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On the Story

Correspondents Relate Stories Behind the Stories

Aired October 01, 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 CORRESPONDENT: I'm Carol Lin. ON THE STORY is coming up in just a moment, but first a look at what's happening right now in the news. American and Afghan forces have clashed with militants near Kandahar. One U.S. soldier and an Afghan soldier died in that fighting today. Another American and two Afghans were wounded.
And the Corps of Engineers has nearly finished pumping flood waters out of New Orleans. All that's left is water from the lower ninth ward, which flooded the second time during hurricane Rita. The work is expected to be completed by tomorrow.

A tropical depression has caused Mexican officials to issue a tropical storm warning for the Yucatan peninsula. The storm is 100 miles southeast of Kozumel (ph) Mexico. It could strengthen into a tropical storm before hitting the eastern Yucatan today or tomorrow.

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 George Washington University in the heart of the nation's capital, our correspondents have the stories behind the stories they're covering. I'm on the story of how they rise and how they fall. This week in Washington, a chief justice confirmed, a powerful Republican congressman indicted. Dana Bash is on the story of the president's next Supreme Court choice and how political winds from the hurricane are still howling through Washington.

John King has the inside word from New Orleans. Will some hurricane victims ever come back and at what cost? Barbara Starr is on the story of what they're really saying at the Pentagon amid talk that the military should take over the disaster relief job.

And Andrea Koppel tells us whether anyone was listening when the Bush administration began its public diplomacy this week in the Muslim world.

Welcome. I'm Joe Johns. Here with me to talk about the top stories of the week, Andrea Koppel, John King, Dana Bash and Barbara Starr. We'll be talking about Judith Miller's release from jail and the latest CIA leak story. And we'll look at some criticism on the Internet of how we do our jobs. Our correspondents will be taking questions from the studio audience, joined from visitors, college students and people across Washington.

Recent weeks of course have been dominated by the hurricanes and the aftermath. Chief national correspondent John King road out the winds of Rita and then headed to New Orleans. Here's his reporter's notebook.

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The water is finally receding in the lower ninth ward, exposing incomprehensible destruction and offering clues to a neighborhood now in shambles. This is the wreckage of the levee that was designed to protect this neighborhood. When it gave way, the waters flooded in, destroying the homes and the lives of these people with it. Trying to give people a sense of who used to live here, this was a relatively poor, working poor neighborhood in the city and so when you have a situation like that and those people aren't sure whether they can come back to what they consider to be their home.

This part here looks like the tsunami. I was in Aceh after the tsunami and you could tell from the way the roofs are bent and bowed as the water came over the top. What goes through your mind?

CYNTHIA WILLARD LEWIS (ph): Oh, it breaks my heart, because every house represents a family and the family is not here and so I pray that they did not lose a loved one.

KING: City Councilwoman Cynthia Willard Lewis represents the lower ninth ward and is among those concerned what is rebuilt here will be very different from what stood here just a few weeks ago.

LEWIS: So I am very grateful to people such as yourself who tell the story.

JOHNS: John King is here on the set with us and let's start out with a question from the audience. What's your name? What's your question?

QUESTION: Hi. I'm Mary (INAUDIBLE) from Florida and I was wondering that, considering the damage caused by Rita and Katrina, what do you think the feasibility of rebuilding New Orleans is? Are stronger levees really enough?

KING: I was out with the Corps of Engineers. The general in charge of that (INAUDIBLE) just the other day and they are going to build stronger levees. Is it enough? One of these storms comes along, they would tell you once in 100 years. They're certainly going to rebuild New Orleans. It's so much part of this country's character, especially the south's character. So there's no question they will rebuild New Orleans. The question is, who will benefit I think is the big question. Who will benefit from rebuilding New Orleans? That neighborhood I was in, 98 percent of the residents are African- American, 55 percent of those people rented.

So they have no rights. They don't own a home and now they have to get a job. They're scattered. Some of them are probably here. Some are in Houston. Some are in Memphis. They have kids. They have to find them schools. They have to find jobs. Will they be able to go home? Will those kids be able to go home to the neighborhood they grow up in? A lot of the senior citizens, they evacuated. Can they go home? There are a lot of people down there. You look, downtown New Orleans is about a mile away. You can see condominiums down there. You can see rich people wanting to get in there, so for me, I think the thing to do six months from now and a year from now is to go back and they will rebuild it. The question is, who will be invited back or allowed back? Invited is a tough word, but who will have the resources to come back?

