Return to Transcripts main page
Your World Today
Pentagon: Level of Violence in Iraq a 'Setback'; On the Hunt for al Qaeda; Update on Hurricane John
Aired September 01, 2006 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, shots.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: The battle is joined in Ramadi, but the only casualty is a tragic mistake.
JONATHAN MANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Resorts have turned into refugee shelters, and residents of Mexico's Baja Peninsula look to hold on as Hurricane John churns menacingly toward land.
MCEDWARDS: It was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. They had to settle for the happiest that it could be under the circumstances. Bittersweet celebration at a wedding delayed by war.
MANN: And he's announced his retirement, but since he's already made the trip to the U.S. Open, Andre Agassi is trying to play a while.
MCEDWARDS: Hello, and welcome to our report broadcast around the globe.
I'm Colleen McEdwards.
MANN: And I'm Jonathan Mann.
From Ramadi to Beirut, Baja, California, to New York, wherever you're watching, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.
Thanks for joining us.
The Pentagon has just released new statistics on Iraq that shows civilians have paid a very heavy price for a violent summer.
MCEDWARDS: We're going to get into that report in just a moment.
But first, more brutal evidence of just how dangerous Baghdad has become. Rescuers are finding more bodies today in apartments that were crushed by bombs and rockets. This is in mostly Shia neighborhoods. At least 62 people were killed, 237 wounded in a wave of coordinated attacks that happened all within just a half an hour.
MANN: Iraqi officials say they plan to expand a security crackdown in Baghdad to those eastern neighborhoods as early as next week.
MCEDWARDS: Well, the Pentagon's new report calls the level of violence in Iraq a "setback." It also addresses the subject of endless debate: is Iraq in a civil war or not?
We're joined now by our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre, with more on this report.
You know, Jamie, the language may suggest otherwise, words like "setback," but what's in here really seems to point to a huge escalation.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, this is the quarterly progress report to Congress. Critics might say it's a lack of progress report. It does cite some positive trends in Iraq, but it's hard to get away from those sobering statistics about what a difficult and deadly summer it has been.
The report covers June, July and August, and it notes that there is a 15 percent jump in attacks in Iraq and a 51 percent increase in Iraqi casualties. It calls the level of violence, "a setback affecting all measures of stability, reconstruction and transition in Iraq."
The report goes on to say, "Sectarian tensions increased over the past quarter, manifested in an increasing number of execution-style killing, kidnapping and attacks on civilians." And it says those conditions, conditions that could lead to a civil war, exist in Iraq. "Nevertheless," it concludes, "the current violence is not a civil war," and it says the "movement toward a civil war can be prevented."
Well, what do U.S. commanders on the ground who have that deadly job, what do they think? We heard from one today, the commander of the 4th Army Brigade Combat team, who insisted that his troops and Iraqi troops are making problem is what has been dubbed the Battle of Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COL. TOM VAIL, COMMANDER, U.S. ARMY: I've got an optimistic view that civil war would not occur, but I can't predict the future. My optimism comes from the amount of forces and the amount of capability available in Baghdad right now as we intervene and we protect the people.
So, right now, we see that there is actually a decline in violence in Baghdad in certain areas specifically that we're applying more combat power to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCINTYRE: Now, U.S. commanders insist that where U.S. and Iraqi troops have been mounting that offensive which they call Together Forward that they are making progress. But, again, you look at the statistics in this report, it's just been an awful summer for Iraqi- on-Iraqi violence, no matter what you call it. The report cites 1,600 bodies in June brought to the Baghdad city morgue, 1,800 in July. They say the average there is up by more than a thousand a month since the spring quarter, and 90 percent of those deaths, they say, were execution-style killings.
So, whether you call it a civil war or sectarian violence or death squads, there is no question that Iraq has become a more deadly and more dangerous place in the last three months -- Colleen.
MCEDWARDS: OK, Jamie. So why -- why doesn't the Pentagon call this a civil war? Wouldn't it be using that word anywhere else in the world?
