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Shia Versus Sunni Conflict Evident in Hospitals; New Strategy for Iraq Unveiled Tonight; Source: Al Qaeda Suspect Dies in U.S. Air Strike

Aired January 10, 2007 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: A new plan for Iraq.
In Washington, President Bush gets ready to unveil his strategy.

In Baghdad, a reality check. Even the health care system is split along religious lines.

JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: The war on terror. Did a U.S. air strike in Somalia kill an al Qaeda member? Officials there say yes. The Pentagon not saying much.

GORANI: Your life in your pocket. Apple slices into the mobile market with an iPhone that also let's you browse the Internet while you listen to music.

CLANCY: And what is ahead for the world's top football player? There's confusion, frankly, surrounding David Beckham's future with Real Madrid.

It's 12:00 noon in Washington, 8:00 p.m. in Baghdad.

Hello and welcome to our report broadcast around the globe.

I'm Jim Clancy.

GORANI: I'm Hala Gorani.

From Mogadishu to Madrid, wherever you're watching, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.

CLANCY: Ready to admit mistakes and redouble efforts, George W. Bush is trying to turn around an unsuccessful war strategy. Just hours from now, the U.S. president is going to lay out his new course for Iraq that's been months in the making. He'll be talking about sending more troops and sending more economic aid, but he'll also demand that Iraqis pull their weight and work harder to crack down on sectarian violence and move more quickly to take over security.

A White House counselor says the strengthened U.S. and Iraqi forces will send a signal that, in his words, we mean business this time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN BARTLETT, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT BUSH: After we go in and clear a neighborhood, the Iraqis there get more confidence. Then we leave. The insurgents come back. The militias come back. And the problem is all over again.

We have to break that cycle by having enough people on the ground to secure the population. That is a fundamental break from the past. It will yield different results, and it gives us the best chance to give the Iraqi government the type of breathing space they're going to need to have the type of political and economic reconciliation everybody recognizes is the most important aspect of solving the problems there on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: All right. We're going to hear a lot more about Mr. Bush's plan for Iraq in a few minutes. We'll be analyzing it in detail and also speaking of a proponent of a surge in troops on the ground.

But first, let's look closer at the sectarian divide that cuts through almost every aspect of life in Iraq. The Sunni-versus-Shia conflict is evident, not only on the war-scarred streets, but also in places like hospitals. Baghdad's healthcare system is split along religious lives, with stark differences in the quality of care.

James Mates takes us inside both a Sunni and a Shia hospital.

First, the Sunni.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SIRENS)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING ARABIC)

JAMES MATES, REPORTER, ITV NEWS (voice over): Just another day in Baghdad's Al Numan Hospital as a mother searches in vain for her seriously wounded son. She is a Sunni Muslim. He has been taken to a Shia hospital.

In this divided city, that may be a death sentence. Being of the wrong religion in the wrong place can get you killed here, and as the city is split along religious lines, so has its healthcare system.

Hussein Satah (ph), shot in the stomach as he played football, is a Sunni, though at just 10, he'll barely understand the difference. Nor will he understand that because Shia Muslims run the health ministry, his Sunni doctors have neither x-rays nor the right antibiotics to treat his wounds.

DR. HAMEED FADHIL, AL NUMAN HOSPITAL: This city, (INAUDIBLE), has one week of terrible attacks by bombs. We called the ministry for help. We called them for blood we need, and no one help us.

MATES: Worse than that, many of the victims here say their injuries were inflicted by officials of the Shia-dominated government. This man, so frightened he wouldn't show his face, said that these dreadful burns were caused by acid, as he was tortured by officers from the Interior Ministry.

And it's not just the patients. The doctors here, too, live in fear of their own government.

DR. RAED KAMAL, AL NUMAN HOSPITAL: I have been threatened inside the hospital by a military force, the national guard of Iraq -- or the national guard of Iraq. They were attacking the hospital, looking for something. They came to the doctors. They pulled their weapons against them.

