Collision Course; Explosive Showdown; China's Power Play
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everybody. Coming up tonight, an explosive confrontation on Capitol Hill. A Senate committee facing off with a controversial British lawmaker accused of receiving oil rights in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal. And Mexico's President Vicente Fox has refused to apologize over apparently racist comments about African-Americans. One of the men that he has invited to Mexico to discuss the issue, the Reverend Al Sharpton. Reverend Sharpton is our guest here tonight. Our top story tonight, senators are on a collision course over judicial appointments and filibusters that could paralyze the entire Senate within a matter of hours, perhaps days. Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate have ended their official negotiations to end the crisis. A confrontation on the Senate floor could begin as early as tomorrow. Congressional Correspondent Joe Johns reports.</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Republicans launched a media blitz for two stalled judges, Janice Rogers Brown and Pricilla Owen. They visited Capitol Hill and earlier the White House, where they met with President Bush himself.</s>SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The role of the Senate is to provide their advice and consent. It's not to provide advice and block.</s>JOHNS: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid dug in further. Frist arguing that judges need a straight up-or-down vote.</s>SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN), MAJORITY LEADER: Are they really out of the mainstream, or is this really just politics? The best way to decide it is take it to the floor of the United States Senate.</s>JOHNS: Reid insisted Democrats have the right to block judges they oppose and accused Republicans of trying to break filibusters in a power grab. Reid, a former boxer, says Democrats are ready.</s>SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MINORITY LEADER: We have done everything that we could. We trained hard. The fight is about to begin.</s>JOHNS: The basic issue, Republicans want a simple majority vote on judges. But with a possible Supreme Court nomination looming, Democrats won't give up their right to demand 60 votes before controversial judicial nominations can go forward. Perhaps the best prospect for averting a showdown lies with senators John McCain and Ben Nelson, a Republican and a Democrat trying to find a way out of the impasse. But those talks seem to be moving very slowly, while the rush towards a confrontation appears to be accelerating.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: We'll just continue to work right up until the last minute trying to avert what could have severe repercussions, obviously, for our ability to conduct business for some period of time.</s>JOHNS: Now, a meeting just ended of a group of about 12 Senate centrists, plus some of the key players in all of this, including the majority leader, the minority leader, McCain, and a variety of other people, including Ben Nelson. Ben Nelson telling us just a little while ago, "We hope we're getting closer." Still, no indication that they have been able to reach any type of an agreement -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: Any suggestion, Joe, that they are going to put off this test on the Senate floor, push it off perhaps until next week?</s>JOHNS: Well, that is the indication, that the test vote, when it comes, if it comes, will come around Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. That, of course, is the big moment. We are expecting speeches essentially for the rest of this week leading up to that -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: And the inference would be that the Republican leadership doesn't have the votes to win this confrontation, at least not right now.</s>JOHNS: The truth is, if you talk to Democrats and Republicans, liberals, moderates, conservatives, there are many, many people here who worked at the Senate for a very long time who don't have a clue how this would turn out if and when it reaches the Senate floor. A lot of people just don't know how those few moderates in the middle are going to go, Lou, and that's the big question.</s>DOBBS: Absolutely. And the question I know you will be looking to answer over the days, if not weeks, ahead of us. Joe Johns, thanks a lot from Capitol Hill. Senators investigating the oil-for-food scandal today faced off with a controversial British lawmaker. He's accused of receiving lucrative oil rights from Saddam Hussein. The British lawmaker, George Galloway, declared he has never been an oil trader, nor has oil ever been traded in his behalf. But the committee's chairman, Senator Norm Coleman, said Galloway is not a credible witness. Our Senior United Nations Correspondent Richard Roth reports from Washington.</s>RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. U.N. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Taking the oath was about the only thing British parliament minister George Galloway accepted from the Senate committee investigating oil-for-food corruption. The fiery Galloway was accused by the committee last week of being rewarded by Saddam Hussein with the rights to 20 million barrels of oil for opposing economic sanctions. The committee chairman, Senator Norm Coleman, reminded him.