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Can Investor Confidence Be Restored?; Did Inglewood Police Use Excessive Force?; Baseball Fans Cry Foul Over All-Star Game

Aired July 13, 2002 - 10:00   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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: America's greatest economic need is higher ethical standards, standards enforced by strict laws and upheld by responsible business leaders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KATE SNOW, HOST: President Bush demands a stricter code of conduct for corporate America, but can investors' shaken confidence be restored?

And disturbing video of an arrest in California: Was this a necessary use of force?

Our CNN correspondents from the White House to the Pentagon, from our medical unit to CNN sports have the inside scope of events of the week. What did they see and hear that you may have missed?

Plus, baseball's fans cry foul over the All Star game and the future of America's sport.

All just ahead on CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

Good morning to California, the rest of the West and to our viewers across North America. I'm Kate Snow in Washington. Joining me today, in from Atlanta, CNN medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen; CNN White House correspondent, Kelly Wallace; CNN Capitol Hill producer, Dana Bash; CNN Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr; and from the White House CNN's Suzanne Malveaux. They'll share their insight on the week's big stories.

But first, this news alert.

Published reports say a federal grand jury is investigating a group affiliated with two defunct Seattle mosques for possible ties to al Qaeda. The Seattle Times and the Los Angeles Times report on the details of that probe. The Seattle Times says authorities suspect a group of local Muslims were operating a cell in support of al Qaeda. The cleric suspected of heading the operation is now in federal custody.

President Bush headed for Camp David after capping a week dominated by the corporate corruption scandals. He touted his newly appointed corporate fraud task force. Heading the task force is Larry Thompson, a past director of Providian Financial. According to the "Washington Post" this morning, during Thompson's reign, Providian paid out $400 million to settle securities and consumer fraud charges. But Thompson wasn't asked about that during his Senate confirmation for deputy attorney general.

Federal authorities and Washington police say -- in Washington, D.C. -- there is no indication a pipe bomb explosion is terror related. The bomb exploded under a car in a parking garage yesterday. A 21-year-old man in the car was burned over more than half of his body. He was borrowing someone else's car. Police do not know who was responsible for that blast.

We begin at the White House this morning, going over to our Suzanne Malveaux, who is out there on the lawn.

Suzanne, talk to us about this week. The president making a real big deal about corporate responsibility; he had a big speech on Tuesday. My sense is the White House thought that was going to really get the message out there, help Wall Street. But then, all of a sudden, we saw the Dow taking a turn for the worse.

What happened?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Kate, it's really interesting because the White House was very disappointed about that. The reaction to the speech, you saws the stock market started declining. Again, some on Wall Street actually yawned. And Democrats really had a field day with this, saying that this initiative was really very, very weak.

This was not what the White House had expected. And that's why you're going to see a new effort this week. President Bush is actually going to be traveling to Alabama. He's going to be leading this economic round table with individuals. He is not going to be talking about the declining stock market. Rather, he's going to try to build up confidence among investors, talking about, "Well, the low interest rates, low inflation," things like that.

But really, I have a question for you guys. Do you think that these series of speeches, do you think that that works? Do you think we need full disclosure among all of the cabinet members and their former business dealings? What do you guys think is really going to convince the American people to be confident about the markets again?

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting. We did hear a very defensive White House, as Suzanne, you heard Ari Fleischer saying the other day, "Oh, you can't expect one speech by a president to turn the markets around, that Washington doesn't affect the markets that way. It comes out to be consumer confidence and people have to be confident that the fundamentals of the economy are strong and confident that Congress will do something. And then, that might help the markets."

DANA BASH, CNN CAPITOL HILL PRODUCER: But that certainly hasn't stopped Democrats in Congress for raising what Suzanne just raised, which is, "Why isn't the president disclosing the SEC report that lists, you know, what he's done in the past?" And it also didn't stop them certainly for coming our very strongly right after the president's speech and saying, "He didn't go far enough. He didn't say the things he needed to say."

And it was almost as if before he'd finished uttering his last word that the Democrats had come out and really pounced on him.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: But it seems like the White House is going to have to solve a fundamental problem, the disconnect between what people not perceiving that the economy is actually not in terrible shape. Economic indicators are sort of OK right now. Lack of consumer confidence in the stock market and this disconnect between how people perceive the economy and the consumer confidence, and a speech may not be enough to solve that disconnect at this point. At least that's what some people think.

SNOW: Suzanne, he seemed almost frustrated the other day, the president did, when this just kept coming up -- I forget which day it was. I think it might have been Wednesday when he responded to a question, or he was out on the trail and he was giving a speech and he said, "Well, people don't really -- they're not worried about that right now. They're worried about their security and their homeland."

He wanted to change the subject.

MALVEAUX: Right, right. I think the issue here is really, perhaps, a perception problem, and I think that's what the White House is concerned about. What is going to resonate with the American people? Are they going to start to wonder whether or not the president and his staff are actually up on board.

