Bush Plan To Give Amnesty To Illegal Immigrants; Iraqi Weapons Only On Paper?
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Off the hook? a sweeping new offer to illegal immigrants.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This program will offer legal status as temporary workers to the millions of undocumented men and women now employed in the United States.</s>BLITZER: But hot-button issues don't get any hotter than this. Weapons hunt. Did Iraq have only a paper arsenal?</s>ADNAN PACHACHI, PRESIDENT, IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL: They had concept drawings. They had flight computations about a hypothetical missile about, but it existed only on compact disc.</s>BLITZER: The plan for Saddam. He'll face a trial, but he has to take a number.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those close to him will be tried first.</s>BLITZER: In the hot seat.</s>SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: It was a lame attempt at humor, and I am very sorry.</s>BLITZER: Why Hillary Rodham Clinton is apologizing.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS for Wednesday, January 7, 2004.</s>BLITZER: We begin with the emotional battle over America's borders, and the president of the United States has just taken sides. President Bush today said this nation of immigrants should undertake a sweeping overhaul of its immigration system. The key proposal, give legal status to millions of illegals and let them work for the time being under the full protection of the United States law. But critics on the left and on the right say the plan may threaten homeland security, reward lawbreakers and penalize American workers. It's a bold move by President Bush, but it's also a blatant -- but is it a blatant election year gambit. Let's go straight to our White House correspondent John King -- John.</s>JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, it didn't take long for this proposal to reinvigorate the very emotional and politically charged debate over immigration and illegal immigration into this country. As you note, the president putting forward his new plan today. It is his first major policy initiative of this re-election year. Both Republicans and Democrats saying there is at least some political element to this. The president, of course, would very much like to increase the 35 percent of the Hispanic vote he won in campaign 2000. Many Hispanic organizations Represented in the East Room today when Mr. Bush made this announcement. Here is the key new initiative. The president wants Congress to create a new three-year temporary visa. That would match prospective immigrants not in this country yet with available jobs in this country that Americans are not applying for and accepting. But the controversial part is this: the 8 to 10 million illegal immigrants already in the United States would also be eligible to come forward and get these new visas, and with them, at least temporary legal status if they prove they have a job in the United States and they are willing to pay a registration fee. The president says this is accepting -- meeting an economic need, the need for the workers and accepting a demographic reality, that those 8 to 10 million workers already are in the United States. The president says it keeps with America's tradition.</s>BUSH: As a nation that values immigration and depends on immigration, we should have immigration laws that work and make us proud. Yet today, we do not. Instead we see many employers turning to the illegal labor market. We see millions of hard-working men and women condemned to fear and insecurity in a massive, undocumented economy.</s>KING: Now Mr. Bush rejects the notion that he is granting amnesty to those who broke the law and entered this country because he says those who came forward would get these new, three-year temporary visas, perhaps be able to renew them for three more years or even six more years. But then they would be expected to go home unless they qualified for a green card, permanent residency in the meantime. But, Wolf, conservative critics of this plan say this president who ran promising to restore integrity to the White House is now essentially offering a reward to millions who broke this country's laws.</s>BLITZER: CNN's John King at the White House. John, thank you very much for that report. As John reported, an estimated 8 to 10 million undocumented or illegal immigrants currently in the United States. According to the U.S. government, Mexico continues to be the leading source of unauthorized immigration with almost 69 percent of the total unauthorized total population, approximately 4.8 million people. El Salvador is a distant second with 189,000 unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. or 2.7 percent of the population. Guatemala is the third leading source with 144,000 immigrants in the U.S., or 2.1 percent of the immigrant population. Colombia and Honduras round out the top five. So can the Bush administration make this immigration overhaul work? Will it hurt American citizens? Why is the president stepping into this political minefield right now? Joining us, Margaret Spellings. She's the assistant to the president for domestic policy. Margaret, thanks very much for joining us. Why now?