Secret Tapes Played into Evidence in Peterson Case; Bush Announce Troop Redeployment Plan
BETTY NGUYEN, CO-ANCHOR: And welcome back. From the CNN Center here in Atlanta, this is LIVE FROM. I'm Betty Nguyen.</s>KYRA PHILLIPS, CO-ANCHOR: And I'm Kyra Phillips. Here's what's all new this half hour. Amber Frey confronts Scott Peterson. More of her taped conversations revealed in court today.</s>NGUYEN: And mixing love and politics. Online dating takes the election to the next level. But first, here's what's happening now in the news.</s>PHILLIPS: President Bush announcing plans to realign U.S. troop commitments all around the globe. In a speech in Cincinnati Mr. Bush said as many as 70,000 soldiers will be affected by that move, primarily aimed at supporting the war on terror. Just ahead, we're going to talk about that plan with CNN military analyst, Major General Don Shepperd. Dangerous duty in Iraq. Fighting breaks out in Najaf again between United States forces and the militia commanded by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. An Iraqi delegation is headed to the city from Baghdad to try and negotiate a ceasefire. The sheriff of Charlotte County, Florida, says tensions are rising in areas hit hard by Hurricane Charley. Hundreds of thousands of people still don't have electricity. In other words no air conditioning either. The death toll stands at 17. Live coverage from CNN's Ed Lavandera in about 30 minutes. Michael Jackson arrives in court in his bid to fight charges of child molestation. He appeared today as a witness at the pretrial hearing. The Santa Barbara district attorney, who has pursued the singer for years, is there on the stand. A live report from CNN's Thelma Gutierrez in just about an hour. Keeping you informed, CNN, the most trusted name in news.</s>NGUYEN: We're talking about tapes as testimony in the Scott Peterson murder trial. The jury is hearing more secretly recorded audiotapes between Peterson and his mistress, Amber Frey. The tapes reveal a string of lies by Peterson. And CNN's Rusty Dornin is live from Redwood City, California, with the latest. Good afternoon, Rusty.</s>RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Betty, the tenor and tone of these conversations between Amber Frey and Scott Peterson has definitely changed from last week when we were hearing a lot of cooing love talk. Frey is really grilling Peterson about his possible involvement in his wife's disappearance. Meantime, Amber Frey takes the stand just for a few minutes in between each of these phone calls to answer prosecutors' questions, saying yes, indeed, this is the conversation, the date we had it. And she sits back down in one of the front rows of court. In the talks this morning Peterson says that his -- he had told his wife about their affair right after their first date. He talks about how -- what he did with his wife, Laci Peterson, on the 23rd and into the morning of the 24th when he disappeared, similar to the story that he told police. He also tells Amber Frey that after this he's going to become part of an effort to find people who have disappeared. He also tells her, "Look, if you want to go to police, you go ahead. I am not going to stop you." At times it seems like Frey really is cross-examining Peterson on just about every aspect of his alibi and why he told the lies he did. Some of the legal experts here say that he keeps answering some questions and not answering others, for some very good reasons.</s>MICHAEL CARDOZA, LEGAL ANALYST: He knows he's being taped. It's just too self-serving. And wasn't he lawyered up by this time? Wasn't it as of January 6 he had his public defender, Kirk McAllister? Any good defense attorney would warn about these type of tapes.</s>DORNIN: We don't know for sure whether Scott Peterson absolutely knew he was being taped. He does stay on the phone for a long time, answering a lot of questions. As I said, not answering also a lot of questions that -- or at least by passing questions that Amber Frey has for him. Two more days of these tapes we'll be hearing, and then Frey will retake the stand and we think will wrap up her part of the prosecution testimony. And then it will be Mark Geragos who will be cross-examining Frey. At this point it will be a mystery whether he's going to be keeping her up there for days or whether he's going to softball it and it ask her a few questions and let her go -- Betty.</s>NGUYEN: Wait to see on that one. Rusty Dornin in California, thank you -- Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: Turning now to military moves. The U.S. armed forces moving toward a new future with the largest troop realignment since the end of the Cold War. President Bush unveiled that agenda today.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today I announce a new plan for deploying America's armed forces. Over the coming decade we'll deploy a more agile and more flexible force, which means that more of our troops will be stationed and deployed from here at home. We will move some of our troops and capabilities to new locations. So they can search quickly to deal with unexpected threats.</s>PHILLIPS: CNN military analyst, retired Major General Don Shepperd, says that plan makes sense. He joins us now, live from Tucson, Arizona, this afternoon. General, you actually met with Rumsfeld about three years ago. He was talking about the same exact thing.