JOHNS: So this is prime property and the developers are really pushing to get a hold of it. Where will those people go?

KING: Well, it's a very hush, hush thing, because the developers all say they're committed to rebuilding the fabric of the city. But if you understand New Orleans, poor black people are the fabric of the city. They are the stories behind a lot of the jazz music. They are the stories behind the blues. They are the people who work in the restaurants and work in the hotels, who work in the industry that is New Orleans. But if you're trying to make money and some people try to make money off every tragedy, that is prime real estate and you're not talking about gentrifying a neighborhood. We have that debate here in Washington, D.C., whether it's the ball park, whether it's the MCI center, whether it's more expensive town homes on Capitol Hill. Then you're buying a house with neighbors and you might have to have a little bit of tension. This land will have to be bulldozed. It will be flat and you'll be building from scratch.

JOHNS: Another question from the audience.

QUESTION: My name is John from here in Washington, D.C. and my question is, do you think the Bush administration will move FEMA into a Cabinet-level position or leave it under homeland security?

KING: They don't want to move it. Dana can probably answer this better than I can. They don't want to move it. They want to leave it right where it is in the Department of Homeland Security. But they have had things forced upon them in the past, whether it would be the 9/11 commission, other things that the Congress decides to do. So there certainly will be some in Congress and some Republicans who will say, we've learned from this experience. Break it out. The administration will resist it for now. Will the political pressure build? We don't know the answer to that yet I don't think.

JOHNS: So Dana, what do you think? What happens with FEMA?

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think John's exactly right, that right now, they don't want to do it. They are resisting, but you know, you sort of sense the momentum that something has to be done, something has to be fixed. And yes, the FEMA director was taken out. That was certainly something that the Bush administration never does, pull somebody out, fire somebody, essentially, especially at a time of tragedy. But as John said, it certainly is something that they resist now, but history shows that they resist things and they're forced to do it.

JOHNS: There's been a lot of talk here on Capitol Hill about how much all this will cost and the people from Louisiana said it might cost $250 billion just for their state. Realistically, do we have any clue of reporting how much this is going to cost?

KING: No and I don't think you'll know that for some time. You can put a cost on how much does it take to build a road? How much does it take to build a bridge? How much does it take to build a school? But the government's going to have to have a debate and a decision and society's going to have to have a debate and a decision, if Joe Johns was forced out of his neighborhood in New Orleans and has moved onto to Memphis, Tennessee and wants to go back and doesn't have a job and doesn't have any money, does the government have a role there? Or is Joe Johns on his own here? That's their biggest debate. The buildings and the schools they can add up the cost for. Where do you get the money? Some people say all those resources, they drill a lot of oil offshore. All the royalties come to the Federal government, not to New Orleans, not to Louisiana because the wells are far enough offshore that it's not state land. The state wants that money.

JOHNS: Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I was just going to say John, so often in our jobs we try to condense the various stories we've seen into a minute or two minute live shot. Was there anyone that you met or anything that you saw that's going to stay with you that you didn't get to put in your report?

KING: The houses destroyed is going to stay with me. I grew up in a pretty poor neighborhood. I know what it would be like to be kicked out of my neighborhood. We didn't have a lot, but we had everything we needed and there are a lot of people there I met that, the minister of some of the churches. They walked through the neighborhood and they're looking around and there's nothing there. There is nothing there. And they want to rebuild their churches and the ministers will tell you those in the streets on a Sunday morning, where you hear the gospel choirs and you see the little kids. You want to know what struck me most of all, the bikes, little kids' bikes sitting in the yards destroyed. You hope the kids made it out. We found a set of car keys with a picture of the woman. Did she make it out? I don't know.

JOHNS: John King, all right. He is going to stay with us. Up next, the media shines a spotlight on the nation's capitol. Congress was on the front page with a historic vote on a new chief justice and the indictment of a powerful Republican leader.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Continuing now with CNN's ON THE STORY on the campus from George Washington University here in the nation's capital. Winners and losers on Capitol Hill this week, a new chief justice confirmed and a competing story, a powerful Republican, Tom Delay, the House majority leader, forced to step aside. Congressional correspondent Joe Johns was on that story. Take a look now inside his reporter's notebook.