MCINTYRE: Well, Colleen, one of the reasons is the strategy for dealing with a civil war is different from the strategy for putting down insurgency. If they're dealing with insurgency, and death squads, then the strategy they're pursuing, which is to build up Iraqi forces so they can battle the insurgents, is probably the correct one.
But military thinkers say if what's really going on is a struggle within the country between two groups, then what they need to do is a different strategy. Don't arm one side. You need to come to a power- sharing agreement and then have some sort of neutral third party enforce it. It's a completely different strategy.
And so one of the reasons they've been reluctant to say they're in a civil war is because that would be an admission, in effect, that they might be pursuing the wrong strategy.
MCEDWARDS: Yes, understood.
Jamie McIntyre, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
MANN: U.S. troops trying to root out insurgents in Iraq are using new tactics, though, in all of this to try to gain the element of surprise.
MCEDWARDS: Michael Ware went along with an elite army unit in Ramadi as it operated along what it calls the al Qaeda front line.
MANN: But as he tells us, this particular mission was marked by a tragic mistake.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL WARE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): To strike at the heart of al Qaeda in Iraq, U.S. forces in Ramadi are punching into areas not successfully penetrated before: the militants' command bases from where their attacks are organized, like the one against this police outpost, sill blackened from a suicide truck bombing in which Iraqi officers died and their American trainers suffered burns.
Army officers say there are too few troops to capture the farmlands where the leaders hide, move and meet, which included Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until his death and now the man who replaced him. U.S. troops in the latest covert operation in Ramadi, the true al Qaeda front line.
America's 16 Infantry commanders seek new ways to take their enemy counterparts by surprise to thwart the early warning systems that allow top targets to slip by U.S. raids by launching an attack with something they hope al Qaeda won't expect, an amphibious assault.
In fast-moving Marine gun boats, Gatling guns in the bow, heavy machine gun in the stern, powering in darkness west along the Euphrates River, a small army reconnaissance team spies its landing with an infrared beam invisible to the naked eye. And Captain Dan Enslan (ph) makes it ashore, warning his men to watch their rear.
From the river bank, his platoons silently cross 900 yards of open fields, creeping into places. Other soldiers around them land by helicopter or push in by road, encircling houses used by two key al Qaeda leaders who shift their hideouts each night.
The attack goes down. But with no traces of al Qaeda, at least for tonight, in this house or those rated by other teams, a tragedy unfolds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell the females to stand. The children can stand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. What it looks like we got here, you've got obviously a family living here, two males with -- of age, basically, that we'll secure and contain with us.
And then you saw the one AK. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. It could be a bad guy, could not be a bad guy.
WARE: With Iraqi army engineers, they prepare to blow a locked door searching for weapons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief Soto (ph)?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just give me a fire in the hole so I can send it up in that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you guys are ready.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, shots.
Shots fired. Anybody hurt?
WARE: When the soldiers investigate, they find a family in mourning. The scene was a tough one, and the soldiers are moved.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gee, that's got to be tough. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Well, what he did is he stood up or sat up to chase away the insurgents and vaca. And when he stood up, he saw -- he thought it was Americans (INAUDIBLE). So he sat back down.
He went up again and looked again, then went back down. And then his wife got up to look, and when she got up he shot her. So he says -- he told her -- he said, "I told her, 'Sit down. Sit down.'"
Unfortunately, you know, they couldn't make out what -- what the shooter saw was two guys pop up. Unfortunately, they came back down. You know, it was a different one, a different person that came back up.
WARE (on camera): It's hard on the men, too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
WARE: Your men.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They probably -- second to losing one of our own, that's probably one of the hardest things that happen to us, in reality. It will be a big blow.
WARE (voice over): Then it becomes harder still...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's take them in the house.
WARE: ... where a medic tends to the baby in its farmer's arms.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like it's a surface wound. And it looks like -- did they say it was a piece of shrapnel in here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. He thought maybe a piece from a bullet.
