Bush Meets with Maimed Iraqis, Promises June 30 Handover
DARYN KAGAN, ANCHOR: Let's check the headlines at this hour. President Bush's plan for the future of Iraq draws praise and criticism. Supporters say the president put forth a comprehensive strategy for returning sovereignty to the Iraqi people. But critics say the president's speech last night was short on specifics. The Midwest gets battered by another wave of storms and tornadoes. Twisters touched down in Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Missouri yesterday. Much of the area is still reeling from the strong storms that struck over the weekend. Thick smoke billows from a chemical warehouse fire in Conyers, Georgia. That is just east of Atlanta. The facility is owned by a company that makes pool chemicals and cleaning products. Authorities evacuated nearby homes and businesses. The smoke and fire also shut down portions of Interstate 20. The California Supreme Court hears arguments next hour in the dispute over gay marriage. At issue, whether San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom abused his authority when he sanctioned marriage licenses for same-sex couples. California laws define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. It is just after 11 a.m. in Conyers, Georgia, 8 a.m. in Portland, Oregon. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, good morning once again. I'm Daryn Kagan. There are just 36 days until the handover in Iraq. Here is the latest on what is happening there. An explosion damaged in a mosque in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. But it's not clear who or what caused that blast. The U.S. military says no coalition forces were involved in fighting near the shrine. A car bomb exploded outside a Baghdad hotel this morning. A U.S. military official says that five Iraqis were injured. Iraqi police say four people were killed. The bomb went off near the Australian embassy and buildings housing the World Food Program. And President Bush has announced plan to build a new prison to replace Abu Ghraib, the site of the alleged abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops. He says Abu Ghraib would be demolished as a symbol of the country's new beginning. And we begin with the president. He also said that terrorists will not determine the future of Iraq. But he did warn of difficult days ahead, as he outlined his transition blueprint. Details from our senior White House correspondent John King. John, good morning once again.</s>JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning again to you, Daryn. On the morning after that big speech, the president having another symbolic event, a very important event, the White House would say, in the Oval Office, greeting some Iraqi citizens who had their hands amputated during the regime of Saddam Hussein. Brutality under the Saddam Hussein regime was how the president put it. Those Iraqis now in the United States because they have been given new prosthetic hands by a doctors in Texas. The president holding that example out as what he said is a sign of the compassion the Americans are showing the Iraqi people. All of this part of an effort on the president's part to change public opinion of the current occupation in Iraq and to change public opinion here at home.</s>KING (voice-over): At the Army War College, the commander in chief confronting mounting doubts about his war plan and his leadership.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We must keep our focus. We must do our duty.</s>KING: One new promise was aimed at easing the pain of the prisoner abuse scandal.</s>BUSH: With the approval of the Iraqi government, we will demolish the Abu Ghraib prison as a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning.</s>KING: That new beginning is detailed in a new United Nations resolution the United States and Britain circulated Monday. The draft resolution calls for a sovereign interim government by June 30 and elections to pick a transitional government no later than January 2005; promises to train new Iraqi military and police forces and in the meantime gives U.S. and other coalition troops authority to take all necessary measures to maintain security.</s>BUSH: I sent American troops to Iraq to defend our security. Not to stay as an occupying power. I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free. Not to make them American.</s>KING: The nearly 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now will stay after the transfer of sovereignty. And...</s>BUSH: If they need more troops, I will send them.</s>KING: The War College atmosphere was much more sober than the president's dramatic carrier visit a year ago to declare major combat in Iraq over. One hundred thirty-nine Americans had been killed in Iraq at this point. The death toll is nearly six times that now. And Mr. Bush's political standing has declined as doubts about his Iraq policy have mushroomed. Forty-seven percent of Americans now approve of how Mr. Bush is handling his job, down 13 points since January and down 22 points from a year ago. This was the first of a series of speeches planned in the five weeks until the transfer of sovereignty.</s>KING: And in those five weeks, it is critical for the Bush administration to build support once again at the United Nations Security Council, a bit of a sense of deja vu here. France among the nations raising some objections to the draft distributed by the United States and Great Britain yesterday. But President Bush spoke by telephone to President Chirac this morning. It was a 20-minute conversation. Aides here at the White House say they are in broad agreement on that new resolution. Although Daryn, officials here also say that Mr. Bush conceded that, quote, "further adjustments would have to be made" to the currency draft -- Daryn.</s>KAGAN: Well, one thing the president is sticking to, both in his speech last night and comments we've heard coming out of the White House earlier today, that the U.S. will stick to that June 30 handover date. However, we have a sound bite from last night. This was Joe Klein on CNN. And John, stand by with us and listen in to this. He has information that perhaps the U.S. won't be able to meet that deadline. Let's listen to that.