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On the Story
CNN Correspondents Discuss Stories Behind the Stories
Aired August 13, 2005 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: "ON THE STORY" in just a moment, but first, a look at what's happening right now in the news.
The U.S. military is investigating chemicals found at an abandoned storage site in Mosul. A military spokesman tells CNN it's not known whether the chemicals were intended to be used as weapons. The chemicals can be used alone for industrial purposes or combined to create weapons.
And strong words from President Bush over Iran's nuclear program. Iran cranked up its uranium conversion program this week. But on Israeli TV, the president says Iran has to shut it down again otherwise all options are on the table.
And getting on a plane could get easier. The Transportation Security Administration meets later this month to look at a plan to reduce checkpoint hassles for the millions of people who fly in the U.S. Travelers might be able to keep their shoes on for example. There could be fewer pat downs and there even is a proposal to allow small knives.
That's what's happening right now in the news. I'm Carol Lin. Now to ON THE STORY.
JOE JOHNS, CNN ANCHOR, ON THE STORY: This is CNN and we're on the story. From the campus of the George Washington University in the heart of the nation's capital, our correspondents have the stories behind the stories they're covering.
Elaine Quijano is working her way through President Bush's working vacation at the western White House. Ali Velshi rolls out the barrel of oil to explain why you're paying so much for a gallon of gas.
David Ensor's on the story of secret sources and the latest 007 gadgets at the nation's counter terrorism center.
Andrea Koppel's on the story of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and why hundreds may soon be released.
Tom Foreman's on the story of a reporter who was always on the story, Peter Jennings.
And Dr. Sanjay Gupta is on the story of treating and preventing cancer.
Welcome. I'm Joe Johns. Joining me are three of our Washington- based journalists, correspondent Tom Foreman, State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel and national security correspondent David Ensor. Our reporters will be taking questions from the studio audience, drawn from visitors, college students and people across Washington.
We begin with President Bush's working vacation in Texas. Members of the White House press corps made their annual two-step down to Crawford last week. Our Elaine Quijano is there. Let's check out her notebook.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here in Crawford, basically what you do is you report to the file center, which is the gym in the morning and you get a sense of what's going on. It's a lot more relaxed here in Crawford in terms of the pace of things. This is how we really operate in Crawford.
You're obviously in a different flow. The situation here is much different than in Washington. We are near the president's ranch, not actually at the president's ranch. If you're familiar with the (INAUDIBLE) and the shed behind me, but this is what you don't get to see. This is actually somebody's back yard. We do get to see administration officials from time to time. They'll have White House folks come into the file center, but it's not often that we get to see the president himself.
I think most of the press corps is in agreement that they are glad there are things to cover, that the president is out, that he's busy, because it allows him a chance to cover the presidents as they normally do, kind of keep the pace and the rhythm of things of otherwise what might be a slow vacation.
JOHNS: Is it typical for the president to be this busy in August?
QUIJANO: Well, you know, it's interesting Joe, because talking to some of the other correspondents who've been covering the president a lot longer than I have, they say usually it's quite slow in those first couple of weeks when the president takes his August vacation and so that's what I thought I'd be coming to when I got here in Crawford. Not so. He has had a lot of activity this past week. He had two bill signings. He had meetings with his foreign policy, his defense, his economic team. So not at all the laid back kind of pace that perhaps I thought I was getting into, but what's interesting to note is why. Why is the president so busy?
Well, his approval ratings aren't all that great. They've been hovering below 50 percent and way down in large part because of Iraq. His numbers on Iraq continue to fall and so the president is anxious to show that he is out there, that he is still running the country, that he is still on top of things. As we saw him travel for instance, one example to Illinois. He was there to sign a transportation bill. This is a chance for him to chalk up a legislative win, to say look, this is something...
JOHNS: ... right now. All right. We have a question from the audience. QUESTION: Hi, Elaine, Tony Purcell from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Is this a working vacation? Do any other Americans get that much time off?
QUIJANO: Well, it's interesting, you know, because he has in fact gotten a lot of criticism, even before he got here. There were people saying, for him to take nearly five weeks off is not acceptable. A lot of the critics say there's a lot going on in the world. The president really should be in Washington with the Iraq war going on, but the president has tried to make it a point to show that in fact he is out there.
And as I was saying before, the trip to Illinois a prime example. Now this is something that the press corps had to get up really early for as we always do to try and get there ahead of the president. But the whole signing ceremony took just 15 minutes from the time that President Bush signed, the time he made the remarks and that he actually signed the bill. The whole thing took 15 minutes and after that, he was back here at the ranch.
