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CNN Saturday Morning News
U.S. Military Fights Major Battles in Najaf; Novak Zone: Interview with Jack W. Germond
Aired August 07, 2004 - 09:00 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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. This is CNN SATURDAY MORNING. I'm Catherine Callaway.
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Drew Griffin. Thanks for starting your day with us.
Here is what is happening now in the news.
Iraq's interim prime minister announced just 90 minutes ago that Iraqis charged with minor crimes will be granted amnesty. There will be no amnesty for those accused of crimes like murder, rape, or looting.
Day three of the battle in Najaf, U.S. troops battling fighters loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Two U.S. Marines killed in the conflict. Prime Minister Allawi says 1,000 insurgents have been killed as well, 1,200 more captured. Eyewitnesses also say hundreds of civilians have been killed in Najaf.
There's a pause in the Bush campaign today, the president at his family's compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. He will attend the wedding of his nephew.
Keeping you informed, CNN, the most trusted name in news.
CALLAWAY: And here are some of the other stories that we're working on for you this morning.
It was al Qaeda's deadliest strike prior to 9/11. It came six years ago today, the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi and Kenya. We're going to talk with the man who was the FBI's lead investigator on the ground just a day after that attack. CNN's Mike Brooks is going to join us later in the hour and talk about how far we have come.
And selling your home may be the answer to a lot of your financial problems, but it could also be the cause of others. We're going to talk about the ins and outs of unloading your place.
And it's got to be the shoes. The latest technology to give athletes' feet the upper hand. We're going to have that for you coming up this hour.
GRIFFIN: There's no let-up in the battle for Najaf. Meanwhile, Iraq's interim prime minister tries a new legal tactic in a battle to win the peace.
CNN's John Vause has the latest in this live report from Baghdad. John?
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Drew.
A short time ago, the interim Iraqi prime minister announced that there would, in fact, be an amnesty. Now, the amnesty applies to all those, all Iraqis who have been involved in minor crimes, possessing weapons, ammunition, explosives, withholding information from the authority. Those involved in serious crimes like murder, kidnapping, rape, looting, that kind of thing, will not be pardoned.
This amnesty is good for 30 days and only applicable to crimes that have been committed during the 15-month-long insurgency.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
IYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER (through translator): This order has been established to allow our citizen to rejoin the civil society and participate in the reconstruction of their country and the improvement of their lives, instead of wasting their lives pointlessly toward a lost cause.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Now, there is some talk the interim government may, in fact, impose martial law. The Iraqi prime minister today said there was no need for that measure, that the Iraqi national forces have the situation around the country in places like Najaf and Baghdad and Basra under control, Drew.
GRIFFIN: John, thanks for that report, live from Baghdad.
CALLAWAY: U.S. troops in Iraq are, of course, facing deadly violence every day. Nine hundred and twenty-nine troops have died as of today. And given that, you would think getting someone to sign up for the military would be a difficult task.
But as CNN's Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre reports, a lot of young people are up to the task.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Who wants a job that requires long days, far from home, under uncomfortable conditions? Oh, and you could also die at any time.
Turns out quite a few do. Take 17-year-old Joshua Brunais, a high school senior who, despite his slight build, aspires to be an Army Ranger.
JOSHUA BRUNAIS, U.S. ARMY RECRUIT: Joining the Army, you should know that there's a possibility that you can be deployed. So I have no worries.
MCINTYRE (on camera): There's also a possibility you could be killed.
BRUNAIS: Yes, but, you know, at least I know I'm serving my country, doing something right.
MCINTYRE (voice-over): Twenty-one-year-old David Williams also walked into the Army recruiting station in Woodbridge, Virginia, and walked out a private first class.
PFC DAVID WILLIAMS, U.S. ARMY: My dad has raised me to love this country. I love the freedoms we enjoy, and I'm ready to defend them.
MCINTYRE: The Army insists Williams is the rule, not an exception. Still, worried the stress of combat will scare off fresh recruits and prompt an exodus of battle-weary veterans, the Army is adding some 300 recruiters to offices across the country and arming them with higher bonuses, up to $15,000, in some cases, they can use to lure potential prospects.
While the active Army and Reserve are on track to meet or exceed recruiting goals, the National Guard is lagging by several thousand soldiers.
SGT. SANDRA POWELL, U.S. ARMY STATION COMMANDER: This is our delayed-entry board. These are the individuals that have actually already joined the military.
MCINTYRE: And recruiters like Sergeant First Class Sandra Powell, could face bigger challenges next year, because the Army has been drawing on its pool of delayed-entry recruits to make up for shortages this year. Still, Powell insists it's not mission impossible.
(on camera): Is it tougher recruiting when there are actual wars going on and people are actually dying in a war zone?
POWELL: I haven't seen our recruiting change either way. It hasn't gone up, and it hasn't gone down.
This is our principal of Hilton High School. They're very, very helpful to us.
MCINTYRE (on camera): So why are people buying the Army's pitch? Same reasons they always have, says veteran recruiter Sergeant Amy Cervantes.
SGT. AMY CERVANTES, U.S. ARMY RECRUITER: A lot of times, it's for that college money. A lot of times it's to travel, to get away from the area, a place they grew up, lived in their whole lives.
MCINTYRE (voice-over): Or, as new recruit 21-year-old Aaron Chandler put it, it's about living a life that matters.
AARON CHANDLER, U.S. ARMY RECRUIT: It's something I want to have, and it will provide meaning, so that when I am dying, I can look back and say I -- my life had purpose to it. MCINTYRE (on camera): Despite its continued recruiting success in a time of war, the Army is not complacent. It's well aware that too much strain on the force now could result in a crisis in the future. The Army leaders insist they have their finger on the pulse of the all-volunteer force and can do what's needed to make sure that doesn't happen.
Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: In the ongoing and sometimes confusing fight against terror, officials are now concerned about a drop in the amount of chatter among suspected terrorists. Why? Because officials say the same thing happened right before the 9/11 attacks.
Meanwhile, police are looking over thousands of leads after nabbing some suspected terrorists in Britain and Pakistan. They're looking at intelligence on two suspects who allegedly helped al Qaeda operatives communicate with each other. Documents and computers found in Pakistan contain detailed reports about buildings in New York and Washington. prompting the U.S. to alert those cities to possible attacks.
And the attorney for a New York Muslim cleric accused of aiding terrorists says the government's case is, quote, "fantasy." The attorney is defending Yassin Aref (ph), the head of a mosque in Albany, New York. Aref and another man were arrested Thursday on charges they laundered money to aid terrorists.
CALLAWAY: It was a merciful end to the trading day on the New York Stock Exchange. A combination of spiking oil prices and a disappointing July jobs report sent stocks tumbling. The Dow Jones Industrial average dropped 147 points and closed at 9815, the lowest close since last November. Also hitting new lows for this year, the Nasdaq composite average, which lost 44 points yesterday, and the S&P 500 dropped 16 points.
Meanwhile, John Kerry and John Edwards are chugging through Colorado today on their train tour across the country. The Democratic presidential ticket is holding a Believe in America rally in that state. The two will end the day in New Mexico, a major battleground state.
And earlier on the rail tour, Kerry cited the latest jobs report which says that businesses added far fewer jobs than expected last month. Kerry says that's proof President Bush isn't doing his job when it comes to jobs creation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KERRY, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In the last few days, you've heard people in positions of leadership on the other side saying America has turned the corner. Well, it must have been a U-turn.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CALLAWAY: George Bush is getting married today. Not the president, of course. The president's nephew, George Prescott Bush, he is, of course, the son of Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The wedding taking place at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.
And CNN's Jill Dougherty is also there. No doubt, Jill, that the president has much more than weddings on his mind today.
JILL DOHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He really does. You know, Catherine, if you look at the cloudless skies here, it's really a gorgeous day. But there are some clouds on the horizon for the Bush campaign. And that is the economy, because what you're seeing right now is, number one, this race began very, very early, and it's been very intense at a very early time.
Mr. Bush was out on the campaign trail this past week in the Midwest looking at those crucial swing states, trying to get voters to move his way. But there aren't a lot of voters who are actually unconvinced or in the middle.
Also, the economy. That is one issue where there is some vulnerability for President Bush. On terrorism, he seems to be doing better. But right now, the focus is on the economy after those job numbers. And that was the July jobs report that showed 32,000 new jobs, and that was way less than they had expected. And also just a tiny dip in the unemployment figures.
So that does not spell good news for President Bush. So what is he trying to do about it? Well, the campaign and the president are trying to put the best gloss on it they can. They say, yes, we understand, and they concede that those are not good numbers. But what they're saying is that overall, there are a lot of different indicators that you have to look at, and, overall, the economy is trending in the right direction.
Therefore, President Bush, they would argue, should be put back into office to continue the work. That's what they're trying to convince voters about. But, again, you're seeing, Catherine, just a very early campaign. It's quite striking, and it will be literally every day pulling for votes from that middle, which is almost nonexistent when you look at the voters who have not made up their minds yet.
CALLAWAY: All right, Jill, thank you very much. That's Jill Dougherty reporting from Kennebunkport, Maine.
GRIFFIN: The saga of Mary Kay Letourneau takes yet another twist. Will she be able to spend time with a young man she went to jail for sexually assaulting?
And a look back at the deadly embassy bombing in Kenya. We will talk about how far al Qaeda has come since they first terrorized the world six years ago today.
ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And good morning for you in Washington, D.C. A cold front has moved off the coast and left behind some very nice temperatures. Clear skies expected today. Your highs will be in the 80s. The nation's weather coming up in just a few minutes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRIFFIN: Among the stories making news across America today, police in Deltona, Florida, say they looking for persons of interest in the killings of six people there. Police believe the victims knew their attacker or attackers.
In the anthrax probe, federal agents have taken an interest in three properties linked to a medical doctor who was an expert in biological and chemical agents. Dr. Kenneth Berry was arrested on unrelated charges Thursday. Investigators have not said if they found anything at any of these locations.
A 21-year-old man has won the right to be with his former teacher just days after she was released from prison. Mary Kay Letourneau was convicted of statutory rape in 1997 for having a sexual relationship with that student when he was 13.
And a cadaver donated to a medical school has turned up a gross surgical error. A towel was discovered in the chest of this person, apparently left behind years earlier during lung surgery. The family is now suing the medical facility where that surgery was done.
