North Korea Threatens to Test Long-Range Missile; Former Defense Secretary Weighs in on Possible North Korea Missile Test; New Orleans Calls for State Help after Weekend Murder Spree
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And, to our viewers, you're in THE SITUATION ROOM, where new pictures and information are arriving all the time. Standing by, CNN reporters across the United States and around the world to bring you today's top stories. Happening now: It's already 6:00 a.m. in North Korea, where the countdown may be under way to test a missile capable of reaching the United States. As Iran stands firm on its own nuclear program, both nations get tough warnings from the Bush administration. In Iraq, where it's 1:00 a.m., a group linked to al Qaeda says it's kidnapped two missing American soldiers, as Vice President Dick Cheney still insists, the insurgency is in its last throes, a year after he first said it. And it's 5:00 p.m. in New York City. Why did al Qaeda reportedly call off a plot to release poison gas in the New York City subway system? Are members of a sleeper cell still at large? Is New York still at risk? I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. All that coming up, but let's begin with a new development happening right now out of Iraq, where the U.S. military says three American soldiers face charges, including murder, in the death of three detainees who appeared to be shot while fleeing. Let's go straight on our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre. Jamie, what's going on?</s>JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this happened last month. And the U.S. military now believes that these three soldiers killed three Iraqi males, and then tried to make it look like they were shot while they were fleeing. But, instead, they say it was premeditated murder, and then there was a conspiracy among the three to cover it up. Charged are a staff sergeant, a private and a specialist from the 101st Airborne Division. The charges include murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, communicating a threat, obstructing justice. They're in pretrial confinement now. And we have just released their -- they have just released their names, Staff Sergeant Raymond Gerard (ph), Private 1st Class Cory Klagett (ph), and Specialist William Hunsacker (ph) of the U.S. Army facing very serious charges now. They will go to an Article 32 hearing, which is the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury. And, from there, they will decide whether they will proceed to court-martial -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: If convicted, they could face the death sentence; is that right?</s>MCINTYRE: Premeditated murder in the military does carry a potential death penalty. That's true.</s>BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre, thank you very much. Jamie is going to be back on another story he's watching. By all accounts, it's fueled and ready to be test-fired, a North Korean missile with the range to reach the United States. The Bush administration is launching a preemptive verbal strike, aimed at trying to dissuade the North Koreans from going through with the test. Let's turn to our national security correspondent, David Ensor -- David.</s>ENSOR: Well, Wolf, the Bush administration is warning North Korea to reconsider launching a long-range missile in the coming days.</s>CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: It would be a very serious matter, and indeed a provocative act, should North Korea decide to -- to launch that missile.</s>ENSOR (voice-over): Rice and President Bush have been talking to Japan, China, South Korea and others about what to do if North Korea, as expected, goes ahead. The North Korean launching pad is one of the sites most often photographed from space. Cloud cover since the long-range missile was deployed there and has been fueled has prevented commercial photos, but U.S. spy satellites with radar and other capabilities to see through bad weather show a Taepodong-2 ready to launch. The missile, believed to have two stages, could reach Alaska, and possibly as far as the northwest coast of the lower 48 states.</s>WENDY SHERMAN, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT ADVISER: North Korea is saying, well, maybe Iran has oil, and that's why they're getting attention. Maybe, if we have long-range missiles, we can get the United States' attention.</s>ENSOR: Eight years ago, North Korea tested a medium-range missile, firing it into the mid-Pacific Ocean over the top of Japan. Analysts say it could face even more sanctions and U.N. Security Council condemnation if it goes ahead this time. Clinton-era negotiator Wendy Sherman says, as with Iran, what is needed is tough diplomacy.</s>SHERMAN: The United States has to go back into discussions with its partners in the six-party talk and put together a real package with incentives and disincentives that can be put in front of North Korea. And they have to begin very nitty-gritty engagement.</s>ENSOR: U.S. officials say, while North Korea has nuclear devices, there's no evidence it has managed the difficult feat of building one small and hardy enough to sit atop an intercontinental missile. Still, a long-range missile test would amount to a classic 21st century case of saber-rattling -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: David, thanks very much. Let's get a closer look now at the possible reach of this North Korean missile and the threat it potentially could pose to the United States. CNN's Tom Foreman is here in THE SITUATION ROOM. Tom, what is -- what are you seeing here?</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, when we talk about long- range, we will make it very simple here and simply look at what long- range means. This is the facility in question. If you move into North Korea, we will highlight it right here. This is the place we're talking about, right up here on the coast. That little dot is roughly where we're talking about, but this is the range of that. Look at that. Almost half the globe is where it reaches to. Down here, we have got Japan, one of the places that is obviously easily within its range. We mentioned that Alaska might be in question. You swing all the way over here, that's included in the scope of it. If you move down to Hawaii, we recently had that designation of the Marine sanctuary there. That area would be part of it, right up to Midway Island, not quite up to the main islands. But we are not sure about all of this. U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan easily within the range of this missile, folks down in Indonesia, who have become very important in the global war on terrorism, concerns down there, obviously within the range of it, that's what we're talking about here, a missile that has very long-range capabilities, spanning a very significant part of the globe. Maybe they don't have the technology all in place yet to do all they might want to do with that, but that's the very reason the U.S. and many other governments are taking this quite seriously.</s>BLITZER: And it potentially could reach California, the continental United States, as well, in addition to Alaska and Hawaii.</s>FOREMAN: A little more reach there, a little more reach to reach California, Oregon or Washington. But the thing is, all of this is based on intelligence. We don't know all the details on what this might be able to do.