Nevertheless, of course, we all filed stories on it and again, it was a chance for the president to say look, this is something that happened under my watch. This is something that is very much needed. It's something that's going to be good for the economy he said. It will create jobs. But very much wanting to obviously put things in a positive light and show that he is in fact carrying out the nation's business.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is Tom. I have a question for you. What's the deal with this woman who's been camping outside there? There are protesters around the president every time I've ever seen him anywhere who want his attention. Somehow she got this karma going and people are paying attention. Why?
QUIJANO: Yeah, well, you know what's interesting Tom is you're absolutely right. It is not unusual at all for there to be protesters who line the motorcade route wherever President Bush is going to a public event. But what's unusual is that it's happening really in his backyard if you will here in Texas, just a few miles away. This woman is Cindy Sheehan is her name. Her son Casey was killed in Baghdad last year and she was actually attending a peace conference in Dallas. Now this is about a week ago and she decided to come down here when the president was going to be here, decided to come down here with a group of about 50 other protesters and then she decided to stay the night. Well, of course, being here in Crawford, there's not a lot going on. A lot of the national media here, looking for stories. She got a lot of coverage.
JOHNS: Elaine, we have another question now on that issue as a matter of fact. What's your name?
QUESTION: Hi. Yes, I'm Leslie from Easton, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. What I'd love to know is, do you think Bush has more to gain or to lose by meeting face to face with Cindy Sheehan while she's camped outside his ranch? QUIJANO: Well, it's an interesting question. What I can tell you is that the president in fact did send out some senior officials to talk to Mrs. Sheehan right at the outset on Saturday of last week when she got to the Crawford area. They talked to her for about 45 minutes they say and at the same time, they weren't able to really make any headway because she said she still wanted to see him.
Now of course, there are many, many families who would like the chance to talk to the president again, but there are certainly some pitfalls from the administration's point of view. Obviously the president is trying to reach out to families as much as he can. The administration would in fact put out a list that said that the president has met with many families, hundreds of families since the Iraq war began, but it's a delicate situation. The White House doesn't want to take on obviously a grieving mother, but at the same time, there's certainly some pitfalls involved if he does meet with her.
JOHNS: Thanks so much to Elaine. Coming up, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is on the story of a deadly disease in this week's headlines: cancer. But there is some reason for hope (INAUDIBLE) straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)_
JOHNS: From Peter Jennings to Dana Reeve, cancer has been a devastating front page story all week, but there is room for hope. CNN's own Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been talking to medical teams and cancer patients about their prospectus. Let's take a look inside his notebook.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's been about 35 years now that we declared the war on cancer. I think it's real important to sort of figure out where we are in that war. We want people to be informed as to what happens if you're given a terminal diagnosis in cancer. Do you go to your local hospital? Do you call your doctor? Do you travel around the country? We also want people to walk away with stories, of people that might be just like them, who decided to fight cancer.
The hospital gave us this room to use. Doctors, nurses, volunteers and patients who were all invited to step inside. There was no reporter in the room, no bias, nothing else and what we were hoping to give is a completely just unadulterated objective viewpoint on what cancer means to an individual, a very, very instinctual level.
UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: We know that the hour glass is turned when you're diagnosed with cancer. You don't know how long that sand is going to run out.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: The worst part about cancer is the fear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not knowing if I would be a daddy long term to his beautiful child here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll be here in 10 years. I'll be here in 20 years inch by inch.
GUPTA: Every single patient, bar none, taught us something about optimism and hope.
JOHNS: Sanjay Gupta joins us now from CNN center in Atlanta. We have a question for you from the audience.
QUESTION: Hi. My name is Richard. I live in Fairfax, Virginia and I was wondering if as a doctor and journalist, you're surprised that people still start smoking in spite of the blatant health risks.
GUPTA: Yeah, you know, I certainly am. I've learned a lot about smoking and certainly to refresh my memory about lung cancer quite a bit this past week. It's an extremely addictive habit. I mean it's very difficult to break. As a doctor, I talk to my patients all the time about quitting, but I keep in mind as well that it's very addictive. I've seen patients before who after surgery even, after having had lung surgery or surgery on their throat are still smoking through their trach tubes for example. It's remarkable to me, but also a sense of just how addictive this is.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: But this Sanjay, how do you explain someone like Dana Reeve, who was never a smoker and yet she apparently has lung cancer.
GUPTA: You know, this is a complicated question. A couple things about that. First of all, cancer, we don't know exactly what happens in every single person. There are people who smoke their entire lives, never get cancer and there are people who never smoke. As you just pointed out, Dan Reeve and do get cancer. It's probably in part genetic. Let me tell you something else that I learned this week that I thought was really interesting.
