New Iraq Strategy Delayed; More Than 70 Killed in Baghdad Suicide Bombing
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: If you were waiting for a new White House strategy for Iraq, get ready to wait some more. The plan is being pushed back. And you might be surprised by the reason why.</s>ANNOUNCER: More chaos, many more casualties -- Americans want action. The White House says, wait. We will tell you what you could be waiting for and what's in store for the troops. Telling the truth, paying the price.</s>JOE DARBY, FORMER U.S. ARMY SOLDIER: And I was like, wait a minute. This is the prison. These are prisoners.</s>ANNOUNCER: He blew the lid off Abu Ghraib. Then, his life changed.</s>COOPER: So, you were scared?</s>J. DARBY: Very. I slept with a pistol under my pillow.</s>ANNOUNCER: And that was before he tried to go home. Plus: Spying on Diana, did it happen? And, if it did, what was U.S. intelligence looking for?</s>ANNOUNCER: Across the country and around the world, this is ANDERSON COOPER 360. Reporting tonight from the CNN studios in New York, here's Anderson Cooper.</s>COOPER: Want to welcome our viewers here in America and watching around the world on CNN International. The Iraq Study Group called the situation grave and deteriorating. White House spokesman Tony Snow said he hoped for fast action, within two weeks time. Well, tonight, as another White House spokesman decades ago once put it, that phrase is no longer operative -- no action until after New Year's, when, according to some reports, President Bush will announce a major boost in troops levels -- this as new polling out tonight shows that 70 percent of Americans now disapprove of how Mr. Bush is handling the war. It also comes on the heels of one of the deadliest suicide bombings yet seen in Baghdad. We begin tonight with CNN's Ed Henry from the White House.</s>ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Under increasing pressure to reshape his war policy, the president consulted with Iraq's vice president, a key Sunni leader, who has seen his own brother and sister killed by sectarian violence.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In spite of his grief and in spite of pain in his heart, he is willing to work for a united Iraq and a peaceful Iraq.</s>HENRY: But the president refused to discuss why he's decided to scrap initial plans to reveal a new Iraq policy by Christmas, a reversal that adds to the picture of a beleaguered White House groping for answers.</s>TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: That is not going to happen until the new year. We do not know when, so I can't give you a date. I can't give you a time. I can't give you a place. I can't give you the way in which it will happen. So, all those questions are yet to be answered.</s>HENRY: But it was the White House staff that had the set the expectations of a December announcement. So, the delay only sparked more questions. During a secure videoconference with the president Tuesday, did military commanders urge a change?</s>SNOW: No. No. No. The president is the commander in chief. He issues orders. It is -- he decided that, frankly, they're -- it's not ready yet.</s>HENRY: Snow denied one theory that the president is just waiting until after the holidays to announce he's sending even more troops to Iraq. But the press secretary seemed to give credence to another possibility...</s>BUSH: But I'm the decider.</s>HENRY: ... that perhaps the president is taking his time, so any momentum for the Baker-Hamilton report fades, and he can chart his own course.</s>SNOW: The touchstone is not the Baker-Hamilton commission. It's the situation in Iraq, and it's the situation in the region. That is the touchstone.</s>COOPER: Ed, we have heard all the options. What -- what is the president likely to choose?</s>HENRY: Well, people familiar with the deliberations are now telling CNN that the president is actively considering sending more troops to Iraq, a controversial move that White House aides just will not confirm or deny. It's controversial because there is conflicting opinion on just how many troops can be sent. Will this stretch the military too thin? But also controversial because this is a big gamble -- what if you send more troops to Iraq and it does not crush the insurgency? Then your options really are dwindling -- Anderson.</s>COOPER: And is there any sense of how many troops could actually be sent, and could be sustained?</s>HENRY: Well, Senator McCain, as you know, has advocated 30,000, 40,000, maybe even 50,000 U.S. troops. There are some saying, you really can't send that many troops. There are also others saying that, how long, what's the duration, that, while you maybe be able to send that many for maybe a few weeks, a couple of months, that you can't do it long term. So, that's why the president needs probably a little more time before he unveils this big speech, to really run through everything, and make sure they have got all their ducks in a row -- Anderson.</s>COOPER: Ed Henry, thanks. As we mentioned at the top, the day in Iraq began with an especially cruel blow, mass murder, targeting people simply trying to feed their families, desperately looking for work. Reporting tonight from Baghdad, CNN's Nic Robertson.