CALLAWAY: In the headlines this hour, Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, said that this morning 1,000 insurgents have been killed in recent fighting in Najaf, along with an untold number of civilians.
Back in the U.S., John Kerry's campaign trail begins in Colorado today, while President Bush is attending his nephew's wedding in Kennebunkport, Maine. Yesterday both presidential candidates put their own spin on a report showing businesses added just 32,000 jobs in July.
Six years ago today, al Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Two hundred and twenty-four people were killed. And coming up later this hour, we will talk to CNN's Mike Brooks who, at the time, was an FBI investigator who responded to the Kenya attack.
It could be the most exciting time of your life, or the most stressful. When it's time to sell your home, anything is possible, unless you know what you're doing. And coming up, some tips on how you can become your own real estate agent.
And last chance to weigh in on the morning e-mails. We're going to read some of your thoughts after the break. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLAWAY: Wash those windows, fix those floors. And if you're trying to sell your home, you can sure bet that there are going to be some pretty demanding company stopping by. Very nosy company, too. With long-term interest rates expected to rise soon, many buyers are now shopping around for a home to call their own. So how can you get your house on and off the market quickly? And is selling it yourself a money saver?
Well, here with some tips for us this morning is John Adams. He's a real estate broker and columnist for "The Atlanta Journal Constitution."
Thank you for being with us this morning.
JOHN ADAMS, REAL ESTATE BROKER: Hi, Catherine. Glad to be here.
CALLAWAY: You know, you're -- I'm trying to figure out here if you're going to tell me the truth about whether or not we should try to sell it ourselves...
ADAMS: Well, sure.
CALLAWAY: ... because, you know, that'd put you out of a job, wouldn't it?
ADAMS: Well, there's plenty of business for everybody. When you're thinking about selling the house, you've got to take into consideration, the real estate commission is a lot of money, and it's going to be probably 6 to 7 percent. And if your home is, you know, in the $200,000 to $300,000 range...
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: ... we're talking $15,000 to $20,000 here.
CALLAWAY: That's a lot, a lot of money.
ADAMS: That it's -- for some people, it can make the difference between whether or not they can sell.
CALLAWAY: Right. And so how do you know if you should try to sell it yourself?
ADAMS: Well, if you're comfortable giving it a shot, or if you've done it before, or if you're the entrepreneurial type of person, give it a shot. It doesn't hurt to try. Furthermore, time, I think, is of the essence. If you've got to be transferred right away and don't have the luxury of testing the waters, then you pretty much need to bring in a professional.
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: But if...
CALLAWAY: And Drew and I have both done that, and...
ADAMS: Sure.
CALLAWAY: ... but, you know, we're just too busy now to try to do that again.
ADAMS: Well, some people have more time. Some people know they're going to move, they have six months' warning. Why not give it a shot and see if you can, what I call, skim the cream?
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: There may be somebody in your neighborhood who already wants your house and is just waiting for the sign to go up.
CALLAWAY: Right, give it a try if it's a hot market.
ADAMS: Absolutely.
CALLAWAY: If you have the time. All right. Let's say you decide to put it on the market. The biggest concern really should be just getting that house ready.
ADAMS: I think it is. And you may have an unrealistic idea of what your house should look like or what people are expecting in that price range. I recommend, get out and look at some other houses in your price range to see what people are looking for. Obviously, fresh paint, clean carpet, those things. If you're not going to do anything else, get the front door area of the house looking good.
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: And last but not least, I'd say consider having a home inspection. And the idea there is, you can say to the prospective buyer, We had a home inspection, here is what the results were, and we're sharing everything with you.
CALLAWAY: I think it's important here that we stress, John, you say, don't try to do some extensive renovation in your home, just stick to the basics. And for me, a clean closet would take me forever to try to -- I mean, that is a big thing.
ADAMS: Well, but...
CALLAWAY: I mean, you laugh, but seriously, (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
ADAMS: Your agent is going to -- if you bring in a real estate professional, Catherine, that is the first thing they're going to say is, get these closets cleaned out, move stuff out of here, rent a storage facility if you need to do that.
CALLAWAY: Really?
ADAMS: Absolutely. You don't have to live there while the house is being sold.
CALLAWAY: You know, you -- I read that, that you said that, but where are you supposed to go? Stay in a hotel (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
ADAMS: Well, move into the next house, stay in an apartment. I don't know. But the house, you should be presenting -- people buy real estate emotionally...
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: ... and then justify it logically. We've got to make these closets look like they're so spacious that nobody could ever fill them up. You and I know that is a myth...
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: ... and even the buyer knows that. But we're trying to create that impression.
CALLAWAY: And if you're trying to present that kind of image, then you really should think about perhaps living (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
ADAMS: Absolutely. I think...
CALLAWAY: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
ADAMS: ... that's very realistic.
CALLAWAY: And, you know, I mentioned then when I was talking to you about some people are a little nosy. What should you not have in your home when you put it up for sale? Should you be concerned about personal items and...
ADAMS: Absolutely. I think you need to be careful. I remember one time, I showed a house to a young couple. The gentleman had liberated a town during World War II, and he had a full-sized Nazi flag mounted on the wall. He was tremendously proud of it. The young couple I was working with reacted negatively. They wouldn't consider the house because they had a negative guttural reaction to that flag.
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: It was a personal item he was very proud of, and certainly appropriately so, but it was inappropriate for when he was selling his house.
CALLAWAY: A friend of mine told me once, you know, you want to make your house look like a hotel.
ADAMS: Absolutely, you should. And...
CALLAWAY: Ready to move in at any moment.
ADAMS: Absolutely. You...
CALLAWAY: All right.
ADAMS: People don't want a project.
CALLAWAY: No.
ADAMS: They don't want to move into a project.
CALLAWAY: All right, John Adams, thank you very much for being with us this morning.
ADAMS: Thanks for having us.
CALLAWAY: Now I'm all fired up, going to put house up (UNINTELLIGIBLE) if I can just clean out my closets.
GRIFFIN: Catherine, all kinds of open houses, I'm sure, across the nation.
Let's check in with Orelon Sidney to see what kind of weather they're going to have -- Orelon.
SIDNEY: Well, if the weather is going to help you sell your house, you want to be in the East today.
High pressure building now into the eastern United States behind a really rare midsummer cold front that's pushed all the way down into Florida and pushed off the Eastern seaboard. This looks like something you'd see in September. Doesn't happen very often at all.
Here comes a new cold front too across the northern Plains, that one's going to fire off some thunderstorms later today. But take a look at the temperatures left behind that first front I talked about. Atlanta 66, Charlotte 62, you set a record this morning. You were down to 50 degrees. Nashville 63 degrees. Even down south in Orlando, your temperatures are in the 80s, but the humidity is going to be so much less today as that cold front moves through.
High temperatures will still be moderate for much of the East. You will be hot, though, across the western United States, with highs in the 90s and hundreds. A few severe thunderstorms possible on that area of low pressure moving across the Plains. Otherwise, scattered thunderstorms.
It's going to be hard to get any of that activity in the East under that big ridge of high pressure.
Mainly looking at these thunderstorms now, driven by daytime heating. Once the heating of the day is over, these thunderstorms in the high Plains will be over as well.
Tropical depression number two. Remember that? Kind of hard to find on the satellite picture. We'll talk about that a bit later.
Drew?
GRIFFIN: Orelon, thanks.
All morning long, we've been asking for your thoughts on our e- mail question of the day as we look at Dallas's fine morning on a Saturday. And we have some people writing in on whether this is a job crisis or a crunch.
"The reason they say unemployment is low," says Jack, "is because there are so many that have run out of unemployment. I have been unemployed for 18 months," he says. "I worked in the construction profession for 24 years. I've been in the unemployment lines before, but never like this."
CALLAWAY: And here's one. "I think we are blowing this unemployment rate way out of proportion. Five-point-five percent unemployment rate? Come on. It's unfortunate when those who want to find a job cannot have a job. But I wouldn't call this a crisis. Thirty-two thousand net jobs were added this June. These are encouraging signs that the economy is moving forward slowly but surely."
That from Ralph, who probably has a job. Anyway, this is representative of some of the e-mail we have been receiving this morning.
Thank you both for writing in.
GRIFFIN: And you can continue writing, job crisis or crunch, at wam@cnn.com.
Up next, been there, done that. These two guys have been hanging out talking politics for years. Now, they get to do it in The Novak Zone. That is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLAWAY: Athletes looking for an edge in Athens. Get a leg up on their competition. We'll tell you how.
GRIFFIN: Welcome back. That story is coming up.
First, here, though, is what is happening now in the news.
To Iraq, where interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi signed an amnesty law aimed at individuals wanted for minor crimes. Crimes are possessions of light weapons and ordinance or covering up for terrorist groups. The amnesty does not cover people wanted for murder, kidnapping, rape, or other major crimes.
President Bush tells a New Hampshire rally the economy is improving. The president is in Kennebunkport, Maine, today to attend his nephew's wedding. The Kerry-Edwards whistle stop campaign chugs through Chicago and New Mexico. John Kerry contends the economy has shifted into reverse.
Five Texas inmates still on the loose after breaking out of a private prison near San Antonio. The local sheriff says two perimeter fences were cut. The prisoners were in pretrial custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
Another day of hearings on the prisoner abuse in Iraq is under way this morning. An investigator has testified Private Lynndie England described a leash as an intimidation device. England is charged with abusing prisoners in Iraq. A photo seen around the world showed England holding a leash attached to a naked prisoner.
CALLAWAY: And in The Novak Zone today, a man who knows a lot about politics and says he's fed up with it. CNN's Bob Novak talks with well-known columnist and author Jack Germond.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERT NOVAK, HOST: Welcome to The Novak Zone.
We're in Washington, D.C., talking to the famous columnist, author, commentator, raconteur Jack W. Germond, author of the new book "Fat Man Fed Up: How American Politics Went Bad."
Jack, in the early part of the book, you call campaigns "useless exercises." You mean that you and I have spent our life, almost a half century each, on a useless exercise?
JACK W. GERMOND, AUTHOR, "FAT MAN FED UP": No, but we're getting to that. The second half-century's going to be useless, yes. You know, I -- this has been a gradual thing. The campaigns have become sort of mechanized and trivial. And it has got worse and worse. But it wasn't always that bad.