MATES: In a hospital with just one working ambulance, where 80 percent of the doctors have fled the country, no wonder the mother of these two wounded boys is worried. Nowhere in Iraq could healthcare be called good, but this is worse, much worse than anything they endured under Saddam.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: Make no mistake about it, though. There's a great deal of suffering across the board, a lot of suffering to go around in Iraq at Shia hospitals, as well. But those facilities do have better resources, as well as government backing.

Later in the program, we'll continue this report on the healthcare divide with a look inside a Shia hospital -- Jim.

CLANCY: All right, Hala. Thank you for that.

Well, the Bush administration says this bitter sectarian divide, like the one you just saw, can only be solved by the Iraqis themselves. He calls the United States new war strategy an Iraqi initiative that will require U.S. support. That's one way of putting it.

White House Correspondent Elaine Quijano has more on what we can expect from what's being called this new way forward.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): President Bush plans to send roughly 20,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq, according to sources familiar with his deliberations. Their role, to quell sectarian violence and give Iraq's fragile government, as well as Iraqi forces, a chance to assert control of Baghdad. The same sources say the U.S. troop increase would come in phases, putting much of the responsibility on the shoulders of Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki to meet political and security goals along the way.

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The Iraqis understand that they have -- that it is important for them to step up and succeed. What you're aiming at is an Iraqi government that's fully capable of handling all the responsibilities from the law of law, to security, to economic rules, and so on.

QUIJANO: Those goals include movement towards national reconciliation, reversing the policy of isolating Saddam loyalists, and a formula to share oil revenue. Sources familiar with the president's plan tell CNN that Prime Minister Maliki gave Mr. Bush his personal assurance to send more Iraqi troops to Baghdad, pledging they will have new rules of engagement allowing them to take on the powerful radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Sadr's support helped bring Maliki to office, but his militia is blamed for some of the worst sectarian violence.

The president's plan is also said to include an economic package featuring a jobs program to tackle Iraq's unemployment, as well as sending more State Department officials to Iraq to coordinate reconstruction projects with Iraqi companies.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: All right. Let's take you now live to the White House, where staff members have briefed some reporters. Our own Wolf Blitzer among them.

Wolf, what can we expect from the president just a few hours from now?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It will be about a 20-minute address to the nation and, indeed, the world tonight, Jim, by the president. Originally they thought maybe it would take 25 minutes. It's really going to be closer to 20 minutes.

The president will go through the specific details and explain why failure is simply unacceptable for the United States in Iraq and why the United States must win. And to try to achieve that in the short term, there will be this increase in the number of U.S. forces dispatched to Iraq, beginning with five additional U.S. Army brigades that will be sent in -- each brigade has at least 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers -- plus 4,000 Marines who will go to the Al Anbar province to fight al Qaeda in Al Anbar.

The soldiers will be deployed to nine districts in Baghdad. About 21,000 to 24,000 U.S. troops in total will be deployed over the course of the next few months. Some of those, one brigade, will be deployed within the next couple of weeks or so. They will go into Iraq right away.

In order to achieve this, what they're going to do is extend the normal tours of duty for the soldiers and the Marines. usually stay in Iraq for about seven months. They're now going to be staying three to four months longer. Soldiers -- U.S. Army soldiers stay usually for about a year. They're going to be staying 90 to 120 days longer, three to four months, as well.

In order to sustain this increase in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, the Pentagon will almost certainly have to go ahead and activate additional National Guard and Reserve units beyond the extension of the tours of duty for these soldiers and Marines who will be going in.

It's not going to be cheap. It's going to be in the billions of dollars to deploy these troops, plus another $1 billion or so that will be needed to go forward with specific aid programs for the Iraqis.

Now, the president seems to think he has a commitment from the prime minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki, that he will get tough, something he's refused to do in the past, specifically with some of the Shiite death squads, the Mehdi army of Muqtada al-Sadr. The president thinks he has that commitment, according to administration officials. We shall see of the government of Iraq lives up to what they say -- they say they will do in going after both Sunni and Shia insurgents and death squads.

At this point, the president spent some of this morning speaking with various leaders in Iraq, including Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni politicians. Jalal Talabani, he's the Kurdish president of Iraq. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, he's one of the top Shiite leaders in Iraq. And Tariq al-Hashimi, who's the highest-ranking Sunni parliamentarian in the country.