Most people don't know this, but actually radon, which is a naturally occurring radioactive gas, is actually the second leading risk factor for lung cancer and one in 15 homes in America have levels that are too high, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. If you're buying a new home for example, now, most inspectors will encourage you to get your home tested for too high levels of radon. So that's something as well. Who knows what exactly caused the cancer in Dana Reeve, but these are things to think about.
JOHNS: Another question from the audience Sanjay. What's your name? What's your question?
QUESTION: I'm Megan from Illinois and I'm curious as to whether the recent amount of celebrity cancer coverage will affect the medical news being broadcast.
GUPTA: You know what's so interesting Megan and this is one of the most gratifying things I think in my job is that after all this coverage of the unfortunate passing of Peter Jennings and with Dana Reeve, there's been this incredible uptick in people calling the American Cancer Society, people calling the American Lung Association and there's a phone number for a quit line as well, people who want to quit smoking. So this is a clear example of television news actually getting out to the public, people being affected by it on a very personal level. So yes, to answer your question, you did see more medical news this week. You'll see more medical news this weekend as well and probably for some time to come. But I think even more gratifying than that is the effect that it's had on a deeply personal level to people who've been watching.
JOHNS: Well, it would certainly be deeply satisfying to Peter Jennings to know that he might have saved a few lives, even if it had to happen this way.
GUPTA: That's right, absolutely.
JOHNS: Now, your special coming up, we just talked about it a moment ago. How did you get that kind of access to all those patients?
GUPTA: You know, it was interesting. I went down and spent a few days with the president of MD Anderson (ph), a big cancer center and I asked him, just tell me about his hospital. And what he told me I thought was really interesting. He described it as a place of hope and optimism. And I said, come on, John. How can a cancer hospital be a place of hope and optimism? He said look around and you'll find all these people who are cancer survivors, who are working here. You know, the perception is, you get cancer, you die. Well, that's changing. We haven't won the war on cancer by any means, but we've gotten a lot better at it and here's a chance to showcase some of those stories.
What I wanted to do was basically follow several people along who've been given a terminal diagnosis of cancer, who've been told that they have cancer and it could kill them and see how they react. Do they choose to fight? Do they choose to give in and what drives that human spirit?
JOHNS: Another question from the audience Sanjay. What's your name? What's your question?
QUESTION: My name's Michael. I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In Europe, doctors are far less aggressive in treating cancer, using chemotherapy to a lesser degree than we do in the United States. How do survival rates compare between the United States and other nations where doctors use different strategies?
GUPTA: Well, you know, it's interesting. For example, take the case of lung cancer. The numbers are pretty uniformly bad. I'll give you a couple of examples. At a year, for every one with lung cancer, you have about a six in 10 chance in dying within one year. Within two years, about an eight in 10 chance. Now there have been different trials in different parts of the world and I don't know that I could uniformly say that in Europe, you tend to get survival rates that aren't as good. It varies and there's constantly differently strategies that are being come up with for lung cancer specifically. But it changes from time to time from year to year. We may have better numbers at this time next year.
JOHNS: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, we're going to leave it there. Be sure to watch his CNN presents special, taming the beast, inside the war on cancer, Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
Coming up next, what does the United States plan to do with the hundreds of detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? Our Andrea Koppel is on that story when we return.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHNS: We're on the story here with our studio audience at the George Washington University. Could detainees at Guantanamo Bay soon be transferred back to their home countries? That's the story that was circulating around the State Department this week. Andrea Koppel was out in front on this story. Let's take a look at her notebook.
KOPPEL: When I arrived at the State Department that morning, there were reports that said that the Bush administration was in negotiations with various local countries about basically sending back their detainees. So I called up a number of different sources and one of them said, are you in the building right now? And I said, yes and he said, well, come upstairs. He said, take a look at this. And he handed me the agreement that the U.S. had been negotiating with each country. Although I wasn't able to take it with me, I was able to take notes.
The officials that I spoke with said was the key to kind of making this happen and almost fast tracking the (INAUDIBLE) group detainees to about 10 different Muslim countries was the fact that Abu Ghraib was out there and there was the Koran scandal. It was the upsurge of really incredible anger, not only towards the United States and Guantanamo, but towards their own government for not taking a harder line with the U.S., that finally convinced these governments that you know what, we do need to get our detainees back.
JOHNS: Andrea Koppel joins us now. I guess the first question is, do we know how many detainees there are? Is there a hard count?