JOHNS: (INAUDIBLE) we don't know. You got the nomination of John Roberts on the floor of the United States Senate, a historic moment. We're looking for the number of senators who were actually going to vote against his nomination -Landrieu, Leahy, Levin. I got to be honest with you. There is no surprise that I know of about to happen here, unless the president throws open the oval office and announces his nominee for the Supreme Court.

Senator Leahy, hey Senator, have you gotten any consultation on the next nominee?

A lot of senators see this as the second most important vote a member of the United States Senate can take, the first being the vote to go to war.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will temporarily step aside as floor leader in order to win exoneration from these baseless charges.

JOHNS: The Republicans sort of had to get their act together very quickly. They had to figure out, OK, who are we going to put in the place of Tom Delay, at least temporarily? A lot of tension, a lot of pressure for them and realizing it doesn't look like they're having a very good year.

KOPPEL: OK, you broke the Delay story. It's just us (ph). How did you do it?

JOHNS: Well, this is probably the most powerful congressman on Capitol Hill, perhaps one of the most powerful people in decades who wasn't the president of the United States. So there's been tremendous interest in him, the investigation going on in Austin, Texas, his ethics problems up here. Again and again and again over the course of several months, we've heard there could be something happening. And again and again and again we got out the Blackberries, the telephones, e-mailing, calling and every time, nothing happened. So once again on that day, the rumor goes around, something could be happening in Austin and I literally was just sick of calling people, asking the same questions, but we did it and we have a fantastic Senate producer Steve Turnum (ph) who bought me a can of Red Bull and said you've got to do it. Get your energy up and you've got to do it. And so we just called and called and called and called until we got the person on the phone with the indictment in their hands. They read it to me. I knew it because he, she read Tom Delay's middle name, which is Dale, which was in the indictment and we were certain we had it confirmed. We went on the air. It's just plain old reporter's shoe leather. A question.

QUESTION: Hi. My name is Scott from Arlington, Virginia. Will Tom Delay be able to return as the House majority leader even if he's ultimately cleared of these charges?

JOHNS: Well, that's a good question. Obviously, it could continue the legend of Tom Delay. He's well known on Capitol Hill as a real fighter. He says he'll fight. He says he'll win this. He accuses the prosecutor in Austin, Texas of doing this for political purposes, the prosecutor Ronnie Earl (ph) is a Democrat. So if he were to survive, he would certainly be damaged, but he might very well be able to come back to his position, which he stepped down from as majority leader.

KING: So what happens in the interim Joe? You had the succession of speakers in Tipp O'Neal, Jim Wright, Newt Gingrich who ran the House, no question about it. The current speaker, Dennis Hastert has chosen a much more quiet leadership style. Will he step forward now? Is he going to run the House or is Tom Delay going to run it, just from a smaller office?

JOHNS: Well, a very good question and what is very clear is that it would be very difficult for the House of Representatives to do what it does so well without Tom Delay's input. So they say he will not be involved. He had to move out of his offices, but the fact of the matter is, if they don't go to him because he has immense power, not just on Capitol Hill to get votes, but also on K St. to affect, influence, all over this town, really all over this country, they may not be able to get the other things done that they really need to do. So they need Tom Delay and somebody probably needs to call him from time to time and ask him how do I do this?

KOPPEL: Joe, you said that the, at the end of your reporter's notebook, that the Republicans are not having a good year. But they did get quite a big victory with the confirmation of John Roberts.

JOHNS: It's a huge victory for them. Democrats were put in a very difficult position. Half the Democrats voted for John Roberts, half the Democrats voted against him and a lot of them had to do it particularly Democratic senators in red states who were up for reelection. Five of them actually ended up voting for the nominee. Who knows whether they thought he was the greatest nominee, but the fact of the matter is, that they had to look down the road to the next election. A lot of Democrats who voted against did so perhaps because they're trying to send a message to the White House about the next nominee, send someone moderate. See if it works.

QUESTION: My name is Charles from Chicago and I was wondering how much input the Democrats have had on the nomination of the next Supreme Court justice.