It all suggests this is a huge gamble, Jim, for the president right now. No guarantees of success. But the president will simply say failure is unacceptable right now and the United States must go forward working with the Iraqis to try to get the job done.

CLANCY: Wolf, what was the tone in there? Because everybody does know that it's going to have to -- it's going to take a lot of commitment on the Iraqi side, particularly when it comes to disarming, disbanding some of the militias responsible for the sectarian violence.

Does the president, does the White House think that U.S. soldiers are going to be the ones to engage Muqtada al-Sadr, his whole Mehdi army, or is it going to be Iraqis that are told to do that?

BLITZER: It's going to be Iraqis who are going to have to really come down and get the job done, whether Iraqi soldiers, Iraqi -- members of the Iraqi army, or from the police force. They have got a very detailed plan.

They've divided Baghdad into these nine districts. And Iraqi -- additional Iraqi forces will be going into each one of these districts, backed by U.S. forces. What they're going to do is try to take over these districts, including some of the more sensitive areas, like Sadr City, which is controlled by Muqtada al-Sadr and his radical Shiite Mehdi army.

It's not going to be easy, by any means, but this is it for the Iraqi government of Nuri al-Maliki. And the word has come from the president, directly to the top leadership of Iraq, that you have to really make these tough decisions right now.

One interesting point, Jim. All the criticism of this initiative coming from largely Democrats, but some Republicans on Capitol Hill. In effect, that is seen as strengthening the hand of the president in dealing with Nuri al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq, because they see this criticism from Capitol Hill. The American public are skeptical, the American Congress is skeptical, and the Iraqis themselves are going to have to do what they've refused to do so far and go ahead and get tough with not only insurgents, but some of these other death squads.

CLANCY: Wolf Blitzer reporting live from the White House.

Wolf, as always, thank you very much.

Well, Mr. Bush, of course, is going to unveil the new Iraq strategy, 02:00 hours Greenwich Mean Time Thursday. So, by this time tomorrow, of course, we're going to know exactly what his plans are, and we'll have all the reaction and analysis right here on CNN -- Hala.

GORANI: And Jim, all Americans will want to know what the president has to say, because nearly four years into the Iraq war, the conflict is touching Americans in very different ways. There are the families of those who have lost loved ones. That's, of course, an unbearable anguish.

For those who have members serving in the military, it's a painful wait. For many others, life goes on as usual.

CNN's Jill Dougherty talked with Americans from these two different worlds.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, look at the play by number 34 Dawn Halfaker on the fly making a very athletic play.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Back in her college days at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Dawn Halfaker, top-scoring basketball player, thought of sacrifice as a theory. Now it's a reality, every time she tries to open a bottle. When she was 24, serving in Iraq, a grenade blew off her right arm.

Dawn doesn't look back much. She knows that in today's America, in spite of an almost four-year war, life goes on.

DAWN HALFAKER, IRAQ VETERAN: I also think that there is a part of America that, you know, maybe doesn't understand what this is about and, really, because it doesn't affect them. It doesn't affect their daily lives.

You know, there's -- and that's understandable, in a sense. This war is inconvenient to them in the sense that, you know, they have to hear about it on the news. But, you know, they can avoid it if they want to.

DOUGHERTY: Malls, like this one in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., are still filled with shoppers. The war is taking no immediate economic toll, and yet it ripples through the life of many here, people like 19-year-old Tamar Aghkekian, a shop clerk who wears a bracelet with the ring her high school friend gave her when he finished boot camp. He's now in Iraq. She thinks about him and the war even as she deals with customers.

TAMAR AGHKEKIAN, STORE CLERK: I mean, I think some people probably do block it out of their mind, because I guess they don't want to think about all the people that's dying.

DOUGHERTY: Shirley Grant (ph) lived through World War II, the rationing, coupons to buy gas, the sacrifice. This war, she says, is different.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody was willing to cooperate. This time, all you have in your mind is, let's get out of there. It's terrible. Everybody has been killed. It's a disgrace.

