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On the Story

Cancer Scare for Two Prominent People; Powell Goes Back to U.N.; Millions Around the Globe Protest Against War in Iraq

Aired February 15, 2003 - 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.


ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to CNN's ON THE STORY, where our journalists have the inside word on the stories we covered this week.
I'm Elizabeth Cohen. A cancer scare for two prominent people this week and a reminder of the importance of early detection.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kelli Arena. I'm on the story of new terrorism warnings, public jitters, and blunt talk from the people in charge of finding and preventing terrorism.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: I'm Barbara Starr, and I'm on the story of the U.S. plan of attack in a possible war and how the Pentagon has its own concerns about terrorism against military targets.

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Maria Hinojosa, on the story and on the street, where thousands of protesters are expected here in New York and elsewhere, trying to say no to a looming war in Iraq.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: I'm Andrea Koppel, also in New York, on the story of Colin Powell back at the U.N. and the voice of Osama bin Laden back on the airways.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Suzanne Malveaux, on the story of how President Bush hopes to bring the U.N., Congress and the U.S. population over to his side on Iraq policy.

We'll be talking about all these stories, we'll listen to the president's weekly radio address at the end of the hour, but first, a check on what's making headlines right now, from the CNN center in Atlanta.

(NEWSBREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MUELLER, DIRECTOR, FBI: Our greatest threat is from al Qaeda cells in the United States that we have not yet been able to identify. Finding and routing out al Qaeda members once they have entered the United States...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: FBI Director Robert Mueller, just one administration voice this week ratcheting up terrorism fears.

We are ON THE STORY. Welcome back.

Federal officials warned of sleeper cells, unfinished al Qaeda business, soft targets, more than enough information to put the U.S. nervously on guard.

I can tell you, I'll bring you up-to-the-minute information, the level of so-called chatter -- we've all heard that word; that just means information coming in through a variety of means: intercepts, human intelligence and so on -- has fallen off. Between yesterday and the day before, we've seen a significant drop.

Different reads on what that means at this point. It could mean, look out, you know, chatter has fallen, something is imminent. It could mean that chatter has fallen and we are in the clear. Analysts are obviously busily working on figuring out where we're at in this stage, and of course that will play into where the government decides the threat level should be.

HINOJOSA: Hey, Kelli, a question for you. You know, I've heard a lot of people here in New York, a week ago, very, very anxious. Of course, a lot of fear. Going through the process of buying the duct tape, getting the plastic.

But now I'm hearing a lot of people getting really angry. They just feel really confused. They feel like they're not getting the right direction. I mean, here, the mayor was saying, "Forget about the duct tape, don't do it," you know.

Do they realize how confused -- and now, as I said, a lot of anger here. Do they realize that this might be one of the ramifications of all this?

ARENA: Well, to put it in some perspective, obviously the feelings will be magnified in New York, because New York has been on a higher level of alert. There has been much more visible security there. And of course New York was the site of a devastating terror attack on September 11. So the feelings that are being expressed there are more intense than they are nationwide.

But on that front, there was a lot of information that went out to try to tell people, "This is what you need in the case of an emergency." And what some people did was take that one step further and they started, as we saw because we had the video rolling all week, of people who were literally out there, you know, covering their windows with plastic sheeting.

The advice from the government is, "Look, we told you to have this just in case. We are not suggesting that you go out there and do this, you know, just when there's nothing going on." I mean, that is not what -- that was not the intent. But they are going -- they are planning a very big public relations information campaign...

COHEN: Will plastic sheeting and duct tape really help you in the event of a chemical... ARENA: It depends, it depends. I mean, I asked that question because I live here in the Washington area. They said that it depends on the type of agent that is used. But more than that, they say to just shut off anything in your -- any system in your home that brings in air from the outside.

MALVEAUX: Why do you suppose that that didn't work very well? I mean, what are they going to do next time? I mean, a lot of people -- it seemed as if they almost panicked, and then there were all the jokes that followed. What are they going to do differently when there really is maybe a higher state of alert, so that people don't, A, either panic or take it as a joke or something?

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: ... higher state of alert, that's severe. That will be severe. If they have to go to red, that is severe. I mean, they had very specific -- we heard from the director of the CIA that this was the most significant intelligence -- I'm sorry, specific intelligence they've received since September 11.

STARR: That's underscored by the military people we talk to, because of course there were rumors at the end of the week that possibly some of the intelligence that they had that led them to raise the alert status might not have been very accurate.

We asked that question, was this all just a big mistake? And adamantly, officials at the Pentagon and in the national security community said absolutely not...

ARENA: That's right.

STARR: ... that they had multiple threats, that there was no misleading, that they really felt there was a problem.

ARENA: Right. And we should probably underscore that, because there were several talk-show hosts, I'm told, that were saying, "Oh, this was a hoax, the terror alert was a hoax," and it wasn't.

I mean, according to the officials that we spoke to, they said that, yes, there are some times informants you have that ultimately will fail a polygraph once U.S. officials get their hands on them to be able to conduct that polygraph testing. It is not the first time an informant has failed a polygraph, nor will it be the last time an informant fails a polygraph.

But the information, we are told, was coming in from so many different places, from so many different avenues, and it was corroborating, so that they were hearing...

(CROSSTALK)

STARR: ... all senior military officials we spoke to during the week all basically said the same thing, that the hair on the back of their neck was standing up. ARENA: Yes, right. And the tension was palpable. I mean, I speak to these people day in and day out, and they were very concerned.

Now, you know that the specific information pointed to an attack to coincide with the end of the Hajj, which would be, you know, this weekend. Just because we get through this weekend without an attack, officials still say we are not in the clear. Al Qaeda is determined and willing and capable of attacking again.

STARR: So, Kelli, how do we get out of this orange status now? Does that just go away?

ARENA: You know, and that's a discussion, because there is a discussion already under way about possibly going down from orange back to yellow, once we get through this very specific time frame, like we saw on the September 11 anniversary. They had specific -- they had information that suggested something could be planned around that time.

That the feeling is that they will probably go back down to yellow some time possibly within the next week. Because once we pass over this hump -- unless there is intelligence that comes in suggesting otherwise.

And this is something that is reviewed every hour of every day. This is not something that they can decide on Friday, "Well, on Wednesday we're going to lower the threat level." No, this is something that is done routinely.

STARR: Well, the Pentagon has its own terrorism worries about military installations here and overseas being vulnerable to terrorist attack. We're on the story of that and how the U.S. and Iraq are preparing for war, all coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If force becomes necessary to secure our country and to keep the peace, America will act deliberately, America will act decisively, and America will act victoriously with the world's greatest military.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: President Bush talking to Navy personnel in Florida on Thursday, reminding a U.S. and overseas audience that the military is getting ready.

And in fact, this was a very critical week for just that thing, the build-up. Little noticed by many people, but the military finally this week reached its goal, surpassing more than 150,000 troops in the Persian Gulf region. Very critical for the Pentagon because now what they tell us, with 150,000 troops in the region, if the president were to make a decision, they have a very short timetable, they're now as close as they can be to being ready to go within days of him giving them the signal. That's what 150,000 troops gets him.

MALVEAUX: So what does that mean in terms of the timetable? Could we actually see everybody in place, ready in weeks, in days? I mean, if we had to strike, we'd be ready to strike now?

STARR: The Pentagon has always said, if the president orders, they would be ready at any time. They wanted 150,000, have enough oomph there to actually get into Iraq and accomplish their goal.

But you raise a really interesting question, the timetable. The calendar is perking along, you know. Sooner rather than later, warm weather will be coming. They have several moonless nights in early March. That's when they'd like to go, from a military standpoint. They don't want to let it drag out too long just in terms of the current war plan they have.

ARENA: Well, Barbara, what about the Iraqi military? I mean, while we're doing this, what are they doing?

STARR: They're not standing still. Now, nobody thinks they're really going to pose an insurmountable threat. But this past week, U.S. intelligence officials told us the Iraqis are now moving Scud launching equipment, the launching equipment, next to civilian areas, mosques and other civilian areas.

Very critical indicator, they want to preserve those launchers. They don't want them struck. They move them next to civilian areas. What are they preserving those launchers for? They must have Scud missiles to put on them. That's the concern.

COHEN: And as if we needed another reminder of how dangerous this part of the world is, this just came to us, that four soldiers were killed Saturday, today, when their tank ran over an explosive device in the Gaza Strip.

