGAN: Let's bring Joe in from Madison, Wisconsin.

He has done a lot to invigorate this Democratic campaign, but is the way this is ending, with kind of the uncertain ending, is that kind of taking away from what Howard Dean has contributed?

KLEIN: Well, this is a really sad -- this is much more of a personal story at this point than a political story. I mean, this guy seems to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He was as high as you could possibly get as politician, what, four weeks ago, five weeks ago? And now he's about as low as you could possibly get. I've not seen a campaign before where the chairman quit the day before a primary. And you're right, I think that he did add an awful lot to this process. He was the speed horse in this race. He made everybody else run harder and faster.

I think he made John Kerry and John Edwards much better candidates. He really defined the issues. And it's kind of sad to see it go out in this kind of total mess.

KAGAN: Well, let's go ahead now and look at the guy who is in first place, Senator John Kerry. It looked like there was the potential for a scandal on Friday, when the senator came out and said, categorically no, he had not had an affair with an intern.

Today, we hear from the alleged young woman. She has put out a statement of her own. And we have that statement, where me says: "I have never had a relationship with Senator Kerry and the rumors in the press are completely false. Whoever is spreading these rumors and allegations does not know me, but they should know the pain they have caused my family." And, she adds, "It seems that efforts to peddle these lies continue, so I feel compelled to address them."

So now we've heard from the senator. We've heard from the woman who says she wasn't the lover. Does this put this one away forever?

KLEIN: It should never have come up in the first place. We have a new standard for sex scandals now.

I mean, you know, on Friday, there wasn't a scandal, because no one had made an accusation. It was just that it had come up in an Internet site. And the rest of the press kept its distance, although some people jumped on it. And, you know, this was never a real story. And it shouldn't be.

I don't care where it's Republican, Democrat, or Martian. Unless someone makes a real serious accusation, we in the press should stay away from this stuff.

KAGAN: Well, and, James, because the press is staying away from it, what about those that say this is a literal conspiracy, that they're not covering this like they should?

CARVILLE: Well, you could knock me over with a feather. I didn't know we were staying away from it. I thought you just had this big intro and asked me about it. How the hell are we staying away from it? We're right in the middle of the thing.

And the reason that this is happening is, is, you've got Matt Drudge, who is one of the slimiest, sleaziest, in my opinion, human beings that exists. He accused a dear friend of mine falsely of beating his wife. What else can you say?

(CROSSTALK) KAGAN: No, but he did...

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: Come on. You know, CNN, all these cable networks, everybody loves this kind of stuff and just looking for any kind of opening to throw anything out there.

I will tell you, this is a shame for this young woman. It's a shame for her parents. It's a shame for when we have deficits and we've got wars and we've got everything. And, no, the press can't give itself any credit in this, because they were just dying to get ahold of this issue.

KAGAN: All right, and that will be the last word. James Carville, Joe Klein, thank you, gentlemen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I absolutely do not feel betrayed by Steve Grossman. I consider him to have worked very, very hard for this campaign, including at times where we were not on the map. It's easy to work for a front-runner. Steve was there before we were anybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: And so now we're back to Howard Dean. He is parting ways with his campaign chairman.

We turn to Roy Neel, senior adviser to the Dean campaign. He's joining us from Burlington, Vermont this evening.

Roy, thanks for being with us.

ROY NEEL, HOWARD DEAN CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: Good evening.

KAGAN: As we watch Mr. Grossman, this pretty much is over, is it not? Is the Dean campaign all but done?

NEEL: No, not at all.

We wish Steve well. He has his own agenda now. He's up there in Boston. I'm sure he feels a lot of pressure from some of his friends in the Kerry campaign. And that's fine, whatever he wants to do. This campaign is moving forward. We've got a lot of energy in Wisconsin. We're going to surprise some people tomorrow night. And, as Governor Dean has said, we're going to move forward.

It's way too early to hold a coronation. We have got a lot of delegates yet to be chosen. There's a lot of voting left to be done. And Super Tuesday is a big day. And we'll be prepared to fight on for it.

KAGAN: Well, Roy, if you want to talk about surprises, you don't need to look much farther than what Governor Dean has to say. You saw the list of statements we put up just over the last week and a half. Governor Dean seems from day to day change his mind. He's in, he's out, he's in. How do you convince people to support you if you can't even get your message straight about whether you're sticking with your campaign or not?

NEEL: Well, I think you have both the chronology and the message not quite right. He has never said he's getting out of this campaign.

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: He did say that he was basing it all on Wisconsin. You're saying he didn't say that now?

NEEL: He did not say he's withdrawing from this campaign after Wisconsin at all. I mean, we put out an appeal, a fund-raising appeal to our grassroots.