NOVAK: When did you get fed up?
GERMOND: Well, it started in the late '80s, and then by 2000, the 2000 campaign tore it for me. I mean, here we were, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), you know, covering one candidate trying to parse the rhetoric to see if he speaks English, that's the president of the United States. And the other candidate trying to find who he was, but he changes his persona every time he changed his shirt.
NOVAK: You're talking about Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore, right?
GERMOND: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It was no, and no serious person should have to do that.
NOVAK: You and I, in our life, we used to have a lot of fun on the campaign. (UNINTELLIGIBLE), that's a bad thing for people to know, but we did. Did you stop having fun?
GERMOND: Oh, yes. It -- well, it's -- we also -- we had fun, the candidates were accessible. You could take candidates out to dinner. You know, if they had a couple of drinks and said something that might be a little bit incorrect politically, you didn't hang them with it, they knew it. That's no longer possible. There's no fun anymore.
And, you know, this generation of reporters, they're very good reporters, but, you know, they (UNINTELLIGIBLE) drink wine.
NOVAK: Yet you say that the -- we ate steaks and ribs, they ate fish and steak, they go to bed at 9:00, they have dinner with each other. How did that happen?
GERMOND: I don't know. They do have dinner with each other, it's amazing. I mean, you could go -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) covering a primary in 2000, and I'm having dinner with a couple of sources, and there are two other tables of reporters in the same restaurant, and they're all with one another. I mean, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
NOVAK: They're much more serious, though, aren't they?
GERMOND: Yes, they're more serious and they're more sober. They don't give their readers a better product.
NOVAK: It seems to me, if I can remember, there was an awful lot of drinking went on among the press on the campaign trail.
GERMOND: Oh, you used to twist my arm once in a while and insist I have a Scotch or two (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
NOVAK: Yes, yes. But there is much less than that now, (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
GERMOND: Oh, yes. And if they drink anything at all, it's beer and wine (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Nobody drinks hard stuff.
NOVAK: Jack, you are a confessed liberal. I think you always have been.
GERMOND: Card carrying.
NOVAK: Card carrying. Can you name one conservative, real conservative -- and don't tell me John McCain -- who you really like and think is a good guy?
GERMOND: I thought Barry Goldwater was a good guy. I thought Howard Baker should be president.
NOVAK: He wasn't very conservative, though.
GERMOND: Yes, he was pretty conservative. The -- I liked Reagan. I didn't think he should be president, but I liked him. I know a lot of conservatives. Some of my best friends are conservatives, as they say. And the fact of the matter is, if you're a big-league politician or a big-league reporter, somebody says (UNINTELLIGIBLE) it doesn't matter. It's what they, how they do their work, who they are.
NOVAK: If you were starting over, Jack, and you were just a young fellow, you had all those years ahead of you, would you be a newspaperman?
GERMOND: Sure. Once I discovered I wasn't going to be the center fielder for the Yankees, I decided I'd be a sports writer. I didn't like that, and I became a political writer (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
NOVAK: Even the way the politics is today?
GERMOND: Yes, it's still the best way that I know to make a living. You know, you're on the line every day, people know what you're doing. You don't have so sell anything, you don't have to butter up the boss.
NOVAK: Jack Germond, you now live in the hills of West Virginia and near Charlestown and you're a fancier of the sport of kings...
GERMOND: Absolutely.
NOVAK: ... you go to Charleston racetrack every day. In this idyllic existence, with your wonderful wife, Alice, what do you miss out of the -- being -- writing a daily political column and being on the political circuit?
GERMOND: I just miss some of the people I don't see as often as I used to. I'm gregarious. Most reporters are. And I miss not seeing people as often as I used to. But the price was pretty high, and I have other people I see at the racetrack.
NOVAK: You say in the book that you really enjoyed being with Bob Strauss, the famous Democrat.
GERMOND: Absolutely.
NOVAK: I did, too. Name somebody else that you really enjoyed being with and covering and...
GERMOND: Oh, well, because I liked (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Mo Udall, great, a great deal. I liked him and respected his ability (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Nelson Rockefeller, another Republican. I liked John Connelly who was (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Heaven forbid, I liked Jimmy Carter a lot, and I thought very well of him. I thought he was going to be a great president, you know? So I was wrong.
NOVAK: Can't be right all the time, can you?
GERMOND: Well, they couldn't afford to pay my salary if I was right all the time.
NOVAK: And now, the big question for Jack W. Germond.
Jack, of the four guys on the ticket this time, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Kerry, and John Edwards, if you had to spend four hours at dinner with them some night, one on one, just from the standpoint of pure pleasure or lack of pain, which one would you pick?
GERMOND: I think I'd probably pick Kerry. I mean, Kerry is a bright, interesting guy. I don't know Edwards well enough to know. I sure don't want to have dinner with people who are going to know that I'm hostile to them, certainly true of Bush and Cheney. And again, they're getting very uptight these days.
NOVAK: Well, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), they ought to read this book. This is a fun book. I enjoyed it (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And congratulations, Jack.
GERMOND: Thanks, Bob.
NOVAK: Thanks for being with me.
And thank you for being in The Novak Zone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLAWAY: And you can see more of Bob Novak tonight on "CAPITAL GANG." Tonight's "GANG" discuss the politics just behind the terror alerts this past week. You can catch that coming up at 7:00 Eastern time.
GRIFFIN: We've dealt with a lot of developments in the war on terror this week. But if you haven't had a chance to keep up with other news, we're going to help. Let's rewind and check what you might have missed.
A preliminary hearing began this week at Fort Bragg for Army Private Lynndie England. It's to determine if England, who is seven months pregnant, will face a court-martial for her alleged role in abusing Iraqi inmates in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. At Friday's hearing, an investigator said England identified herself in prison photos and described to him the intimidation and humiliation techniques used on prisoners.
The ongoing anthrax investigation led the FBI and Postal Inspectors to three homes in New York and New Jersey. Law enforcement sources say all the properties are linked to Dr. Kenneth Berry of Wellsville, New York. Berry was arrested Thursday on unrelated charges of domestic abuse. Berry has been active for years in addressing nuclear, chemical, and biological threats, and has argued publicly the anthrax vaccine should be available to the entire U.S. population. Authorities have not indicated if they found anything in those searches.
A new antidepressant has received federal approval. Cymbalta (ph) is the first antidepressant to hit the market since the FDA began investigating whether such drugs can increase the risk of suicide. It should be on the shelves by late this month.
Tomorrow, we'll fast forward to the week ahead and tell you which stories will grab the spotlight.
CALLAWAY: Coming up next, it was al Qaeda's deadliest attack against the United States before September 11. Six years after the bombing at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Kenya, one of the lead FBI investigators, CNN's Mike Brooks, talks about that deadly day and where we have come since. That's coming up next right here on CNN SATURDAY MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLAWAY: Checking the headlines right now.
Iraq's interim prime minister says that he does not believe the followers of a Shi'ite cleric are behind the recent unrest in Najaf. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi pins the blame on, quote, "bandits and gangs" trying to hide behind Muqtada al-Sadr."
And in Florida, dozens of dolphins have beached themselves for a second time. Volunteers managed to get the animals back out into the ocean yesterday, but the rough-toothed dolphins returned a short time later.
And in the NBA, Gary Payton and Rick Fox have been traded to the Boston Celtics. And in return, the Lakers get Chuck Adkins, Marcus Banks, and Chris Mihm.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, the death penalty is quite in order. Quite in order. Even (UNINTELLIGIBLE) have been put in life jail. They should also be committed to death penalty because they cost unnecessary dead for innocent people in Kenya.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The memory, I don't even want to remember because it looks like yesterday to me. And mostly, I look at the windows sometimes, I see that they are breaking.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
GRIFFIN: Mournful memories of a terrible time. It was six years ago today terrorists launched one of the worst attacks against U.S. interests. The twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar-es-Saalam, Tanzania, killed more than 200 people and injured, injured over 4,000.
CNN's Mike Brooks led the FBI investigation of the bombings, and he's here to talk more about what has happened since then and that deadly day.
And Mike, you were sent there to find out who was responsible, but your first reaction must have been just how terrible this was.
MIKE BROOKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was, Drew. I was one of the team leaders for the forensic investigation there, the post-blast investigation, if you will. And we first got to the site, I looked at the building, and I went, Oh, this is, this is unbelievable. I could -- I also had worked the Khobar Towers bombing. But in the Khobar Towers, there was only 19 Americans killed, and not as many injured, because they had evacuated the building earlier (UNINTELLIGIBLE). They had gotten some warning.
This came with no warning whatsoever, and it was just devastating there. The French and the Israelis were there actually looking for bodies, the rescue and recovery effort was still going on when we got there. We went over also with a team from Fairfax County, Virginia, and there was a search and rescue team that one of the best in the world. And while they were going about that, we started about our evidence collection, trying to find out who was responsible, what kind of bomb was responsible for doing this damage.
You know, the damage that we see was just the truck originally went around to the front of the embassy, Drew, and they were turned away by guards, they said, Go around to the back. So it went all the way around to the back of the embassy. And there was a private security guard, a Kenyan, who actually kept the truck from driving down into the basement and imploding on itself. He saved many, many lives. He was killed, though, when the bomb did detonate. One of the terrorists had gotten out, threw a grenade over the fence of the embassy. A lot of people ran to the windows. It was then that the driver detonated the bomb, and that's why so many people were killed inside the embassy. But the person that threw the grenade over the fence, he took off and ran. He was later found at a Kenyan hospital, a hospital there in Nairobi, and was found to be one of the people who was responsible for the delivery of this bomb.
GRIFFIN: And he was one of the breaks in the investigation. There's always security at U.S. embassies across the world. Perhaps people knew what happened in the embassy, but what you were telling me earlier, this was really a surprise to the Kenyans.
BROOKS: It really was. We were there working every day. Sometimes we'd walk back to the hotel. And even when we were there working the scene, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), pulling evidence out, pulling some of the burned cars and wreckage out so we could just get a handle on what kind of evidence we were dealing with, they would come up, and some of the ones who had actually been hurt, been wounded, bandages around their heads, they would come up and thank us for being there.
And then some of the other ones would say, Well, why us? Why did this happen to us? While others would stand there in just awe, looking at the building, just still in shock. It was just unbelievable.
