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CNN CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT
Is Iraq in Violation of U.N. Resolution?; Lorenzo's Oil Proven Viable Treatment
Aired December 2, 2002 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CONNIE CHUNG, HOST: Good evening. I'm Connie Chung.
Tonight: Has Iraq been caught trying to build nuclear bombs?
ANNOUNCER: Confession from Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: U.N. sanctions imposed since the early '90s forbid the import of any kind of military equipment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Is this violation enough to start a war? CNN's Christiane Amanpour with the exclusive details.
New accusation against Saddam Hussein: using torture, rape and terror to oppress his people. Tonight: a look at men of ruthless power, notorious dictators ruling with an iron fist. Our series begins with Adolf Hitler.
They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, an American woman and her husband caught up in the international dragnet following a terrorist bombing.
A controversial treatment for a devastating disease, Lorenzo's oil, portrayed on film.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LORENZO'S OIL")
SUSAN SARANDON, ACTRESS: We are not asking, Doctor, for your anguish or your applause. We are asking merely for your courage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Now studies say it's a viable treatment. Tonight: Susan Sarandon with new information that could save your life.
This is CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT. Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York: Connie Chung.
CHUNG: Good evening.
Tonight: The Iraqis have admitted they sought out aluminum tubing for military use. The U.S. says they were for nuclear bombs. Iraq says they were for conventional weapons. Either way, is this a violation of the U.N. resolution?
Christiane Amanpour broke the story. And we'll have more on that in just a moment.
But first, the inspections: The clock is ticking for a possible showdown with Saddam in six days. And President Bush today said he doesn't like what he's seen in the first four days of inspections.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United States will be making one judgment. Has Saddam Hussein changed his behavior of the last 11 years? Has he decided to cooperate willingly and comply completely or has he not? So far, the signs are not encouraging.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHUNG: CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson has been tracking the inspectors.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Close, but unsure of the way, U.N. inspectors call on Iraqi officials to direct them, cooperation turning to familiarity, as, on day five, each side settles to the retune of the other.
Minutes later, the team of international experts drive unchecked into the Central Baghdad military industrial al-Karamah complex, not yet 9:00 in the morning and another day's inspection just beginning. Taking notes, talking with site officials and touring buildings, the inspectors link to the production of parts for the banned al-Hussein Scud missile, capable of delivering a warhead 650 kilometers.
At one point, an apparently irate Iraqi official appears clutching documents. The inspection, however, ends at 3:00 p.m., as al-Karamah employees leave for the day. By the time journalists are invited on to the site, the buildings are locked, officials denying production of Scuds, but not denying production of the allowed-for shorter 150-kilometer-range missiles, the deputy director asserting the inspectors had enough to time to do their work.
MOHAMMAD SLAH MOHAMMAD, DEPUTY DIRECTOR GENERAL (through translator): The inspections are their speciality, to look for documents and search everything.
ROBERTSON: This site had contained monitoring cameras and other equipment marked by previous U.N. inspection teams. After this visit, the U.N. disclosed in a statement: "None of these are currently present at the facility. It was claimed that some had been destroyed by the bombing of the site; some had been transferred to other sites." The U.N. says it's following up on those claims. (on camera): Exactly what the inspectors were looking for and, perhaps more importantly, what they may have found, is unclear. That they spent more than six hours searching this facility, which is moderate-sized compared to some, is an indication of just how long the inspection process could drag out.
(voice-over): On Iraqi television, the first close-up pictures of inspectors at work with Iraqi officials, a sign the Iraqi government sees the relationship between the two sides developing positively, a sign, too, everyone here is settling in for the long haul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON: Now, interestingly, Connie, the British government says it believes that these shorter-range missiles the deputy director of the facility said that they are working on, the British government believes Iraq may even be working to extend the range of those 150- kilometer, 90-mile missiles -- Connie.
CHUNG: Nic, we assume that the inspectors have a list of sites that they are going to and that the Iraqis are aware of that. Are there any locations on the list which the Iraqis are not aware that the inspectors are going to?
ROBERTSON: That did appear to be the case today.
Earlier on, one of the inspection teams, the nuclear inspection team, went to three alcohol factories on the east side of Baghdad. Now, these were small facilities. But two of them hadn't been visited before by U.N. inspectors, not in the last week or so and not in the 1990s. And that was a break with what we've seen the U.N. inspectors doing here. And it is an indication that perhaps now they are going to target some first-time sites, if you will -- Connie.