DOUGHERTY: Tina Christianson (ph), a young mother, thinks about the war, too. But she says that doesn't mean everything can stop.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think me sitting at home and moaning about us being in a war is going to help the troops over in Iraq anymore.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our defenses must be invulnerable, our security absolute.

DOUGHERTY: Other U.S. presidents in other wars have called upon their fellow citizens to sacrifice their sons and daughters for the cause.

(on camera): George W. Bush is doing the same, but he doesn't use the word "sacrifice" much. Americans are being asked to risk sacrificing their lives, but not their lifestyle.

(voice over): So a prosperous nation goes on with its life, and Dawn Halfaker does, too, even if it will never be the same.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: All right. And Jill Dougherty joins us now live.

A great report, Jill. I wanted to ask you a little bit outside of America, for international viewers, with this new Iraq strategy about to be announced by the president, are the U.S. president's allies, Tony Blair, others, still behind him?

DOUGHERTY: Well, you have three countries, Hala, that do have troops on the ground in Iraq. And that's Australia, the U.K., and Denmark.

And, you know, if you look at those countries, there's kind of a similar debate going on. Obviously, there's an opposition, just as there is in the United States, who says those troops ought to be pulled out and when is this going to happen? And so there's almost a mirror image.

And President Bush has been speaking to those leaders. In fact, in the past couple of days he has.

He spoke to the leaders of Australia, the United Kingdom and Denmark. And apparently not asking them for more troops, but that is one of the key parts of the speech that President Bush will be giving this evening, United States time, asking for precisely that and then kind of a broader approach.

The American citizens will be watching. As you saw that piece, we wanted to find out what are they really thinking about sacrifice, because there is a bit, I would have to say, of a disconnect sometimes. There are people who are really paying the price -- you saw one of them -- and then there are other people who can choose to ignore it if they want to in the United States.

GORANI: All right. Jill Dougherty, thanks so much.

Internally and outside of the United States, much interest and questioning.

Jim, back to you.

CLANCY: All right, Hala.

Well, coming up right here on YOUR WORLD TODAY, the war on terror is opening up a new front, it would appear. U.S. gunships off the Somali coast did conduct an air strike aimed at al Qaeda leaders on Sunday. Reports of more strikes. Unclear who is behind them. We'll go live to the region for an update.

Plus, confusion surrounding David Beckham's future with Real Madrid. We'll sort it all out coming up here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GORANI: Welcome back to YOUR WORLD TODAY. You're with CNN International.

CLANCY: That's right. We're bringing you up to date on some of the top stories around the globe.

All right. Let's take a look at Somalia.

This is a new front, possibly, on the war on terror. A renewed front, more correctly.

Somali government officials say a senior al Qaeda suspect is now dead after a U.S. air strike in Somalia on Sunday. U.S. officials haven't confirmed his death. All of it comes as Somalia's deputy prime minister says he wants U.S. troops to come in on the ground to help root out the extremists.

Barbara Starr is monitoring the latest developments from neighboring Kenya that is also, in many ways, involved here. She joins us from Nairobi.

Barbara, the latest from your end regarding this suspect. Is the U.S. saying anything?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, no, Jim, they are not. The U.S. administration is not acknowledging or not confirming that any al Qaeda suspects have actually been killed in that C-130 air strike, and they are only saying at this point that that was the only air strike. There certainly has been other military activity on the Kenya-Somali border, but the U.S. says -- it so far is not acknowledging it's responsible for any of it.

What we know from here in Kenya is that Kenyan military has been patrolling up there with helicopters. Ethiopian forces are there, as well as some forces from the new government in Somalia. And there has been plenty of activity on that border north of here.

So it is believed that some of the reports of air strikes may actually be due to helicopter activity from some of those forces. But as for the U.S., U.S. military officials say the Naval Armada, an aircraft carrier, and four U.S. Navy warships will stay in place off the coast of Somalia for some time ready to take down any targets of opportunity -- that's what they call them -- of any al Qaeda trying to flee, trying to get out of Somalia via the sea. The Kenyan military will keep the border it has with Somalia sealed to try and prevent anybody from escaping into this country.