But the Kenyan people were so warm, so kind to us, and the investigators on the investigative side of things, the investigators from the Kenyan criminal investigation division, fantastic, fantastic investigators. Worked hand in hand with the FBI and other intelligence agencies during the investigation of this. And we now see what, you know, what (UNINTELLIGIBLE) came of this. And we just saw the other day of the -- one of the masterminds of this bombing, Ghailani, taken into custody in Pakistan.
GRIFFIN: Yes. When you were over there leading the FBI investigation, it didn't take too long until you had an answer as to who -- not -- maybe not whom, but who was responsible for backing this. Did you know then that this was the beginning of something that was going to grow?
BROOKS: No, we didn't. You know, we go all the way back to 1995, where we knew that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda was responsible for the Saudi Arabia National Guard bombing back in 1995. And then 19 -- we jump to June of 1996 with the Khobar Towers bombing. That, they thought, as soon as we got there, everyone is thinking, Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda.
But then we thought there was might have been some Iranian-backed group that did this. But now with the 9/11 commission, we hear that it was, it could have been, in fact, al Qaeda that was responsible for that bombing also.
And then we jump ahead, you know, to 1998 and this terrible bombing. I mean, it was just devastating to the Kenyan people. GRIFFIN: Why did they pick the embassy specifically in Kenya? This was not in the peninsula. This, you know, was relatively unconnected to anything that Osama bin Laden says he's against. Was it just an easy mark?
BROOKS: It was an easy mark, an easy target. And we found out through the investigation that al Qaeda had been surveilling the embassy for quite some time, years, in fact, before they actually did this bombing. And that's why there is so much concern now with the financial services sector.
And we hear (UNINTELLIGIBLE) possibly targeting the five buildings in D.C. and New York City and Newark. And that's why everybody thinks back to these bombings. First thing when I heard about this, and they were talking about using truck bombs or car bombs, all the memories of Kenya, all of the memories of Khobar Towers come back to play.
And, you know, you think about the devastation it did there, and you think about the devastation of 9/11. I don't think we can afford to have another bombing such as we had in Nairobi and Dar-es-Saalam.
GRIFFIN: Looking back, not to lay blame, but I know you guys look back to see where mistakes might have been made or where things could have been done better. The reaction, a couple of cruise missiles here and there, didn't really dent this organization. Should more have been done, do you feel, or did we have enough information to do more damage to al Qaeda at the time?
BROOKS: I think they acted on the information that they had at the time. In fact, I was having dinner with, the whole group of us was having dinner with FBI (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Louis Freeh, the head of the FBI at the time, who would come over to assess the damage, see what kind of job we were doing. And he had to excuse himself, went out on the balcony, and had the sat phone set up. He was talking to the White House. He came back in and says, We are now sending cruise missiles to numerous targets throughout the Middle East, and this was on August 20.
But they were acting on the information that they had. They came very, very close that particular night to getting Osama bin Laden, but he apparently, don't know if he had some prior knowledge of what was going to happen, but he moved around quite a bit. He had moved. He did get wounded. They believe he was wounded when those cruise missiles went in there.
But again, Drew, it's politics. They went (UNINTELLIGIBLE) they went on the information that he had. You can only go on the intelligence that you had.
And this group, it is very, very hard to infiltrate, extremely hard to infiltrate. That's why there is not as much human intelligence as we would like to see. And we've heard all about human intelligence, signals intelligence, document exploitation. But back then with al Qaeda, extremely hard to infiltrate.
GRIFFIN: Mike Brooks, who six years ago was on a plane.
BROOKS: Yes, I was.
GRIFFIN: Heading over to Africa to investigate this terrible tragedy. Thanks for coming in on a Saturday, Mike.
BROOKS: Drew, good to be with us.
GRIFFIN: Thank you.
CALLAWAY: Stay with us, everyone. Athletes using performance enhancers, but it's not what you may think. It's shoes. Why so much attention is being put into the sneakers some athletes may be wearing in Athens.
And good morning, Chicago. We have your complete forecast in five minutes. CNN SATURDAY MORNING continues. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLAWAY: "ON THE STORY" is coming up at the top of the hour. And we have Andrea Koppel with us this morning to tell us what is ahead. Good to see you, Andrea.
ANDREA KOPPEL, "ON THE STORY": Thanks so much, Catherine, good to see you too.
And good morning, everyone.
Coming up, Gerri Willis will be "ON THE STORY" of the surprising job slump. Maria Hinojosa is "ON THE STORY" of journalists color pushing for change in the media. Jill Doherty is "ON THE STORY" of President Bush and John Kerry dueling for votes. And I'm "ON THE STORY" of the dangerous challenges facing hundreds of American diplomats who are headed to Iraq. That is all coming up "ON THE STORY."
CALLAWAY: And we'll be watching. Thank you.
GRIFFIN: Always a great show.
We want to check in with Orelon for a look at the weather across the nation. Good morning, Orelon.
SIDNEY: Good morning. Thanks a lot, Drew.
Starting off, way away from Chicago, take a look at this, though. Chicago early this morning, your temperature, 64 degrees. Sunny skies, high today is going to be in the mid- to upper 70s. You're going to be really pleasant in Chicago for the next couple of days.
Did want to take you down to the tropics quickly and show you what's going on there, and it's not much. Tropical depression number two, well, it's hard to find it at all. It looks like there may be a little bit of it left here in the northwestern Caribbean. Other than that, it just doesn't look like it's going to develop well at all. They did originally schedule a hurricane hunter to go out and look at it, but it doesn't look like they're going to make it later this afternoon. Stay home, guys.
This, though, is going to be a little interesting. We'll keep an eye on a new tropical wave that's working its way through the middle Atlantic. These are the Leeward Islands here, so you can see this is well out into the Atlantic. Just something to watch this time of the year. The Atlantic starts to heat up. That's where you find a lot of tropical activity.
For tomorrow, Sunday will be sunny across much of the West after those thunderstorms in Wyoming and Montana. The cold front pushes into the Mississippi Valley so you'll see a slight risk of severe thunderstorms stretching from northern parts of Minnesota all the way down into northern Oklahoma and then more kind of garden variety thunderstorms across the southern and southwestern Plains.
You may see some lingering showers in New England. Temperatures tonight, look at this, in the 50s around the Great Lakes, down even into the deep South, even Atlanta 57 tonight. Washington, D.C., will be in the 50s, 50s and 60s expected for much of the Rocky Mountains. Then tomorrow, temperatures warm again to more seasonal averages. Even this is fairly low for St. Louis and Chicago, highs will be in the 80s.
Dallas, you're out of the 100s, you'll be 91 degrees on Sunday, still hot, though, in the West. Salt Lake City at 90, and Phoenix at 106, Drew.
CALLAWAY: All right, thank you.
GRIFFIN: Thanks, Orelon.
SIDNEY: You're welcome.
GRIFFIN: In the couture culture of running shoes, a company marked by a swish is making a new splash, Nike unveiling a monster of a shoe designed to help sprinters run faster. Here is our Larry Smith.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LARRY SMITH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sometimes, finding a way to go faster first requires slowing down.
Traditional track theory says sprinters run only on their toes, so their shoes have always been flat. But using extreme slow-motion recording, researchers at Nike have found that sprinters' heels often do touch the ground and eventually slow them down.
TODD LEWIS, MANAGER, NIKE RUNNING FOOTWEAR: Everybody reaches top speed at 60 meters, 65 meters. The guy that slows down the least over the last 30 meters is usually the guy that wins the race. And we started to develop this concept of elevating the foot when it's fatigued the last 30 meters to give that our athletes, that extra performance. SMITH: What Nike's designers came up with is more likely to be spotted on a runway in Milan than a straightaway in Athens. Meet the Monster Fly, the stiletto heel of track and field. The shoe's adjustable polyurethane columns are quite a leap, even for a company that began making shoes with a waffle iron.
LEWIS: Some athletes like to be up a little higher, some athletes like to be down a little lower. The design is such that we're able to adjust the height for specific athletes.
SMITH: The runner who is supposed to make his Olympic splash in the new swish is 100-meter sprinter Sean Crawford, who is following in the footsteps, if not the gold shoes, of previous Nike-clad gold medalist Michael Johnson.
SHAWN CRAWFORD, U.S. OLYMPIC SPRINTER: They always ask me. They're asking me how do I feel about the shoe. And, you know, I give them the feedback, tell them where to make some minor adjustments. But then we come out with a fine product.
TINKER HATFIELD, VICE PRESIDENT, NIKE CREATIVE DESIGN: We basically handpick the number of athletes that we're going to get very specific with and help them, you know, reach an ultimate performance at an (UNINTELLIGIBLE) ultimate event like the Olympics.
CRAWFORD: Just a little edge, but, you know, in a 100 -- in a sprint like the 100-meter dash, every second, every hundredth of a second counts.
SMITH: Nike's high hopes for the high heels have Crawford shaving that hundredth of a second off his 100-meter time. That's often the difference between first and fourth place at the finish line. But the effect on Nike's bottom line is even less certain.
HATFIELD: When you develop the world's fastest sprint spike, which you may only sell 5,000 pairs of, we sometimes learn enough from that particular project to transfer it to a basketball shoe and make a faster, better basketball shoe. And then we might sell a million pairs of those basketball shoes.
SMITH: And that would mean Nike's slow-motion approach could pay off very quickly.
I'm Larry Smith.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: If you want to see how those shoes do in the Olympics and, well, the athletes too, you can check out our Web site, CNNSI.com. It's going to have updates throughout the Olympic Games from Athens, Greece. That all starts next later on this week (UNINTELLIGIBLE) tonight, huh?
CALLAWAY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I'm liking the idea of those high heeled...
GRIFFIN: There we go.
CALLAWAY: ... sneakers.
GRIFFIN: Plenty more ahead on CNN today. At 10:00, it's "ON THE STORY." At 11:00, you can catch "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS." And today, a look at superstar actor Tom Cruise, whose movie "Collateral" is now open nationwide. And Grammy-winning singer Carly Simon will also be on. At noon, it's "CNN LIVE SATURDAY."
And that will do it for Catherine and I. We've certainly had a good time.
CALLAWAY: Yes, it's been fun. We'll be back tomorrow, so tune in at 7:00 a.m. We'll be here.