SNOW: Here's the president with his weekly radio address. Let's take a break.

BUSH: Good morning. Congress came back to Washington this week, and they have a lot of work ahead of them before the August vacation. I urge the Congress to join me in acting to achieve three big goals: We need to win the war. We need to protect the homeland, and we must strengthen our economy.

Winning the war and protecting the homeland require a sustained national commitment. More than 100 days ago, I asked Congress to pass emergency funding to equip our armed forces and strengthen security at our airports.

The Department of Defense and the new Transportation Security Administration are still waiting for the money. Without prompt congressional action, our military will need to start cannibalizing spare parts to keep equipment running. The Transportation Security Administration will have to suspend the purchase and installation of up to a 1,100 bomb detection systems, and the FAA may have to furlough up to 35,000 air traffic employees.

Congress must fund our troops while they're fighting a war, and Congress must provide funds to continue improving security at our airports.

Congress also must pass the defense appropriations for next year's budget. The House has acted; the Senate must act. Our nation is at war, and our budget priorities and actions need to reflect that reality.

Congress should send the defense bill to my desk by the end of this month. These bills are critical, yet quick action on them does not and should not preclude simultaneous progress on other legislation.

Creating more jobs and strengthening our economy are an urgent part of our agenda. Congress can act to create jobs by giving me trade promotion authority, which will allow me to open up foreign markets to American goods and create better American jobs.

For the sake of long-term growth and job creation, I ask Congress to make last year's tax reductions permanent, and I ask Congress to work with me to pass a terrorism insurance bill to give companies the security they need to expand and create jobs through new building projects.

Perhaps the greatest need for our economy at this moment is restoring confidence in the integrity of the American business leaders. Nearly every week brings news of greater productivity or strong consumer spending, but also a discover of fraud and scandal, problems long in the making and now coming to light.

This week, I announced new steps my administration is taking to crack down on corporate fraud. I proposed doubling jail time for financial fraud. I am creating a new task force at the Justice Department to aggressively investigate corporate crime. I'm requesting an additional $100 million to give the SEC the manpower and the technology it needs to better enforce the law.

This year, the SEC has acted to bar 71 officers and directors from ever again serving as a director as a public company. All of these measures are in addition to the comprehensive plans I announced and the House passed to protect worker pensions and to make CEOs more accountable.

As part of this crackdown, I support the creation of a strong, independent board that will provide effective oversight of the accounting profession. This board will have the ability to monitor, investigate and enforce high ethical principles by punishing individual offenders.

My administration is working with congressional leaders in both parties to pass legislation that will protect workers and shareholders and investors.

I am pleased that the Senate approved several of my new proposals this week. The Senate, the House and my administration will not stop working until a final bill is passed.

Strengthening our economy and protecting the homeland and fighting the war on terror are critical issues that demand prompt attention. I urge the Congress to act on all of these issues before they adjourn for their August recess.

Thank you for listening.

WALLACE: There the president using the bully pulpit to talk about corporate responsibility. Guys, what a week, though, for this White House. Questions being raised by Democrats about the president's own conduct when he served as a corporate leader on the board of Harken energy and the vice president's own conduct when he was CEO at Halliburton.

My question to you, senior aides at the White House think Democrats are overplaying their hand on this one, that they're looking very partisan, whereas the president is trying to fix the problem. You think that's the case?

BASH: Well, you know, it's interesting because, when you listen to the Democrats, the one thing that they're saying is, "The president should release his SEC records from that time." But when you ask them questions like, "Do you think there should be a special prosecutor to investigate this," or for the Democrats who control the Senate -- that's the only thing they control -- you know, "Are you going to have committees looking into this question," much like we saw with the past president -- you know, committees in Congress certainly looked into issues like this -- "No," the answer is no.

WALLACE: Why? Why are they worried to do that?

BASH: You know, I think some of it -- part of it is, you know, privately, they'll say, you know, they're still feeling a little bit of the pain from what happened with the Clinton administration, and they don't want to be too quick to play the same kind of politics they think that the Republicans played.

So they're trying to kind of walk a fine line here while they don't want to let the story die, but they don't want to start to look like they're really trying to...

(CROSSTALK)

STARR: Might they also be a little nervous that something from their pasts could be brought up, too?

BASH: Right, when does it end?

Suzanne, you've got the "Washington Post" story there.

MALVEAUX: "The Washington Post" story isn't dying on the front page of the Washington Post this morning. This is talking about allegations with Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson. As you know he is the head of this new corporate task force, this SWAT team, that as introduced yesterday. The papers saying as head, director of the Providian credit card company between '97 and 2001, that they settled of some $400 million stemming from allegations, allegations of this kind of consumer and securities fraud. His spokesperson actually responds, saying that, "Well, Thompson didn't know about this kind of wrongdoing until the inquiry, and once he did find out, that he was the one who initiated the settlement and the reform."