</s>MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Yes, he was, Kyra. He was musing to himself -- and I keep asking myself why is it that 50 years after the war we still have 37,000 troops stationed in Korea, while -- when the Koreans are perfectly capable of defending themselves? And further, why are we still in Europe with hundreds of thousands of troops, many divisions, when -- when the Europeans can defend themselves and the Soviet Union, against which we were postured, is gone. So he was asking himself these questions long ago, Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: So of course, I'm going to ask you why now? And I think it's probably pretty obvious, but I want to hear it from you. The U.S. military, totally overextended right now.</s>SHEPPERD: The U.S. military is clearly -- is clearly stressed. Whether you overextend it or not depends on the service, on the unit and what have you. But they're clearly stressed. The guard and reserve are stressed, as well. Now, when do you this type of thing now, particularly in a presidential election year, it is going to be cast as, look, this is all because of Iraq. It isn't all because of Iraq. It's because it really makes sense to re-examine our posture. It should have been done years ago. It needs to be done now. And it's going to be carried out over 10 years or so. So it's not all because of Iraq. But it will, indeed, if you bring troops back to the U.S. from Korea or from Europe, it will make a pool more readily available, but there's pluses and minuses to that also, Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: All right. I want to talk about those pluses and minuses. I just want to talk about international relations versus international threat. Let's talk with the relations part. He already came out and talked about pulling troops out of Korea and Germany. So, beginning with Korea, good P.R. move or not?</s>SHEPPERD: Well, I don't know about the P.R., but clearly from the polls, the majority of the Korean public wants us gone. Also, we're going to leave considerable numbers of forces there. Removal of 12,500 from Korea and the movement of the troops further south seems to me to be able -- to be pointed toward lessening tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Clearly, the thing that we need to have in Korea is not a nuclear war, not a war at all, but disengagement from Korea and disarming of the nuclear capability of the north. This could make it easier to do that, not more difficult.</s>PHILLIPS: So you don't think it would increase a threat with North Korea?</s>SHEPPERD: I don't think it would increase a threat with North Korea. If you have a war with North Korea, the Koreans are able to take care of themselves. They're able to defend themselves. They're much stronger than the North Koreans, particularly when North Korea doesn't have any ability to sustain themselves with oil, money, ammunition and that type of thing. So they can take care of themselves. Also the war in a great sense is going to be -- is going to be an air power war, at least early on. And so having troops there to make them a nuclear target, if indeed the North Koreans have or would ever use nuclear weapons, doesn't seem to me to make a lot of sense.</s>PHILLIPS: All right. Taking the troops out of Germany, what's the advantage there?</s>SHEPPERD: Well, the advantage of Germany is taking them out of Germany and deploying them to other locations, where we will need them, particularly in the new -- the former Warsaw Pact countries, where they would be welcome. Operating in the continent of Europe right now, particularly Western Europe, is particularly difficult because of environmental considerations, difficult to fly, difficult to train. And again, the public in many cases wants us gone. So deploying to new locations in the former Warsaw Pact strengthens our connection with them. It also, in the case of the Mideast, the move toward the Mideast, puts troops where they're more likely to be used. And the removal of air forces from Germany to Turkey, again, puts them closer to where they might be needed. Again, it does have pluses and minuses on the political side, though.</s>PHILLIPS: Thank you, General Don Shepperd. Thanks, General.</s>SHEPPERD: Pleasure.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, the man who led U.S. troops in the war in Iraq is taking -- talking candidly, rather, about the campaign. Former Centcom commander General Tommy Franks sat down with CNN's Paula Zahn. He reveled his part in a significant moment in the war.</s>GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, FORMER CENTCOM COMMANDER: It was not too long after the 9th of April when the statue came down, so maybe a couple weeks, that in a conversation with Secretary Rumsfeld I said, there's no more Army or Navy Air Force here, major combat. This is a done deal, and I'd really appreciate it if you would have the president, you know, announce that. So and as a result of that, you know, unintended consequences. I mean I'm the guy who did that.</s>PAULA ZAHN, HOST, "PAULA ZAHN NOW": We were all led to believe that it was the White House press office or someone within that infrastructure that encouraged the president to do that.</s>FRANKS: I don't know -- I don't know about the "mission accomplished" and the aircraft carrier and all that. I don't know about that. And I wouldn't try to defend it at all. But the idea of major combat finished, that came from me.</s>ZAHN: So do you think the American public was left with a false impression by the president's appearance on that aircraft carrier?</s>PHILLIPS: Well, General Franks is going to answer that question. He talks about his new book, "American Soldier," on CNN's "PAULA ZAHN NOW." Tune in at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 Pacific.</s>NGUYEN: Just can't seem to give up cigarettes? Why it is harder for some people to kick the habit? And what Dream Team? What is going on with America's Olympic men's basketball team? We're live in Athens with that. Plus later, when it comes to dating, are you an elephant or a donkey? Making a political love connection.