GRIFFIN: OK.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 7, 2004 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. This is CNN SATURDAY MORNING. I'm Catherine Callaway.
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Drew Griffin. Thanks for starting your day with us.
Here is what is happening now in the news.
Iraq's interim prime minister announced just 90 minutes ago that Iraqis charged with minor crimes will be granted amnesty. There will be no amnesty for those accused of crimes like murder, rape, or looting.
Day three of the battle in Najaf, U.S. troops battling fighters loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Two U.S. Marines killed in the conflict. Prime Minister Allawi says 1,000 insurgents have been killed as well, 1,200 more captured. Eyewitnesses also say hundreds of civilians have been killed in Najaf.
There's a pause in the Bush campaign today, the president at his family's compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. He will attend the wedding of his nephew.
Keeping you informed, CNN, the most trusted name in news.
CALLAWAY: And here are some of the other stories that we're working on for you this morning.
It was al Qaeda's deadliest strike prior to 9/11. It came six years ago today, the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi and Kenya. We're going to talk with the man who was the FBI's lead investigator on the ground just a day after that attack. CNN's Mike Brooks is going to join us later in the hour and talk about how far we have come.
And selling your home may be the answer to a lot of your financial problems, but it could also be the cause of others. We're going to talk about the ins and outs of unloading your place.
And it's got to be the shoes. The latest technology to give athletes' feet the upper hand. We're going to have that for you coming up this hour.
GRIFFIN: There's no let-up in the battle for Najaf. Meanwhile, Iraq's interim prime minister tries a new legal tactic in a battle to win the peace.
CNN's John Vause has the latest in this live report from Baghdad. John?
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Drew.
A short time ago, the interim Iraqi prime minister announced that there would, in fact, be an amnesty. Now, the amnesty applies to all those, all Iraqis who have been involved in minor crimes, possessing weapons, ammunition, explosives, withholding information from the authority. Those involved in serious crimes like murder, kidnapping, rape, looting, that kind of thing, will not be pardoned.
This amnesty is good for 30 days and only applicable to crimes that have been committed during the 15-month-long insurgency.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
IYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER (through translator): This order has been established to allow our citizen to rejoin the civil society and participate in the reconstruction of their country and the improvement of their lives, instead of wasting their lives pointlessly toward a lost cause.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Now, there is some talk the interim government may, in fact, impose martial law. The Iraqi prime minister today said there was no need for that measure, that the Iraqi national forces have the situation around the country in places like Najaf and Baghdad and Basra under control, Drew.
GRIFFIN: John, thanks for that report, live from Baghdad.
CALLAWAY: U.S. troops in Iraq are, of course, facing deadly violence every day. Nine hundred and twenty-nine troops have died as of today. And given that, you would think getting someone to sign up for the military would be a difficult task.
But as CNN's Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre reports, a lot of young people are up to the task.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Who wants a job that requires long days, far from home, under uncomfortable conditions? Oh, and you could also die at any time.
Turns out quite a few do. Take 17-year-old Joshua Brunais, a high school senior who, despite his slight build, aspires to be an Army Ranger.
JOSHUA BRUNAIS, U.S. ARMY RECRUIT: Joining the Army, you should know that there's a possibility that you can be deployed. So I have no worries.
MCINTYRE (on camera): There's also a possibility you could be killed.
BRUNAIS: Yes, but, you know, at least I know I'm serving my country, doing something right.
MCINTYRE (voice-over): Twenty-one-year-old David Williams also walked into the Army recruiting station in Woodbridge, Virginia, and walked out a private first class.
PFC DAVID WILLIAMS, U.S. ARMY: My dad has raised me to love this country. I love the freedoms we enjoy, and I'm ready to defend them.
MCINTYRE: The Army insists Williams is the rule, not an exception. Still, worried the stress of combat will scare off fresh recruits and prompt an exodus of battle-weary veterans, the Army is adding some 300 recruiters to offices across the country and arming them with higher bonuses, up to $15,000, in some cases, they can use to lure potential prospects.
While the active Army and Reserve are on track to meet or exceed recruiting goals, the National Guard is lagging by several thousand soldiers.
SGT. SANDRA POWELL, U.S. ARMY STATION COMMANDER: This is our delayed-entry board. These are the individuals that have actually already joined the military.
MCINTYRE: And recruiters like Sergeant First Class Sandra Powell, could face bigger challenges next year, because the Army has been drawing on its pool of delayed-entry recruits to make up for shortages this year. Still, Powell insists it's not mission impossible.
(on camera): Is it tougher recruiting when there are actual wars going on and people are actually dying in a war zone?
POWELL: I haven't seen our recruiting change either way. It hasn't gone up, and it hasn't gone down.
This is our principal of Hilton High School. They're very, very helpful to us.
MCINTYRE (on camera): So why are people buying the Army's pitch? Same reasons they always have, says veteran recruiter Sergeant Amy Cervantes.
SGT. AMY CERVANTES, U.S. ARMY RECRUITER: A lot of times, it's for that college money. A lot of times it's to travel, to get away from the area, a place they grew up, lived in their whole lives.
MCINTYRE (voice-over): Or, as new recruit 21-year-old Aaron Chandler put it, it's about living a life that matters.
AARON CHANDLER, U.S. ARMY RECRUIT: It's something I want to have, and it will provide meaning, so that when I am dying, I can look back and say I -- my life had purpose to it. MCINTYRE (on camera): Despite its continued recruiting success in a time of war, the Army is not complacent. It's well aware that too much strain on the force now could result in a crisis in the future. The Army leaders insist they have their finger on the pulse of the all-volunteer force and can do what's needed to make sure that doesn't happen.
Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: In the ongoing and sometimes confusing fight against terror, officials are now concerned about a drop in the amount of chatter among suspected terrorists. Why? Because officials say the same thing happened right before the 9/11 attacks.
Meanwhile, police are looking over thousands of leads after nabbing some suspected terrorists in Britain and Pakistan. They're looking at intelligence on two suspects who allegedly helped al Qaeda operatives communicate with each other. Documents and computers found in Pakistan contain detailed reports about buildings in New York and Washington. prompting the U.S. to alert those cities to possible attacks.
And the attorney for a New York Muslim cleric accused of aiding terrorists says the government's case is, quote, "fantasy." The attorney is defending Yassin Aref (ph), the head of a mosque in Albany, New York. Aref and another man were arrested Thursday on charges they laundered money to aid terrorists.
CALLAWAY: It was a merciful end to the trading day on the New York Stock Exchange. A combination of spiking oil prices and a disappointing July jobs report sent stocks tumbling. The Dow Jones Industrial average dropped 147 points and closed at 9815, the lowest close since last November. Also hitting new lows for this year, the Nasdaq composite average, which lost 44 points yesterday, and the S&P 500 dropped 16 points.
Meanwhile, John Kerry and John Edwards are chugging through Colorado today on their train tour across the country. The Democratic presidential ticket is holding a Believe in America rally in that state. The two will end the day in New Mexico, a major battleground state.
And earlier on the rail tour, Kerry cited the latest jobs report which says that businesses added far fewer jobs than expected last month. Kerry says that's proof President Bush isn't doing his job when it comes to jobs creation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KERRY, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In the last few days, you've heard people in positions of leadership on the other side saying America has turned the corner. Well, it must have been a U-turn.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CALLAWAY: George Bush is getting married today. Not the president, of course. The president's nephew, George Prescott Bush, he is, of course, the son of Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The wedding taking place at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.
And CNN's Jill Dougherty is also there. No doubt, Jill, that the president has much more than weddings on his mind today.
JILL DOHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He really does. You know, Catherine, if you look at the cloudless skies here, it's really a gorgeous day. But there are some clouds on the horizon for the Bush campaign. And that is the economy, because what you're seeing right now is, number one, this race began very, very early, and it's been very intense at a very early time.
Mr. Bush was out on the campaign trail this past week in the Midwest looking at those crucial swing states, trying to get voters to move his way. But there aren't a lot of voters who are actually unconvinced or in the middle.
Also, the economy. That is one issue where there is some vulnerability for President Bush. On terrorism, he seems to be doing better. But right now, the focus is on the economy after those job numbers. And that was the July jobs report that showed 32,000 new jobs, and that was way less than they had expected. And also just a tiny dip in the unemployment figures.
So that does not spell good news for President Bush. So what is he trying to do about it? Well, the campaign and the president are trying to put the best gloss on it they can. They say, yes, we understand, and they concede that those are not good numbers. But what they're saying is that overall, there are a lot of different indicators that you have to look at, and, overall, the economy is trending in the right direction.
Therefore, President Bush, they would argue, should be put back into office to continue the work. That's what they're trying to convince voters about. But, again, you're seeing, Catherine, just a very early campaign. It's quite striking, and it will be literally every day pulling for votes from that middle, which is almost nonexistent when you look at the voters who have not made up their minds yet.
CALLAWAY: All right, Jill, thank you very much. That's Jill Dougherty reporting from Kennebunkport, Maine.
GRIFFIN: The saga of Mary Kay Letourneau takes yet another twist. Will she be able to spend time with a young man she went to jail for sexually assaulting?
And a look back at the deadly embassy bombing in Kenya. We will talk about how far al Qaeda has come since they first terrorized the world six years ago today.
ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And good morning for you in Washington, D.C. A cold front has moved off the coast and left behind some very nice temperatures. Clear skies expected today. Your highs will be in the 80s. The nation's weather coming up in just a few minutes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRIFFIN: Among the stories making news across America today, police in Deltona, Florida, say they looking for persons of interest in the killings of six people there. Police believe the victims knew their attacker or attackers.
In the anthrax probe, federal agents have taken an interest in three properties linked to a medical doctor who was an expert in biological and chemical agents. Dr. Kenneth Berry was arrested on unrelated charges Thursday. Investigators have not said if they found anything at any of these locations.
A 21-year-old man has won the right to be with his former teacher just days after she was released from prison. Mary Kay Letourneau was convicted of statutory rape in 1997 for having a sexual relationship with that student when he was 13.
And a cadaver donated to a medical school has turned up a gross surgical error. A towel was discovered in the chest of this person, apparently left behind years earlier during lung surgery. The family is now suing the medical facility where that surgery was done.