I mean, but this is just another example is going to be dealing with days, perhaps even weeks, to come. The question is, "How many stories like this are going to come out? How many more questions before people start to wonder and start to ask, you know, can we trust this White House?"

WALLACE: And aides will say though, that one comfort they're taking is they're looking at Enron. And you know how Democrats were saying, "This administration and Enron, we've got a big winning issue." Well, the polls, according to the White House didn't really show that the Enron in and of itself hurt the president. But this is a different story.

BASH: Kelly, Congress looked at Enron and other issues in terms of legislation this week, and just ahead, not to be outdone by the president, Congress makes itself heard on corporate responsibility.

That and more when CNN SATURDAY EDITION returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Welcome back to SATURDAY EDITION. I'm Dana Bash.

This week, both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill followed the political winds and jumped to endorse tougher penalties for corporate misdeeds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD (D), CONNECTICUT: This wasn't just cooking the books. This was marinating them, sauteeing them and garnishing them. This is a recipe for financial disaster.

SEN. TRENT LOTT (R-MS), MINORITY LEADER: We need to take action. We need to get together. We need to do it in a bipartisan way and not play the blame game. There's some things we can do where the laws need to be tightened up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: OK, here you have one of the most liberal members of Congress, Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, one of the most conservative members of Congress, Trent Lott of Mississippi, agreeing. They both agree, everybody agrees in the Senate, "you've got to do more to address this issue."

You saw, there was a stampede in the Senate this week, unanimous vote after unanimous vote, more jail time for these CEOs who commit fraud. And it's really amazing to watch.

But the one thing you have to keep in mind is every time you see politicians, who for a living, disagree and play politics...

WALLACE: Get worried...

BASH: ... you've got to worry that something is going on here.

WALLACE: Yes.

SNOW: And even the Republicans had sort of been resisting this effort to go ahead with this particular bill in the Senate. Well, not last week. You know, it was like all of a sudden, everybody -- somebody called it a conversion on the road to Damascus. I think Gephardt called it that, a Democrat called it that. I mean, but everybody was jumping on, trying to almost out due each other and even outflank the president.

Kelly, you saw, you know, the House speaker came out and said, "I kind of like what the Senate is doing over there." And it went even further, the Senate bill goes further than what the president had called for .

WALLACE: And even I think Trent Lott, the minority leader saying that, at which point all of us reporters asking the White House, "Hello, is sort of this training running of the station and the president not on board?"

And the White House as saying, "No, no, no, we don't want to weigh in on the legislation until it gets to the president's desk."

But there's no question, everyone now is wanting something, whereas, Republicans, but we should say Democrats, too, were against a lot of regulation just last year. Regulations...

MALVEAUX: You know what's interesting is that aides are telling us that no matter what crosses the president's desk, in all likelihood he's going to sign. I mean the pressure is really that great for the administration to act.

We've seen the pressure on Congress. And so whatever comes to his desk really is probably going to get signed.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: People are so cynical I think -- sitting in Atlanta, not in Washington -- about the crookedness of politicians and corporate leaders, that they better do something really, really dramatic to make people feel like they're fixing the situation.

I mean, not just change as few rules here and there, but something real.

STARR: Right. Yes, I think that's right. If you want to really change public confidence, because I think most people in the public already thought fraud was against the law that, what is it in the law that we don't have here? Or do we just not have enough enforcement of the law in this administration? I mean, is the crack down that there's holes in the law, or people aren't enforcing the law? COHEN: I think right now, a lot of this is sort of going over people's head. It's a lot of gobbledy-gook. It's hard to keep track of. It's kind of like Whitewater, you know, just several years later.

But I think when more and more people get laid off as has happened already, and when more and more people have their 401(k)s gutted, people are going to expect something real, not something that's a bunch of blah, blah.

BASH: And that's exactly what happened this week, that people were shocked that this kind of thing actually -- there were not laws, specific laws necessarily against these things, or at least they weren't being enforced.

And that's what happened with members of Congress. That's why there was this conversion of sorts because they went home, they were home with their constituents, and it's all they heard about.

July 4th parades, town hall meetings, they head, "you've got to fix this." So when they came back, that's why they had no choice. Everybody had to vote for whatever reform was on the table.

WALLACE: And Barbara, I think you were raising the point. The question is, "Is the message getting out? Or are people spending more time looking at the business pages?"

I think the president said, "It reads not like a scandal sheet of which corporate CEO or which corporation is under investigation." Whereas, the fundamentals, according to some economics of the economy, are strong and somewhat getting better. But it doesn't appear like that message is getting out.

STARR: People are -- from people we talk to, you know, they're just not realizing that there's a lot of concern out there. I think Elizabeth is right. If you see your retirement fund going down the tubes...

COHEN: Then you want to see some bodies in jail.

STARR: That's...

COHEN: I mean, you want to see some one in jail.