STARR: Somewhat unrelated, of course, this is an individual incident in Israel, a very tragic one. But Israel is certainly in the back of everybody's mind, even the president's, as the war plan moves forward. They do not want the Iraqis to make a sudden move against Israel. They don't want Israel entering the war. They don't want to have any further political destabilization in the Middle East. So, a lot of concern.

MALVEAUX: If the Pentagon had its way, what would be the ideal time to begin strike? Would it be mid-March, would it be late March?

STARR: Probably some time in March, strictly from a military, tactical point of view. That's when it will be optimum for them. They'll have all the troops, all the equipment, all the airplanes that they really want.

But they will tell you they're ready anytime, and that they will stay until the president orders them to go into Iraq or leave.

KOPPEL: Barbara, some of the Arab officials that I've spoken with in the last week were talking about how they have reports from their intelligence services that Iraqi military forces are digging in, something like 20 to 80 miles outside the capital of Baghdad. They're getting their trenches dug. And that -- obviously we've been talking about it so much -- that they want to lure the American military into the cities.

How prepared is the U.S. military to fight door to door, building to building?

STARR: That is going to be very tough, but you raise the critical point. What we learned this week, indeed, the Republican Guard is now dug in in two rings around Baghdad, one very close to the city, one several kilometers outside the city -- defensive positions.

The Iraqis have absolutely no intention of making their critical mistake in 1991. They are not going to fight the U.S. in the desert, because they know they're going to lose. They're going to let the U.S. come to them in Baghdad. That is where the Republican Guard and where Saddam will make his last stand. It will be very nasty.

HINOJOSA: Barbara, any sense -- when you're getting all of this information about troop movement and all this preparation, does the Pentagon talk at all about casualties? Any numbers that are being talked about, in terms of casualties?

STARR: You know, since Vietnam I think there's been a real policy by the military to absolutely stay away from that question. You can ask that and you will always be told, "We don't estimate it. We don't have a formal estimate."

The sort of cold, unpleasant fact, however, is body bags have been ordered, body bags have been shipped to the region. They certainly are prepared.

MALVEAUX: And, Barbara, wasn't the story about possible cremation -- that changed this week, as well?

STARR: They looked at it. They spent several days trying to decide whether, for the first time, the U.S. military would cremate remains in the field if there was a large, chemical, biological attack against soldiers.

They decided, after consulting medical people, that contamination was manageable. They could return bodies to the United States in the normal way, in sealed caskets and containers.

COHEN: You know, it seems -- you're talking about the moonless nights of March. It seems that there might be a disadvantage, if they're getting that specific, "It's night one, two or three," or even naming a week, that you sort of prepare your enemy to know what you're doing.

STARR: Well, you know, they want Saddam to think they're coming after him. That's part of the strategy. A very, very senior military official that you see on TV a lot...

(LAUGHTER)

... told CNN this week that that is absolutely part of the strategy. The military presence is one of supporting diplomacy. They want Saddam to think he has no hope and he might as well just give up.

MALVEAUX: And that's a great point that you bring up, too, because of course Bush has this political window that he's dealing with as well. I mean, the credibility of the Bush administration is on the line. He always talks about, well, the credibility of the U.N. Security Council. But really, you're talking about just within weeks before the president and the administration looks like, oh, hey, well, you know, this is a game of chicken. I mean, they've either got to be serious about this and come forward...

ARENA: Well, when is that point, though, Suzanne?

MALVEAUX: This is weeks. I mean, people I've talked to say...

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: ... you know, he's been out there saying, "The full force...

MALVEAUX: That's right.

ARENA: ... we'll go it alone if we have to." When does that become, OK, now or never? What is the sense that you're getting?

MALVEAUX: Well, OK, think about it this way. I mean, if the second resolution doesn't work, if you don't have members of the U.N. Security Council getting on board in the next couple of weeks, then they make a really serious decision and say, "Well, maybe this is the time that we do it without them." So we're talking about weeks.

HINOJOSA: Well, from troops on the ground to people on the street, when we come back I'm on the story of the protest movement across the country and around the world, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN SARANDON, ACTRESS: I think what people are saying now is, don't escalate the violence. Don't undermine the U.N. Don't undermine NATO. We need them. We need to be smarter about this, you know. War is definitely the failure of diplomacy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HINOJOSA: Celebrities using their star power, along with regular folks, who are coming out, taking to the streets today here in New York City and all across the country and around the world. Over 600 cities that are taking to the streets to say they don't want a possible war with Iraq. Now, interestingly, I've covered a lot of protests, but perhaps the most interesting person that I met was on Thursday when I was up in the Bronx doing a story for Friday, and they were out doing distribution in the heart of the Bronx. And I went up to this woman, I said, "So who are you? What do you do?" And I was kind of expecting her to say, "I'm a old anti-war activist." She said, "I'm a Marine mom." And I said, "What do you mean?" And she said, "My son is in the Marines. He joined the Marines so that he could pay for his school. And now he's going to have to die for this? I don't want a war." And then she said, "It's not that I'm afraid of him dying or of death," she said, "I just never raised him to go out and kill people."

So that's kind of a sense of some of the new people who are coming into the fold in this anti-war movement that has happened even before there's a war.

ARENA: Maria, what is the sense, though, in general that you're getting from people who are taking to the streets in this way? I mean, because I know that in your reporting this week, you've said that there are people who have never done this before, they're first- time protesters.

What is -- I mean, are they afraid of repercussions here at home, possible terror attacks? Are they truly just anti-war? I mean, what is it that you're hearing?

HINOJOSA: You're hearing all of that, Kelli. I mean, you're hearing people who are saying they're really scared, that New York has been through this before, that for them this notion that somehow a war is supposed to make New Yorkers feel safer, that's not what they're feeling here. They're saying the possibility of a war make us feel unsafer. It opens us up to be a target again.

You're seeing a lot of the old anti-war folks who are just coming back into the fold, people in their 60s and 70s who are back.

Most of them, though, I think it's a real -- for a lot of the people here in New York, it's a very personal issue. They've got kids that they're thinking about.

And I have to say, I have talked to a lot of families who are going to bring their children out. It's bitter cold, and they're doing this because they feel that this is the time to take to the streets and say this.

And, you know, the interesting thing is, is that when you're talking to the people here, they feel like now, more than ever, they're part of this international movement. There are these demonstrations that are happening in Berlin, the demonstrations that have been happening all throughout Europe that we're now getting pictures in. They have the information on the demonstrations that happened in Australia that were really huge. So a lot of these people, again, feeding off the energy of what they think now is really an international movement to try to stop this war.

Now, whether or not they can -- when you ask them that, a lot of them say, "Look, we're hopeful," but there's a sense that maybe there's nothing they can do. There is that sense of defeat.

MALVEAUX: Why is the time now, though, Maria? Because I've been traveling with Bush for the last, you know, four or five months. He's been talk about the possibility of war. I have friends who come up to me and say, "We're against this war." But at the same time, we've seen, like, a dozen protesters here, two dozen there.

It only seems as if this has gained momentum, say, in the last couple of weeks. Why so late in the process? Why did this just take off now?

HINOJOSA: Well, there have been protests through -- there was a protest in October and then one earlier in January. So they would probably say that it isn't new.

But the reality is that, as the possibility of war gets closer and closer, well, the peace and anti-war groups get more mobilized. It becomes more real. So it's this timetable that, as the timetable for war gets closer, they realize -- they say that they can't wait any longer. So it's kind of that game of playing off of each other's schedules here.

KOPPEL: Maria, as you know, just last week Secretary Powell, before the United Nations, presented what the U.S. said was evidence that linked Iraq, and alluding to the fact that it would be the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, to al Qaeda terrorists.

When you talk to people, are they saying they just don't buy that?

HINOJOSA: Absolutely. They don't buy that at all. I mean, people here who are at this demonstration continue to say, "So where is Osama bin Laden?" That's what they continue to say.

I've heard people saying here that in the list of people, if it's Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, or George Bush who they are fearful of right now, Saddam Hussein is on the lowest part of that list. They feel much more afraid of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. And, look, in New York we're on a heightened terror alert, not because of Saddam Hussein, but because of al Qaeda.

And they do not feel at all that the case has been made. And I spoke to someone who lost his daughter on September 11, and he was the one who just said, "The case for me has not been proven. If it was proven, perhaps this would be different, perhaps then I could support something like this in memory of my daughter." But he says they just don't buy it at all that any case has been proven that there's any ties between Osama bin Laden and Iraq.

STARR: Maria, what do the current polls show, broadly speaking, across the country? Should people think of these protests as happening only in major capitals, major cities in the United States, major capitals in Europe? Or what is the sense of how broad the opposition is through society, across America?