CHUNG: Has the recent air raids by U.S. and British planes caused tension on the ground there for the inspectors?
ROBERTSON: It doesn't appear to be affecting the work of the inspectors.
However, the foreign minister here, Naji Sabri, said that he considered this acts of state terrorism against Iraq. So, perhaps it raises the background feeling, certainly raises a level of animosity in Iraq against the United States, against Britain, and also, therefore, against their ambassadors at the United Nations.
But it doesn't seem to be immediately impacting the inspectors. Indeed, we're told a lot of senior officials here in Iraq -- we are told this by somebody who is very close to senior Iraqi government officials here -- that they are actually working hard on the declaration they need to make by December the 8th, we are told even working night and day, Connie.
CHUNG: All right, Nic Robertson in Baghdad, thank you. Iraq is facing a deadline this weekend. By December 8 -- that's Sunday -- Saddam Hussein must provide the U.N. with a full accounting of its weapons programs. And, today, we learned that one thing the U.N. will want details on is Iraq's attempts to purchase aluminum tubes.
CNN's chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, explains why.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: A high-ranking U.N. official is telling CNN that Iraq confirmed to U.N. weapons inspectors two weeks ago that it did try to procure, to import aluminum tubes. It tried about half a dozen times, according to this official, but Iraq says it failed, it was not successful. It did not manage to get those aluminum tubes.
Furthermore, it is saying that it did not intend those tubes to be used in a nuclear weapons program, that it intended those tubes for its conventional rocket, or conventional missile program. Iraq's saying that it did provide the specifications of these aluminum tubes that it tried but failed to get, and officials saying that if that pans out to be the truth, then those tubes of that particular size would not be able to be used as centrifuges to enrich uranium for any kind of nuclear weapons program.
Iraq, however, by making this admission is saying that it did violate the U.N. sanctions that have been imposed since 1991, which prohibit the import of any kind of military equipment or military activity.
However, the weapons inspectors are waiting for a fuller accounting by December the 8th, and analysts are saying that the weapons inspectors would need to see accurate records of just what kind of tubes Iraq was trying to import. And it would like it see, obviously, from the supplier side, as well, what did Iraq tried to import, before it could make an independent assessment that Iraq was, indeed, not trying to import anything for any nuclear weapons program.
I'm Christiane Amanpour, CNN, in London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHUNG: The U.S. continues to gear up for the possibility of launching another Gulf War. And the tiny nation of Qatar, with fewer than a million people, is turning out to be a strategic ally, as it was for the Afghanistan campaign. The U.S. is staging a major military exercise there this month and beefing up its deployments at three locations in Qatar, including military bases.
CNN senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre has been getting details on the upcoming war games.
Jamie, can you explain what the Bush administration is doing in Qatar? JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is one of those exercises, Connie, that, when it was planned a couple of years ago, was pretty routine. But now it's turning out to have much more significance.
Essentially, the idea is this. The U.S. wants to be able to quickly go anywhere in the world and set up a command center, a high- tech command center, with connectivity and satellites and videoconferencing no matter where something happens. And they plan to do that exercise in Qatar, something called an internal look, essentially shipping big containers of modular units that they can put together into a command post.
Now, it's gained additional significance now that the U.S. is seriously contemplating going to war with Iraq as soon as perhaps early next year. So, now they want to make sure everything is really going to work. And instead of packing it all up when they're done and bringing it home, they are going to leave it there.
And, basically, what they are going to do is just simply go through the paces as if they were conducting a war in Iraq, making sure everyone can talk to everybody else, that they can actually move information around, be in contact with all the regional commanders. And that's basically what the exercise is all about.
CHUNG: Jamie, will there be any troop exercises there?
MCINTYRE: They are going to do everything except actually move troops, although they will move a significant number of people from the U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa to Qatar. They will put them in there and they will go through all the paces. They will actually run, do the same jobs that they would have done in Florida.
But they'll do it from over there, assuming they don't have any problems. But when they're done, they are going to go back, unless, of course, right at that point, the U.S. is ready to go to war, in which case, they would just stay.
CHUNG: All right, Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thank you.
And joining us now from Little Rock, Arkansas, is CNN military analyst retired General Wesley Clark.