WARE: By morning, of 22 detainees taken in the operation, 20 were released. At least a dozen turning out to be Iraqi police. The al Qaeda leaders, nowhere to be seen.
Unless the soldiers' aggressive new strategy pays off, the car bombs will continues. And these will remain the faces of the war in Iraq.
Michael Ware, CNN, Ramadi, Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCEDWARDS: Well, to Iran now, where a passenger plane blew a tire, skidded off the runway and caught fire as it landed in the city of Hashhad.
There are conflicting reports on the death toll. State-run television quoting a provincial governor says 45 people have been killed. There were some 150 people on board.
Mashhad is a destination for millions of pilgrims who visit the city's Shiite Islamic shrines. Air safety experts say Iran has a poor safety record with a string of crashes in recent years. U.S. sanctions on Iran prevent it from buying any new aircraft or spare parts from the West.
MANN: Two big storms are menacing North America right now.
On the West Coast, Hurricane John bearing down on Mexico's Baja, California, peninsula. Meanwhile, a weakened Ernesto bringing heavy rain and the threat of floods to the U.S. East Coast.
First let's get the latest on John from our Harris Whitbeck in Cabo San Lucas -- Harris.
HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, John.
Hurricane John has increased in strength, and it is expected to be a Category 3 when it approaches the southern part of the Baja, California, peninsula. Measures -- precautionary measures here have been taken. Local officials have asked residents of low-lying areas to seek shelter in several schools that have been taken over by the Mexican army and are being used as temporary shelters.
Meanwhile, about 7,000 tourists, many of them from the United States, are hunkered down in their hotel rooms. At this point, there are no flights in or out. The airport has been closed, and it will remain closed at least through the remainder of the day.
Again, Hurricane John is expected to make landfall here within hours. One of the big concerns is the amount of rain it might bring. This part of the Baja peninsula is a desert environment, but it's also very mountainous. And the concern is that all this amount of rain could cause mudslides that could reek havoc on the infrastructure in this part of the country -- John.
MANN: Harris Whitbeck in Cabo San Lucas.
Guillermo Arduino is tracking John form the weather center.
(WEATHER REPORT)
MCEDWARDS: All right, John.
Well, over on the U.S. East Coast, Ernesto has been downgraded now to a depression after making landfall in North Carolina. But it is bringing heavy rain as it heads north into Virginia and towards the nation's capital as well.
Flooding is a major concern in this area. Authorities are handing out sandbags, trying to help people get themselves prepared. The storm has left tens of thousands of people without power.
MANN: The Middle East cease-fire and ways to make it work.
MCEDWARDS: Coming up next on YOUR WORLD TODAY, the U.N. secretary-general is making the rounds, trying to shore up some support, and is getting some reassurances from Syria. MANN: And later, a new film that portrays the assassination of the current U.S. president. Is it just going too far?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MCEDWARDS: Welcome back to YOUR WORLD TODAY, where we bring CNN's international and U.S. viewers up to speed on the most important stories of the day.
MANN: And one of those stories, the cease-fire in the Middle East.
During his visit to Syria, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Syria supports the U.N. resolution that stopped the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
MCEDWARDS: Anthony Mills has more now on what Damascus says it will do to try to make this U.N. resolution work.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANTHONY MILLS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The United Nation's secretary-general and Syrian foreign minister on their way to meet Syria's president. Although Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon more than a year ago, it retains strong influence there by backing, some say helping arm, the powerful militant group Hezbollah.
In the streets of Damascus Hezbollah enjoys hero status by holding off an Israeli assault, but U.N. Middle East envoy Terje Roed- Larsen says the group's weapons supply line must be cut.
TERJE ROED-LARSEN, U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY: All countries are obligated by the resolution see that their borders are sealed so that there are no arms flowing into Lebanon, into groups that are not supposed to have arms under this resolution, a range of militias, including Hezbollah.