We've got almost 400,000 donors that sent in $25, $30, $50. And they spoke up and they said, yes, fight on in Wisconsin. That was an enormously successful appeal and gratifying appeal. And it gave us the resources to be in Wisconsin right now and to do as well as we're going to do. I think we're going to surprise some people tomorrow night. This campaign is going to go on.

KAGAN: So it sounds like you're advising your man to stay in the race. But can you tell us candidly what kind of pressure you are getting from the Democratic Party for Governor Dean to get out?

NEEL: Oh, I'm not getting any pressure from anyone.

The only pressure that comes is from the kind of media drumbeat. Look, James and Joe are old friends of mine, but I think they've been talking into the microphone a little too long this season. This campaign is not over. This primary has been enormously successful in raising up the Democratic Party. We've come from nowhere in late 2002, when Howard Dean got in this race and has raised the energy of this campaign and has brought it to new highs.

And the Democratic Party is now held in regard twice as favorably in the American public as it was a little over a year ago. So there's no reason to stop this now. We've got a long way to go. It's helping the Democratic Party. It's been very positive. And there's just no reason to cut it off.

KAGAN: Well, you even heard your old friends giving credit to Howard Dean for invigorating the Democratic Party and for bringing interest into these primaries. But talk about no reason to get out. He hasn't won a single primary, and even tomorrow, it doesn't look very promising in Wisconsin.

NEEL: Well, we'll see.

This is a race to get the majority of the delegates to win the nomination. Now, I know people are saying, well, you won this many and so on, but, you know, look what happens in college basketball every year. I'm a big college basketball fan. And you've got lots of teams that win a lot of games early on and then, all of a sudden, you know, maybe they get into March madness and they collapse. Who knows what's going to happen.

Senator Kerry has run a good campaign. He's clearly the dominant front-runner. But John Edwards and Howard Dean are still in there. And I think they're both running vigorous campaigns. And we think ours is going to be successful tomorrow and will go on.

KAGAN: And so you're looking for Howard Dean to become the Cinderella story. The only problem, Roy, is that he went into this as a No. 1 seed and that's where the story goes.

We'll leave it with that, with the analogy of college basketball. Roy Neel, thank you so much.

NEEL: Thank you.

KAGAN: And we're going to invite you to join us tomorrow night for complete coverage of the Wisconsin primary, starting at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

What is next for the Catholic Church, in the face of report of 11,000 allegations of abuse against priests over the last 50 years?

And we'll talk to a pharmacist who says he was fired for refusing to fill a prescription for the morning-after pill.

Also, the rich get richer. Baseball's blockbuster trade leaves Boston fans out in the cold.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Startling numbers today in a draft report on the abuse in the Catholic Church. The report was commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Bishops. It lists widespread abuse allegations against clergy.

Our Jason Carroll is live with more from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, where the report was prepared.

Jason, good evening.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good evening to you, Daryn.

As you said, that draft report was put together by some of the researches here at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. We have been able to look at the major portions of the report. Here are some of the key figures that we were able to find in this report.

Church records indicate that 4,450 priests were accused of sexual abuse between 1950 and 2002. The survey also found that some 11,000 abuse claims were filed during that same period, many of the victims under the age of 11. The report also found that most of the abuse took place before 1980. The head of the U.S. Conference of Bishops released a statement today saying that he had not seen a draft report. But he did say that he expected the report's numbers to be sobering.

Again, this is a draft report, Daryn, so we are going to expect there to be several changes to this report before it is finally released to the public on February 27 -- Daryn.

KAGAN: As you said, the some of the numbers are absolutely staggering, especially the recidivism rate, Jason. Does it address how that happened and how so many priests who had these allegations against them were allowed to continue in their positions and, according to this report, allowed to continue to abuse other victims?

CARROLL: Well, that's interesting.

The report will go into or did go into why this abuse was allowed to go on for such a long period of time. Some of the examples that they found, for one, failure to grasp the gravity of the problem. Another point here, an overemphasis on trying to avoid scandal, trying to keep it hidden, also the use of unqualified treatment centers for some of these priests that were accused of abuse -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Jason Carroll, giving us our first look at that report, thank you very much.

Let's get some reaction now on the church abuse report. From Saint Louis, I'm joined by David Clohessy, national director of SNAP. That's Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. And joining us from Philadelphia is associate professor of theology at DeSales University Larry Chapp, who, we must say, does not represent the Catholic Church.

Gentlemen, good evening. Thank you for joining us this evening.

LARRY CHAPP, ASSOC. THEOLOGY PROFESSOR, DESALES UNIVERSITY: Thank you.