General Clark, thank you for joining us.
RET. GEN. WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good to be with you, Connie.
CHUNG: We just heard Jamie explain what exactly is going to take place on Qatar.
But the question is, it was supposed to be a routine exercise. Did you notice anything in what Jamie explained that would indicate to you that, sure, this is more than routine; this really means that the United States intends to go to war with Iraq?
CLARK: I don't think you can read any significance, in that respect, into this exercise.
But these exercises are always routine, but they always involve classified scenarios, usually a contingency plan, in which the commanders and their subordinates actually play out a war. They normally have some computer assistance, which lets them realistically look at the results. And there's normally an enemy commander designated who represents the enemy forces and moves the enemy forces on the battlefield. So, it's a realistic chance to test, to preview and perhaps test the war plan.
CHUNG: And does it specifically fit into the war plan?
CLARK: Well, these, of course, are the headquarters that would actually be conducting the operation.
CHUNG: The command center?
CLARK: Exactly, the command center and the subordinate air and naval and Marine and Army component commanders are going to be involved in this.
And so, whatever their piece of the war plan is -- and, of course, we don't know that. We don't know whether it's an air assault into Iraq or whether it's an amphibious invasion of Basra or something. But whatever it is, it's likely to get tested in this war plan.
And then they'll get feedback on it. How long did it take to execute? Was there any communication problem? Did the Air Force really understand what the forces on the ground were doing? And were they able to reinforce and bring in airstrikes at the right time? And it was enough and so forth?
CHUNG: Aside from the potential military glitches that might come up, do you think that there is a political message that the Bush administration is trying to send by having these exercises take place?
CLARK: I think that's clearly the case, Connie, because, obviously, if the administration didn't want to send a message like this, this exercise could have been rescheduled.
Rather, this is an integral part of the exercise of diplomacy that the Bush administration is following. This is diplomacy backed by the threat of force. We've gone to the United Nations. There's a U.N. Security Council resolution that promises consequences if Saddam Hussein doesn't come clean on his disarmament. And now what we see is the headquarters in place, practicing. There's a loud-and-clear message here for the Iraqis as to the seriousness of U.S. resolve.
CHUNG: To a novice, sir, we might say it would seem silly to pack up all of that equipment and bring it back home, which Jamie McIntyre said is going to happen. So, why are we doing that? Why can't we just leave it there and in place if there is a war with Iraq?
CLARK: Well, my guess is that that's a decision really that has yet to be made. Of course, they have made the initial plan to bring the equipment back. But, if it looks like the timelines are such that it makes sense to stay deployed, then they'll stay deployed. They've had some of the commanders and their staffs in theater now for several weeks working on their plans. And if Saddam Hussein doesn't comply on the 8th of December or subsequent to that, say in the next two or three weeks after that, and the Bush administration decides it's time to move, then you've got the headquarters already deployed.
And they assist in putting more pressure Saddam and in being ready in case we do use force.
CHUNG: General Clark, thank you.
Still ahead: Is the next terror plan to shoot a commercial plane out of the sky? They tried it in Kenya.
Stay with us.
ANNOUNCER: Next: They were enjoying their vacation when terror struck. What happened to this couple next was beyond belief.
CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHUNG: The terrorist attack on Kenya offered some important lessons for the war on terror. It highlighted the dangers posed by shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles to civilian jets. And we'll take a hard look at that threat in a moment.
But it also highlighted the dangers of treating suspected terrorists as if they were confirmed terrorists.
CNN's Sheila MacVicar reports on one young couple's ordeal.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For three days, they were suspects, arrested, interrogated, searched. As unlikely as it seems, suspected of being part of the terrorist network that blew up the Paradise Hotel and tried to down the Israeli airliner.
ALICIA KALHAMMER, ARRESTED AFTER BOMBING: It was surreal. It was totally surreal. I thought we were in a bad movie.
MACVICAR: Alicia Kalhammer, the daughter of former American diplomats who once lived in Kenya and her husband, Pepe Tena, were staying in this hotel the morning of the attacks. Many of the other guests were Israelis and everyone was very frightened.
PEPE TENA, ARRESTED AFTER BOMBING: They were nervous. They were crying, they were calling the embassy to see what they could do on their side to get out.
MACVICAR (on camera): The most sensible thing to do is just... KALHAMMER: Get out of dodge.