HINOJOSA: I think that, you know, post-September 11 there was a feeling that anyone who spoke out anti-war was really in the minority. But in yesterday's latest polls from The New York Times and CBS that show that still -- I don't have the number in front of me, but 60 percent are saying that they support this war only with the United Nations backing them.

So there might have been a sense that this was focused on these big cities, but if you look at the list of cities that are protesting today, I mean, Jasper, Texas; Lansing, Michigan; small towns in Rhode Island and North Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia. So that they may be smaller demonstrations, but the idea here was to say across the board.

And one interesting thing, 90 city councils across the country have approved anti-war resolutions, saying that a war would be really damaging to urban America, that it's going to be taking away money that needs to be funneled into the cities. So 90 city councils now approving anti-war resolutions.

KOPPEL: Well, our thanks to Maria Hinojosa, who join us today from New York. Going to be out there covering those protests, Maria. Stay warm.

HINOJOSA: OK.

KOPPEL: From the streets to the suites, as Jesse Jackson used to say. The suites and offices of power here in New York and elsewhere are where the diplomatic game is played. We are back on the story, back in two minutes with a news alert.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I don't like war. I've been in war. I've sent men into war. I've seen friends die in war. Nobody wants war. But sometimes it's necessary when you need it to maintain international order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: Secretary of State Colin Powell spent the week telling Congress, the international allies and Iraq that war is part of the equation.

We're ON THE STORY. Welcome back.

And Powell ended the week with one-on-one diplomacy at the United Nations, trying to forge a coalition and mend damage to NATO.

I got to tell you, we know that Secretary Powell's a retired four-star general, he's a man who is used to being in battle. This really was the diplomatic equivalent of dodging bullets.

Secretary Powell went into yesterday's meeting not really expecting what he'd hear from Blix and ElBaradei. This was not good news to the U.S. Most of the other Security Council members, whether it be France, whether it be Germany, Russia, China, all delivered impassioned pleas for peace.

Unprecedented in the Security Council that you heard not one round of applause, but two, following the French foreign minister and the Russian foreign minister. So much so that the German foreign minister, who's president of the Security Council, said, "Guys, I know it's Valentine's Day, but this is the procedure of the Council. You can't clap."

COHEN: Andrea, do you think that Secretary Powell and the other members of the administration anticipated this difficult day?

KOPPEL: They knew it was going to be difficult. They had seen already sort of a proxy battle being played out at NATO headquarters in Brussels, with Belgium, France and Germany all refusing, again, unprecedented under the NATO charter, an appeal from one of its own members, from Turkey, to, in an defensive action, send AWACS, send Patriot missile batteries and other equipment to Turkey as, again, as a defensive measure. On principle and as a symbolic move, they blocked it, even though privately the Germans and the Netherlands were sending this equipment.

So the administration knew it wasn't going to be pretty, but this was ugly.

ARENA: Andrea, I have heard repeatedly that if there's anybody who's going to pull this off for the United States diplomatically, it's Colin Powell. Judging from this display, this does not look good, but is there an undercurrent that you're aware of that makes it -- that, in reality, it's actually better then it looks?

KOPPEL: I don't think so at this point, Kelli. And you -- I think the administration, quite frankly, this weekend is licking its wounds and regrouping and trying to figure out where it goes from here.

But it really was, just going back to Colin Powell and the Council yesterday, it was one of those moments in which even people in our satellite truck where I was watching it who normally are dealing with other technical matters had turned their attention away from what they were doing and watching Secretary Powell, who really took his notes, moved them to the side and ad-libbed his entire presentation. Usually, when you're in the Security Council, you see the officials looking up and down from a sheet of paper. Colin Powell was speaking from the heart, from the gut. This is a guy who is tremendous extemporaneously.

And he did appeal in so many different ways: as a former soldier, as a diplomat, as someone, as he put it, who had put his time and energy into trying to stop the movement toward war. And that the U.S., he said, wants nothing more for there not to be a war. But he said, "Guys, you know, Saddam Hussein is playing games with us. This is piecemeal. This is not what we're expecting to see under 1441, which is a complete and total cooperation on the part of Saddam Hussein." MALVEAUX: And, Andrea, he did something really, really unusual too. He broke some news, as well, when he was presenting, when he said we have this bin Laden tape, Osama bin Laden tape, even before Al-Jazeera actually broadcast the tape, saying that, yes, this proves again there's a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

KOPPEL: That is absolutely right.

Another forum where it's not usually that exciting, a Senate Budget Committee hearing, Secretary Powell, in the middle of his testimony, makes some allusion to the fact that the U.S. has evidence of another bin Laden tape.

This -- remember, just about a year or so ago, Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, was calling up our network and others saying, "Screen bin Laden -- any bin Laden tape that comes out" -- granted, this was an audiotape, not a videotape as it was back then -- "but screen it and be judicious in what you broadcast."

This time it was almost as if Secretary Powell was doing a little commercial, saying, "Tune in at X time to hear from bin Laden."

MALVEAUX: The most important audience to what Colin Powell says, Saddam Hussein, of course, but also Powell's boss, President Bush. The challenges pile up for the president this week, and we're on the story when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: We saw what terrorists could do with four airplanes as weapons. We're not going to wait and see what they can do with even deadlier weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: President Bush continuing to link the war on terrorism and U.S. efforts to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

We're ON THE STORY. Welcome back.

Now, I have to tell you that this is going to be a political showdown in the weeks to come. What you are seeing -- and I'm glad Andrea brought this up -- is that really this administration, it's a lot less confident about getting the kind of support that it needs, but even more determined.

You talk to advisers, you talk to people behind the scenes, they are even more determined, despite the fact that you see Bush out there in Jacksonville, Florida, proclaiming that there's going to be a victory before even declaring a war, saying that, yes, we're rallying the troops, they know it's going to be a really tough sell now to get those on board with the U.N. Security Council, much tougher than they even imagined when Powell went before and made his presentation. And one of the things that we're seeing here is that I talked to folks a couple weeks ago, they said we want a tough second resolution here. Well, now we're looking at something a lot simpler. It may be a weak resolution. It may be something that just allows political cover for the French, for the British, for anyone else, so they can get them on board with this second resolution and, at the same time, say, "Yes, we have the authority to go in and get Saddam Hussein on our own."

KOPPEL: Suzanne, what are you hearing now that we've all heard and seen the onslaught of criticism yesterday at the Security Council as to the likelihood that that second resolution, which might just spell out that Iraq is in material breach and there should be serious consequences -- do you think, from talking to folks at the White House, that they think this is still a possibility that they would go for this second resolution?

MALVEAUX: They're going to try. They're definitely going to try in the next couple of days. But you know, what you're looking at is that the language is going to be very different. I mean, the possibility of having something strong, having something tough, say, "Yes, serious consequences will follow," well, that may not happen.

They may just say, OK, we're going to introduce this resolution if we cannot get the approval, if we can't get the support from the other members of the U.N. Security Council, and namely France, which is the big sticking point here, then perhaps at the very least we can get the French to say, "Well, we won't veto this." And that may take days, it may take weeks, but it's not something that the administration is going to allow for much longer.

STARR: Suzanne, what are the political implications for the president? You see the United Nations situation, the NATO situation, bin Laden raising his head again, war protests across America and in Europe today. Does this begin to concern the White House politically? The next election's not that far away.

MALVEAUX: Well, sure, it makes a huge difference politically. I mean, of course they're concerned about this. And the president sees this as a leadership role, that, yes, he's going to move forward. There are a lot of people, as you mentioned before, and those in Congress who are saying, "Well, a true leader would actually get a coalition, would get international support." It's something that they are weighing, and they realize it's going to work against them.

STARR: So has the lack of a coalition -- you just raised a fascinating point. I mean, are we going to look back on this, you have to wonder, the lack of an international cohesive political coalition for a military operation in Iraq, is this going to be potentially a huge political black mark on the Bush administration? Should they have done a better job? The other President Bush got a huge international coalition in 1990.

MALVEAUX: And here's how they frame the debate. Here's what they say in response to that, is that, "Well, let's tally up the numbers here. Let's look at NATO, 16-3. Let's look at the U.N. Security Council." They're downplaying the significance of France, Russia, China and saying, "Well, this is a minority, this is the majority over here. We have several dozen countries that support us."

But it's a very good point there. I mean, they'll say, "Well, look at the numbers." You know, there are other countries that are isolating themselves from the rest of the world, but I mean, clearly, that's not the way others are seeing it.