KOPPEL: There is and actually, I'm kind of curious to hear from our audience and just yell out a number. Do you have any idea how many detainees there are in Guantanamo right now? Eight hundred, OK, there was at its peak, there were about 750. Now it's down to 510. The largest number come from Saudi Arabia, from Afghanistan and from Yemen and they total about 300 or so.
The deal that's been negotiated right now and actually, they're in varying stages of negotiations. But the deal that has been -- that's closest to being signed on the dotted line is with Afghanistan. But and this is a big but -- Afghanistan doesn't have prisons that can accept a lot of detainees.
JOHNS: There's nowhere to put the people.
KOPPEL: There's nowhere to put the people and so one of the things that's taking so long in trying to negotiate these deals is that the United States has to come up with a way, either for that government or the funds to come from somewhere and the know how to build prisons and to train guards.
JOHNS: So the timing of this, why now of all times? We've been talking about this for what?
KOPPEL: I know. I mean that was the natural question and it was a question that I asked these officials. I said guys, come on, we're coming up on the fourth anniversary of 9/11 and certainly for the last couple of years, you must have known if these guys were the really bad guys, the ones that pose a threat to the U.S. Why haven't you sent them back sooner? And they're varying also answers that you would get and among them it is, a lot of these governments, despite what they were saying publicly, didn't really want these guys back, didn't want these al Qaeda or Muslim, the Islamic sympathizers to be back on their soil and they were kind of happy to have the U.S. hold on to them.
DAVID ENSOR, NATL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Andrea, is it a given that these people will be in jail when they're sent home or might they be set free?
KOPPEL: Now that is a really good question David and that's part of the agreement that the U.S. is working out with all these different governments, that they have to agree that they will not only keep them in prison for a certain period of time while they conduct their own investigation, but that they will notify the U.S. before they release them. And they're not going to be releasing all of them at once. They're going to have test cases, send a few at a time.
FOREMAN: What happened to the big argument that these are enemy combatants? They are a direct threat to the United States. What's changed? If they were six months ago, they are now. If they weren't six months ago, they should have been sent back a long time ago.
KOPPEL: Nobody's using that term now.
FOREMAN: Why not?
KOPPEL: They're using it in the sense when they're pushed about it, but the fact is, not a single one of these detainees and I don't know if any of you realize that, not a single one of these enemy combatants has been brought before a military tribunal, not a single one.
JOHNS: Another thing, on your beat, there's a lot of talk about nukes, nuclear power, North Korea, Iran. Let's start with North Korea.
KOPPEL: OK.
JOHNS: Well, I guess the bottom line is that we've had one on one talks now with an administration essentially that had said it was not going to go there. What's changed?
KOPPEL: That's right. I'm sure, I don't know how much you guys listen to the news and I don't know how much you hear these phrases that are used all the time. But when it comes to North Korea, it's six-party talks. How many of you have heard six-party talks, just raise your hand. What does that mean? It means that the United States is trying to -- the Bush administration is trying to come up with a way to kind of camouflage and also force North Korea's neighbors to buy into this.
JOHNS: A quick question from the audience. QUESTION: Hi. My name is Laurie and I'm in Tipp City, Ohio and my question is, how is the North Korean nuclear armament story being covered in North Korea and in China?
KOPPEL: That's a terrific question Laurie. In North Korea, that much. State-run press, anything that Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea would want to see, he'd probably be talking and is talking much more about the threat that the U.S. and South Korea and pose to the United States. South Korea, it is a huge story because -- and actually I used to live in Asia and went there a number of times to South Korea and it's amazing when you get there and you realize that you're only a matter of like 30 miles from the capital of South Korea to the line that divide North and South Korea. So for them, this is literally in their backyard.
JOHNS: All right. Great, thanks so much Andrea. We'll watch your reports in the coming weeks. Just ahead, crunching the numbers. Why gas prices keep on climbing. Our Ali Velshi is on that story, plus a check on what's making headlines this hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: I'm Carol Lin. More of ON THE STORY in just a moment, but first a look at what's happening right now in the news.
The U.S. military tells CNN it doesn't know yet if chemicals found at a storage site in Iraq were intended to be turned into weapons. The chemicals have common industrial purposes, but they could be mixed into chemical weapons.
And Israeli settlers are scheduled to be with withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank Sunday at midnight. Many Palestinians are portraying the pull out as a victory. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says the withdrawal will improve Israel's security.
And the high price of gas is starting to hit home. AAA says the price of self-serve unleaded now stands at $2.41 a gallon. A new poll finds that two-thirds of Americans expect high gas prices to cause them financial problems in the months ahead.