</s>JOE KLEIN: The president said that Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. special envoy, was going to announce the transitional government this week. Well, that was the plan. But I am told by high-ranking, diplomatic sources at the U.N. that Brahimi is having a very difficult time getting the Iraqis to agree on a roster of candidates.</s>KAGAN: And when you do look at the jobs that need to be filled, it is a roster. President, vice presidents, prime minister. And a number of different groups that need to be mollified in this. John, what are you hearing in terms of those announcements coming out?</s>KING: Well, White House officials say there is considerable difficulty and that Mr. Brahimi is having problems, in part, because the Turks are insisting if they don't get the presidency, which they will not get, they get one of the two vice presidencies. They don't go further down the list there. There's a president, two vice presidents, a prime minister and the cabinet department. The White House concedes there is a problem right now getting agreement. But they insist they will push to have that roster filled out by the end of this week. Although some officials do concede it could slip into next week.</s>KAGAN: John King at the White House. John, thank you for that. Well, what about the Democratic rival, John Kerry? He says it is time for President Bush to turn his words about Iraq into action. Here's a quote from Senator Kerry. He said, "That's going to require the president genuinely reach out to our allies so the United States doesn't have to continue to go it alone and to create the stability necessary to allow the people of Iraq to move forward." The ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relation Committee said that he was disappointed by the lack of specifics in the president's speech.</s>SEN. JOE BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: He didn't say who was going to send more troops. He didn't say who's going to pay more money. Now, maybe we're going to hear it in the next speech that he has done what many of us have called for, that he's actually used presidential leadership, actually talked to the heads of state, actually talked to Mr. Putin, actually talk to our allies, actually talked to NATO, actually got those heads of state on the phone and gotten actual commitments. If he's gotten more money, more troops, than I think that's very, very good. If he hasn't done that, if he hasn't personally invested himself with a sense of urgency in that, then I think it's a serious mistake.</s>KAGAN: Biden calls the resident's plan a goal rather than strategy. Now I want to tell you a little bit more about that meeting President Bush heard, held in the Oval Office earlier today. You saw John King talked about it. You saw some videotape in the last hour. It showed the president meeting with Iraqis who are here in the U.S. getting medical treatment. The men had their hands cut off when they defined Saddam Hussein nearly ten years ago. Now they'd been fitted with some very expensive prosthetic limbs, donated by a German company, and attached by doctors in Texas. Our Ed Lavandera has that story from Houston.</s>ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When seven Iraqi men first landed in Houston, it was hard to tell they were hiding scars left by Saddam Hussein.</s>DAVID BATY, DYNAMIC ORTHOTICS & PROSTHETICS: When you first meet them, all their right hands are in their pockets because that's the way they walked around for nine years, with the end of their limb stuffed in their pockets.</s>LAVANDERA: It was a subtle, yet poignant behavior that prosthetic specialist David Baty noticed. Muslim tradition views the left hand as dirty and disrespectful. The right hand is virtuous.</s>BATY: The stigma that was associated with not having a right hand affected not only these guys, but their family, their children.</s>LAVANDERA: Nine years ago, these men were accused of illegally using U.S. dollars in Iraq. Saddam Hussein ordered their hands be cut off and that the men be sent back to their neighborhoods as an example of what would happen if you defied the regime. (on camera) What these men have been through has become a well- documented saga. Saddam Hussein videotaped their hands being cut off. And now a filmmaker is turning their story of loss and redemption into a documentary. (voice-over) The filmmaker found the men in Baghdad and started enlisting the help of reporters, doctors, prosthetic specialists, rehabilitation experts and anyone else who could help. All the work paid off a few days ago when each man put on a new hand for the first time.</s>TOM DIBELLO, DYNAMIC ORTHOTICS & PROSTHETICS: When they first got their hands, they all cried. The uniqueness of the situation, and the barbaric nature of the act that was performed against these men, galvanized the individuals involved to do something.</s>LAVANDERA: In less than six weeks, they've learned what takes more people months to master. What may seem simple, like rolling a ball, actually requires difficult muscle coordination.</s>BATY: He's got to combine all the motions of his arm and then tell this muscle to open at the right moment to let go of the ball. It's extremely complicated. And not all of them can do it, actually.</s>LAVANDERA: Each hand is a $25,000 gift. But to those that made this happen, each hand symbolizes much more. One man said it's about family.</s>BATY: Once he got his hand, he said, "You know what? I'm really looking forward to, is going home, holding my son in my left hand and my daughter in my right hand and walking down the street."</s>LAVANDERA: One of the men joked that when they look at their left hand, they'll say made in Iraq. When they look at the right hand they'll think made in America. As you look now, these men aren't hiding their hands in their pockets any more. Ed Lavandera, CNN, Houston.</s>KAGAN: That story originally ran a few days ago here on CNN. But when you saw the men at the White House, we thought we -- you'd like to hear their story once again. So thanks to Ed Lavandera for that. We appreciate it. Up in smoke and possibly some very dangerous smoke. We are staying on top of a developing story right here in Georgia, just about 25 miles east of CNN Center. A chemical plant is on fire. How long will it burn? A live report is up next. Also, another day of severe weather possible across the Midwest. We are following that. And later, everything you probably never knew about our country's history of nominating presidential candidates when CNN LIVE TODAY returns.