MACVICAR (voice-over): They didn't know the Kenyan police had issued an order after the attacks to detain anyone checking unexpectedly out of a hotel. When they went to leave, the police arrived.
KALHAMMER: They said OK, we're getting in the car and we were taken to Mombasa.
MACVICAR: The hours crawled by. They managed to persuade a Kenyan guard to lend them his mobile phone and called a friend in Nairobi who called the U.S. embassy and they waited for the Americans. It felt like a very long time.
KALHAMMER: I saw those two men first and I said they're here. They're here. These are the Americans, they're here. And I just burst into tears like the cavalry is here.
MACVICAR: The ordeal wasn't over. The U.S. embassy had found them, but the Kenyans weren't ready to let them go.
KALHAMMER: For me, that was the most horrifying because all of a sudden things changed and I was on a high and then bam, right back down again.
MACVICAR: It was another 18 hours before they were finally freed, but remarkably, they are not angry.
TENA: We were at the wrong place at the wrong time but they could have gotten the right guys or the wrong guys like they did. Maybe they get the right ones next time.
MACVICAR (on camera): Is your first instinct to get on a plane and go home.
TENA: No, absolutely not.
KALHAMMER: These people aren't go to scare us out of our vacation, my former home. There's no way. I mean I feel very comfortable here. After all this happened, I still feel very comfortable here.
MACVICAR: Comfortable enough to continue their trip through Kenya and come to terms with being a footnote in the war on terror.
Sheila MacVicar, CNN, Mombasa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHUNG: As we mentioned, the other lesson concerns the dangers to civilian aircraft.
Al Qaeda has conducted training, teaching terrorists to use surface-to-air missiles, also known as SAM missiles. And U.S. officials tell CNN the missiles fired at the Israeli jet in Kenya last week apparently came from a batch believed to have been bought by al Qaeda. Another missile from the same batch was used in a failed attempt to shoot down a U.S. military jet in Saudi Arabia last May.
So, how big a threat do SAM missiles pose to civilian planes in the U.S.?
Joining me now from Washington is retired Air Force Lieutenant General James Abrahamson, whose extensive experience in military aviation and research includes heading up the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Sir, thank you for being with us.
I think the key question that's worrying many Americans is: Could civilian airlines be attacked by surface-to-air missiles?
RET. LT. GENERAL JAMES ABRAHAMSON, U.S. AIR FORCE: The answer is yes, Connie. And we were concerned enough about that back in 1997 at the Aviation Safety and Security Commission....
CHUNG: Sir, I noticed that.
ABRAHAMSON: ... that we included that.
CHUNG: Exactly.
In 1997, you were part of that White House commission recommending that the aviation community look at this. And what happened?
ABRAHAMSON: There were some actions. And I was very pleased to hear that.
I'm not sure that I presently know all of the actions. But what we indicated were that there should be a multiagency U.S. government look at this problem. That did proceed. What came of it, finally, I think it just disappeared. But we also wanted that there should be diplomatic initiatives in IKO -- that's the international civil aeronautical organization --- and other things like that.
And, finally, there should be a technical examination. Can some of the defensive systems that we presently put on military aircraft, can they be affordable and work in such a way that we can put them on civil aircraft?
CHUNG: And I think the key question is, commercial airlines -- commercial aircraft are not protected, are they, with anti-missile equipment, whereas Air Force One, for instance, and military aircraft are. So, the question is: Can commercial airlines' aircraft be equipped?
ABRAHAMSON: Yes, they can.
And, in fact, we have taken infrared surveys. That means we take cameras and look at these aircraft. And we looked at 747s, the European Airbuses, several others, to make sure that we know how susceptible they might be. So we do know many answers.
CHUNG: All right. So, why haven't aircraft -- commercial airliners been quick to move on this?
ABRAHAMSON: Well, there are two very important reasons.
First of all, I think that not enough people really recognized that there was a global threat; secondly, certainly that it's going to be very expensive. It can be done, but it will be expensive, and whether or not it's the airlines that should pay for this or the countries, the nations. And, third, these are very sensitive pieces of equipment. And we fly our airliners into very unprotected areas. So, we have to find a way to preserve the security of the equipment itself.
CHUNG: General, just one last question: Yes or no, should we be worried?