So the question, even as President Bush, Jim, begins to address the American people about Iraq, clearly is whether the U.S. military is getting involved in a new war -- a new front in the war on terror here in the Horn of Africa -- Jim.

CLANCY: Well, certainly, you know, this goes back to Tora Bora, all of these other areas where there was a hunt on for al Qaeda every time they slipped through.

How much pressure is there, Barbara, to put in some people, Special Operations troops, whatever, on the ground there to determine, one, did they get the al Qaeda operatives, or are those al Qaeda operatives still in the area?

STARR: Well, you know, it's interesting. If it is proven that this man, also known as Farun Hazul (ph) is dead or the other al Qaeda operatives they were going after, it appears at this time that the U.S. would be the only one to be able to confirm that with eyes on the ground.

If this C-130 strike was that precise, if they killed no civilians, as the U.S. claims that they did, that they did not kill any civilians and they got these people, that was a very precise strike. That's the kind of strike that requires a forward air controller on the ground, and that may mean, although we don't know, that the U.S. has put commandos on the ground in southern Somalia -- Jim.

CLANCY: All right. Barbara Starr there. Has been alongside U.S. military officials in Kenya.

Everyone watching southern Somalia.

Barbara, as always, our thanks to you.

GORANI: OK. Still ahead on YOUR WORLD TODAY, Apple's CEO says his product will revolutionize the market. CLANCY: And why wouldn't he? It is a mobile phone, and it's also an Internet browser, and it's also, did we tell you, a music mayor. We'll have a look at the new iPhone coming up straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And hello, everyone. I'm Tony Harris at the CNN Center in Atlanta.

More of YOUR WORLD TODAY in just a few minutes. But first, a check on stories making headlines in the United States.

A developing story out of south Florida. Police in North Miami Beach responding to reports of a suspicious package outside a Navy recruiting office. The bomb squad has been called in. Authorities have cordoned off the area. Police say the location is across from a shopping mall in a busy commercial district.

We will keep you updated as developments come in to the "NEWSROOM."

Months in the making and already under fire, President Bush unveils his new Iraq plan in a primetime television address tonight. Democrats are already planning to challenge the new strategy.

Sources say the plan calls for sending about 20,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq. A U.S. officials says the first deployments would begin by the end of this month.

We're told the goal is for Iraqi forces to take control of security throughout the country by November. U.S. troops would remain to support the Iraqi forces.

Sources say the plan also calls for about $1 billion in new economic aid to Iraq. That's on top of the more $300 billion already committed.

CNN's special coverage of the president's speech begins at 7:00 p.m. Eastern with comprehensive analysis before and after the address.

A school bus accident to tell you about in Pennsylvania, sending seven students and the driver to the hospital. A tractor-trailer collided with a bus in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. That's about an hour's drive outside Philadelphia. No immediate word on the conditions of the students or the driver.

Stay with CNN for details as they become available.

The House is back on the clock today. It's the second day of the Democrats' first 100 hours agenda. On the clock today, raising the federal minimum hourly wage from $5.15 to $7.25. The Democrats took nearly seven hours Tuesday to pass anti-terror legislation.

On Capitol Hill, the torch passes. An era goes up in smoke. New House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today announced a smoking ban in one of the last havens. Between bills and bickering, lawmakers could light up in the speaker's lobby area of the Capitol building. Pelosi cites the danger of second-hand smoke for her decision.

Let's check weather conditions around the country right now.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HARRIS: In New Orleans, 10 days, nine deaths, crimes back in a big way in the Big Easy. Can anything be done to stop it? Plans for curfews and more cops coming up at 1:00 p.m. here in the NEWSROOM.

In the meantime, "YOUR WORLD TODAY" continues after a quick break. I'm Tony Harris.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

GORANI: Well, as we heard earlier, the Sunni-Shia divide has created vast differences in the quality of health care in Iraq.

James Mates shows us around a Sunni hospital earlier this hour. Now, he takes us into a Shia facility.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMES MATES, ITV REPORTER (voice-over): This is as good as it gets in Baghdad, a hospital for Shia Muslims favored by the Shia government, protected by powerful Shia militias, and yet its emergency room echoes to the cries of the wounded victims of bomb and bullets. Power is intermittent, drugs often unavailable. It is Baghdad's best. It is place you would hope to visit only in nightmare's.

