U.S. Troops Search Out Final Pockets of Resistance in Falluja; What's Happening at the CIA?
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Possible dangers behind every door, as U.S. troops search out the final pockets of resistance in Falluja. A deadly shooting in Gaza. Were gunmen trying to kill the interim Palestinian leader? What's happening at the CIA? Controversy suddenly surrounding the new director after a pair of high-level resignations. And the fastest jet plane in the world could be about to shatter its own incredible record, going 7,000 miles an hour, on this</s>AMERICAN MORNING. ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING, with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer. Good morning, everybody. I'm Heidi Collins, in for Soledad this morning.</s>RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Rick Sanchez, in for Bill. Some of the other stories that we'll watch for you this morning. Well, there's more fallout this morning from Merck's decision to pull Vioxx from the market. Is the drug company now about to be crushed by a flood of lawsuits, as some expected? We're going to look into that.</s>COLLINS: Also, preparing for war under the most difficult circumstances. We're going to talk to a member of the Georgia National Guard. He's been ordered to report to training for Iraq, after his son was killed in that country earlier this year. We'll hear his story and hear from his wife. Pretty difficult time for her, as you would imagine as well. Jack Cafferty is here now.</s>JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Hello.</s>COLLINS: Good morning.</s>CAFFERTY: Once I got that jury thing sorted out, it didn't take them too long to convict old Scott Peterson of the double murder of wife and unborn son. Now comes the penalty phase. One has to wonder if his lawyer is even going to bother to show up for that. He wasn't there for the verdict, Mark Geragos. Ordinarily, I would be all in favor of the death penalty, but I have a better idea in the Scott Peterson case. We'll take a look at it in a few minutes.</s>COLLINS: Yes, strange that he wasn't there for that verdict.</s>CAFFERTY: This is not something that would raise your confidence if you're the guy on trial, your lawyer doesn't even show up after five months for the verdict.</s>COLLINS: Yes, we're going to talk to Gloria Allred a little bit later about that, too. Jack, thank you. For now, though, we are going to get straight to the headlines with Daryn Kagan. She's at CNN Center in Atlanta. Daryn, good morning.</s>DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Heidi, good morning to you. Now in the news, U.S. warplanes backed by troops searching house to house, pounding insurgent targets in Falluja. Today's strikes come a day after a U.S. Marine commander said that U.S. Iraqi forces had liberated the city. But officials say it could take several more days of fighting before that city is secured. The first reactions to U.S. troops wounded in the Iraqi city of Falluja, American forces being treated at a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany spoke out within the last hour about what they saw inside the city and their own injuries.</s>LANCE CORPORAL RYAN CHAPMAN, U.S. MARINES: Sniper round struck just above my left eyebrow. Nothing too serious, I guess. It cracked my skull, but I think it looks worse than it really is.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's kind have been the whole attitude of the guys coming off the plane -- nothing serious, cracked my skull open.</s>KAGAN: And we had a chance to talk with one of those soldiers earlier. You'll hear more of that interview coming up. Now some of them were asked if they would go back to Iraq. One of the men replied "in a heartbeat." More than 400 troops were flown to Landstuhl last week, nearly all of them injured in Falluja. Let's check news here in the U.S. Police in Miami planning to hold a news conference today, following two incidents involving stun guns and children. The department now says that it's reviewing its taser gun policy after a 6-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl were shocked in two separate incidents. It's not clear whether officers will face a disciplinary action. And trying to get to work more quickly today. NASA trying to set a world record for speed. The unmanned X-43A aircraft is expected to achieve a speed of, get this, almost 7,000 miles an hour. That's 10 times the speed of sound. The aircraft uses an experimental scramjet engine. It has no moving parts. It emits water as exhaust. If successful, the design could mean cheaper rockets and faster missiles in the future. Buckle your seatbelts for a ride onboard that one. Heidi, back to you.</s>COLLINS: No kidding. That's quite a contrail it leaves behind it, too. All right, Daryn, thanks so much. Some high level resignations within the CIA have many asking whether office politics could be compromising national security. Elaine Quijano has more.