BASH: I mean, there is one person who re-emerged sort of this week, John McCain.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: He never went away, but he re-merged in full force. And he is -- out there. He gave a major policy address on this subject. And let's hear what he has to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: The first principle of free markets, transparency and trust, have been the first victims of crony capitalism. Trust was sacrificed in too many corporate board rooms on the altar of quick and illusionary profits intended to generate astonishingly inappropriate levels of executive compensation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And John McCain, this is his new issue. He is fighting against both parties, really. He wants even tougher new standards than what they're talking about in the Senate. And his one issue is corporate stock options. That's what he's fighting against.

He tried -- it's really the one thing that he couldn't get through the Senate this week, is stock options and really showing it as an expense on the sheets for these companies. And Senators on both sides of the aisles rejected it. They didn't want to touch it right now.

STARR: Is that because their phones were ringing off the hook from lobbyists.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: That's what John McCain says.

STARR: That's right. And so you know, let's have...

BASH: That's what John McCain says.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: OK, I want you to explain something to me. I'm going to hold you responsible for explaining it.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: How is it that corporate leaders are able to publicly say, "Our stock is going to double, triple by the end of the year; it's up, up, up," and then a few weeks later, they sell all their stock?

BASH: Well, that -- their ability to sell their stock is one thing that they're trying to address in the Senate right now. They're trying to make it impossible -- that's one of the provisions they're talking about -- make it impossible for CEOs to sell their stock while they're still there. That's one of the things that John McCain is really adamant about. That's what he talked about in his speech -- is that CEOs shouldn't be able to sell their stock until they're long gone. They shouldn't be able to play this game inside the company.

SNOW: Suzanne, it's interesting because I think the White House take and Republicans that I've talked to on Capitol Hill was sort of, this is a rotten apple scenario -- these guys who did this crooked accounting are a bunch of rotten apples; they don't represent everyone in the business world. That's sort of the approach he was taking, that we need to clean it up, just get rid of some of those -- it's an individual choice kind of issue, where these people made bad choices. MALVEAUX: Well, you know, I think there's a problem with the argument, and just in a sense of what we have seen over the last week or so with President Bush and taking out these two loans as a director of Harken. This was not something that was illegal. His aides say it was not improper in any way; it was fully disclosed.

But really, the problem is that, during the president's speech, he called for corporate leaders not to take out these type of corporate loans. What is legal and what is appropriate on one hand may not necessarily be legal and appropriate later on down the road. And I think that's really the question is the perception of the White House. Can they really be the moral authority to go ahead and lecture Wall Street on their corporate responsibility, on their reform? I think the American people are asking those kinds of questions: Can we believe in what this administration is really saying if they're serious about this?

SNOW: We're going to take a quick break. Coming up a bit later, is the U.S. churning up its war machine for Iraq?

But next, the video tape that's renewing tensions in California and protests over alleged police brutality.

CNN's SATURDAY EDITION will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: Welcome back to CNN's SATURDAY EDITION. I'm Kate Snow. The release of an Inglewood, California, teenager's videotaped arrest grabbed headlines this week and sparked new tensions between that city's police and the African-American community. The tape also triggered protests and debate over the issue of police brutality.

I think everyone in America has probably seen this tape by now. It has run so many times, not just on our network but all over the place. In the local community out there, they had a protest yesterday; another one planned later this afternoon, I gather. The community just seems to be outraged.

COHEN: They're outraged, but it's interesting because the tenor of the protest is, of course, very different from what it was during Rodney King. There's outrage, but there's not the kind of the violence that we saw.

You can see here, the protesters are calling for a variety of things. Some of them are that they be a civilian review panel on the police force and that the young man and his father -- the charges be dropped, and that there be jail time for the police officers.

SNOW: It's been a little bit surprising that this hasn't really created a huge fervor in Washington. At least, that's my sense. I mean, sometimes things happen on the West Coast, and everyone's talking about it in Washington. And there are statements -- our fax machine is zipping away with statements coming through. Wasn't like that this week, and the president -- I'll go to Kelly first -- but the president hasn't addressed this either. WALLACE: No, he hasn't. And I'll just sort of compare it in a way to how the former president -- President Clinton -- handled these kinds of things. He was often someone who would speak out on lots of issues, issues that are getting national attention. He certainly spoke out after the Rodney King case.

I mean, the attorney general did speak out -- John Ashcroft. He did send one of his top civil rights lawyers to Los Angeles to investigate.

But this president is different than the former president. He hasn't always sort of come out, use the bully pulpit on these issues that are sort of being talked about around people's dinner tables. He doesn't kind of feel like he needs to inject himself. Obviously, it's being investigated by his Justice Department.

COHEN: Do you think he doesn't care as much as Clinton?

WALLACE: No, no, no -- I want to be -- I think this president, he believes in the power of the presidency and using that power when he sees fit. It's being investigated. He certainly is -- you know, his team can look into it, but there just was a different sense by President Clinton, I believe, that he would often, I remember -- whether it be the riots or various issues that were kind of on the national mind and the collective conscience of the country -- he would often be out there talking about them and leading a discussion, especially on the issue of race.