That's what's happening now in the news. I'm Carol Lin. Now, back to ON THE STORY.
JOHNS: CNN's back ON THE STORY with our audience at the George Washington University. Gas prices hit a record high this week as President Bush signed a new energy bill. CNN's Ali Velshi was on the business beat and covered the price spike. Here's his reporter's notebook.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The draw in covering business news is that it's a challenge every day. It can be a little dry, and there's a lot of numbers, but behind all of that, there is a lot of passion.
So, you can expect that at least for the next few weeks, you're not going to see gasoline prices lower. They might even inch higher.
It's about consumption. It's about demand. It's about politics. It's about speculation. It's about risk. It's about world peace. You have to find interesting ways of keeping the viewer engaged when you're doing gas stories.
This is what it had come down to with me, getting the oil prices out for you, I've got a big drum here, a barrel, the kind of barrel that oil will be in.
That's crude oil, that's the stuff that our economy runs. That's the stuff that our cars run on.
This is coal. Coal still accounts for most of the electricity that's generated in the United States.
These are the basic things that our lives run on, but we don't all sort of get to see them and touch them every day, so maybe -- maybe we bring a little of that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS: Ali Velshi joins us now from New York. Ali, you've asked this question, and we're going to ask you: Why are the prices so high?
VELSHI: You got to drive a lot. Everybody drives a lot. I take the subway. But it's all about demand. Americans love their cars. They love the road. They love the big cars. They like the power. And we want a lot of gas.
Now, part of that is because oil prices are high for a lot of reasons around the world. Because China is developing and India is using a lot more oil, but fundamentally, when it comes to gas prices in the United States, we drink up more oil and gas than anyone else in the world, Joe.
KOPPEL: But Ali, we've been driving cars for years and we've loved our cars for years. Why are we seeing double-digit, I mean, it's double the price this summer than it was last summer?
VELSHI: Yeah, you're actually right. We're actually about 46 percent higher than we were a year ago. And we keep seeing these records.
Now, there are a couple of things. One of them is that oil prices are much higher than they were. So that works its way through to gas prices. But it's about half of the value of what gas prices are.
Our demand has increased. We do have more cars on the road, we are driving more. And the last time we thought we were in trouble on gas prices, in the '70s, we went to smaller cars and more -- more fuel-efficient vehicles.
We burn a lot of stuff. It's not cars -- it's not just cars. We use oil for everything else in our economy. So it's just demand. (CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, I'm John (ph) from Portland, Maine. Isn't the short-term answer for higher oil prices more drilling and more refining, and isn't the long-term answer more nuclear power and better technology?
VELSHI: You know, a lot of people make that case, that nuclear power is easy to generate. There are a lot of people who think we should be using more hydroelectricity, more water-generated power. General Electric has a very big wind farm division, windmills.
So the bottom line is, we're running out of oil. In time, we will run out of oil. We have to manage our demand, and we also have to find a lot of other ways to generate oil. You know, there is the tar sands in Alberta, which they say you can squeeze enough oil out of to supply America for maybe 100 years.
ENSOR: Ali, there is also the question, isn't there, of refining capacity? I mean, my understanding is, there just aren't enough refineries in the United States. There also aren't enough liquid natural gas input places from the United States. There is the NIMBY factor, not in my backyard, right?
VELSHI: That's exactly right.
ENSOR: I mean, Americans have got to face up to that. We're going to have to accept more refineries and more...
VELSHI: They're dirty.
ENSOR: ... terminals.
VELSHI: They're dirty. People don't want them around. Anybody in the audience there who lives near a refinery understands why. They churn out a lot of smoke. People don't like them. But we haven't built a new refinery in this country in 30 years, and that means that no matter how much oil comes to our ports or we get out of the ground, it has to be made into gas, and that's the bottleneck. Over the last several weeks, a dozen refineries have been hit with outages, and that means we just can't -- we just can't put out enough gas to keep that supply ample and keep those prices down.
JOHNS: So we got this new energy bill that Congress just passed, the president signed. Are people saying it's really going to make any difference in the short term or the long term?
VELSHI: Not specifically to oil prices. In fact, there's not much in there that would have a direct impact on oil prices, unless you consider that it has incentives for hybrid cars. It has incentives to clean up the way you burn coal. A lot of our energy that we use to power our houses or our cities is coal-generated energy. So it offers -- and nuclear energy.
It offers incentives to other forms of energy generation, and if you generate more energy elsewhere and maybe you save a little in consumption, you start to see oil prices come down. But (INAUDIBLE).
JOHNS: Question from the audience.