DAVID CLOHESSY, NATIONAL DIRECTOR, SNAP: Thank you, Daryn.

KAGAN: David, I'd like to go ahead and start with you.

The numbers can be jaw-dropping and yet you suspect they don't even come close to the abuse you suspect that has taken place in the church.

CLOHESSY: Sure.

We have to look at history and look at common sense. This is a survey, a voluntary self-survey of bishops, the men who got us into this problem to begin with and the men who spent millions of dollars over decades to try to keep all this hidden. So it's naive to think that somehow bishops have done a complete turnaround and are voluntarily telling the whole truth.

And these are also credible allegations, by the bishop's own admission. In the survey, it said don't respond if you think the allegations are not credible. So we think the numbers are very, very low. KAGAN: Let's bring Larry Chapp in here.

What's your take on this latest survey?

CHAPP: Well, my take is that I am, too, surprised by the high number. I was anticipating that the number would be less, around 2 percent of the total number of priests. It turns out to have been about 4 percent of the total number of priests.

However, I don't agree with David Clohessy. I think that the bishops at the point have no real vested interest in hiding anything further. They've been caught short. They realize they've done terrible things and they've made some very bad judgments. And right now, it is in the bishops' best interests to come clean. And I think that they are really making a very good-faith effort to do that.

Now, it might be that the numbers are slightly under-reported. But I don't think it's because of any past pattern that he's suggesting. I think it does have to do with the survey nature of this report. I think the numbers are pretty accurate.

KAGAN: And, David, before we let you get back in there, I want to go ahead and, for our audience, bring back some of these numbers, again the recidivism rate; 25 percent of those in the report had two or three allegations; 13 percent had four to nine allegations.

Part of the problem, as you see it, not just that this alleged abuse took place, but that it was allowed to take place over and over again.

CLOHESSY: Exactly.

The problem with the report is that it focuses, again, on the bad apples in the barrel and not on the men overseeing the barrel. Let's face it. There always has been and always will be abusers in every walk of life. The issue is, what do you do when the allegations come forward? And this report suggests that, in better than half of the cases, there were multiple allegations. And, to be honest, we still see that today.

We see 10 priests serving right now in Los Angeles who are facing civil lawsuits. We see three priests in Brooklyn serving despite civil lawsuits.

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: But let me just ask you this, David.

And, Larry, I'll bring you back in a second.

CHAPP: Sure.

KAGAN: But do you see progress in this? It's not that long ago. Can you think back to the day when, even to see a report like this, the church doing their own report and their own admission, you would never have expected this to happen. CLOHESSY: No, there certainly has been progress.

The sad truth, though, Daryn, is that it's come only because of external pressure. And the bulk of the progress is in the secular world, the police, the prosecutors, the judges, lawmakers. They take this much more seriously. And that's why we encourage victims to report to secular authorities, civil authorities, not to church officials.

KAGAN: And, Larry, on that note, can you see David's point, that it has been outside the church, the pressure, that has brought along this process, and that's why those people can't let up at this point?

CHAPP: Oh, I agree. I think that, really, the problem may have been ongoing if external pressure had not been brought to bear on the bishops.

But, as you noted earlier, the cases -- most of the cases that were reported on today were cases that took place before 1980. And whether or not there are still some anomalies in the way that the new charter is being applied or not is an open question. And we can debate that. But I don't think there's any doubt that, over the past 10 years in particular, the bishops have made great strides in policing themselves and in upgrading the manner in which the Catholic Church goes about dealing with this issue.

I don't know of any other institutions in the United States right now that is being as aggressive in terms of implementing new policies for weeding these things out. As he noted, there's no profession in the United States that is free of this sort of problem. And yet I don't know of any other organization in the United States that has gone to this length to sort of examine itself publicly.

KAGAN: And I'm sorry. That's going to have to be the last word. Sorry, David. I appreciate it. David Clohessy, Larry Chapp, thank you for joining us, giving us your first take on this draft report. We do expect the final draft to be coming by the end of the month. Gentlemen, thank you.

CHAPP: Thank you.

CLOHESSY: Thank you, Daryn.

KAGAN: We're going to show you rare pictures of the new face of power in Iraq, a reclusive religious leader.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID PHILLIPS, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: If Ayatollah Sistani were to issue a fatwa against the United States, he could have a million people in the streets of Najaf and elsewhere around Iraq overnight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: And a chilling look inside what was Saddam Hussein's most feared prison from a jailed journalist who lived to tell his story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: His appearance brings back chilling memories of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. And observers say, the wrong word from him could bring American efforts in Iraq to a humiliating end.