MALVEAUX: I'd have to agree, and I think part of that, if we just take a look at the relationship between the black community and the president himself, clearly a different kind of relationship between Clinton and the black community and Bush and the black community.

All you have to do is simply take a look at the voting record of the Democrats as well as the Republicans. It was just a couple weeks ago that we talked about J.C. Watts stepping down and how significant that was for this administration because this party is really trying and hoping to draw in members of the black community, and that relationship has not always been very strong, sometimes, others describing as tepid. Some people are not surprised that he doesn't necessarily use the bully pulpit in the same way that President Clinton did.

STARR: But of course, this incident took a number of bizarre -- you could say -- turns this week. The man who filmed the attacks -- Mitchell Crooks -- now has been picked up by the police, returned to Northern California because there were outstanding warrants against him...

SNOW: Picked up outside the CNN studio, and he's yelling...

WALLACE: Could it get more bizarre?

SNOW: It was very bizarre. STARR: The police now say that the young man grabbed them and was causing them pain, and that's why they had to do what they did. And so I think, you know, we just don't know yet where this will all sort out. There's a videotape, but there has to be an investigation to see what precisely did happen.

BASH: And you know, on that -- Mitchell Crooks, the man who videotaped it, his lawyers were on Connie Chung's show last night, and they were describing what they said happened to Mitchell Crooks when he was picked up outside of CNN on Thursday.

They said that he was taken to an LAPD hospital. They said he was roughed up. They were complaining that the DA wouldn't let them, his lawyers, go in and talk to Mitchell Crooks. And they were really complaining about the way he was treated when he himself was picked up by the LAPD.

WALLACE: It was so ominous, you know, we had that shot, you know, where you see him sort of in the car -- you can't see him, because, sort of, the windows are blackened, and you hear him screaming.

SNOW: We have that tape. Do we have...

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: ... we can roll that...

(CROSSTALK)

SNOW: ... where he's in front of the CNN studio -- guess we don't have it. But you can hear him yelling...

WALLACE: You can hear him yelling, "Help,," but again, it needs to be investigated, and no one should jump to conclusions, but it does certainly raise certain issues about excessive force and how these things are handled and looked at.

MALVEAUX: I also think what's interesting, too, is that the community reacted in the way that it did. You take merits of the case, and we will see how that unfolds. But simply that the community has the perception that they are mistreated, that this is not something that is a single isolated incident, that that's something that they see as widespread. I think that's an important point to see whether or not that in fact is the case in that particular area, that perception.

WALLACE: And also that the community came together though, you know we had with Rodney King, Darryl Gates. Was that the police chief then? Now you have an African American chief of police, an African American mayor. Not necessarily, but it seemed like the community quickly coming together while it's being investigated, without sort of the violence and the uproar that we saw in the Rodney King case.

COHEN: Do you think one possibility maybe, to explain the subdued response that Kate mentioned, is that there have been so many of these since Rodney King in LA and elsewhere, that the public is just kind of like, "Yeah, it's bad and yeah, that video is disturbing, buy you know, it's just another one."

STARR: Well, and as we move on to other issues, we'd like to thank Suzanne Malveaux for joining us.

Just ahead, we'll check the hour's top stories. Then, we've read many headlines about possible U.S. action against Iraq. Is there a war plan? What's really going on? And how might a shaky government in Turkey throw a wrench into the operation?

SATURDAY EDITION will return in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: An important source of information about the news of the day, the war on terrorism, the investigation, can all be found online at CNN.com. The AOL keyword is CNN.

It's time to check the hour's top stories. Here's Miles O'Brien in Atlanta with a news alert.

(NEWS ALERT)

STARR: Thanks, Miles.

There's been a lot of chatter about a U.S. strike against Iraq in light of the continuing concern about state-sponsored terrorism.

Secretary of State Colin Powell cited Iraq this week during a congressional hearing on homeland security.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: When you look at a state such as Iraq, the first target for these kinds of weapons is not the United States. It's more than likely their own neighbors.

We should have no illusions about the nature of these states and why they're developing these weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: So it seems like there's a headline every day, "We're going to war against Iraq," "We're not going to war against Iraq this year, next year."

What's really going on? And it's very clear that the president is having the military do some planning, but we're far, far away from actually doing anything about it, because it's basically the same problem they've had since his father's administration. How do you get Saddam Hussein out of power? If there had been an easy answer to this, it already would have happened.

SNOW: But there have been these reports this week, and previously, about specific plans that are being worked on. And I wonder from the Pentagon, you will know, what's the state of play? Are there a dozen different plans floating in the air out there?

STARR: Well, you know, not to be silly about it, but the Pentagon has got plans for everything. And their plan for Iraq is very broad, very diverse. Anything from 250,000 forces to 500,000 forces, air, land, sea invasion.

But there's some very critical military questions here that they can't really cope with. These days, could you really launch a surprise military attack against Iraq?