JOHNS: It's very hard to say. This is a president who in some ways like Tom Delay, loves a fight. And when Democrats say, we want a moderate, it's not clear to me at all that the president's going to listen to them, even though some people say he's a lot weaker than he has been before when you look at the opinion polls. That question though might better be addressed to Dana Bash.

BASH: Well, I was just going to ask you that. You said this is a president who loves a fight. There's no question about that, but the question is, does he have the fight in him right now and does he have Republican support on Capitol Hill to fight for me right now? And also I guess the flip side of that is, what are you hearing from Democrats who as you said, by and large voted for Roberts, about the next?

JOHNS: What I hear from Democrats is it all depends on the nominee and if they send say, Janice Rogers Brown (ph) or someone who has some harsh rhetoric on the record, someone that can stand up and fight against and put her or his words in a marquee and sell it to the American public as this is a somebody who have to shoot down, then you will see a fight. If there is a more moderate nominee, someone they really can't reach, it's a completely different story. But talking to people on Capitol Hill, they say there are no other John Roberts type nominees out there immediately apparent.

KING: And is there not a contrarian argument, Dana and Joe, in the sense that for a president to fall to the point where he is now, he's lost some of his base. He's gone to the people (ph). He's not only lost the independents. He's lost some Republicans. You could make the case to rebuild support, you have to start with your foundation, that he needs his base back and so he wants a fight.

JOHNS: That's absolutely right and there are some conservatives who said, they weren't so sure about John Roberts because his statements were not quite clear on abortion, which was certainly one of the very key issues going into this confirmation process.

And now let's go to a break. Was this the week that President Bush turned the corner away from hurricane Katrina? We're back in a moment ON THE STORY with White House correspondent Dana Bash.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHNS: For reporters this week amidst the stories about hurricane aftermath and fresh violence in Iraq, a big news week at the White House. Dana Bash was on that story. Check out her notebook.

BASH: The irony was not lost on the president's aides here, that this week they had a major victory. They saw the president's nominee for chief justice of the United States pass by an overwhelming majority and then sworn in by the White House. But it wasn't necessarily the biggest news or the biggest thing that they had to deal with this week. They were dealing and still dealing with the hurricane. They are trying to figure out a way to make sure that Republicans on Capitol Hill don't break away from them when it comes to Iraq. They are now dealing with the whole question of the person in Tom Delay who had gotten the president's agenda through Congress, lose some of his power because he was indicted.

Did you ever talk to him about these allegations about whether or not (INAUDIBLE).

I think they're hoping that the White House is trying to deal with. One aide said to me, you know, when it's raining really hard, it's hard to even focus on all the drops around you.

JOHNS: Dana Bash joins us now. A question for you from the audience. What's your name?

QUESTION: I'm Anna from south Jersey. I was wondering, to what extent do you really think that Bush's dropping popularity is going to affect the kind of nominee he can get onto the Supreme Court?

BASH: We were just talking about this before and it really is true. The White House could play this one of two ways. One is they could just say, as John said, it's a great point, that they are actually a little bit, they could be worried about the conservative base and that is really his core and keeping them and there (INAUDIBLE) they want more than a truly a conservative nominee. And that is something that they certainly are considering. But then there's the reality, that that person actually has to get passed through Congress, passed through the United States Senate and there are enough moderates, Republicans and Democrats who could give the president a problem if he puts somebody up who is too conservative.

KOPPEL: But Dana, inside the White House, what are they saying? Between the drop in the polls following the hurricane and the Delay situation on Capitol Hill, do they think the damage is permanent to the president or do they think they're coming back with all of his trips down the hurricane zone. Can they recoup? Can they come back?

BASH: Well, certainly, they always think that this is something that they can get passed. That's their line in public and I actually do really think that they believe it in private. Having said that, I think that, if you look at the hurricane this week, the president - they thought that he was pretty successful in the way he handled hurricane Rita and then he comes back here and then boom, he's got this thing with Delay to deal with and then the week's (ph) investigation is on the front page again. So it's almost as if they just keep on coming if you will. He keeps...

KOPPEL: The Republicans have to be worried.