COHEN: And the president clearly has a tough job in front of him, but for reasons that I can't understand, a lot of people want his job. They want his job the next time his job comes up. And we're going to go from the president's challenges to the health challenges, to one of those people who want his job. We're on that story in two minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: It may sound strange to some of you, but I really feel very lucky as I stand here. And the reason I feel lucky is that I'm going to be cured.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: U.S. Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and a candidate for president, talking before his operation this week where they removed his cancerous prostate.

We're ON THE STORY. Welcome back.

Senator Kerry's doctors said the operation went well, and Kerry's expected to be back in the political fray soon.

Now, what fascinated me about this is that, you know, years and years ago, it was the "C" word. I mean, you wouldn't own up to having cancer. It was this scary, horrible thing. And now, while he has cancer, all the pundits were like, "Big deal, voters aren't going to care."

MALVEAUX: Now it's the "P" word, prostate.

COHEN: That's right.

(LAUGHTER)

MALVEAUX: Who would have thought you would've said prostate?

COHEN: That, too. And now everyone -- I mean, Giuliani and...

STARR: But in this type of cancer, which affects so many men, there is a pretty good cure rate. I mean, there is such a thing as them moving on and leading a normal life. What is that cure rate now? Does surgery really fix it?

COHEN: Surgically can really fix it, if it's caught early enough. And that's why the senator's doctor said that he was the poster boy for early detection.

So if it's caught early enough -- they think that it didn't spread beyond the prostate; they have to do some lab tests to confirm that -- but yes, absolutely, there's some great treatments out there.

When it's caught later, prostate cancer metasticizes to the bone, and it is a long and horrible death.

ARENA: But, Elizabeth, isn't there some sort of a debate about early detection and whether that's actually a good thing?

COHEN: There is. And this gets very confusing so I'll try to clear this up, which is that prostate cancer grows very, very slowly. So there is a chance that you will catch a prostate cancer, let's say in a man who's 65, it will kill him when he's 105. So do you want to do surgery? Do you want to treat it?

The treatment can have terrible side effects. A man can become incontinent, he can become impotent. And do you want to do those things when the cancer is not going to kill him until he's, you know, probably going to be dead from something else? So the doctors debate this on and on and on and feel very passionately on both sides of this.

ARENA: But Kerry, I guess, is young enough to make early detection a good thing.

COHEN: Exactly. And not everyone would have done what he did. I mean, not everyone -- Giuliani did not choose to have surgery. He choose to have radiation. Other people choose what's called "watchful waiting," which is where you don't do anything. So people have very different opinions, and a lot of it depends on what doctor you get, because different doctors will recommend different things.

STARR: And the latest medical theories about why this trend in certain groups of men -- diet, family -- what is the thinking?

COHEN: Well, there are certain things that put people at higher risk for having prostate cancer. Having a family history -- as John Kerry did, his father died of prostate cancer -- puts you at a higher risk. Being African-American puts you at a higher risk. And some people say that if you eat a diet high in animal fat or if you don't get enough exercise, that puts you at higher risk. That's a little bit debated.

But as far as the trend, we sort of hear more and more about prostate cancer -- just this week, also Pat Robertson came out and said he has prostate cancer -- some people say that's more of a detection issue than an actual increase in the cancer. They're just detecting it so much earlier. Senator Kerry's was detected by using a PSA, which is a blood test, and also he had a digital rectal examination.

ARENA: You covered another story, which I was paying close attention to...

(LAUGHTER)

... the cookie story.

COHEN: Right, because you don't have a prostate, so you didn't really care.

(LAUGHTER)

ARENA: Well, my husband has one, so I care a little.

But the cookie story, tell me about this.

COHEN: Yes, the cookie story.

ARENA: I mean, one less cookie and I'm saved?

COHEN: This was a great study that said, look, we're going to do the math. Americans gain, on average, two pounds a year as an adult. So you're gaining two pounds a year. That means between your high school prom and your 40th birthday, you have gained 45 pounds. They said, what can we do about this? So they did more math, and they said if everyone ate one fewer cookie a day, they wouldn't gain that weight, or also if they exercised for about 15 minutes of step aerobics or basketball or a whole list of things. You got to burn 100 calories either way.

STARR: But, Elizabeth, are these big cookies...

(LAUGHTER)

... or little cookies? That's the question.

COHEN: Well, the thing is, my producer and I went in search of cookies that were 100 calories. And the little cookies were only 50, so that's two of them. But the big cookies can be like 300 calories.

We found a brownie that was 420 calories. You had to split it in four...

ARENA: Don't tell me this. No, no, no, shhhh.

(LAUGHTER)

COHEN: So that's an excellent question, because it's true that Americans (inaudible) cookies and you just think of cookies. But cookies these days are gigantic. They've grown over the years. They're not cookies I ate as a child.

ARENA: So, OK, if I'm not willing to give up the cookie, right...

COHEN: Choose something else.

ARENA: ... 15 minutes of exercise, you said?

COHEN: Right, 15 minutes of serious exercise. Fifteen minutes of step aerobics will burn 100 calories, basketball...

ARENA: Well, wait, you said people gain 45 pounds?

COHEN: On average, Americans gain two pounds a year. And it's insidious because two pounds isn't much.

ARENA: And they keep it? Like, they gain it and keep it on?

COHEN: Yes, many times they do.

ARENA: Oh my God.

COHEN: I mean, we're not an obese nation for nothing, right? I mean, there's a reason for it.

MALVEAUX: All right. So we're all going to go on a cookie break afterwards.

(LAUGHTER)

COHEN: OK, there we go.

MALVEAUX: Thanks to my colleagues, and thank you for watching.

We'll be back from ON THE STORY next week. Stay with CNN for updates on the showdown with Iraq and the war protests around the world.

And still ahead at 11:00 a.m. Eastern, CNN's live Saturday with Fredricka Whitfield. And at 12:00 noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. Pacific, a special two-hour "SHOWDOWN: IRAQ" from Kuwait City.

Coming up at the top of the hour, a news alert, but first, the president's radio address.

(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)

BUSH: Good morning.

Last week, the national terrorist threat level was raised to high. This is primarily a signal to federal, state and local law enforcement to take additional precautions and increase security measures against potential terrorist attacks.

Raising the threat level also informs the general public to be more alert to their surroundings and prepared for possible emergencies in the event of an attack.

American shows go about their lives. And for those seeking specific guidance on how to be more vigilant, I encourage you to visit the Department of Homeland Security Web site at dhs.gov.

These recent threats are a stark reminder that our country remains engaged in a war on terror. Our enemies are still determined to attack America, and there is no such thing as perfect security against a hidden network of killers. Yet, I assure you that our government at every level is responding to this threat, working to track down every lead and standing watch 24 hours a day against terrorism. This past week, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge issued strategic plans to protect our critical infrastructures. These plans will guide local officials in securing our nation's dams and power plants, electrical grids, computer networks and communications systems.

Our effort to safeguard the homeland includes tighter security at the borders and ports of entry. We have posted more than 50,000 newly trained federal screeners in airports. We have begun inoculating troops and first-responders against smallpox. We are deploying the nation's first early-warning network of sensors to detect a biological attack.

And we are moving to better coordinate the efforts of law enforcement. This week at FBI headquarters, I spoke to some of the fine men and women who are leading our anti-terrorism efforts in law enforcement and intelligence. The FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense are working together as never before to assemble and analyze the threat information so we can act before our enemies can strike us. We are gathering the best information possible and using it to make sure the right people are in the right places to protect our citizens.

Throughout the country, joint terrorism task forces are bringing together federal, state and local officials to fight terrorism. The FBI is expanding its terrorist identification system so that 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies will be able to identify known or suspected terrorists almost immediately. Local police will be able to access federal terrorist information from their squad cars to determine whether individuals they have pulled over or detained have terrorist links.

I've also asked Congress to fill a critical need in our defense against bioterror by committing almost $6 billion to quickly make available effective vaccines and treatments against agents like smallpox, anthrax, botulinum toxin, Ebola and plague.

Our nation is preparing for a variety of threats we hope never will arrive. Many of these dangers are unfamiliar and unsettling. Yet the best way to fight these dangers is to anticipate them and act against them with focus and determination. This vigilance is a fundamental responsibility of your government, and we are fulfilling that duty in every way we can.

In the fight against terror, the American people are resolute. We will persevere, and we will prevail.

Thank you for listening.

