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CNN Saturday Morning News

Israel Beefs up Aerial and Ground Assaults on Lebanon; Tour de France Champ Landis Test Positive in 2nd Doping Test; U.S., France Agree on U.N. Security Council Resolution

Aired August 05, 2006 - 10:00   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: He is the third American crowned as Tour de France champ. But will a positive test bring negative results for Floyd Landis? It is Saturday, August 5. Good morning everyone from the CNN Center in Atlanta. It is 10:00 eastern. Is it 10:00 already? The morning is flying. 7:00 pacific, hello Los Angeles. I'm Tony Harris.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, good morning, everybody. I'm Betty Nguyen and we want to thank you for starting your day with us. We have a lot to tell you about.

So, let's get straight to it, shall we? The very latest out of the Middle East today is a Hezbollah rocket attack, just a short time ago in northern Israel. Look at the smoke here. Two people in the village of Kiryat Shmona were slightly wounded. Now earlier today nine people in Haifa were hurt when rockets hit two houses there. Israel does launch an aerial assault on the Lebanese city of Tyre.

Israeli jets and gunships converge on that city as the offensive escalates. Israel says at least eight of its commandos were wounded while trying to disarm the Hezbollah strong hold. CNN's Ben Wedeman will join us live from Tyre in just a moment.

In the meantime, proof positive says a second doping test on Tour de France champ Floyd Landis. Like the first test, the backup shows an elevated level of testosterone. Landis though denies that he has ever taken performance enhancing substances and says he will fight to clear his name. We're going to talk with the dean of cycling commentators, that's live in just five minutes.

HARRIS: Now he's good. Rain, rain and more rain in Texas. Folks living in El Paso are under a second evacuation order. There are concerns a rain-swollen dam in Mexico could spill over. Reynolds Wolf has a complete weather report coming up in just a couple of minutes.

Former senator and astronaut John Glenn has been injured in a car accident. Police say Glenn and his wife suffered minor injuries when their car collided with another car last night in Columbus, Ohio. The 85-year-old Glenn and his wife are in fair condition at a local hospital. The other driver was not hurt.

NGUYEN: Securing the borders, that is what President Bush is talking about on his radio address this morning. The president toured the border at Mission, Texas, a little bit earlier this week. Our Suzanne Malveaux will have a complete report on the president's day in just about a half hour.

HARRIS: Crisis in the Middle East. Here is what we know right now. Israel urges civilians to flee the southern Lebanese city of Sidon. Israel's military is dropping leaflets presumably in advance of air strikes. Hezbollah fires at least a half dozen rockets into the Israeli port city of Haifa. Israeli police say two houses were hit and nine people wounded.

A rocket attack in Kiryat Shmona left two people lightly wounded. Israel pounded the southern Lebanese city of Tyre. Israeli jets and helicopters swoop in and commandos sweep across the city. Israel Defense Forces report several casualties in fierce fighting against Hezbollah militants.

NGUYEN: Well CNN's Ben Wedeman reports that outgoing Hezbollah rockets were observed as they were launched from the city of Tyre, just about an hour ago. And not long after that several rockets struck a village in northern Israel. Ben Wedeman joins us now from Tyre with an update including an Israeli commando raid there earlier today. A lot of developments, bring us all up to speed. Ben?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, since we last spoke Betty, there have been more outgoing Katyusha rockets from here. We heard one only about a quarter of a mile from here leaving in the direction of northern Israel. At the moment there seems to be fairly intense bombardment if we can just move the camera down the coast. That's the Bayada area.

You can see distinctly white smoke coming from there. We've been hearing pretty steady incoming fire from the Israeli side for the last hour or so. And it's been a very busy day even from before the sun came up. At about 3:00 this morning I was woken up by the sound of helicopters and Israeli jets swarming, buzzing over Tyre. They were involved in an operation which brought two Israeli helicopters to Tyre.

Those helicopters were going after individual Hezbollah members who have been involved in the firing of long-range rockets from Tyre, some of them hitting as far as Hadera which is a town just north of Tel Aviv. Now the Israelis say that eight of their commandos in that operation were wounded, two of them seriously. Hezbollah for its part claiming that they managed to kill one of those Israelis.

In the -- and of course we heard from an officer in the Israeli Defense Forces saying that that operation, that commando operation was a success. He said everyone we wanted to kill we killed. Meanwhile, to the north of here about an hour's drive, we know that Israeli aircraft have dropped leaflets on the city of Sidon warning the inhabitants of that town, the third largest city in Lebanon, to leave because Hezbollah targets there will be hit -- Betty.

