Outcome in Ukraine's Highly Contested Presidential Election Expected to be Announced in a Few Hours
O'BRIEN: You're look at a picture of Chicago O'Hare airport. We're keeping an eye on the holiday travel for you this morning, and here's what it looks like there. Not so bad right yet. But they are predicting long lines and long waits in Chicago and elsewhere, as we wait our way through the holiday, and of course some snow predicted as well a little bit later today. In other news, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says he supports the now controversial intelligence reform bill, but Rumsfeld's opinion seems to be at odds with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. General Richard Myers sent a letter to a House committee objecting to the bill. He says too much power of certain military operations would be taken from the Pentagon and given to a national intelligence director. Earlier, I spoke with 9/11 commissioner Bob Kerrey about this issue.</s>O'BRIEN: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says he supports the now-controversial intelligence reform bill. But Rumsfeld's opinion seems to be at odds with that of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Richard Myers sent a letter to a House committee objecting to the bill. He says too much power of certain military operations would be taken from the Pentagon and given to a national intelligence director. Earlier, I spoke with 9/11 commissioner Bob Kerrey about this issue.</s>BOB KERREY, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: There's no complaint from the military about...</s>O'BRIEN: So what do you think his motivation is?</s>KERREY: I just think he's concerned about giving up a little bit of authority.</s>O'BRIEN: It's a power grab.</s>KERREY: No, I don't think it's power. I think it's legitimate. I'm sympathetic to it. I don't understand it because the facts demonstrate otherwise. The military this is the number one customer for intelligence. Everybody knows that.</s>O'BRIEN: Still unclear whether the stalled legislation will pass when Congress reconvenes on December 6th.</s>HEMMER: Back from overseas now. The outcome in Ukraine's highly contested presidential election expected to be announce in just a few hours of time. Demonstrators now, in the live picture here, lining the streets in Kiev, for the third straight day, claiming fraudulent voting that continues to plague the balloting. Jill Dougherty is live there by telephone in Kiev, when again, we expect an official announcement, perhaps in two hours from now. What's going on there now, Jill? Good afternoon.</s>JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Bill, I can tell you that all across Kiev, that's the capital of Ukraine, there are demonstrations day and night now. The biggest one is taking place down on Independence Square. That's where opposition supporters have been gathering for three days, literally in the tens of thousands, in some cases more than 100,000 people gathering there in support of their candidate, Victor Yushchenko. And as you said, what they are maintaining, was that this vote was stolen. The Central Election Commission of Ukraine came out a couple of days ago and said, in its initial result, that the government-backed candidate was winning by three percentage points. His name is Viktor Yanukovych. But the exit polls, taken the day of the election, shows the opposition candidate was ahead by 10 to 11 points, so the opposition says it was stolen. Just a few minutes ago, we were over at the Central Election Committee's headquarters, and they already have demonstrators from both sides, from the opposition, carrying their orange flags, a symbol of their opposition, and the people who support Victor Yanukovych, the government-backed candidate. They have blue and white flags. And last night, a demonstration is going over, a huge one, going over to the presidential administration building. So right now, what's going to happen? Well, this will be a turning point, when this announcement comes out, the final results. And in a few minutes, we'll be able to speak with the opposition candidate. We'll ask him what he plans to do when those results are announced. And I have to say, Bill, everybody is watching. The United States is watching, the Europeans are watching, the Russians are watching. This is a very important election in this part of the world.</s>HEMMER: What are they doing with the ballots at this point? Are they actually counting them now, or is that process over at this point?</s>DOUGHERTY: That process is over, but the problem is, there were areas that supported the government-backed candidate, where traditionally, let's say you had about 70 percent turnout or so. And on the day of this election, they had 95 percent turnout. So there were big question marks raised by that, and a lot of people using absentee ballots and voting numerous times. That was, according to international observers, some of the biggest violations came in that area.</s>HEMMER: All right, Jill Dougherty by telephone there in Kiev. We do expect an announcement at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time, by the clock, about an hour and 40 minutes from now out of Ukraine -- Soledad.</s>DOUGHERTY: Still to come this morning, Dan Rather giving up his chair at CBS. So what does that mean for any network? That's next.