BASH: Oh, there's no question about that and the biggest worry and you sort of heard that in some of the president's talk this week on Iraq. The biggest worry is losing congressional Republicans who are up for reelection very soon and the president is not and they're going to have to figure out very soon whether or not the president's an asset or a liability.

JOHN: What's your name? What's your question?

QUESTION: My name's (INAUDIBLE) Village, Illinois and my question is that, as a journalist, what do you think of Judy Miller's decision to go to prison despite the fact that (INAUDIBLE) relinquished his confidentiality on the leak investigation over a year ago?

BASH: There are so many unanswered questions in the story and it really, the end of the week, he brought a lot more questions than answers and that, you really hit on the biggest question, is why is it that she decided to go to jail, even though Scooter Libby's (ph) lawyer says that not only did he sign the waiver, which all White House aides had to do, confidentiality, but that his lawyer called the "New York Times" lawyer and said he really means it. It's really voluntary. And then according to Scooter Libby's lawyer, they all of a sudden got a call just a few weeks ago saying well, what Judy Miller really wants is a personal call from him. And so the big question that Judy Miller would not answer when she was asked specifically is, why did she sit in jail and not ask that initial question from the beginning before she went to jail. We don't know.

JOHNS: Do we know whether she's planning on writing a book?

BASH: I don't know the answer to that question. In any event (ph), wouldn't be surprised, but we don't know.

KOPPEL: Dana, I want to go back to the president. How indicative is it of just how weakened he is politically that he made the announcement this week, reaching out to the American people, asking them to conserve, not just to conserve gas, but to car pool. Was this because he really wants Americans to save gas or is it that he wants to recoup some of the people out there who feel that he hasn't done enough speaking from the podium about cracking down on the use of gas.

BASH: As somebody who's been covering him for three years and in times where he's been extraordinarily popular and even when he was in a tough fight in the campaign, over the past three to four weeks since Katrina hit, it has been amazing how many times I've said, wow. I can't believe he said that. I can't believe he did that and you just hit on something that was really pretty stunning, which was the president saying that he understands that gas prices are high and that they probably could get higher because of the storms and standing there and saying Americans should think twice before taking trips, conserve gas.

Now it sort of, it seems kind of obvious but it is something that the president has not really gotten into the weeks on on those things, but also from a policy point of view, you heard his aides years ago saying no, Americans like their cars and they're going to drive them. We have to figure out how to conserve other ways. Gas prices, when you talk about all the president's problems, his aides believe are, is really the number one issue, because it affects pretty much everybody and people feel bad about and they blame him.

KING: Did they have a little sense of identity crisis at the White House almost? You knew in the first term this was a conservative George W. Bush. Now many people are saying with all this talk of all the money he's going to spend post-hurricane, that it's like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal.

BASH: Well and if you talk to some of the more moderate conservatives, they say, well maybe he's coming back to his compassionate conservative roots.

JOHNS: All right, Dana Bash. One issue official Washington will be talking about for months is whether the military, not FEMA, should take the lead in disaster relief. Barbara Starr is back on that story after this and a check on what's making headlines right now.

And we're talking to our reporters around the table here in Washington this week, but CNN correspondents are on the story elsewhere. Also, let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: Lack of trust of the IRA and (INAUDIBLE) leads many politicians here to say it could be a year or more before Protestants and Catholics are sitting in government together again.

Nic Robertson CNN, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

RAMAN: Killing this man, Abu Azzam, is an undeniable success against Iraq's insurgency.

Aneesh Raman, CNN, Baghdad.

CHINOY: With the winter flu season approaching scientists are getting increasingly worried that bird flu will mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans.

Mike Chinoy, CNN, Hong Kong.

VAUSE: With the recent escalation of violence, a meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders scheduled for this weekend has now been postponed indefinitely.

John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: CNN's ON THE STORY here in the nation's capital on the campus of the George Washington University and this week the story has been the aftermath of the hurricanes and the new debate over giving the military a greater role after big disasters.

CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr has been covering that debate and she rode along with a three-star general heading up the rescue of New Orleans. Here's Barbara's notebook.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One of the things the generals are all trying to do is stay out of the politics of disaster relief.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: That's going to have to be part of the long discussion.

STARR: Under the table, behind the scenes if you will, the senior military leadership knows that they are getting dragged into this political situation. It's something that's making everybody in the military very uncomfortable.