MILLS: At a post-Assad meeting press conference at Damascus Airport, Kofi Annan announces that Syria has pledged to heed this demand.
KOFI ANNAN, SECRETARY-GENERAL, UNITED NATIONS: The president committed to me that Syria shall take all necessary measures to implement in full paragraph 15 of Resolution 1701. That is the paragraph that deals with arms embargo and rearmament.
MILLS: Bashar al-Assad, he says, has offered to increase the number of guards on the Lebanese-Syrian border and to engage in joint border patrols and control points with the Lebanese army.
But as Kofi Annan's plane taxis out to the runway, questions remain. Will Syria really help cut off the flow of weapons to one of its key allies and strongest regional cards? And if it does, what exactly does it want in return?
Anthony Mills for CNN, Damascus.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: Some of those international troops that will police the truce between Israel and Hezbollah are set to arrive in Lebanon very soon. The first large contingent, 880 Italian officers and soldiers, scheduled to land in Tyre Saturday.
Italy has pledged to send up to 3,000 troops in all, the largest contribution to the U.N. force. The U.N. resolution calls for the deployment of up to 15,000 troops to Lebanon's south.
MCEDWARDS: Well, for our U.S. viewers, a check of the domestic headlines is coming up next.
MANN: For our viewers around the rest of the world, we'll check on financial markets.
MCEDWARDS: And then, you may have heard about the Shroud of Turin, but how about Veronica's Veil? Well, a lot of pilgrims have heard of it, and they want to see it.
We'll tell you where they're heading next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN Center in Atlanta.
More of YOUR WORLD TODAY in a few minutes, but first a check of the stories making headlines here in the U.S.
Ernesto has weakened to a tropical depression but remains a threat as a massive rain-maker. It's now slogging toward Virginia, where the governor has already declared a state of emergency.
(WEATHER REPORT)
WHITFIELD: Well, Ernesto was close to hurricane strength when it first came ashore just about 13 hours ago, but the biggest threat has not been winds, but the heavy rains and the flooding.
CNN's Kathleen Koch is in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and she joins us by phone.
Kathleen, what's the situation there?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, here in North Carolina, the rains from Ernesto really stopped. We're still getting whipped with some of the bands of winds, gusty winds, 25, 30 miles an hour. So we've seen a good number of downed trees, downed power lines.
What we're looking for in the Goldsboro area, where they did get a good bit of rain, is -- apparently, there's a sinkhole here that has caused damage to -- we're not sure -- we haven't found it yet, a roadway. Also, a pond, a dam that's given way that has also damaged a major artery here, I-70, that we're trying to locate.
But throughout the state, Governor Mike Easley had a press conference this morning and he said they've been very fortunate, only one storm-related fatality. That in Nash County. He said the people really did pay attention to the requests, the voluntary evacuations, and in some places they were mandatory evacuations.
What they're most concerned about now is, again, rising water that might be coming down streams and rivers, flooding roadways, because most of the deaths do occur after a storm -- do occur in cars that are -- go on to these flooded roadways. So they're really urging a lot of caution.
They did cancel school in much of the state. I know in the Raleigh area they had a two-hour delay. So that's been making a big difference, keeping a lot of people off the roadways.
But another big chore is just going to be in restoring electricity. Some 70,000 residents in the state of North Carolina alone without power today -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right. Kathleen Koch in Goldsboro, North Carolina.
Thanks so much.
Well, Jacqui Jeras is in the weather center here keeping track on this storm.
(WEATHER REPORT)
WHITFIELD: Well, take a look at this. Dramatic pictures right now out of Rancho Cucamonga, California. A school bus filled with kids reportedly ran into a fire hydrant this morning. Ten ambulances were called to the scene, but local affiliates are reporting that no injuries resulted from that accident.
We'll keep following this story and update you on any developments.
And at the top of the hour, Kyra Phillips on "LIVE FROM" is straight ahead.