NGUYEN: Ben, take us back to that area that you just showed us a few moments ago that we can see smoke coming from it. What is located there, do you know?

WEDEMAN: We don't know, actually. That's an area that's been under pretty steady bombardment over the last few days and it's a very dangerous area to get to there. There is a coastal highway heading down there and it's not really advisable to go, obviously. That may be one of the areas from which the Katyusha rockets are being fired. In the meantime we're hearing more incoming rounds. It appears they may be artillery because I don't hear any aircraft in the sky.

What you see now is that -- those apartment buildings that's the Hosh suburb of Tyre and you see smoke going up from the right of that and to the west of that. And certainly that area has been under pretty steady bombardment throughout the day. The outskirts of that inhabited area. Although, of course, it's not very inhabited. I was out there a few days ago, there's hardly anybody living there at the moment -- Betty.

NGUYEN: That was actually going to be my question considering the large amount of refugees that are still in southern Lebanon. Ben Wedeman, a lot of developments just as we have been speaking in the last couple of minutes. Thank you for that update. Obviously if something happens do let us know and we'll put you on the air live.

Now the view from within the Israeli offensive. CNN's John Roberts is embedded with Israeli troops as they push deeper into Lebanese territory. Just an hour ago he called to tell us that he was in the midst of some fierce fighting. Take a listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A lot of fighting going on in the vicinity of where I'm embedded with an Israeli reserve group. We can hear tank fire outgoing, mortar fire, as well. The group that I'm with call themselves the tank hunters. We came in on foot, it's an infantry unit walking for about seven hours deep into Lebanese territory.

Deep into the heart of where all of the action is. It's a very dangerous area. A number of Israeli soldiers have been killed in this general area in the last few days. Three in an area not too far from where I am right now. The goal of these tank hunters is not to go out and kill tanks because the only people that have tanks right now are the Israelis.

What they are tasked with is going out, finding the Hezbollah fighters, trying to neutralize them and also get a handle on these Katyusha rockets that are still being fired. While the ones that are hitting Haifa are being fired from the area of Tyre according to the Israeli Defense Forces. There are many more that are going into central towns and one eastern along the border.

It's believed that they are being fired from this area of southern Lebanon. And so this group is going to go out very soon and start looking for those Hezbollah fighters, looking for those Katyusha rocket launchers, trying to neutralize them.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

NGUYEN: All right. And you know this conflict continues to escalate. Just minute by minute we are getting information right now that Israeli ambulance services say three people were killed in a barrage of rockets that hit western Galilee just a little bit earlier. And some others were injured indeed.

So three people killed and there were also some other injuries as rockets hit western Galilee and we want to go to some live pictures right now of western Lebanon is what I'm being told. Southern Lebanon, correct that. You can see the smoke in the middle of your screen. This looks to be about where Ben Wedeman was showing us a little bit earlier. You can see the housing development there, although Ben does say that many of the people who are living there are out of the area.

So that perhaps is good news as far as casualties go, but no doubt firing happening back and forth between Israel and Lebanon today. We see it on both sides of the border and as more of it comes in we will bring that to you. In the meantime reports out this morning that do indicate some Hezbollah rockets have hit Syrian territory. We will go live to Damascus for an update on that at the half hour.

HARRIS: Well we learned about five hours ago now the results of a second doping test on Floyd Landis, like initial test on the Tour de France champion, the backup showed elevated testosterone levels. Phil Liggett, the dean of cycling commentators joins us once again from London. Good to talk to you, Phil.

PHIL LIGGETT, CYCLING JOURNALIST: It's good to talk to you as well. Well the sun's up here now, it's a rather pleasant day in London.

HARRIS: Well the sun is not shining on the Landis camp today though unfortunately. Let me start by asking you this. Maybe a circular route to get at what I'm really searching for here. Do we trust the French labs conducting these tests?

LIGGETT: You know, it's a very good question. I don't think we can suggest in any way they're acting in a malpractice sort of way. There certainly not a very ethical lab, there's no question about that. They have -- Landis came out in the first few days about his positive test when he should never have come out at all until the result of this second test.

As we know with the Dutch sprinter (ph), with the American sprinter, he was found positive last April. A test done in the United States, it's only come out this week. So I think they do have known lines to the lackey newspaper and they do tend to report findings before they tell anybody else to that paper.

HARRIS: Yes, so Phil, I'm thinking about this from the point of view of the Landis camp. Has this lab, the lab that conducted the testing on the samples, ever failed a competency test, to your knowledge?