</s>ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's no set secret there are tensions at the</s>CIA. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is quite a soap opera even by Washington politics standards.</s>QUIJANO: But what's causing them and whether they'll affect the agency's ability to fight terrorism remains up for debate. "The Washington Post" reports some longtime officers are threatening to resign over staff changes. And like everything in Washington, opinions fall along party lines. Some Democrats are honing in on the president's choice to head the</s>CIA. SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: Well, I think that Porter Goss apparently carried out a few things in a heavy-handed way or precipitous way. And if that's the fact, then that would have been part of the cause here.</s>QUIJANO: Porter Goss during his days as the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee was harshly critical of the CIA's clandestine service. During his confirmation hearings he vowed to lead the agency in a nonpartisan way. But the former '60s-era intelligence officer also hinted at his style.</s>PORTER GOSS, CIA DIRECTOR: My attitude towards the intelligence community, and I guess my alma mater, the CIA, is one of tough love.</s>QUIJANO: Some Republicans see that tough love as exactly the answer to preventing future CIA failures, like the flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.</s>SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Somebody needs to deal with the dynamic that led us to being so wrong. And if you have to hurt some feelings, so be it.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: This is an organization full of very good and decent people, but is dysfunctional and is not providing the intelligence information necessary for the president to conduct the war on terror.</s>QUIJANO: Yet the ranking Democratic on the House Intelligence Committee says the problem's not Director Goss but those he's brought with him, now clashing with career CIA officers.</s>REP. JANE HARMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: The agency seems in free-fall in Washington. And that is a very, very bad omen in middle of a war.</s>QUIJANO (on camera): The reports of discord at the CIA coincide with the announcement Friday that deputy director John McLaughlin will retire in December. Now in a written statement, McLaughlin said the move was a purely personal decision, and a CIA spokesman denies that any other factors were involved. Elaine Quijano, CNN, the White House.</s>COLLINS: For more on the shake-up at the CIA, we are joined by former CIA director James Woolsey in Washington this morning. Thanks you so much for being with us, director Woolsey. Appreciate your time on this. You know, as the American people hear about all this going on at the CIA, some might be asking, how will it affect my life, in particular, the war on terror?</s>JAMES WOOLSEY, FMR. CIA DIRECTOR: Well, there are three things going on here. And one of the reasons it's kind of confusing is that they're sort of related, but also they're independent. One is that Porter Goss said that he means to make some policy changes, and I think he's right on this; there's some important changes that need to be made. He said we rely too much relying on so-called liaison services. That is information from other friendly countries, like, say, the Jordanians in the Middle East, that we ought to be running our own case officers, and they ought to be running our own spies more. And that, he also said he wants people to be more risk taking. Back from the mid 70s on, there has been a certain culture of risk- adverseness to some extent in the CIA that was more or less started by the Church-Pike hearings, and I think Porter wants to turn that around. I think he's right there as well. So, there's some resistance to that. That's one thing going on. The second thing that's going on is in the aftermath of the political campaign and business about weapons of mass destruction and were they there or not they there? There's been a lot of back and forth between some people on the Hill and some of the administration on the one hand, and leakers essentially and anonymous sources in the CIA on the other, sort of pointing the finger and saying, you know, the administration was the one that exaggerated weapons of mass destruction. No, it wasn't, it was the CIA that made mistakes, and so that's been going back and forth. And then the third thing is that Porter Goss himself and a couple of the people he's bringing out have backgrounds as CIA officers. One I know reasonably well, Mike Costey (ph), I think, is a very able man. But there's always a certain neuralgia out there when you bring people with you. Stan Turner saw that when he brought out some Naval officers with him. Bill Casey saw it when he brought and individual to be actually the head of the clandestine services, and he only lasted a few months, there was so much reaction against it. They're not used to having people come out with a group with them. I only took one Foreign Service Officer as an executive assistant out with me when I went, otherwise I went out there alone.