(END AUDIOTAPE)

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




U.N.; Millions Around the Globe Protest Against War in Iraq>


Aired February 15, 2003 - 10:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to CNN's ON THE STORY, where our journalists have the inside word on the stories we covered this week.
I'm Elizabeth Cohen. A cancer scare for two prominent people this week and a reminder of the importance of early detection.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Kelli Arena. I'm on the story of new terrorism warnings, public jitters, and blunt talk from the people in charge of finding and preventing terrorism.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: I'm Barbara Starr, and I'm on the story of the U.S. plan of attack in a possible war and how the Pentagon has its own concerns about terrorism against military targets.

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Maria Hinojosa, on the story and on the street, where thousands of protesters are expected here in New York and elsewhere, trying to say no to a looming war in Iraq.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: I'm Andrea Koppel, also in New York, on the story of Colin Powell back at the U.N. and the voice of Osama bin Laden back on the airways.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Suzanne Malveaux, on the story of how President Bush hopes to bring the U.N., Congress and the U.S. population over to his side on Iraq policy.

We'll be talking about all these stories, we'll listen to the president's weekly radio address at the end of the hour, but first, a check on what's making headlines right now, from the CNN center in Atlanta.

(NEWSBREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MUELLER, DIRECTOR, FBI: Our greatest threat is from al Qaeda cells in the United States that we have not yet been able to identify. Finding and routing out al Qaeda members once they have entered the United States...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: FBI Director Robert Mueller, just one administration voice this week ratcheting up terrorism fears.

We are ON THE STORY. Welcome back.

Federal officials warned of sleeper cells, unfinished al Qaeda business, soft targets, more than enough information to put the U.S. nervously on guard.

I can tell you, I'll bring you up-to-the-minute information, the level of so-called chatter -- we've all heard that word; that just means information coming in through a variety of means: intercepts, human intelligence and so on -- has fallen off. Between yesterday and the day before, we've seen a significant drop.

Different reads on what that means at this point. It could mean, look out, you know, chatter has fallen, something is imminent. It could mean that chatter has fallen and we are in the clear. Analysts are obviously busily working on figuring out where we're at in this stage, and of course that will play into where the government decides the threat level should be.

HINOJOSA: Hey, Kelli, a question for you. You know, I've heard a lot of people here in New York, a week ago, very, very anxious. Of course, a lot of fear. Going through the process of buying the duct tape, getting the plastic.

But now I'm hearing a lot of people getting really angry. They just feel really confused. They feel like they're not getting the right direction. I mean, here, the mayor was saying, "Forget about the duct tape, don't do it," you know.

Do they realize how confused -- and now, as I said, a lot of anger here. Do they realize that this might be one of the ramifications of all this?

ARENA: Well, to put it in some perspective, obviously the feelings will be magnified in New York, because New York has been on a higher level of alert. There has been much more visible security there. And of course New York was the site of a devastating terror attack on September 11. So the feelings that are being expressed there are more intense than they are nationwide.

But on that front, there was a lot of information that went out to try to tell people, "This is what you need in the case of an emergency." And what some people did was take that one step further and they started, as we saw because we had the video rolling all week, of people who were literally out there, you know, covering their windows with plastic sheeting.

The advice from the government is, "Look, we told you to have this just in case. We are not suggesting that you go out there and do this, you know, just when there's nothing going on." I mean, that is not what -- that was not the intent. But they are going -- they are planning a very big public relations information campaign...

COHEN: Will plastic sheeting and duct tape really help you in the event of a chemical... ARENA: It depends, it depends. I mean, I asked that question because I live here in the Washington area. They said that it depends on the type of agent that is used. But more than that, they say to just shut off anything in your -- any system in your home that brings in air from the outside.

MALVEAUX: Why do you suppose that that didn't work very well? I mean, what are they going to do next time? I mean, a lot of people -- it seemed as if they almost panicked, and then there were all the jokes that followed. What are they going to do differently when there really is maybe a higher state of alert, so that people don't, A, either panic or take it as a joke or something?

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: ... higher state of alert, that's severe. That will be severe. If they have to go to red, that is severe. I mean, they had very specific -- we heard from the director of the CIA that this was the most significant intelligence -- I'm sorry, specific intelligence they've received since September 11.

STARR: That's underscored by the military people we talk to, because of course there were rumors at the end of the week that possibly some of the intelligence that they had that led them to raise the alert status might not have been very accurate.

We asked that question, was this all just a big mistake? And adamantly, officials at the Pentagon and in the national security community said absolutely not...

ARENA: That's right.

STARR: ... that they had multiple threats, that there was no misleading, that they really felt there was a problem.

ARENA: Right. And we should probably underscore that, because there were several talk-show hosts, I'm told, that were saying, "Oh, this was a hoax, the terror alert was a hoax," and it wasn't.

I mean, according to the officials that we spoke to, they said that, yes, there are some times informants you have that ultimately will fail a polygraph once U.S. officials get their hands on them to be able to conduct that polygraph testing. It is not the first time an informant has failed a polygraph, nor will it be the last time an informant fails a polygraph.

But the information, we are told, was coming in from so many different places, from so many different avenues, and it was corroborating, so that they were hearing...

(CROSSTALK)

STARR: ... all senior military officials we spoke to during the week all basically said the same thing, that the hair on the back of their neck was standing up. ARENA: Yes, right. And the tension was palpable. I mean, I speak to these people day in and day out, and they were very concerned.

Now, you know that the specific information pointed to an attack to coincide with the end of the Hajj, which would be, you know, this weekend. Just because we get through this weekend without an attack, officials still say we are not in the clear. Al Qaeda is determined and willing and capable of attacking again.

STARR: So, Kelli, how do we get out of this orange status now? Does that just go away?

ARENA: You know, and that's a discussion, because there is a discussion already under way about possibly going down from orange back to yellow, once we get through this very specific time frame, like we saw on the September 11 anniversary. They had specific -- they had information that suggested something could be planned around that time.

That the feeling is that they will probably go back down to yellow some time possibly within the next week. Because once we pass over this hump -- unless there is intelligence that comes in suggesting otherwise.

And this is something that is reviewed every hour of every day. This is not something that they can decide on Friday, "Well, on Wednesday we're going to lower the threat level." No, this is something that is done routinely.

STARR: Well, the Pentagon has its own terrorism worries about military installations here and overseas being vulnerable to terrorist attack. We're on the story of that and how the U.S. and Iraq are preparing for war, all coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If force becomes necessary to secure our country and to keep the peace, America will act deliberately, America will act decisively, and America will act victoriously with the world's greatest military.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: President Bush talking to Navy personnel in Florida on Thursday, reminding a U.S. and overseas audience that the military is getting ready.

And in fact, this was a very critical week for just that thing, the build-up. Little noticed by many people, but the military finally this week reached its goal, surpassing more than 150,000 troops in the Persian Gulf region. Very critical for the Pentagon because now what they tell us, with 150,000 troops in the region, if the president were to make a decision, they have a very short timetable, they're now as close as they can be to being ready to go within days of him giving them the signal. That's what 150,000 troops gets him.

MALVEAUX: So what does that mean in terms of the timetable? Could we actually see everybody in place, ready in weeks, in days? I mean, if we had to strike, we'd be ready to strike now?

STARR: The Pentagon has always said, if the president orders, they would be ready at any time. They wanted 150,000, have enough oomph there to actually get into Iraq and accomplish their goal.

But you raise a really interesting question, the timetable. The calendar is perking along, you know. Sooner rather than later, warm weather will be coming. They have several moonless nights in early March. That's when they'd like to go, from a military standpoint. They don't want to let it drag out too long just in terms of the current war plan they have.

ARENA: Well, Barbara, what about the Iraqi military? I mean, while we're doing this, what are they doing?

STARR: They're not standing still. Now, nobody thinks they're really going to pose an insurmountable threat. But this past week, U.S. intelligence officials told us the Iraqis are now moving Scud launching equipment, the launching equipment, next to civilian areas, mosques and other civilian areas.

Very critical indicator, they want to preserve those launchers. They don't want them struck. They move them next to civilian areas. What are they preserving those launchers for? They must have Scud missiles to put on them. That's the concern.

COHEN: And as if we needed another reminder of how dangerous this part of the world is, this just came to us, that four soldiers were killed Saturday, today, when their tank ran over an explosive device in the Gaza Strip.

STARR: Somewhat unrelated, of course, this is an individual incident in Israel, a very tragic one. But Israel is certainly in the back of everybody's mind, even the president's, as the war plan moves forward. They do not want the Iraqis to make a sudden move against Israel. They don't want Israel entering the war. They don't want to have any further political destabilization in the Middle East. So, a lot of concern.