</s>MARGARET SPELLINGS, ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR DOMESTIC POLICY: Well, because the president recognizes that we've had a problem with a broken system. We have as you said 8 to 10 million people who are here illegally. Many of them, millions of them working. And we are a nation of laws. We have to have laws and systems that reflect the reality of our country.</s>BLITZER: Election year gambit, that's what the critics are suggesting. You're looking for those Hispanic, Latino votes coming up this year?</s>SPELLINGS: We have been working on this since before 9/11. The president started talking about thin when he and President Fox visited in April 2001 and we have worked on it ever since. Obviously, after 9/11 our attentions turned to border security as it should have, but now we're reengaged in these discussions on immigration.</s>BLITZER: A lot of you most serious criticism not coming from Democrats or liberals, conservative Republicans suggesting what the president is doing now is rewarding illegal behavior. They snuck into the United States and now they're about to be rewarded.</s>SPELLINGS: These are people who are -- 8 million, some millions of people working here, building homes, working in the service sector, working at hospitals and the like. And they are employed here, they are contributing to our communities and economies and so forth. And the president envisions that they ought to have the opportunity to gain legal status so long as they're employed for a temporary nature. This is a temporary worker program where the people at the end of the term would be expected to return to their homes or alternatively to wait in the cue behind those who try to enter lawfully in the green card line, which is the route to citizenship.</s>BLITZER: What's the incentive for people it come to the United States to do it legally and wait for years and years and years and maybe never get in as opposed to those who come in illegally and have this opportunity very rapidly to get legal status?</s>SPELLINGS: The incentive is that the president today as part of his remarks called for workplace security. Border security is something we've been committed to. We are going to reconcile the system, figure out a way to rationalize the system and enforce our workplaces and our borders so that those who come here unlawfully will be expected to return home, will be deported.</s>BLITZER: The other major criticism that you're hear, that all of us are hearing especially today is what the president is doing is creating a lot of cheap labor out there. And it's going to cost American workers, average middle-class families, a lot of potential jobs because the big companies are going to simply have a cheap labor pool now to go out and get workers as opposed to paying a more robust salary, shall we say?</s>SPELLINGS: The key part of this proposal is that the employer must first demonstrate they have sought an American worker to fill these jobs. Many of these jobs are jobs that Americans either do not want, cannot fill or that the growth in the economy is not keeping with the pace of the need for these, for the type of worker. So it does not do that.</s>BLITZER: So you're confident this is not going to cost average Americans jobs because there's still 6 percent unemployment.</s>SPELLINGS: Our council of economic advisers states that immigrant and illegal or legal immigration has not caused Americans to lose jobs.</s>BLITZER: President moving forward on a very sensitive issue. This debate only just beginning. It's not yet the law of the land. Margaret Spellings, as you well know, you have a big job ahead of you.</s>SPELLINGS: Thank you very much.</s>BLITZER: Thanks for coming on the show. Critics, of course, are taking aim at the president's immigration plan. We'll hear from one opponent within the president's own party, Congressman Thomas Tancredo of Colorado. He'll be coming up later this hour. And here's your chance to weigh in on this very important story. Our "Web Question of the Day" is this: do you agree with President Bush's immigration proposal.? You can vote right now, go to cnn.com/wolf. We'll have the results later in this broadcast. While you're, there I'd love to hear directly from you, our viewers. Send me your comments any time. I'll try to read some of them each day the at end of this program. That's also where you can read my daily online column, cnn.com/wolf. Now to Iraq where talk is increasingly turning to the eventual trial of Saddam Hussein. But it now looks like it's Saddam's henchmen who'll get the first taste of the new Iraqi justice system. We'll have more on that in just a moment though. First, hundreds of Iraqi detainees being held by the coalition authority are about to go free with possibly thousands more to follow. CNN's Satinder Bindra is in the Iraqi capital with details.