Wouldn't the Iraqis see you coming? Would they give the United States six months to build up? Is there anyone in Iraq who could replace Saddam Hussein? If they get Saddam out of power, do they suddenly light a match and they can't control what might happen?

These are the questions that the president hasn't got answers to yet, which is why there's no decision about what to do.

WALLACE: And I'm also wondering if you're picking up from the people you talk to, concerns about support. You know, if the Pentagon decided to go the path of a large-scale military invasion, is there the support in this country, is there support when it comes to Arab allies? Is it again even possible? It seems to be that those are a lot of variables that the Pentagon, the State Departments say they don't have lined up, unless they have some provocation from the Iraqi leader.

STARR: Unless there is a massive provocation from Iraq, the moderate Arab states are saying what they've said for the last decade, "If you're going to do it, fine, but get rid of him once and for all. None of this plinking (ph) away at Iraq."

And there's a new wrinkle this week, and that's Turkey, one of our closest allies, NATO ally, closest ally in the region, the Turkish government is in disarray. The minister may be about to fall. New government in Turkey, what will happen there? Will it be a more radical Islamic government? Will they support the United States and continue to give us basing rights if we do launch an operation against Iraq? A lot of unknowns right now.

BASH: And Barbara, just on the issue of support, of course Congress has a say, or at least they certainly want to say in this whole issue of Iraq, you know, it's really amazing, there is almost uniform support for getting rid of Saddam. I mean, that's kind of clear, in Congress.

But you know, they have a lot of questions as to what the president is doing, what the Pentagon is doing. You know, they say to us privately, "We're getting the same briefings that you're getting. There is kind of no point in us getting our private briefings."

And the other question is, whether or not Congress will be approached before there is some kind of attack. They don't see the War Powers Resolution that they passed following September 11, as including Iraq at all. They see their responsibility as passing another resolution before Iraq and going through the same long debate, probably, that you saw more than a decade ago before the Persian Gulf War.

STARR: It would be easier if there was a provocation or they could prove that Saddam was linked to the 9/11 attacks. So far, they haven't been able to do that.

COHEN: And Barbara, you listed this long list of things that we don't know the answers to, why don't we know the answers? This guy's been around for such a long time. Why haven't we figured this out yet?

STARR: Because he's one crafty leader. I mean, he stays in power. He's go that place nailed shut. You know, there's even rumors the al Qaeda are moving into northern Iraq. Saddam isn't going to let the al Qaeda into Iraq. He's not letting any opposition in.

He's got that place locked down tight. And the real fundamental question is, if you get him out, who on earth is going to replace him? There's no opposition. There is no unified opposition in Iraq.

SNOW: Isn't there a big question about whether the U.S. should rely on using some of the Kurdish opposition as allies like we did with some of the Taliban opposition? Isn't there a real question about whether those are going to really supplement our forces or not?

STARR: That's right, but even the Kurds are very fragmented. They really don't have...

COHEN: But the real question is, the real question is, does Saddam Hussein play golf? And the reason why I'm asking that...

(LAUGHTER)

... because still ahead, the chairman of golf's most prestigious course, just says no, not to Saddam Hussein, but to women.

Up next, your weight and the risk of getting cancer.

We'll talk about what a new study found when CNN SATURDAY EDITION continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COHEN: Welcome back to SATURDAY EDITION. I'm Elizabeth Cohen.

There were some surprising new findings this week about a medical treatment used by millions of American women. The study found that a form of hormone therapy does more harm than good for women undergoing menopause.

Let's look at the numbers that came out of that study. In the study, if they took 10,000 women and gave them hormone replacement therapy, there would be an extra 31 women who got the following diseases in total. Not 31 per disease, but in total -- heart diseases, breast cancer, strokes and blood clots.

So again, if there were 10,000 women who took hormone replacement therapy, 31 extra women would get these diseases.

And so of course, gynecologists' phones have been ringing off the hooks, with women saying, "What do I do now?" And this is just a great example of how, sometimes, a study is done, but the public doesn't know what to do with it, because it was a very good study. No one is really questioning the value of the study. But women are going crazy. What do we do now?

And the answer is, you have to talk to your doctor. The answer is you have to talk to your doctor, and you have to do something that Barbara and I've been talking about, figuring out what kind of risks you want to take. Because yes, these have a higher risk of giving you these diseases, but for some women, having menopause is just debilitating. I mean, not for a lot, but for some it is.

And some women I've talked to said, "You know what, I'll take that risk if I can feel better on these hormones, I'll take it."

WALLACE: But Elizabeth, you know, this is just another example of the confusion going on especially on the issue of women's health. I think when it comes to a mammograms, you know, one week it's one study that says it's very effective in detecting breast cancer. And then another week, not effective. I mean, it must be -- it's very hard. You're getting all of these conflicting messages. And my one question is, why? But two, what do you do with it?