(on camera): The real issue seems to be what do you do in a massive natural disaster, the type of thing that was Hurricane Katrina, so what's the trigger? How big is big before you call in the military?

(voice-over): Just to paint the scene for everyone, we are standing on this city street corner with the three-star Army general in charge of this operation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, weapons down.

STARR: The convoy begins to literally emerge out of the floodwaters. Suddenly we do see the most astounding sight, a three- star general in the United States Army bending down on an American street picking up three babies who are hungry and thirsty and the two mothers and taking them to safety. It's not a fight.

(on camera): It's not a story I ever expected to be covering.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Barbara Starr joins us now, a question from the audience.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I'm Nicholas Lilly (ph). I'm from Richmond, Virginia. And, my question is do you think the United States military is being properly implemented in helping with victims of Hurricane Katrina?

STARR: Well, you know this is the question on the table right now what is the role of the military? What should they be doing? The military wants to be involved in coordinating.

They're willing to be involved in coordinating. They're not willing to go on the streets in a law enforcement role. That's really the line that they're drawing right now. They do not want to ever be in the position as far as we can see of taking their guns onto American streets.

KOPPEL: It's one thing to be brought in, in a law enforcement capacity but, you know, do you think perhaps that the U.S. military should just automatically be brought in when there is a storm of this magnitude, you know, just because they have the infrastructure to be able to deal with it?

STARR: Clearly. Clearly what this all showed us is they really are the only organization with the muscle and manpower to put boots on the ground, put helicopters into the air and conduct a massive operation. But the question is, you know, when? When is -- when is the right time? How big is big? What's the trigger for doing this?

BASH: And the president really got out there on this. I mean this is something that he put out there which he doesn't often do, put out something this sort of unique of an idea without knowing that it's going to fly, particularly with the members of the United States military but he really is pushing it.

And, it's interesting, especially given all of the questions about what happened after Katrina and why the president didn't choose to use troops even if the Louisiana governor didn't want him to?

STARR: Because inside Washington, inside the government, inside the military the real thing that nobody really wants to say is most of the military feels they never would have gotten to this point if perhaps the Louisiana governor, perhaps the New Orleans mayor had been a little quicker to get involved.

JOHNS: Question from the audience.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, I'm Lindsay (ph) from Des Moines, Iowa. And, I was wondering with the occurrence of the first female suicide bomber in Iraq do you see this as a rising problem in the war in Iraq?

STARR: Well, there's a lot of concern about that and that's a fascinating question right now. There is a lot of notice of that incident. One of the -- they've had incidents before where actually there have been people dressed in women's clothing and, of course, the soldiers in that culture, American soldiers will not search Iraqi women, so a lot of concern that that, in fact, could be a new tactic out there on the street.

JOHNS: You know there's been so much talk about avoiding a civil war in Iraq but you look at the pictures and you hear the information. You kind of wonder if the civil war hasn't already started.

STARR: Hard to, you know, this is the -- this is the issue. How do you judge Iraq these days because you have everyone in Washington saying there's progress. We saw all of the generals on Capitol Hill. We saw the secretary on Capitol Hill all saying there's progress and yet the pictures are ones of violence and unrest. It is in a limited part of the country but there's an awful lot of violence out there.

KOPPEL: Just to add a footnote to that, the Saudi foreign minister was in town last week and had a -- had a little roundtable with some print reporters in which he said, "Guys, this could be a civil war."

That said, I spoke with some of the senior Iraqis who were in town a couple of weeks ago and they're saying it's not as bad as you all think it is. There really is progress at least politically in terms of getting their government going.

KING: To what do they attribute the delays, the frustration I think many would say the failures in training the Iraqis? All during the campaign last year the president said we'll stand down when they stand up and we're making remarkable progress and just this past week you hear, well maybe not so remarkable progress.

STARR: The number of Iraqi security forces that have been killed in attacks is phenomenal in the hundred thousands now, more of them certainly having died than American troops. It's a big problem.

JOHNS: All right, Barbara Starr.

From military might to delicate diplomacy long-time Bush advisor Karen Hughes was traveling the Muslim world this week trying to improve the image of the U.S. and the administration. Andrea Koppel went along and is back ON THE STORY after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHNS: We're ON THE STORY.

