league. wait until you hear who he called and maybe you'll think the call was worth it. also, you know, they make an app for just about everything out there. so many apps to keep up with, but we got one for you this morning that you might really want, an app that actually earns you money. welcome back to this "cnn saturday morning" october 22nd, 8:00 a.m. here in atlanta, georgia, 7:00 a.m. in fayetteville, arkansas, 5:00 a.m. for you folks in las vegas, wherever you may be, i'm glad you're here. i'm t.j. holmes. let's start at the top of the hour with the news that we got from the president, the war in iraq has a date to be over. the end of one of the most controversial wars in u.s. history comes after almost nine years. you'll remember the shock and awe, you'll remember the surge, this all started in march of 2003. the department of defense estimates they spent more than $700 billion just on "operation iraqi freedom" and "operation new dawn" in iraq and 4,400 u.s. service members have died in the war, another 30,000 have been wounded. listen now to the president making the announcement -- >> after nearly nine years, america's war in iraq will be over. over the next two months our troops in iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home. >> athena we showed a part of what the president had to say. he had a whole lot more to say. >> reporter: well, that's right, and one of the points the president made over and over, at least twice in the announcement yesterday in the briefing room and that his aides made later he's settling a promise and keeping a commitment and he's doing what he said all along he was going to do. you remember looking back to the democratic primary last time around, candidate opposition to the war in iraq was really what set him apart. he had called it -- years before he called it a dumb war, a rash war, and during his campaign he argued that we needed to put the focus back on afghanistan and that the focus on the war in iraq had taken the ball off the real war where our efforts should be focused over in afghanist afghanistan, yesterday he came out near the top of his speech as a candidate i pledge to bring the war in iraq to a close. let's listen more of what he had to say in the weekly address this morning -- >> in iraq we succeeded in our strategy to end the war. last year i announced the end of our combat mission in iraq. we've already removed more than 100,000 troops and iraqi forces have taken full responsibility for the security of their own country. thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, the iraqi people have the chance to forge their own future, and now the rest of our troops will be home for the holidays. >> reporter: and now one thing i should mention the president didn't say, not in his speech yesterday in the press briefing room here at the white house and not in his weekly address this morning, he didn't talk about the fact that it was an agreement, security agreements reached and negotiated and signed by the bush administration in 2008 that set this december 31st, 2011, end date for the end of our military presence there, and so in some ways he's taking credit for fulfilling a promise, but he didn't change what had already been agreed to by the previous administration, t.j. >> yeah, important to point out there. also the president, of course, gave us news, a lot of people welcome news to a lot of service members, a lot of their families, but it also came with a lot of criticism and probably from some expected places. >> reporter: well, exactly and so you have a lot of democrats saying it's a great decision, they're applauding the decision, saying that they've been waiting for this. on the republican side, though, you had a lot of people expressing concern like senator john mccain. i want to read to you from his pretty strong statement yesterday. he said yesterday, today marks a harmful and sad setback for the united states and the world. i respectfully disagree with the president. this decision will be viewed as a strategic victory for our enemies in the middle east essential the iranian regime which has worked relentlessly to assure a full withdrawal of the u.s. troops from iraq. it's a failure for the obama administration which has been more focused on withdrawing from iraq than succeeding in iraq since it came to office as well as the iraqi government. senator mccain there is expressing some of the concerns of not just republicans, actually. the bottom line is there is still violence going in iraq, even though it's greatly diminished from several years ago. there is a concern that iran's influence will grow as u.s. troops pull out. but on the democratic side, people want to remind everyone that this was a bush administration agreement that the president is carrying -- carrying through. but it does remain to be seen what happens after we pull out, whether or not iraq does become more unstable at least in the short term, t.j. >> athena jones, thank you, as always. a lot of the reaction coming in, i want you to listen to some of it now, some are saying it's long overdue and other people looking ahead to afghanistan now. >> i think it's wonderful. >> you are fixing to go back home and, you know, you get to reconnect. >> i think that there is a time and a place for war, and i wasn't opposed to it when we are first there. i am happy to hear that they're coming home to their families. >> it's good to get them home. we just need to get them back from afghanistan, now, it's basically transferring from one war to the next. the point is to get have beever back. >> quick and partisan from the gop hopefuls. mitt romney, president obama's withdrawal from iraq has put at harm the men and women. whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or sheer ineptitude with the iraqi government. rick perry saying i'm deeply concerned that president obama is putting political expediency ahead of sound military and security judgment by announcing an end to troop-level negotiations and a withdrawal from iraq by year's end. perry went on to say that america's commitment to the future of iraq is important to u.s. national security interests and should not be influenced by politics. and yet another voice weighing in on the withdrawal plan. this one iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad spoke exclusively with our fareed zakaria just a few hours after president obama's announcement. >> translator: i think you should have done it sooner, maybe seven or eight years ago, and they could avoid killing so many iraqi people or americans as well. i think they should have done it much earlier. but the iraqi government did not accept the increased presence of the americans. the iraqi government is independent and sovereign. they should decide how to provide training for their military personnel. >> and you can see the rest of fareed zakaria's exclusive interview with the iranian president tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern time after "state of the union" with candy crowley, she has an interwith the vice president joe biden at 9:00 and fareed zakaria following at 10:00 eastern time. we want to talk more about the death of moammar gadhafi, the video is graphic, but we want to explain the story, his body being held in cold storage and in particular a meat locker. people are actually lining up to see it. gadhafi's burial right now is on hold. the united nations and two major human rights groups want an investigation to find out exactly how he died. nato says it will scale back operations in libya by the end of the month. secretary of defense leon panetta said a u.s. drone was part of the attack on gadhafi's convoy. and his death and what it means for libya's future topped president obama's weekly address. listen -- >> in libya, our brave pilots and crews helped prevent a massacre, saved countless lives, and gave the libyan people a chance to prevail without putting a single u.s. service member on the ground. we achieved our objectives. soon our nato mission will come to a successful end. even as we continue to support the libyan people and people across the arab world who seek a democratic future. >> now, the president's supporters say the libyan conflict, the successful military operations that killed osama bin laden and anwar al awlaki bolstered the presiden'sz foreign policy. his foreign policy doesn't rate that high with potential voters. a new cnn/orc poll, the economic issues are number one, two, and three on critical issues and health care you put that in there and you can make it all the top four issues have to do something with the economy, foreign policy actually ranks tenth on the list. ten minutes past the hour now, let's say good morning to reynolds wolf talking a little tropical weather this morning. hello, sir. >> that's right, it's the season it seems as though will never end, we're talking about the hurricane season and it runs all the way through november 30th and it's starting to wake up again. we're starting to see it developing in parts of t s of t western caribbean and we're watching a system that possibly in the next 48 hours may become a main storm if it happens, it will bear the name rena, the question is where might it be going? we'll answer that coming up in a few moments and we'll check your weekend forecast, that's moments away, t.j. >> we'll see you in a moment. also in a moment we'll continue by telling you a story about a missing child. no, not that one that you may be thinking about, another missing child. been missing for 11 days now from glendale, arizona. but her grandmother says there's a reason you haven't heard her story. stay with us. a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex 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dog actually smells something, the scent of a body. police did a new search of the home after that. no one has been charged in that case. then in glendale, arizona, tonight there will be a vigil for 5-year-old jessie shockley, she wandered outside of her home while her older siblings were supposed to be watching her. police say finding jessie is the number one priority. they are still investigating and following up on hundreds of leads. >> we have not named any suspects in the case. we do have many persons of interest. >> now, volunteers have been helping search the streets for jessie, but her grandmother thinks the case isn't getting enough national attention for a very specific reason. listen to this -- >> i believe it's because she's a little black kid. >> we're trying to get national attention. we're trying to get this story like they're telling their story down in kansas? we want the same thing. >> well, joining me now is a group that helps families of missing minority children, good to have you back here, unfortunately, we're talking about another missing child here. but to the family's point and the grandmother's in particular, does she have one? >> i think she has a point. everybody knows baby lisa's face and picture and her name, she's definitely a household name. many people don't know jessie shockley's name and she's been missing about the same period of time and the stories are similar. >> shockingly similar. what did you think about how baby jessie went missing? >> i was highly disturbed and especially since she's been missing for so long is an area of concern for me as well. the fact that she was watching with her older siblings and