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): So powerful the blast, it could be felt more than a mile away. So cynical the suicide bomber, according to witnesses, he called out he had jobs to offer. He collected people who were innocent and in need of money, this man explains. And then he exploded the coach, almost 450 pounds of explosives packed into a vehicle -- more than 71 dead, more than 220 wounded -- possibly a sectarian attack, many of the victims believed to be Shias, who are among Iraq's poorest, least educated, and the most likely to be unemployed. Estimates variously put unemployment at one in five, to over one half the population. According to U.S. General Peter Chiarelli, Iraq's stagnating economy is killing his soldiers and Iraqis alike. So, the key to stopping the violence, he says, is creating more jobs.</s>LT. GEN. PETER CHIARELLI, COMMANDER, MULTINATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ: Things are critical to this -- to the level of security and the level of -- lowering the levels of violence you have in the country. I just don't understand how anybody can argue with the fact that a man or a woman is much less likely to want to join a militia if they have a job to go to every day.</s>ROBERTSON: Chiarelli, already at the end of his second tour in Iraq, is getting ready to hand over to his successor. He says few people back home seem to get the importance of fixing Iraq's economy, which frustrates him.</s>CHIARELLI: I wish we had, had more assistance in those areas.</s>ROBERTSON (on camera): The economic areas?</s>CHIARELLI: Yes, in the economic areas.</s>ROBERTSON: Now, a recent poll of Iraqis came to a similar conclusion. When asked how to get rid of the insurgents' and militia's guns, most people said, the best way was to give them jobs. But there is no quick fix to the economy here. It will require massive reinvestment and restructuring of Iraq's very centralized economy -- Anderson.</s>COOPER: Joining Nic tonight in Baghdad, we are joined in Washington by Michael Gordon, the chief military correspondent for "The New York Times," and recent co-author of the book "Cobra</s>II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq." Michael, thanks for being with us. The White House announcing today they are going to delay making a decision on -- on the course of action moving forward. Why the delay? What are you hearing?</s>MICHAEL GORDON, CHIEF MILITARY CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, I just think they have conflicting device -- advice, and the issue is a pretty complicated one. We have the Baker-Hamilton panel, but, recently, the president heard from a group of retired generals, one of whom, General Keene, was advocating sending even more forces. So, I think it's a complicated issue. They're not quite sure exactly where to go. They have to work it out. And, you know, Anderson, the Iraqi government has recently inputted its own advice, which is another factor in this.</s>COOPER: Nic, last week, we talked to -- to Baker and Hamilton. They said: Look, we are talking about days and weeks, in terms of the -- the timeline of when we need to act by. On -- on the ground there, what does the timeline look like? How much time does the U.S. have to change course?</s>ROBERTSON: It's really very, very sensitive, indeed, when you look at what's happening with the insurgency on the ground, when you look at what is happening with the militias, when you look, really, at the sectarian violence, which is on a hair trigger here. You have one event in one part of the city triggering another event an hour later, an hour away. You have tit-for-tat killings. It's on a hair trigger. And -- and the assessment of some of the communities, particularly the Sunnis here, who are really under fire, is that they only trust the American troops here to protect them. So, there is a real sense that, whatever decision has to be made, has to be made quickly, and put into effect very, very fast -- Anderson.</s>COOPER: Michael, how likely do you think it is that more U.S. troops are going to be sent to -- to Iraq?</s>GORDON: Well, I can't really gauge that exactly. What I -- what I can say is, the American commanders in Iraq are not pushing for more troops, that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have concerns about sending some more troops, but that there are some civilians in the American government who think it's needed. So, I think there's a divided opinion on this. If they were to send more troops, what they would do is surge for a limited period of time, maybe 20,000 troops for a period of up to six months. It wouldn't be something that would be sustained long term.</s>GORDON: That's the kind of option they're discussing.</s>COOPER: And, Michael, what's the thinking on that? I mean, because, you know, Shinseki had talked about hundreds of thousands of troops needed in Iraq long ago, many years ago. You know, 30,000 or 40,000, that would bring the number maybe up to -- to 180,000 or so. But will that -- would -- would even that be enough?