I mean, with the Internet, there's so much access to information. It seems like there's just a lot of confusion out there, that women are throwing up their hands and saying, "What am I gong to find out next week, that is good for me or not?"

COHEN: Right, exactly. And this is a huge problem. I think what you have to do is you have to think about the quality of the studies that are going on. And for example, with the mammograms, if you really read it carefully, they were a bunch of studies that didn't always make sense. And it was one coming out of here and one coming out there. And they were kind of coming from all over the place, and many of them were relatively small.

And so doctors, almost unanimously, not quite, but almost unanimously, say, "Get a mammogram." So you have to look at the American Cancer Society. You have to look at the big groups and see what they recommend.

And they're all saying, "Get a mammogram. I don't care what any of those studies say."

Now this one on hormone replacement therapy, is a little different, because this was one very big, very good study. And now a lot of authorities are saying, "You do need to think about whether or not you should get off of these drugs.

SNOW: This was specific to one type of hormone therapy, right? You had...

COHEN: A very popular...

SNOW: ... to be taking both estrogen and...

COHEN: ... and progestin. But 6 million women take that combination. So it's not one small little tiny, you know, drug. This is a big drug -- 6 million women take it.

BASH: Elizabeth, how reliable is the study?

I remember hearing questions about another drug with hormones in it. The birth control pill that doctors were saying, "You can take it but you have to weigh the risk of getting breast cancer."

Then I think recently we heard, "You know what, it doesn't actually cause breast cancer. That's actually not true. You're fine if you take this drug."

How reliable is the study?

COHEN: This study is quite reliable. I mean this study is what's considered the gold standard in medicine. They took 16,000 women; 8,000 of them got a placebo; 8,000 of them got the hormones. And they followed them for years to see what would happen. That's -- those are big numbers. And it's also comparing a placebo or sugar pill to the drug.

Many studies don't do that comparison. They just give them the drug and see what happens. So that's why this one is particularly good.

WALLACE: What about women who are only taking estrogen? There are millions. What do they do?

COHEN: Different story. Now estrogen alone had some problems of its own, but it's now sort of coming back as well. Maybe this is the good thing. Maybe this is what we ought to be doing. But estrogen alone also has some problems of its own.

But let's move on from hormone replacement therapy to obesity. There was an interesting study that came out about obesity. And what this study said is that people who are obese have a higher chance of getting all sorts of diseases, not just people with bad diets, but people who are actually fat.

For example, being obese makes you 25 to 33 percent more likely to get colon cancer, prostate cancer and endometrial cancer, esophogeal cancer, kidney cancer and post-menopausal breast cancer.

There are several reasons why this is true. One of them is that they think that the fat that you know, just sits there, that is actually serves as like a holding ground for toxins. So you breed stuff in, you eat stuff that's carcinogenic and the fat holds it in there. And that's why people tend to get cancer more when they're fat. I thought the story was interesting not so much because fat is bad because we all kind of know that, but you know, what can we do? This country is getting fatter by the minute. All the public health messages are out there saying, "eat better."

So I was wondering if you ladies had any answers.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: We have questions, not answers.

SNOW: Barbara's answer earlier when we were in makeup was just eat a cheeseburger and forget the whole thing.

STARR: Well, I mean, there are so many conflicting messages. That's why I said to Kate, "We'll just eat cheeseburgers, and if we're going to go, we're going to go happy."

But the question I have is actually much more, you know, back to the notion of public confidence in the health care system, like we were talking about public confidence in other issues. I think a lot of people are very skeptical because I think that many people believe -- they want to know what the pharmaceutical industry's stake is in all of this and what the impact is on health care.

When you say things like -- and you know, you're right. Of course, America is getting fatter. We're all getting fatter. But what's the impact on the health care industry? All of this costs money to treat these people to...

COHEN: Well, what's interesting about the pharmaceutical industry in this case was that this was a study that came down against a big pharmaceutical company.

I mean, Wyeth Erst makes these hormone replacement therapies, made them for decades, and this was a study that said, "Golly, maybe you shouldn't be taking them." So this is sort of the opposite of what a lot of people fear. This isn't their pressure on the NIH. This is the NIH saying to them, "You know what, your drugs may not be so great after all."

STARR: We're going to take a turn. Just ahead, how many strikes do they get before baseball is out and the fans are fed up. We'll get the scoop on that and more with Josie Karp of CNN Sports. She joins us when SATURDAY EDITION returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOSIE KARP, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Welcome back to SATURDAY EDITION. I'm Josie Karp with CNN sports.

In contrast to all of its recent problems, questions about steroid abuse and the threat of another work stoppage, baseball hoped on Tuesday to take a break from all of that and showcase everything that is good about the game of baseball in the annual All-Star game.

But baseball couldn't even get that right. After 11 innings, Commissioner Bud Selig called the game and declared it a tie. The fans in attendance, many of whom had paid $175.00 a ticket, flew into an outrage. They were throwing things. They were chanting, "Let them play."

