CBS Evening News Online Edition - 2004-12-20

Channel: malgent

Transcript

Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)

[0:00] Hello, I'm Dan Rather and welcome to the

[0:01] CBS Evening News online edition. Just

[0:04] ahead, President Bush faces tough

[0:06] questioning about the Iraqi military and

[0:08] its capabilities. You'll hear what he

[0:10] had to say in one of his rare

[0:11] presidential news conferences today.

[0:13] Also new and bizarre details about what

[0:16] led up to the murder of a pregnant woman

[0:18] and the theft of her fetus. It now

[0:20] appears the victim and the accused knew

[0:22] each other. And the boom in internet

[0:25] shopping. Why some websites are

[0:27] experiencing growing pains.

[0:30] It's all starting now on the CBS Evening

[0:32] News online edition.

[0:35] President Bush conceded today the war in

[0:37] Iraq is not going as well as he and his

[0:40] top advisers hoped or suggested, but he

[0:42] said that he was overall still

[0:45] optimistic about Iraq and he made it

[0:46] clear US troops will be staying in the

[0:48] fight until Iraqi forces can handle the

[0:51] job. The war was the main focus of an

[0:53] early 1-hour presidential news

[0:55] conference today. CBS News chief White

[0:57] House correspondent John Roberts was

[0:59] there.

[1:01] If American forces hope to ever come

[1:03] back from Iraq, homegrown troops will

[1:05] have to be in place to pick up the

[1:06] slack. For the first time today,

[1:08] President Bush suggested they're a long

[1:10] way from ready.

[1:11] >> Uh there've been some cases where when

[1:13] the heat got on, they left the

[1:15] battlefield.

[1:17] That's unacceptable.

[1:19] You know, Iraq will never secure itself

[1:21] if they have troops that when the heat

[1:22] gets on, they leave the battlefield.

[1:23] >> That has since been stood in sharp

[1:25] contrast to the sunny forecast the

[1:27] president had for the Iraqi military

[1:29] during the election campaign. It also

[1:31] mirrored a recent classified CIA memo

[1:33] that said Iraqi troops were not

[1:35] effective enough at dealing with an

[1:37] increasingly violent insurgency.

[1:39] And after months of insisting that

[1:41] insurgents would fail in their attempts

[1:43] to shatter the Iraqis resolve for

[1:45] democracy, today the president

[1:47] acknowledged the attacks are taking a

[1:49] toll.

[1:49] >> No question about it. The bombers are

[1:52] having an effect. You know, car bombs

[1:54] that destroy young children or car bombs

[1:57] that indiscriminately bomb and religious

[2:00] sites are effective propaganda tools.

[2:03] >> But President Bush still remains

[2:05] confident that even in the face of such

[2:07] violence, Iraqis are determined to hold

[2:09] elections in 6 weeks. Mr. Bush also gave

[2:12] a big vote of confidence today to his

[2:14] Pentagon chief. Donald Rumsfeld has been

[2:17] under fire on two fronts from top

[2:19] Republicans angered about this response

[2:21] to complaints about the lack of armor in

[2:24] Iraq.

[2:24] >> Uh you go to war with the army you have

[2:27] and not the army you might want. And

[2:29] from the families of war dead upset that

[2:32] letters of condolence had been signed

[2:34] not by Rumsfeld but a machine. He's a

[2:36] caring fellow.

[2:38] You know, sometimes perhaps his demeanor

[2:40] is rough and gruff, but beneath that

[2:41] rough and gruff no-nonsense demeanor is

[2:44] a good human being

[2:46] who cares deeply about the military and

[2:49] deeply about the grief that war causes.

[2:53] Rumsfeld has since pledged to personally

[2:55] sign all future condolence letters, but

[2:57] the dominance of Iraq at today's press

[2:59] conference was a clear sign that while

[3:00] the president may want to push ahead

[3:02] aggressively with his second term

[3:03] agenda, there's still plenty left over

[3:06] from the first term to command his

[3:07] attention. Dan.

[3:09] John Roberts reporting live from the

[3:11] White House. Thanks, John. A Kansas

[3:12] woman accused of a crime that shocked

[3:14] the nation made her first court

[3:16] appearance today. Prosecutors revealed

[3:18] they found the woman and the baby she's

[3:20] accused of stealing by tracing her

[3:22] computer internet address. CBS's Cynthia

[3:25] Bowers reports the prosecutors also say

[3:27] months of planning preceded the crime.

[3:30] Lisa Montgomery, a 36-year-old wife and

[3:33] mother is accused of the seemingly

[3:35] unimaginable, strangling 23-year-old

[3:38] Bobbie Jo Stinnett, cutting the nearly

[3:40] full-term fetus from the dying woman's

[3:42] womb, then driving the baby 2 and 1/2

[3:45] hours to her Kansas home. After

[3:47] Montgomery's court hearing this

[3:48] afternoon, her husband Kevin apologized.