no one knows where she went. she vanished out of thin air. >> does it help or hurt, everybody would want to find this child no matter what, but when a family member comes out and says something like that, does it help the case in that it gets the attention, here we are talking about it, or does it turn some people off, do you know what, of course, it has nothing to do with race? >> and there are people that would say that, that there is no issue with race when it comes to missing kids. we know that it's different and any parent of a child who is missing of color understands the difference. i feel it's wonderful that the parents and the families have reached out and it's starting to get some national coverage thanks to you and your team which is wonderful but that's not the usual case. >> a police officer told me sometimes a white middle-class family is a little more media savvy than a poor minority family, and here we are that she took it upon herself to almost call out to media. do you have to do that sometimes, be media savvy? >> you have to reach out to the media and court the media. in jessie's case one thing is she's gotten a lot of local coverage for herself but the national coverage has not been there. since she's been gone senifor s many days, we don't know where she is. everybody needs to know that she is missing. >> how do you playou explain? it's hard to say this, we don't value in some way little minority children the same as a little white baby? >> well, i mean, there are undercurrents of, you know, bias there, clearly bias does exist. i think we'd be fooling ourselves to act as though race does not play a factor in our nation. it does. and the fact that children that are not of color get more coverage that they're talked about more, there's a reason for that and, yes, race is a reason. >> are we not talking about this -- even me getting that question out was almost uncomfortable for me. are we uncomfortable to face that bias and what we may have and just hate to admit it? do we have to have that conversation, is that the only way it will change? >> we've got to talk about it. we need to talk about it more, but it needs to continue. to add to it, t.j., not only do we talk about it, we've got to do something about it. but we need to do something about it. i'm glad we're talking about it and it can be uncomfortable, and you are out there with this, you are crazy, there's no bias, and there's a lot of people that agree. as long as we are talking about it, whether you agree with me or disagree, we need to talk about it. >> peas in the pod, it's just peasinthepod.com, focused on minority children. thank you for coming in and we'll focus on the case of baby jessie, thank you for coming. up next, we'll head over to thailand dealing with the worst flooding that they've seen in half a secentury. what they are doing to get the water out. and a little later, don't try this at home, folks, you are a superhero you want to look like, it's one thing to put on the outfit and go out to the halloween party, but the surgery, to go to plastic surgery to alter your face to try to look like superman, yes, this is actually happening somewhere, folks. but, first, let me tell you about americans owing more on student loans than credit card debt. folks owe an average over $29,000 in student loans. one state in particular we'll tell you about after the break has the highest average out there. can you guess which one? i'm back with you in 60 seconds. do not go away. 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[ male announcer ] get low prices every day on everything to prepare for cold and flu season. we're so confident in our low prices, we back 'em with our ad match guarantee. save money. live better. walmart. 20 minutes past the hour on this "cnn saturday morning." before the break telling you about americans owing an average of more than $29,000 in student loans? the state with the highest average student debt? at least according to creditkarma.com that is maryland, with the honor. the highest average student loan debt there, over $33,000. we're 20 minutes past the hour, let's say good morning once again to reynolds wolf. where do you want to start? >> let's start with the tropics because the hurricane season is one of the biggest seasons that goes from may 1st to november 30th which is a long time in terms of weather. it's a lot to cover within a big area. we're talking about the season in the atlantic basin. right now what we have is action in the caribbean and this is disturbance in the western caribbean and the deep convection that we have in the area shaded around this reddish box which the national hurricane center out of miami believes this has about a 70% chance of further developing, which means plain and simple this could become a named storm. if it is given a name, the name will be rena. we know where it is. the question is where is it heading? well, we use a variety of computer models and you'll notice some of the things go in different directions. some take it right back over parts of the honduras and nicaragua and some bring it close, and a few models bring it close to cuba and yucatan and moving into the gulf of mexico as we venture into thursday, but if this moves into the gulf of mexico, by late next week, things could be very interesting to say the least. things could be interesting in the gulf coast. plenty of sunshine, nice day for you. if you happen to get in texas, though, there will be a chance of severe storms for portions of the central plains and northern plains and back to the rockies windy, breezy conditions and also possibly light rainfall and a touch of snowfall in the highest peaks in the pacific northwest mainly rain, ou