VELSHI: Go ahead.
JOHNS: What's your name and what's your question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Henry (ph) from eastern Maryland. Since gasoline represents about 10 percent of the cost of owning and operating an automobile, why are we all so fixated about the price of gas?
VELSHI: That's a good point.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: GM just proven that we'll buy big cars if the quote, "price is right."
VELSHI: You're absolutely right. We love our cars and we love the road. We could do -- we could put a big dent in the demand for gas if we all drove smaller cars, hybrid cars. But you know what they're doing, to answer your question? The car companies are coming out with the big luxury vehicles in hybrid form. People will start to buy them. They'll use a lot less gas. Around the Washington area, if you own a hybrid vehicles, you can drive to and from work on those high-occupancy vehicle lanes, even if there's just one of you in the car.
So they will entice people to buy these more fuel-efficient cars over time.
FOREMAN: Hey, Ali, let me ask you something here. It seems like whenever the prices goes up and the gas price goes up, when the prices of oil drops, gas price doesn't drop right away. Are oil companies neutral on this? Or when the prices goes up, are they making a lot of money?
VELSHI: It's a very strange way of doing business, but what happens is, when the gas station buys gas, you know, they got a reservoir underneath the gas station, filled with gas. When the price of oil goes up, they want to make sure that they can replace the gas that they just sold to you at whatever the new price is. So that -- the vat of gas didn't change prices, but you're paying more for it, because when the gas station owner goes to buy more, they're going to pay more for it.
JOHNS: A lot of information there. Thanks so much, Ali Velshi.
Coming up next, national security is one of the toughest beats to cover in Washington. Just try to find a source who will go on the record. Our David Ensor is on that story, right after the break. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHNS: In a city where sources are an essential part of a reporter's daily diet, what does a journalist do when no one is talking? That's an occupational hazard for our national security correspondent David Ensor. Here is a brief look at his reporter's notebook.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ENSOR: I have one of the most unusual television beats which probably exists.
Good morning, David Ensor here.
In the area of national security, a lot of it has to be secret, and the people who work in it need a low profile. It's very, very difficult to get anyone to talk on the record.
When it comes to these tapes, these al Qaeda tapes that come out periodically, obviously that's a subject of great interest to the newly formed National Counterterrorism Center. They go through those tapes there and at the CIA with a fine tooth comb, looking for any kinds of clues.
We went into the operations center, and there were pictures from CNN and our competitors up. Normally, that would be classified material up on those screens. I understand that. So we got a peak at the kind of hardware. But the software, that's secret.
Over the last years, I've built up relationships with senior people in some of these agencies. Hopefully, they trust me to do the job in a serious and responsible way.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS: David Ensor joins us now. Let's talk about the National Counterterrorism Center. How you got in there. How does a reporter go about getting into a place like this? Especially in an environment where we're always talking about secrecy in Washington.
ENSOR: Yeah, it's a new outfit set up after 9/11, supposed to connect the dots. And we were the first ones to be allowed in. I guess the answer is, you build up relationships over time, you try to get people to trust you that you're going to do a serious job with them.
They do want some public attention. I mean, their budget comes from the Congress, and these voters here decide who goes to Congress. So they want people to know that the taxpayers' money is being spent well.
KOPPEL: Did you guys think when you saw that -- and you were inside it, David -- the question -- and this is really a serious question -- did they get the idea from "24?" You know the show. Doesn't it look like the "24" set?
ENSOR: Well, it is kind of glitzy, isn't it?
KOPPEL: Yes. ENSOR: And you know, I think they are still struggling to figure out what the shape of the intelligence community should be, and how they should gather intelligence after 9/11, which showed that there were problems.
FOREMAN: But are things like that...
ENSOR: So I wouldn't rule it out, you know.
FOREMAN: Is that actually going to make a difference? Because I got to tell you, my initial suspicion is, yeah, this is showbiz. It's real fancy, looks real good, but the reality is, the hard work is being done in drab little offices by people with little slips of paper. I mean, is that -- is that place really going to make a difference?
ENSOR: It's a fusion center, Tom. And if fusion works...
FOREMAN: A fusion center?
ENSOR: Where you bring everything from everywhere, and it's all in one place. That's the idea. But you're only as good -- as we journalists know -- you're only as good as your sources. And I am still hearing people say around the intelligence community that, well, the Counterterrorism Center at CIA isn't really sharing, you know, everything they have. And at the FBI, they still don't get it in, they don't have a good system. We just don't have everything we should have.
So NCTC is going to be as good as its sources, just like you and me.