Meanwhile, YOUR WORLD TODAY continues right after this quick break.
I'm Fredricka Whitfield.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MANN: Welcome back to YOUR WORLD TODAY. I'm Jonathan Mann.
MCEDWARDS: And I'm Colleen McEdwards. Here's some of the top stories that we're following for you.
Hurricane John closing in on Mexico's Baja California Peninsula. Some 15,000 residents have been ordered to evacuate. In Cabo San Lucas, tourists caught the last flights out, or they just hunkered down in hotel ballrooms, wherever they could find a place.
Meanwhile Ernesto, now a tropical depression, is drenching the U.S. Northeast after coming ashore in North Carolina. The big worry now is flooding as Ernesto heads inland, heading towards Washington.
MANN: We don't know how many, but a number of passengers died Friday while an Iranian airliner caught fire while landing in the northeastern city of Mashhad. There are conflict reports on the death toll. State-run TV, quoting the provincial governor, says 45 people were killed. Scores of other passengers were able to evacuate the plane safely.
MCEDWARDS: Iraq's interior ministry says 62 people were killed, 237 wounded, in a series of attacks in eastern Baghdad. Insurgents targeted five mostly Shiite neighborhoods with rockets and mortar shells. The barrage destroyed several buildings. There were fears that more bodies will be found after this rubble is cleared out.
Well, let's get more now on the violence that has left hundreds of Iraqis dead this week alone. Michael Holmes joins us from Baghdad.
Michael, the U.S. Pentagon has put out its regular look at the situation in Iraq. And it's got some incredible statistics in it on the number of executions. It looked at June and July, and its talking about numbers like 1,600, 1,800 bodies arriving in the morgues, 90 percent of those the results of executions.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Colleen. And those numbers don't include the victims of other attacks, like rocket attacks that you were just talking about; the one yesterday, a massive, very well-coordinated attack on a Shiite area. Those figures do not include those peoples. These are the people who are turning up dead in the streets.
We were out on patrol with the U.S. military last weekend, turned around the corner, a man lying on the road, about 22 years old, with his hands tied and shot twice in the head. That's the sort of thing that's going on in these areas. It's also the sort of thing that the U.S. Operation Together Forward, as it's called -- also known as the Battle of Baghdad -- is trying to reduce.
And in some ways, where that activity -- that operation has taken place, numbers are down. But as you've seen, this week alone, nearly 300 people have died, most of them in Baghdad. And 650 wounded. And when you say wounded, I'm talking people who have lost their legs, their arms, who will forever be incapacitated with their wounds.
So this surge in sectarian violence does go on. And in many ways, it's also derailed U.S. plans to begin withdrawing some of its troops this year. Troop levels are, in fact, up from 127,000 to 140,000 in recent weeks -- Colleen.
MCEDWARDS: You know, I'm curious about the question of, is it a civil war or isn't it? Because the debate's been out there. I mean, you and I have talked about; we interviewed analysts about it for months and months, some saying yes, some saying no, some saying maybe. This report now doesn't say it is a civil war, but it says the conditions exist where it could become one. And I'm wondering if -- with that language being in a report like this -- if that is going to matter at all to the Iraqi leadership, or are they just going to look at this and say, OK, you're catching up with what we've already known here for months.
MANN: Well, the Iraqi leadership, Colleen, I think will agree with it. They don't want to have the term civil war bandied around, either. They're, in many ways, trying to paint a good picture on this, as well, saying that, hey, in August, the number of dead people was down markedly from July. But July was the worst month ever, 3,500 dead civilian in that month.
I was talking to an Iraqi friend of mine last night, and he said, well, if 1,500 dead people in August is good news, I'd hate to see the bad. So when you're talking about civil war, the average Iraqi that I've talked to -- and I've talked to a lot of them -- they don't care. It's semantics to them. They would like to be able to go to work or send their kids to school and not be blown up.