The U.S. hopes to change its image in the Muslim world and President Bush's long-time friend and advisor Karen Hughes hit the road this week in her first public diplomacy mission to polish the U.S. image.

Our State Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel was with her every step of the war. Here's Andrea's Notebook.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KOPPEL: During this weeklong listening tour, Hughes was in Cairo, Egypt, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She was in Turkey's capital Ankara. And then she ended up here in Istanbul. How do you get to the hearts and minds and win them over?

The purpose really was to try to put a kinder, gentler face on the American public. It was public diplomacy 101.

KAREN HUGHES: How are you? Nice to see you.

KOPPEL: She was meeting with university students. She met with religious leaders with Muslims, with (INAUDIBLE) Christians, with really every sector of society that she felt was important to reach out to, to try to turn this anti-American sentiment around.

HUGHES: I very much appreciate your candor. I appreciate your honesty.

KOPPEL: When Hughes met with women activists she felt that her message really was going to resonate within the room. But, in fact, when some of these women got a chance to respond to Hughes they were talking about things like Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Andrea Koppel, your turn. What's your name? What's your question?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, I'm Michelle (ph) from Virginia City, Nevada. And, I was wondering what was your and Karen Hughes' reaction to the unexpected response from the women in Saudi Arabia saying that they're happy with their lives?

KOPPEL: You know, I think Karen and I had quite different responses. She said she wasn't surprised by it and that she thought that -- in case some of you didn't hear it there were about 500, 600 young Saudi women, in fact, the age of many of you in this audience. They were in college between the ages of 18 and 21.

And they said, look we really take offense to the fact that the American media portrays us as being unhappy because, for many reasons, or among reasons because we can't drive. It's illegal in Saudi Arabia for women to drive.

They said, "We have no problem with it. We have drivers. We like that. We wear the black hijab." This is the robe that goes from head to toe and in some cases you can only see their eyes. "We like wearing it." Why, "because we don't have to think about what we're going to wear in the morning."

I mean quite frankly there's -- there is a lot of cultural, you know, gaps and I personally was surprised to hear that they didn't want to drive. And, Karen when she was talking to them said, "Look, this is an American freedom. This is something that symbolizes my ability to get in the car and go to the grocery store, go to the doctor, do what I want. I don't have to rely on anyone else." But keep in mind that these are the elite. These are the women whose parents can afford to have drivers for them and other women out there in Saudi Arabia can't.

KING: I am fascinated, Andrea, by how she psychologically adapts to this new role. This is a woman who is so incredibly fiercely loyal to this president. Give her credit. She was a political deputy and I can still hear her voice ringing in my head after reporting things that are critical of the president or negative about the president.

Is she now ready to sit in a room and have people denounce U.S. policy, denounce the president personally and then go into the Oval Office and say, "Sir, part of it's you"?

KOPPEL: I don't know and I think, you know, this really will be a test because so many people out there especially in the Muslim and Arab world dislike, not Americans, not many of you in the audience today but the policies of George W. Bush.

And this was called a listening tour and the very settings that we were in, whether it was at the American University of Cairo, whether it was meeting with various religious leaders, whether it was meeting with Turkish women, human rights activists, it was designed for her to hear from all different parts of society.

But the difficulty is if the United States really wants to change its image, is it going to have to change its policies in order to win over those hearts and minds out there?

STARR: But, Andrea, isn't putting this woman who is a staunch Republican political operative, a close friend of George Bush, putting her in this State Department job, chief diplomat if you will to the Arab world trying to make America look better, is it somewhat an acknowledgement somewhere inside the administration they know they have a problem?

KOPPEL: Oh, absolutely and, in fact, one of the headlines of an editorial in Cairo was "American plastic surgery," but remember the fact that you had Karen Hughes, who is as John and other have pointed out so close to the president that was sent out there, guess what, all the doors opened. She had the red carpet.

Her title is undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. That's not exactly a title that's going to get you an audience with the king of Saudi Arabia, with the foreign minister of Egypt, with the prime minister of Turkey but it did and that, as John also mentioned, is going to get her the ear of President Bush. The question is what's she going to do with that -- with that access?

JOHNS: Andrea Koppel thanks so much.