DR. MUHANNAD AL-AMIR, KAMIYA HOSPITAL: This is the hospital inside Baghdad, and we are receiving injured patient in the form of bullet injury, or bomb injury, blast injuries. Most hospitals are sending the injured patients to our hospitals.

MATES: Which tells you much about the others. Only Shia Muslims dare come here. Soldiers patrol the emergency rooms. Only an Iraqi Shia cameraman could take these pictures for us.

Patients can get X-rays. There are drugs in the pharmacy. There would be more were the supply depot not in a Sunni area and now too dangerous for delivery drivers to get to.

And then there's that other essential ingredient of modern medicine -- electricity.

AL-AMIR: Many surgeons in our hospitals counted only one or two operations per day. Most of our electrical power are shut off all of the day. So we depend on the critical generators. Electrical generators depend on the guards. We have very, very shortage.

MATES: A country that sits on 10 percent of the world's oil reserves unable to fuel the generators in its hospitals. Now that's chaos.

But if this tale of two hospitals tells us anything, it's that hatred between Sunni and Shia is now so great they won't cooperate in humanitarian efforts to save the sick and the dying.

James Mates, ITV News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: Well, U.S. troops now on the ground in Baghdad came under heavy fire on Tuesday in a day-long battle with insurgents for control of one of the city's main streets.

GORANI: Now instead of their usual hit and run, the insurgent forces stayed to fight this time for hours. Could it have been a preview of things to come?

CLANCY: That is the question that CNN's Arwa Damon asks as she was embedded with U.S. troops, an eyewitness to what happened. She filed this report was filed right from the battlefield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right there. Right there. (INAUDIBLE). I see a total of 10. You got a total of 10.

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Insurgents are on the roof below.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're moving in pairs. They're not the normal [bleep].

DAMON: The insurgents moving in pairs, maneuvering for sustained gun battles with Americans, not simply firing and running away as they usually do. American troops are fighting the battle for Haifa Street, from the roofs of the apartment buildings lining this main Baghdad thoroughfare.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The far side. Watch the far side.

DAMON: The enemy today, Sunni extremists. An explosive blend of both former Baathists and al Qaeda in Iraq. Facing them, some 400 American troops and 500 Iraqi soldiers, fighting for control of a two- mile strip of road.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Window, far left. Window, far left.

DAMON: The Iraqi soldiers are fighting side by side with the Americans on this rooftop. The Americans are giving the orders. This is more than an intense battle. This is training the Iraqis to do the job.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody's there just watching. He'll pop out again.

DAMON: The Americans and Iraq 's are trying to get a fix on an insurgent in a window, but they are taking fire from all sides. They've got to get off this roof. They move towards a building next door. Moving to higher ground in this urban battlefield.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Over your face. We just ricocheted over here.

DAMON: The sing of bullets whistling past these soldier's ears. The snipers shooting at them. The ricochets just feet away. It's hour five. The Iraqi troops below have gone door to door to a number of buildings, but the insurgents keep moving and keep firing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right side of that front mark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right side of the front mark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go down.

DAMON: This soldier's trying to positively identify the gunmen whom they believe are shooting at them from the mosque located just 600 yards beyond this window. They have received rocket-propelled grenade, machine gun and small arms fire from that location. This battle has been going on for seven hours now, and as the day progresses, is only getting more chaotic.

Finally, 10 hours after it began, the insurgents stopped firing. Ten hours against a combined U.S./Iraqi force of nearly 1,000 men. In this case, the Iraqis could not have done it alone.

Arwa Damon, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: We saw the challenges there from the hospitals of Iraq to the streets of Baghdad, the idea of increasing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq is created a heated debate in Washington. Will it work?

Fred Kagan from the American Enterprise Institute joins us from Washington to discuss the president's plan. And a report that you wrote, Fred Kagan, "Choosing Victory, a Plan for Success in Iraq," is billed as one of the inspirations of the president's announcement later today. We're hearing an increase of potentially an increase in troops of 21,500, including 4,000 Marines. Will it work?