So the semantics of civil war or not doesn't matter. What matters to them is the fact that they are dying, in massive numbers -- either through sectarian violence or direct attacks carried out by insurgents or al Qaeda. The average Iraqi really doesn't care. They just want to have some semblance of normality in their lives.
And it's really very difficult to describe the lack of normalcy in life in this place. Just to simply walk out the door is to take your life in your hands, in many ways. That's not to say there aren't peaceful parts of the country. There are. Baghdad isn't one of them -- Colleen.
MCEDWARDS: It's mind boggling, really. Jamie McIntyre, our Pentagon correspondent, made an interesting point a little while ago when we talked to him about the civil war or no issue. And he said that if the U.S. were to call it a civil war, it would dramatically change the military picture, the tactic, the way of going about the presence there. And I wonder if there's any concern about that?
HOLMES: Yes. It does, too. And this is where -- you know, when I say semantics, a civil war has, to the Pentagon and the Iraqi government, a definition. And if the U.S. has seemed to take one side in a civil war, they would arm them, support them, and then you have a Shia/Sunni situation. But as say again, to Iraqis, it's semantics. What they have here is huge level of bloodshed.
And I was talking to another person who said, well, the U.S. also vacillated on using the term genocide when it came to Rawanda. And, you know, 750,000 died. The words don't matter to them, they want to see it ended. And where Operation Together Forward has had some success in the suburbs where it's being carried out, those troops are going to leave. And everyone I've spoken to -- and I've been into these suburbs and talked to the local people. They say, yes, it's great now. What about two weeks from now, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, a month, when it's just the cops on the street? What happens then?
MCEDWARDS: Understood. Michael Holmes, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
MANN: Staying in the neighborhood but moving next door. One day after Iran ignored a U.N. deadline to stop sensitive nuclear work, the U.S. says it will hold off on taking any action, at least for now. The E.U.'s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, is meeting with Iran's top nuclear negotiator next week to give diplomacy another chance. And Washington says it will wait until after that meeting to make its next move. Solana and other European foreign ministers are meeting in southern Finland to discuss Iran, and find ways, as well, to revive peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians.
A new film: some shocking news in the year 2007. U.S. President Bush is assassinated during a trip to Chicago.
MCEDWARDS: It's not real news at all, though. Just to be clear here, the event is very much in the future, and this event certainly has not happened.
MANN: But it is the controversial and fictional subject of a docudrama that will be appearing on television in Britain.
Brooke Anderson tells us about the film and the debate it is creating.
((BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.
BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a terribly disturbing image. A figure resembling President Bush hunched over after being shot by an unknown assassin. It's a scene in "Death of a President," a new British docudrama that will be airing on British public broadcaster Channel 4. It depicts the unthinkable, a fictional assassination of President Bush during a visit to Chicago in October of 2007.
(on camera): The British film, shot documentary style, depicts the aftermath of the assassination in which the chief suspect is a Syrian-born man. "Death of a President" will premiere soon at the Toronto Film Festival. And once it hits North American shores, controversy is bound to come with it.
RICHARD WALTER, UCLA PROFESSOR: There are going to be people who are outraged and who will complain. Nothing new about that.
ANDERSON (voice-over): In a statement, the film's writer- director, Gabriel Range, describe his movie as -- quote -- "a striking premise which may be seen as highly controversial. But it's a serious film which I hope will open up the debate on where current U.S. foreign and domestic policies are taking us."
As of now, there are no plans to show "Death of a President" in the United States. Whether or not American audiences will ever see "Death of a President," the movie brings up a question movie makers and audiences everywhere have to wrestle with, how far is too far in depicting the dangerous times in which we live?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCEDWARDS: You know, they did something very interesting with technology here that's controversial. In that image where the president is attacks, apparently it's the real president's head superimposed over an actor's body.
MANN: It's going to annoy and offend as many people as it entertains, at least that many.
MCEDWARDS: Still ahead on YOUR WORLD TODAY, he's no out to pasture yet. Tennis great Andre Agassi refuses to go quietly.