Brent Sadler now has a profile of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Iraqi holy man who no one wants to cross.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rare pictures of one of Iraq's most influential religious leaders, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Devotees beat a path to his humble gate, near the golden dome of the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf. Gun-toting guards control the crowds and protect him from rivals. Sistani is a reclusive Shia Muslim cleric whose fatwas, or religious rulings, are rigorously obeyed, wielding a certain kind of new Iraqi power.

PHILLIPS: If Ayatollah Sistani were to issue a fatwa against the United States, he could have a million people in the streets of Najaf and elsewhere around Iraq overnight.

SADLER: Iraq's Shia, brutally repressed by Saddam Hussein, are now marshaling their majority to take power in direct elections, "not in an occupied state," Sistani told a United Nations team last week, "but in a sovereign Iraq," a politically savvy move, says this lawyer.

CHIBLI MALLAT, CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER: And the fact that, six months ago, nobody had heard of him and today he calls the shots in Iraq, suggests that he's much more in touch than the image he's projecting of a recluse, bearded old man, gives to an American public.

SADLER (on camera): The grand ayatollah is difficult, if not impossible, for most people to see. And he is often a puzzle to understand. But his words, mostly written, not spoken, especially in public, can sway the Shiite masses.

(voice-over): Some U.S. and Iraqi officials worry that Iranian- style governance, defined by late Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution, could gain ground in Iraq, but not with Sistani, they hope, even though the grand ayatollah has strong religious ties to Iran.

HOSHYAR ZEBARI, IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL: Even Sistani really is not that type of Khomeini revolutionary cleric. In fact, he's been moderate in his views and considerate.

SADLER: The Iraqi Shia have the winds in their sails. Sistani seems to be their captain, navigating a boiling sea in American waters.

MALLAT: Any breakdown of the relationship between the Americans and Sistani will mean that it will be unsustainable for the Americans to remain in Iraq and that civil war is inevitable.

SADLER: So, when Sistani makes declarations these days, everyone listens.

Brent Sadler, CNN, Najaf.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: A pharmacist cites his religious beliefs for refusing to fill a prescription for the morning-after pill. Now he's been fired. We'll meet him.

Also, the curse of the Bambino strikes again, as the Yankees close a deal for Alex Rodriguez and Red Sox fans weep away.

And tomorrow, could it be the end for Howard Dean's presidential campaign? Our coverage of the Wisconsin primary begins at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Here's what you need to know right now; 300 cruise ship passengers are recovering from a stomach bug on a Valentine's cruise to Mexico. This is the latest of several virus outbreaks on cruise ships over the last couple of years. What can you do to avoid a wasted vacation?

Joining us from Atlanta is Dr. Phyllis Kozarsky of the Emory University School of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Doctor, good evening. Thanks for being with us.

DR. PHYLLIS KOZARSKY, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE: Thank you.

KAGAN: This sounds like an absolutely miserable cruise; 21 percent of the passengers were infected with the norovirus. What is it and how do you get it?

KOZARSKY: Well, norovirus is a part of a family of viruses called Caliciviridae. And it's probably one of the most common causes of food-borne illness nowadays. And you can get it, unfortunately, a number of ways. It can be transmitted by contaminated food and water. And unfortunately it can also be transmitted by contaminated surfaces. And it can live on these surfaces for a while, so that it's very, very easily transmitted and it takes...

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: I'm sorry, doctor.

What is it about these cruise ships that just looks like it's love boat but for the germs?

KOZARSKY: Well, it isn't actually just the cruise ships. It's anywhere. Vacationers going on cruise ships, restaurants, military units, this virus is really present everywhere. It's unfortunate that it's obvious when you have a group of a few thousand people or even a few hundred people together on a cruise ship that it would be more obvious when an outbreak occurs.

KAGAN: So, how do you protect yourself and would you go on a cruise, knowing what you know about all of these people getting off the boat so sick?

KOZARSKY: First of all, yes, I would very much go on a cruise. I don't think it's isolated to the cruise industry, certainly. And that's very important, is to be -- enable people to go on these cruises and not say people shouldn't go. One of the more important things that we tell people when they travel or when they're at home is that they should wash their hands much more frequently than they do. First of all, people should not be traveling or go on a cruise if they're ill. If they become ill, they should let the cruise physicians, the medical department know. Often times it's helpful to segregate people who might be ill in their cabins, where they can remain until they're well, or unfortunately, sometimes they should disembark at the next place where the cruise ship is going.

KAGAN: Giving us the best advice -- the actually advice that our mothers all did, just wash your hands and take care of yourself.

KOZARSKY: Absolutely.