LIGGETT: Not to my knowledge, no. And the lab has to in fact be approved by the world body, the UCI. So as far as we know, they are quite competent to perform the test. I think what we have got to find out and what Landis will certainly want to prove is that the presence of testosterone at the higher levels in this test is naturally produced and hasn't been aesthetically introduced into the system. If it has and they say it has, then of course he most certainly is guilty. If it hasn't, then they're destroying the career of a very good bike rider.

HARRIS: Have high levels of this ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone ever been found in an athlete who has later come back to be proven unmedicated, clean?

LIGGETT: The answer is I don't really know. The fact is that the experts themselves cannot agree as to what the high levels are that can be naturally produced. It is said that if you drink a lot of alcohol the night before your levels can go sky high in the system the next day. Landis has said he had a beer and possibly a couple of shots of whiskey.

He's also taking treatment for a hip which is sure to be replaced which is cortisone, which was approved by the Tour de France, an of course an inactive thyroid gland, he's taking a pill a day for that, as well. Maybe taken to the fact, too, that we're on the hardest stage of the Tour de France in very, very hot conditions, extreme effort being made, maybe this combined for a high release of testosterone.

I don't know. But the fact is he was tested less than 48 hours earlier and he was negative on that occasion and he knew that if he was to win the stage on the day he won, he would automatically be tested for testosterone. So I find that very strange.

HARRIS: Yes, yes. Phil, in a word, is he done? Is Landis done?

LIGGETT: At the moment he most certainly is. And now the report will go from the world body to the United States Cycling Federation. They will call it quickly, a disciplinary hearing. They can only base that hearing on what is known from the test. They must find him positive.

They will therefore suspend him for two years, he'll lose the Tour de France and so it will start a long way to finding the truth out. He's employed lawyers in California and in Spain. And together they are hoping to work to prove that he can produce testosterone naturally.

HARRIS: That's Phil Liggett joining us from London. He knows everything there is know about this race. He just knows. Phil, good to see you, thanks for your time. That brings us to our e-mail question of the day.

Do doping scandals affect your interest in sports? E-mail us your thoughts, WEEKENDS@CNN.com.

NGUYEN: And we are continuing to follow the crisis in the Mideast. We're going to show you some pictures right now. Now these pictures are from Lebanon. A camera in Lebanon looking into Israel. It appears that there's a lot of smoke billowing into the air. We have seen many rockets being fired on both sides. And we will bring you an update on all of this when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Well, the crisis in the Middle East, here is what we know right now. Just minutes ago Israeli ambulance services said three people were killed by a barrage of rockets on the western Galilee, more were wounded. Meanwhile, Israel urges civilians to flee the southern Lebanese city of Sidon. Israel's military is dropping leaflets presumably in advance of air strikes.

Hezbollah fires at least a half dozen rockets into the Israeli port city of Haifa. Israeli police say two houses were hit and nine people wounded. A rocket attack in Kiryat Shmona left two people lightly wounded. Israel pounds the southern Lebanese city of Tyre.

Israeli jets and helicopters swoop in and commandos sweep across the city. Israel Defense Forces report several casualties and fierce fighting against Hezbollah militants. With such a busy day and so much bloodshed in the Middle East, we're bringing in our military analyst, retired Major General Don Shepperd joins us from Tucson, Arizona. Don, good to see you.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good to see you, Tony.

HARRIS: Well, it seems to me from the reporting over the last few days and certainly this morning, that if the Israel Defense Forces want to get a handle on all of these Katyusha rockets they have got to do something to neutralize Tyre. So talk to us about the strategy there as you see it?

SHEPPERD: Yes not only Tyre but even further north Tony. We have heard the Israelis make all sorts of statements about a buffer zone, two kilometers north into Lebanon and now it is five miles and now Tyre which is further than that. They are equipped with counter battery radar. So they know where these missile shots are coming from. And evidently a lot of them are coming from Tyre.

The raid that we saw on Tyre that's been so publicized here, evidently was a targeted raid on a certain apartment building well they either knew things were stored or they knew somebody was there that they wanted. So this was an in and out commando type raid. But Tyre has been a hotbed of area from which things have operated or been fired.

HARRIS: OK, so give us the broader view if we had a map up and I think we do have one we'll show folks at home. Give us a broader view of the strategy how it appears Israel is trying to isolate Beirut?

