Nuclear Reversal; Bush and Blair; Milk in Danger?; Military Procurement Scandal
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everybody. Tonight, is our nation's milk supply safe? Hundreds of thousands of Americans could be killed if terrorists succeed in poisoning our milk supply. General Motors announces massive job cuts. Our automobile industry is under siege. Can U.S. car companies survive the onslaught? And non-indigenous plant and animal species are invading the country, threatening our environment and costing the United States billions of dollars each year. We'll have a special report. Our top story tonight, a major reversal by North Korea and its nuclear standoff with the United States. North Korea now says it will return to six-country talks about its escalating nuclear weapons program after a year's absence. It was only four months ago that Pyongyang threatened to turn U.S. military bases into "a sea of fire" if the United States attacked North Korea. Dana Bash at the White House with the report. Dana.</s>DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well Lou, it's a diplomatic breakthrough that has the White House certainly breathing a sigh of relief. The Bush administration has been trying very hard to get North Korea back to those six-party talks, even over the last couple of days, letting some mixed messages get out about whether or not the U.S. was ready to just give up on the talks altogether and instead go to the United Nations and pursue sanctions. But North Korean diplomats did tell U.S. officials yesterday in New York that they would agree to restart these talks over their nuclear program. But they did not say when. We are hearing, though, from China, from its ambassador to the U.N., that perhaps they would take place in the next few weeks in Beijing. It is certainly important for the White House after a year of no diplomatic discussion at all over North Korea's nuclear program, but it is increasingly concerned. The White House is very concerned that over the past year North Korea really developed and stepped up its production of nuclear material, perhaps even making more nuclear weapons. But it is important to note, Lou, that these were negotiations over negotiations, if you will. That it is still very much an open question of what will come of these talks when they happen. Again, we expect that perhaps in the next several weeks. The U.S. has made it clear that they did not offer any new incentives, no new proposals in order to get North Korea back to the table. Lou.</s>DOBBS: Dana, thank you. Dana Bash from the White House. President Bush and his closest foreign ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, today met at the White House. The war in Iraq among the top issues. Bill Schneider has our report. Bill.</s>WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Well Lou, you could call this the summit of the survivors. Both leaders survived their reelection efforts, despite voter backlash against the war in Iraq. Blair came to Washington looking for payback from Bush, specifically on the issue of Africa. That's always been high on his agenda. He didn't get everything he wanted from Bush, but he got some additional commitment of aid and debt forgiveness. But the Iraq issue was the elephant in the room, the issue that the two leaders could not ignore. Here's what they had to say about Iraq.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our strategy is clear. We're training Iraqi forces so they can take the fight to the enemy, so they can defend their country. And then our troops will come home with the honor they have earned.</s>TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: On the Middle East and the Middle East peace process, of course we had a discussion about this. I would just like to emphasize, again, the vital necessity of making sure that democracy succeeds in Iraq. Our troops work together very, very closely there. And I would like to pay tribute not just to the bravery of the British troops that work there, and other coalition troops, but to the United States forces that do such a magnificent job there, and often in very, very difficult circumstances. And yet it is absolutely vital for the security not just of that country and of that region, but of the world that we succeed in Iraq.</s>SCHNEIDER: Now, voters in both the United States and Britain are losing confidence in this Iraq policy. In May, both -- most Americans said it was not worth going to war in Iraq. And in April, by 2-1, the British said they did not support the war in Iraq. Now, one question that emerged in this press conference was concerning a memo. In the summer of 2002, a foreign ministry official in Britain wrote a memo to the Blair government reporting on what a British intelligence official concluded after he visited Washington. The memo said, "Military action was now seen as inevitable. The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." This was eight months before the war in Iraq. Bush and Blair today both denied that the U.S. was already determined to go to war or that the facts were being manipulated. Bush even hinted that the memo was leaked in the heat of the British political campaign for political reasons.</s>BUSH: Somebody said, well, you know, we had made up our mind to go -- to use military force to deal with Saddam. There's nothing farther from the truth. My conversations with the prime minister was, how can we do this peacefully? What could we do? And in this meeting, you know, evidently it took place in London, happened before we even went to the United Nations -- or I went to the United Nations. And so it's - look, both of us didn't want to use our military.</s>SCHNEIDER: This raises the question, was that memo from the summer of 2002 incorrect or fraudulent? What we're faced here with is two conflicting accounts. Lou.</s>DOBBS: Bill Schneider. Thank you very much.</s>SCHNEIDER: Sure.</s>DOBBS: On Capitol Hill today, another of President Bush's judicial nominees is tonight headed for a final confirmation vote. The Senate is expected to confirm Justice Janice Rogers Brown tomorrow to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Democrats had delayed her confirmation for two years. Ed Henry reports from Capitol Hill. Ed.