Democratic Official Claims Kerry 'Has Made a Decision' for His V.P.
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN ANCHOR: From the CNN center in Atlanta, I am Drew Griffin filling in for Daryn today. It's Monday, July 5, a holiday for many Americans. Let's check the news at this hour. In the headlines, he has made his decision. He's just not telling anybody about it yet. A Democratic official says John Kerry has now picked a running mate. No word on when the presumptive Democratic nominee will reveal that choice. We'll have more on that in just a minute from Kelly Wallace. The family of a captured U.S. Marine remains in seclusion in Utah waiting for news. An Islamic group claiming to hold Corporal Wassef Hassoun denies Web site reports that he has been killed. Hassoun worked as an Arabic translator in Iraq. He was last seen June 19. Two wildfires on Arizona's Mount Graham are expected to merge in the next few days. The fires have moved very close now to dozens of cabins and an international observatory. Those buildings were evacuated Friday. The observatory houses a $120 million telescope, it is one of the most powerful in the world. Mount Graham is 110 miles east of Tucson. And the future of Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial, up in the air. Judges in The Hague postponing today's opening of the defense case because of Milosevic's poor health. Prosecutors have asked judges to impose a defense lawyer on the former Yugoslav president. Judges are to rule tomorrow on how or whether the trial will resume. We begin this hour with the presidential race. And a running mate for presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry. A party official tells CNN, Kerry has chosen his No. 2. But the all-important details, who and when under wraps. Embroiled in speculation, national correspondent Kelly Wallace tells us what she knows -- Kelly</s>KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Drew. Those are certainly the key questions. We can tell you that campaign officials are not confirming this report. This confirmation from a Democratic official that John Kerry has made up his mind. But this is what this official is telling CNN. The official saying, "It's clear Kerry has made a decision and is committed to announcing it on his terms with discipline, more typically associated with Republican campaigns of yesteryear." This official saying, "that means obviously meaning a rapid turn-around." Of course, the big question remains, who. Reporters were looking for all kinds of signs yesterday. And that's when John Kerry spent the day with Tom Vilsack of Iowa, the governor of Iowa. Vilsack is believed to be on John Kerry's short list. And neither Kerry nor Vilsack would take any questions. John Kerry for his part seemed to be enjoying the guessing game. Other names believed to be on John Kerry's short list include Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt. Who many believe John Kerry feels most comfortable with. And North Carolina Senator John Edwards, who many Democrats believe would do the most to energize the Kerry, campaign. Something we do know, reading the tealeaves and talking to Democratic sources, John Kerry apparently has studied very closely past running mate decisions. And that he was very impressed by the president's decision to pick Dick Cheney back in 2000, that John Kerry apparently believes chemistry is most important. And that geography just doesn't matter that much at all. Drew, all eyes will really be on Pittsburgh later today. John Kerry and his wife Teresa hosting a barbecue with politicians from Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, to see if the senator will reveal exactly what he's planning to do and when -- Drew.</s>GRIFFIN: Kelly, it's a holiday, a somewhat slow news today. Any chance he would make the announcement today?</s>WALLACE: The sense we're getting is no. Aides we have been talking to over the past few days felt that today, because it is a holiday, as you said, and because it is a slow news day, and because so many families are out enjoying the long weekend, not necessarily paying attention to television or newspapers, they were hoping for kind of a bigger audience, so that the sense was as early as tomorrow, Tuesday. And sometime this week it's looking likely. But again, Drew, all bets are off. We just don't 100 percent know.</s>GRIFFIN: We'll continue paying attention to you, as you try to find this out for us, Kelly. Thanks a lot.</s>WALLACE: Sure.</s>GRIFFIN: Meanwhile, the Bush-Cheney team spent the holiday weekend on the campaign trail. Both men on the stump. Mr. Bush in West Virginia, using the patriotic backdrop to defend the war in Iraq. He says Americans are safer now that Saddam Hussein is in prison and as U.S. coalition troops hunt terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We must work to remove the conditions that give rise to terror in parts of the world like the Middle East: the poverty, the hopelessness, and the resentments that the terrorists exploit.</s>GRIFFIN: A day earlier, Vice President Dick Cheney also in West Virginia. He told crowds Saddam should be executed if convicted of genocide and other crimes. Cheney was concluding a bus tour through Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Cheney's office confirms now the vice president has dropped a personal physician from the vice president's medical team, because of drug abuse allegations. The "New Yorker" magazine is reporting in today's issue that Dr. Gary Malakoff has abused prescription narcotics for years, and has now been removed from his senior position at George Washington University Medical Center. Malakoff has frequently been quoted in the media attesting to the vice president's good health, despite four heart attacks since 1995. An Iraqi government planned to grant amnesty to some insurgents is on hold. That offer was supposed to be announced today. The news conference canceled. The deal would apply to low-level insurgents, not hard-core criminals like these kidnappers that were