</s>BLITZER: We are going to talk a little bit more about this with the former Defense Secretary William Cohen. That's coming up this hour. Tom, thanks very much. North Korea does not have the administration's undivided attention, by any means. Iran was on the president's mind earlier today. He warned, he will seek sanctions if Iran does not give up its nuclear activities and accept a compromise deal with -- from the West. Speaking at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, the president once again accused Iran of sponsoring terrorism and said that nuclear weapons in the hands of the Iranian regime would be a grave threat to the rest of the world. In Iraq, nine people were killed and dozens wounded today when bombs ripped through a Baghdad market and two Iraqi checkpoints. This comes as thousands of U.S. troops search for two missing American soldiers. An Islamic Web site says they have been kidnapped by al Qaeda. The vice president, Dick Cheney, was asked about the Iraq situation earlier today.</s>QUESTION: About a year ago, you said that the insurgency in Iraq was in its final throes. Do you still believe this?</s>RICHARD B. CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I do. What I was referring to was the series of events that took place in 1995. I think the key turning point, when we get back 10 years from now, say, and look back on this period of time, and with respect to the campaign in Iraq, will be that series of events when -- when the Iraqis...</s>BLITZER: Unfortunately, we lost the rest of that clip, but the vice president not backing away, as you just heard, from his assertion almost -- more -- a little bit more than a year ago that the insurgency was now in its last throes. And he said that what has happened last year in Iraq underscores the shift in -- in the war, and he says the U.S. is clearly making progress and moving ahead. At the same time, though, there are those two missing American soldiers and a massive search that is now under way. Let's once again go to our Pentagon senior correspondent, Jamie McIntyre -- Jamie.</s>MCINTYRE: Wolf, you mentioned those claims posted on an Islamist Web site that the two missing soldiers have been captured. The U.S. military remains highly skeptical of that claim, and they're using every means at their disposal to try to find them.</s>MCINTYRE (voice-over): It was Friday night about dusk in the Iraqi town of Yusufiyah, a hotbed of insurgent activity just southwest of Baghdad, smack in an area known by U.S. troops as the Triangle of Death. Three soldiers in their Humvee were manning a checkpoint at a portable bridge that had been stretched over a canal. At 7:55 p.m., soldiers at another traffic control point nearby heard an explosion and small-arms fire coming from the bridge, and radioed for help. By 8:10 p.m., a small quick-reaction force arrived and found one soldier dead, two others missing. Immediately, a full-scale hunt was launched, and military dive teams began searching the canal.</s>MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL, U.S. ARMY SPOKESMAN, COALITION FORCES IN IRAQ: We are using all available assets, coalition and Iraqi, to find our soldiers, and will not stop looking until we find them. We will never stop looking for our service members, until their status is definitively determined.</s>MCINTYRE: Over the weekend, the search was expanded to include 8,000 U.S. military and Iraqi army and police, along with manned and unmanned spy planes. Even F-18s from the aircraft carrier Enterprise are pressed into service to use their sophisticated targeting systems to look for clues. The missing soldiers are 23-year-old Private Kristian Menchaca of Houston, Texas, and 25-year-old Private Thomas Tucker of Madras, Oregon. Their fate has attracted the attention of the highest levels of the U.S. government.</s>CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: And, obviously, their safe return is something that everyone will work for, and their safe return is something that everyone will pray for.</s>MCINTYRE: Now, there have been local reports that the troops might have been lured away, some troops, by a diversionary attack, and that left the three remaining soldiers at the bridge vulnerable. But U.S. military officials say, at this point, they have no official information that would confirm that account. And they are, at this time, continuing to operate under the assumption that an active search should remain under way -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: There's one other American soldier who is officially listed as still missing, Sergeant Keith Maupin; is that right?</s>MCINTYRE: Keith Matthew Maupin is still listed as missing. There was a -- a claim that he had been murdered by insurgents, but the videotape they released was inconclusive. They couldn't tell. And, so, his fate remains uncertain.</s>BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre, thanks very much for that report. Let's go back to New York. Jack Cafferty has got "The Cafferty File" -- Jack.</s>JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, Wolf. Listen to this quote: "I think energy independence is going too far." You know who said that? The president of one of the big oil companies, of course. John Hofmeister, who runs Shell, a division of Royal Dutch Shell, said in a TV interview that energy independence is the wrong goal for the U.S. He thinks it's good for international relations and for the economy to get our oil from all over the world. His company sells a lot of oil to this country of ours. He's promoting something that he calls energy security through energy diversity, which means combining the use of conventional oil and gas, along with alternative energy sources. Meanwhile, government stats show 57 percent of the oil used in this country is imported. Last week, the average price of a gallon of gasoline, $2.93, up 40 percent from a year ago. Polls show most Americans blame Shell and the other oil companies for the spike in gas prices. But Hofmeister refuses to apologize for the industry's record profits. Here's the question: The president of Shell Oil company says that energy independence is going too far. Do you agree? E-mail your thoughts to CaffertyFile@CNN.com or go to CNN.com/CaffertyFile. I guess, if you were in the business of selling shoes, your position would be that the world needs to keep buying shoes -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Jack, thank you very much -- Jack Cafferty with "The Cafferty File." And if you want a sneak preview, by the way, of Jack's questions, plus an early read on the day's political news and what's ahead right here in THE SITUATION ROOM, you can sign up for our daily e-mail alert. A simple way to do, just go to CNN.com/SITUATIONROOM. Up ahead: the latest on a developing story we're following in New Orleans, 10 months after Katrina, National Guard troops once again being deployed to New Orleans, but their mission this time is very different. We will go there live. Also, it's an invaluable tool of the -- in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now law enforcement in Los Angeles are getting ready to use it there. We're going to tell you what it is. Plus, new details of that alleged al Qaeda plot to attack New York's subway system with poison gas -- we will get special insight from our terrorism analyst Peter Bergen.