MANN: The old codger had the U.S. Open in an uproar late into the night as his 21-year-old rival bit the dust. The secret of his success, we hope. And it ain't Botox.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MCEDWARDS: Welcome back. Seen live in more than 200 countries across the globe, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY on CNN International.
(NEWSBREAK)
MCEDWARDS: Now to a story of dreams coming true.
MANN: A father's dream of seeing his daughter's wedding.
MCEDWARDS: And a doctor's dream of fighting cancer.
Our senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta tells us more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): Mark Origer shared the dreams of many fathers I had met, to walk his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day. But Melanoma almost took that away from him. He was diagnosed with the deadly skin cancer in 1999. After an operation, it went away. But it came back three years later. And by 2004, his doctors in Wisconsin could find nothing that would slow its spread. It moved into his liver.
MARK ORIGER, CANCER SURVIVOR: I was just pretty much devastated when I found out that I did not respond. Right around that time my daughter got engaged and I knew there was going to be a wedding coming up and there was concern. I wanted to be there.
GUPTA: The chance of that happening wasn't very good. But then Mark's dreams intersected with the dreams of a doctor halfway across the country. Dr. Steven Rosenberg is a cancer fighting pioneer at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. When he was a young doctor in Boston, he saw a patient fight off cancer without any treatment. DR. STEVEN ROSENBERG, CANCER RESEARCHER: It got me to think about the fact that here, this patient's body had learned how to destroy its own cancer and I've spent the last 25 years trying to figure out how to make that happen again.
GUPTA: Not with a knife, or chemotherapy or even radiation, but by reaching deep inside the body and teaching the human immune system to kill cancer all on its own. A remarkable idea and one that doctors put to the test in clinical trials with Mark and other 16 patients diagnosed with Melanoma.
Doctors took some of their immune cells, called lymphosites, the warriors of the immune system and added the genes of a virus that would seek out tumors, attach to them and destroy them. In 15 patients the treatment didn't work, but in two so far the cancer appears to have completely disappeared. Mark was the first. And this week when we met him, more than a year and a half after the treatment, he found out he's still cancer free.
ROSENBERG: Mark, as you know, is one of the first patients to respond to this new treatment. So we're thrilled. I know he is.
ORIGER: Yes. Absolutely.
GUPTA (on camera): How does it feel to be the first?
ORIGER: It feels unique; it does. It feels like quite an honor.
GUPTA (voice-over): Although the approach is still in clinical trials, the results are published in the journal "Science".
ROSENBERG: This is a highly experimental treatment that we've used in only a few patients. But it represents a proof of the principle for the first time, to my knowledge, that you can actually genetically manipulate the human body and cause disease regression.
GUPTA: And yes, Mark's other dream also came true, as well. On September 17, 2005, he walked his daughter Katie down the aisle, virtually cancer-free.
ORIGER: It's a celebration, a celebration of life. It's the beginning of my daughter's life, new life, beginning of my new life. I think I shed more tears than anybody.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Washington
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCEDWARDS: That's so touching.
MANN: Doctors do miracles every day, but that one, that one was an extraordinary one.
MCEDWARDS: All right, we're going to take a short break, but a reason to celebrate after a devastating war.
MANN: A Lebanese couple learns that love really does conquer all, even in the middle of a war zone.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MANN: We were going to bring you a story of a fairy tale wedding, but now a fairy tale of a different kind.
MCEDWARDS: Yes, that's right. Sorry, we lost that package, but we'll try to get it to you another different time.
We want to go back to the Andre Agassi story. He took a needle in the back before the match. Now, that was a cortisone injection for chronic back pain. Don't even like to thing about it, but it seems to have helped him.
MANN: And yet it was his opponent who suffered more, injuring a wrist and then stumbling through cramps -- painful cramps. How do he do it?