FRED KAGAN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: We'll have to see the details of the plan that the president actually unveils. I think it's very important that when we surge forces into Iraqi for the purposes of establishing security that we send enough forces in to do the job and enough forces to provide some reserve against the possibility that the enemy will do what we don't expect them to do.

So, I think it's very important that we commit the right level of forces and that we commit those forces up front and without delay.

GORANI: And what is the right level of forces? What is up front? What is without delay?

KAGAN: Well, we're recommending a force level of about five additional American combat brigades into Baghdad and two additional Marine regiments into Anbar Province.

Those units could only come in over the course of the next couple of months because of how long it takes to get units into Iraq. But what we recommend is that we move those units in as rapidly as possible.

There has been some suggestion that there may be a plan to stage them, to bring them in on call or as necessary. I think that would be a mistake. I think it's very important that we get those units into Baghdad as quickly as possible.

GORANI: All right. Let's listen to what the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East General John Abizaid told a congressional committee just a few months ago regarding a potential increase in troops and whether or not it would work in solving the Iraq situation. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, CENTCOM COMMANDER: I do not believe that more American troops, right now, is the solution to the problem. I believe that the troop levels need to stay where they are. We need to put more American capacity into Iraqi units.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: All right. John Abizaid also saying last fall that every single commander on the ground, he asked if an increase in troops would help the situation in Iraq, answered no.

Why is your opinion different? This is -- counter-insurgency is very difficult to fight with an increase in troops, isn't it?

KAGAN: No. Counter-insurgency is very difficult to fight with inadequate forces also. You have to have the right number of forces. I have the greatest possible respect for General Abizaid, but I think we have to recognize that the strategy of trying to train Iraqi forces and transition control to them rapidly isn't working. That's what we've been trying to do consistently for two years and that's how we've gotten into the security situation that we're in.

So I -- I don't think that we can just stay with that same strategy that's not working. And the other thing that's emerged is that people have talked to commanders at various levels in Iraq and it doesn't seem to be the case when you get those guys alone in a room and ask them do you have enough forces to do the job, that they say yes? On the contrary, most of them are saying no, they really do feel that they need more forces.

GORANI: Right. And more forces, so 20,000 or 21,500 we're expecting, you think if that is the announcement that is made tonight, is insufficient? KAGAN: Well, I would need to know exactly how many units we're talking about because you can measure units in different numbers. I think the surge number needs to be a lot closer to 30,000, a little higher than that, and I think again, the details of when those units go in exactly and when we can begin this operation with decisive force is very important.

The clip that you showed of those soldiers fighting determined insurgents shows how bold the enemy has become and it shows the necessity of having adequate forces in there to accomplish this mission.

GORANI: All right. Thanks very much, Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, there with recommendations and a plan and a report that was written a little bit earlier, that really goes against the Iraqi Study Group and other recommendations, Leon Panetta making a statement, says ...

CLANCY: The Iraqis themselves aren't happy with it, either. The Iraqis themselves, one of the leading Sunni clerics group is coming out with a statement today saying wrong policy, wrong move. But we shall see. We're going to take a short break.

GORANI: And we have to wait for the speech as well

CLANCY: Certainly.

GORANI: And the statement. Thanks for watching, we'll be right back after a break.

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GORANI: A warm welcome back to CNN International.

CLANCY: That's right. Seen live in some 200 countries all across the globe, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.

Now, we have been looking at the situation in Sudan, where more than 2 million people have been displaced. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives through direct violence, starvation, disease, medical problems. The problem has not gone away, despite the interjection of all kinds of stars from Hollywood, all kinds of officials from the United Nations.

Right now, a man who may put in a bid to become a Democratic presidential contender in 2008, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, is in the capital Khartoum and he's been holding talks with the government as well as the rebels.

And you held a press conference a short while ago. Bill Richardson joining us on the line now from Khartoum. What came out of your talks?

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D), NEW MEXICO: Well, some very good news. The main objective was to try and get a cease fire between the rebels and the government, and we announced a 60-day cease fire between the rebels.

They agreed to the cease fire and the president of the Sudan, President Bashir -- he issued a joint statement, Bashir and I, committing the government to a 60-day cease fire.