JOHNS: Now, one of the things we talk about a lot when we talk about intelligence in the United States is these al Qaeda tapes that come out from time to time. One came out recently.
Now, you, as a matter of fact, have made the point, at least to me, that you think we're sometimes missing the message when we start reporting on that. Talk to me about that.
ENSOR: Well, you know, we -- when the tape comes out, we all look at it, and there's bin Laden -- well, does he look healthy or sick? Has he got a gun next to him? You know, we analyze it visually, because most of us don't speak Arabic. But what we should be doing, according to a lot of the intelligence analysts I speak to -- we in the media and the public -- is actually listening -- actually checking out what the guys are saying. Sometimes they are actually predicting what they're going to be up to next, what skullduggery is next.
The other thing is, you know, politicians in this country often say they hate us for what we -- for our freedoms. They very clearly say on these tapes, we don't have your freedoms; we hate your foreign policy. We don't like you having troops over here in the Persian Gulf, we don't like you taking our oil for too cheap a price, we don't like your foreign policy. Now, we don't have to change our foreign policy because some terrorist says we should, but it's a good idea to know what they're saying. Know your enemy.
JOHNS: Got you. We have a question from the audience. What's your name? That's fine. Thank you. What's your name and what's your question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Ricardo (ph). I'm from Panama. Most of the intelligence-related stories are generated by leaks. Where would you draw the line between a leak and obtaining information illegally?
ENSOR: And obtaining information illegally? What do you mean by that? You mean a leak -- a leak of something that isn't supposed to be out at all?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes, that's what I mean.
ENSOR: Like -- this is a big question.
JOHNS: But before you -- what's your thought? Do you think that the media cross the line, or go too far with reporting certain national security secrets?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It depends. If it's from the public interest to know about, you know, what the information is about, I think the media haven't gone too far. I think that should be the rule. But I wanted to know what...
ENSOR: Well, let me be brief and to the point. I'll say one thing: I have sometimes withheld information that I knew, because someone in the government asked me to. And I thought that lives might be at stake. I have done that, OK? So I am an American first and a journalist second.
That said, there are things that the public ought to know that go on sometimes, and even if the government doesn't think so, if I'm reasonably convinced, and I've talked to people in the government and people higher up at CNN have too, there are occasions where we will report things that the government would rather we didn't.
JOHNS: We'll leave it there. Thanks so much, David Ensor.
Just ahead, CNN's Tom Foreman looks back at a giant in journalism. The legacy of Peter Jennings. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHNS: Fans and friends mourned the loss of Peter Jennings this past week. Our own Tom Foreman worked with the anchor of "World News Tonight" for 10 years. He filed this special reporter's notebook.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN: He drove me insane sometimes, and there were days when I never wanted to speak to him again. And there are of course days now when I really wish I could speak to him again.
PETER JENNINGS: Here's ABC's Tom Foreman.
FOREMAN: In September of 1995, this big snow storm hit. I woke up that day to my wife saying, "the trees are breaking from the snow, 'World News' has called -- they want a piece for tonight -- and I'm in labor."
Some travelers were caught in hotels...
I went outside and stood in the snow. And unbeknownst to me, Peter and the executive producer sent a camera into the hospital, and at the end of the broadcast, Peter talked about it.
JENNINGS: We do take our hats off tonight to Tom Foreman, because he filed that report from that Denver hospital, while his wife was giving birth to a daughter. Mother and child are doing well, though they are wondering about Tom's priorities.
FOREMAN: I thought in the abstract that it wouldn't bother me much, but then, in the event, there were a few moments where I sort of, you know, I had to close the office door and just sit and think about it for a minute or two.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS: Tom, I got to ask you, your wife says, "World News Tonight" wants a piece and I'm in labor -- the one thing we didn't hear there is what you said.
FOREMAN: I said, "in which order would you like me to address those?"
(LAUGHTER)
FOREMAN: Because you know what, this is the thing. Everybody here knows this...
KOPPEL: I'm glad I'm not your wife.
FOREMAN: Well, you're lucky. No, I'll tell you something, when you're part of a news family, this is the way you live you know. Every single day, you have a bag in the trunk, packed, ready to go, all the time, year round. People around you grow up that way, and it's because having the moment to work with someone like Peter and to work on big, big national news like this, it's what you live for. It's a great moment. It's a lot of fun.
JOHNS: You also said he made you crazy.
FOREMAN: Yes.
JOHNS: You have an example of that?
FOREMAN: Oh, boy. We don't have a lot of time left.
JOHNS: Right...