CALLAWAY: In the headlines this hour, Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, said that this morning 1,000 insurgents have been killed in recent fighting in Najaf, along with an untold number of civilians.
Back in the U.S., John Kerry's campaign trail begins in Colorado today, while President Bush is attending his nephew's wedding in Kennebunkport, Maine. Yesterday both presidential candidates put their own spin on a report showing businesses added just 32,000 jobs in July.
Six years ago today, al Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Two hundred and twenty-four people were killed. And coming up later this hour, we will talk to CNN's Mike Brooks who, at the time, was an FBI investigator who responded to the Kenya attack.
It could be the most exciting time of your life, or the most stressful. When it's time to sell your home, anything is possible, unless you know what you're doing. And coming up, some tips on how you can become your own real estate agent.
And last chance to weigh in on the morning e-mails. We're going to read some of your thoughts after the break. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLAWAY: Wash those windows, fix those floors. And if you're trying to sell your home, you can sure bet that there are going to be some pretty demanding company stopping by. Very nosy company, too. With long-term interest rates expected to rise soon, many buyers are now shopping around for a home to call their own. So how can you get your house on and off the market quickly? And is selling it yourself a money saver?
Well, here with some tips for us this morning is John Adams. He's a real estate broker and columnist for "The Atlanta Journal Constitution."
Thank you for being with us this morning.
JOHN ADAMS, REAL ESTATE BROKER: Hi, Catherine. Glad to be here.
CALLAWAY: You know, you're -- I'm trying to figure out here if you're going to tell me the truth about whether or not we should try to sell it ourselves...
ADAMS: Well, sure.
CALLAWAY: ... because, you know, that'd put you out of a job, wouldn't it?
ADAMS: Well, there's plenty of business for everybody. When you're thinking about selling the house, you've got to take into consideration, the real estate commission is a lot of money, and it's going to be probably 6 to 7 percent. And if your home is, you know, in the $200,000 to $300,000 range...
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: ... we're talking $15,000 to $20,000 here.
CALLAWAY: That's a lot, a lot of money.
ADAMS: That it's -- for some people, it can make the difference between whether or not they can sell.
CALLAWAY: Right. And so how do you know if you should try to sell it yourself?
ADAMS: Well, if you're comfortable giving it a shot, or if you've done it before, or if you're the entrepreneurial type of person, give it a shot. It doesn't hurt to try. Furthermore, time, I think, is of the essence. If you've got to be transferred right away and don't have the luxury of testing the waters, then you pretty much need to bring in a professional.
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: But if...
CALLAWAY: And Drew and I have both done that, and...
ADAMS: Sure.
CALLAWAY: ... but, you know, we're just too busy now to try to do that again.
ADAMS: Well, some people have more time. Some people know they're going to move, they have six months' warning. Why not give it a shot and see if you can, what I call, skim the cream?
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: There may be somebody in your neighborhood who already wants your house and is just waiting for the sign to go up.
CALLAWAY: Right, give it a try if it's a hot market.
ADAMS: Absolutely.
CALLAWAY: If you have the time. All right. Let's say you decide to put it on the market. The biggest concern really should be just getting that house ready.
ADAMS: I think it is. And you may have an unrealistic idea of what your house should look like or what people are expecting in that price range. I recommend, get out and look at some other houses in your price range to see what people are looking for. Obviously, fresh paint, clean carpet, those things. If you're not going to do anything else, get the front door area of the house looking good.
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: And last but not least, I'd say consider having a home inspection. And the idea there is, you can say to the prospective buyer, We had a home inspection, here is what the results were, and we're sharing everything with you.
CALLAWAY: I think it's important here that we stress, John, you say, don't try to do some extensive renovation in your home, just stick to the basics. And for me, a clean closet would take me forever to try to -- I mean, that is a big thing.
ADAMS: Well, but...
CALLAWAY: I mean, you laugh, but seriously, (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
ADAMS: Your agent is going to -- if you bring in a real estate professional, Catherine, that is the first thing they're going to say is, get these closets cleaned out, move stuff out of here, rent a storage facility if you need to do that.
CALLAWAY: Really?
ADAMS: Absolutely. You don't have to live there while the house is being sold.
CALLAWAY: You know, you -- I read that, that you said that, but where are you supposed to go? Stay in a hotel (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
ADAMS: Well, move into the next house, stay in an apartment. I don't know. But the house, you should be presenting -- people buy real estate emotionally...
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: ... and then justify it logically. We've got to make these closets look like they're so spacious that nobody could ever fill them up. You and I know that is a myth...
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: ... and even the buyer knows that. But we're trying to create that impression.
CALLAWAY: And if you're trying to present that kind of image, then you really should think about perhaps living (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
ADAMS: Absolutely. I think...
CALLAWAY: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
ADAMS: ... that's very realistic.
CALLAWAY: And, you know, I mentioned then when I was talking to you about some people are a little nosy. What should you not have in your home when you put it up for sale? Should you be concerned about personal items and...
ADAMS: Absolutely. I think you need to be careful. I remember one time, I showed a house to a young couple. The gentleman had liberated a town during World War II, and he had a full-sized Nazi flag mounted on the wall. He was tremendously proud of it. The young couple I was working with reacted negatively. They wouldn't consider the house because they had a negative guttural reaction to that flag.
CALLAWAY: Right.
ADAMS: It was a personal item he was very proud of, and certainly appropriately so, but it was inappropriate for when he was selling his house.
CALLAWAY: A friend of mine told me once, you know, you want to make your house look like a hotel.
ADAMS: Absolutely, you should. And...
CALLAWAY: Ready to move in at any moment.
ADAMS: Absolutely. You...
CALLAWAY: All right.
ADAMS: People don't want a project.
CALLAWAY: No.
ADAMS: They don't want to move into a project.
CALLAWAY: All right, John Adams, thank you very much for being with us this morning.
ADAMS: Thanks for having us.
CALLAWAY: Now I'm all fired up, going to put house up (UNINTELLIGIBLE) if I can just clean out my closets.
GRIFFIN: Catherine, all kinds of open houses, I'm sure, across the nation.
Let's check in with Orelon Sidney to see what kind of weather they're going to have -- Orelon.
SIDNEY: Well, if the weather is going to help you sell your house, you want to be in the East today.
High pressure building now into the eastern United States behind a really rare midsummer cold front that's pushed all the way down into Florida and pushed off the Eastern seaboard. This looks like something you'd see in September. Doesn't happen very often at all.
Here comes a new cold front too across the northern Plains, that one's going to fire off some thunderstorms later today. But take a look at the temperatures left behind that first front I talked about. Atlanta 66, Charlotte 62, you set a record this morning. You were down to 50 degrees. Nashville 63 degrees. Even down south in Orlando, your temperatures are in the 80s, but the humidity is going to be so much less today as that cold front moves through.
High temperatures will still be moderate for much of the East. You will be hot, though, across the western United States, with highs in the 90s and hundreds. A few severe thunderstorms possible on that area of low pressure moving across the Plains. Otherwise, scattered thunderstorms.
It's going to be hard to get any of that activity in the East under that big ridge of high pressure.
Mainly looking at these thunderstorms now, driven by daytime heating. Once the heating of the day is over, these thunderstorms in the high Plains will be over as well.
Tropical depression number two. Remember that? Kind of hard to find on the satellite picture. We'll talk about that a bit later.
Drew?
GRIFFIN: Orelon, thanks.
All morning long, we've been asking for your thoughts on our e- mail question of the day as we look at Dallas's fine morning on a Saturday. And we have some people writing in on whether this is a job crisis or a crunch.
"The reason they say unemployment is low," says Jack, "is because there are so many that have run out of unemployment. I have been unemployed for 18 months," he says. "I worked in the construction profession for 24 years. I've been in the unemployment lines before, but never like this."
CALLAWAY: And here's one. "I think we are blowing this unemployment rate way out of proportion. Five-point-five percent unemployment rate? Come on. It's unfortunate when those who want to find a job cannot have a job. But I wouldn't call this a crisis. Thirty-two thousand net jobs were added this June. These are encouraging signs that the economy is moving forward slowly but surely."
That from Ralph, who probably has a job. Anyway, this is representative of some of the e-mail we have been receiving this morning.
Thank you both for writing in.
GRIFFIN: And you can continue writing, job crisis or crunch, at wam@cnn.com.
Up next, been there, done that. These two guys have been hanging out talking politics for years. Now, they get to do it in The Novak Zone. That is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLAWAY: Athletes looking for an edge in Athens. Get a leg up on their competition. We'll tell you how.
GRIFFIN: Welcome back. That story is coming up.
First, here, though, is what is happening now in the news.
To Iraq, where interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi signed an amnesty law aimed at individuals wanted for minor crimes. Crimes are possessions of light weapons and ordinance or covering up for terrorist groups. The amnesty does not cover people wanted for murder, kidnapping, rape, or other major crimes.
President Bush tells a New Hampshire rally the economy is improving. The president is in Kennebunkport, Maine, today to attend his nephew's wedding. The Kerry-Edwards whistle stop campaign chugs through Chicago and New Mexico. John Kerry contends the economy has shifted into reverse.
Five Texas inmates still on the loose after breaking out of a private prison near San Antonio. The local sheriff says two perimeter fences were cut. The prisoners were in pretrial custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
Another day of hearings on the prisoner abuse in Iraq is under way this morning. An investigator has testified Private Lynndie England described a leash as an intimidation device. England is charged with abusing prisoners in Iraq. A photo seen around the world showed England holding a leash attached to a naked prisoner.
CALLAWAY: And in The Novak Zone today, a man who knows a lot about politics and says he's fed up with it. CNN's Bob Novak talks with well-known columnist and author Jack Germond.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERT NOVAK, HOST: Welcome to The Novak Zone.
We're in Washington, D.C., talking to the famous columnist, author, commentator, raconteur Jack W. Germond, author of the new book "Fat Man Fed Up: How American Politics Went Bad."
Jack, in the early part of the book, you call campaigns "useless exercises." You mean that you and I have spent our life, almost a half century each, on a useless exercise?
JACK W. GERMOND, AUTHOR, "FAT MAN FED UP": No, but we're getting to that. The second half-century's going to be useless, yes. You know, I -- this has been a gradual thing. The campaigns have become sort of mechanized and trivial. And it has got worse and worse. But it wasn't always that bad.
NOVAK: When did you get fed up?