</s>SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (VOICE-OVER): U.S. administrator Paul Bremer calls it another step towards healing Iraq's wounds.</s>PAUL BREMER, IRAQI CIVIL ADMINISTRATOR: We are announcing today that the coalition will permit hundreds of currently detained Iraqis to return to their homes and to their families.</s>BINDRA: Most of Iraq's 12,000 detainees have been arrested on raids like these and have never been charged. The first batch of 500 detainees could be released within days. They are described as low- level associates of insurgents. The coalition says it will not release those who have, quote, "blood on their hands." Before they're released, detainees have to sign a statement denouncing violence. They also have to find a guarantor or leader within their community who can take responsibility for their behavior.</s>BINDRA (voice-over): Many Iraqis were delighted. Of course, it's something good, he says, freedom for all human beings is good. We think this is a good step, he says, but there are many who were arrested wrongly. Over the past few months, Iraqis like Amal Saleem Haidi have been demonstrating outside detention centers. Haidi says three of her four sons are in custody.</s>AMAL SALEEM HAIDI, PROTESTER (through translator): I've told the Americans who have taken my sons that you should slaughter me and let my sons out.</s>BINDRA: Haidi says she doesn't know why they were held or if they'll be released. The first released detainees will walk out of Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. In Saddam Hussein's time, thousands were imprisoned or killed here. Now the coalition is hoping this former symbol of hate can help bring reconciliation. Satinder Bindra, CNN, Baghdad.</s>BLITZER: While some Iraqis will be released from prison, many others will remain in custody including former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other top members of his regime. Earlier today I spoke with the current president of the U.S.-backed governing council, Adnan Pachachi, and I asked him about Saddam.</s>ADNAN PACHACHI, PRESIDENT, IRAQ GOVERNING COUNCIL: Well, my information is he's being interrogated by the American authorities -- coalition authorities, I should say. And well, of course, there is now the court that has been established -- a special court, which will try him eventually.</s>BLITZER (voice-over): This is our most recent look at Saddam Hussein. Disheveled, bearded and in coalition custody. But U.S. and Iraqi officials say it won't be our last. Iraqi governing council president Adnan Pachachi says the former Iraqi president will get his day in court, and he'll get something his opponents never got, a fair trial.</s>PACHACHI: It will have all the due process and the right of appeal. And it will be an open trial with attorneys and lawyers and something that is really unprecedented in Iraq's recent history and quite a contrast from the kinds of courts that Saddam himself established in Iraq to try his enemies.</s>BLITZER: But when will the trial of Saddam Hussein take place? Pachachi hopes within a year or two.</s>PACHACHI: Well, of course, we have to gather the evidence, first. And there's a lot to do there because there are mountains of papers of evidence. And I believe that the other people who have been detained -- you know, those close to him -- will be tried first. I have a feeling that the first people who will be tried are those who are implicated in very, very serious crimes against humanity and against the people of Iraq, like Ali Hassan Al-Majid, who was called Chemical Ali...</s>BLITZER: And there are others like Iraq's former deputy prime minister.</s>PACHACHI: About Tariq Aziz, I don't know when and if his trial will be held soon after that.</s>BLITZER: While the U.S., its allies and the Iraqi governing council prepare for the upcoming trials, they'll also be trying to prepare Iraq for self-government. Pachachi says that, too, will mark a sharp break from the days of Saddam Hussein.</s>PACHACHI: We have at the end of this process, a government that derives its legitimacy from the free desire of the Iraqi people.</s>BLITZER: The United States says another mass grave containing the remains of 800 Iraqis has been discovered near Baghdad. It's the latest of 670 mass grave sites found across Iraq since the U.S. invasion toppled Saddam Hussein. U.S. officials say the newest one was found 30 miles south of Baghdad. They say the victims are believed to be from an uprising of Shia Iraqis in 1991. Back home from war in Iraq. About 200 members of the 101st Airborne division reunited with families and friends today. The troops flew into their home base of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, after almost a year in Iraq. 400 more of the so-called Screaming Eagles are due to arrive this week. Search for a no-show. Why one name on a canceled Air France flight is in the security spotlight. F-16 escort. New details about military planes escorting passenger flights since code orange went into effect. And Dean bashing. A new ad goes after the current Democratic front-runner. Sushi eaters and latte drinkers all in about 30 seconds.