MCEDWARDS: Well, joining us with more on Agassi's triumph is veteran sports journalist and tennis commentator Bud Collins.
Bud, thank you so much for being here. I got to confess I didn't stay up until 2:00 in the morning to watch it. I gave up after the third set or I would have been the one needing the cortisone shot to get out of bed this morning.
MANN: How could he do that?
MCEDWARDS: How did he do it?
BOB COLLINS, SPORTS JOURNALIST: How did he do it? I don't know. It was an odyssey. Homer would have loved it, you know, except the Greek didn't win. It was the Trojan in the person of Andre Agassi, who's an Armenian actually.
So it was a terrific combat, 7-5 in the fifth set. There's never been anything like it in my -- I've been covering the U.S. Open since -- well, the early days when it wasn't open in 1963. And Andre, somehow, managed to come out of it, even though he faced four break points at 4-4 in the fifth set.
And this guy is just a magnificent -- not only a magnificent tennis player, but a magnificent person with all he does with his humanitarian acts with the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation.
MANN: You have to love the Agassi that we saw last night, but let me ask you, would he have won if Baghdatis hadn't had those terrible cramps?
COLLINS: I don't know, because, you know, Baghdatis on his back and then up get up and hits a magnificent shot. He, in one game, which could have cost him the match earlier, he double faulted twice in a row. The ball didn't even come close to the court. Then he serves an ace and then he hits a forehand winner. And so it was just -- all I have to say is that the gods were on the side of Andre. I didn't think this guy would get up from this. MCEDWARDS: Yes, it's amazing, really. Andre said this is it, that, you know, this is retirement after this. Do you really think so?
COLLINS: Yes, oh, of course I do. With his back, I'm sure his roommate and wife, Steffi Graf would not allow him to go on. I don't think he wants to go on. He's done what he wanted to do. He hasn't played this well in one year since getting to the final a year ago against Roger Federer and scaring Federer.
MCEDWARDS: Can I ask you about Steffi Graf, because you mentioned it, and I'm probably going to get in trouble for this question.
COLLINS: Good, let's get in trouble.
MCEDWARDS: I don't mean it the way it's going to sound, like behind every good man there's a good woman. But I mean a lot changed in the way -- he's rolling his eyes. I would never say that. A lot changed in the way that Andre Agassi played, though, after his life with Brooke Shields, all that other stuff. And I wonder how much of an influence Steffi Graf had on making him back into the more serious, more fit player.
MANN: Right, does she get the credit at 2:00 a.m. this morning?
COLLINS: A tremendous influence. She gets a lot of credit. They got these two wonderful children. And she had the best word. If you can put that match in one word -- I talked to her after it was over. She said wasn't that bizarre?
MCEDWARDS: What do you think she went?
COLLINS: Well, it was so bizarre. It took so many twistings and turnings and ups and downs. There's a Greek chorus, 23,600 of them in the stands, and they just loved it. They -- Andre said he left the place with his ears ringing, like bells ringing in his ears. He gave his traditional kisses to the four corners of the world, and he could hardly walk afterwards.
He was lying flat on his back in the parking lot after the match waiting for a car to pick him up. I doubt that he can get out of bed today, but the gods continue on his side. The program tomorrow is probably going to be rained out, so he won't have to play Saturday.
MANN: Well, older players are looking good. Are we looking at Bud Collins in the Open next year? That's my question.
COLLINS: Well, I'm just having fun. When you're at a spectacle like that, it just refreshes you. And I've seen a lot of tennis but nothing of that dramatic quality.
MCEDWARDS: Well, I guess Agassi fans will be hoping for a rain day. Bud, thank you so much for talking to us. Love your shirt. Appreciate it.
COLLINS: I'm sorry. I had the paint. I walked under the ladder
MCEDWARDS: And that's it for this hour.
MANN: "LIVE FROM" is up next for our viewers in the United States.
MCEDWARDS: For viewers elsewhere, YOUR WORLD TODAY continues right after we take a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