ABRAHAMSON: I think we should be worried enough that there is a true policy initiative to revive this issue and to solve it.
CHUNG: All right, Lieutenant General James Abrahamson, thank you so much for being with us.
ABRAHAMSON: Thank you, Connie.
CHUNG: And the U.S. isn't the only nation taking steps to defend against terrorists and wage the war on terror, as we see in "The World in 60."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): From Down Under, new fervor in the war against terrorism: Australian Prime Minister John Howard firmly defended his threat to launch preemptive strikes overseas to prevent a terrorist attack on his country.
How are the British dealing with a potential 9/11 threat? The government there is now considering putting undercover armed police on passenger flights to prevent terrorist hijackings.
Four men suspected of al Qaeda ties were in court in the Netherlands today, that country's first terrorism trial. The suspects are charged with plotting attacks on U.S. targets across Europe.
And now comes word of possibly more attacks being planned. A "TIME" magazine report says U.S. intelligence is picking up information that al Qaeda is plotting attacks inside Saudi Arabia.
And, from Canada: a preliminary hearing in what's being called the biggest serial murder case in that country's history. A pig farmer is charged with killing 15 women, although police found DNA and body parts from 67 missing women on the suspect's farm.
(END VIDEOTAPE) ANNOUNCER: Next: Saddam Hussein feared by his own people. A half-century ago, this man held his country and Europe in the grip of an iron fist, Adolf Hitler -- when CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHUNG: The British government today released a new report summarizing Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses in Iraq, including rape and the torture of political dissidents. Human rights advocates called the report a bid to drum up support for war against Iraq and complain that the same abuses went ignored by Britain and the U.S. before the Gulf War.
The abuses are part of a familiar pattern in history. As possible war with Saddam nears, we are looking this week at past dictators with whom the U.S. has clashed.
Tonight, we begin with the ultimate dictator, Adolf Hitler. You are going to meet a man who served Hitler in his final days in his Berlin bunker. To this day, he wonders why he and his country never questioned their leader.
First, CNN's Charles Molineaux outlines Hitler's rise to power.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The most notorious dictator in history climbed the ladder of populism, his own charisma, state-of-the-art technology and ancient ethnic hatred. He also got help from opportunistic allies like Italy and the Soviet Union and appeasing enemies, like France and Great Britain, who passed up on numerous early chances to stop him.
Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 in a small town in Austria. A poor student, he dropped out of school and drifted, sometimes living in homeless shelters, sometimes making money selling his paintings and postcards. In World War I, he won a medal fighting for the German army. His passionate speaking skills impressed leaders of what became the National Socialist German Workers Party, the Nazis.
The party's failed 1923 coup ended with Hitler in prison. And it was there he wrote his manifesto, an ode to German greatness and an angry rant against democracy, those he considered detective, and especially Jews. He called it "My Struggle," "Mein Kampf." Hard economic times brought the Socialist Nazis new light in Germany's Parliament. And, in 1934, Hitler became fuhrer and reich chancellor, dictator of Germany.
A lover of spectacle, he ordered the creation of grand public buildings and heroic movies. His transformation of the Olympics into a showcase for national pride endures to this day.
Nazi Germany in the '30s was militarily weak. But much of Europe and an isolationist U.S. were so intent on avoiding war, no one stood up to Hitler as he violated treaty after treaty, developing banned weapons, expanding his army, and seizing territory in Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. In 1938, he even got Britain and France to sign a treaty to let those invasions stand.
Britain's prime minister declared that meant peace in our time. That time was about a year. In 1939, Hitler invaded Poland and World War II was on. When the U.S. joined the war in 1941, Hitler blasted President Franklin Roosevelt as a wealthy aristocrat. He accused Roosevelt of launching aggression to create a distraction from America's domestic problems. He said America certainly had more in common with Germany than with its wartime ally, the Soviet Union.
Hitler has been described as an obsessive, micromanaging leader, whose meddling crippled Germany's military. And even as the war against him picked up, he intensified his genocidal crusade against Jews, giving the trains that took them to concentration camps priority over military trains. Ultimately, six million Jews were killed.
Concerns about the fuhrer's sanity led some of his top generals to try and kill Hitler. He survived. They didn't. As the Soviet army bore down on him, Hitler finally shot himself in his command bunker in the ruins of Berlin in 1945, regime change at last, at a cost of some 35 million lives.