[3:51] My heart ain't broke just for me and

[3:53] Lisa and her kids. It fit too. That was

[3:55] a precious baby. Originally,

[3:58] investigators believed Montgomery

[3:59] stumbled onto her victim on the

[4:01] internet, but this woman who asked not

[4:03] to be identified says Montgomery first

[4:05] bought Stinnett a year ago on the dog

[4:08] show circuit. Both bred rat terriers and

[4:11] even appeared together in this group

[4:13] photo. She told us that she had

[4:15] miscarried one of the twins, but still

[4:17] was carrying one of the twins.

[4:19] Investigators say Montgomery increased

[4:22] contact with the pregnant victim over

[4:24] this dog breeding chat site and then

[4:26] used a false name to arrange the deadly

[4:29] encounter. We were able to use the

[4:31] information that we gained off her

[4:32] computer, take it to our regional

[4:34] computer forensics lab, which is in

[4:36] Kansas City, and break it down very

[4:38] quickly and trace that trail back to

[4:40] Melvern, Kansas. But here in

[4:42] Montgomery's hometown, as horrified as

[4:45] people are by what she is said to have

[4:47] done, they are desperate to understand

[4:49] why she may have done it. And even more

[4:51] importantly, was there anything they

[4:52] could have done to prevent it? So much

[4:55] of us feel

[4:56] maybe the close to her feel, you know,

[4:58] guilty that you didn't see this red flag

[5:00] pop up and say, "Hey, you know, she

[5:02] needed help." Her husband's boss,

[5:05] Darrell Schultz, admits he thought it

[5:06] strange that Lisa was here at the

[5:08] Whistle Stop Cafe showing off a baby she

[5:11] said she'd given birth to less than 24

[5:13] hours before. Her husband alongside

[5:16] basking in the glory. It appears

[5:18] Montgomery's husband may be only an

[5:20] innocent bystander to the crime. The

[5:23] baby girl, now called Victoria Jo,

[5:25] continues to recover at this Topeka

[5:27] hospital. Her mother is scheduled to be

[5:29] buried tomorrow. Cynthia Bowers, CBS

[5:32] News, Topeka, Kansas. The weekend before

[5:35] Christmas was disappointing for

[5:36] America's brick-and-mortar retailers.

[5:38] Store sales were down more than 3% from

[5:41] last year.

[5:42] It's been a good holiday season for

[5:44] online retailers with sales up 26%.

[5:48] So good they're having trouble keeping

[5:49] up with demand. CBS's Byron Pitts gives

[5:52] you the inside story.

[5:55] The flippers here will actually allow it

[5:57] to climb upstairs. Colin Angle makes his

[6:00] money building robots.

[6:04] And one of them is called fire. It's

[6:06] hotter than a Ginsu cutting knife robot

[6:08] vacuum cleaner. It's that gadget on TV

[6:10] ads where the actors pretend as if

[6:12] they've just witnessed magic. It's like

[6:14] it sees the dirt. And like so much in

[6:17] our world today, Angle's company iRobot

[6:20] relies heavily on the internet. The

[6:22] internet is central to our business. And

[6:23] business broke down, if only

[6:25] temporarily, for major online shopping

[6:27] destinations like amazon.com and Kmart.

[6:30] It was the day after Thanksgiving, Black

[6:33] Friday in the stores and on the net.

[6:36] Consumers crowding the web to shop

[6:39] overwhelming systems. Immediately after

[6:41] Thanksgiving for the following week,

[6:44] the ability to actually buy things

[6:46] online became a lot harder. Alex Stein

[6:49] runs Gomez Inc., a company that tracks

[6:51] e-commerce. He says the big internet

[6:54] retail companies continue to

[6:55] underestimate the number of customers

[6:57] they'll have and when demand floods in,

[7:00] they can't keep up.

[7:01] >> When 10% of the customers can't actually

[7:04] complete their transaction, that's going

[7:06] to have a fairly direct impact on this

[7:09] very profitable holiday season.

[7:11] >> Colin Angle's business uses Amazon. Last

[7:14] year he had the same problem on his own

[7:16] site. He couldn't keep up with demand.

[7:18] Well, Amazon's a very important retailer

[7:20] for us and if they have issues meeting

[7:22] demand, it will certainly impact us. If

[7:25] Amazon has a cold, you sneeze. Yes. So

[7:28] for all those who do business online,

[7:30] the internet's flu season is almost

[7:31] over. The fever to shop till you drop

[7:34] usually breaks before New Year.

[7:36] Except for those hoping to clean up on

[7:38] those after-Christmas sales.

[7:40] Byron Pitts, CBS News, Burlington,

[7:43] Massachusetts. More stories are just a

[7:45] click away, but be sure to join me on

[7:47] television for the on-air edition of the

[7:49] CBS Evening News. On Tuesday's

[7:51] broadcast, this holiday stores are

[7:53] filled with toys claiming to be

[7:55] educational, but what, if anything, do

[7:58] children really learn from these toys

[8:00] that claim to teach? You might be

[8:02] surprised. For cbsnews.com,

[8:05] I'm Dan Rather.