</s>GORDON: Well, what Shinseki was talking about was nationwide. Really, what the focus is now on Baghdad. So, the concept would be, add some more forces to Baghdad to help stabilize that city, but it would only be in the context of political and economic steps that would be taken. I mean, troops by themselves are not the answer. And, you know, Anderson, the Iraqi government, as I mentioned, they have come in with a -- their own recommendation. And it is not clear that the Iraqi government actually wants a lot of American troops in the center of the capital. This is a Shiite-dominated government. They seem to prefer that the Americans redeploy out of the capital.</s>COOPER: Nic, what about that? You were saying a lot of Iraqis there only trust the U.S. But, when the U.S. tried to lock down Baghdad, and tried to secure it just a couple weeks ago, that didn't really work. The murders skyrocketed.</s>ROBERTSON: Well, what's really interesting about this is, we are hearing from the Sunnis, who are now feeling really, really under threat. And they were the community that first used to attack the U.S. troops here. They are the ones who are now saying, we need the American troops. But it is the Shias who are in the dominance here. And it is what the majority of polls, or the majority of people in Iraq are saying, at least that they want the troops out, that, at least, at the very least, get them out of the cities. The Iraqis, the majority, again, of Iraqi people, say that they can do this job of security better, and they don't need to have more American soldiers around. But I think there is a complete agreement that you have to fix the security situation in Baghdad. And, if you take independent advice, the best way to do that is, in the short term at least, at a military level. It does need that economic component behind it, though.</s>COOPER: Michael, the day after the Iraq Study Group report came out, you had a front-page story in "The New York Times" talking to a lot of the military advisers, military officers, who had been advisers to the Iraq Study Group, who said they weren't consulted with the final military assessment, and they disagreed with the whole notion that you could pull out troops by 2008.</s>GORDON: The Iraq Study Group had, in my estimation, a very unrealistic proposal to withdraw all combat brigades out within about a year's time. There is a group of senior retired officers who were listed as advisers to this panel. They were not consulted about these final recommendations. And I quoted one of them, General Keene, the former vice chief of staff of the Army, as saying, not only was he was not consulted, that he disagreed with them.</s>COOPER: So, Michael, why aren't military commanders in Iraq, and, I assume, here in the United States -- I guess I saw Abizaid saying this -- why aren't they behind this idea of -- of raising the number of troops, even in the short term?</s>GORDON: Well, the commanders who are skeptical of this, I mean, their perspective is that you can't solve this problem on the basis of adding troops alone, that, really, what's required are a lot of steps by the Iraqis, in the realm of political reconciliation, economic, job creation, which is, really, largely a function of the Iraq government, reconstruction, amnesty, de-Baathification. There's a whole host of things that have to happen to create a better Iraq. And what the American military commanders are saying is, hey, don't look to us to try to solve all of this simply by sending more American soldiers and Marines over there. The Iraqis need to do some things. And, if you try to solve this with military force alone, you really miss the larger point. There are things the Iraqis have to do.</s>COOPER: Michael Gordon, Nic Robertson, appreciate your reporting. Thanks, guys. Just a reminder of what is at stake: The number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq now stands at 2,937. The number-one killer is roadside bombs. Here's the "Raw Data." Through the end of last month, according to the Brookings Institution, IEDs were responsible for 35 percent of U.S. deaths. Nearly 32 percent died from other hostile fire. Sixteen-point-six percent of deaths were from non-hostile causes. And 4.5 percent were from car bombs. The Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal was a turning point for American troops in Iraq. It ignited a backlash, of course. It also changed one man's life in ways he never imagined. Coming up, you're going to meet him, Joe Darby. The whistle-blower who turned in pictures of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib tells why he decided to expose the truth, and why, even now, he looks over his shoulder in fear. Also ahead; Could the diamond on your finger have blood on it? Could it actually be fueling some of Africa's dirtiest wars? You won't believe what one man found when he went into New York's diamond district. And later: new details of the bugging of Princess Diana and her two sons -- the two princes planning a royal celebration for their late mom. You will hear from William and Harry, in their own words -- ahead on 360.