</s>SEN. NORM COLEMAN (R), MINNESOTA: Senior Iraqi officials have confirmed that you, in fact, received oil allocations and that the documents that identify you as an allocation recipient are valid.</s>ROTH: Right from the start, Galloway went on the attack.</s>GEORGE GALLOWAY, BRITISH LAWMAKER: I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf. For a lawyer, you're remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice.</s>ROTH: Usually witnesses before congressional committee show deference, not the anti-war activist who vowed to appear with both barrels blazing.</s>GALLOWAY: Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong. And 100,000 people have paid with their lives, 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies.</s>ROTH: The bipartisan committee report said Galloway funneled oil allocations through two companies and a charity named after a 4-year- old girl suffering from leukemia.</s>GALLOWAY: What counts is not the names on the paper. What counts is where's the money, Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody whoever paid me a penny, you would have produced them here today.</s>ROTH: Senator Coleman and Senator Levin, his Democratic colleague, said Galloway's testimony is now on the record, available for the U.N.-approved Volcker panel looking into any of this, too, and any country that might want to prosecute if the allegations are proven true. Galloway insists he didn't get any money, but, Lou, he does say that is the $64 million question -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: At least. Thank you very much, Richard Roth, from the United Nations. Tonight from Washington, actually. Senator Norm Coleman will join us here later in the broadcast. The latest attempt to end the nuclear showdown with North Korea by negotiation appears to be failing. South Korean and North Korean officials meeting at a border village between the two countries. It is no surprise South Korea has failed in this effort to convince North Korea to return to those six-country negotiations about its nuclear program. The United States has been calling upon China to use its influence to move North Korea back to that negotiating table, but China has been resisting. Some say it is now time for the Bush administration to realize that China is pursuing a very different agenda from that of the United States. Kitty Pilgrim reports.</s>KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): North Korea is dependent on China for most of its food and fuel. One way to get North Korea back to the negotiating table is for China to threaten to cut off supplies, a type of sanctions. But last week the Chinese foreign ministry refused to endorse sanctions. Instead, blaming the Bush administration for "lack of cooperation" for the talks being stalled for nearly a year. All along, the Bush administration has been hopeful China would take the lead, but three rounds of talks hosted by Beijing have gone nowhere. Some say it's high time to realize that China doesn't share the same goals as the United States on this issue.</s>JOHN TKACIK, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: For two years the Bush administration has said China supports a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, whereas, in fact, China has never made a denuclearized Korean Peninsula a priority.</s>PILGRIM: China's goal as the dominant power in the region is a stable North Korea, but China may be less concerned about a nuclear weapon. What China fears is a collapse or regime change in North Korea that could send floods of North Korean refugees over the Chinese border. Keeping Kim Jong-il dependent on China gives China influence over the regime and makes China the powerbroker in the region. The United States is pressing China to help and has the leverage to do it.</s>GORDON CHANG, AUTHOR, "NUCLEAR SHOWDOWN": There's a lot that we have that the Chinese need. And what we really need to do is tell the Chinese, look, you know, if you want this free ride on trade to continue -- because they are getting a free ride -- then you're going to have to step up to the plate.</s>PILGRIM: Chinese cooperation will be particularly important if the North Korean nuclear issue ends up in the U.N. Security Council.</s>PILGRIM: South Korea is beginning to show signs it shares China's softer approach to North Korea. And South Korea doesn't support sanctions either. But the issue is building, and many worry that North Korea is on the verge of testing a nuclear weapon in the near future -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: In other words, you are suggesting U.S. policy is now really isolated?</s>PILGRIM: Many exspers that we talked to have said that we're at an impasse on the talks, and it looks like South Korea is supporting China's position in that they refuse to endorse sanctions.</s>DOBBS: Kitty, thank you. Kitty Pilgrim. Still ahead, how a high-profile Cuban exile in custody tonight was the subject that sparked an anti-American demonstration, a large one, on the streets of Cuba. And new pressure on "Newsweek" magazine tonight to further correct a story some say led to rioting and deaths in Muslim countries. Those stories, a great deal more, still ahead.