This is important because there have been killings here, there have been massive famine, hundreds of thousands killed, maimed, thousands of refugee camps.

And what we are able to do is set up a political process that puts pressure on both sides to reach an agreement, not just on a cease fire, but to have the United Nations peace keeping troops to secure the borders, to stop some of the killing and the famine.

And I went with the Save Dafur Coalition, which is a grassroots movement in the U.S. that is doing all those ads about Dafur. They sponsored my trip and I've known President Bashir for several years. Four months ago I got an American journalist out of a prison in the Sudan. We got three Red Cross workers out ten years ago, so I have a personal relationship with ...

CLANCY: Bill? Bill Richardson, you have the ability to sit down. You've met with Omar al-Bashir, the president, at least a couple of times during this trip alone. Why is it? What does he tell you? Why will why will he not allow United Nations peacekeepers, made up of African troops for the most part, to deploy there in force in Darfur and put an end to the misery and suffering of his own people?

RICHARDSON: Well, he uses the excuse that it has to be African troops, that he fears trusteeship by the United Nations, that he wants to see members of his own continent do the work, his own African, Sudanese troops and the Organization of African Unity.

I've been trying to convince him that the command and control needs to be by the U.S. soldiers -- the Bush administration, so has the U.N. And we made a little bit of an inroad there. He will now allow the U.N. technical troops -- not peacekeeping, not battalions. He wants us to be African Union troops. So he's gradually moving in the right direction.

The Bush administration has been pushing him. The international community, the U.N., so, you know, we're making some progress with him, but you're right, that has to be key.

The U.N. peacekeeping troops can make an effort to stop the killing, but a temporary cease fire, 60 days, cooling off period, I think this is a step in the right direction. The U.N. and the Organization of American (sic) Unity is going to enforce this, so I'm very excited about this breakthrough.

CLANCY: Well, congratulations, Bill Richardson, New Mexico president (sic), a Democratic, and he's been many times in the past a global troubleshooter, having some success -- New Mexico governor, I should say.

And he's having some success there in going ahead on Darfur, getting the rebels and the government to once again make at least some kind of agreement. We can only hope that it progresses to something more positive. All right, we're going to take a short break here. We'll be right back after this.

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CLANCY: Let's talk international football. It is Beckham bedlam.

GORANI: The big name making big headlines again, Patrick.

PATRICK SNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Yes. David Beckham, one of the biggest names in world football or world soccer, whichever way you want to look at it, but basically, yes. David Beckham, is he in or out of Real Madrid?

He currently plays for Real Madrid, or should I say, he is currently contracted to Real Madrid because the thrust here really is he doesn't play anymore for neither club nor country. He's become a bit part player at Real Madrid since their Italian coach, Fabio Capello, took over, hugely frustrating for him.

Really, though, all sorts of reports and claims and counterclaims coming out of the Spanish capital, at the Bernabeu Stadium where Real Madrid play. An overnight report having Italian media quoting the club's sporting director as saying "Beckham's contract will not be renewed at the end of the current season." That's June, the European summer, of course, just a few months away.

Counterclaims, though, from the player's agent, who says that as far as they're concerned, there is still the offer of a two-year contract on the table for a player who is now 31. So it all comes down to who you believe.

Real Madrid, the club itself saying that Mijatovic, who is the club's sporting director, was misinterpreted. Now, we hear this a lot when sometimes clubs or institutions like to backtrack. I'm not saying that's the case here. I'm simply saying that we do heard this word, misinterpretation, quite a lot.

Basically, if might come down to money. If Real Madrid want to cash in on one of their star assets, they will have to sell him by the end of transfer window, which is the end of January.

If they don't cash in on that, this could drag for months. He'll become a free agent and, of course, the player himself will have his pick, his choice of clubs. There will be numerous suitors who want to get their hands on David Beckham.

GORANI: All right, for tens and tens of millions of dollars. Thanks very much, Patrick Snell.

CLANCY: A player personality. That's it for this hours. I'm Jim Clancy.

GORANI: I'm Hala Gorani. Stay with CNN. The news, of course, continues.

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