MALVEAUX: If the Pentagon had its way, what would be the ideal time to begin strike? Would it be mid-March, would it be late March?

STARR: Probably some time in March, strictly from a military, tactical point of view. That's when it will be optimum for them. They'll have all the troops, all the equipment, all the airplanes that they really want.

But they will tell you they're ready anytime, and that they will stay until the president orders them to go into Iraq or leave.

KOPPEL: Barbara, some of the Arab officials that I've spoken with in the last week were talking about how they have reports from their intelligence services that Iraqi military forces are digging in, something like 20 to 80 miles outside the capital of Baghdad. They're getting their trenches dug. And that -- obviously we've been talking about it so much -- that they want to lure the American military into the cities.

How prepared is the U.S. military to fight door to door, building to building?

STARR: That is going to be very tough, but you raise the critical point. What we learned this week, indeed, the Republican Guard is now dug in in two rings around Baghdad, one very close to the city, one several kilometers outside the city -- defensive positions.

The Iraqis have absolutely no intention of making their critical mistake in 1991. They are not going to fight the U.S. in the desert, because they know they're going to lose. They're going to let the U.S. come to them in Baghdad. That is where the Republican Guard and where Saddam will make his last stand. It will be very nasty.

HINOJOSA: Barbara, any sense -- when you're getting all of this information about troop movement and all this preparation, does the Pentagon talk at all about casualties? Any numbers that are being talked about, in terms of casualties?

STARR: You know, since Vietnam I think there's been a real policy by the military to absolutely stay away from that question. You can ask that and you will always be told, "We don't estimate it. We don't have a formal estimate."

The sort of cold, unpleasant fact, however, is body bags have been ordered, body bags have been shipped to the region. They certainly are prepared.

MALVEAUX: And, Barbara, wasn't the story about possible cremation -- that changed this week, as well?

STARR: They looked at it. They spent several days trying to decide whether, for the first time, the U.S. military would cremate remains in the field if there was a large, chemical, biological attack against soldiers.

They decided, after consulting medical people, that contamination was manageable. They could return bodies to the United States in the normal way, in sealed caskets and containers.

COHEN: You know, it seems -- you're talking about the moonless nights of March. It seems that there might be a disadvantage, if they're getting that specific, "It's night one, two or three," or even naming a week, that you sort of prepare your enemy to know what you're doing.

STARR: Well, you know, they want Saddam to think they're coming after him. That's part of the strategy. A very, very senior military official that you see on TV a lot...

(LAUGHTER)

... told CNN this week that that is absolutely part of the strategy. The military presence is one of supporting diplomacy. They want Saddam to think he has no hope and he might as well just give up.

MALVEAUX: And that's a great point that you bring up, too, because of course Bush has this political window that he's dealing with as well. I mean, the credibility of the Bush administration is on the line. He always talks about, well, the credibility of the U.N. Security Council. But really, you're talking about just within weeks before the president and the administration looks like, oh, hey, well, you know, this is a game of chicken. I mean, they've either got to be serious about this and come forward...

ARENA: Well, when is that point, though, Suzanne?

MALVEAUX: This is weeks. I mean, people I've talked to say...

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: ... you know, he's been out there saying, "The full force...

MALVEAUX: That's right.

ARENA: ... we'll go it alone if we have to." When does that become, OK, now or never? What is the sense that you're getting?

MALVEAUX: Well, OK, think about it this way. I mean, if the second resolution doesn't work, if you don't have members of the U.N. Security Council getting on board in the next couple of weeks, then they make a really serious decision and say, "Well, maybe this is the time that we do it without them." So we're talking about weeks.

HINOJOSA: Well, from troops on the ground to people on the street, when we come back I'm on the story of the protest movement across the country and around the world, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN SARANDON, ACTRESS: I think what people are saying now is, don't escalate the violence. Don't undermine the U.N. Don't undermine NATO. We need them. We need to be smarter about this, you know. War is definitely the failure of diplomacy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HINOJOSA: Celebrities using their star power, along with regular folks, who are coming out, taking to the streets today here in New York City and all across the country and around the world. Over 600 cities that are taking to the streets to say they don't want a possible war with Iraq. Now, interestingly, I've covered a lot of protests, but perhaps the most interesting person that I met was on Thursday when I was up in the Bronx doing a story for Friday, and they were out doing distribution in the heart of the Bronx. And I went up to this woman, I said, "So who are you? What do you do?" And I was kind of expecting her to say, "I'm a old anti-war activist." She said, "I'm a Marine mom." And I said, "What do you mean?" And she said, "My son is in the Marines. He joined the Marines so that he could pay for his school. And now he's going to have to die for this? I don't want a war." And then she said, "It's not that I'm afraid of him dying or of death," she said, "I just never raised him to go out and kill people."

So that's kind of a sense of some of the new people who are coming into the fold in this anti-war movement that has happened even before there's a war.

ARENA: Maria, what is the sense, though, in general that you're getting from people who are taking to the streets in this way? I mean, because I know that in your reporting this week, you've said that there are people who have never done this before, they're first- time protesters.

What is -- I mean, are they afraid of repercussions here at home, possible terror attacks? Are they truly just anti-war? I mean, what is it that you're hearing?

HINOJOSA: You're hearing all of that, Kelli. I mean, you're hearing people who are saying they're really scared, that New York has been through this before, that for them this notion that somehow a war is supposed to make New Yorkers feel safer, that's not what they're feeling here. They're saying the possibility of a war make us feel unsafer. It opens us up to be a target again.

You're seeing a lot of the old anti-war folks who are just coming back into the fold, people in their 60s and 70s who are back.

Most of them, though, I think it's a real -- for a lot of the people here in New York, it's a very personal issue. They've got kids that they're thinking about.

And I have to say, I have talked to a lot of families who are going to bring their children out. It's bitter cold, and they're doing this because they feel that this is the time to take to the streets and say this.

And, you know, the interesting thing is, is that when you're talking to the people here, they feel like now, more than ever, they're part of this international movement. There are these demonstrations that are happening in Berlin, the demonstrations that have been happening all throughout Europe that we're now getting pictures in. They have the information on the demonstrations that happened in Australia that were really huge. So a lot of these people, again, feeding off the energy of what they think now is really an international movement to try to stop this war.

Now, whether or not they can -- when you ask them that, a lot of them say, "Look, we're hopeful," but there's a sense that maybe there's nothing they can do. There is that sense of defeat.

MALVEAUX: Why is the time now, though, Maria? Because I've been traveling with Bush for the last, you know, four or five months. He's been talk about the possibility of war. I have friends who come up to me and say, "We're against this war." But at the same time, we've seen, like, a dozen protesters here, two dozen there.

It only seems as if this has gained momentum, say, in the last couple of weeks. Why so late in the process? Why did this just take off now?

HINOJOSA: Well, there have been protests through -- there was a protest in October and then one earlier in January. So they would probably say that it isn't new.

But the reality is that, as the possibility of war gets closer and closer, well, the peace and anti-war groups get more mobilized. It becomes more real. So it's this timetable that, as the timetable for war gets closer, they realize -- they say that they can't wait any longer. So it's kind of that game of playing off of each other's schedules here.

KOPPEL: Maria, as you know, just last week Secretary Powell, before the United Nations, presented what the U.S. said was evidence that linked Iraq, and alluding to the fact that it would be the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, to al Qaeda terrorists.

When you talk to people, are they saying they just don't buy that?

HINOJOSA: Absolutely. They don't buy that at all. I mean, people here who are at this demonstration continue to say, "So where is Osama bin Laden?" That's what they continue to say.

I've heard people saying here that in the list of people, if it's Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, or George Bush who they are fearful of right now, Saddam Hussein is on the lowest part of that list. They feel much more afraid of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. And, look, in New York we're on a heightened terror alert, not because of Saddam Hussein, but because of al Qaeda.

And they do not feel at all that the case has been made. And I spoke to someone who lost his daughter on September 11, and he was the one who just said, "The case for me has not been proven. If it was proven, perhaps this would be different, perhaps then I could support something like this in memory of my daughter." But he says they just don't buy it at all that any case has been proven that there's any ties between Osama bin Laden and Iraq.

STARR: Maria, what do the current polls show, broadly speaking, across the country? Should people think of these protests as happening only in major capitals, major cities in the United States, major capitals in Europe? Or what is the sense of how broad the opposition is through society, across America?