So baseball again, looking for a cure, at least a diversion from its problems, had another fiasco on its hands.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUD SELIG, MLB COMMISSIONER: To go into extra innings or further extra innings, without any pitching, was really the only option. There was no other option.

If you want to set different rules for the game and make sure in this, while it's horribly painful and heartbreaking lesson, we'll learn from this. This will never happen again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARP: The camera doesn't lie there. As bad and as pained as Bud Selig looked on television, he looked even worse in person. It looked like he wanted to pass out or even throw up.

(LAUGHTER)

Clearly, he felt like this was a huge problem. And it's really because of everything that's going on outside of what happened in that stadium that night. It is the threat of a work stoppage. It's the questions about steroids.

So much abuse has been heaped on the game, this was really the last thing that baseball could stand. And although players and owners are saying all of the right things, they think that fans will come back. They sort of have to earn the right to get them back. They can't do anything else to alienate people. They aren't really acting like it. And my question for you guys is, do you think that baseball could ever go so far to do something where people wouldn't come back?

SNOW: Oh, yes.

I think they've done it. But when they went on strike the last time, '94 was it?

I mean, they lost so much support there. And I'm not a huge baseball fan, and I remember that.

So I don't understand, Josie, why they couldn't keep playing because they can only play these guys for a certain amount of time. And once they're on the field -- I don't understand. Why couldn't they have just kept playing the game?

KARP: Well, in a real baseball game, obviously they would have kept playing. This was an exhibition, though, and what both managers tried to do, is there are 30 players on each side. They went at it with the theory that we're going to try to get every single player in so that everyone who wants to see the guy from their team or their favorite player will get a chance to see him.

As things went along, the game was actually a great game. It had fantastic plays. There was a home run by Barry Bonds. But it got to be the 11th inning, and they really only each had on each side one pitcher left. And then the question becomes, "Do you just pitch that guy until the end of the game, risk him maybe having an injury? Maybe his manager back at his real club being mad that he was used too much."

So they decided, Bud Selig made the final call, they would just declare it a tie. And I don't think that they anticipated the crown reaction. Two things, one they didn't explain the fact that they weren't going to go on because of the fact that there weren't any players left. And two, they were a little short-sighted in that they probably should have known better that people were going to be that mad, considering the climate of baseball right not.

SNOW: Hey, talk to us a little bit about Ted Williams and the whole controversy. Unfortunately, he passed away. There's a big controversy now within his family about what to do with him. Where does that stand, Josie?

KARP: Well, absolutely. This kind of goes with the All Star game because there was a tribute to Ted Williams before the All Star game. But his son, John Henry wasn't present. And unlike what you'd expect in death for Ted Williams, that he would be celebrated and you would be able to remember his life because he was such a respected person and baseball player.

We've got this controversy that is so disrespectful being played out where we're talking about Ted Williams's body being frozen in Arizona. We're not talking about Ted Williams and what a great baseball player he was, what a great patriot he was. It's almost to the point where people are making fun of it even within the community.

Certainly, they're making fun of it outside of the community. And it's not going to be settled until maybe next week. They're going to file the will in Florida. And the lawyers for the estate will hopefully be able to get a judge to make some kind of ruling about what to do with Ted Williams' remains.

COHEN: And you know, I think it's unclear exactly what the son hopes will come out of freezing his father. I mean, is he hoping that he'll be revived. If he's hoping for that, the chances of that, according to one medical person I talked to said, zero percent.

I mean, even on the Web site of the place that does the freezing says that it's uncertain whether this will work. So here the guy is, hanging upside down in a tank; can they even do anything with him?

And if they were hoping to clone him later on and save his DNA, you don't need to freeze the body to do that. You could've just scrape some skin off of him; you don't have to freeze him. WALLACE: And Josie, have you picked up any sense of what Ted Williams himself wanted to have done with his remains? I know it appears -- it's in his will. Any sense, from talking to people, about what the legend himself wanted to be done with his remains?

KARP: Well, people who were close to him, they've had -- people who worked in his home, caretakers, have indicated that the freezing is the last thing that he would want, and others have said that the did come out and actually say that he wanted to be cremated.

It's going to come down probably to what's in the will, and then if it's not clearly stated, I'm sure they'll have to go through some sort of process where they try to find out what he might have actually said out loud to people, and it gets some sort of consensus.

And going back to why in the world would he want to be frozen or would somebody want him to be frozen, I think, and it might be a skeptical point of view, that most people are assuming it has to do with money, and it's a thing where John Henry sees some way in the future of making money off of this.

SNOW: Josie Karp up in New York. Thanks for coming in and giving us a little de-brief on the sports world. Appreciate that.

That is all the time we have for this Saturday. On behalf of our panel, we thank you for watching CNN SATURDAY EDITION.

I'm Kate Snow. A news alert is up next. Then, People in the News with a profile of tennis champs, Venus and Serena Williams.

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