threatening to behead a U.S. Marine. But many questions remain on who would be covered and who would not. Iraqi sources have told CNN amnesty could involve 5,000 supporters of Saddam Hussein's former regime who were, quote, "misled." Now, it's not clear if it would cover Muqtada al Sadr, the Shiite Muslim cleric who is blamed for militia attacks on coalition forces, and Iraqi infrastructure. In Iraq, authorities say two Iranian men have been arrested trying to detonate a car bomb. The case in the Talbiyah neighborhood marks the first arrests of non-Iraqi insurgents, and would seem to support Iraqi claims that foreign fighters are taking part in the wave of vehicle bombings. Iraq's new chapter in history may well be written in oil, but the exports and the all-important revenues for rebuilding have suffered yet another strike. Saboteurs bombed part of a strategic oil pipeline that feeds oil from Iraq's southern oil fields to refineries in the northern parts of the country. The area's pipelines have been struck several times in recent weeks. CNN's international correspondent Brent Sadler is in Baghdad with a closer look at this latest blow to the new government and its finances -- Brent.</s>BRENT SADLER, CNN SENIOR INT'L CORRESPONDENT: Yes, indeed, this crippling of the pipeline that feeds Iraq's oil refineries is just one side of the problem. The biggest problem authorities face here on the ground is trying to maintain the flow of oil, so that Iraq can earn income from those exports. So there's a very big problem that they're trying to tackle right now.</s>SADLER (voice-over): Giant ships fill their tanks with Iraqi crude oil, exporting up to 3 million worth of oil an hour, if all works well. But all is not well. Crude oozes from a gaping hole after recent attacks on strategic pipelines near Basra in southern Iraq, sapping oil revenues.</s>AYAD ALLAWI, INTERIM PRESIDENT, IRAQ: Anyone involved in these attacks is nothing more than a traitor to the cause of Iraq's freedom and the freedom of its people.</s>SADLER: Oil protection is supposed to be a top priority, on land and at sea, since last year's invasion of Iraq. But Iraqi officials claim it's been hit and missed. Exposing a worrying shortfall in coalition planning.</s>JABBAR AL LEABY, DIRECTOR GENERAL: So they need security everywhere. And security in men, security in equipment, and security in every aspect.</s>SADLER (on camera): The vast and often remote network of pipelines is vulnerable to attack. No oil means no money to pay for the cost of war, reconstruction and recovery. (voice-over): As recently as two months ago, would-be suicide bombers tried but failed to hit these vital offshore terminals, now guarded by a fleet of coalition warships. The U.S. soldiers help enforce a new exclusion zone, patrolled by the American and British Navies. Nothing is fool proof, though.</s>ADM. ALLAN WEST, BRITISH FIRST SEA LORD: Everything is always vulnerable, if you get the right thing at the right time and you're lucky. But they are now much harder to crack.</s>SADLER: But on land, where saboteurs are getting through, a 15,000-strong Iraqi protection force, privately trained, with coalition money, is paper-thin, with more than 7,000 miles of pipeline and 260 facilities to guard.</s>KEVIN THOMAS, OIL ADVISER, CPA SOUTH: Our patrols cannot only walk through, any determined enemy can monitor the patrol patterns and attack when the patrol has moved on.</s>SADLER: The oil network has so far been hit more than 130 times in the past seven months alone. Including a six-day shutdown of all crude exports in June, losing money, Iraq and its coalition allies can ill afford.</s>SADLER: Well, that 15,000 strong oil protection forces is manned by Iraqis and is still getting up to speed. But without air surveillance and without high-tech security equipment, complain Iraqi officials, is not likely to combat or defeat these oil saboteurs -- Drew.</s>GRIFFIN: Brent, I wanted to ask you about the idea of granting amnesty to low-level insurgents. And yesterday, in somewhat of a bombshell by the prime minister saying that that could include Muqtada al Sadr. Now, we are hearing that the news conference on that was canceled.</s>SADLER: Yes, it was canceled several hours ago, postponed indefinitely. We don't know all the details behind it, but certainly a very hard deal to work out is going on behind the scenes. Not just as far as an amnesty pardon for insurgents, we're not quite sure who is going to be involved in that classification and whether or not Muqtada al Sadr will be involved. Although certainly negotiations are going on. But also a new Public Security Act, and the way that this new Iraqi government is going to try and defeat the No. 1 enemy here, that is, the continuing insurgency -- Drew.</s>GRIFFIN: Brent Sadler live in Baghdad. Thank you. Now stories making news around the rest of the world. In Indonesia, election officials have ordered a recount in the country's first direct presidential contest. In a scenario reminiscent of the Florida election debacle four years ago, many Indonesian voters mistakenly punched more than one hole rendering the ballot invalid. Taiwan reeling from its worst flooding in 25 years. The tropical storm has killed at least 21 people there, and left more than a dozen others missing, some stranded 10,000 villagers without fresh water or electricity. An appeals court in South Africa has issued a ruling that allows Winnie Mandela to avoid a nearly four-year prison term. A court dismissed 25 counts of theft against the ex-wife of former President Nelson Mandela, but upheld 43 counts of fraud. Mandela says she will challenge the partial dismissal. She lost her son in the Iraq War and now she's a character in the controversial documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11." After the break, she tells us why she thinks the Bush administration got it wrong. Plus, the cornerstone of rebirth at Ground Zero. And still to come, the ever-evolving American vacation, why your office is slowly becoming the third wheel.