KAGAN: Dr. thank you for that advice. And we hope you get an invitation for that cruise very soon.

Dr. Phyllis Kozarsky, of the Emory University School of Medicine and Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

The battle over abortion tonight centers on the morning-after pill. Eckerd corporation has fired three pharmacists who refuse to give the pill two a woman who was raped. Why, well, joining us from Dallas, Hiram Sasser the director of Litigation for Liberty Legal Institution, a pro-life public interest law firm. Also we have one of the pharmacists who was let go, Gene Herr, he joins us from Dallas.

And joining us from New York, Destiny Lopez director from Emergency Contraceptive Access Campaign.

KAGAN: Good evening to all of you, and thank you for being with us.

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: I want to go right to you, Mr. Heir, because you're one of the pharmacist whose made that decision, who are you and who gives you the right to make a decision not just for any woman but a woman who had already been through the trauma of rape?

GENE HERR, FIRED PHARMACIST: My name is Gene and I was there and a patient generally brought in a prescription, and basically in this case, the doctor made a moral decision to dispense the medication, but I don't feel that it's his right to impose that morality on to anybody else. And basically, I didn't make any decision for the woman. The only decision I made was for myself and the other pharmacists, did the same thing, we didn't want to be participating in a chain of events that could take a child's life.

KAGAN: According to -- we looked up the statutes in the state of Texas and it says that when you look at individual providers for contraception, you actually aren't supposed to fill that role, you're supposed to fill the prescription for the medication, that that's not supposed to happen at your level.

HERR: Well, like I say, I don't feel that anybody -- I mean, she has the right to choose to take this medication. But in the same way, everybody has the right to refuse to participate in an abortion.

KAGAN: Destiny, do you want to jump in on this? There are those who would say the morning after pill is not an abortion, that it actually prevents conception from taking place in the first place.

DESTINY LOPEZ, EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION ACCESS CAMPAIGN: That's right. Emergency contraception is a method to prevent pregnancy. And just as Mr. Heir thinks that he has the right to deny a woman, a woman should have a right to walk into a pharmacy with a valid prescription from a licensed prescriber and except that prescription to be filled without any question as to what her intention is with that medication. She's had a decision made by a medical doctor. She's been through a traumatic event in this case, and she should expect to that have prescription filled. And in fact, Mr. Herr, as you said, was obligated not only by state law but by his own company's policy to provide that medication to the woman upon receipt of that prescription.

KAGAN: Mr. Sasser, I want you to talk about, I guess you wouldn't be representing your client if you didn't think he was legally wrong by being fired?

HIRAM SASSER, LIBERTY LEGAL INSTITUTE: That's right. There's no law that requires a pharmacist to dispense any particular type of medication. As a matter of fact, there is a law that Congress passed called the Civil Rights Act that protects all employee that would like to have some sort of religious accommodation from their employer. And in this case, Eckerd was required by federal law to accommodate Mr. Herr's belief that he doesn't want to participate in an abortion procedure. That's all we're talking about here, is everybody should really have the right to choose. And in this case, every pharmacist has a right to choose whether or not they want to participate in a abortion procedure.

KAGAN: So, Mr. Herr, just so I understand it, you feel like your civil rights were violated but you don't feel like you violated the civil rights of the woman that had already been through this rape, that was just looking to prevent a pregnancy?

HERR: Right. Though the medication does prevent ovulation, there's no way to know that the patient hadn't already conceived. And if the patient had already conceived, this medication would kill the child. And I'm just not willing to play Russian roulette with a human's life.

KAGAN: And some people would suggest the woman is a life to be dealt with here, too. But Mr. Sasser, I want to bring you here to look at if legal aspects of this with just one final question. Where does this end, if the pharmacist in this case doesn't want to dispense this medication, what then if a cancer person comes in, and that pharmacist says, I don't like how that research as done, that's using stem cell research. Are you not putting too much power in the hands of the pharmacist when really that belongs with the doctors and the patients?

SASSER: Well, I think we have to realize that all healthcare professionals are a team and working together and everybody has a right to choose in what they're going to participate in. Here's the over arching concern you point out is really simply dealt with at the employer level. The employer -- they understand what the Civil Rights Act is and what the requirements are. They need to put safeguards in place to make sure when patients come in such as this poor girl here that really needed this medication for what she thought she needed, it's really something that the employer should put into place in order to make sure those patients are accommodated.

LOPEZ: Daryn, may I speak to that?

KAGAN: One final question for Destiny. What's the future for this medication? They're talking at putting it over the counter and it would take the power out of the pharmacist, like Mr. Herr?