FOREMAN: Look, everybody who worked with Peter -- David spent years with him as well -- Peter demanded a tremendous amount from his staff. He wanted stories done a certain way, he wanted you to appear a certain way, he wanted you to be big and grand and get attention on the show. He didn't want you to get too much attention on the show, because the show was about him and about -- his show. And this was one of those delicate balances.
But you learned by somebody like that. Somebody who drives you that way, you learn.
JOHNS: David Ensor, you worked with him, too, for a long time.
ENSOR: For a long time, and I really mourn the loss, both as a personal friend, but also I think the nation has lost somebody very important. I mean, I think he was the best ad-libber in a major event...
FOREMAN: Nobody even close.
ENSOR: ... in my view. Secondly, I think we've lost an elder statesman of journalism, who stood for decent journalism. Who stood for covering the world around us, not the tabloid stuff.
And I worry every time we lose one of those people, because things are -- the trend lines are not that good.
(APPLAUSE)
FOREMAN: One of the things you had to notice that someone like Peter had the clout, because of his position, to say, yes, tonight, we will put the story on the air because it's important. And in a world of news where increasingly marketing decisions are helping drive what we do, you needed that clout in the newsroom. He is a huge loss.
JOHNS: And I would be completely remiss if I did not ask Andrea Koppel, who certainly comes from a very prominent ABC News family, any thoughts on Peter Jennings?
KOPPEL: You know, I actually didn't know Peter very well, and obviously, my father worked with him for 42 -- 41 years -- my dad joined ABC a year before Peter did. But I think, like, many of the people in our audience today, felt incredibly sad for a whole variety of reasons. As a journalist, I felt like we had lost one of the -- one of the people who had his priorities right. And I can't help but think that -- do -- does our generation have that kind of person? And our business is changing so much, and you all have the power in your hands with your clickers, that if you are watching us, and if you're turning to the tabloid shows or to the History Channel even, that makes our job much more difficult, to give you the stories that I know so many of you want to see.
JOHNS: We have a question from the audience. Do we -- there you are. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, I'm Cari (ph) from Santa Barbara, California. Just have a question for you, Tom. What's the best piece of advice Peter Jennings gave you?
FOREMAN: The best piece of advice that Peter Jennings gave me? Well, he always told me after my stand-ups, "don't move around, just stand there." And that was one of them.
But no, I think the best piece of advice Peter ever gave me was to say, this fight dealing with him even, look, go out there, explore the world. That's what news is supposed to be about. We're supposed to be at your house. We're supposed to come see you and find out what you think. Not what we think before we head out, but what you actually think. And Peter always said to me, go do that.
Now, I might have an argument with him afterwards, saying, Peter, it's not what you thought. And he didn't like to hear that. But he'd listen, we'd argue, he'd tell me to get into my place, and then we'd put it on the air.
JOHNS: You know, the thing about him, I think a lot of us were stunned just sort of the speed between the time when he announced that he had cancer and the time he died.
FOREMAN: The last time I saw Peter in person was actually at a funeral here, for another colleague of ours, Leo Meidlinger (ph), who died in very much the same fashion. And at the time -- this was just months ago -- at the time, many of us said, something seems not right with Peter. It just seems something is wrong. And yes, the speed of it was stunning, to have visited with him and you know, as I said, he was a friend, he was a mentor, but he was, as David mentioned, awfully important to all of you out there, whether you know it or not. Peter Jennings' passing diminishes your lives.
JOHNS: And he was absolutely one of the very best, if not the best, at what he did.
Thanks for your unique perspectives. We'll be back in a minute on our panel, talking about what we're expecting ON THE STORY this coming week.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHNS: A quick look ahead ON THE STORY. What do you expect it's going to be next week?
ENSOR: Me first?
JOHNS: Yes.
ENSOR: I'm going to try and get the show producers to look at a story about what John Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence, has to think about next. During the Cold War, spy satellites were great against the Soviet Union. But do we need so many of those, or should we move to more human intelligence?
JOHNS: Andrea?
KOPPEL: You just got the hook, David. Two stories on Secretary Rice's agenda that will be important for me to be following. One is the withdrawal from Gaza. Israel is supposed to begin the withdrawal between Monday and Wednesday. The second story is Monday, the 15th of August is what -- the Iraqi constitution.
JOHNS: Tom.
FOREMAN: An amazing story about an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who is charged with raping and murdering a woman may never go on trial because he's a deaf mute, and he can't take part in his defense.
JOHNS: Thanks to my colleagues, and our audience here at the George Washington University, and thank you for watching on the story. We'll be back each week Saturday night and Sunday morning. Straight ahead, a check on what's making news right now.
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