HINOJOSA: I think that, you know, post-September 11 there was a feeling that anyone who spoke out anti-war was really in the minority. But in yesterday's latest polls from The New York Times and CBS that show that still -- I don't have the number in front of me, but 60 percent are saying that they support this war only with the United Nations backing them.

So there might have been a sense that this was focused on these big cities, but if you look at the list of cities that are protesting today, I mean, Jasper, Texas; Lansing, Michigan; small towns in Rhode Island and North Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia. So that they may be smaller demonstrations, but the idea here was to say across the board.

And one interesting thing, 90 city councils across the country have approved anti-war resolutions, saying that a war would be really damaging to urban America, that it's going to be taking away money that needs to be funneled into the cities. So 90 city councils now approving anti-war resolutions.

KOPPEL: Well, our thanks to Maria Hinojosa, who join us today from New York. Going to be out there covering those protests, Maria. Stay warm.

HINOJOSA: OK.

KOPPEL: From the streets to the suites, as Jesse Jackson used to say. The suites and offices of power here in New York and elsewhere are where the diplomatic game is played. We are back on the story, back in two minutes with a news alert.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I don't like war. I've been in war. I've sent men into war. I've seen friends die in war. Nobody wants war. But sometimes it's necessary when you need it to maintain international order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: Secretary of State Colin Powell spent the week telling Congress, the international allies and Iraq that war is part of the equation.

We're ON THE STORY. Welcome back.

And Powell ended the week with one-on-one diplomacy at the United Nations, trying to forge a coalition and mend damage to NATO.

I got to tell you, we know that Secretary Powell's a retired four-star general, he's a man who is used to being in battle. This really was the diplomatic equivalent of dodging bullets.

Secretary Powell went into yesterday's meeting not really expecting what he'd hear from Blix and ElBaradei. This was not good news to the U.S. Most of the other Security Council members, whether it be France, whether it be Germany, Russia, China, all delivered impassioned pleas for peace.

Unprecedented in the Security Council that you heard not one round of applause, but two, following the French foreign minister and the Russian foreign minister. So much so that the German foreign minister, who's president of the Security Council, said, "Guys, I know it's Valentine's Day, but this is the procedure of the Council. You can't clap."

COHEN: Andrea, do you think that Secretary Powell and the other members of the administration anticipated this difficult day?

KOPPEL: They knew it was going to be difficult. They had seen already sort of a proxy battle being played out at NATO headquarters in Brussels, with Belgium, France and Germany all refusing, again, unprecedented under the NATO charter, an appeal from one of its own members, from Turkey, to, in an defensive action, send AWACS, send Patriot missile batteries and other equipment to Turkey as, again, as a defensive measure. On principle and as a symbolic move, they blocked it, even though privately the Germans and the Netherlands were sending this equipment.

So the administration knew it wasn't going to be pretty, but this was ugly.

ARENA: Andrea, I have heard repeatedly that if there's anybody who's going to pull this off for the United States diplomatically, it's Colin Powell. Judging from this display, this does not look good, but is there an undercurrent that you're aware of that makes it -- that, in reality, it's actually better then it looks?

KOPPEL: I don't think so at this point, Kelli. And you -- I think the administration, quite frankly, this weekend is licking its wounds and regrouping and trying to figure out where it goes from here.

But it really was, just going back to Colin Powell and the Council yesterday, it was one of those moments in which even people in our satellite truck where I was watching it who normally are dealing with other technical matters had turned their attention away from what they were doing and watching Secretary Powell, who really took his notes, moved them to the side and ad-libbed his entire presentation. Usually, when you're in the Security Council, you see the officials looking up and down from a sheet of paper. Colin Powell was speaking from the heart, from the gut. This is a guy who is tremendous extemporaneously.

And he did appeal in so many different ways: as a former soldier, as a diplomat, as someone, as he put it, who had put his time and energy into trying to stop the movement toward war. And that the U.S., he said, wants nothing more for there not to be a war. But he said, "Guys, you know, Saddam Hussein is playing games with us. This is piecemeal. This is not what we're expecting to see under 1441, which is a complete and total cooperation on the part of Saddam Hussein." MALVEAUX: And, Andrea, he did something really, really unusual too. He broke some news, as well, when he was presenting, when he said we have this bin Laden tape, Osama bin Laden tape, even before Al-Jazeera actually broadcast the tape, saying that, yes, this proves again there's a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

KOPPEL: That is absolutely right.

Another forum where it's not usually that exciting, a Senate Budget Committee hearing, Secretary Powell, in the middle of his testimony, makes some allusion to the fact that the U.S. has evidence of another bin Laden tape.

This -- remember, just about a year or so ago, Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, was calling up our network and others saying, "Screen bin Laden -- any bin Laden tape that comes out" -- granted, this was an audiotape, not a videotape as it was back then -- "but screen it and be judicious in what you broadcast."

This time it was almost as if Secretary Powell was doing a little commercial, saying, "Tune in at X time to hear from bin Laden."

MALVEAUX: The most important audience to what Colin Powell says, Saddam Hussein, of course, but also Powell's boss, President Bush. The challenges pile up for the president this week, and we're on the story when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: We saw what terrorists could do with four airplanes as weapons. We're not going to wait and see what they can do with even deadlier weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: President Bush continuing to link the war on terrorism and U.S. efforts to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

We're ON THE STORY. Welcome back.

Now, I have to tell you that this is going to be a political showdown in the weeks to come. What you are seeing -- and I'm glad Andrea brought this up -- is that really this administration, it's a lot less confident about getting the kind of support that it needs, but even more determined.

You talk to advisers, you talk to people behind the scenes, they are even more determined, despite the fact that you see Bush out there in Jacksonville, Florida, proclaiming that there's going to be a victory before even declaring a war, saying that, yes, we're rallying the troops, they know it's going to be a really tough sell now to get those on board with the U.N. Security Council, much tougher than they even imagined when Powell went before and made his presentation. And one of the things that we're seeing here is that I talked to folks a couple weeks ago, they said we want a tough second resolution here. Well, now we're looking at something a lot simpler. It may be a weak resolution. It may be something that just allows political cover for the French, for the British, for anyone else, so they can get them on board with this second resolution and, at the same time, say, "Yes, we have the authority to go in and get Saddam Hussein on our own."

KOPPEL: Suzanne, what are you hearing now that we've all heard and seen the onslaught of criticism yesterday at the Security Council as to the likelihood that that second resolution, which might just spell out that Iraq is in material breach and there should be serious consequences -- do you think, from talking to folks at the White House, that they think this is still a possibility that they would go for this second resolution?

MALVEAUX: They're going to try. They're definitely going to try in the next couple of days. But you know, what you're looking at is that the language is going to be very different. I mean, the possibility of having something strong, having something tough, say, "Yes, serious consequences will follow," well, that may not happen.

They may just say, OK, we're going to introduce this resolution if we cannot get the approval, if we can't get the support from the other members of the U.N. Security Council, and namely France, which is the big sticking point here, then perhaps at the very least we can get the French to say, "Well, we won't veto this." And that may take days, it may take weeks, but it's not something that the administration is going to allow for much longer.

STARR: Suzanne, what are the political implications for the president? You see the United Nations situation, the NATO situation, bin Laden raising his head again, war protests across America and in Europe today. Does this begin to concern the White House politically? The next election's not that far away.

MALVEAUX: Well, sure, it makes a huge difference politically. I mean, of course they're concerned about this. And the president sees this as a leadership role, that, yes, he's going to move forward. There are a lot of people, as you mentioned before, and those in Congress who are saying, "Well, a true leader would actually get a coalition, would get international support." It's something that they are weighing, and they realize it's going to work against them.

STARR: So has the lack of a coalition -- you just raised a fascinating point. I mean, are we going to look back on this, you have to wonder, the lack of an international cohesive political coalition for a military operation in Iraq, is this going to be potentially a huge political black mark on the Bush administration? Should they have done a better job? The other President Bush got a huge international coalition in 1990.

MALVEAUX: And here's how they frame the debate. Here's what they say in response to that, is that, "Well, let's tally up the numbers here. Let's look at NATO, 16-3. Let's look at the U.N. Security Council." They're downplaying the significance of France, Russia, China and saying, "Well, this is a minority, this is the majority over here. We have several dozen countries that support us."

But it's a very good point there. I mean, they'll say, "Well, look at the numbers." You know, there are other countries that are isolating themselves from the rest of the world, but I mean, clearly, that's not the way others are seeing it.