Charles Molineaux, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHUNG: Why would anyone ever have followed Adolf Hitler?
Stay with us and we'll talk to a former Hitler Youth who was with the fuhrer in his bunker in his final days: why he worshipped the genocidal master mind.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHUNG: As part of our weeklong series looking at dictators past and present who have clashed with the U.S., we just ran through Hitler's rise to power. He did not get to the pinnacle without the support of his countrymen.
Joining me now are Ron Rosenbaum, author of the best-selling "Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil." And, in Eugene, Oregon, we have a man who saw that evil firsthand as a boy and was a willing part of it. Armin Lehmann was a Hitler Youth during Hitler's last days and chronicles his experiences in the bunker in his book "Hitler's Last Courier."
Armin Lehmann and Ron Rosenbaum, thank you so much for being with us.
Mr. Rosenbaum, are there similarities between Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein?
RON ROSENBAUM, AUTHOR, "EXPLAINING HITLER": Well, it's an interesting question. One similarity, I think you could say, is, they both are capable of mass murder. Obviously, Hitler did it. Saddam took sort of baby steps toward mass murder in his gassing of the Kurds, things like that. I think that they both made a cult, a religion out of their own personality.
They both demonstrated a kind of sophistication in their control of the media and control of their image, but also a kind of primitive savagery and terror when it came to their political opponents, so, that, while a lot of emphasis is placed on the sophistication of Hitler's media control, a lot of his rise to power was due to the fact that he ruthlessly murdered his political opponents.
CHUNG: I want to get to motivation in just a minute, but I want to ask Mr. Lehmann first: You were part of the Hitler Youth. Did you consider Hitler to be a hero?
ARMIN DIETER LEHMANN, AUTHOR, "HITLER'S LAST COURIER": Yes, I did. And I had to become a Hitler Youth because of state law. In 1937 in Germany, every youth had to join the only youth organization that was left and legal.
CHUNG: Now, you actually met him in 1938 and again later, before he died. What was your impression of him?
LEHMANN: I viewed him at a big rally in 1939. And he came across as a dynamic speaker. I saw him again in 1945 at his 56th birthday. And he looked like an old man. He was 56 years old at the time. My grandfathers were in their 70s and Hitler actually looked older than my grandfathers.
CHUNG: Mr. Rosenbaum, what motivates someone like Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein? Is it a kind of egocentric, also evil that is embedded in these people?
ROSENBAUM: Well, with Hitler, the experts are fiercely divided.
You have a lot of people who feel that it's internal, that it was some Freudian psychological family drama that Hitler was acting out. I tend to believe that it was more Hitler's absorption in a culture which promulgated and was pervaded by anti-semitic literature, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which we now see again being promulgated in the Middle East.
And this literature, combined with Hitler's unstable internal situation, whatever that was -- and we can only conjecture -- I think, together, made an explosive combination, particularly in the light of Germany's defeat in the war and Hitler's breakdown or vision at the end of World War I that he was going to avenge the alleged stab in the back that caused the German defeat.
CHUNG: Mr. Lehmann, I think a lot of us wonder why the Iraqi people continue to follow Saddam Hussein and don't rise up against him. I think you had some questions about that, about the German people. Why didn't they rise up against Hitler?
LEHMANN: I was born into the system and I didn't know anything else.
And the upbringing in Germany was, everything was geared toward admiration of the fuhrer. I, as a boy, had no concept what a democracy is about. I didn't even know that you could question authority. In Germany, when I grew up, the program which Hitler had outlined, we experienced.
CHUNG: Mr. Rosenbaum, why do you think the Germans allowed Hitler to rise to power? Because we wonder the same thing about the Iraqis.
ROSENBAUM: Many people -- some people say, anyway, that there was something special about German anti-Semitism.
But, really, other European countries had a similar degree of anti-Semitism at that time: France, Russia, Poland. I think it was the combination of a strain of German anti-Semitism with the absolute desolation that defeated World War I left the German people: defeat, inflation, depression. It was a nation that was really deeply wounded and was seeking a savior of some sort. And Hitler presented himself as a savior.
CHUNG: All right, Mr. Rosenbaum, thank you so much for being with us.
Mr. Lehmann, as well, we appreciate your perspectives on this man, who continues to mystify us, right, a century later.