SHEPPERD: Yes, OK, the first thing that they have to do is push north toward the Litani River to keep the shorter range Katyushas from getting into Israel. It won't stop the longer range missiles. The idea of the bombing around Beirut and the city of Qaa that you're showing on your map there. In far northeastern Lebanon, basically these are roads that lead from Syria into Lebanon and they have bridges because this is very rocky terrain there and lots of rivers and what have you. They are bombing these bridges and the idea is to keep big trucks from coming from Syria into Lebanon. Now these big trucks can carry weapons to Hezbollah.

You don't just carry one or two at a time, you carry big cases of weapons in there. Of course, unfortunately, the roads also carry relief supplies and they also allow refugees to get out. So this is a mixed picture. It can keep things from coming in but it can also keep important things from coming in that bring relief to the people, Tony.

HARRIS: And Don we hear Israel talk about a buffer zone a lot, two miles, 10 miles. Now we're hearing that the buffer zone may extend up to the Litani River.

SHEPPERD: Yes, let me talk a little bit about the implications of buffer zones. The Litani River is north of Tyre and it basically runs into the Mediterranean and basically then follows the Lebanon mountains up northeast into the northern part of Lebanon. If you can push the Hezbollah north of the Litani, you can keep the Katyusha rockets from falling into Israel and you can also prevent some of the other longer-range missiles that have been fired.

The Fajr-3s and the Fajr-5s from hitting the cities of Haifa, the major cities in northern Israel. You can't prevent the longer range Zelzals and that type of thing from getting into Israel. So the Litani becomes important for the short range and then the whole idea would be to establish an international force as a buffer zone to keep the short range out and then to gradually disarm Hezbollah. That appears to be the Israeli strategy through the U.N. and peacekeepers.

HARRIS: OK, Don, let's end it here. Leave it right where we are right now because Betty has some breaking news for us. Thanks, Don.

NGUYEN: Yes this just in to CNN. We have learned that U.S. and France have agreed on a U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at ending the crisis in the Mideast. Now details of that resolution have not been released as of yet, so we're waiting to hear exactly what is in that. But so far the U.S. and France have agreed to a U.N. Security Council resolution which is aimed at ending the crisis in the Middle East.

We knew it was supposed to happen sometime this weekend. At least the draft of that resolution but as we hear it as of now, there has been an agreement on a U.N. Security Council resolution to end the fighting in the Middle east. As soon as we get more information on that, the details of it, we'll bring it straight to you. In the meantime Tony, back to you.

HARRIS: OK. Don, are you still there with us?

SHEPPERD: I am indeed Tony.

HARRIS: Great, we had a conversation just before going on air today about a plan for a cease-fire and the one thing you said is that it may take some while, may take some time before that cease-fire actually means anything on the ground.

SHEPPERD: Yes, indeed. What Betty just announced is the first step in moving toward a resolution of this crisis. It's an agreement by the United States and France for a U.N. resolution. That U.N. resolution is the first step. It will set up some of the things that need to be in place. But both sides have to accept a cease-fire. Hezbollah and Israel has to accept a cease-fire.

Then a force has to be identified to go in as a preliminary force. Then a permanent force has to be agreed to go in. All those steps have to be agreed upon and then they have to be deployed with their equipment and then the cease-fire has to be observed. So we're a long way from seeing a real end to this conflict Tony.

HARRIS: And we will continue to follow each and every development. Major General retired Don Shepperd. Good to see you Don.

SHEPPERD: My pleasure, Tony.

HARRIS: We'll take a break, come back with more of CNN SATURDAY MORNING right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: All right, more on that breaking news that we had just learned about, that the U.S. and France have agreed on a U.N. Security Council resolution to end the fighting in the Middle East. Now this is just a first step and we knew that this would happen sometime this weekend.

As of now we understand that the U.S. and France have agreed on this resolution that it must get past the U.N. Security Council. And then of course you have to have both sides agree on it as well, both sides being Israel and Lebanon, so Hezbollah mainly there.

So this is what we know at this point. We're trying to get Richard Roth on the phone with us to talk more in-depth about exactly what does this resolution entail, and as soon as we get him we will bring that to you. But that's the latest news today. Breaking news, U.S. and France agreeing on a U.N. Security Council Resolution to end the fighting in the Middle East.

(WEATHER REPORT)

NGUYEN: And just a little addition to the breaking news that we gave you just minutes ago about the U.S. and France agreeing to a U.N. Security Council resolution to end the fighting in the Middle East. U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton did say this, that the full 15 nation Security Council is expected to meet a little bit later today to discuss this resolution but it is also expected for it to pass within the next couple of days. That coming from John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. So as this information comes in, we will bring it straight to you. HARRIS: We will take a break. More CNN SATURDAY MORNING right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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