LOPEZ: The FDA is actually considering proposal right now emergency contraception or Plan B one of the dedicated products available over the counter. The FDA actually came out with a ruling saying they were going to delay their decision for 90 days. It's imperative that they act to make this more readily available over the counter. It's a pregnancy prevention method that provides up to 1.5 million pregnancies, and up to 800,000 abortions each year. And that should be something that both sides can agree on.

KAGAN: Gene Herr, Hiram Sasser, Destiny Lopez, thank you all for the discussion tonight. Much appreciated.

HERR: Thank you for having us.

KAGAN: Much, much lighter conversation ahead. The richest player in baseball traded to the richest team? What's, the a poor Red Sox fan to do? They were so close to getting Alex Rodriguez.

Also, what one journalist witnessed when he was locked up in Saddam Hussein's most feared prison. He'll tell us his story heralding just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: The New York Yankees capped off one of the biggest trades in history today getting Alex Rodriguez from the Texas Rangers. Seeing A-Rod in pinstripes is a tough pill to swallow for Red Sox fans who were this close to signing but now Beantown has to deal with yet another crushing blow to its bitter rival. More now from Matt Morrison.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT MORRISON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Boston Red Sox fans have been convinced their team is cursed since the Sox sold the great Babe Ruth to the Yankees nearly 85 years ago. Now that Alex Rodriguez has slipped through their hands they're more certain than ever of the curse and are committed than ever to their hatred of the Yankees.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They buy their players, they buy a baseball team and they put it all together and it's just every -- I just want to swear, man.

MORRISON: Since the Babe left New England for New York in 1919 the Red Sox have not won a single world championship while the Yankees have won 26. Attempts to break the curse have been futile. A team of scientists recently tried to raise a piano supposedly dumped into a Boston area pond by Ruth in 1918. Attempts to provoke the Yankees haven't had much success either. Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino dubbed the Yankees the evil empire. Before last fall's American League Championship series he said, quote, "I think we know whom the force will be with," unquote.

It appeared Lucchino was on to something when Boston came within five outs of the World Series but then destiny stepped in and light- hitting Yankee third baseman Aaron Boone smacked a game-winning home run to send the Sox home. But it is the man who will replace Boone at third base who has the Red Sox nation hurting now. Boston was tantalizingly close to trading for Rodriguez in December and more importantly to getting one over on the hated Yankees. Instead, A-Rod will wear Yankee pinstripes, reinforcing Boston fans' belief that eventually all of baseball will turn to the dark side. I'm Matt Morrison.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Are the Yankees the evil empire and is the trade for A- Rod the latest chapter in the Boston curse? To talk about that, I'm joined from Watertown, Massachusetts, by Howie Carr coming out of mourning just for a moment to talk about this, a "Boston Herald" columnist and radio talk show hose and from Albany, New York, former Yankees pitchers, Jim Bowden, author of "Balfour and the new look" (ph). Gentlemen, good evening.

I've been spending all day in New York City in the glow of this trade. Give the word from Boston. Are people just beside themselves?

HOWIE CARR, COLUMNIST, "BOSTON HERALD": Yes, I think they're a little disappointed. Everybody thought this was the year that the so- called curse was going to end. Red Sox haven't won a championship since 1918. You know, it's sort of a pathology to be a Red Sox fan. You see things in a conspiratorial way, karma, unseen forces. And when Aaron Boone, the guy who beat the Red Sox last October, he was injured in an pick-up basketball game and suddenly it seemed like he was being punished by one of these unseen forces. And now it turns out that's what got the Yankees calling the Texas Rangers and that's the genesis of this A-Rod deal. It's really rubbing salt in the wounds of Red Sox fans.

KAGAN: You think Boone's knee hurts. This deal really hurts for Boston fans. Jim, we'll go ahead and bring you in. That third base position opens up the way for Alex Rodriguez to make the switch from short stop to third base and leads to one of the most incredible line- ups in the history of baseball. What are you going to say except it's sick how strong the Yankees are. Even Bud Selig, the commissioner said, you know, the math on this, I really don't like how it works out, there's so much cash involved, but, you know what, go ahead and make the deal.

JIM BOWDEN, FMR. YANKEE'S PITCHER: Well, I'm waiting for that first ground ball that gets by Jeter and A-Rod walks over and said, I could have had that.

KAGAN: Hey, bud, I have my two golden gloves. How many do you have? It will be interesting to see the competition that goes on between those two. But let's talk about this. It appears to be good for the Yankees because they're gloating. It appears to be good for A-Rod because he gets off of a last place team on to a championship contender. But, Jim, tell me this and put aside, if you can, your Yankee pinstripes. Is this good for baseball?