Coming up we'll go online into the blogosphere for a look at how outsiders view the job journalists are doing on the hurricane aftermath and other big stories of the week.

We're back ON THE STORY after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHNS: We're ON THE STORY.

The winds and water of the gulf hurricanes over the past month stirred up a lot of controversy on the Internet on how we as journalists do our job. Take a look at what Jeff Jarvis wrote on his blog, Buzz Machine, this week.

"There are indeed lessons to be learned all around and that is where we need to keep our focus. In the case of Katrina and in spite of very good reporting and commentary across media, it's still true that everybody messed up, everybody bought the exaggerations as news."

And so, John King, I guess the question is in a situation like this how hard is it realistically for a journalist like yourself to separate the fact from the fiction?

KING: Well, I guess it depends which exaggerations or alleged exaggerations we're talking about. I think the one that has received the most attention were the horror stories about what allegedly was going on in the Superdome and in the convention center.

And it turns out weeks later that at least the scope of those offenses apparently were much more minimal, if you will, if there were one murder, one rape it's a horrible thing but at the time they were blown up as these huge stories.

I think you do in that situation just what you do in any situation. You have two sources. If it's really sensitive you go for three sources. And, if it's really, really sensitive you go for four or five.

And when you're asking people something you say "Did you hear this or did you see it? And, if you only heard it then take me to the person who told you. Take me to the person who saw it."

And, don't because of the competitive pressure, because of the rush, because you're very tired, don't use it, go to air with it, print it unless you're absolutely sure. A big story gives you no excuse to break the rules.

JOHNS: OK, let's look at another one.

Jay Rosen wrote on Press Think blog, "Spine is always good, outrage sometimes needed, and empathy can often reveal the story. But there is no substitute for being able to think, and act journalistically on your conclusions.

What is the difference between a 'blame game' and real accountability? If you have no idea because you've never really thought about it, then your outrage can easily misfire."

So, Dana Bash, how do you keep your cool?

BASH: How do you keep your cool? I mean I think the question there is...

KING: When the president says (INAUDIBLE) the blame game.

BASH: Yes, exactly, yes, really. Getting the evil eye from the president is always fun about that. But the question -- the interesting thing about the whole blame game is that from the very beginning, you know, there was such dysfunction really on every level that each side, particularly from my perch at the White House, they were trying to figure out, you know, what's going on as much as we were and we were all watching it real time.

But, the thing to keep in mind when you're talking especially in these sensitive situations to for example the White House when they're under intense pressure and intense criticism, you know, we heard a lot on background about well, you know what, the Louisiana governor maybe did this or didn't do that or what about the mayor, he did this or didn't do that?

Sometimes they do have information that can give you a tip but, again, it's the -- you don't go to air with it and you don't say, you know, here's what we're hearing about what the locals are doing without really knowing the facts.

JOHNS: Barbara Starr any thoughts?

STARR: I'm struck by what John said because that was my experience on the streets of New Orleans. I had security people come up to me and say, "We know that there's been this shooting. There were people raped and attacked in the Superdome. This happened. That happened."

And the first thing you ask them is did you see it or did somebody tell you? "Oh, well I've heard it around." It never really added up to me. I'm sure there was violence. I'm sure there were terrible things that went on but there was an awful lot of urban legend in New Orleans and that's a real lesson for reporters.

JOHNS: You bet. We're back in a moment on what we're expecting next week ON THE STORY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHNS: Let's take a quick look ahead ON THE STORY.

Andrea Koppel what's happening on your beat?

KOPPEL: Well, we don't have a lot of public meetings that Secretary Rice is going to be holding. She's going to be working the phones. We've got the Iraq Constitution referendum coming up later this month. She'll also be working on the U.N. investigation into the Lebanese prime minister's assassination.

JOHNS: John King.

KING: Among other things, I get to fill in for Wolf Blitzer two days this week. I guess (INAUDIBLE) was unavailable. JOHNS: Dana Bash.

BASH: The president we expect to name his pick to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court.

STARR: Rumsfeld goes behind closed doors with his top generals to talk future military strategy.

JOHNS: And we'll be waiting for that nominee's name to come to Capitol Hill so we can start checking him or her out.

Thanks to our 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, Sunday morning.

Straight ahead a check on what's making news right now.

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