</s>ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Lou. A big victory for President Bush in his effort to reshape some of the most influential courts in America. In this case, as you mentioned, the Senate voted to end this two-year filibuster of Janice Rogers Brown. She got 65 votes, five more than she needed to actually break the filibuster. There will be more debate tomorrow on Brown. But now that she's cleared this hurdle, the way has been paved for her to face a confirmation vote Wednesday about 5:00 p.m. Then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist hopes to move to a procedural vote on William Prior, yet another one of President Bush's stalled judicial nominees. What's at stake here is the president is basically trying to tip the balance on some of these key courts in the so-called culture wars on issues like abortion, same-sex marriage. That's why this affects people all across the country. And that's why it's not just an arcane procedural debate about filibusters, and that's also why it made for a very fiery debate on the Senate floor today. Here's Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Jeff Sessions.</s>SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Again, what does Janice Rogers Brown want to be nominated for, dictator, or grand exalted ruler? Please.</s>SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R), ALABAMA: He said this: did she want to be a grand exalted ruler? Was that some reference to the Ku Klux Klan? This African-American, from my home state of Alabama, who left as a teenager, I'm sure one reason -- to go to California. One reason she left was for discrimination and segregation that existed in rural Alabama where she grew up at that time. The daughter of sharecroppers, to have it suggested that somehow her ideas are consistent with the Ku Klux Klan is really offensive to me.</s>HENRY: I mentioned at the top that this was a political victory for the president. Also, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist feeling pretty good about all of this. As you know, he's taken some lumps over the fact that he was cut out of that filibuster deal. He also got beaten up a little bit about losing the initial vote over John Bolton to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Frist now feeling good that he's making some progress on some of these judicial nominations, but at this point the Bolton nomination is still stalled. Lou.</s>DOBBS: And we thank you, Ed Henry, from Capitol Hill. A top-level urgent meeting today between the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Academy of Sciences. At issue, the terrorist threat to our nation's milk supply. The federal government is urging the National Academy of Sciences to not release its new report on bioterrorism because, it says, that report could teach terrorists how to carry out the poisoning of our milk supply. Jeanne Meserve reports from Washington.</s>JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Terrorists could buy botulism toxin or make it, the paper theorizes. If they then poured it into a milk tank on a farm or truck, the paper says 100,000 gallons of milk could be contaminated. Some of the toxin would survive pasteurization. And large numbers of people, including children, would drink it and die before the problem was discovered. The National Academy of Sciences posted the paper, which included specifics about dosages and casualties, on a password-protected part of a Web site used by reporters. When the Department of Health and Human Services got wind that it was going to be published in the National Academy journal, Assistant Secretary Stewart Simonson wrote the academy asking them not to publish, saying, "The article is a roadmap for terrorists, and publication is not in the interests of the United States."</s>RICHARD FALKENRATH, SECURITY ANALYST: The government has a responsibility not to simplify mass casualty terrorism. And so when it has an opportunity to delay the release of information that would assist very particular mass casualty terrorist attacks, that, I think, is an appropriate action for them.</s>MESERVE: The academy pulled the article from its Web site and this afternoon is meeting with Health and Human Services before making a next step. The cat is already out of the bag, however. Before it was pulled, the paper was downloaded from the academy Web site, and Professor Wein has published its broad outlines in an op-ed in "The New York Times."</s>MESERVE: Experts say milk, like so many other parts of the food supply, is vulnerable. Professor Wein makes some specific suggestions on how to make it safer, including improving pasteurization to eliminate more toxins and testing milk trucks for toxins before they unload, just the way they're tested now for residues of antibiotics, and making voluntary milk safety measures mandatory. And Lou, let me tell you that what we've told you about this scenario is nothing like the sort of specific detail that has the government so upset.</s>DOBBS: Absolutely. And very important to point out, Jeanne. Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, is famous for having said he does not understand why terrorists have not attacked our food supply, Jeanne. Precisely, what is the Health and Human Services Department doing to deal with that still very large threat?</s>MESERVE: Well, actually, this is -- a number of different departments within the federal government have some play in this -- the Food and Drug Administration actually more than any other. We're going to be talking with them in some more detail tomorrow about some of the specific things they've been doing. Richard Falkenrath, who we interviewed this afternoon, who is a former Department of Homeland Security official, insists that this is one area where vulnerabilities are recognized. He says that money is being spent to try and address some of the things that are apparently of concern.</s>DOBBS: Jeanne Meserve from Washington. Thank you.</s>MESERVE: You bet.</s>DOBBS: Still ahead, American troops launch a new offensive against insurgents and terrorists in Iraq. We will have exclusive video. And scathing criticism of top Pentagon officials tonight. A huge scandal widening over a multibillion-dollar defense contract with Boeing.