</s>COLLINS: So pardon the interruption, but you mentioned these three very interesting issues and how they're interrelated. Tell me, we hear this phrase tough love about Porter Goss. Is that not exactly what is needed in this, quote, CIA shakeup?</s>WOOLSEY: I think what he means by that is making these policy changes, and I think he's right on that. It's one way to characterize it. He has great affection for the agency, but he wants to see some changes made. One change that's implied, he hasn't said it, is moving more toward non-official cover officers, so-called NOCs, instead of people being undercover as CIA officers, let's say, as some other part of the U.S. government, a member of another part of the government and having a diplomatic passport, so if they're caught spying, they're declared persona non grata and have to leave the country. If you are a NOC, you don't have any official cover at all, and you could be caught and killed. That's a different way of doing business. The CIA has done it some in the past. Other countries do it a lot, like Russia, so that would be a big change, and although Porter hasn't said so, I think it's implied by some of these other changes that he has been quoted on.</s>COLLINS: Very quickly here, will Porter Goss weather the storm?</s>WOOLSEY: Oh, I think so. He's an able man. I think he'll be a good director.</s>COLLINS: All right, Director Woolsey, we appreciate your time as always here on AMERICAN MORNING. Thank you.</s>WOOLSEY: Good to be with you.</s>SANCHEZ: The other big story we're following on this day, U.S. forces rained bombs and artillery on Falluja today, and troops still engaged in gun battles with the last insurgent holdouts, but commanders have declared the city -- quote -- "liberated." Nic Robertson is live. We understand he's just on the outskirts of Falluja. Nic, set the scene for us, if you would.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the city, according to military officials here, is controlled. That means that they've achieved their initial major objectives. Swept through the whole city, what the troops are doing now is going back street by street, house by house, searching out insurgents. That means that whenever an insurgent takes a shot at them from a house, they will try and go and capture or kill those insurgents. In that process, some buildings are getting damaged, some buildings are getting destroyed. But as the Marines and the troops from the First Infantry Division, Task Force 22, go throughout the city, what they're trying to do is get rid of all those pockets of insurgents and make the city safe for civilians to come back. Indeed, we heard from an Iraqi brigade commander, who said that in some areas of the northwestern part of Falluja, some civilians are now coming out of their houses, just a few, and back on to the streets, coming and getting food supplies from the troops. We also understand from a Marine commander, that two mosques in Falluja are now being used as shelters for civilians that have been located during this operation, and those civilians being provided with security, shelter and food. The Iraqi brigade commander also said that he was aware some civilians had been killed.</s>SANCHEZ: Nic Robertson following the story there for us. We certainly thank you. We'll be getting back to you throughout the morning. Now the interim Palestinian leader is not hurt after a deadly shooting incident that we need to you about. It's a bodyguard to Mahmoud Abbas and a security officer that were killed when 30 to 40 gunmen fired into a crowd mourning Yassar Arafat. No one has claimed responsibility for the shooting in Gaza City yesterday. But Abbas' own Fatah movement is being blamed for this. He says it was not, by the way, an assassination attempt.</s>SANCHEZ: Still ahead, Joseph and Jan Johnson lost their son in Iraq earlier this year. Now they're asked to make another huge sacrifice. We're going to be talking to them.</s>COLLINS: Also, how does a young pro athlete,in peak condition have a heart attack? The answer could make him the posterboy for hundreds of lawsuits against a big drug company.</s>SANCHEZ: We'll know next whey one reporter says the most poignant moment of the Peterson trial happened just before the verdict. A couple of things. What were they? We're going to talk to Gloria Gomez, and she's going to tell you ahead, right here. This is AMERICAN MORNING.