GERMOND: Well, it started in the late '80s, and then by 2000, the 2000 campaign tore it for me. I mean, here we were, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), you know, covering one candidate trying to parse the rhetoric to see if he speaks English, that's the president of the United States. And the other candidate trying to find who he was, but he changes his persona every time he changed his shirt.
NOVAK: You're talking about Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore, right?
GERMOND: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It was no, and no serious person should have to do that.
NOVAK: You and I, in our life, we used to have a lot of fun on the campaign. (UNINTELLIGIBLE), that's a bad thing for people to know, but we did. Did you stop having fun?
GERMOND: Oh, yes. It -- well, it's -- we also -- we had fun, the candidates were accessible. You could take candidates out to dinner. You know, if they had a couple of drinks and said something that might be a little bit incorrect politically, you didn't hang them with it, they knew it. That's no longer possible. There's no fun anymore.
And, you know, this generation of reporters, they're very good reporters, but, you know, they (UNINTELLIGIBLE) drink wine.
NOVAK: Yet you say that the -- we ate steaks and ribs, they ate fish and steak, they go to bed at 9:00, they have dinner with each other. How did that happen?
GERMOND: I don't know. They do have dinner with each other, it's amazing. I mean, you could go -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) covering a primary in 2000, and I'm having dinner with a couple of sources, and there are two other tables of reporters in the same restaurant, and they're all with one another. I mean, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
NOVAK: They're much more serious, though, aren't they?
GERMOND: Yes, they're more serious and they're more sober. They don't give their readers a better product.
NOVAK: It seems to me, if I can remember, there was an awful lot of drinking went on among the press on the campaign trail.
GERMOND: Oh, you used to twist my arm once in a while and insist I have a Scotch or two (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
NOVAK: Yes, yes. But there is much less than that now, (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
GERMOND: Oh, yes. And if they drink anything at all, it's beer and wine (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Nobody drinks hard stuff.
NOVAK: Jack, you are a confessed liberal. I think you always have been.
GERMOND: Card carrying.
NOVAK: Card carrying. Can you name one conservative, real conservative -- and don't tell me John McCain -- who you really like and think is a good guy?
GERMOND: I thought Barry Goldwater was a good guy. I thought Howard Baker should be president.
NOVAK: He wasn't very conservative, though.
GERMOND: Yes, he was pretty conservative. The -- I liked Reagan. I didn't think he should be president, but I liked him. I know a lot of conservatives. Some of my best friends are conservatives, as they say. And the fact of the matter is, if you're a big-league politician or a big-league reporter, somebody says (UNINTELLIGIBLE) it doesn't matter. It's what they, how they do their work, who they are.
NOVAK: If you were starting over, Jack, and you were just a young fellow, you had all those years ahead of you, would you be a newspaperman?
GERMOND: Sure. Once I discovered I wasn't going to be the center fielder for the Yankees, I decided I'd be a sports writer. I didn't like that, and I became a political writer (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
NOVAK: Even the way the politics is today?
GERMOND: Yes, it's still the best way that I know to make a living. You know, you're on the line every day, people know what you're doing. You don't have so sell anything, you don't have to butter up the boss.
NOVAK: Jack Germond, you now live in the hills of West Virginia and near Charlestown and you're a fancier of the sport of kings...
GERMOND: Absolutely.
NOVAK: ... you go to Charleston racetrack every day. In this idyllic existence, with your wonderful wife, Alice, what do you miss out of the -- being -- writing a daily political column and being on the political circuit?
GERMOND: I just miss some of the people I don't see as often as I used to. I'm gregarious. Most reporters are. And I miss not seeing people as often as I used to. But the price was pretty high, and I have other people I see at the racetrack.
NOVAK: You say in the book that you really enjoyed being with Bob Strauss, the famous Democrat.
GERMOND: Absolutely.
NOVAK: I did, too. Name somebody else that you really enjoyed being with and covering and...
GERMOND: Oh, well, because I liked (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Mo Udall, great, a great deal. I liked him and respected his ability (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Nelson Rockefeller, another Republican. I liked John Connelly who was (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Heaven forbid, I liked Jimmy Carter a lot, and I thought very well of him. I thought he was going to be a great president, you know? So I was wrong.
NOVAK: Can't be right all the time, can you?
GERMOND: Well, they couldn't afford to pay my salary if I was right all the time.
NOVAK: And now, the big question for Jack W. Germond.
Jack, of the four guys on the ticket this time, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Kerry, and John Edwards, if you had to spend four hours at dinner with them some night, one on one, just from the standpoint of pure pleasure or lack of pain, which one would you pick?
GERMOND: I think I'd probably pick Kerry. I mean, Kerry is a bright, interesting guy. I don't know Edwards well enough to know. I sure don't want to have dinner with people who are going to know that I'm hostile to them, certainly true of Bush and Cheney. And again, they're getting very uptight these days.
NOVAK: Well, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), they ought to read this book. This is a fun book. I enjoyed it (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And congratulations, Jack.
GERMOND: Thanks, Bob.
NOVAK: Thanks for being with me.
And thank you for being in The Novak Zone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLAWAY: And you can see more of Bob Novak tonight on "CAPITAL GANG." Tonight's "GANG" discuss the politics just behind the terror alerts this past week. You can catch that coming up at 7:00 Eastern time.
GRIFFIN: We've dealt with a lot of developments in the war on terror this week. But if you haven't had a chance to keep up with other news, we're going to help. Let's rewind and check what you might have missed.
A preliminary hearing began this week at Fort Bragg for Army Private Lynndie England. It's to determine if England, who is seven months pregnant, will face a court-martial for her alleged role in abusing Iraqi inmates in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. At Friday's hearing, an investigator said England identified herself in prison photos and described to him the intimidation and humiliation techniques used on prisoners.
The ongoing anthrax investigation led the FBI and Postal Inspectors to three homes in New York and New Jersey. Law enforcement sources say all the properties are linked to Dr. Kenneth Berry of Wellsville, New York. Berry was arrested Thursday on unrelated charges of domestic abuse. Berry has been active for years in addressing nuclear, chemical, and biological threats, and has argued publicly the anthrax vaccine should be available to the entire U.S. population. Authorities have not indicated if they found anything in those searches.
A new antidepressant has received federal approval. Cymbalta (ph) is the first antidepressant to hit the market since the FDA began investigating whether such drugs can increase the risk of suicide. It should be on the shelves by late this month.
Tomorrow, we'll fast forward to the week ahead and tell you which stories will grab the spotlight.
CALLAWAY: Coming up next, it was al Qaeda's deadliest attack against the United States before September 11. Six years after the bombing at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Kenya, one of the lead FBI investigators, CNN's Mike Brooks, talks about that deadly day and where we have come since. That's coming up next right here on CNN SATURDAY MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLAWAY: Checking the headlines right now.
Iraq's interim prime minister says that he does not believe the followers of a Shi'ite cleric are behind the recent unrest in Najaf. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi pins the blame on, quote, "bandits and gangs" trying to hide behind Muqtada al-Sadr."
And in Florida, dozens of dolphins have beached themselves for a second time. Volunteers managed to get the animals back out into the ocean yesterday, but the rough-toothed dolphins returned a short time later.
And in the NBA, Gary Payton and Rick Fox have been traded to the Boston Celtics. And in return, the Lakers get Chuck Adkins, Marcus Banks, and Chris Mihm.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, the death penalty is quite in order. Quite in order. Even (UNINTELLIGIBLE) have been put in life jail. They should also be committed to death penalty because they cost unnecessary dead for innocent people in Kenya.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The memory, I don't even want to remember because it looks like yesterday to me. And mostly, I look at the windows sometimes, I see that they are breaking.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
GRIFFIN: Mournful memories of a terrible time. It was six years ago today terrorists launched one of the worst attacks against U.S. interests. The twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar-es-Saalam, Tanzania, killed more than 200 people and injured, injured over 4,000.
CNN's Mike Brooks led the FBI investigation of the bombings, and he's here to talk more about what has happened since then and that deadly day.
And Mike, you were sent there to find out who was responsible, but your first reaction must have been just how terrible this was.
MIKE BROOKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was, Drew. I was one of the team leaders for the forensic investigation there, the post-blast investigation, if you will. And we first got to the site, I looked at the building, and I went, Oh, this is, this is unbelievable. I could -- I also had worked the Khobar Towers bombing. But in the Khobar Towers, there was only 19 Americans killed, and not as many injured, because they had evacuated the building earlier (UNINTELLIGIBLE). They had gotten some warning.
This came with no warning whatsoever, and it was just devastating there. The French and the Israelis were there actually looking for bodies, the rescue and recovery effort was still going on when we got there. We went over also with a team from Fairfax County, Virginia, and there was a search and rescue team that one of the best in the world. And while they were going about that, we started about our evidence collection, trying to find out who was responsible, what kind of bomb was responsible for doing this damage.
You know, the damage that we see was just the truck originally went around to the front of the embassy, Drew, and they were turned away by guards, they said, Go around to the back. So it went all the way around to the back of the embassy. And there was a private security guard, a Kenyan, who actually kept the truck from driving down into the basement and imploding on itself. He saved many, many lives. He was killed, though, when the bomb did detonate. One of the terrorists had gotten out, threw a grenade over the fence of the embassy. A lot of people ran to the windows. It was then that the driver detonated the bomb, and that's why so many people were killed inside the embassy. But the person that threw the grenade over the fence, he took off and ran. He was later found at a Kenyan hospital, a hospital there in Nairobi, and was found to be one of the people who was responsible for the delivery of this bomb.
GRIFFIN: And he was one of the breaks in the investigation. There's always security at U.S. embassies across the world. Perhaps people knew what happened in the embassy, but what you were telling me earlier, this was really a surprise to the Kenyans.
BROOKS: It really was. We were there working every day. Sometimes we'd walk back to the hotel. And even when we were there working the scene, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), pulling evidence out, pulling some of the burned cars and wreckage out so we could just get a handle on what kind of evidence we were dealing with, they would come up, and some of the ones who had actually been hurt, been wounded, bandages around their heads, they would come up and thank us for being there.
And then some of the other ones would say, Well, why us? Why did this happen to us? While others would stand there in just awe, looking at the building, just still in shock. It was just unbelievable.