COHEN: And the president clearly has a tough job in front of him, but for reasons that I can't understand, a lot of people want his job. They want his job the next time his job comes up. And we're going to go from the president's challenges to the health challenges, to one of those people who want his job. We're on that story in two minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: It may sound strange to some of you, but I really feel very lucky as I stand here. And the reason I feel lucky is that I'm going to be cured.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: U.S. Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and a candidate for president, talking before his operation this week where they removed his cancerous prostate.

We're ON THE STORY. Welcome back.

Senator Kerry's doctors said the operation went well, and Kerry's expected to be back in the political fray soon.

Now, what fascinated me about this is that, you know, years and years ago, it was the "C" word. I mean, you wouldn't own up to having cancer. It was this scary, horrible thing. And now, while he has cancer, all the pundits were like, "Big deal, voters aren't going to care."

MALVEAUX: Now it's the "P" word, prostate.

COHEN: That's right.

(LAUGHTER)

MALVEAUX: Who would have thought you would've said prostate?

COHEN: That, too. And now everyone -- I mean, Giuliani and...

STARR: But in this type of cancer, which affects so many men, there is a pretty good cure rate. I mean, there is such a thing as them moving on and leading a normal life. What is that cure rate now? Does surgery really fix it?

COHEN: Surgically can really fix it, if it's caught early enough. And that's why the senator's doctor said that he was the poster boy for early detection.

So if it's caught early enough -- they think that it didn't spread beyond the prostate; they have to do some lab tests to confirm that -- but yes, absolutely, there's some great treatments out there.

When it's caught later, prostate cancer metasticizes to the bone, and it is a long and horrible death.

ARENA: But, Elizabeth, isn't there some sort of a debate about early detection and whether that's actually a good thing?

COHEN: There is. And this gets very confusing so I'll try to clear this up, which is that prostate cancer grows very, very slowly. So there is a chance that you will catch a prostate cancer, let's say in a man who's 65, it will kill him when he's 105. So do you want to do surgery? Do you want to treat it?

The treatment can have terrible side effects. A man can become incontinent, he can become impotent. And do you want to do those things when the cancer is not going to kill him until he's, you know, probably going to be dead from something else? So the doctors debate this on and on and on and feel very passionately on both sides of this.

ARENA: But Kerry, I guess, is young enough to make early detection a good thing.

COHEN: Exactly. And not everyone would have done what he did. I mean, not everyone -- Giuliani did not choose to have surgery. He choose to have radiation. Other people choose what's called "watchful waiting," which is where you don't do anything. So people have very different opinions, and a lot of it depends on what doctor you get, because different doctors will recommend different things.

STARR: And the latest medical theories about why this trend in certain groups of men -- diet, family -- what is the thinking?

COHEN: Well, there are certain things that put people at higher risk for having prostate cancer. Having a family history -- as John Kerry did, his father died of prostate cancer -- puts you at a higher risk. Being African-American puts you at a higher risk. And some people say that if you eat a diet high in animal fat or if you don't get enough exercise, that puts you at higher risk. That's a little bit debated.

But as far as the trend, we sort of hear more and more about prostate cancer -- just this week, also Pat Robertson came out and said he has prostate cancer -- some people say that's more of a detection issue than an actual increase in the cancer. They're just detecting it so much earlier. Senator Kerry's was detected by using a PSA, which is a blood test, and also he had a digital rectal examination.

ARENA: You covered another story, which I was paying close attention to...

(LAUGHTER)

... the cookie story.

COHEN: Right, because you don't have a prostate, so you didn't really care.

(LAUGHTER)

ARENA: Well, my husband has one, so I care a little.

But the cookie story, tell me about this.

COHEN: Yes, the cookie story.

ARENA: I mean, one less cookie and I'm saved?

COHEN: This was a great study that said, look, we're going to do the math. Americans gain, on average, two pounds a year as an adult. So you're gaining two pounds a year. That means between your high school prom and your 40th birthday, you have gained 45 pounds. They said, what can we do about this? So they did more math, and they said if everyone ate one fewer cookie a day, they wouldn't gain that weight, or also if they exercised for about 15 minutes of step aerobics or basketball or a whole list of things. You got to burn 100 calories either way.

STARR: But, Elizabeth, are these big cookies...

(LAUGHTER)

... or little cookies? That's the question.

COHEN: Well, the thing is, my producer and I went in search of cookies that were 100 calories. And the little cookies were only 50, so that's two of them. But the big cookies can be like 300 calories.

We found a brownie that was 420 calories. You had to split it in four...

ARENA: Don't tell me this. No, no, no, shhhh.

(LAUGHTER)

COHEN: So that's an excellent question, because it's true that Americans (inaudible) cookies and you just think of cookies. But cookies these days are gigantic. They've grown over the years. They're not cookies I ate as a child.

ARENA: So, OK, if I'm not willing to give up the cookie, right...

COHEN: Choose something else.

ARENA: ... 15 minutes of exercise, you said?

COHEN: Right, 15 minutes of serious exercise. Fifteen minutes of step aerobics will burn 100 calories, basketball...

ARENA: Well, wait, you said people gain 45 pounds?

COHEN: On average, Americans gain two pounds a year. And it's insidious because two pounds isn't much.

ARENA: And they keep it? Like, they gain it and keep it on?

COHEN: Yes, many times they do.

ARENA: Oh my God.

COHEN: I mean, we're not an obese nation for nothing, right? I mean, there's a reason for it.

MALVEAUX: All right. So we're all going to go on a cookie break afterwards.

(LAUGHTER)

COHEN: OK, there we go.

MALVEAUX: Thanks to my colleagues, and thank you for watching.

We'll be back from ON THE STORY next week. Stay with CNN for updates on the showdown with Iraq and the war protests around the world.

And still ahead at 11:00 a.m. Eastern, CNN's live Saturday with Fredricka Whitfield. And at 12:00 noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. Pacific, a special two-hour "SHOWDOWN: IRAQ" from Kuwait City.

Coming up at the top of the hour, a news alert, but first, the president's radio address.

(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)

BUSH: Good morning.

Last week, the national terrorist threat level was raised to high. This is primarily a signal to federal, state and local law enforcement to take additional precautions and increase security measures against potential terrorist attacks.

Raising the threat level also informs the general public to be more alert to their surroundings and prepared for possible emergencies in the event of an attack.

American shows go about their lives. And for those seeking specific guidance on how to be more vigilant, I encourage you to visit the Department of Homeland Security Web site at dhs.gov.

These recent threats are a stark reminder that our country remains engaged in a war on terror. Our enemies are still determined to attack America, and there is no such thing as perfect security against a hidden network of killers. Yet, I assure you that our government at every level is responding to this threat, working to track down every lead and standing watch 24 hours a day against terrorism. This past week, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge issued strategic plans to protect our critical infrastructures. These plans will guide local officials in securing our nation's dams and power plants, electrical grids, computer networks and communications systems.

Our effort to safeguard the homeland includes tighter security at the borders and ports of entry. We have posted more than 50,000 newly trained federal screeners in airports. We have begun inoculating troops and first-responders against smallpox. We are deploying the nation's first early-warning network of sensors to detect a biological attack.

And we are moving to better coordinate the efforts of law enforcement. This week at FBI headquarters, I spoke to some of the fine men and women who are leading our anti-terrorism efforts in law enforcement and intelligence. The FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense are working together as never before to assemble and analyze the threat information so we can act before our enemies can strike us. We are gathering the best information possible and using it to make sure the right people are in the right places to protect our citizens.

Throughout the country, joint terrorism task forces are bringing together federal, state and local officials to fight terrorism. The FBI is expanding its terrorist identification system so that 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies will be able to identify known or suspected terrorists almost immediately. Local police will be able to access federal terrorist information from their squad cars to determine whether individuals they have pulled over or detained have terrorist links.

I've also asked Congress to fill a critical need in our defense against bioterror by committing almost $6 billion to quickly make available effective vaccines and treatments against agents like smallpox, anthrax, botulinum toxin, Ebola and plague.

Our nation is preparing for a variety of threats we hope never will arrive. Many of these dangers are unfamiliar and unsettling. Yet the best way to fight these dangers is to anticipate them and act against them with focus and determination. This vigilance is a fundamental responsibility of your government, and we are fulfilling that duty in every way we can.

In the fight against terror, the American people are resolute. We will persevere, and we will prevail.

Thank you for listening.

(END AUDIOTAPE)

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U.N.; Millions Around the Globe Protest Against War in Iraq>