BOWDEN: Well, I mean, it's good in a sense that everybody's going to be talking about it now and it may be good for the Red Sox. Imagine if they had gotten A-Rod and still not won it? Boy, that would be really tough.

KAGAN: Do you want to pick up on that one, Howie?

CARR: I don't think we could imagine that happening, really. The only thing that the Red Sox fans have to sort of fall back on is that we go by all of these statistics that you read in the leagues. And no team has ever lost three 15-game winners like the Yankees did this winter and done anything afterwards. That's our only consolation here.

KAGAN: Well, here are some other numbers to throw at you. There are eight players in the major leagues making over $100 million. Four of them will now play for the New York Yankees. Even with all that, and you look at what they had last season, they did not win the World Series. You had the Florida Marlins winning and the year before that, the Anaheim Angels. So there still is a chance, perhaps, for those smaller market teams to pull it through.

BOWDEN: How about Texas?

KAGAN: How about Texas?

BOWDEN: Wouldn't it be great if they came on and won it?

CARR: I think one of the problems the Red Sox are going to have now is that their two top everyday players, Nomar and Manny Ramirez, they basically tried to unload them in their quest for A-Rod. So there's sort of that underlying tension remaining in the dugout. It's like the Red Sox grabbed for the main chance and now they're on the sidelines again. And it's just -- it's tough to swallow if you're a Red Sox fan.

KAGAN: Let me just throw one more thing out there. As many Yankee lovers as there are here in New York City and the surrounding area, there are plenty of Yankee haters out there. And this is just going to add more fuel to their fire.

CARR: How about the Mets? Didn't the Mets want A-Rod, Jim?

BOWDEN: Yes, they wanted him. You've got -- Mets fans are furious with the Mets front office. So you've got a lot of people angry about this trade. And if A-Rod doesn't come through, you'll have Yankee fans angry, too.

CARR: I think the Red Sox fans, too, the papers today have been doing the math and the way it works out is if the Red Sox owners had been willing to spend I think between $13 and $15 million more they could have had A-Rod. You know, I hear people on my show tonight saying, well, if they had $600 million to buy the team a couple years ago, they should have been able to come up with this extra 13 to get the best player in baseball to Fenway Park.

KAGAN: What do they say, that that's peanuts? And then just to wrap it all around for Chris (UNINTELLIGIBLE), Alex Rodriguez will give up number 3 because as Yankee fans know, that belongs to Babe Ruth. Thanks for being with us. Howie Carr and Jim Bowden. Spring training. We're on the eve. We'll see how the season plays out.

One man's chilling account of captivity inside Saddam Hussein's most feared prison will join us with his story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: For eight terrifying days last March while Baghdad was ablaze with bombs, a journalist and four other Westerners were Saddam Hussein's unwilling guests in the most horrific prison in the Mideast. It's called Abu Ghraib. That journalist was "Newsday's" prize-winning U.N. bureau chief and Middle East correspondent, Matthew McAllester. He's here to talk about his ordeal and his book, which is entitled "Blinded by the Sunlight." Matthew McAllester back from yet another visit to Iraq just five days ago, is with us this evening. Good evening, thanks for being with us.

MATTHEW MCALLESTER, AUTHOR: Thanks, Daryn.

KAGAN: Our time is so short and so many questions. I want to go back to when that ominous knock on the door came in that Baghdad hotel. Did you know you were in trouble right from the start?

MCALLESTER: I looked through the peep hole in the door and saw a bunch of men dressed -- some dressed in uniform, some in suits. And I thought this was trouble, but I didn't quite realize how troubling it was. It went on for a few hours, and ultimately it really sank in when they handcuffed me to my photographer colleague, Moises Saman, and then I thought we're really in trouble now. KAGAN: When you were taken to this prison, this is a notorious prison within Iraq, or around Baghdad, you knew, in fact, you told some of your companions, this is where we are, and this really is a bad deal.

MCALLESTER: Yeah, I had been there a few months earlier, with Moises, actually, when Saddam released all the prisoners in Iraq. So I knew its reputation. And they, I think, didn't. And so I tried sort of to quietly get the word to them, even though we had been told not to speak to each other, where we were.

KAGAN: And of those eight days, what was just the most awful moment that you know you'll never be able to shake the rest of your life?

MCALLESTER: I think it was, you know, the suffering of someone else that could have been us. And that was a prisoner who was on the same block. And he was being beaten very badly. And ultimately, all of the Iraqi or Arab prisoners on our block, there were 15 cells, five of us, and 10 of them, and they were all executed. And after the war, about 10 days after the war, I went back and saw them being dug up from a shallow grave just outside where we were held. So I think the combination of those two moments made it sort of sink in rather profoundly.