But the Kenyan people were so warm, so kind to us, and the investigators on the investigative side of things, the investigators from the Kenyan criminal investigation division, fantastic, fantastic investigators. Worked hand in hand with the FBI and other intelligence agencies during the investigation of this. And we now see what, you know, what (UNINTELLIGIBLE) came of this. And we just saw the other day of the -- one of the masterminds of this bombing, Ghailani, taken into custody in Pakistan.
GRIFFIN: Yes. When you were over there leading the FBI investigation, it didn't take too long until you had an answer as to who -- not -- maybe not whom, but who was responsible for backing this. Did you know then that this was the beginning of something that was going to grow?
BROOKS: No, we didn't. You know, we go all the way back to 1995, where we knew that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda was responsible for the Saudi Arabia National Guard bombing back in 1995. And then 19 -- we jump to June of 1996 with the Khobar Towers bombing. That, they thought, as soon as we got there, everyone is thinking, Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda.
But then we thought there was might have been some Iranian-backed group that did this. But now with the 9/11 commission, we hear that it was, it could have been, in fact, al Qaeda that was responsible for that bombing also.
And then we jump ahead, you know, to 1998 and this terrible bombing. I mean, it was just devastating to the Kenyan people. GRIFFIN: Why did they pick the embassy specifically in Kenya? This was not in the peninsula. This, you know, was relatively unconnected to anything that Osama bin Laden says he's against. Was it just an easy mark?
BROOKS: It was an easy mark, an easy target. And we found out through the investigation that al Qaeda had been surveilling the embassy for quite some time, years, in fact, before they actually did this bombing. And that's why there is so much concern now with the financial services sector.
And we hear (UNINTELLIGIBLE) possibly targeting the five buildings in D.C. and New York City and Newark. And that's why everybody thinks back to these bombings. First thing when I heard about this, and they were talking about using truck bombs or car bombs, all the memories of Kenya, all of the memories of Khobar Towers come back to play.
And, you know, you think about the devastation it did there, and you think about the devastation of 9/11. I don't think we can afford to have another bombing such as we had in Nairobi and Dar-es-Saalam.
GRIFFIN: Looking back, not to lay blame, but I know you guys look back to see where mistakes might have been made or where things could have been done better. The reaction, a couple of cruise missiles here and there, didn't really dent this organization. Should more have been done, do you feel, or did we have enough information to do more damage to al Qaeda at the time?
BROOKS: I think they acted on the information that they had at the time. In fact, I was having dinner with, the whole group of us was having dinner with FBI (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Louis Freeh, the head of the FBI at the time, who would come over to assess the damage, see what kind of job we were doing. And he had to excuse himself, went out on the balcony, and had the sat phone set up. He was talking to the White House. He came back in and says, We are now sending cruise missiles to numerous targets throughout the Middle East, and this was on August 20.
But they were acting on the information that they had. They came very, very close that particular night to getting Osama bin Laden, but he apparently, don't know if he had some prior knowledge of what was going to happen, but he moved around quite a bit. He had moved. He did get wounded. They believe he was wounded when those cruise missiles went in there.
But again, Drew, it's politics. They went (UNINTELLIGIBLE) they went on the information that he had. You can only go on the intelligence that you had.
And this group, it is very, very hard to infiltrate, extremely hard to infiltrate. That's why there is not as much human intelligence as we would like to see. And we've heard all about human intelligence, signals intelligence, document exploitation. But back then with al Qaeda, extremely hard to infiltrate.
GRIFFIN: Mike Brooks, who six years ago was on a plane.
BROOKS: Yes, I was.
GRIFFIN: Heading over to Africa to investigate this terrible tragedy. Thanks for coming in on a Saturday, Mike.
BROOKS: Drew, good to be with us.
GRIFFIN: Thank you.
CALLAWAY: Stay with us, everyone. Athletes using performance enhancers, but it's not what you may think. It's shoes. Why so much attention is being put into the sneakers some athletes may be wearing in Athens.
And good morning, Chicago. We have your complete forecast in five minutes. CNN SATURDAY MORNING continues. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CALLAWAY: "ON THE STORY" is coming up at the top of the hour. And we have Andrea Koppel with us this morning to tell us what is ahead. Good to see you, Andrea.
ANDREA KOPPEL, "ON THE STORY": Thanks so much, Catherine, good to see you too.
And good morning, everyone.
Coming up, Gerri Willis will be "ON THE STORY" of the surprising job slump. Maria Hinojosa is "ON THE STORY" of journalists color pushing for change in the media. Jill Doherty is "ON THE STORY" of President Bush and John Kerry dueling for votes. And I'm "ON THE STORY" of the dangerous challenges facing hundreds of American diplomats who are headed to Iraq. That is all coming up "ON THE STORY."
CALLAWAY: And we'll be watching. Thank you.
GRIFFIN: Always a great show.
We want to check in with Orelon for a look at the weather across the nation. Good morning, Orelon.
SIDNEY: Good morning. Thanks a lot, Drew.
Starting off, way away from Chicago, take a look at this, though. Chicago early this morning, your temperature, 64 degrees. Sunny skies, high today is going to be in the mid- to upper 70s. You're going to be really pleasant in Chicago for the next couple of days.
Did want to take you down to the tropics quickly and show you what's going on there, and it's not much. Tropical depression number two, well, it's hard to find it at all. It looks like there may be a little bit of it left here in the northwestern Caribbean. Other than that, it just doesn't look like it's going to develop well at all. They did originally schedule a hurricane hunter to go out and look at it, but it doesn't look like they're going to make it later this afternoon. Stay home, guys.
This, though, is going to be a little interesting. We'll keep an eye on a new tropical wave that's working its way through the middle Atlantic. These are the Leeward Islands here, so you can see this is well out into the Atlantic. Just something to watch this time of the year. The Atlantic starts to heat up. That's where you find a lot of tropical activity.
For tomorrow, Sunday will be sunny across much of the West after those thunderstorms in Wyoming and Montana. The cold front pushes into the Mississippi Valley so you'll see a slight risk of severe thunderstorms stretching from northern parts of Minnesota all the way down into northern Oklahoma and then more kind of garden variety thunderstorms across the southern and southwestern Plains.
You may see some lingering showers in New England. Temperatures tonight, look at this, in the 50s around the Great Lakes, down even into the deep South, even Atlanta 57 tonight. Washington, D.C., will be in the 50s, 50s and 60s expected for much of the Rocky Mountains. Then tomorrow, temperatures warm again to more seasonal averages. Even this is fairly low for St. Louis and Chicago, highs will be in the 80s.
Dallas, you're out of the 100s, you'll be 91 degrees on Sunday, still hot, though, in the West. Salt Lake City at 90, and Phoenix at 106, Drew.
CALLAWAY: All right, thank you.
GRIFFIN: Thanks, Orelon.
SIDNEY: You're welcome.
GRIFFIN: In the couture culture of running shoes, a company marked by a swish is making a new splash, Nike unveiling a monster of a shoe designed to help sprinters run faster. Here is our Larry Smith.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LARRY SMITH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sometimes, finding a way to go faster first requires slowing down.
Traditional track theory says sprinters run only on their toes, so their shoes have always been flat. But using extreme slow-motion recording, researchers at Nike have found that sprinters' heels often do touch the ground and eventually slow them down.
TODD LEWIS, MANAGER, NIKE RUNNING FOOTWEAR: Everybody reaches top speed at 60 meters, 65 meters. The guy that slows down the least over the last 30 meters is usually the guy that wins the race. And we started to develop this concept of elevating the foot when it's fatigued the last 30 meters to give that our athletes, that extra performance. SMITH: What Nike's designers came up with is more likely to be spotted on a runway in Milan than a straightaway in Athens. Meet the Monster Fly, the stiletto heel of track and field. The shoe's adjustable polyurethane columns are quite a leap, even for a company that began making shoes with a waffle iron.
LEWIS: Some athletes like to be up a little higher, some athletes like to be down a little lower. The design is such that we're able to adjust the height for specific athletes.
SMITH: The runner who is supposed to make his Olympic splash in the new swish is 100-meter sprinter Sean Crawford, who is following in the footsteps, if not the gold shoes, of previous Nike-clad gold medalist Michael Johnson.
SHAWN CRAWFORD, U.S. OLYMPIC SPRINTER: They always ask me. They're asking me how do I feel about the shoe. And, you know, I give them the feedback, tell them where to make some minor adjustments. But then we come out with a fine product.
TINKER HATFIELD, VICE PRESIDENT, NIKE CREATIVE DESIGN: We basically handpick the number of athletes that we're going to get very specific with and help them, you know, reach an ultimate performance at an (UNINTELLIGIBLE) ultimate event like the Olympics.
CRAWFORD: Just a little edge, but, you know, in a 100 -- in a sprint like the 100-meter dash, every second, every hundredth of a second counts.
SMITH: Nike's high hopes for the high heels have Crawford shaving that hundredth of a second off his 100-meter time. That's often the difference between first and fourth place at the finish line. But the effect on Nike's bottom line is even less certain.
HATFIELD: When you develop the world's fastest sprint spike, which you may only sell 5,000 pairs of, we sometimes learn enough from that particular project to transfer it to a basketball shoe and make a faster, better basketball shoe. And then we might sell a million pairs of those basketball shoes.
SMITH: And that would mean Nike's slow-motion approach could pay off very quickly.
I'm Larry Smith.
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GRIFFIN: If you want to see how those shoes do in the Olympics and, well, the athletes too, you can check out our Web site, CNNSI.com. It's going to have updates throughout the Olympic Games from Athens, Greece. That all starts next later on this week (UNINTELLIGIBLE) tonight, huh?
CALLAWAY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I'm liking the idea of those high heeled...
GRIFFIN: There we go.
CALLAWAY: ... sneakers.
GRIFFIN: Plenty more ahead on CNN today. At 10:00, it's "ON THE STORY." At 11:00, you can catch "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS." And today, a look at superstar actor Tom Cruise, whose movie "Collateral" is now open nationwide. And Grammy-winning singer Carly Simon will also be on. At noon, it's "CNN LIVE SATURDAY."
And that will do it for Catherine and I. We've certainly had a good time.
CALLAWAY: Yes, it's been fun. We'll be back tomorrow, so tune in at 7:00 a.m. We'll be here.
GRIFFIN: OK.
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