Tomorrow, our look at a dictator who's still in power: Cuba's Fidel Castro.
We'll be right back.
ANNOUNCER: Next: She portrayed a mother on a crusade to save her son's life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LORENZO'S OIL")
SARANDON: Whatever energy, whatever time I have left, I want to spend with Lorenzo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Now Susan Sarandon is spreading the word on the success of the real Lorenzo's oil.
CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT returns in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHUNG: In "Lorenzo's Oil," Susan Sarandon played a mother who fought the medical establishment to save her son. It was based on the true story of Michaela and Augusto Odone, who came up with a treatment to save their son's life from a debilitating fatal disease.
Lorenzo's oil, as it became known, inspired the true-to-life movie. In the movie and in real life, Lorenzo's oil saved Lorenzo Odone's life. But not everyone was convinced of the treatment's effectiveness.
Now, as CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen reports, a new study suggests not only that it did save Lorenzo's life; it saved a lot more lives since.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This man and this man have the same disease. So, why is one the picture of health, while the other can't move or talk or eat? The answer: Lorenzo's oil, says Michael Benton.
He took the oil early on in his fight with adrenal leukodystrophy. Lorenzo Odone, on the other hand, took it too late to stave off the symptoms, although he's lived longer than doctors had expected. His parents' quest to find a cure was dramatized in the 1993 movie "Lorenzo's Oil." Doctors had told Lorenzo's parents there was no hope. They didn't believe the doctors and, bucking the medical establishment, searched for a treatment on their own for Lorenzo.
MICHAEL BENTON, ALD PATIENT: If it wasn't for him, this oil wouldn't have been created. And so, it was an emotional thing for me to see him. And it just made me so thankful that I'm not in that state right now.
COHEN: Up until now, the oil's success was anecdotal.
Now it's scientific. A study done by Johns Hopkins shows that patients with the gene with adrenal leukodystrophy, or ALD, were two- thirds less likely to get sick if they took the oil. But they have to take the oil in time, before they develop symptoms of the disease -- finally, satisfaction for Augusto Odone. The movie describes how doctors laughed at him for thinking an oil could cure a genetic disorder.
AUGUSTO ODONE, DISCOVERED LORENZO'S OIL: This skepticism remained until the study. Now they are changing their mind.
COHEN: Adone and his wife, Michaela, who has since passed away, didn't care if doctors laughed. They had a mission.
ODONE: This is a love story. If you know that you are going to be hanged the next day, your mind focus beautifully. And we had no time for Lorenzo.
COHEN: And forever in his debt, Michael's mother: Patty Chapman (ph). The gene for ALD has haunted her family. As a little girl, she watched her brother Bobby die of ALD when he was 4 years old. Her other brother, Richard, died of ALD when he was 44.
Genetic testing showed she was a carrier. Females don't get sick. More testing showed she passed the disease on to her son Michael, but not to his two brothers. Doctors told her there was nothing they could do for Michael. Then, when he was 7, Patty met Augusto Odone at a medical conference and started giving Michael the oil. He's taken it every day since.
BENTON: I find it amazing that Michaela and Augusto were able to develop something just on their sheer will.
COHEN: Will and tough work: The Odones' research found that the fat in olive and rapeseed oils could break up the long chains of fatty acids that cause the neurological damage in ALD patients. The acids do their damage by breaking down the coating of neurons called myelin. So, Michael takes the oil and has to watch his diet. Too much of certain kinds of fat can counteract the oil. He also has to be vigilant about seeing the doctor, because the oil can have serious side effects.
There are still people who say the oil doesn't work, that people like Michael are just in the lucky group of men who carry the gene, but don't get sick. But Michael's mother doesn't believe this. She asked: Why not take the oil?
PATTY CHAPMAN, MOTHER OF MICHAEL BENTON: The negatives were so minimal and there was no other choice.
COHEN: She's seen the alternative: death. And she didn't wait for a study. She chose a chance at life for her son.
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHUNG: Lorenzo's father, Augusto, has devoted his life to researching myelin-related disease as head of the Myelin Project. And he joins us now with actress Susan Sarandon, who played Lorenzo's dedicated mother in the movie "Lorenzo's Oil."
Thank you both for being with us.
SUSAN SARANDON, ACTRESS: Thank you for having us.
AUGUSTO ODONE, FATHER OF LORENZO: Thank you.