KAGAN: When people say eight days, what's eight days when you compare the years that many people, Iraqis, spent in this time. But you couldn't know at any point in those eight days that it was going to soon end.

MCALLESTER: No, but it is a good point. Eight days was nothing compared to 20 years in torture that many people went through. What I've tried to do in the book is to use that as a window. I mean, I'm -- not many Westerners got to see inside Saddam's regime of terror, and I saw it in its last few days. And it was a glimpse that hopefully has enabled me to shed some light on what, you know, millions, hundreds of thousands of people went through, pure hell.

KAGAN: And you've since been back. Was it hard to go back, or knowing that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power?

MCALLESTER: It was a little hard immediately after the war and after prison. I was feeling a little bit shaky, I suppose. But no, I'm fine now. So, you know, this recent trip was just fascinating. I mean, to see how the country's changing. And you know, it is changing in fits and starts in some level, but quite radically in others.

KAGAN: And scary for a whole other reason, because you don't know where suicide attacks are going to take place at any given time.

MCALLESTER: Yeah, I mean, the enemy is sort of different, of a different nature. And some of your colleagues, CNN colleagues, were very tragically killed.

KAGAN: Lost two. MCALLESTER: And so I think journalists now are targets, which oddly, under -- in spite of what happened to us, under Saddam we were not, you know, targeted for that kind of, you know, terrible killing. So there are other concerns.

KAGAN: It's a dangerous time. And it's brave people like you who go and tell the stories. Matthew McAllester, thank you.

MCALLESTER: Thank you.

KAGAN: Good luck with the book. Appreciate it.

MCALLESTER: Thanks.

KAGAN: When the mess takes over your life, we'll show you the serious problem of people who hoard.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: If you have piles of newspapers you haven't read yet can't throw away, or closets full of clothes that you never wear but can't bear to part with, you're probably just a harmless clutterer. But taken to the extreme, it can cross over into a psychological illness. Our Jeanne Moos has a story that may make you feel a bit less guilty about the mess in your house.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you think you have trouble throwing stuff away, try finding your remote in this living room.

DR. RANDY FROST, CONSULTANT, NYC TASK FORCE ON HOARDING: This is where they sat during the evening and watched TV.

MOOS: And Martha Stewart wouldn't approve of this kitchen.

FROST: Every surface is covered.

MOOS: Psychologists call it hoarding.

FROST: The woman whose home we toured saved the inside cardboard of toilet paper rolls.

MOOS: Dr. Randy Frost was the keynote speaker at a conference on hoarding at Cardozo Law School, a conference held just weeks after a Bronx man was buried under his belongings, trapped for two days until neighbors found him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I saw was the guy's head, covered with old books and everything, piles and piles of stuff on top of him.

MOOS: New York's most famous hoarders were the well-to-do Collyer brothers. Both brothers were found dead in 1947. One was trapped under junk, the other starved. New York firemen still refer to any call to a junk-filled apartment as a Collyer. And then there's animal hoarding.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's hard to walk in this apartment.

MOOS: This woman faced eviction, along with her nearly 100 cats.

(on camera): Some people are going to say, there's that like nutty cat lady.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I know. They always, you know, there's the weirdo going, the one that likes the cats. Well.

MOOS (voice-over): Hoarders think they're saving animals. They tend to be in denial about the squalor they live in. True hoarders find comfort in their possessions. The occupant of this house started to cry when she tried to throw away an old ATM slip with errands scribbled on the back saying...

FROST: If I throw this away, I'll lose this day.

MOOS: Hoarders tend to be intelligent yet unable to make decisions. They think spatially.

FROST: So if were to ask her where her telephone bill is, she might be able to say, well, it's about a foot down in the pile and a little over to the left.

MOOS: This hallway holds a decade worth of wrapped gifts that the occupant bought but couldn't part with. Hoarders' homes tend to be laced with goat trails.

FROST: A small pathway through the home, about one foot wide.

MOOS (on camera): But just because you can't bring yourself to throw out a pile of magazines doesn't necessarily make you a hoarder.

Hi, Mike.

(voice-over): The difference between a hoarder and a clutterer?

FROST: When the clutter begins to interfere with the ability to function. So if you can't cook because your stove is covered with things...

MOOS: Clutter like the cat in a hot tin pot.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: All right, that's our clue. Time for us to clean up our clutter from the evening. Thanks for being with us tonight. Tomorrow, join us at 8:00 p.m. Eastern for coverage of the Wisconsin primary. I'll also see you at 10:00 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning. "LARRY KING LIVE" is up next. Good night.

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