CHUNG: Susan, Michaela was an amazing woman. She died, though, of course, two years ago, maybe, what -- it's been 10 years since the movie.
Why were you...
SARANDON: I only can remember that because I was pregnant at the time. And I have a 10-year-old son.
CHUNG: There you go.
SARANDON: Then I always know how long ago it was.
CHUNG: There you go.
Why were you drawn to her character?
SARANDON: I was so attracted to the idea of these people who just asked questions.
In our country, we have a tendency not to question authority.
CHUNG: Yes.
SARANDON: Now it's breaking down a little as all of the CEOs are toppling from the top of these corporations. And lawyers are -- you know.
But, in Italy, their conditioning was to ask questions to try to see what they could do to not accept, necessarily, this death sentence that had been given amongst the diagnosis. They wanted to understand. And I found that so compelling.
CHUNG: Augusto, tell us how Lorenzo is. He's 24 years old now.
ODONE: Yes. He's 24 years old. He was -- the doctors predicted that he would die 18 years ago.
CHUNG: Eighteen years ago.
ODONE: Yes. And, contrary to their prediction, Lorenzo is still alive.
CHUNG: Is he able to respond to you if you ask a question?
ODONE: Well, yesterday, I was caressing his face and he started to vocalize, to make a "Mmm." And I was, of course, answering, "Mmm." So, it went on for five minutes. Then, what he can do is to turn his head.
CHUNG: He can turn his head?
ODONE: Yes, and then also to sit on the wheelchair, of course, and then to listen to music. He loves listening to music and also to be read to.
CHUNG: Yes, which Michaela did a lot.
ODONE: Yes.
CHUNG: Reading to him.
ODONE: And Michaela, when she knew that she was going to die, she left some tapes for Lorenzo. And so I'm playing the tapes now and then.
CHUNG: Was it Michaela who told him that she was very ill, or did you?
ODONE: Well, it was Michaela and then it was me. And then we told him that, "She has gone to baby Jesus."
CHUNG: It must have been just an incredible loss for Lorenzo, because they were so close.
ODONE: Yes, but also for me.
(LAUGHTER)
CHUNG: Sure. Sure.
ODONE: I was also very close to Michaela. And it was the love story of the century, really. We just loved each other very, very much.
CHUNG: So, Susan, you are still involved in this crusade and passion. I know you're a political activist, but why this project for you?
SARANDON: Initially, I was just so taken by the idea that they, in their naivete or their brilliance, finally got scientists in a place where they could collaborate with research.
The scientific community -- and one of the reasons I was interested in "Lorenzo's Oil" was because of AIDS -- the scientific community is set up, in terms of a research, in a way that really discourages the sharing of information, for a number of reasons: because of money, grants and patents and everything else. They got all these people to get together and to actually communicate with each other.
CHUNG: So that, Augusto, is the beauty of the Myelin Project, isn't it?
ODONE: Yes.
When I set up the Myelin Project, I told the researchers that they should stop competing with each other and they should cooperate. And, indeed, over several years, now there is a certain cohesion among the work group of the Myelin Project, which include the top scientists in remyelination. And after so many meetings, giving them nice wine, nice food, a certain friendship has developed. The researcher in Paris is collaborating with Yale, researchers at Yale and Cambridge.
CHUNG: The information that you will develop will be helpful in what?
ODONE: My idea is to -- well, people with multiple sclerosis walk up from their wheelchairs. And children with leukodystrophy, like Lorenzo, rise from their bed, from their beds.
So that's my objective. And I'm working very hard. And I'm pushing medical research very hard. I'm financing it. To belong to this group, which is a club of scientists, and to get my money, they have to give me their home telephone number, so that I can bug them.
(LAUGHTER)
CHUNG: That's brilliant. I'll have to remember that.
Thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it. And we wish you luck in being able to help so many more people. SARANDON: Thank you.
CHUNG: Susan Sarandon and Augusto Odone, thank you.
And you can learn more online at Myelin.org.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHUNG: Tomorrow: actor Kevin Spacey. Wait until you see what he's going to be doing next.
And coming up on "LARRY KING LIVE": the man who is "60 Minutes," executive producer Don Hewitt. Is CBS trying to force him out?
And that's our program for tonight. Thank you for joining us. And for all of us at CNN, good night and we'll see you tomorrow.
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